Because “The Sixth Sense, but with the guy from City Slickers” might be a tough sell for a lot of TV viewers, Billy Crystal has been making the promotional rounds in support of his upcoming AppleTV+ horror series Before. So far, critics have been calling the show everything from “brilliant” to “goofy” to “disappointing.”
Last week, Crystal took his Before hype tour to Today, where he chatted about the new show, as well as his thoughts on his portrayal in Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, and also how he may have thoughtlessly given away a piece of priceless movie memorabilia.
Crystal discussed how he’s stolen collected some movie props over the years that are “particularly important” to him, including Miracle Max’s hat from The Princess Bride, his City Slickers chaps and, from Throw Momma From the Train, he kept Danny DeVito (hold for laughter). “I keep him in a guest house with Jersey Mike’s subs, and he’s very happy,” Crystal joked.
Don’t Miss
But what about the terrific cable knit sweater from When Harry Met Sally that made Crystal an unlikely autumnal fashion icon?
“It became important to people, and I can’t find it,” Crystal said of the sweater. The comedian does have a theory as to what might have happened to it, though. “I realized, about eight years ago, I made a big contribution to the theater department at UCLA,” Crystal revealed. “It was all of these sweaters and clothes, and I think it was in that — hey UCLA, if you’re watching, please check to see if there’s this beautiful, big, iconic sweater.”
In addition to Crystal’s personal plea to the academic institution, Today sent out a social media post tagging UCLA asking them to “help us find the sweater!”
In response to this urgent request, fans lept into action and… Wait, no, they haven’t really done anything at all. The responses to Today’s post on Twitter/X are exclusively unrelated spam. Meanwhile, over on TikTok, the comments were similarly unhelpful, and weirdly, kind of thirsty for Crystal.
Really, nobody at UCLA wants to head over to the theater department and have a quick look for the sweater? This isn’t a costume from My Giant or Mr. Saturday Night, it’s from a movie most people actually like! No one on the UCLA subreddit seems to have even mentioned the fact that this one-of-a-kind cinematic artifact could be lying around in a drawer somewhere.
Between schoolwork, relationships and grappling with the constant existential anxiety about the near future, students just don’t have the time to go hunting for old movie props right now.
Had it been the cable knit sweater that Chris Evans wore in Knives Out, presumably every student on campus would have gone full “Nicolas Cage in National Treasure” in order to track it down.
You (yes, you) should follow JM on Twitter (if it still exists by the time you’re reading this).