0:17

Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried

0:19

and this is Gilbert Gottfried's

0:21

amazing colossal pod guest with

0:24

my co-host, Frank Santel Padre.

0:27

Our guest this week is a man of

0:29

many talents and someone we've been

0:31

trying to rope into doing

0:34

this since the podcast began

0:37

way back in the late

0:39

1950s. He's

0:42

an actor, writer,

0:44

producer, author, TV

0:46

host, professional poker

0:48

player, and one of the

0:50

most influential and accomplished

0:53

stand-up comedians of

0:55

his generation. As

0:57

an actor you've seen him in

0:59

films like Fast Break, Nobody's

1:01

Perfect, The Grand, as

1:03

well as the series

1:05

Police Story, Murder She

1:07

Wrote, Bo Jack Horseman,

1:10

and on stages all over

1:12

the country in Groucho,

1:14

a show based on the

1:17

life of his comedy hero.

1:20

If you happen to be anywhere

1:22

near a TV set in the 1970s, you saw

1:25

his memorable

1:28

guest appearances on

1:31

dozens of classic television

1:33

shows including the Merv

1:35

Griffin Show, the Mike Douglas Show,

1:38

the Sonny and Cher Show, Donnie

1:40

and Marie, Dinah, the Dean

1:43

Martin Show, the

1:45

Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, a

1:48

show he also guest

1:50

hosted on 18 occasions.

1:53

But of course, he'll forever be loved

1:55

and remembered by millions as the creator

1:58

and star of one of the

2:00

most popular situation

2:02

comedies of the 1970s,

2:05

welcome back, Carter. At

2:09

this man would go on

2:11

to become one of the

2:14

world's most successful competitive poker

2:16

players and the

2:19

co-host of the long-running series

2:21

High Stakes Poker. And

2:24

he recently penned a very

2:27

funny article for Emmy Magazine

2:29

and the TV Academy about

2:32

his well-documented appearance

2:35

on ABC's Battle of

2:37

the Network stars, and

2:40

his showdown and later

2:42

reunion with the late

2:45

Robert Conrad. Frank

2:47

and I are thrilled to welcome

2:49

to the show one of our

2:52

favorite performers in raconteurs, and

2:55

the only guest out

2:57

of nearly 400 who've

3:00

come to the show

3:02

with anecdotes about David

3:05

Pry, London Lee,

3:09

Jack Ruby, and

3:12

Golda Meir, Mitch

3:17

D'Acada, Gabe

3:19

Kaplan. Hey,

3:21

what an intro, what an intro. I

3:24

gave. I mean, there's not a

3:26

lot of people that knew London Lee, Jack Ruby, and

3:28

Golda Meir. Yeah,

3:32

we almost had Jack Ruby on

3:34

this show. Gil,

3:37

I was giving you a horse shack

3:39

intro there. It's Mr. Carter. Oh, Mr.

3:41

Carter. Mr. Carter. Now,

3:45

to get Jack Ruby on the show, you had

3:47

to do the show in the basement somewhere. Now,

3:52

I remember we met and we

3:54

knew each other from The

3:56

early, early days of

3:58

caturizing Stars. Yes,

4:01

Remember. That. Number. Of those

4:03

days are removed. First time I went to catch

4:05

a Rising star was like the second club and.

4:08

Everybody. Gradually went over there and we do

4:10

a double every night and I do the improv

4:12

and catch a rising star. And

4:15

and who was some of the people?

4:17

I guess I guess the generations mixed

4:20

up. Was yeah that

4:22

was bomb Baghdad the sorry I like

4:24

this the first wave way one be

4:26

wary when see you and second wave.

4:29

Sir. Isaac when I first went there. Robin

4:32

Klein, Ryan Carry Richard

4:34

Pryor. They.

4:36

Were there And then Raspberry while as a

4:38

name. Yeah. Great.

4:41

Guy: really funny guy. Or

4:43

then I'm. Richard

4:46

Lewis Game Brenner Rodney.

4:49

Moran. He was strictly an improv guide on

4:52

remember Rodney Cats Too Much. Then

4:55

know. It just kept

4:57

common. Leno. Jimmy.

5:00

Walker was there in the beginning. Freddie.

5:04

Prinze thought of the com. For. A

5:06

prince would come and sit in the

5:08

bar at the improv. Have. A

5:10

drink and wouldn't go on for a long time. And

5:13

then when he finally started, go on. He.

5:16

Started get his little needs he started come up

5:18

with jokes and always son he got on tv

5:20

before I did. Wow.

5:24

Now. Gilgit Chino tells me that you

5:26

and Gave also have some history. Was

5:28

there something that gave? Was there something

5:30

you brought Gilbert to. Yes,

5:34

I. Had. Known

5:37

as the Gilbert as an affinity for

5:39

the Marx Brothers. Ah and and I

5:41

told him that we were doing a

5:43

show. This is like. Three.

5:46

Weeks after I was signed to play

5:48

Groucho. And I met

5:50

Itemize and Robbers Fisher, the authors of

5:52

the play. And I say I

5:54

got a great guy. Who could

5:56

play dzeko. And. and

5:59

either eisner and I said, I don't

6:01

know, who is he? And I says, Gilbert

6:03

Gottfried, you might've seen him on television. All

6:06

right, well, we'll look at him. And

6:09

you came over my house, you remember this, Gil?

6:11

Yes, yes I do. You

6:14

came over my house and it was Robert

6:16

Fisher and Arthur Marx, and

6:18

we read part of the script together,

6:20

especially, I think we did the contract scene.

6:24

And you were great. And

6:27

I thought they were gonna be really impressed. You

6:30

had the accent down, you really seem like Chico,

6:33

and afterwards Arthur says, ah,

6:35

he looks like Chico. I

6:39

said, yeah. And

6:42

I said, all right, well, let's talk about it. And

6:44

then I don't know what happened, but they

6:47

wound up going in another direction. They

6:49

went with Michael Tucci from Greece. Right,

6:53

right. And didn't you

6:55

eventually get Robert Hedges

6:57

or Robert? Right,

7:00

well, Michael Tucci did it

7:02

in Pepperdine. We

7:04

rehearsed for like a week, and then

7:06

we taped it just from the script. It had never

7:08

been done for a live audience. And

7:12

afterwards, I did the

7:14

show in a lot of different places,

7:16

and Robert Hedges played Chico most of the time. Yeah,

7:19

because I remember when I first

7:21

read the script and knew you

7:23

were doing it, I thought, I'll

7:27

bet you anything, I'll get

7:29

Robert Hedges, because, I

7:31

mean, that character on Welcome Back

7:33

Carter was like, hey, Mr.

7:36

Carter. So it was Chico.

7:39

Right, and he would do the, well,

7:42

that was the harpo face, the face

7:44

that Harpo made when he- Oh, the gookie.

7:47

Gookie, right. Right, so

7:50

Bobby would do that all the time on the

7:52

show, and it just was

7:54

a natural. And he fell

7:56

into it, and we must have done it in about

7:58

six or seven different cities. including

8:02

the Westwood Playhouse in LA. We

8:05

were hoping to take it to New York, but

8:07

Arthur always wanted more singing. My

8:11

father was a good singer. I said, yeah,

8:13

but I'm not. How

8:18

many songs were supposed to be in the show?

8:20

You were supposed to sing, what,

8:22

Lydia or? Lydia, I

8:25

Must Be Going. This

8:27

song that Groucho, I forgot what it was, I Love

8:29

You in the World is Mine, something like that. Yeah,

8:32

I can't think of the name of it. Right,

8:34

and maybe

8:36

four or five songs, and I cut most of

8:38

them out, and he went

8:40

along with me, but then he would say, we

8:43

want to put Lydia back in. I said, I

8:45

can't sing, Arthur. So finally

8:47

he took the show to Broadway,

8:51

and I wasn't

8:54

in it, and then I said,

8:56

Arthur, do you mind if I do my version

8:58

of the show without any singing? And

9:00

then I still did it occasionally for

9:02

15 years in different

9:04

places. Every few years I did in

9:06

Boston and Florida, I would do

9:09

it, and it was an introspective more of a

9:12

comment on what a comedian's life is

9:14

like, and how unhappy Groucho was, and

9:16

how entertaining he was, and how he

9:19

made millions of people around the world happy, but

9:21

he himself was not that happy. So that was

9:23

the show that I wanted to do, and

9:26

I finally got a chance to do that. And

9:29

what was your relationship like

9:31

with Groucho? I

9:35

met him a few different times. First

9:37

time I met him I had been on the Merv Griffin show, and

9:40

he had seen it,

9:43

and I went into Nate Niles' Dalla Gattessen in

9:45

Los Angeles, and he recognized

9:47

me, and I went up to him and he

9:49

knew me, which was surprising,

9:52

and he said to the

9:54

guy he was with, this is Gene

9:56

Kaplan. And

10:02

he was very funny. He did a bit about

10:04

old people in the dating game and I

10:06

thought it was hysterical. And

10:08

I said, well, thank you, Groucho, but my

10:10

name is Gabe. He said, oh,

10:12

yeah, well, I'm going to call you Gene. And

10:15

I said, okay, I'm going to call you Zeppo.

10:23

And we established, you

10:25

know, like I

10:27

thought that he was my friend and I was hoping to run

10:30

into him again. And the

10:32

next time I released

10:34

the record, comedy

10:37

record, and I got a

10:40

summons that Groucho Marx was

10:42

suing me. And

10:45

I had no idea what

10:48

he found so offensive in the

10:50

record. And the record was

10:53

what eventually became Welcome Back

10:55

Carter about these guys and

10:58

that they insulted each other. And we called it

11:00

ranking and other people called it the dozens. And

11:03

it's kids insulting each other on the street. And

11:05

there was one kid who was the champion

11:08

ranker and this kid from Philadelphia

11:10

came and not only could he rank, but he could

11:12

do it while doing impressions.

11:15

So one of the impressions was Groucho Marx

11:17

and he would insult the other kid and

11:19

say, I understand

11:22

your mother sat on the Washington

11:24

Monument last night and that it

11:26

wasn't enough. And

11:31

Groucho heard this and

11:35

he filed a lawsuit that

11:37

wanted the record stopped. And

11:40

I talked to his lawyer and I

11:42

said, you can't be serious about this. And

11:45

he said, well, he is, you know, he sues a lot of

11:47

people. So

11:51

can I set up a call for you to talk to

11:54

him and maybe apologize and do something? And I said, I'd

11:56

love to talk to him. You know,

11:58

I met him. And

12:02

he said, okay, here's his number, call him.

12:04

He's expecting it to call him. So

12:06

I called him and I said, you remember we

12:09

met Nate Nals? Yes, I remember,

12:11

but I never did anything like that in my

12:13

life. I would never say anything about anybody's mother.

12:15

I said, I understand you would never say, but

12:17

it's not you saying it. It's supposed to be,

12:20

you know, I tried and, and

12:22

if it makes you feel any better,

12:25

I only did that on the record. I don't, I don't

12:27

do that anymore. All right, you're not

12:29

going to do it anymore. You're not going to,

12:31

I said, no, I won't do it anymore. I

12:33

promise you it's, it's not something that people really

12:36

got upset or think badly of you for. He

12:38

said, all right, all right. And he dropped

12:41

the lawsuit. And

12:43

the next time I saw him was when he

12:45

came to welcome back Carter. And

12:49

everybody, it's so funny, everybody has different recollections

12:51

of what happened that day. We

12:54

did a reunion on, you

12:56

know, Nick at night and

12:59

Marsha said that Groucher was supposed to

13:01

dance with her when he came

13:03

on the show, which would have been hard because he could,

13:05

he couldn't even move. So I don't know how he was

13:07

going to dance with us. And

13:10

I heard Mark Evanier on your show,

13:13

talking about it. What I remember

13:15

is that we're talking about, maybe he would do

13:17

something and he came

13:19

up to me and he said,

13:22

you know, they want me to do something. And I said,

13:25

yeah, but what are you going to do? And

13:27

I said, you know, one idea, what

13:30

might be, I'm sitting

13:32

on the bench outside the school yard and your

13:34

back is to the audience. And

13:37

I say, sir, as long as they're waiting for

13:39

the bus, let me tell you about

13:41

my uncle. And I

13:43

do this uncle joke and he said, well, what joke

13:45

are you going to do? And

13:47

I told him the joke. And I said, after I do the

13:49

joke, you say, that's the worst joke I ever

13:51

heard in my life. You turn

13:54

around, everyone sees his Groucher marks and they scream and

13:56

you say, that's the worst joke I ever heard in

13:58

my life. He said, well, that's. not going to

14:00

be hard to do because it is the worst joke I ever

14:02

heard in my life. And

14:05

then Aaron Fleming asked for a lot of money, I

14:08

think $10,000, and they weren't going to

14:11

give him, you know, they were hoping to do it for free.

14:14

But he was ready, and he was excited about doing

14:17

it. And we never got it. What

14:20

was it like dealing with Aaron Fleming? Yeah, I was going

14:22

to ask the same thing. What were your impressions of Aaron?

14:25

I didn't deal with her. The

14:27

producers dealt with her. I just

14:29

dealt directly with Groucher because I kind of knew

14:31

him a little bit. And we

14:33

were going over the bit and what he was going to do

14:36

and what he was going to say. So I didn't have any

14:38

of that relationship, whether they just

14:40

came and told me. I remember

14:42

seeing her there, but they came and told me, it's

14:45

off. He's not going to do it. And

14:47

everybody was so disappointed. And

14:50

she wound up being homeless. Terrible

14:53

ending. And then shooting herself. Right,

14:57

right. Yeah, she... I

15:01

don't know how long they were together because I actually,

15:03

you know, I didn't really know him that well. I

15:05

never was at his house and I never really met

15:07

her. I think I was introduced to her

15:10

that day when it came to the Carter set.

15:13

But I didn't know her at all. But she had a

15:15

real sad ending. Was there an amount he

15:17

sued you for, Gabe? Do you happen to recall it? No,

15:20

I don't recall what the amount was. I

15:23

think it was... But Gabe and I were talking over the

15:25

weekend, Gilbert. I found it funny that

15:27

Groucho was objecting to the idea that he

15:30

never used that kind of language. And

15:33

if you read the Richard Annabel books, as

15:36

we all have... Yeah.

15:40

I think the thing was that he was saying it

15:42

about somebody's mother. That was like... That

15:44

was interesting. That was crossing a line

15:46

for him. Yeah, that was crossing... He

15:49

just liked to sue people at

15:51

one point? He

15:53

sued author at one point. He sued

15:56

his kid. What did he sue

15:58

a son about? A

16:00

book media wrote about Groucho while.

16:04

Things. Groucho and Me or is

16:06

one of those bugs and. And.

16:08

They didn't they they have it on and off relationship

16:11

where they would talk, they wouldn't talk and. He

16:14

he liked to sue. He was very legit, just.

16:17

Because you get any feedback from any that

16:19

the Marks family members about the show. Melinda.

16:22

Or anybody or. The

16:25

only one that I know they came

16:28

to see the show was we did

16:30

it in Rancho Mirage and Susan Marks

16:32

Harper Wilde said the same gray was

16:34

very complementary. A especially bad. The

16:37

old Groucho and See said. I

16:40

I saw the i felt I was in a room with

16:42

him you know was scary. I

16:46

don't know what her relationship was was

16:48

with him but the see. Really?

16:50

Like the old grandson. Gilbert

16:53

does a pretty fair old Groucho Davis. I

16:55

tells ya, I love to hear it as

16:57

s. I.

17:01

Will. Move. With.

17:05

Over Schumer. Lessons.

17:10

And use coal mines.

17:14

Has. Reviewed

17:18

Studies. And

17:21

New Orleans would want. In.

17:24

The people who are. Goulioti.

17:28

Assess as great strengths. we could

17:30

have you guys tour together. Reagan

17:35

Reagan do a week as or the a couple

17:37

two years. Now that

17:39

would be fantastic. Also I

17:41

are. Members years ago talking

17:43

to melt Burrow. And

17:46

he said he. Is just shot

17:48

a roast. Ally.

17:50

In I did a d My

17:53

Roses. That. I know you're

17:55

familiar with. And dumb

17:57

he said that. Say.

17:59

Would. put the camera on

18:01

him and the director would say

18:04

okay you just got hit with

18:06

a real zinger now and

18:09

now oh I'm shocked

18:11

I can't believe somebody

18:14

said that on TV and he

18:16

would do the reactions to

18:18

jokes he wasn't even hearing the

18:21

director would say and

18:23

they shot them all separately so

18:25

what was it like with you? Well Gabe was

18:28

even a man of the hour weren't you Gabe? Yeah

18:30

I did about I would say five or six

18:34

of them and they would take

18:36

these shots and

18:39

cut them in and the editor

18:41

was not that good so it

18:43

didn't look realistic it looked

18:45

really strange sometimes somebody would be laughing at

18:47

something and it wasn't that funny and they

18:49

put like three different shots

18:51

of people hysterical and the jokes

18:53

were bad anyway I

18:55

was telling Frank when we talked the

18:58

Muhammad Ali one who was

19:00

the best because everybody

19:03

I was boxers and

19:05

comedians and Ali

19:08

came up at the end and

19:13

he looked at the teleprompter what

19:15

he was supposed to read he says

19:17

all these people and so to me

19:20

and I don't care because I have

19:22

stared in the face of death many

19:24

times but enough about

19:26

Phyllis Dilla and then

19:28

he said Dean Martin looked

19:32

at Dean Martin and said did you write this joke

19:34

Dean Martin now why do you want

19:36

me to insult this lady Phyllis Dilla? I don't

19:38

know who she is I don't know anything about

19:41

this woman why would I insult her like that?

19:43

I want to tell you

19:45

something Dean all these jokes these comedians and

19:47

these boxers are saying they're

19:49

all bad jokes boxers

19:51

can't talk anyway they get up here you

19:58

know these comedians don't you have any better to

20:00

you building the big hotels. I mean

20:02

you got millions of dollars can't you write

20:04

better jokes? I ain't saying anything. Let me

20:06

see this next. That's a worse joke than

20:08

the Philistilla joke. Dean Martin, how

20:10

much you pay these people that write these

20:12

jokes? And then he went on

20:14

for like 15 minutes. He

20:16

was hysterical talking

20:18

about how bad the jokes were, how phony

20:21

this whole setup was. That's great. Just ripping

20:23

the thing apart. Just ripping the thing apart

20:25

and talking about the cutting, you

20:27

know how they wanted him to do this and

20:29

do that. And Greg

20:32

Garrison got so pissed off that he did

20:34

this. Meanwhile the audience

20:36

was hysterical. Everybody on the dais was

20:38

falling down. We'd never, because the

20:40

jokes were bad, you know, most of

20:42

people would get there and they would read the

20:45

jokes in the dressing room and then they would

20:47

read them on the teleprompter. They didn't know what

20:49

they were gonna say. Mm-hmm. So

20:52

they wound up cutting Ollie down to about

20:54

a minute and a half and they didn't

20:56

use any of the great stuff that he

20:58

had done. That's a shame. Greg Garrison for

21:00

our listeners was the producer of those roasts

21:02

and the Dean Martin show. So you didn't

21:04

interact much with Orson or Ruth Buzzi or

21:06

John Wayne or any of those people

21:08

you were on those shows with. They were in and out. Yeah,

21:11

everybody was in and out. You got there,

21:13

they had your, well I wrote my own

21:16

stuff. A lot of the comics wrote their

21:18

own stuff. Mm-hmm. But most of the other

21:20

people didn't. They had this whole group

21:22

of writers that would give them these jokes and they just

21:25

cited them and the concept worked. Including

21:29

the legendary Harry Crane was one of those

21:31

writers, Gil. Yeah. I

21:34

remember what used to be

21:36

uncomfortable for me was

21:38

when I was watching it and they

21:40

wouldn't go, and now ladies and gentlemen

21:43

Art Carney, it would be, and now

21:45

ladies and gentlemen Ed Norton. Yeah.

21:48

And they wouldn't say, now

21:50

Peter Folke. Okay. He

21:53

roasted his Columbo. Yeah. Yes.

21:55

Yeah. And that always made

21:57

me uncomfortable. I thought that never, never, never, never, never, never, never,

21:59

never, never. Yeah,

22:01

sometimes the people will come out in character. Charlie

22:04

Callis was always a character. Right.

22:08

And Ruth Buzzy was always Gladys.

22:10

Yeah, right. Now, I

22:12

know since you're a Marx person, we'll

22:14

move on. I want to ask you about Richard

22:16

Pryor, Gabe. But since you are a Marx expert,

22:19

what do you know about Harpo Stuping Amelia Earhart?

22:23

I saw the film. We

22:31

had a Marx historian who comes on the show

22:33

on occasion, Robert Bader, who claims there was

22:35

some hanky-panky. No, I

22:37

know nothing about that. Never heard that before. Can

22:41

you make something? No. Yeah,

22:43

right. Well, he

22:45

had just come back from

22:47

Russia. We will return to

22:49

Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast,

22:52

but first a word from

22:54

our sponsor. Gabe

22:56

and I were talking, Gilbert, and he shares

22:58

our love for the our preference for the

23:01

paramats over the over the

23:03

MGM. Oh, absolutely. Because

23:05

he is he is ultimately a purist. I

23:08

always thought that to

23:10

me, Night at the Opera always

23:12

looked like the beginning of the

23:14

end then. They

23:16

were more under control in Night

23:19

at the Opera and there were

23:21

pauses for the laughs and. Yeah,

23:24

they were portrayed as heroic. Right.

23:29

It was Thalberg's idea of what

23:32

the Marx Brothers were like. With

23:34

the paramon stuff, they went on the

23:36

road and they did that as plays.

23:38

All those, you know, coconuts and animal

23:40

crackers were plays that they had

23:43

worked for months and

23:45

honed the material. And that was really the Marx

23:47

Brothers at their best. So I

23:49

totally agree with you guys. Yeah.

23:51

It's like, you just seem

23:54

like the ultimate insanity

23:56

and hilarious insanity. Yeah.

23:59

Yeah. The chaos was gone when they got to

24:01

M M G M. I s

24:03

mayor and then Thalberg decided they

24:06

needed an emotional center. Right

24:08

in there was a lot of World owes

24:10

that those movies appeal to. So.

24:13

Young the not the purists,

24:15

but. It, it did have

24:18

appeal and they did. Revamp. Their

24:20

careers. Authentic did get to

24:22

that a really drop weight.

24:25

Ah at that point where

24:27

was like you know at

24:29

the staircase saw outweighs. Are

24:32

and why? Why weather is, Why did they do those

24:34

films? Gilbert. Truth.

24:37

The whole. Room

24:39

on. One

24:43

hundred Friedman gave you know you mentioned Richard Pryor

24:45

who? you know how? how well did you know

24:47

and what? what was your experience of em and

24:49

weep for Heard you know all kinds of stories

24:52

on this show. One

24:54

bed, Gilbert like I'm personally and

24:56

he and I think it was mutual. Yeah.

24:58

I was doing. I got both

25:00

to do some movie called another

25:03

You that was out on your

25:05

mental failure. By. Richard.

25:09

Pryor with talk to me like.

25:12

I was the biggest star he ever

25:15

met. And. He was so

25:17

I can excited kids. He was like

25:19

guy. So. Complementary and

25:21

so nice to me. That.

25:24

Was Richard number one? Issue

25:26

is the and ha ha ha

25:28

ha ha many Richard's like many

25:30

Jarius Wright, I made that rigid

25:33

a lot at the cafe. While

25:35

who's very interested in. You. Know

25:37

what I was doing and we had. A

25:40

mutual thing to talk about. Where.

25:43

We were. To. The

25:45

only guys it ever worked in strip clubs.

25:47

he had done that potty showbiz is he

25:49

had worked in strip clubs in an idol

25:51

my was doing some of that. Because.

25:53

I I was performing at the cafe. Why? But

25:55

I have the balls to get up at the

25:57

Improv. and do anything So

26:00

I would make money by doing these tours where I

26:02

would do a strip club for three or four months

26:05

and I come back to New York. And

26:07

he loved to talk about that. So we had that

26:09

in common. And I remember when

26:11

he did his first television show, it was

26:14

something that was a summer replacement

26:17

show and Rudy

26:20

Valley was the host. And

26:22

he went on and he

26:24

did all the clean jokes that he had. These

26:27

were not that great. He

26:31

had to put it all together and he put together

26:33

six minutes of clean stuff. And he

26:35

had his hair in a big pompadour,

26:37

his clean shaven or a suit. And

26:42

he did well. He did really well and he

26:44

was happy. But then he got a

26:46

little, thought

26:49

he could have done better, thought he might

26:51

have been a little edgier. Did

26:53

anyone ever talk about

26:56

Richard Pryor at the gay rights concert? No.

26:59

I don't think so. Oh,

27:02

I think you'll enjoy

27:04

this. Remember

27:10

when Anita Bryant was doing the whole

27:12

anti-gay thing? Sure. Anita

27:14

Bryant was, I think Miss America and she

27:17

was orange juice lady and she

27:19

came out with this whole thing about God didn't make

27:21

this to happen. God wants

27:23

to be a man and a woman. And

27:26

this is, so she had this whole thing

27:28

and she got some traction and

27:30

then some repercussions

27:34

and the Hollywood community was up in

27:36

arms. And Aaron

27:38

Russo, producer Aaron

27:40

Russo, decided to have a

27:42

rally at the Hollywood Bowl and

27:45

invite 15, 16

27:49

different entertainers and sell

27:51

it out and rally

27:53

for human rights and human dignity.

27:57

And of course, Bette Midler was there and they

27:59

had some valedict. LA dancers and I

28:01

say the audience was like

28:03

70% gay guys, 30% Hollywood people

28:05

and then

28:10

people who supported the cause and

28:13

everybody gets out and it's going

28:16

really well and then Pryor

28:19

walks on stage and

28:23

he says everybody is talking about this

28:27

being about human rights and

28:31

human dignity and

28:33

the freedom of choice. What

28:36

this rally is really about is

28:39

the right to suck a dick. All

28:48

you motherfuckers want the right

28:50

to suck a dick and

28:52

you should have the right to suck a dick as

28:54

long as the guy whose dick you're sucking wants

28:57

you to suck it then with me

28:59

that's okay. You

29:04

should have that right. Now

29:09

you would think well how are they going

29:12

to react to it? They loved it. The

29:14

whole audience goes wild. And

29:16

they said I want to say one more thing. Now

29:18

all these people that are talking about human

29:20

rights and human dignity, there

29:23

ain't one motherfucker that's come up on

29:25

this stage tonight and said

29:27

they have sucked a dick. Now

29:33

I want to tell everybody that

29:36

I have sucked a dick. I

29:42

was 12 years old, I sucked my friend

29:44

Wilbur's dick, I didn't get a Jones but

29:47

I have done it and now at

29:49

this point they

29:51

love him. And

29:55

then the drugs he was taking that night or something

29:57

kicked in or he meant to be offensive at the

29:59

beginning. and he surprised himself where they really

30:01

loved what he was doing. And

30:04

then he got really offensive and

30:08

he said things like, you

30:12

know, when they were burning

30:14

down Watts, there was no rallies in

30:16

the Hollywood bowl about human rights and

30:18

human dignity. Where

30:20

are you motherfucker's ends? You're

30:22

probably sucking dicks somewhere. That's

30:24

where you are. Wow. And

30:26

he created such

30:30

animosity that he had to like run

30:32

off the stage and run

30:34

backstage and people were chasing him because

30:36

he went from like a hero to like

30:39

a villain. And I think it was just

30:41

like something kicked in in his head and

30:44

he had to do it. He couldn't stop himself

30:46

and he just escaped because there were some

30:48

really angry people there that night. I

30:52

have never heard that. Gil, did you know

30:54

that story? No, no, that's a great story.

30:57

Yeah. And now if

31:00

you heard the, um, I knew

31:02

he was going there. You

31:05

become so predictable. Yes. Yes.

31:08

What's his name? Why do I

31:10

Marlon Brando? No, no, no. The

31:12

composer, Kurt Quincy Jones. I'm going

31:14

to help you. I'm going to

31:16

help you hang yourself. Yes. Yeah.

31:18

Quincy Jones said he was

31:20

there when Brando

31:23

and Richard Pryor got

31:25

coked up and fucked

31:27

each other. Richard Pryor and

31:30

Marlon Brando. Right.

31:33

Well, is Amelia A. Hart and Hopo Marx in the room?

31:35

He's quick. Dave,

31:44

I heard John with Mark Marin and just

31:46

talk a little bit about those standup days

31:49

about which I think something Gilbert, by the

31:51

way, a Gil Gabe was

31:53

very surprised to find out you started

31:55

at the tender age of 15. Yeah.

31:57

That's the earliest. That's the early

32:00

never heard of. He doesn't

32:03

remember it. And I don't

32:05

even remember the club that it

32:08

was. It was in Manhattan and

32:10

you know you wrote your name down

32:13

and then they just called

32:15

out your name and it was yeah

32:17

it was 15 years

32:19

old. Wow. How'd

32:22

you do? You think it was

32:24

the the Village Gate Guild or that

32:26

we've been over this? Maybe the Bitter

32:28

End? No, it could have been every

32:30

Monday round the Bitter End had a

32:33

talent night. But you never did strip

32:35

clubs, Gil, because Gabe drove strippers to the

32:37

geeks. That

32:40

was the whole thing you know when you went into an agent's

32:42

office they didn't ask how funny you was do you have a

32:44

car? That's

32:47

wild. And will you

32:49

get any action from these strippers? Oh

32:52

occasionally. Occasionally it was more

32:56

not action but it was like aggravation.

33:00

You had to drive them. They

33:03

wouldn't say much on the way to the

33:05

gig back. It was you know I told

33:07

this story on Marron that one girl tried

33:09

to kill herself with me at the same

33:11

time. She grabbed the wheel and going

33:13

all over the highway. But it was

33:15

usually just talk about how fucked

33:19

up their life was and

33:22

I became like a psychiatrist trying to

33:24

talk them out of the depression

33:26

that they were in. So

33:29

it was a time

33:32

when weekend gigs were

33:34

like the only paying gigs that there were and

33:37

all the weekend gigs include a stripper or

33:39

belly dancer. You would go

33:41

to these clubs in New England, Connecticut,

33:46

Massachusetts, make

33:48

like $60 for the weekend. You had to pay

33:50

for your own gig. You had

33:52

to pay for the hotel stay overnight. It was

33:54

a Friday and Saturday gig so I

33:58

did that for about two,

34:00

three years. Were these older

34:02

strippers who were carryovers from burlesque? Some

34:06

of them? No. Most

34:09

of them were like just, you

34:11

know, they weren't the kind of strip clubs that

34:13

there are now where, you know, girls can make

34:16

a lot of money. I see. This

34:18

was, they were making the same thing. You know, they were making

34:20

like $75 for two days. So

34:24

it was a whole different thing. But I actually

34:26

did work. What

34:28

about this one that tried to kill

34:30

herself? Can you tell me more about

34:33

that? Yes. We

34:35

still keep in contact. See

34:41

this Christmas card every year. Yeah.

34:43

She was sitting in the front of the car. We were

34:45

driving back, I think

34:47

it was from Bridgeport, Connecticut. And

34:50

all of a sudden she grabs the wheel and

34:52

she's like, my fucking life's not worth living anymore.

34:54

Fuck it. You know? And

34:58

we're swerving all over the highway

35:00

and I pull over to the side of

35:02

the road and then she calms

35:04

down a little bit. I said, okay.

35:07

Sit in the back. And she sits in

35:09

the back and we drive. And then she

35:12

grabs me from the back again and says the

35:14

same thing. I want to kill myself. I wanted

35:16

this to be over. And

35:18

then I drove to a bar and I

35:20

called the police and it came and

35:23

they kept her overnight. And then I heard the agents

35:25

told me she came back the next day. Wow.

35:30

See, Gil, you had it easy. Yeah. Gabe,

35:34

what were you starting to say about Burlesque? I

35:37

actually did a week in Burlesque. I

35:39

did a club in Kansas

35:41

City. And

35:46

then I met a stripper. We were living

35:48

together and I liked it in Kansas City, but it

35:51

wasn't working. And then they told me

35:53

that the straight man at

35:55

the Burlesque theater, there was a burlesque theater called

35:57

The Strand and it had a You

36:00

had to do four shows a day They

36:03

had 30 movies and in between the

36:05

movies. They had a burlesque show It

36:07

was four shows a day and the

36:10

straight man and the comedian had a fight The

36:13

first show ten o'clock in the morning. So

36:15

they said they need a straight man immediately Have

36:18

you ever done burlesque? I said, oh, yeah, sure And

36:23

I went over

36:25

to the theater and I got and

36:28

Magestist go see the comedian. I think his

36:31

name was slinky or stinky And

36:38

I go down to the

36:40

dressing rooms and is really

36:42

disgusting old man and he had a bruise

36:44

on his face, I guess they got into

36:46

a physical confrontation and I

36:49

said, I'm the new straight man Hey

36:52

that I Doed

36:55

a Queen's box And

36:58

I said he never did the Queen's box. You

37:00

never did the Queen's box Everybody

37:03

knows the Queen's box. I said, I don't know the

37:05

Queen's box. Can you teach it to me? I'm a

37:07

quick study Oh god, damn

37:09

it so he teaches me

37:11

the Queen's box It

37:15

was a burlesque routine and He

37:18

would be on stage with a few of the girls and

37:21

then they would leave and I would walk by and

37:23

he would say Hey, Georgie I

37:27

Haven't seen you for a while And

37:30

I'd say just came back from London.

37:33

Oh, yeah. What'd you do over there? I

37:35

went to the races at Ascot. Oh,

37:37

yeah. Well my ass got caught the bench last night

37:39

I said, no, no, this is a

37:41

big deal Races they have

37:43

races every year. Oh, did

37:45

you get a good see I said? Yeah, I

37:47

said right in the Queen's box Oh, yeah, that

37:50

was a good seat. You separate. Where'd

37:52

you sit? I'm the Queen's box I

37:55

wasn't the only one the king was there the Duke

37:57

and Duchess were a couple of the Royal Gods. Everybody

37:59

was the Queensborough, where she must have

38:01

a really big box. It's

38:07

so funny to me that, you

38:10

know, you'll feel bad

38:12

when you hear these stories about

38:14

famous comics and what became of

38:16

them like Abbott and

38:18

Costello and stuff. But when

38:20

you see the ones that didn't make

38:23

it like guys like that.

38:25

Oh, thousands and thousands.

38:28

Guys that had been in,

38:30

you know, vaudeville, burlesque, never

38:32

got a shot. Never got a sniff at

38:34

getting on television or anything like that. It

38:37

was, uh, all

38:39

the, all the cities, you know, that I went to,

38:41

there was a lot of comics and none of them

38:44

ever got a shot. I

38:46

asked Gabe if he played mob clubs, Gilbert,

38:48

and he had a couple of, he had

38:50

a couple of good stories, one that actually,

38:52

one that actually involved a relative of mine

38:54

called the Sans Sous-San. And

39:04

I remember Rodney did a

39:06

joke about it. Yeah. The Sans

39:08

Sous-San, they came up with the name Sans Sous, they'd

39:10

have another word. They thought I was throwing another San.

39:15

In Miniola. In Miniola. Right.

39:17

And the owner or the

39:20

supposed owner was Sonny

39:22

Francesi who was, you know,

39:24

a relative. Yeah. My,

39:26

my grandmother's cousin. And

39:29

he was supposedly owned the club, but there was

39:31

somebody else listed as the owner, but he was

39:33

in there every night and they

39:35

would have pretty big stars there

39:37

and they would get comedians to open

39:39

who they didn't have to pay a lot. So

39:42

I worked there one time with Frankie Avalon.

39:44

I was making $300 for

39:48

nine days and

39:51

Sonny Francesi was always friendly and said, good show,

39:53

kid, you know, good show. One

39:56

time he said, Hey, we're going to breeze

39:58

into the city. You want to come with us? And I

40:00

said, no, thanks. I got some stuff to

40:02

do. It's a good decision. Yeah.

40:07

I didn't, uh, didn't explore that.

40:09

What happened? Gilbert, I

40:11

never told you that my, my, my third

40:13

cousin was the underboss of the, uh, Colombo

40:16

family. Geez. But

40:18

then we're even because you never told me

40:20

you auditioned for Chico. Yes.

40:27

Been holding out. You guys are

40:29

even though. I do like that story

40:31

Gabe too, about if you can tell it, uh,

40:34

where you went into the club, you went in, you were,

40:36

you were in a, you were between shows and you went

40:38

to get a bite to eat. Oh

40:41

yeah. You know, the one I was in Atlantic city. In Atlantic.

40:43

Yeah. This is in Atlantic city.

40:45

Um, Gilbert will like this. Was

40:49

a club called the Pada club. I

40:51

guess this is around 1966. It

40:54

was a strip club. And

40:56

I went there. It was Monday night.

40:59

I did the first show was two shows a night. I

41:01

did the first show and went well. And

41:03

I said to the owner, um, you

41:07

know, is there a place to eat around here? Like there's some heat. You

41:10

see about five, six blocks away, there's

41:12

an Italian sandwich shop. And

41:15

they got great roast beef. They

41:17

cut it right there and ham and

41:19

Turkey, whatever you want. And

41:21

it'd be fast. So I

41:24

go to the place. I

41:26

want a roast beef sandwich. Give it

41:28

to me right away. I sit down and there's like three

41:30

old men sitting at the table. Place is pretty

41:32

empty. And one of

41:34

the old men comes over and he

41:37

says, yeah, it was a trip. I

41:39

said, yeah, thanks. And

41:44

he gives me a small

41:47

Manila envelope and he goes

41:50

back to the table. Oh God. And

41:52

I opened the Manila envelope and there's

41:54

like, I'd say like $1,500 and a picture

41:59

of a guy. And

42:03

also a white envelope that had some,

42:05

must have been some instructions or something.

42:07

So I realized

42:10

immediately what's happening and

42:12

I don't know what to do. So

42:16

I put the envelope

42:18

down, don't finish my sandwich,

42:21

walk right out of the place. As long

42:24

as I'm walking out, I had like a

42:26

sport coat and a thin 60s tie and

42:28

a guy about my age is coming in

42:30

with a sport coat and a thin 60s

42:33

tie and I get

42:36

out of there, get in my car, drive

42:38

back to the strip club and I said, look, I

42:40

have a family emergency. Someone's very sick,

42:42

I got to leave. And the guy said, well do

42:44

the second show. I said, no, I can't do the second show. It was

42:46

a life and death thing. I got to get out of here. And

42:49

I get in the car, I drive back to

42:52

New York and I didn't go

42:54

back to the Atlantic City for like three years. So

42:57

I'm not sure exactly what that was, but I

42:59

got a pretty good idea. I got a pretty

43:01

good idea too. Did they want you to kill

43:03

somebody? They

43:05

thought he was the other guy. The

43:07

guy coming in. Yeah, I pretty

43:10

much think that was it. Could

43:12

have been something else, maybe beat him up or

43:14

something. I don't know, but maybe

43:16

convince him, threaten him. I don't know what

43:19

it was. It would have

43:21

been great if you would have taken

43:23

the money and shown up. Taking the money,

43:25

yeah. Hey,

43:28

I was only making $100 for

43:30

the strip club. I got to make $1,500. Years

43:33

later, the guy sees you on cotter and goes, there's the guy

43:35

that beat the shit out of me. You

43:40

used to do a bit about

43:42

the crucifixion. Yes, yeah.

43:46

I was Howard

43:48

Cosell broadcasting the crucifixion.

43:52

I got a lot of flack about it. The

43:57

Central Park with the righteous brothers and some

43:59

people were throwing on rocks at me. And

44:01

I come up to the station and

44:03

the righteous brother says, what the hell

44:06

was going on out there? What

44:08

was happening? And I said, I don't know.

44:11

So if you did this in the wrong place,

44:15

I would get really bad reaction. Now I did

44:17

a lot of college tours where they loved it.

44:20

And you just couldn't do

44:22

this in the wrong place. Now I did the

44:24

improv and always went, well, the improv. But

44:26

I did it at Catch, Catch

44:29

the Rising Star a few

44:31

times, not with as much

44:33

success as I had at the improv. But

44:36

at Catch after one show, you know, there was

44:38

a lot of tough guys at Catch. And

44:41

there was a table and one old man came

44:43

up to me and he grabbed me by like

44:45

the part of the throat, like the turkey part of the

44:48

throat. What

44:51

the hell is the matter with you? Are

44:54

you something wrong with your head? What are you

44:56

talking about stuff like that out there? You know,

44:58

there's a lot of people very offended at stuff

45:00

like, what's the matter with you? And

45:02

then a couple of his friends grabbed us. All right, come on.

45:04

Come on. Come on. Wow. And when

45:07

I would, I got out of there,

45:09

I went back to the improv and

45:13

buddy man, Tia, Bobby Alto, a Marvin Braverman

45:15

where the Intouchables, they were at the bar

45:17

and I was telling them what happened. I

45:20

said, you think that anything's going to happen

45:22

from that? And they all said,

45:24

nah, nah, you know, I got momentarily mad. You

45:26

know, it's a comedy routine. Nobody's going to really

45:28

get that offended. So

45:32

I grabbed a drink and I'm sitting in a bar and Bud said,

45:34

there's a call for you. And

45:37

I get on the phone and the

45:39

guy says, you

45:42

don't know me, but I saw you tonight at

45:45

the catcher rising star. You

45:47

offended a lot of very good people. I want

45:49

you to know that there's a meeting going on right

45:51

now at a bar in Brooklyn and they're

45:54

deciding what to do about what

45:56

you said. And you know, if

45:58

it goes the wrong way. You

46:01

better get out of town. You don't hear from me

46:03

in like 30 minutes. You better get out of town

46:05

and stay out of town. You

46:07

won't hear from me again." And

46:10

I said, holy shit. So I

46:13

go to the bar and I

46:15

tell Buddy and Bobby what

46:17

happened. And Bobby said,

46:20

oh, when they convene a meeting like that,

46:22

they're serious. They must be really offended. The

46:25

meeting was convened. And

46:27

now I'm thinking, what am I going to do? Where am

46:29

I going to go? Why am I going to... So I'm

46:31

sitting there and then Buddy,

46:33

Manti, came up to me and he said it was me.

46:36

I made the call. We

46:38

know Buddy. That's

46:42

a great story. You

46:47

told me you finally told Cassel or

46:50

someone else had told him about that he was part

46:52

of this bit, the crucifixion. Howard Cassel at the crucifixion.

46:54

No, he told me he had heard about it. Oh,

46:56

he'd heard about it. We

46:58

were doing different, Merv Griffin show. He was

47:01

doing one right after me and

47:05

he was waiting for me to get off the stage. And

47:07

I had never met him before this and

47:10

he came up to me. So yeah,

47:12

the kid that does that routine

47:14

about me and the crucifixion. I

47:19

said, yeah, it's really not that bad. You know,

47:21

it's not nothing to do with religion. Tell

47:24

me one thing. Do I

47:26

kill Christ at the end? I

47:32

said, no. How would you know? Well,

47:35

at least you spared me that. Let's

47:44

do a segue and go from one buddy to another.

47:47

I believe you have a Buddy Hackett anecdote.

47:53

We were on a,

47:56

I think it was Celebrity Sweepstakes, one of those

47:58

game shows. pretty friendly while

48:00

we were talking. He had seen me on television.

48:02

I think this was before Carter.

48:06

And at

48:08

the end of the show, he did five shows. The other five

48:10

shows, he said, you want to go out, get something to eat?

48:13

You want to go out to eat? I

48:16

said, why? I said,

48:18

because I'm hungry. Do you

48:20

like omelets? I said,

48:23

yeah, I make the best omelets in the world.

48:25

You want to come over to my house and

48:27

have an omelet?

48:32

I said, yeah, I love to. He

48:34

goes to his house, really nice house, and he makes

48:36

a great omelet. And

48:40

we become a little friendly. He said,

48:42

you know, it's going to be my 50th birthday

48:44

at the Sahara Hotel, and everybody's coming to the

48:46

late show on Saturday night, and then we're going

48:48

to have a party. You want to come? I

48:52

said, yeah, I'd love to come. So I

48:54

go to the party,

48:56

introduces everybody, introduces me

48:59

last. He said, here's a young comedian. I see

49:01

him on TV. He's going to be really a

49:03

big star. Gabe Kaplan,

49:05

everybody applauds. And

49:07

then we talked to each other. We're really friendly. And

49:10

then one night, we're saying

49:12

goodbye. And he said, I

49:15

want to tell you one thing. 10

49:18

years from today, you're

49:20

going to look back on yourself right now, and

49:23

you're going to realize how fucking unfunny you

49:25

are. So

49:32

out of left field, you just say that. That's a lot of brick. So

49:38

in character. Now, I

49:40

heard a story that you were

49:43

on the Dean Martin show, and

49:46

you went to his dressing room and

49:49

introduced yourself. No,

49:54

no, no, sorry. But you did.

49:56

You did find your way into Jerry's dressing room.

50:00

my way with

50:02

Pat McCormick. Pat

50:06

McCormick says you want to go to Vegas

50:08

one day and we'll

50:11

leave. He wanted a gamble because he

50:13

had just got a check for $4,000 from somebody from some

50:17

show that he had written on and

50:19

we went to Vegas. He lost the $4,000 and I said

50:21

I had

50:25

never seen Jerry Lewis and he said

50:28

I know Jerry, you want to go to the show? So he

50:30

went to the show when Pat's depressed

50:32

and he's drinking and

50:34

we go up to Jerry Lewis. Oh and I got to tell

50:36

you about Jerry Lewis. It was

50:40

one point in Jerry Lewis' show a guy

50:43

is talking in front of him and

50:45

Jerry Lewis says, excuse me

50:47

sir, I'm a comedian, I'm working on

50:49

stage. What's your vocation?

50:53

And the guy stands up and he says

50:55

first two weeks in July. Jerry

50:58

Lewis had that, the audience laughed. Jerry

51:01

Lewis, you guys didn't, but

51:04

the audience laughed. But Jerry

51:06

Lewis had that guy travel

51:08

around with him for 20

51:10

years just to

51:12

do that one line. It

51:15

was a- There you go, Gil. Wow.

51:17

Not Bill Richmond. No.

51:20

No. Who later wrote for Cotter.

51:24

So then we went to Jerry

51:26

Lewis' dressing room. Pat

51:29

McCormick introduces me to Jerry. Jerry says

51:31

hi. Starts taking pictures of

51:33

me and he had these taps

51:38

on the phone, not taps, but like

51:40

recording devices where you could record any

51:44

conversation on all the phones

51:46

in the dressing room. And there

51:48

was a couple other people there and Jerry

51:50

Lewis didn't say anything else to me. And

51:53

then all of a sudden Pat McCormick passes out

51:55

on his couch and this is a

51:57

300 pound, six

51:59

foot seven. guy laying across the couch

52:01

past that. Everybody ignores it. Jerry

52:03

Lewis keeps on talking to the

52:06

people that are there and then

52:10

he leaves about 20 minutes later and actually

52:12

the first thing he says to me was, it's

52:15

your job to get him out of here. I got

52:17

a better Pat McCormick story. Oh,

52:25

how is it your job? I don't know. Yeah,

52:28

right. We're

52:31

in New York and he said, you want to go

52:33

out to dinner? I said, okay.

52:35

Where do you want to go? He said, have you

52:38

been to Elaine's? And I said, no.

52:40

He said, oh, that's the place to go now. I'll

52:42

make a reservation. So he'd

52:44

go to Elaine's for dinner. And

52:47

I'm telling a lot of stories. That's what the show

52:49

is. Okay. So we got Elaine's for dinner

52:57

and she comes up to the table and

53:00

she says, you see that table

53:02

is four people over there. They're from

53:05

the New York Times and they

53:07

say that your show and

53:10

the Fonzie show are ruining television.

53:14

Now here's the owner of

53:16

this restaurant that I'd been in for the

53:18

first time coming over and insulting me. And

53:23

I don't know what the fuck to say. I'm

53:26

thinking of what I can say. And then

53:28

Pat McCormick looks at her and says,

53:30

excuse me. And she says,

53:32

yes. He says, would

53:35

you blow

53:38

us? And

53:42

she says, what? And

53:47

he says, are you Lois?

53:55

And she said, no, I'm Elaine. This

53:58

is my restaurant. He said, oh, you're on your look

54:00

like Lois O'Connor who worked as a bar

54:02

maid at Patty's clam house. Fast

54:06

on his feet. Yeah. And she

54:08

just looks at him and leaves, but,

54:10

uh, and that was the

54:13

only time I was ever in the lane. What was the Billy

54:15

Barty line with Pat? Although

54:17

when you're going up to Vegas to see, uh, to

54:21

see Jerry Lewis, we ran into Billy Barty

54:23

at the airport and Pat saw

54:25

him first and he got him

54:27

to come over to me and

54:29

the Lee, uh, and Pat said,

54:32

uh, you requested a suppository.

54:40

Now you, you, you

54:42

mentioned, um, Fonzie and

54:45

it's funny because at that time

54:48

when Henry Winkler was biggest Fonzie,

54:51

there was like practically an identical

54:54

character on your show and

54:57

that was John Travolta as

54:59

any Bob Reno. Yeah,

55:02

there was a similarity. And

55:04

what did, what do you remember about John

55:07

Travolta? He

55:09

was really fun to work with, you

55:11

know, he, he, you know, he always

55:13

had a lot of fun doing the

55:15

bits, uh, and rehearsing. So,

55:18

uh, that's what I remember mostly.

55:20

He was pretty easy to work with and a

55:22

lot of laughs, uh, you

55:25

know, what wasn't any difficulty at all, he was,

55:27

uh, he was like, uh,

55:30

and he would come up with little bits,

55:33

he would do little funny things. He was

55:35

really, and they said, uh, one

55:38

time they wanted us to move

55:40

the table and he

55:44

picked up the table and he started

55:46

singing. It's a moving date today and

55:48

whatever you have to move. We're going

55:50

to move it right now. And he

55:52

started walking around and he

55:54

was, he was a really fun guy to work

55:56

with. To John's credit, he came

55:58

to the TV later. project, you and I

56:01

worked on the TV Land Awards when we

56:03

celebrated Codder. The enemy's a big

56:05

star, and certainly

56:07

had reasons to not come, but

56:09

did. No. To celebrate

56:11

with all of his old friends. Yeah.

56:15

And that was great to be together. We hadn't

56:18

seen each other for a

56:20

long time before that. I enjoyed working

56:22

with him. Here's a question, Gabe, from Andrew

56:24

Milner, since we're talking about Codder. Is

56:26

Gabe aware of some

56:29

unauthorized Codder tie-ins, like

56:31

a novelty single called Fonzie Meets the

56:34

Sweat Hogs, or more importantly, the softcore

56:36

porn flick, Hey There Are Naked

56:38

Bodies On My TV? I

56:42

never heard of either one of them. Well there you go. I

56:46

looked it up. There's

56:49

apparently an installment in this softcore porn

56:51

movie about, which is a spoof of

56:53

Codder called Don't Come Back Codder. I

56:57

got to see this one. Yeah. I

57:01

never heard of it. No. Who

57:03

plays me? And you

57:05

mentioned Israel for a second there.

57:07

So what were your

57:09

relation with Golda Myhair? Well,

57:15

we started dating back in 38 after

57:19

her husband died. No. I

57:22

had no relation with Golda Myhair. I

57:27

was hot doing... Is

57:29

it okay I'm telling these many stories? Yeah, man.

57:31

Yes. We enjoyed the show.

57:33

I love the show. And I'm going to make

57:36

you tell that David Fry story too, when

57:38

we come back to it. So

57:42

I'm really hot on the Tonight Show. I'm

57:44

doing all those shows you mentioned. Whatever

57:47

variety show there was on television, I'm doing

57:49

it. You did a lot of them. I'm

57:52

doing it with Douglas, Merv Griffin all the time.

57:54

So my agent gets a call

57:56

and he calls me and he says, look,

57:59

I got a call from... from the Jewish Federation.

58:02

Golda Myyer is doing what

58:04

she says is her last trip to the

58:07

United States and they're having

58:09

three fundraisers, one in

58:11

New York, one in Chicago, and one

58:14

in Los Angeles, and she wants you

58:16

to be on all three

58:19

events. But

58:22

you can't really do it because you booked for the

58:24

first two in New York and

58:26

Chicago. So I just want to

58:28

let you know this, we really shouldn't cancel the date.

58:32

And I said, no, no, no, but

58:34

I can do the Los Angeles one. Yeah,

58:37

yeah, that's fine. I said, well, let them know. So

58:40

he lets them know and he calls him

58:42

back. Well, they were disappointed and they said

58:44

that she's gonna be disappointed, but

58:47

you booked for Los Angeles. So

58:50

Los Angeles date comes and Steve

58:52

Allen was the master ceremonies,

58:54

there was a singer, I forgot who the singer

58:56

was. And Golda

58:59

Myyer was having a little reception before

59:02

the event and people were like

59:04

in a line waiting to say hello and I

59:07

get to find a line and I

59:09

say, Mrs. Myyer, I'm

59:11

so thrilled to be here and I'm so sorry

59:14

I couldn't do New York

59:16

and Chicago, but it's really

59:18

an honor to be here with you tonight.

59:21

And she looked at me and she says, you look

59:24

like a very nice young man, but

59:28

I have no idea what you're talking about. And

59:30

then I realized that, you know, they

59:39

had told me, she's not watching me on the

59:41

Tonight Show and it feels so like the recording.

59:47

They just gave me the shit because they wanted me to do

59:49

the, they wanted me to do all

59:51

three shows. At least she didn't drop the hacking line on

59:53

you. Well,

59:55

you know, Gilbert, I don't think we knew about

59:58

you, Gabe, that you wrote for David Frans. Frye.

1:00:00

Who was a favorite of ours? But you've got

1:00:03

to tell Gil what you told me about, because

1:00:05

we had Will Jordan on this podcast. Oh,

1:00:07

yeah. David

1:00:10

Frye, I knew David Frye really well. He

1:00:12

started working in the

1:00:14

village. He lived not far from

1:00:16

me in Brooklyn. And if

1:00:18

you ever went to David Frye's house,

1:00:22

you would see comedy albums,

1:00:24

Shelley Berman, Bob Newhart,

1:00:28

with their heads cut off. And

1:00:32

magazine LBJ with

1:00:35

LBJ's head cut off, Bobby Kennedy, William

1:00:38

Buckley, articles on all these people and

1:00:41

their heads were cut off. And David

1:00:44

Frye would take these little pictures of

1:00:47

these people and put them in his pocket and

1:00:49

then look at them right before he

1:00:51

went on stage. And it

1:00:53

would help him with his impressions. But

1:00:56

it just looked really strange being in the headless

1:00:59

apartment. A serial killer's house. Yeah,

1:01:02

right. I remember

1:01:04

when the Nixon movie came

1:01:06

out and they did

1:01:09

like an article in a

1:01:11

magazine talking about all the actors

1:01:13

and comedians who have

1:01:15

imitated Nixon. And the

1:01:18

one that was left out was

1:01:20

David Frye. Can't believe it. He

1:01:23

invented the Nixon. Yeah, he started it all. He

1:01:25

and I invented the Nixon, but he

1:01:27

invented like political impressions. People

1:01:30

had done occasional political

1:01:32

impression of whoever was president, but he

1:01:35

did a whole thing. His whole

1:01:37

bit was about the political impressions.

1:01:40

That was the Will Jordan thing, because that

1:01:42

was funny. Oh yeah. So David

1:01:44

Frye's working at the living room and

1:01:46

he's walking in and Will Jordan is waiting

1:01:48

in the shadows and

1:01:51

he enters the living room. And

1:01:55

he says, David. David

1:01:59

will join these says, oh, hi,

1:02:01

Will. And

1:02:03

Will says, David, you're

1:02:05

doing my Sabu. Love

1:02:12

that. And

1:02:14

Fry says, I'm doing Sabu. It's not the same

1:02:16

lines as you. David, you know

1:02:18

what I mean? You're doing my Sabu. The way

1:02:21

you're doing it, that's how I do Sabu. That's

1:02:23

my Sabu. So

1:02:27

funny. And

1:02:30

so petty. Yeah. And

1:02:33

so what is the Jack Ruby

1:02:35

story? Oh, boy. Gabe

1:02:40

and I wound up having a long

1:02:42

conversation yesterday about the JFK assassination. And

1:02:48

Gabe was at the Carousel Club. He was at the

1:02:50

place. He was at Ruby's place. Wow.

1:02:53

Dallas. Yeah, so

1:02:55

Jack Ruby was the guy that shot.

1:02:59

The guy that candidate. Right.

1:03:01

Right. Right. So I

1:03:04

don't know. This is now a story. You

1:03:08

got a 45 second version of it? 45

1:03:11

second version is tough. I was

1:03:13

in 45 second version is I

1:03:17

was in Dallas not working.

1:03:19

This is May, June 1963. I was with a stripper

1:03:23

who I drove across country from

1:03:26

Buffalo, New York with who just wanted me

1:03:29

to split the driving. And then she

1:03:31

said, you can stay with me for a week in

1:03:33

Dallas. I had about

1:03:36

$150. So I

1:03:38

wanted to do it. And

1:03:41

I met one

1:03:44

of the other strippers husbands

1:03:47

was a guy who gambled and said,

1:03:49

you want to find out where this card games and

1:03:52

I said, Yeah, yeah, I'd love to play a card

1:03:54

game. So he went to

1:03:56

this restaurant, Italian restaurant called the

1:03:58

Egyptian lounge.

1:04:01

I was owned by Joe

1:04:04

Campisi, he was pretty famous in Dallas. He

1:04:06

had a lot of restaurants and he's very

1:04:08

well known. And this other

1:04:10

guy knew him and

1:04:12

he told him about me that I was looking,

1:04:15

I was a comedian and

1:04:17

he said, I know Jack Ruby, he owns

1:04:20

a carousel, I'm going to call him and

1:04:23

see if he can use

1:04:25

anybody. And

1:04:30

whilst we were there to just find if it was a

1:04:32

poker game, and he said, yeah, yeah, there's

1:04:34

a few games around. But then he

1:04:36

came back later in the night, he said, yeah,

1:04:38

Jack Ruby said, if you go to his club

1:04:41

tomorrow, he'll talk to you. He

1:04:43

has a comedian, but he'll

1:04:46

talk to you. He's a friend of

1:04:48

mine. I said, okay. So

1:04:50

I went to the

1:04:52

carousel club and it was really worse

1:04:54

than any of the clubs that I had been in. I

1:04:56

worked in about five or six strip clubs and this was

1:04:58

worse. I

1:05:01

was upstairs and I

1:05:04

said, I'm

1:05:06

the comedian, they said, come

1:05:08

in the office and he talked to

1:05:10

me. He said, wherever you work, I said East

1:05:13

Coast, a lot of clubs. He

1:05:15

said, all right, well, the comedian's going on in five

1:05:17

minutes. Watch him, see what kind of stuff

1:05:19

he does and then put

1:05:22

a couple more girls on and then we'll put you on

1:05:24

for like 10 minutes. I'll see how you do. So

1:05:27

I watched the comedian. The comedian was a little better

1:05:29

than most of the comedians at the

1:05:31

strip clubs. And then a couple

1:05:33

of dancers went on and then

1:05:35

I went on and I did like 10

1:05:38

minutes and I got more laughs than the comic

1:05:40

because there was young guys there that night

1:05:42

and they liked me better. And I had

1:05:44

done him. I did impressions of, I

1:05:47

did Alfred Hitchcock, Lawrence

1:05:50

Welk, and one of the impressions was Bela

1:05:53

Lugosi and had a line something like,

1:05:55

I'd say, well,

1:05:57

the girls in this club, they have

1:05:59

beautiful, beautiful tits, but I like the necks.

1:06:01

The necks are very smooth. And,

1:06:04

you know, it was like a strip club kind of

1:06:06

joke. And

1:06:11

I thought I did good, so I came off stage and he's mad.

1:06:13

And he says, come

1:06:16

in the office. I walk in

1:06:18

the office. He says, do you think this is a toilet?

1:06:21

You think I'm running a toilet

1:06:23

here? And I said, no, it's

1:06:25

a really nice cloth. Nobody

1:06:30

has ever said kits on my stage.

1:06:33

How can you say tits? What's the matter with you

1:06:35

saying kits? I said, well,

1:06:37

I've done it in all the clubs I worked before. They

1:06:39

didn't seem to, you said, you don't say that in a

1:06:41

nice club. I said, I'm sorry. I just didn't

1:06:44

have a problem doing it before. And he said,

1:06:46

well, you don't say that, but you were pretty good.

1:06:49

He calmed down a little bit. He said, you were pretty good.

1:06:53

Give me a number I can reach you at. And

1:06:56

this guy is going to be here for a

1:06:58

little while longer. You know, get some

1:07:00

more experience. And I might call

1:07:02

you up and I might have you come here and try out

1:07:04

for two weeks. I

1:07:06

said, oh, great, great, great, great. They

1:07:08

said, all right. So the next

1:07:11

night we went to a

1:07:13

poker game and

1:07:15

Campese, he was there and he said,

1:07:17

Jack Ruby's coming over. He wants to talk to you. And

1:07:20

I said, he's going to give me a job. He said,

1:07:24

no, but he feels he was too rough on you. And

1:07:28

he wants to say something. So

1:07:31

Jack Ruby comes to the card game and

1:07:34

he's got something in a paper bag. He gives

1:07:36

me the paper bag and

1:07:38

there's a mask, a Halloween mask of

1:07:41

bell. Legosi in the,

1:07:43

in the, in the bag. And

1:07:46

he said, Hey, that's

1:07:49

for your bell. Legosi. But you can wear

1:07:51

that. Be funny with the bell Legosi thing,

1:07:53

but don't say tits. So

1:08:01

everybody at the games had put on the mask.

1:08:05

I tried to put on the mask and

1:08:08

you can't breathe. It has a little thing for the nose,

1:08:10

but you can't talk. You can breathe a little bit, but

1:08:12

you can't talk. And everyone said, oh, say

1:08:15

something. I said, well, there's

1:08:17

a lot of sniffs in this poker game. And

1:08:19

I took it off and that was

1:08:21

it. I never, you know, heard from

1:08:23

Jack Ruby again. But this was like- And the next time you

1:08:26

saw Jack Ruby- Yeah. It was a

1:08:28

lot of television. I was working in Lakewood,

1:08:30

New Jersey. I got a job as

1:08:33

a bellman because I wasn't making much

1:08:35

money as a comic. I got a

1:08:37

job as a bellman and I could

1:08:40

emcee The Late Show on Saturday night. And

1:08:44

when it happened, I told everybody in

1:08:46

the club, I mean, I told her at

1:08:48

the, you know, it was called Laurel

1:08:50

and the Pines. I thought, I know

1:08:52

that guy. I know Jack Ruby. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

1:08:56

Yeah. So you

1:08:58

offended the delicate sensibilities of a killer.

1:09:01

Yes. Yeah. I

1:09:03

said yes. And

1:09:06

Groucho. We

1:09:09

will return to Gilbert

1:09:12

Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast

1:09:14

after this. Right.

1:09:16

Gil, did you have something you wanted to do with Gabe?

1:09:20

Oh, can we both

1:09:22

do, you know, have

1:09:25

you heard about my uncle? Oh,

1:09:29

you have some uncle jokes. By

1:09:32

the way, did those Connor jokes originate? Some of

1:09:35

them in the strip clubs? They

1:09:37

were old jokes. They were

1:09:39

old jokes, but they just, just, I heard,

1:09:42

you know, I used to go see comedians.

1:09:44

There was a club in Brooklyn

1:09:46

called Ben Maxxix. It was a

1:09:48

huge cavernous place. And

1:09:50

during the week, you could just go there and

1:09:52

sit in the back and you would

1:09:55

see, um, these

1:09:57

comics that would open and, you know, they, they had a

1:09:59

lot of fun. lot of jokes. Most of them

1:10:01

were telling jokes. So they were

1:10:03

all jokes that I had seen in the

1:10:05

Borscht Belt in

1:10:07

nightclubs. And I just switched them around and

1:10:09

say my uncle said this and my uncle said that. Nice.

1:10:13

Now, also, we were, Frank and

1:10:15

I were talking about how, I

1:10:18

mean, you, you know,

1:10:20

I remember when you

1:10:22

used to do your

1:10:24

bit on Arnold Horschach

1:10:26

and stuff at Catch Your Arms

1:10:28

and Star. So you created that

1:10:31

show and you were, wound up

1:10:33

being pushed out of the show

1:10:35

that you created. Yeah,

1:10:38

sort of. It was always a conflict between

1:10:40

me and Comack, who was the executive producer.

1:10:42

He always saw the show as a different.

1:10:46

Comack, you know, he wasn't without talent, but

1:10:48

his, if you, I don't

1:10:51

know how many people remember Chico and the Man,

1:10:53

probably 10% of your audience. And the courtship of

1:10:55

Eddie's father before that. Well, those

1:10:57

were Comack shows. I was Comack in charge

1:10:59

doing what he thought was funny. And

1:11:03

he didn't understand my

1:11:06

concept of Welcome Back Hatter. There was four

1:11:09

guys who are different ethnic backgrounds, they're

1:11:11

the best of friends and they're funny,

1:11:13

they're underachievers and the teacher tries

1:11:16

to help them adjust in life

1:11:18

and become something. And he just

1:11:21

always went for something

1:11:23

different than what I thought was funny.

1:11:26

So we had conflicts. And by

1:11:28

the fourth year, I always thought that

1:11:32

it was really strange because some of the sweat arcs

1:11:34

were like in the twenties when we started filming.

1:11:38

And then I was, yeah. Right.

1:11:44

And they still wanted to do the same thing. And I

1:11:46

said, you know, it just doesn't work

1:11:48

anymore. It's getting

1:11:50

to look really strange. And

1:11:53

so we reached an agreement that

1:11:56

I would do like four or five shows

1:11:58

the last year. And then. Comack had

1:12:00

his way and hired a

1:12:02

group of writers who agreed with what

1:12:04

his concepts were and did his

1:12:07

version, Welcome Back Carter, in the fourth year. Did

1:12:11

Gloria Swanson audition for Carter or is that

1:12:13

bullshit? I found that on the web. I

1:12:18

would say that's bullshit. Just

1:12:21

to show you how unreliable IMDB

1:12:24

is, that she

1:12:26

auditioned before Woodman was changed to a

1:12:28

male, the principal. There was some rumor.

1:12:31

It was always a male. Okay, so there you go. Internet

1:12:35

BS. How did they

1:12:37

explain why Carter wasn't

1:12:39

around anymore? They

1:12:42

explained it in the Comack way,

1:12:46

not really an explanation. I was sick. I

1:12:50

didn't watch many of the shows in the last year, but

1:12:53

there was no real explanation, just that I was

1:12:55

out of town doing something. And

1:12:58

Marsha was in teaching. All of a sudden, the

1:13:00

teacher's wife is a teacher. They

1:13:02

had other guests. Delores

1:13:05

showed up. Delores was a

1:13:07

teacher for a while, so it

1:13:09

sort of didn't make any

1:13:11

sense, but Comack

1:13:14

got what he wanted. He was in charge.

1:13:16

Well, you had a vision for adapting to the

1:13:18

times, and you just ran into that old network,

1:13:20

the network laziness. They didn't want to change horses.

1:13:22

They wanted to keep flogging it. Yeah,

1:13:25

I thought it would be great if Carter

1:13:27

gets a job at a junior college. Yeah,

1:13:29

it made sense. And then the

1:13:31

first day, who shows up? There they

1:13:33

are. They graduated. Now

1:13:36

they're in his class there. Or you

1:13:38

change some of the guys. Couple

1:13:41

are out, and then maybe they have a

1:13:43

couple of guest appearances once or twice a year, but

1:13:45

you get a couple of new kids who really look

1:13:47

like they're in high school. They

1:13:49

wouldn't go for that at the time. Well, I

1:13:52

always thought it was funny. They

1:13:54

used to show the Valerie boys

1:13:57

all the time on TV. thought,

1:14:00

okay, these are supposed to be

1:14:02

some troublesome, troublesome,

1:14:05

juvenile delinquent boys.

1:14:08

And they were all like, you know, had

1:14:11

like, drunken lines in her

1:14:13

face and like,

1:14:15

balding and potbellies. Yeah,

1:14:19

they always, always stayed too long at

1:14:21

the fair. Gil,

1:14:24

did you want to try your, your, your,

1:14:26

your, your cotter ask jokes on

1:14:28

Gabe? Is Gabe gonna do any?

1:14:33

I'll think of some. Go ahead. Okay. Did

1:14:35

I ever tell you about my

1:14:37

aunt Edna Gottfried? Edna

1:14:40

walked into a dentist office,

1:14:42

took off all of her

1:14:44

clothes, and spread her legs

1:14:46

wide open. The dentist said,

1:14:48

I think you have the

1:14:50

wrong room. And

1:14:52

Edna said, you put

1:14:55

in my husband's teeth last

1:14:57

week. Now you have

1:14:59

to remove them. Says

1:15:02

cotter after dark. My

1:15:09

uncle Stanley Gottfried, uncle

1:15:12

Stanley and a woman started to

1:15:14

have sex in the middle of

1:15:17

a dark forest. After

1:15:19

about 15 minutes, uncle

1:15:22

Stanley gets up and says,

1:15:24

damn, I wish I had a

1:15:27

flashlight. The woman says,

1:15:29

me too. You've been eating grass

1:15:31

for the past 10 minutes. Our,

1:15:35

our game. Tell

1:15:41

you about my

1:15:43

hand. Lorraine Gottfried.

1:15:46

No, no, you never did, Gil. Aunt

1:15:50

Lorraine walks out of the

1:15:52

shower, wings at her boyfriend

1:15:54

and says, honey, I shaved

1:15:57

myself down there. You know

1:15:59

what? That means, and the

1:16:01

boyfriend says, yeah, it means

1:16:03

the drain is clogged again.

1:16:08

Did I ever

1:16:11

tell you about my

1:16:13

uncle Leo, Godfrey? Uncle

1:16:16

Leo saw a lady with

1:16:18

big breasts. He asked, excuse

1:16:20

me, can I bite your

1:16:22

breasts for a thousand dollars?

1:16:24

She agrees. They go to

1:16:26

a secluded corner. She

1:16:29

opens a blouse. The man puts

1:16:31

his face in her breasts for

1:16:33

10 minutes. Eventually the lady

1:16:36

says, aren't you going

1:16:38

to bite them? He says, no,

1:16:40

it's too expensive. We

1:16:44

can stop you there, Gil. Georgia

1:16:48

gave how did he know? Those

1:16:52

would have been great on Carter. The

1:16:55

ABC sensor would have loved them. You

1:16:57

might have to clean that up somewhat. No,

1:17:00

no, just go with it. Gabe

1:17:02

still owns the Carter franchise, Gil, so

1:17:04

you could bring it back. Oh

1:17:07

my God. Welcome back, Godfrey. We,

1:17:11

we own it, me and Alan Sacks,

1:17:14

who was co-created, we, we own it

1:17:16

for everything but network television. So

1:17:19

for movies, uh, plays,

1:17:22

they didn't pay a certain price that they had to pay.

1:17:24

So they, Warner Brothers only owns

1:17:26

it for a network TV. So

1:17:28

Gilbert, we could do it.

1:17:32

And one of our guests

1:17:34

on the podcast was John

1:17:36

Sebastian. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

1:17:38

Great song. No,

1:17:40

we had, it was, it was interesting because

1:17:43

they were, they were looking for a theme song

1:17:46

and I came over the concept, let's get

1:17:49

these acts that were really

1:17:51

big few years ago to write songs

1:17:54

on spec and we'll see if we get

1:17:56

anything good and John Sebastian

1:17:58

was one of them and D. Dion, Dion

1:18:01

and the Belmonts came up with a great

1:18:03

song too, a really great

1:18:06

song. And it was really close between the

1:18:08

two songs. The original

1:18:10

title was Carter. And

1:18:13

then they changed it right before they aired

1:18:16

the first show to Welcome Back Carter. I

1:18:18

think Kottish would have been a good title. The

1:18:22

fourth year, that would have been a good

1:18:24

one. The fourth year, Kottish. What's the Jack

1:18:26

Carter story, Gabe? Oh! Oh,

1:18:30

you like Jack Carter stories? I love

1:18:32

them! We feed on them. Jack

1:18:35

Carter, he was from that time in

1:18:37

show business where you had

1:18:40

to open up with a song. Yes,

1:18:42

yes! When you're

1:18:44

smiling, when you're smiling. How

1:18:47

about these buffets at the cruise ships? You ever

1:18:49

see one of them? But

1:18:52

he had to have that. When you're smiling before you do

1:18:54

it. So Freddie

1:18:56

Roman calls me up one

1:18:59

time and he says, I'm going to do Catskills on

1:19:01

Broadway in Chicago and

1:19:03

Dick Capri and Mel Z Lawrence aren't available.

1:19:05

So I'm going to do it with you

1:19:07

and Jack Carter. You want to do it?

1:19:10

I said, that'd be fun. I never met Jack Carter.

1:19:13

And we go to Chicago, we're doing Catskills

1:19:16

on Broadway. And Jack Carter was

1:19:18

a pretty nice guy. I heard

1:19:20

stories about him. When

1:19:22

we went out to eat, he did send things back.

1:19:25

That was something that I heard and he really did

1:19:27

it like two, three times on every meal. I

1:19:30

don't like this. Can you do something? And

1:19:32

he would bother the waiting. And they knew

1:19:35

about him and he would do it. He

1:19:37

would send things back. But one

1:19:39

day we had lunch, the three of

1:19:41

us and Jack, we were like

1:19:43

in a shopping center and Jack Carter said, I

1:19:46

need a shirt, a new shirt for tonight's show. And

1:19:50

three of us, we go schlepping

1:19:53

into store, Neiman Marcus, wherever it

1:19:55

was. And

1:19:57

there's a 20 year old sales lady.

1:20:01

behind the men's shirt department.

1:20:04

Jack looks up there and he says, I

1:20:07

need a shirt. I'm in show business.

1:20:09

I need a shirt tonight and I want a shirt

1:20:12

with a Billy Eckstein collar. What

1:20:16

the hell? And

1:20:20

she says, is that a designer? He says, no.

1:20:23

Billy Eckstein, Mr. B. You don't know Mr. B. What's

1:20:25

the matter with you? She said,

1:20:27

no, I don't know who that is. He

1:20:30

thought everybody was in show business in 1950. And

1:20:38

do tell Gil quickly the London Lee story. Because

1:20:41

that one... So

1:20:43

London Lee, I knew London Lee from New York and

1:20:45

he was really hot at one point. He was on

1:20:47

the Sullivan show all the time. Oh, yeah. With

1:20:50

the poor little rich kid. And

1:20:52

then he ran into a real

1:20:55

dry period. And somehow we taped

1:20:57

the first year of Welcome Back Hot in NBC. Somehow

1:21:00

he got on the Tonight Show again. And

1:21:04

he came by to say hello. He said, I

1:21:06

hope something happens here tonight. This is really important

1:21:08

for me. And finally got back on the Tonight

1:21:10

Show and was a good luck.

1:21:13

And he went on. He did a stand up. He

1:21:16

did okay. And they told him,

1:21:18

no panel. And

1:21:21

he walked over. He started to walk over the

1:21:23

panel trying to push things. And

1:21:26

Freddie the Caughtiver physically stopped him. He just

1:21:28

went out of there. Get

1:21:30

out of here. Get

1:21:32

out of here. So

1:21:34

Carson had never

1:21:36

seen anything like that. So Carson, all right, that

1:21:39

was London Lee. We'll be right back.

1:21:43

Get out of here. Nobody

1:21:45

had ever violated. You

1:21:50

were told whether you were going to do panel

1:21:53

or whether you weren't going to do panel. And

1:21:55

I don't think anyone had ever violated that. And

1:21:57

London Lee was a fan of that. first

1:22:00

one to try to sneak on the

1:22:03

path. I

1:22:08

love these stories. Gabe,

1:22:10

tell us a little bit, you know, we

1:22:12

didn't get to the the article. We didn't

1:22:14

get to talk about about

1:22:16

Robert Conrad. That's okay.

1:22:18

I think I'm gonna I'm gonna try and do

1:22:21

that as a miniseries to show

1:22:23

what television was like in the 70s when

1:22:25

there was three networks. And all

1:22:27

of a sudden they have this what really

1:22:29

was the first reality show. Yeah. About you

1:22:32

know they based it on the superstars

1:22:34

competition on the weekends where athletes would

1:22:37

compete in other sports other than

1:22:39

their own. And they decided

1:22:41

to have this competition and just

1:22:44

taking what it was like when there's

1:22:46

only three networks and how big each

1:22:48

celebrity was and putting them together

1:22:50

in an athletic competition which was

1:22:52

the earth of reality TV really.

1:22:55

And because I think Robert Conrad got

1:22:58

so upset that time and we did

1:23:00

have that that really made

1:23:03

the networks feel oh there's something in this

1:23:05

type of entertainment and

1:23:07

it was like the kickoff to reality

1:23:09

television. We will direct our listeners

1:23:11

to the Emmy magazine article that you

1:23:13

wrote called Macho and Malibu which is

1:23:16

a terrific read about not

1:23:18

only your run-in or run-ins with

1:23:20

Robert Conrad but everybody you

1:23:22

just it's a great trip down memory

1:23:24

lane to see those names. Yeah

1:23:27

and it was it

1:23:29

was great to get together with him after

1:23:32

all those years and you had to completely

1:23:34

bury the hatchet and become like friends. That's

1:23:36

nice. Although he did threaten to kill you

1:23:38

in a German accent at

1:23:41

one point. Yes.

1:23:45

On the first battle the network starts he said

1:23:48

one of the telly's of Alice he said he's

1:23:50

Greek the Greeks are great athletes

1:23:52

and then he pointed me he's

1:23:55

Jewish he wants to negotiate and

1:23:57

I'm German I want to kill both of

1:23:59

them. Our

1:24:04

listeners have to find this article. There's

1:24:06

great stuff about Telly Savalas. You know,

1:24:08

you running with your hair, trying to

1:24:10

prevent your hair piece from falling off.

1:24:13

It's truly funny. And it's surreal. You

1:24:16

know, Co-cel and Bruce Jenner are

1:24:18

doing color commentary

1:24:20

and Farrah Fawcett has

1:24:22

no faith in you whatsoever. You have a

1:24:24

great line in the article. She looked –

1:24:26

because Robert Conrad looked like an athlete and

1:24:28

you looked like a guy who hangs around

1:24:30

a delicatessen. Right.

1:24:33

Right. She did not think

1:24:35

I could beat him. I didn't

1:24:37

know Farrah auditioned for Mrs. Cotter. Yes,

1:24:40

she did. This is also

1:24:42

fascinating. Aunt Comax said something

1:24:44

that was very insightful for him. He said

1:24:47

nobody would believe she would marry you. And

1:24:58

tell us about your daughter as a comedy writer,

1:25:00

your daughter Rachel. Yeah. She's a comedy writer.

1:25:02

She worked on Bojack Horseman. Funny show. Yeah,

1:25:06

she started out as the writer's assistant and then

1:25:08

she became a full-fetch writer, wrote a

1:25:10

couple episodes, actually got me on an episode.

1:25:14

I did an episode

1:25:16

with Richard Lewis. We played

1:25:18

an old comedy team writer – a

1:25:21

team of comedy writers. And now

1:25:24

she's writing her own

1:25:26

show. I think she's got some kind of deal

1:25:28

with Amy Schumer's company. So I hope that

1:25:30

comes through for her. That's great. Keeping it in the

1:25:32

family. Yeah. I'm

1:25:34

convinced Gilbert's son is going to go into comedy. Don't

1:25:36

you think, Gil? There's

1:25:39

no keeping that kid out. Yeah. We've

1:25:43

got to thank Dave at Patch's

1:25:45

Sound in L.A., who

1:25:47

came to our rescue with this episode. So thank

1:25:49

you so much, Dave. Thank you to Patch's Sound.

1:25:52

This was a really touch and

1:25:55

go until the last minute, whether

1:25:57

we'd be interviewing Gabe.

1:26:00

It also took seven years to get them. Yes.

1:26:03

We don't give up. Gino

1:26:06

Salamo never surrenders. So

1:26:08

thank you. Thank you. I got a

1:26:10

lot of emails. Gilbert loves

1:26:12

to thank Gino. So a

1:26:16

lot for Gino. Gino was really nice guy. Persistent

1:26:19

for the nice guy. Gabe, do you have one

1:26:21

for us? Do you have one

1:26:24

relative joke? I

1:26:28

got a lot of them. The one I think that

1:26:30

people reacted the best to

1:26:33

was my uncle Bill goes over to see

1:26:35

my uncle John. He said, John, what's happening?

1:26:37

John said, well, I'm trying to sell my car. Nobody's

1:26:39

buying it. He said, how many miles you got on

1:26:41

it? So I got 126,000 miles on it. He

1:26:45

said, Johnny, nobody's going to buy a car with 126,000 miles on it.

1:26:49

You know what you got to do? Is the car in good

1:26:51

shape? He said, yeah, car's in pretty

1:26:53

good shape. He said, lower the odometer. You know

1:26:55

how to do that. Just lower that odometer. You

1:26:57

lower the odometer, you'll sell your car. It's

1:27:00

okay. He comes

1:27:02

back the next week. He said, well, John, you sell your car? He

1:27:05

said, no, I'm not going to sell it. I only got 32,000 miles on it. There

1:27:09

you go. It's

1:27:15

not quite false teeth in the vagina. No.

1:27:20

But, but, uh, Gabe, if you

1:27:22

bring back Connor, you can do

1:27:24

the false teeth. I am trying

1:27:26

to do the false teeth in

1:27:28

the vagina. Okay. That's

1:27:30

the number one. That's the first joke. Gabe,

1:27:32

you are welcome here anytime. We're

1:27:35

so glad that it finally happened. No,

1:27:37

it was great. It was a lot of fun. You're also

1:27:39

the most resourceful guest we've ever had, uh, which

1:27:43

we appreciate. And again, we appreciate Dave at,

1:27:45

at, at Patches Sound. Uh,

1:27:47

Gilbert, if you have no other

1:27:49

offensive material to share, although

1:27:52

you are talking to the man who

1:27:54

offended Jack Ruby. Yeah. Don't

1:28:00

ever say tits in front of Jack Ruby, David. All

1:28:05

right. What do we think, Gottfried?

1:28:08

Okay, so I'm

1:28:11

Gilbert Gottfried. This has

1:28:13

been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing

1:28:15

colossal podcast with my

1:28:17

co-host, Frank Santopadre. And

1:28:20

we've been talking to

1:28:22

Mr. Kater, Gabe

1:28:25

Kaplan. And a guest I worked with for

1:28:27

a change on this damn show. Gave

1:28:31

a pleasure, as it was eight years ago or

1:28:34

nine years ago whenever we did that gig. Ray,

1:28:37

it was a lot of fun, guys. I think I

1:28:39

wrote you too many Elliot Spitzer jokes, so I apologize.

1:28:41

Yes, you did. Why Elliot Spitzer? I think I used

1:28:43

one. You wrote like 14, I used one. That's my

1:28:45

life story. We

1:28:49

appreciated this a lot, and the fans are going

1:28:51

to love it. And honestly, come back any time.

1:28:54

I will. You've got to

1:28:56

open door policy here on this show. Okay.

1:28:59

Thank you, pal. I'll be back. Thank you,

1:29:01

Gabe. I've got a great

1:29:03

story about Dr. Mudd. I

1:29:14

love a Lincoln joke. See

1:29:17

you next week, all. Bye.

1:30:02

One. No

1:30:04

about. Really?

1:30:53

Them.