Before he scored four Emmy awards playing a prosecutor on “Night Court,” John Larroquette was paid in pot for voiceover work on a classic horror movie.
After years of internet speculation, Larroquette confirmed he hit a high note from what he assumed to be gig work for a friend in the ’70s.
“Totally true,” Larroquette told “Parade” when asked about the long-standing rumor director Tobe Hooper compensated John with weed for narrating the prologue to “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
“He gave me some marijuana or a matchbox or whatever you called it in those days,” he said. “I walked out of the [recording] studio and patted him on the back side and said, ‘Good luck to you!'”
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John Larroquette starred as prosecutor Dan Fielding in the long-running sitcom “Night Court.”
(Getty Images)
His relationship with Hooper went back to 1969 when he was working as a bartender in Colorado. John said he “wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life,” but had struck up a friendship with the late director who was working on a project in town.
A few years later, Larroquette was pursuing his own acting dreams in Los Angeles when Hooper looked him up.
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“Tobe heard I was in town and asked for an hour of my time to narrate something for this movie he just did,” he recalled. “I said ‘Fine!’ It was a favor.”
At the time, the thriller featuring a mask-wearing cannibal named Leatherface who preys on a group of hippies, was grossly low-budget. Little did he know that the movie would become a horror classic and spawn an entire series of slasher films.
“You do something for free in the 1970s and get a little money in the ’90s,” he said before adding, “It’s certainly the one credit that’s stuck strongly to my resume.”
John Larroquette earned four Emmy Awards starring as Daniel R. “Dan” Fielding on “Night Court.”
(Gary Null)
Oddly enough, Larroquette has yet to see any of the movies in the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise.
“I’m not a big horror movie fan,” he said.
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He is, however, returning to the courtroom to play Dan Fielding in an updated version of “Night Court.” The first episode of the award-winning program premiered in 1984 and ran until 1992.
Larroquette earned four consecutive Emmys from 1985-88, and then asked not to be considered for an Emmy in 1989.
“I’m now 75, not the 35-year-old who started playing that character. I can’t do the physical comedy I used to do,” Larroquette told USA Today of his character’s evolution.
“Night Court” season four starred Richard Moll, Marsha Warfield, Markie Post, Harry Anderson, John Larroquette, and Charles Robinson
(NBC)
John Larroquette and Melissa Rauch star in the new “Night Court” reboot
(Maarten de Boer)
“Hopefully, with wit and intellect, we have found other ways for him to be funny, not just the clown that he was in the ’80s. But it’s a new world.”
Harry Anderson, who played Judge Harry T. Stone, died in 2018, and Markie Post, who portrayed public defender Christine Sullivan, passed away in 2021.
Larroquette said it was “emotional” at times being back on set of the legal sitcom.
“It was like going back to your old school but with more emotions because the main reasons the show was so successful and such a pleasure to do had passed,” he said. “As defense attorney, Dan now sits in the chair that Christine Sullivan sat in for years. So I often pay silent tribute to Markie.”
