Yesterday, fans everywhere got treated to the DVD and Blu-Ray release of the latest film from the Broken Lizard comedy troop, The Slammin’ Salmon. The team had previously brought films like Super Troopers, BeerFest, and Club Dread into the “greatest hits” lists of college kids everywhere.

We recently got a chance to sit down with one of the members of the team, Kevin Heffernan, who is best known as “Farva” from 2001′s Super Troopers. Kevin also makes his directorial debut with Salmon, and he discussed some of the perils of being a first time director.

The Flickcast: So for those who weren’t able to catch the limited theatrical run of Slammin’ Salmon, what can you tell us about the flick?

Kevin Heffernan: It’s kind of a “down the middle” comedy. We return to the Super Troopers roots that we had, and made an independent film that we tried to pack as many laughs into as we could. I can’t give you a laugh per second quotient, but I think we got a lot of good laughs in there and we’re pretty happy with it.

Just to give you an overview of it, we play waiters in a restaurant, which is owned by a crazy former Heavyweight Champion of the World, kind of like a Mike Tyson guy (played by Michael Clarke Duncan). He sets up a contest over the course of one night, and says that he’ll give the top selling waiter $10,000, and the lowest selling waiter gets the crap kicked out of him.

We tried to pack as many jokes into that thing as we could.

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If you haven’t seen Super Troopers, Club Dread or Beerfest, you’re probably not familiar with the comedy troupe known as Broken Lizard. Since their college days, Jay Chandrasekhar (Director, Dukes of Hazzard), Kevin Heffernan, Stephen Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske have been making people laugh and sometimes, making a movie or two. I first became familiar with their work when a colleague told me to check out Super Troopers.

I scoffed. It sounded stupid. Then, late one night on cable, Super Troopers was on, so I gave it a chance. I was right. It was stupid. It was also one of the funniest little films I’d seen in a very long time. After drinking the Kool Aid and becoming a member of the Broken Lizard fan club, I scoured the internet to find a copy of their first film, Puddle Cruiser. On some crappy website where I think I paid $5, I was able to see the crew’s maiden film in all it’s inexperienced glory. You know what, it was pretty good.

This 1996 comedy features Steve Lemme as Felix Bean, an average guy who loves a girl. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff. The charm of this movie, filmed entirely on the Colgate University campus, is in the subtle humor and the likability of the cast. From the opening scene with 70’s porn music playing in the background, to the final clip, it draws you into the silliness of these five college buddies and their exploits.

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