THE PERRY PROJECT · EST. 1992
The greatest sports private-eye film Comedy Central never made, and the decades-long saga behind it.
Exhibit A
1992, open-mic night at the Westwood branch of The Comedy Store. Don was the host, and a loud, Sam Kinison-inspired hopeful named Perry Caravello was demanding a spot. Don told Grantland he wanted to ban him. Instead he offered a dare: shave your chest on stage, with a razor and no soap. Perry did it, mic to the blade. He got his spot, then a regular one at the Sunset Strip mothership, and he became the first star of Don's new Monday show.
Exhibit B
Don and Walter "Mole" Molinski befriended Perry and kept setting up scenarios for him to stumble into. The trio became The Big 3. In the mid-'90s they had their own L.A. public-access show, Simply Don the Public Access Program. A young Jimmy Kimmel became an obsessive fan and later its announcer. In Windy City Heat, Perry quotes someone calling them the Three Stooges of the new millennium.
Exhibit C
Perry was told he'd landed the lead in Windy City Heat, playing Stone Fury, a Chicago sports private eye hunting for William "The Refrigerator" Perry's refrigerator and Ernie Banks' pants. There was no such movie. Every audition, every rewrite and every manure-filled dumpster was built to film Perry's reactions. Cameras rolled from at least fifteen angles. Don and Mole played the villains, Chicago Outfit heavies Big Lou and Brock, and pushed his buttons all the way to a "premiere" where his name was misspelled on the marquee.
Exhibit D
Comedy Central aired Windy City Heat in October 2003. Bobcat Goldthwait directed. He also played the movie-within-the-movie's bullhorn-toting director. Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla and Daniel Kellison produced through Jackhole Productions. Carson Daly, Dane Cook, Tammy Faye Bakker and the Fridge himself turned up as themselves or as fake crew. The network barely promoted it, but Kimmel kept passing it around and it built a cult following. The 2006 DVD credits its star as "Perry Karavello."
Credits
Watch the case
Linked from Don's Simply Don the Podcast Network site.
After the credits
The Big 3 Podcast (2010–2015). The trio launched a weekly podcast on Adam Carolla's ACE Broadcasting Network in October 2010. It moved to Don's own Simply Don the Podcast Network in 2011 and signed off in April 2015. Characters from the film came back, and so did the running gag of misspelling Perry's name.
The Big 3 Live (2013). A monthly live video podcast that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013, mixing new episodes with old public-access and Comedy Store clips.
Windy Weekend (2013). For the film's 10th anniversary, hundreds of fans came to The Comedy Store for a live taping and a screening. The weekend ended with a chili cook-off at Perry's house.
The Big 3 Project (2013–2015). A crowdfunding push for a sequel fell well short, but it raised enough to shoot a reality pilot. Don produced and directed The Big 3 Pilot, released in 2015.
Kill Tony (2020). The Big 3 reunited for Kill Tony #435, "The Big Three," in February 2020.
"I couldn't let him go." Don Barris on Perry, to Grantland, 2013
Want more? The Big 3 Podcast archive and Big 3 premium membership are still up.