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I suppose the bottom line is that as a director, how often does something like that happen to you? It's like Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, or the "pistol" scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or De Niro talking to the mirror in Taxi Driver. Sure it wasn't in the script, but how can you not leave that in the film? I don't care if you're filming Sophie's Choice - if something incredible happens, sometimes you've got to work it in. If a leprechaun with a lightsaber parachutes into the middle of the scene, you work it in. If a flaming unicorn rides through the take, you work it in. If Bill Murray says something so spontaneously hilarious that you know it'll never come out of his mouth again....

WORK. IT. IN.

And if it changes the structure of the movie, then so be it! Caddyshack is a very flawed film but it's those very flaws that make it so memorable. It comes at considerable cost, but if you ask most people who have seen it, and if you ask anyone who has seen the sequel, the cost was worth it. Look at it this way - if you spend a lot of time critiquing and analyzing film, you find over time that you pick up on things that would take most people four or five viewings to notice. You feel the need to point them out because they're valid observations, but they are observations that just aren't going to be of any concern to the average moviegoer. This is why romantic comedies are so popular. This is why Michael Bay is so successful.

And you know what? That's okay. Caddyshack could have used a lot more polish, and Harold Ramis would be the first person to agree with that. But despite its many imperfections, they are by and large glorious ones. And while they bother me more than they did the first time I saw it, they didn't bother me enough to keep me from owning Caddyshack on Blu-Ray. I can only assume that for this, I will someday achieve - on my deathbed - Total Consciousness.

So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

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