Conception In 1975, Coby Recht, a successful Israeli rock producer, was signed to a major label for the first time, that being Barclay Records, which was founded and led by French producer Eddie Barclay. As Recht described working with Barclay, "he really believed in me. But there was something there that I couldn't trust. I don't know why, but the guy looked to me like a villain." His experience with Barclay, as well as being a "moral guy" who never liked what went on in show business, inspired the story of a musical Recht and his wife Iris Yotvat were conceiving for six weeks while in Paris, and the antagonist Mr. Boogalow was based on Barclay. Recht explained that it was "supposed to be 1984, but with music." Writing the musical in 1977, Recht and Yotvat had 17 demos recorded before the first draft was even submitted to a company. It was originally planned by Recht and Yotvat to be a Hebrew stage production, but the show "was so expensive that nobody could really raise it up for the stage," Recht explained. He was then informed by a friend that filmmaker Menahem Golan was having a brief visit in Israel. Recht had known Golan since he was nine, performing in shows at an Israeli-based children's theater where Golan directed. Recht called Golan on a Friday for a face-to-face meeting about The Apple, which involved Golan spending four hours listening to demos of songs from the musical. Golan finally decided to direct and produce a film version of The Apple, instructing Recht to be in Los Angeles immediately. Yotvat said, "That was marvelous. That was just fantastic to think that it was going to be a movie all of the sudden. It was just amazing." Rewrites for the film and song translation In 1979, Recht and Yotvat went to Los Angeles, where they resided in a villa that Golan offered, while Recht occasionally went to Golan's house in Cheviot Hills to have meetings about the film. Golan spent three weeks writing six screenplay drafts of The Apple. According to Recht, Golan rewrote the story and all of the songs to the point where they were completely different from what Recht and Yotvat originally wrote, which "frustrated" the two. Golan's version of the plot was more comical and contradicted the Orwellian tone of the musical Recht originally envisioned. Yotvat said that Golan