This Day in Pop Culture for December 2

1997: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s First Screenplay

During his fifth year at Harvard, Matt Damon started writing the script for Good Will Hunting for a playwriting class. The story is about Will Hunting, an unrecognized genius, who after he assaults a police officer, becomes a patient of a therapist, studies advanced mathematics and questions his relationship.

Having been friends with Matt Damon since he was ten years old, Damon asked Affleck for his opinion on the script and soon the two were hard at work finishing the script in 1994. They shared the script with their talent agent who was very impressed with it but thought it would be difficult to find a studio willing to produce a film that would star two unknown actors. They were wrong.

Directed by Gus Van Sant, Good Will Hunting was released to movie theaters on this day in 1997. In addition to the writers, the film starred Robin Williams, Minnie Driver and Stellan Skarsgård.

The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Williams) and Best Original Screenplay. (TVDB)

1935: Marc Davis Begins Working with Disney

Marc Davis, one of Walt Disney’s “9 Old Men” began work as an apprentice animator at the Walt Disney Studios on this day in 1935.

It is said that Davis was immediately thrown into two weeks of intense classes that were taught by Donald Graham. Davis is known for working on various Disney characters including Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Tinker Bell and Cruella de Vil.

Later, he became one of the original “imagineers” developing rides and attractions at the Disney parks. His influences can be seen today clearly through The Jungle Cruise, The Enchanted Tiki Room, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, The Carousel of Progress, It’s a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, and The Country Bear Jamboree.

1988: Frank Drebin Makes His Movie Debut

After the success of Airplane! (a parody of the disaster movies, Airport and Zero Hour!), ABC tried out an experiment by airing six episodes of Police Squad! which was created by David Zucker, Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams. Former “serious” actor Leslie Nielsen (who starred in Airplane!) was the show’s lead as detective lieutenant Frank Drebin. He was assisted by Ed Hocken (Alan North) who played the captain.

The ABC series was cancelled after just four episodes because the network said that it was a show that audiences really needed to watch in order to get the jokes. TV Guide magazine called the cancellation “the most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series.”

However, Drebin was given new life when The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! came to theaters on this day. Nielsen was back but George Kennedy became the captain, and O.J. Simpson was added at Detective Nordberg. Priscilla Presley was the love interest and Ricardo Montalban played the villain.

The movie was a hit and was followed up by two sequels – The Naked Gun 2-1/2: The Smell of Fear in 1991 and Naked Gun 33-1/3: The Final Insult in 1994. In 2025, a third sequel/reboot movie simply called The Naked Gun starred Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr. It too was a hit.