Breaking Bad: Why Bryan Cranston Nearly Changed The Iconic Opening Scene
As far as memorable opening scenes go, it's hard to beat the electric first minute of "Breaking Bad." The show opens with a pair of khaki pants soaring through open air, and we're soon thrown into the seat of an R.V. barrelling across the New Mexican desert.
In the driver's seat is Walter White (Bryan Cranston) wearing nothing but a gas mask and a pair of tighty-whiteys, whipping along a dirt road with sirens in the distance and two dead bodies rolling around in the backseat. After crashing the R.V. into a ditch, Walt steps out onto the road with a pistol in hand and underwear flapping in the breeze, ready to make a final stand against whatever's coming down the road.
It's one of the most iconic openings in television history, though most "Breaking Bad" fans don't know that Bryan Cranston himself almost changed this opening in a major way. "The tighty-whitey underwear was actually in the script. And initially, I was going to change it, because I had done that on 'Malcolm In The Middle,'" Cranston explained during an interview with The A.V. Club. "The more I thought about it, the more I realized, 'You know, this works in an oddly different way than it did on "Malcolm."' So I kept it."
As any "Breaking Bad" fan will tell you, this would have been a radical change to our first introduction to Walt, and one that would have robbed the scene of its hilarious gag.
The tightey-whiteys told us a lot about Hal and Walt's character
As Bryan Cranston explained, the tighty-whiteys gag was one used to great effect by Hal Wilkerson on "Malcolm in the Middle" — strutting around the house or dancing in the mirror with nothing on except his pearly white briefs.
As such, this specific kind of underwear could be seen as an extension of Hal's goofy personality in "Malcolm," while their use in "Breaking Bad" was more likely an indication of Walt's stagnant, drab lifestyle. "No color to him at all," Cranston said of Walt's bland wardrobe. "Who makes a fashion statement of the tightey-whitey underwear." In addition to Walt's decidedly depressing undies, Cranston said that he actually added Walt's glasses and mustache to emphasize how invisible Walt felt — treating those accessories like a mask to hide himself from the outside world.
Regardless of the true intentions behind Walt's stark white drawers, there's no question that the tighty-whiteys are one of Walt's most iconic wardrobe choices. These underwear are so beloved by fans that a separate pair of tighty-whiteys (not worn by Cranston, but featured in Walt's closet and dresser) sold online for over $32,000. Despite Cranston's initial hesitation about this gag, it's safe to say that he made the right choice in accepting Walt's peculiar undergarments.