George Clooney credited as playing...
Jim Byrd
- Jim Byrd: You're 32 years old, and you've achieved nothing. Jesus Christ was dead and alive again by 33. You better get crackin'.
- [after Byrd tells Chuck to kill the unknown "mole"]
- Chuck Barris: Hey, I got an idea. If you aren't so bad... why don't you do it? Why don't you kill the mole? You got a problem with killing, Jim?
- Jim Byrd: I just don't fit the profile.
- Chuck Barris: What fucking profile? There is no fucking profile.
- Jim Byrd: Okay, there's no profile.
- Chuck Barris: There's no profile.
- Jim Byrd: Okay. Let's see. Well, you had a twin sister, stillborn, strangled by your umbilical cord. Your first hit, Chuck. Your mother always wanted a daughter. She blamed you for your sister's death. And, so, until your sister Phoebe was born, she raised you as a girl. Oh, and your father the dentist? Not really your father. Your biological father was a man named Edmund James Windsor. A serial killer. A fact your mother didn't know when she had an affair with him in 1930. If you want to look him up, he was also known as the Tarrytown Troll, because he had been described by witnesses as short and ugly. Windsor died in the electrical chair at Ossining in 1939. We believed your self-loathing tendencies coupled with that extra Y chromosome and whatever else you inherited from your father would serve us well. I'm trying to think what more I can tell you, but you have me at a disadvantage here, Barris. I don't have your files in front of me.
- Simon Oliver: You are a bloody amateur.
- Chuck Barris: You're a faggot.
- Jim Byrd: Chuck.
- Simon Oliver: Tell me, Mr. Barris, are you in possession of my microfilm?
- Chuck Barris: Yeah, I got it.
- Simon Oliver: Let's have it, then.
- Chuck Barris: It's up my ass, Oliver, why don't you reach on up there and get it?
- Jim Byrd: He's a bad guy. He's one of the bad guys.
- Chuck Barris: Bad for the US, right, Jim? Not bad in the absolute sense. Just bad for the US.
- Jim Byrd: Don't fuckin' dance with me. Renda's bad for the Tea & Biscuit Company. He's bad for me personally. You work for me. Renda's bad for me... You're now officially a patriotic citizen of the United States of Jim Byrd. There's no backing out now. We let you in on everything. You don't play. You don't leave. You understand that? You don't play... You don't leave.
- Chuck Barris: I've got important things to think about here. I don't have time to fuck around with you.
- Jim Byrd: Okay, I'll help you out with your little show. Tit for tat. That's the kinda guy I am. I've seen this Dating Game of yours, Chuck. And I have a thought.
- Chuck Barris: What, now you're a television producer?
- Jim Byrd: Hey, I'm John Q. Public when it comes to TV and that should make my opinion of interest to you.
- Chuck Barris: [nods] Let's hear it then.
- Jim Byrd: Well, what do you have now? The couple gets sent to some stupid second-rate Hollywood shitcan restaurant, right? Sets you back fifty bucks? That's not too exciting a prize to us vicarious living boobs out in TV-land.
- Chuck Barris: Yeah, what's your point?
- Jim Byrd: Up the stakes, Chuckles. Send 'em to some exotic locale. Europe, Southeast Asia, for example.
- Chuck Barris: The network's not going to let me send two unmarried kids on vacation together.
- Jim Byrd: Send 'em with a chaperone.
- Chuck Barris: [beat] You know... that's not half bad.
- Jim Byrd: I'm telling ya. And sometimes you can be the chaperone, Chuckie. Let's say we have a job for you in Austria. You, a successful TV producer, above suspicion, chaperones the young couple, and while you're there, you take care of some Company business. It's the perfect cover. TV producer by day, CIA operative by night.
- Chuck Barris: I told you, I don't have to kill people for money anymore.
- Jim Byrd: Chuck, when I said you fit our profile, very little of that had to do with you needing the money. Some of it, but very little. You liked it with Renda, Chuck. I saw it in your eyes. You liked it but you botched it. Don't you want to get really good at something, Chuck?