Barbecue or die: ‘Step Brothers’ director gets saucy

George Lang

Published: August 10, 2008

When “Step Brothers” director Adam McKay thinks of Oklahoma, he thinks of Mr. Sprigg’s Real Pit Bar-B-Q. The Midwest City restaurant’s R&B-flavored commercial, juxtaposing hot grooves with shots of satisfied customers eating pork, is a favorite on FunnyOrDie.com, the online comedy portal McKay founded with Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow and Chris Henchy.

“Do you know Mr. Sprigg’s Bar-B-Q? We’re obsessed with that video,” McKay said in a recent phone interview. “We literally want to fly to Oklahoma to eat at Mr. Sprigg’s Bar-B-Q. That’s the greatest video ever. If you happen to drive by Mr. Sprigg’s Bar-B-Q, give them a big ‘thumbs-up’ for us.”

McKay said that he and Ferrell sing the jingle constantly, and given the raw goofball aesthetic of “Step Brothers,” it’s not hard to imagine. Following the success of “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” McKay and Ferrell wanted to do a film that was almost all about characters and dialogue — no action and no ‘70s nostalgia, just straight-up, nonstop riffing.

McKay found the solution in a statistic.

“We’d read that the number of adults still living at home since, like, 1995, has gone up 70 percent — like, 17 million adults still living at home,” he said. So McKay, Ferrell and “Talladega Nights” co-star John C. Reilly dreamed up Brennan and Dale, two 40-year-old guys who still live with their parents. When Brennan’s mother marries Dale’s dad, the two arrested adolescents have to share both a room and their long-cultivated immaturities.

“Here’s one thing I’ll argue,” said McKay, 40. “People say, ‘Oh my God, they’re so crazily immature.’ I would say I’m not so sure. Go in line at ‘Batman’ and see some of the people who are there. Can you imagine being 37 years old and painting your face to see ‘Batman’? We wouldn’t even have the characters in ‘Step Brothers’ do that.”

(an excerpt from The Oklahoman, July 25)

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