We think of John Laroquette as a comedic actor. However, long before he did Night Court, he was the voice of an iconic Horror movie.
After the lights went down in the theater and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre started to roll, we heard the narrator tell us what we could expect from the next 83 minutes. And that was him.
However, we didn’t know it was Laroquette because he didn’t get credit for reading those few lines. Not only didn’t he get credit, but he also didn’t get paid in money to read them.
There has been a rumor that he was paid in green, as in pot. Recently when Parade sat down with him to talk about the sequel to Night Court they asked him if that rumor is true. “Totally true,” the actor told the online magazine. “He [Tobe Hooper] gave me some marijuana or a matchbox or whatever you called it in those days. I walked out of the [recording] studio and patted him on the back side and said, ‘Good luck to you!’”
Why did he do it for so cheap? The two men were in Colorado in 1969. Laroquette was a bartender while Hooper was there working on a film. Hooper walked into the actor’s bar, and the two became friends.
Years later, they both wound up in Los Angeles. And the director heard his friend was in town, so he asked his friend to help out with the little movie he made for no money.
And the rest is cinematic history.
Oh, in case you are wondering if Laroquette has ever seen the legendary film. He has not. He is not a fan of the genre.
