Actor Steve Guttenberg’s Man On The Street Interview While Helping Fire Crews Highlights Generational Divide

There was a time in the 1980s when Steve Guttenberg was one of the most famous men in Hollywood. He starred in 4 Police Academy movies, Three Men and a Baby alongside Ted Danson and Tom Selleck, and I’m fairly certain I watched Short Circuit no less than a hundred times as a kid because it was always on TV.

Yesterday, as the Pacific Palisades brush fire tore through Los Angeles so quickly that people abandoned their cars in the middle of the street to run away on foot fire fighters had to clear those roads. Helping them clear those roads was local resident Steve Guttenberg.

An interview with Guttenberg ended with the reporter asking him what is name is and it’s highlighted a generational divid, something I’m calling the Guttenberg Divide in my head. There are millennials who are old enough to remember Steve’s movies on TV every single day and there are millennials like my wife who say ‘eh, he kind of looks familiar’ but have no clue who he is.

Here is the interview:

Even here at BroBible I had to explain to some of the staff how Steve Guttenberg was once one of Hollywood’s biggest names. In their defense, there’s really no reason Gen Z would ever know Steve aside from his Party Down episode or appearances in The Goldbergs or an appearance in the Sharknado franchise. Steve’s still a very active actor but he’s not the leading man he once was.

A quick perusal of X shows that many are in complete and utter disbelief that the reporter doesn’t know The Gute while many others have no clue who he is… There’s a true divide out there.

All of that is to say that Steve Guttenberg is still the man. As this fire was ravaging through his neighborhood he was working with fire crews to clear the streets. He was highlighting that if people need to abandon their cars they need to leave the keys in the car so fire crews (and people like him) can move the cars.

Here is what happens when people don’t leave their keys in their cars:

LAFD is using a BULLDOZER to clear abandoned cars off Palisades Drive. Unreal. #PalisadesFire pic.twitter.com/sM93Zud3q9

— Scott Murphy (@ScottMurphyInLA) January 7, 2025

The destruction from these fires in Los Angeles yesterday and overnight is hard to process. Latest reports have containment at 0% with high winds still rapidly spreading the fires. Hopefully the LAFD is able to begin to slow these fires today and the healing and rebuilding process can begin.

Also, go watch Police Academy and Short Circuit.