Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 139. In Memoriam 2016
Episode Date: January 23, 2017Gilbert and Frank pay loving tribute to some of the outstanding talents who passed away in 2016, including Robert Vaughn, George Kennedy, Carrie Fisher, Patty Duke and Garry Shandling. Also in this e...pisode: Carol Brady pitches Cheerios, Garry Marshall defends Wayne Newton, William Schallert tangles with Tribbles and Steve Allen presents Guido Panzini. PLUS: The Godfather of Gore! The Slow Talkers of America! Jack Riley's doomsday cult! Gilbert hangs with Lois Lane! And we bid farewell to the Green Hornet (and Cato). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Tennessee sounds perfect. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre.
We're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa.
We are.
Happy New Year, everybody.
Now, one thing I'm very proud of.
Let's hear it.
To announce.
We were told.
I know where you're going.
Yes.
We were told that, and I'm not making this up, the Russians, the Russians, ladies and
gentlemen, were trying to hack our podcast.
It's like these were the Russians who years ago were trying to get the secret to the atom bomb, find out how to get to the moon before us.
Now they're trying to get Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast.
I don't know whether we can say this, but Gilbert is now receiving daily briefings from the intelligence community.
Trump is not taking the briefing, so Gilbert has stepped in.
Apparently Putin is a huge Cesar Romero fan.
Yes!
Who knew?
Well, we got an email from John Seals, our webmaster,
explaining that some Russian hacker...
Yes!
I thought it was a joke.
Too early for April Fool's.
These may be the Russians from The Russians Are Coming.
Yes, yeah, it could be.
Well, we have a guest associated with that movie
who may be able to answer that for us coming up.
How's that for a little teaser?
Oh, that's a tease.
We won't say who.
And so America might think this podcast is a piece of shit, but I guarantee in Moscow, we're number one.
This brings me back to all those James Bond discussions we've had.
Yes.
Yes.
We'll get back.
We should do another Bond episode. You know what we should do an episode on is the Twilight Zone. Yes. Yes. We'll get back. We should do another Bond episode.
You know what we should do an episode on is the Twilight Zone.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, we're doing an in-memoriam episode here.
There was such a positive response to our last one, 2015.
It's strange, but we are.
People's deaths did so well the first time.
One of the funniest shows we've ever done.
But Earl Hamner Jr., the creator of the Waltons, passed this year.
Oh!
And he was a Twilight Zone writer and wrote, I was looking up his credits in which Twilight Zone episodes,
he wrote one of my favorites, which was called Stopover in a Quiet Town.
Do you know that one?
Was this Willoughby?
No, this one with Barry Nelson and his wife wake up in a strange house,
and they don't recognize, Barry Nelson, the original James Bond, by the way.
Yes, yes.
They wake up in a strange house, and they don't recognize anything,
and it turns out to be, and they keep hearing a little girl laughing.
Do you know this one?
Oh, yes, yes.
And it turns out they're in a dollhouse, and the little girl's hand comes down.
Oh, yes. And then Serling comes out at the end and talkshouse. They're in it. And the little girl's hand comes down. Oh, yes.
And then Serling comes out at the end and talks about the dangers of drunk driving.
It's a very surreal episode.
Many people who drive and drink often fancy themselves inside a dollhouse.
Well, the couple wakes up having been on a bender the night before and they have no memory.
Right.
But it's a very powerful anti-drinking and driving message.
Willoughby is a good one.
Willoughby is a great answer.
Earl Hamner did not write that one.
You know what would be fun on that would be to look at all the actors who went on to big careers after Twilight.
Charles Bronson.
Robert Redford.
Yeah, Robert Redford.
Shatner, of course.
Oh, yeah.
So many.
Yeah, there's a lot.
Oh, Ted Knight. Yeah, Klugman. Ted Knight. Yeah. Jonathan Redford. Shatner, of course. Oh, yeah. So many. Yeah, there's a lot.
Ted Knight.
Yeah, Klugman.
Ted Knight.
Yeah.
Jonathan Winters.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So, but this episode is... This is not the Twilight Zone.
This is not the Twilight Zone episode.
Although we should get Ann Serling and talk about great Twilight Zone episodes.
Oh, absolutely.
Because she tours and talks about her dad all over the country.
This is in memoriam 2016, and we lost a lot, a lot of wonderful people this year.
And the thing about this podcast is somehow or other, you and I have become,
you notice this, that the second that somebody passes, we get a tweet about it,
and it's either, oh, you guys blew it.
Oh, yes.
You lost another one.
Yes.
You're making me feel personally responsible, making me feel terrible, doubly terrible about the passing of people like Fivish Finkel.
Oh, my God, yes.
But somehow or other, my Facebook page has become a depository for obituaries.
For every actor.
That's a rare distinction.
My wife, yeah, my wife can't get over it.
But we decided to talk about some of the people we lost,
including some people who did this show.
Oh, yes.
But you, we just lost a giant, a couple of giants.
One person you worked with and one person you said you had a story about.
Yeah.
I guess we can start there, and that's carrie fisher and and debbie reynolds
and that was surreal the two of them dying very in consecutive days and you know on both of them
they were preparing obituaries years ago probably on both of them yeah well carrie had a hard life
yeah she lived she lived a hard life but you worked with her on a Comedy Central roast.
Yes, yes.
I was on the Roseanne Barr roast.
Yeah.
And I was sitting next to her and we got to talk.
But Debbie Reynolds years ago at some event came up to me.
Really?
Yeah, and she said she was a fan.
That's nice.
Which was she didn't want to do the podcast years later. No, she turned it down.
Because she's not Russian.
Right.
Had you told me this, that you met her and that she was a fan,
I would have pursued her a little more aggressively than we did.
Because I worked with her, too, on the old Joy Behar show.
Oh, yeah.
At HLN, and she was bawdy.
Oh, yes.
I can't understand her liking your comedy. Yeah. She was bawdy. Oh, yeah. I can't understand her liking your comedy.
Yeah.
She was edgy.
She was definitely had that sense of humor.
That was certainly not the image, however.
Not at all.
Our researcher Paul Rayburn is here, too, we should point out.
Which I still don't know what the fuck he said.
I think any of the dead celebrities are more important to me than Paul.
I did work very hard to be unprepared.
Yes.
He has Russian blood.
He might come in handy.
Oh, and Carrie Fisher.
Yeah.
Oh, you were going to say something about Debbie Randall?
No, just that she was on the Bayhawks show.
I was a writer there a couple years ago, and she came on, and she was talking about Eddie Fisher
and making fun of his
the size of his manhood.
I mean, she
was
I was taken with her.
She had
a dark sense of humor.
A bawdy sense of humor. She had her on the show.
We could have talked about
celebrity dicks.
Well, now that one's really bugging me
and i got to meet carrie too uh my my wife is a fan so i was sitting next to carrie fisher on the
roseanne bar roast and carrie fisher looked at me at one point and said you are exactly my type Dara isn't listening
and I said
what's your type
and she goes little cute and funny
isn't that nice
yeah so I could have fucked her
had she not died
God finds out
who wants to fuck me and kills them
probably Amy Winehouse God finds out who wants to fuck me and kills them.
Probably Amy Winehouse wanted to fuck me.
And Whitney Houston probably wanted to fuck me.
And Jonathan.
Oh, yes.
I see we're starting this on a sentimental note. Oh, yes.
So, yes, so we lost two giants in Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher,
and that was sad and shocking.
I have a list here.
I don't know where to begin.
We'll start with some other luminaries.
Let's see.
Well, Alan Rickman, the great British actor, died.
He was not terribly old.
Love his work.
Of course, Die Hard, Robin Hood, a movie called Truly, Madly, Deeply that I love.
That's a great movie.
I love that movie.
Gene Wilder, we already talked about on an earlier show, but that one was particularly heartbreaking.
How about this one?
David Huddleston. Does anybody know the name
David Huddleston? Yes. He was in whatchamacallit, that one with Jeff Bridges. Well, he was. He was
the title role. Oh, yes. He was the big Lebowski. Right. He was also in the more current, I think the more current producers.
Oh, that's right.
He was the judge.
Yeah.
And speaking of Gene Wilder, he was in Blazing Saddles.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
He's one of those actors that I guarantee look up the name and he's one of those.
Oh, that guy.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, who can argue with that?
Robert. though oh that guy yeah absolutely now who can argue with that i think we're all indebted to gabby johnson for clearly stating what needed to be said i'm particularly glad that these lovely
children were here today to hear that speech not only was it authentic frontier gibberish
it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.
What are
we made of?
Our fathers came across the prairie,
fought Indians,
fought drought, fought locusts, fought
dicks. Remember when Richard Dicks came
in here and tried to take over this town?
Well, we didn't give up
then, and by
gum, we're not going to give up now.
Rabbit.
Rabbit.
And he was also, I think he came on, what's that one?
Oh, I'm forgetting everything.
Where the kid is remembering his past.
Oh, fuck. The kid is remembering his past. Oh, fuck.
The kid is remembering his past.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's kind of where it's narrated.
A Christmas story?
No, well, it's like the show that was like.
Oh, The Wonder Years.
The Wonder Years.
Yeah.
I think he showed up as the grandfather.
That sounds right.
Yeah.
Well, you guys know David Huddleston.
He was Santa Claus in Santa Claus the Movie.
Yeah.
It definitely is.
Look up the name and you'll go, oh, hell. He was Santa Claus in Santa Claus the Movie. Yeah. It definitely is.
Look up the name and you'll go, oh, him. He was in everything.
I remember in The Producers, the new one, the one laugh that it had, because it wasn't
a very good...
It worked on stage.
Yeah.
It didn't work very well as a film.
When Matthew comes back, you can...
I'll open the interview like that.
Yeah.
You can nail him on that. See, I like open the interview like that. Yeah, you can nail him on that.
See, I like Matthew Broderick, and I think he's a good actor, but I hate every movie.
Oh, that's true.
Not true.
No, but Matthew, thank you again for doing this show.
Yeah.
He did it when he was doing a play.
We're indebted to him. We'll never forget him. And he had a rush
here and rushed to... Right, it was
Manatee Day. He came up between the Manatee and the Evening.
I don't know how he could do that. Yeah, between
two live shows, he came
here and went back. Real sweet of him.
And, um, but I still
didn't like Ferris Bueller's
Day Off. Or the producer's musical.
In the producer's, the one laugh I remember is when Matthew shows up at the courtroom
with Uma Thurman and Huddleston, as the judge goes, that woman's your wife?
And she goes, he wouldn't have sex with me unless we were married.
And Huddleston goes, what a schmuck.
Very funny actor.
Yeah.
As long as we're talking about character actors, and we're going to do a little jumping around here because I didn't really put these in any kind of order.
Bernard Fox, we talked about.
Dr. Bombay.
Oh, my God, yes.
From Bewitched and Titanic and many, many other things.
And the thing with him is people were shocked,
absolutely shocked to find he was still living.
Oh, yes.
All these years.
He was one of those guys.
That guy had to have died years ago.
Forgotten but not gone.
Forgotten but not gone.
Everybody else from Bewitched is dead.
Right.
Everybody except for the actress who played Tabitha.
William Christopher we just lost.
Father Mulcahy.
Oh, my God.
That's right.
A couple of.
He was the one who just made it before like the New Year's.
Yes.
He was, I think, the last famous, well, the last prominent death, celebrity death of 2016.
Because I knew there would have to be one more.
It was New Year's Eve.
And you know what was freaky?
Wayne Rogers died last New Year's Eve.
Oh, wow.
Two actors from MASH.
He was, I mean, picturing him in MASH, he must have been very young.
I mean, he looked like he was barely old enough to be a priest.
Yeah.
He was in a lot of other things, I found, in doing a little research.
Yeah.
Yeah, and he and Jamie Farr played hippies in the classic When Six You Get Egg Roll.
Oh, my God!
With Six You Get Egg Roll.
Let's see, who else did we lose?
Here's some other character actors that I know Gilbert will appreciate.
Dan Haggerty.
Oh, yes.
Played Grizzly Adams.
Yes.
On television, died.
Ken Howard.
You remember Ken Howard?
What was the basketball?
The White Shadow.
The White Shadow.
Yes.
Yes, Ken Howard.
And Curb Your Enthusiasm in recent years.
And also a former president of SAG.
These are some character actors.
Here's a name, Janet Waldo.
Do you know Janet Waldo?
I don't.
She was the voice of Judy Jetson.
Oh, wow.
Yes.
And she died at 96.
And she was also the voice of Josie from Josie and the Pussycats.
And Penelope Pitstop from the Wacky Racers.
Oh, geez.
And if anybody remembers that.
And, you know, because nobody that listens to this show, as you pointed out, is under 50.
Yeah.
As long as I'm doing character actors, let's see.
Here's some names and some people that we've talked about on the show and that you guys will appreciate.
Oh, we just talked about the Coen brothers and the Big Lebowski.
Here's another actor from the Big Lebowski.
Do you know the actor John Pulito oh yes yes was he also in because i mean i get him confused with another
actor was he also in big eyes uh oh yes i think he was in big eyes he was the the nightclub right
little guy you know john palito play in lebowski in Lebowski. He was the private eye that's trailing the dude.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Always like a sneaky guy.
Always very.
He's in The Rocketeer.
Yeah.
One of my favorite character actors, but really shines in a movie that's a vehicle for him called Miller's Crossing.
That was a Robert Altman, wasn't it?
No, it was the Coen brothers.
Coen brothers.
Miller's Crossing.
Miller's Crossing.
What's the one I'm thinking of? Miller something. Isn't there an Altman, wasn't it? No, it was the Coen brothers. Coen brothers. Miller's Crossing. Miller's Crossing. What's the one I'm thinking of?
Miller something.
Isn't there an Altman movie and a mining camp?
Oh, McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
There you go.
That was a Miller in there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a Warren Beatty picture.
I told you I wasn't prepared.
He wasn't.
Well, you prove it every show.
Every show.
You don't have to.
That's being redundant.
I'm so proud.
We love John Pulido.
Only 65.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, he was ill.
How about this?
Yeah, because he was always those guys you couldn't trust.
Yeah, always.
Sizing, sizing, a famous Seinfeld episode.
Really just a terrific, versatile actor.
Somebody who would have been good for
this show, actually. Oh, my God.
Once again. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot
of that going around. Okay, here's somebody
that was really in our demographic.
Fivish Finkel. Oh,
my God, yes. We lost Fivish
at the ripe old age of 93.
And we talked
about, when we had Marilyn Michaels in here,
we were talking about the Yiddish theater
yeah and Fivish started in the in the Yiddish theater he was Philip Finkel oh wow so Fivish
was it was uh I guess is his uh maybe a stage name or a nickname I'm glad though that I got to see
him live where did you see him in yeah it was a couple of years ago in New York.
He was performing.
And he did like, you know, a one-man show where he sings a bunch of old songs and stuff and tells stories.
Yeah.
Did you meet him?
Oh, yeah. Did you chat with him?
Yeah.
I know he spent some time hanging around the Friars Club.
I never got to meet him.
Yeah.
Toured with Fiddler in the 60s and really didn't become famous till Picket Fences.
Till the 90s. Yeah. Picket Fences
and then he
was in the new Fantasy
Island. Was he? With
Sylvia
Sidney. I don't remember him in that. Him and
Sylvia Sidney like ran a
travel agency. She was another
character. Oh great. Sylvia Sidney.
How does somebody go from Philip to Fivish? I don't know. Doesn't he usually work the other way around?
I don't want to reveal my ignorance about the Jewish faith, so I don't know where Fivish came from.
Here's some other character actors that I know Gilbert will spark to.
Joe Santos from the Rockford Files. Oh, yes! Do you remember Joe Santos?
You know him, Paul. 84, died at 84.
A Brooklyn boy.
Yeah.
He was in the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Very famous for the Rockford Files, Panic in Needle Park.
He was a semi-pro football player, and Al Pacino helped get him into show business.
Oh, wow.
Which is fun.
I think of how great these guys would have been for the show.
Yeah.
It's heartbreaking when you hear about it. Yeah, but there's still a lot of character actors out there.
There's a lot of people for us to get.
How about this?
Character actors from Brooklyn.
Don Calfa.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, from Weekend at Bernie's and Bugsy and Barney Miller and Ten and Foul Play
and a movie I just rented called Bankshot with George C. Scott.
And Return of the Living Dead with our buddy James Caron.
Oh, my God, yes.
Yeah.
And Born in Brooklyn and Raised in My Old Neighborhood, Ozone Park.
And these are people that our listeners have been suggesting.
Like, get Don Calfa.
Oh, yeah.
And then Don Calfa dies and I feel like a schmuck.
Right.
But you can't book everybody.
I still say we could wait on them.
Well.
But you can't book everybody.
I still say we could wait on them.
What do you think?
There are more character actors from Brooklyn or from the Bronx?
I don't know, but I mean, I'm going through this list, and so many of these guys were born in New York and Brooklyn and the Bronx, which is true also of our guests.
Right. I can't believe how many guests we've had.
I've said this on previous shows, that Tony Orlando and Marilyn Michaels.
And it's a long list of people who were born here.
But so what was Brooklyn?
Were these rough neighborhoods that these people came from or more middle class?
Hard to say.
Hard to say.
I mean, Pantoliano is another guy who we had here was a local.
Just it seems to come up a lot.
Here's two guys.
Here, neither one of these guys was born in New York.
Two bumbling sidekicks, two famous bumbling sidekicks.
Andrew Sachs, do you know the name?
S-A-C-H-S.
No, that's a department store.
Well, our listeners will know.
He escaped from the Nazisis born in berlin interesting
life um most famous for playing manuel on faulty towers on the iconic faulty towers he was john
cleese's foil on faulty towers um and bert quack do you know bert quack. Bert Kwok was Kato in the Pink Panther film. Oh, Kato.
Everybody knows Kato. I remember one time seeing like some show about the Pink Panther movies where he was speaking and he spoke with an English accent.
And I remember it threw me.
He was a Brit.
Born in Shanghai.
It could have been dangerous to have him on the podcast because he might have attacked Gilbert midway through.
I think he was born in the UK but brought up in Shanghai.
Interestingly, his family lost their fortune in the Chinese Revolution in 1949, and a girlfriend talked him into trying out acting.
And he had minor roles in bond films too
kato burt quack wow yeah not to know kato not to know you can't even do that kind of comedy
today you can't call him an oriental idiot yeah my little yellow friend
the things that the seller says in those movies you you can't say today. And I just said them, of course.
Well, it's just like when they did the live action Mr. Magoo with Leslie Nielsen.
They didn't have that Chinese guy.
Oh, Cholly.
Yeah.
They didn't have Cholly.
Oh, that no good Mr. Magoo.
All right.
Well, our listeners love character actor names, so here's a great one.
Richard Libertini.
Oh, yes.
We lost this year.
He was a nutty guy.
Yeah.
He was in, oh, my God.
Was he in Cuckoo's Nest?
I think you're thinking of Vincent Schiavelli.
No, I know Schiavelli.
Was Libertini? I don'tvelli. Was Libertini?
I don't think so.
Was Libertini?
I don't think so.
He's in All of Me, the Carl Reiner picture.
And I know he was in the funniest picture, The In-Laws.
Well, he steals the show as the dictator with the Senior Wences fetish in The In-Laws.
And if our listeners haven't seen that movie, Run, Don't Walk.
Oh, very funny. And the director. We also lost the movie, Run, Don't Walk. Oh, very funny.
And the director,
we also lost the director this year, too,
of that film, Arthur Hiller.
Richard Libertini,
we talked about him with Michael McKean.
Oh, that's right.
All of me is on here.
Fletch, Fletch Lives.
Yeah, he had a big career.
Popeye.
He's in Popeye.
We talked about him with Paul Dooley, too.
Oh, yeah.
Because he's in Popeye and Dooley played Wimpy.
They hit upon it in that Andy Kaufman film with Jim Carrey.
That's right.
That he was like some faith healer, too.
Yes.
I think Schiavelli's a network executive in that movie.
Oh, that's right.
He's in Man on the Moon.
Libertini did a lot of Awakenings.
He's in everything.
And he grew up with developing
an ear for uh for dialects he was in we talked about uh talked about him with michael mckean
he was in a comedy group called stewed prunes oh with a guy named mcintyre dixon and he was
an original member of the mad show oh my god on broadway yeah in 2002 not that long ago he had a
apparently i don't know it's a stand-up show or what, called The Fourth Tenor.
There you go.
After the three tenors.
He had a big career, and he was on my list, just like Don Calfa was, and I'm sorry that we didn't get to him.
It's the saddest thing when I have to take the little flare pen and cross the name out on my giant yellow legal pad.
Every one we've named so far would have been a great guess.
I know.
We're going to do it next year, too.
Yeah.
Here's a name for you, Mr. Gottfried, fan of horror films, Angus Scrimm.
Angus Scrimm.
Does that mean anything to you?
Now, somewhere Mike McBeardo is listening to this and screaming into his cell phone or his computer.
Angus Scrimm was the tall man in Phantasm. Oh my god!
Yes! Yes!
Yeah.
An interesting guy.
Was also a writer-editor for the LA
Herald Examiner. I love to
research these people and find out that they had all
these other lives and talents.
He wrote liner notes.
He won a Grammy for writing
liner notes for Sinatra albums and for Beatle albums.
Wow.
He's got, there's some other, these should be up Gilbert's alley, I Sell the Dead.
There you go.
Oh, yeah.
2008, John Dies at the End.
Yeah, I know that picture.
Pretty good stuff.
Angus Scrimm.
You'll love this, Gil.
As a teen movie usher, he memorized all the words, all the dialogue of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman.
Oh, my God.
See, for that alone, he could have been on the podcast.
You could have done two hours with him on that.
Yeah.
Here's a household name, somebody who was a character actress who worked steadily through the 70s and the 60s
and really became famous in the 80s
on a show called Remington Steel
and then very famous later on Everybody Loves Raymond
and that's the late Doris Roberts.
Oh, my God, yeah.
Yeah, and research, she died at 90.
And researching her, her acting mentor was Shirley Booth.
Oh, Hazel.
Which I find interesting.
And we were just talking about Come Back Little Sheba.
With Mario.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She was in The Heartbreak Kid.
She was in The Honeymoon Killers.
She was in The Taking of Pelham 123.
She's got a lengthy IMDb page, and she did a lot of stuff
and was best pals with James Coco.
Oh.
Which I didn't know.
So we lost Doris Roberts.
Here are some other people.
How about Robert Vaughn?
Oh, yeah.
The man from Uncle.
That one hurt.
And there is another person.
Could have been another.
Well, kick ourselves in a different way because we actually asked him.
Now, is David McCallum still with us?
David McCallum is with us, and we should get him pronto.
David McCallum.
Well, please.
Please. Stop and smell the roses. Well, please. Please.
Stop and smell the roses.
Well, you want to still wait on five-ish.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And talk about that James Bond, Matt Helm period.
Yeah, there you go.
I was man from uncle.
You bet.
That was a good one.
Boy, those were good episodes.
And he was in I Was a Teenage Caveman.
He sure was. What one. Boy, those were good episodes. And he was in I Was a Teenage Caveman. He sure was.
What do you got, Frankie?
He's been here a bunch.
Not as much lately, but we used to do a lot of ADR for his show, the CBS show, NCIS.
He would come in.
Never met a nicer guy.
Who's that?
David McCallum.
Oh, well, let's get to get him in here.
Reach out.
I'm sure he'd be happy to do it.
He's just such a nice guy.
And David McCallum.
I don't think we've ever had a Brit on this show.
David McCallum is in that episode of Outer Limits.
Oh, indeed he is.
And his head keeps getting bigger and bigger as his brain, his IQ.
How about the other one?
Remember the other one where there's a couple of kids running around a warehouse and they find this one guy and he doesn't know what he's doing there.
The place is abandoned. I think it's Robert. it might be is it robert vaughn oh i
don't know we talk about outer limits outer limits classic thing and uh i shouldn't do the spoiler i
guess but these the he helps these kids or these people and nobody knows who he is and he doesn't
know who he is and i guess i could you know I guess he eventually discovers that he's been left there to protect the Earth.
Let's put that one out to our listeners.
If you guys know the Outer Limits.
Let me see.
I bet I can.
This is a famous Outer Limits.
Okay.
Let me see if I can find it.
But he was also the last of the Magnificent Seven.
Oh, that's right.
Robert Vaughn.
Robert Vaughn was living in Connecticut when we started this show, and we put our feelers out, and I made this master list.
Well, Gil and I sat and sat in his apartment and just make these lists of names.
And Robert Vaughn's name came up early in the process, and we found out he was in Connecticut.
And Dara and I chased him, and he said, everything I have to say is in my book.
So we were rather disappointed.
Bullet, Bridget Ramagan, Towering Inferno.
Oh, yeah.
And he was a guy who could laugh at himself.
Pootie Tang.
He was in Pootie Tang with Louie.
And Baseketball with Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
And an interesting guy.
Born in New York City.
Another New Yorker.
Died at 83.
And we're sorry we didn't get Robert Vaughn.
But we will chase David McCallum.
Oh, yeah.
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast.
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And now back to the show.
Here's another person we asked that was, oddly enough, a fan of yours.
Oh.
But turned us down.
Yes.
And that's Florence Henderson.
Yes.
Florence Henderson.
I remember I did a Cheerios commercial with her.
Mm-hmm.
And she was a lot of fun.
And she was fun on the Bayhor Show.
Yeah.
She was another one that was
bawdy oh my god come on and tell dirty jokes and she talked about how mayor lindsey gave her crabs
she was very frank did her on the show just to talk about we tried hard and gino our pal
gino salamone had a friendship with her and tried, and I don't know what happened. Yeah. And she died suddenly, too.
She was not ill.
Yeah, she had just done Dancing with the Stars.
She just suddenly took ill.
Can I go back to Outer Limits?
Hit us, man.
This is such a great episode.
Yeah, go.
It's called Demon with a Glass Hand.
Oh, that's the one that Harlan Ellison wrote.
Yeah, that's a famous.
But isn't that Robert Vaughn?
I think that's Robert Vaughn.
That's right.
He managed to stay one step ahead of some aliens by listening to advice from his hand.
Do I have the writer correct?
I bet you do.
I bet I do.
Oh, it's not Robert Vaughn.
You know who it is?
Robert Culp.
Oh, Robert Culp.
Oh, damn it.
Culp.
You're right.
I'm glad we caught that.
I did know it was Robert Culp.
It was written by somebody named Harlan Ellis.
There you go.
There you go. There you go.
Shows you what I, shows you what's important to me.
Right.
I have the writer, but not the right star.
Florence Henderson was born in a small town in Indiana.
She was the youngest of 10 children.
And she had another, she was a fascinating career.
She was the first woman to guest host the Tonight Show.
How about that?
Oh, wow.
She was a Today Girl on the Today Show,
and she did everything.
And she was a licensed hypnotherapist.
And she turns up in Weird Al's Amish paradise.
She had a great sense of humor.
She was funny.
She laughed at herself.
I remember when I did the Cheerios commercial with her,
we were joking back and forth, really filthy and disgusting.
with her, we were joking back and forth, really filthy and disgusting. And one of the execs from Cheerios ran over and grabbed the box of Cheerios out of my hand. And I thought, oh, I'm in trouble.
And the guy, to his credit, I really admire this. He said, no, no, no. He goes, I think the way you two are joking is really funny, and I don't mind that at all.
I just don't want you holding the product as you're doing it.
Can we get that guy?
Is he available?
Yeah, but I thought that has some brains to it.
You know, as long as you're not holding the product, you know, let someone do what they do.
You know, as long as you're not holding the product, you know, let someone do what they do.
She was a name that came up early in the process, and we're sorry we missed out on Florence Henderson.
Alan Young.
Oh, yes.
And just recently, they had on the Time Machine.
Yes, yes.
Well, last year, we lost Rod Taylor from the Time Machine, and and this year Alan Young. He was 96. That is a nice run.
And it's interesting that in the Time Machine, he's playing a Scot, and then he went on to be Scrooge McDuck.
Yes, indeed. I have that written here.
Not many people would make that connection.
Yes.
I think he has Scottish roots.
His real name was Angus.
Oh, okay.
Angus Young.
And, of course, Mr. Ed.
Yeah, and Mr. Ed, and Tom Thumb.
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
and no one can talk to a horse, of course,
unless, of course, the famous horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
Sort of.
You're in the ballpark there.
Yeah.
He worked a ton, and I wonder if he was available if he was sharp.
I know.
In later years, but we won't know.
Okay, who else do I have here on this list?
Here are some other great actors.
Miss Patty Duke.
Oh, yeah.
That was a sad one.
And she was not old either, 69.
Local girl from Elmhurst, Queens.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, her most famous part was The Miracle Worker.
Right.
I would say her most famous part was The Patty Duke Show.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that was, well, that was her most.
part was the patty duke show yeah yeah that was well again where am i her most she really it really was the patty duke show but her most respected yeah she won the oscar yeah at
16 and um value the dolls she worked a lot yeah she worked a lot she had a big career she was a
president another president of the screen Actors Guild and became a mental
illness advocate
in later years. Yes, she was
all for her mental illness.
Well, then she must
have been another fan of yours.
Like Florence
Henderson.
Ten Emmy nominations for
Patty Duke and she did everything.
And that's another guy we lost. Yes, I was just going to make that segue. Yeah, and she did everything. And that's another guy we lost.
Yes, I was just going to make that segue.
Yeah, her dad.
Yeah.
And they died six months apart, which was very strange.
William Shallert.
Yeah.
Now, William Shallert was booked to do this show.
Yes!
Yeah, and that one, and I wanted him for months and months.
We followed every lead, and we talked to his kids, and we talked to his kids and we talked to his handler
and darren i went back and forth and you want to talk about a guy with a million credits oh my god
yeah he worked non-stop um what am i saying they died six weeks apart uh how about that um
he was in everything he was in the story of mankind yeah which we brought up he was in
mighty joe young you always remember him from the Patty Duke show.
And then you start watching movies and you go, oh, there he is.
I was at a party right around the time we booked him.
And I said, oh, we have William Shallard on the show.
And a couple of people there at the party said, the name didn't mean anything to them.
And I pulled up his picture and 12 people at once said, oh, him.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
He was very recognizable.
He worked constantly.
He's in trouble with Tribbles.
Oh, yes. Arguably the most famous Trek episode.
He did live TV, Playhouse 90.
He was the voice of Milton the Toaster.
Pop-Tarts, commercials.
Anybody remember that?
I do remember that.
And Joe Dante used him a lot.
So now we have a connection because years ago, I was the voice of the toaster.
You were the voice?
In Pop-Tart commercials.
You were the voice of the toaster?
Yes, yes.
I think you could look it up online.
Damn it.
Well, we could do that.
I can do that.
If only we had a researcher on the premise.
Yeah, losing out on William Shallard.
That was sad.
Really kills me.
And he really wanted to do it.
We were getting emails from his daughter saying he's not feeling well this week.
Let's try for next week.
And we went back and forth.
And they were very kind.
They were very helpful to try to make this happen.
Yeah, he would have been great.
He was in a famous Twilight Zone episode with another podcast guest, with Orson Bean.
Oh, is he Mr. Beavis? Mr. Beavis, and he was
the cop, and another show we talk about on this podcast,
he was in the Legends of the Superheroes, the roast.
Oh my God! He played retired man.
Oh, geez.
So he had connections to this show six ways from Sunday.
Oh, wait.
This has nothing to do with it.
But in the Mr. Beavis episode, who was the devil in there?
Oh, gosh.
He was this old-time actor.
Oh, gosh.
I have to have Paul look that one up.
Mr. Beavis, B-E-V-I-S, episode of The Twilight Zone with our pal, Worson Bean.
Was he the corporate executive?
He's the guy who makes the wish come true.
Yeah, he's a schmendrick.
And while you're looking that up, here's another actor that Darragh called, and we pursued.
Another actor born right here in New York City, died at 91, George Kennedy.
Oh, my God.
And we wanted him.
Too ridiculous a line of films.
Yes, incredible career.
Cool Hand Luke, Poseidon Adventure.
He's not in the Poseidon Adventure.
He's in Earthquake.
Earthquake.
Earthquake.
That's it.
He's in four airport movies.
Maybe that's what you're thinking of.
See, I'm getting all my Irwin Allen films confused.
He's in Charade.
Oh, that's right.
He's one of the bad guys in Charade.
Along with Walter Matthau.
And Ned Glass.
Yes.
Yes.
On stage at the age of two, George Kennedy.
And he was in that movie based on the real incident of where they were holding this plane captive.
I think they were like, they were terrorists who were holding this plane.
It was with, what's his name?
The toughest guy in the world, Chuck Norris.
Oh, yeah.
I know this.
What is the name of that picture?
Was it Delta Force?
Delta Force.
Yeah.
That's the one.
He plays a priest.
Yes.
Yes.
He's the son.
He's Leslie Nielsen's sidekick in the Naked Gun.
Oh, that's right.
The Naked Gun pictures.
That's right.
And he auditioneded i found this in
doing research he auditioned for the zuckers to play the lloyd bridges part in airplane
but he couldn't i hope this is true and if we ever get david or jerry zucker in here
uh we'll ask him this he he could not bring himself to send up the airport movies
oh that his uh his beloved airport movies but so the part went to Lloyd Bridges.
But we did call George Kennedy.
He told us he was retired, and we didn't get him.
But we should do another show just called People We Lost.
Oh, yes.
What was the question that we want to ask about Mr. Beavis?
Oh, he wasn't in a play.
So is that like the devil?
Yeah.
Okay, let me work on that.
All right.
Let's see.
Who else do I have here on the list?
Here we go.
How about some famous TV faces?
Okay.
Jack Riley.
Oh, my God, yes.
The great and funny Jack Riley who died at 80.
He was Mr. Carlton.
Mr. Carlin.
Carlin.
Yeah, Mr. Carlin.
Mr. Carlin Hunt with Bob Newhart.
You bet.
And he was like this mean bastard.
Half of a radio duo in Cleveland named Baxter and Riley.
And Tim Conway helped get him into the business.
Oh, wow.
Get him into television.
And he worked for Mel Brooks.
He's in Spaceballs.
He's in High Anxiety.
And he got a whole second career because when they had, it was, I guess, the Heaven's Gate cult with the Hale-Boppers.
Oh, yes.
He looked exactly like the leader of the cult.
So Jay Leno used to have him on all the time as the leader of the cult.
I forgot that. the time as the leader of the cult. So he took him out of mothballs
and he would pop up on the
Tonight Show as the leader
of the Hale-Bopp comic cult.
Jack Riley
was on our list in
Catch-22. He's in a whole bunch
of stuff. And he's in, Paul will appreciate
this, he's in McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
Oh, yeah oh there you go
now let me uh could it have been i think jay hardy hemstead was the character i'm not sure
i've got a lot of actors from the mr beavis episode henry jones do you know him henry jones
henry jones another one of those actors you look up the name and you go, oh, God, him.
Yeah, in the show Phyllis, in the spinoff from the Mary Tyler Moore show, Henry Jones.
Oh, yeah.
Was on that show.
He was known for that.
I don't know if these are all actors that were in that episode, but they've got Orson Bean.
Orson Bean was Beavis.
Yeah, and Shallerton.
Right, and Shallerton.
That's Shallerton and Charles Lane.
Oh, Charles Lane, another guy.
Oh, yes.
Charles Lane, who always played the Weasley accountant.
Oh, yes.
I think he lived to 100.
Oh, my God.
Or close to it.
Charles Lane was in everything.
He was like Shallerton.
When you get a chance, call him.
Vito Scotti was a pebbler.
Vito Scotti, another guy.
Oh, yes, yes.
He was Jewish, I believe. Vito Scotti, another guy. Oh, yes. Yes. He was Jewish, I believe.
Vito Scotti.
Well, you can tell by the name.
Yeah.
I wanted to ask Bert Ward about Vito Scotti because he was one of the Penguins henchmen.
Oh, my God.
He was Vito Scotti.
We should do a whole Vito Scotti episode.
He was Sam Picasso on the Addams Family.
He was the
Mad Doctor on Gilligan's Island. We asked
Don Wells about him. Boy, that's
a name. It's a great, great... I'm going to hold
a picture up to the microphone because it's such a great picture.
I wish people could see it.
I would change the name of this show to the
Vito Scotti Wow Show.
Here's a name
and this was weird because we were talking about this fella with another guest and Scotty Wow Show. Here's a name. And we,
this was weird because we were talking
about this fella
with another guest
and he passed away that week.
We were talking
to Hal Linden
about Ron Glass.
Oh, that's right.
That was...
We were talking about
the cast of Barney Miller.
I was getting
an amazing amount
of tweets then
because people were saying,
you were just talking about yeah
you killed ron glass yes uh ron glass uh a well-liked guy and not again a relatively young
man at 71 um what can you say i mean uh not only barney miller the new odd couple. Yes. But he is terrific.
And I want people to find the All in the Family episode that had a Rashomon premise.
Oh, that's right.
Where he was the repairman who comes to fix the refrigerator.
Do you know this episode?
No, it sounds great.
We got to get Norman Lear on here before he's gone and talk to him about this.
They did a memorable episode of All in the Family where the four principals go out to dinner and everybody has a different version of what happened.
It's so funny that Rashomon became like a stock storyline for sitcoms.
It did. It became a device.
Yeah. Sitcoms, either they would do
Trapped in an Elevator.
All in the Family did that one too. Yes, yes.
Where, of course,
there's a pregnant woman who gives birth.
And Hector Elizondo. Oh, yes.
Oh, we gotta get Hector Elizondo.
We gotta get Hector Elizondo.
But seek out that All in the Family
episode. I don't know the title, but
Ron Glass plays in Edith's version, there's Mike's version.
Oh, yes.
In Mike's version, he's the step and fetch it.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, I'm just trying to get out of the way, Mr. Bunker.
And in Archie's version, he's like a Black Panther.
Oh, yeah.
He's a vicious Black Panther.
I mean, it was so funny.
Of all the movies you'd think would inspire sitcoms, Kurosawa's Rajamouli.
I know.
Yes.
Not the first one.
It shows you how literate these sitcom writers were.
It became such a stock thing to throw in a sitcom.
But before we get off, Jack and Riley.
Oh, and the odd couple.
I said it.
The new odd couple.
Well, no.
But the original odd couple did their Rashomon episode.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
They did.
There was another.
The Seinfeld did the thing off the Zapruder film, but that was sort of a Rashomon thing, too.
Oh, yeah.
Which way the spit went and turned right.
That was a pretty brave sitcom episode.
Even for something as late as the 90s.
One last thing about Jack Riley.
He was a member of Yarmie's Army.
Oh, my God.
With Bill Dana.
With Don Adams.
And Don Adams and Tom Poston and Howard Morris.
And our friend Peter Marshall.
That's a group I would have loved to have spent one day with.
Well, we just, and I don't want to say, I don't want to give it away,
but we just may have a member, a charter member of your Army's Army coming up on this podcast.
We've had Peter Marshall, who was one, and there are not many left.
Pat McCormick was one.
Yes.
Jack Riley was one.
Howard Morris.
And there's one coming up.
So we won't say who.
We lost Van Williams a couple of weeks ago at 82.
Oh, yes.
And I posted on Facebook.
That was somebody I wanted on the show.
I kicked myself for not acting sooner on some of these things, but you just don't know.
You know, we don't have the ear of these people.
We don't know who You know, we don't have the ear of these people. We don't know who's in bad shape.
And also, there are those people that even with us who are experts.
I know.
It's like you go, I'll hear about someone died and I'll go, are you still alive?
I know.
Yeah.
I know.
I'm pretty, you know, Paul knows that's my superpower.
Yeah, that's right.
If they're alive, I know about it.
superpower. Yeah, that's right. I, I, if they're, uh, if they're alive, I know about it. I knew Van Williams. I had interviewed him years ago for FX and a real nice guy, a Texan and, and,
and good sense of humor and laughed about himself. Um, and, uh, I thought he would be great. You
know, it wasn't just the green Hornet. He was discovered by Mike Todd while working as a, uh,
as a diving instructor. Oh, geez. He did shows like Surfside Six and Bourbon Street Beat.
Surfside Six.
You remember these shows?
I do, yeah.
And then when his acting career dried up, he became a deputy sheriff and a firefighter.
Was it Surfside Six?
Which came first, Surfside Six or 77 Sunset Strip?
You got to look that one up.
Speaking of superhero shows, somebody we lost at 95 we had a lot of
requests to get her and we didn't get her we had heard she was not in good shape and that was noel
neil oh my god yeah lois lane herself passed away this year i i was at another, and these are two that, oh, my God.
Noel Neal and Jack Larson.
Yep, we wanted him, too.
We lost him last year.
They were there together, and I went over and talked to them
because, like every little kid, I loved Superman.
Of course.
And I remember, you know, I liked, you know, what's her name?
The original.
Phyllis Coates.
Phyllis Coates was good, but somehow as a kid, I liked Noel Neal better.
I think Phyllis Coates is still alive.
Is that possible?
Paul, can you look that up?
She could be.
C-O-A-T-E-S.
But I remember I said to Noel Neal, I said, you know, when I was a little boy, I always liked you better than the other Lois Lane.
And Noel Neal said, oh, well, aren't you sweet?
I'm sure she never heard that before.
Phyllis Coates, C-O-A-T-E-S.
Noel Neal was a pinup.
She was a pinup model.
And then she said to me, she goes, when we were leaving, she said, all right, and the best of luck to you now that you're working and we're not.
Oh, my God.
She had a wonderful sense of humor.
Jack Larson, who we talked about last year on last year's In Memoriam show, was another very bright guy.
Wrote librettos.
He was a very smart man.
He was longtime partners with James Bridges, the director of the China Center.
Oh, yeah.
An urban cowboy.
Yeah, he was – Larson was one of those people that you didn't realize how much he did.
He was on our early list and that, you know, how many times can I say I'm kicking myself?
Oh, and, but that brings us back to Carrie Fisher, who had a long list of movies that her name is not on, but she was the script doctor on and writer.
Oh, yes, we should point that out.
Yeah, many, many.
Plus, she survived under the rainbow.
Oh, my God, that's right.
With Chevy.
So Phyllis Coates is with us.
How about that?
How old is Phyllis Coates?
She's 89, so there's no particular rush there.
By the way, all right, Dara, if you're within the sound, where is Dara?
Is she out on the couch?
Dara, we got to chase Phyllis Coates.
C-O-A-T-E-S.
And if it helps, she was born.
Stat.
Gypsy Ann Everts Stell.
Well, she is.
You can see how that became Phyllis.
Yeah.
She is officially the last link to the Superman series.
Oh, wow.
So we better make that happen.
And if she's sharp and she wants to come on with us.
What if it happened to George Reeves?
Speaking of Georges, how about George Gaines?
Oh, yeah.
From Punky Brewster.
Oh, my God.
And the Police Academy films.
Now, here's a guy where you look and you say, oh, the Police Academy films and Punky Brewster.
By the way, he's great in Tootsie as the vain actor.
Oh, yes.
Who's trying to bed Dorothy.
This is an interesting
guy. Another guy that has not only
escaped the Nazis, which you love.
Oh, yeah.
He joined
the Dutch resistance. He was
born in Helsinki. Oh, my God.
Yeah, he joined the Dutch resistance.
He spoke four languages, Dutch, French,
Italian, and Russian. He was in the Battle of Anzio.
He had a fascinating life, George Gaines, and worked all the time.
Yeah.
Wag the Dog, did you mention that one?
That's another one, George Gaines.
Wag the Dog, is he in that?
Yeah.
I mean, he's in Lumet's.
Oh, so that makes him that he worked twice with Dustin Hoffman.
Right, there you go.
There you go. And he's in Sidney Lumet's The Group. Oh, so that makes him that he worked twice with Dustin Hoffman. Right. There you go. There you go.
And he's in Sidney Lumet's The Group.
Oh, yes.
And another guy died at 98.
And another guy, I guarantee everybody out there, look up the name and you'll go, oh, him.
Yeah, George Gaines.
The way we were.
He's in everything.
He, oh, my God, he would have been great on this show.
Yeah.
Another one.
Let's talk about, we're going to move on from character actors.
He was fighting Nazis for Christ's sake. I know.
Oh, shit.
You want me to just go out and find some guests who fought Nazis for you?
Because we lost Christopher Lee, too.
Yeah, and also the guy from Star Trek. Was it Scotty? Oh, Dewan. Yeah. He's Dewan. Yeah, yeah, Lee, too. Yeah, and also the guy from Star Trek.
Was it Scotty?
Oh, Dewan.
James Dewan.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He had bullet holes in him from the D-Day invasion.
All right, well, we're going to make it a point, Dara.
Find Gilbert some people who fought Nazis.
And we lost Charles Durning.
Yes, well, years ago.
Yes, indeed.
And we lost Charles Durning.
Yes, well, years ago.
Before the Nazis.
Yes, indeed.
But I remember James Doolin also was missing a pinky, I think.
Wow.
Because it got shot off at the D-Day invasion.
Wow.
Well, if we ever get Shatner in here.
Oh, yeah.
And we worked on that.
Here's some comedians that we lost.
Does the name Joe Alasky mean anything?
The name's familiar. A-L-A-S-K-E-Y.
A gentleman I had the pleasure of working with, he voiced, he was sort of a modern day Mel Blanc.
Yeah.
He was the new voice of Bugs Bunny.
Oh, wow.
And Sylvester.
I wrote some cartoons for Warner Brothers years ago, and Joe and June Foray was a thrill for me.
Oh, yes.
To write these scripts and go in there and watch June 4A work.
Now June 4A is still around.
She's with us.
No rush.
She's 90.
I think she's 99.
Okay.
Darren, June 4A.
99, maybe we could expedite just a touch.
Yeah.
Just an hour.
Yeah.
Joe Alasky was a talented guy.
He was a comedy writer. He was a comedy writer.
He was a comedian.
He published horror and short stories.
But check his credits.
He did so many wonderful things.
He was Daffy Duck.
He was Bugs.
Did so many wonderful things.
Left us too soon.
And a nice man.
Here's somebody we love to talk about.
And I met this guy working on the TV Land Awards.
We did not have the podcast at the time. Or I met this guy working on the TV Land Awards.
We did not have the podcast at the time,
or I would have asked him on the spot.
Pat Harrington Jr.
Oh, my God, yes.
Yeah.
And I think, wasn't he the voice of Groucho Marx in the Vlasic Pickles commercials?
I think he was.
It is not on his IMDb page.
But if anybody can verify that,
Steve Stoliar, if you're listening to this, let us know.
By the way, James Doohan, have you noticed, is there a delay when I bring up James Doohan and
we already talked about him 10 minutes ago? That's okay. It's a communication problem.
Yeah. He was shot six times. Yes. Wow. Six times and he shot down a few snipers himself.
Amazing. Even though he was shot six times.
Well, no wonder he did such a great job as the engineer on the ship.
Oh, yeah.
Makes sense.
And I think what I heard about him was it was his idea for the guy to have a Scottish accent
because he said a lot of the engineers he worked with were Scottish.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's funny.
So it was his idea to do it with a Scottish accent.
Yeah.
So Pat Harrington Jr.
was one of Steve Allen's
men on the street.
Oh, that's right.
Again with Tom Poston.
And Louis Nye.
And Louis Nye and Don Knotts.
Oh, yeah.
Guido Panzini was his character.
An Italian,
a funny Italian immigrant.
We talked about Guido Pansini
with Cliff Nesterov.
And he was also the super.
Oh, of course.
He won an Emmy
for playing Schneider
on One Day at a Time.
I worked with him
on the TV Land Awards.
Never a nicer man.
Just lit up.
Yeah.
That I knew who he was
beyond that character. That I knew who he was beyond that character.
That I knew his past credits.
Voiced Inspector Clouseau
in those cartoons. Those to pay to you.
Oh, wow. Those Pink Panther cartoons.
Did a Don
Adams parody on F Troop.
Do you remember him playing a detective, a secret agent
named B-Wise? Oh,
okay. His father was an actor,
Pat Harrington Sr.,
and the story goes
that he was discovered
on a golf course
by Jonathan Winters
doing the Guido Panzini character.
You should bring back
Guido Panzini, Gilbert.
Since you have such affinity
and affection for my people.
Here's one.
This is a guy that I was such a fan of.
I only met him one time.
I never got to work with him.
Bob Elliott from Bob and Ray.
Oh, my God, yeah.
God, I mean, one of the reasons, Bob and Ray,
one of the reasons that I even wanted to be in comedy or even do this.
Wally Ballou, Monongahela Metal Foundry. What can you say about Bob and Ray, one of the reasons that I even wanted to be in comedy or even do this. Wally Ballou, Monongahela Metal Foundry.
What can you say about Bob and Ray?
And was it Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer?
Oh, the peels.
Yeah, yeah.
Peels, yeah.
Yeah.
I remember that as a kid, seeing those cartoon commercials with them as the voices.
They were great pitchmen.
Oh, yeah. cartoon commercials with them as the voices they were great pitchmen and they were yeah and they were you know but if you guys uh if our listeners are not familiar with bob and ray um there's so
much out there on them um and and they were always so like you know like it was just such a flat
quiet well thing yeah it was like slow. The slow talkers of America
is maybe the funniest sketch ever written.
As is the
Komodo dragon expert, is another
one that I'm really fond of.
The Komodo dragon,
the world's
largest living
lizard, is found
on the steep sloped island of Komodo,
hence its name. And that
is in the Lesser Sunda chain of the Indonesian archipelago and the nearby islands of Rindja,
Padar, and Flores. We have two in this country, two Komodo dragons, which were given to us
some years ago by the late former premier of Indonesia, Sukarno.
some years ago by the late former premier of Indonesia, Sukarno.
I believe I read somewhere where a foreign potentate gave America some Komodo dry.
Is that true?
Yes.
The former premier of Indonesia, Sukarno,
gifted this country with two Komodo dragons,
the world's largest living lizards, some years ago.
And they're in the National Zoo in Washington.
Well, now, if we wanted to take the children to see a Komodo dragon...
Where would we take the children to see a Komodo dragon? Where would he take the children to see a Komodo dragon?
And then there's one
where it's a game
show where they'll give him a million dollars
if he could keep the other guy on the
phone.
They met in the
40s, he and Ray Goulding.
Interesting the way you describe their comedy, because he described it as two straight men playing off of each other.
By the way, there's a ton of stuff on YouTube coming up here, so anybody who wants to check them out.
Well, also, they did an SNL special called Bob and Ray and Jane and Lorraine and Gilda, which is wonderful.
And there, too.
I got to see them live at Radio City.
Yeah, I saw them, too.
Yeah.
I saw them, too.
Yeah, they were so funny because it was like two salesmen talking.
I wrote down early when we started the show, we should do Bob Elliott and Chris Elliott
together.
Yeah.
And, again, one that got away.
Also, as an actor, was in cold they were in
cold turkey together author author uh he's very funny and quick change now were they in i'm not
positive were they in uh slaughterhouse five bob and ray yeah i don't know i know our our former
guest ron liebman no it might not be Slaughterhouse-Five. It was another one. I don't think they were. No, it was like some
movie. Oh, God.
It was a movie with
Bill Hickey.
Ooh.
Well, Paul?
I'm working on it. Want to check that out? He's hilarious
as a bank watchman in Quick Change.
Oh, yes. A movie that I've talked about on this show.
Another movie you guys need to see.
And Get a Life.
The series that he did with his son, Chris, is hilarious.
Ray died in 1990.
He did.
We lost him a while ago.
Bob and Ray had an office in the Graybar Building, which is a big building over Grand Central here in New York.
And my dad was two doors down.
And I was a kid.
You know, I would visit my dad's office
and I was too young to know who Bob and Ray were.
Oh, yeah.
And they would leave these reel-to-reel tapes
in the hallways for the trash.
Oh, my God.
Things that now I look back.
Oh, my God.
And I think those were treasures that I should have grabbed.
I was in high school.
I didn't have a grasp.
In the early 50s, they had a 15-minute show grabbed i was in high school i didn't yeah i didn't uh i didn't have a grasp in in 19 junior
high in the early 50s they had a 15 minute show on nbc with one of the cast regulars was audrey
meadows oh yes well she was a regular she worked with them regularly that's right yeah and a writer
named tom cook who who was uh loris leachman joined the cast sure later on sure sure um and
there's a lot there's a lot out there on Bob and Ray, a book called Right If You Get Work.
Anyway, speaking of comedians, somebody that Gilbert and I both knew, and that's Kevin Meany.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That one came out of nowhere.
Who passed suddenly, a nice man, passed at 60.
Hilarious.
Yeah.
Gilbert, you're close.
hilarious yeah i've got gilbert uh you're close i think i believe this was a tv show that they were in kurt vonnegut's hugo nominated between time and timbuktu that's it that's it
how do you come up with this stuff i he's even got the right offer i prepare for weeks i know
well you once again you don't have to prove to us you're useless. But, yes, I think they played newscasters in that, and Bill Hickey was the star of it.
He's like an astronaut.
Bill Hickey comes up a lot on this show.
Oh, my God, yeah.
The guy you worked with.
Yes, on Wings.
Yep.
But getting back to Kevin, hilarious.
Oh, yeah.
You know, and—
That's not right.
We're big pants people.
If you guys don't know Kevin's work, check out his version of We Are the World.
Oh, yes.
A funny man, a sweet man, and passed at 60 suddenly and saddened a lot of people.
Thoughtful, pensive person.
Here's one that really upset us and upset me personally.
And another guy that I got to spend a little bit of time with.
And I know Gilbert knew him much better than I did.
And that was Gary Shandling.
Oh, yeah.
And, wow, that was sudden.
That was.
That was a surprise one.
And heartbreaking.
Boy, a great comic.
It's Gary Shandling's show.
Oh, yeah.
Co-created by our friend Alan Zweibel.
Oh, that's right.
The Larry Sanders Show, which is just.
Oh, hysterical.
Hysterical and smart.
And interestingly, he turned down a lot of money to to host to take over for Letterman on NBC to do the Larry Sanders show because because he was an artist, because he had he had something to say.
Interesting man started started in the business or kind of writing sitcoms like Welcome Back, Cotter.
Yeah.
And Sanford and Son.
And George Carlin helped him out.
I remember after I had the burst appendix.
So like they, my, you know, that was years ago.
I had a burst appendix.
I remember.
So they never really pulled my stomach together all the way because they, it was a whole thing.
stomach together all the way because they let it was a whole thing. And so I had to get another operation to pull the muscles and everything together. And I was talking to Gary Shanling
about it. And I said, yeah, so now they're going to pull my stomach together with this.
And he goes, oh, yeah, where are you having it done?
And I said, oh, it's going to be at New York Eye and Ear.
And he goes, there's a pause.
And he goes, Eye and Ear, shouldn't you go to a hospital called Stomach and Ass?
I had three experiences with him, and in the interest of time, I can't tell them all on the show, but I'll tell them on a future show.
But they were all memorable.
One in particular that involved a comedy writer named John Marcus.
So I know you know, because John wrote for The Cosby Show. John M-A-R-K-U-S when you were there.
I taught a class.
I taught a comedy class
years ago
and John and Gary
were surprise guests
in my class
and it's a great story
and I'll tell it.
We're pressed for time.
But we didn't get him
on the show.
That's a killer.
See what you think.
See if you agree
with Wikipedia says
his influences
were Woody Allen
and Johnny Carson.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
I think he had a lot of influences.
He influenced Ricky Gervais, Judd Apatow, Jon Stewart, and Louis C.K.
Judd, he was close with Judd, and Judd worked on Sanders, too.
He was just an interesting man.
You were talking about being sick in the hospital.
He had a car accident that was kind of a life-changing experience for him.
That's how he decided to go into comedy.
Wow.
And as I said, he was a sitcom writer.
And as the story goes, George Carlin helped him out when he was young
and gave him some guidance.
I've talked to Kelly about that.
He was a Buddhist.
He was an interesting guy.
He was beloved. He had a lot of friends. We didn't get him. But I should send you guys to
Pete Holmes show. You made it weird, which he recorded a couple of a couple of months before
he passed a great podcast episode. Oh, yeah. And also the episode of Comedians in Cars getting coffee with Jerry was creepy and touching and sad.
And we love the guy.
Okay.
You want to talk about a couple of directors?
Oh, okay.
In the interest of time, and we'll try to speed this up.
Let's see, let's see, let's see.
I'm going through my cards.
Somebody we talked about for this show, Herschel Gordon-Lewis.
Oh, the-
The godfather of gore.
Yes.
With, like, the gore-gore girls.
Yep.
Color me blood red.
2000 Maniacs.
And-
Blood Feast.
I remember, I forget which one it was in, they rip a girl's tongue out of her mouth.
I think it's the Wizard of Gore.
Oh, that might be it.
And what they did was they went to a butcher shop and got cow tongue.
Yep.
And it was getting, and they didn't have the money to get a second cow tongue.
They just bought that and they kept it for weeks till it
turned rotten.
And they sprayed it. I'm glad he knows this.
This is a low budget film.
This girl had to keep
that in her mouth.
And when it
turned rotten, they sprayed it
with Lysol and
put it in her mouth.
So I don't want to hear any other actresses ever bitching about anything.
He made the legendarily bad monster a go-go.
Oh, yes, yes.
A fixture for our friends at MST.
Yeah, his movies, they were total gore, but also you got a big laugh.
They were so ridiculousre, but also you got a big laugh. They were so ridiculous.
He started out in nudie films with titles like The Adventures of Lucky Pierre.
And I love this.
One was called Boing.
Very subtle.
That's art.
He was a guy that really would have been fun on this show.
I don't know what we would have done with Herschel Gordon-Lewis.
We lost him.
A slightly more reputable director was Curtis Hanson, who died at 71.
River Wild with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon.
One of my all-time favorite movies.
Wonder Boys.
Wonder Boys.
I was just going to bring it up.
It's fun.
I love that.
Was that with Michael Douglas?
Yeah, and Robert Downey.
The sort of aging Michael Douglas who can't write his second book.
It's fun.
Oh, yeah.
It's a good novel, too.
It's so great.
Yeah, it is good.
His name went out of my head.
Michael Chabon.
And, of course, he wrote a film I like called The Silent Partner with Elliot Gould, with
Christopher Plummer.
Oh, that's right.
Do you know this picture? Yes, yes. I think it was made in with Elliot Gould, with Christopher Plummer. Oh, that's right.
Yes, yes.
I think it was made in Canada.
Yes, it was made in Canada.
Very good if our listeners don't know it.
Find it.
Yeah, he's a bank teller.
Yes, who matches wits with a bank robber.
Yeah.
Played by Christopher.
He wrote a picture I really like called Never Cry Wolf with Charles Martin Smith about a guy who goes to live among wolves.
He was a protege of Sam Fuller and Roger Corman.
Oh, wow.
And, of course, he made probably the film
that he'll always be remembered for,
L.A. Confidential.
L.A. Confidential.
Yeah.
Which is just goddamn great.
Yeah.
Now, are you guys familiar with 8 Mile?
Yeah, sure.
I thought that was pretty good.
Yeah.
I mean, it shouldn't have been good at all.
Good performances.
Yeah. Well, you know, he was versatile. He worked in a lot of different kinds of genres. Yeah. I mean, it had, it shouldn't have been good at all. Good performances. Yeah.
Well, he, you know,
he was versatile.
He worked in a lot of
different kinds of
genres.
Yeah.
Here's a director you
guys will spark to.
He died at 93.
The director of
Diamonds Are Forever.
Oh.
Live and Let Die.
Wow.
And Goldfinger.
And the man with a
golden gun, Guy
Hamilton.
Jeez.
How about that, Paul?
Mr. Bond expert.
That's a follow-up to our Bond episode right there.
He was an assistant to Carol Reed, the director of The Third Man.
And assistant director on African Queen.
He's a guy with an interesting career.
And helped develop Bond style.
Those are four kind of important Bond films.
The first two more pictures and probably the most popular Connery picture, Goldfinger.
But then the African Queen.
How about that?
It was so interesting.
How about that?
Here's a guy.
And then the African Queen.
Theodore Bacall.
Theodore Bacall was the German general.
Theodore Bacall. And I don't have was the German general. Theodore Bacall.
And I don't have a cell phone in my lap, people.
Yeah.
Here's a name.
We talked about this person with Don Wells because he directed Rescue from Gilligan's Island.
I'm sure that was on top of his list
It was surreal
He also directed the Batman feature
Oh wow
In the 60s
We just had Burt Ward here
This was weird
Because I told Don Wells he was still living
Yeah
When we had her on the show
He died that week
Oh see
Once we mention somebody
Do not let Frank mention your name
Yes
Just like we had the day before Jack Carter Somebody. Do not let Frank mention your name. Yes.
Just like we had the day before Jack Carter was going to. Yes, well, that's sure.
That's a story we've told a lot.
Leslie Martinson was 101.
He did everything.
Again, I said this when he passed on the show.
Excuse me, but go to his IMDb page or his website, which is still up,
LeslieMartinson.com.
Mission Impossible
and Run for Your Life and Wonder Woman and Mannix, you wouldn't believe it.
I mean, the guy, and PT-109, the movie with Cliff Robertson.
Oh, yes, S. Kennedy.
S. Kennedy.
He had this long, varied career, and he just worked constantly, and he did it.
I mean, you talk about a guy who took jobs, a workman-like director.
Yeah, one of those directors who was no bullshit.
Like William Bodine.
Yeah, yeah.
You always hear about these old-time directors who were like, they'd show up.
If it was a Western, they'd make a Western.
A comedy, they'd make a comedy.
It was no bullshit.
Did you mention The Atomic Kid?
Do we know that one?
No, The Atomic Kid.
The Atomic Kid, he directed it. The Atomic Kid? Do we know that one? No, The Atomic Kid. He directed It.
The Atomic Kid.
I mean, just go to his IMDb page.
Look up Leslie Martinson.
You won't believe the stuff he did.
Hot Rod Rumble.
Yeah, it's an incredible career.
Let me get through these, too.
Arthur Hiller.
We were talking about The In-Laws.
I mean, and there's a body of work.
Love Story.
Plaza Suite.
The Americanization of Emily.
The Out of Towners.
I think that's Dara's favorite movie.
Silver Streak.
The Hospital with George C. Scott.
Oh, my God.
A terrific career.
Author, author, which we talked about.
And, of course, The In-Laws.
Oh, great.
Which is just magnificent.
Canadian and president of the DGA.
An interesting man.
See his films.
And then speaking of the Bronx and local boys, Gary Marshall.
Yeah.
We lost.
And that was a guy we were targeting.
Oh, my God.
I mean, I was tracking him when he came to New York,
and our friend Bill Persky went out to dinner with him,
and I said, tell Gary to do the show, and he'll do the show.
He wants to go back.
We didn't get Gary.
Like 5,000 TV hits.
Oh, my God.
Gary Mascarelli.
Yeah.
Paisano.
And everyone thought he was a Jew.
Everybody.
Yeah.
And I don't think he discouraged people.
No, no.
Started out as a joke writer.
He was a drummer, and he was a joke writer for Joey Bishop and Phil Foster.
Partnered with the great Jerry Belson.
Terrific writer.
Wrote everything.
And, oh, God, what was that?
I'm forgetting everything now.
He wrote the Van Dyke Show.
He wrote Danny Thomas, the Lucy show.
You remember a show called Hey, Landlord?
Oh, yeah.
With Dwayne Hickman and Sandy Barron.
I remember in an interview, Gary Marshall saying he grew up in, I guess, the Bronx.
He did.
Yeah.
He grew up in the same neighborhood as Ralph Lauren.
Yes.
And he said.
Ralph Lipschitz.
Yeah.
And he said his name was ralph lipshits and he goes and he says
but he he had to change you because you don't buy polo from a guy named lips
in all your travels and all your auditioning do you ever work with for gary marshall or
audition for him never worked for him i i did ho Hollywood Squares with him one time. He was beloved.
Yeah.
I never met the man, but I loved his book.
He did.
I mean, maybe you mentioned these, but in addition to all the TV stuff for which he's probably most known, Pretty Woman.
Oh, yeah.
Well, his features.
Princess Diaries.
Yeah.
The guy did everything.
Everything.
And we had guests we've had in here that worked with.
We had Donnie Most in here who loved him.
And we had Henry.
And we had Michael McKean who talked about him.
And we were getting closer.
Yeah.
But, and a funny actor.
Yeah.
Funny in a league of their own.
Oh, in, was that Lost in America?
Oh, he's great.
He's the casino owner.
He's great.
He's great.
He was hysterical.
And that's where, you know, the desert in his heart.
Yeah.
Sandy Claus.
Yeah.
A very, very funny man.
And he goes, when Albert Brooks says to him, he goes, well, you know, you don't give the money back to everyone.
You separate it like the good hip people and you
separate them from like
the schmucks that go to see
Wayne Newton. And he goes,
I like Wayne Newton.
That makes me a schmuck.
And for our
Odd Couple fans out there, he's great
in little cameos too.
He's the angry guy on the subway.
Remember when they get trapped in the subway train?
And he's got the rolled-up newspaper?
Yeah.
And Felix pulls out Harvey Hankey?
Oh, funny, funny man, Gary Marshall.
That one hurt, too.
Okay, quickly, we're running out of time here.
The girl from Casablanca.
Oh, we'll talk about her, Madeline LeBeau. Yes. The last surviving The girl from Casablanca. Oh, we'll talk about her. Madeline LeBeau.
Yes.
The last surviving cast member from Casablanca.
Who I believe was a Jew.
Well, we don't know, but she did, according to her Wikipedia page, if this is to be believed,
escape from the Nazis.
And the song, where they sing the French national anthem, the scene in Casablanca, her tear was real.
Yes.
Yes. Yeah.
And they said, like, so many of the people in Casablanca, like the Nazis there, the Nazi army were mainly Jews, like Jews who had escaped.
Jewish actors who were stars in Europe escaped.
And they had little parts throughout Casablanca.
Right.
And they said also the war was still raging at that point.
So when they were doing that, they said people were crying during that scene.
The people in the movie.
Yeah.
Well, I turned up one little tidbit here.
You know, in the movie, they're waiting in Casablanca to get to Lisbon to get to America. Yeah. Right. So she was driven out of Paris by the Germans and she went to Lisbon.
So that was the exactly the route that she experienced. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. That's such a powerful scene. I want to get quickly to another couple of directors here.
Robin Hardy, who directed The Wicker Man, the original Wicker Man.
Oh, with Christopher Lee.
Terrific movie I've talked about.
Strange film.
Strange and disturbing.
Michael Cimino.
Oh, yes.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate.
A producer, a very prominent and successful producer, Grant Tinker, passed away.
Gordon Hunt, who was Helen Hunt's father, who was an animation director,
very successful animation director.
And a Jew.
Really?
That's another show.
Earl Hamner Jr.
I talked about of the Twilight Zone
and the creator of the Waltons.
Jim Harrison,
Legends of the Fall,
the novelist and screenwriter.
Alice Arlen,
who co-wrote Silkwood with Nora Ephron.
Bill Richmond,
who we tried to get.
Oh my God, yes.
Jerry's writer.
Yeah, yeah.
Jerry used him in almost all his movies.
Yeah, yeah, Ladies' Man, Nutty Professor, and The Patsy,
and we called Bill Richmond, and he wasn't doing well,
and he passed shortly thereafter.
And I remember he pops up in The Bill Boy as Stan Laurel.
Yep, indeed he does.
And on the Jerry Lewis Variety Show, they used to do this thing at the end where he'd get a phone call.
And it was like some dentist or something calling him.
And that was Bill Richmond.
He was.
He used to do the shtick.
He also wrote sitcoms.
He wrote for the Carol Burnett Show.
He did a lot of stuff.
And you know what?
In the interest of time.
Oh, wait wait go ahead i heard a
story that one time uh they uh jerry lewis and bill richmond drove to some restaurant
and bill richmond got out of the car and uh and the guy told him, I'm sorry, we're closed. And he yells to Jerry Luce.
He goes, oh, they're closed.
And Jerry Luce goes, tell them who it is.
And Bill Richmond goes, it's Bill Richmond.
I love it.
Almost as good as the Jimmy Durante here.
Oh, yes.
I have a card.
What we're going to do here, we're going to switch things up.
And I think I have a card full of musicians here.
I think we'll do them separately as a mini episode.
And then Frankie can put some music clips in there.
Yeah, that's good.
We'll do it up nice.
But there are just a couple of other names I wanted to get to here.
Writers,
Eric Bergeron,
who wrote the screenplay for elephant man,
uh,
Daniel Gerson,
a very funny writer,
monsters,
Inc.
Died young.
Kevin Curran,
uh,
a Letterman writer and a Simpsons writer who wrote maybe my favorite,
uh,
David Letterman,
top 10 list,
uh,
top 10 things that almost rhymes with peas.
Very, very funny man. Kevin Curranran have i gone through all of our cards i think we've pretty much covered everybody i wrote down uh here are a couple of bizarre ones just to amuse the shit
out of gilbert uh yumi ito died in may now if you know who she is,
she was one of the singing twin girls from Mothra Island.
Oh, my God!
In the Godzilla movie.
Yes!
Her sister, Imi Uito, died in 2012.
But we lost Yumi.
Well, everybody knows that story.
Yes, of course.
Lupita Tovar, we covered in the previous episode.
She was 106.
From the Spanish Dracula.
The Spanish Dracula.
Her grandsons are the Weitz brothers
who made American Pie and About a Boy.
Bill Backer is a name you might not know.
He was the ad executive at McCann Erickson when fogged in at an airport,
took out a napkin, and started to scribble a little jingle in his head,
I'd like to buy the world a Coke.
Oh, my God.
And we covered it on One Hit Wonders.
And how many of our brain cells have been filled up with that song?
The lost audio.
Yeah, and speaking of jingles, a gentleman named Les Wass, W-A-A-S-S-P-E-S-T.
And I love this.
And maybe this is a tri-state thing only.
But he was the jingle writer of the Mr. Softee Truck jingle.
Oh.
Oh.
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- And my mother would put a couple of coins in my hand. There you go. And I'd run. Sometimes, we lived on the second floor, and I would yell up to my mother,
the ice cream truck's here, and she would put some coins in like a napkin
and crumple it up and toss it out that way.
That's a nice memory.
Did you trick-or-treat, too?
Absolutely.
Like in tenements where people would throw the stuff out of the fourth and fifth story window?
I'll tell you something.
Because I did.
When I tell you this story, you're not going to go, gee, I can't believe Gilbert would do that.
I had like a pirate mask that I used to go trick-or-treating in.
Okay.
And so I'd go trick-or-treating, hit all the buildings, and you'd go through the buildings.
It didn't matter.
Sure.
You open the bottom door.
And so after a night of trick-or-treating, I'd go home, and I'd put on a Zorro mask
and hit the same apartment.
You were working the system.
Yes!
That is so unethical.
I can't believe.
I can't either.
I can't either.
What I can believe is he did it last Halloween.
Used to get rolls of pennies.
Do they still do that in the bank?
Do they still roll up coins?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And these women would not, you know, elderly women who couldn't come down three or four flights when I trick-or-treated in Ozone Park, and they'd throw a roll of pennies.
Which you could fracture your skull.
What it would do is rip a hole in your paper sack, and your candy corn would run out the hole. The notorious old ladies with the penny rolls. Yeah, run. Run out the hole.
Notorious old ladies with the penny rolls.
Yeah. Those were the days.
And they said that that whole
story about razor
blades and needles was bullshit.
I'm sure it was a myth. It was one of those myths.
Yeah. I found some pictures
in my mom's basement of one of my first
Halloween costumes. And again, talk about politically
incorrect times. I was a hobo those were popular you can't do that anymore yeah yeah we called it
a bum we got some i was a bum take the bird cork yeah they would always show the hobos back then
was like a cigar butt on a toothpick. They were always smoking.
You had the pole with the little bit with the sack.
Yes, and a top hat with the top coming off.
With a hole in it.
Yes.
Let's get to these last three names,
and we'll do the musicians that pass this year on a mini episode
so that Gilbert can sing.
And maybe Frankie will queue up if he can find it.
And this would be a weird thing to take us out on this one.
But after I get to these three names, maybe you can find that jingle, the Mr. Softee jingle.
That would be impressive.
Let's talk about three people we knew, two that we knew personally, and one that we did not have on this show but that we both worked with.
And we'll start with Alan Thicke.
Oh, yeah.
Who was a friend of yours.
And, boy, you guys on Thicke of the Night, where do I begin?
Oh, God.
It's a show.
It was a horrible show.
You know, doing the research on Alan, and I thought the show lasted longer than a year. It was a horrible show. You know, doing the research on Alan, I thought the show lasted longer than a year.
It was one season?
Yeah, I guess so.
I don't know.
It was a horrible show.
How did you get that show?
I auditioned for it, and I got into it, and Richard Belzer.
And Belzer, yeah.
And, oh, it was bad and then you know I heard like
he he forbid his wife from ever watching any episode the last one yes yes and then years
and then I mean afterwards after a thick of the, he invited me to come on his show, Hope and Gloria.
And then, you know, just a couple of years ago, we both wound up on Wife Swap.
Yeah, with you demanding that Tanya sleep with you.
Yeah, yes.
You took her to the Friars Club and made her eat in the kitchen. And I kept doing my Hound Thick imitation,
singing his theme song, which he wrote,
Mama don't need the light on.
I'm in the world tonight.
Everyone needs a dream to hold on.
I'm going to make it on my own.
Running in the thick of the night.
And she was getting mad at me, really angry.
I could have met her.
And she was going, oh, stop it. That's terrible.
He doesn't sound like that at all.
And then I found something on the Internet of him singing like sweaty and hot.
Oh, yes, we played that on the show.
We made him listen to that.
Yeah, and she heard that, and she went white,
and she goes, oh, fuck, he does sound that way.
Oh, we lost Alan too young.
Yeah, yeah.
Too young.
And he was playing hockey with his son.
I know, well, I know.
I mean, and, you know, people know him for the sitcom and Thick of the Night and the jingles.
Not the jingles, the...
Well, Facts of Life.
Theme songs, the theme songs.
But he was an accomplished comedy writer.
He wrote for Richard Pryor.
He wrote for Paul Lynde.
Oh, yeah.
He wrote for Fernwood Tonight, a very respected comedy show, and a funny guy.
And we're sorry we lost him.
Yeah.
Our third guest from the show.
That's one I'm glad we had him on as a guest.
Me too.
Me too.
And you got him to laugh with that Paul Lind story.
And it was immortalized by our friend Brendan Bliss.
We have to talk about Marvin real quick.
Oh, yes.
Brooklyn boy.
Yeah.
1927, former president of AFTRA, discovered by Katharine Hepburn.
So glad we got him in.
And he was so, when we were setting up the show, I remember talking to him on the phone,
and he was just like just some old Jewish relative you know and and he talked
like that that voice and he was hysterical yeah just talking and he was going so do do I have to
dress up for this we were in great. We all got in here.
We were in the booth.
Frankie got us all set up.
We put the headphones on.
We called him and his answering machine picked up.
Yes.
I thought we weren't going to,
he wasn't going to get it or he wasn't going to be home.
He was wonderful.
Oh,
find the great race. And of course,
if you don't know,
it's a mad,
mad,
mad,
mad world.
And top hat.
And top cat.
Top cat.
Chew, chew, chew. Yeah. A funny man. And you know, you never know how a Mad Men, Mad Men world. And Top Hat. And Top Cat. Top Cat.
Chew, chew, chew.
Yeah.
A funny man.
And, you know, you never know how these episodes are going to be received when we finish them.
And I think, are people going to know Marvin Kaplan?
Never got better responses than I did. They loved him.
Marvin Kaplan.
And he was one of those guys, he was old and remembered everything.
Yep.
Yep.
Old and remembered everything.
Yep.
Yep.
And last but not least, in the memoriam of 2016,
and this is somebody who was rumored to have died in 2014 and 2011.
Are we sure about 2016? And 2008.
You think it's like a McCartney thing?
Yeah.
I did some digging into Abe.
Another Brooklyn boy, 1921.
God bless him.
Parents, immigrants from Russia.
Oh, yeah.
Became an actor in 1947.
But this I love.
He was first declared dead in 1982.
By People Magazine.
by People Magazine.
Then in 1987, WOR television, the WOR News declared him dead by referring to him as the late Abe Vigoda.
And he ran with it.
He made it into comedy.
It turned out to be, talk about a second career.
What really impresses me about Abe Vigoda is you forget just how good an actor he was.
Absolutely.
That he's so convincing as Tessio in The Godfather.
Which he got through an open call.
Coppola auditioned a bunch of actors that didn't have agents.
Yeah.
And he got it.
Walk on.
He's like a scary guy in The Godfather. Yeah. And he got it. And he's— Walk on. He's like a scary guy in The Godfather.
Yeah.
And in real life, he was like, oh, yeah, my knee hurts.
The nicest.
Show business is a weird thing, and I met a lot of nice people.
But I cannot think of a person in or out of the business that I met in my life who was nicer than he was.
Oh, yeah.
And I was at The View, and we did that crazy thing with you.
Oh, yes.
I was Lincoln.
And he was Cloris Leachman.
For reasons I still don't quite understand.
He took it so seriously.
And didn't he call you that he fell down?
He called me like six times.
We had, when I was writing for The View in in uh it was 2000 and 2012 and gilbert came on
we did this thing called joy's month in review and gilbert came on as lincoln
and uh that was that was one part of the skit and then we were gonna have which makes it the
first time out of two times that i've been l. That's correct. Then it was like a million ways to die in the West.
I contend we gave Seth the idea.
But we did this bit where we were going to get Cloris Leachman to come on and do a bit about Ed Asner.
And Cloris couldn't fly, and there was a whole kind of problem.
And I said, I didn't want to throw the bit away.
And I just, I don't know where it came from.
I said, what if Abe Vigoda comes in and he thinks he's Cloris Leachman?
We just called the producer, Greg, and I just called Abe.
And he was raring to go.
It was like he was waiting for the call.
And he showed up.
And you remember we all ate, we ate breakfast in the green room.
And he was just, how do you want me to do it?
Do I, do I, you know, you want me to sound like Cloris? Do you want me to do it do i do i you know you want me to sound like chloris do you want me to be myself when do i walk out he was fantastic and one of my biggest
successes of all things to be a success with uh his daughter invited me to his funeral yeah oh i
forgot to say that yeah you you were judged and and And she asked me, and I showed up, and I figured I would just sit there.
And then she said, I want you to go up and talk.
And I thought, gee, I don't know if I want to talk.
It seems weird.
And I went up and started just joking.
You roasted him.
Yeah, I roasted him.
Talked about how old he was, how funny looking.
The last chance to roasted him. Talked about how old he was, how funny looking. The last chance to roast him.
Yeah, and saying like pointy, and saying this is the best he's ever looked and everything.
And what was great was, and it was what I always talk about with tragedy and comedy,
it's like his loved ones are there, and they loved it.
They were just laughing and applauding applauding and it got in all the
papers yeah yeah it was in an english newspaper i couldn't make it that day i was sorry what do
you say about tragedy and comedy they're like two sides yeah yeah it's like the two go together
did jeff ross roast him too i know yeah jeff was there too yeah and uh he also roasted him
jeff would pull that line out every year at the roast.
Abe was always on the dais at the Friars roast at the Hilton.
And every year Jeff would get up and say, boy, I'm just glad Abe Vigoda is not alive to see this.
And then Abe on cue would get up out of his chair and angrily shake his fist.
Every year.
And, of course, great as fish.
Oh, yeah.
And he went to the Barney Miller, Hal Linden told us,
he went to the Barney Miller audition covered in sweat coming from a run
in his jogging shorts.
A wonderful character and a lovely guy.
I'm so blessed that I got to work with him.
And Hal Linden said that Abe Fagota kicked his ass in handball.
He was a great handball player.
Yeah.
And we've gotten to know his niece, Ashley.
Oh, yeah.
Yes, yes.
She's a sweet girl.
And this show leads to a lot of strange things and opens a lot of doors.
But it was an interesting year, and we lost a lot of people and some that we're sorry we didn't get.
And we learned that Gilbert was scamming people on Halloween.
It was an educational episode.
And by the way, I just want to say to our listeners, too,
if there's anybody we forgot, we apologize.
Oh, George Irving, who was the Heatmiser.
Oh, wow.
From Rankin-Bass.
Yes.
We lost him.
Anybody else, any other actors or directors or writers or anybody we forgot?
Well, so many of them.
We didn't have time to get to everybody.
We're going to do musicians on a separate mini-episode.
And I'm sure.
But certainly let us know who we missed.
We're going to get loads of angry tweets. I'm sure. From the people we've missed. I'm sure. I'm sure. But certainly let us know who we missed. We're going to get loads of angry tweets.
I'm sure.
From the people we've missed.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
And so we'll have to mention them on a future.
At least they're listening.
Yeah.
So 2016, a rough year for talent.
Madonna tweeted, fuck you, 2016.
Did she?
That was her.
She did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think on John Oliver, they took a plunger and blew it up.
But yeah, a lot of
a lot of losses and um you know well when you do a show like this you you you kick yourself for the
people that you missed out on but we've had wonderful guests and we got a lot of wonderful
people booked absolutely so maestro oh yes so he forgets that he hosts.
Gilbert.
I'm Gilbert Gottfried.
This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre,
and some asshole who I still don't know what the hell he does here.
But when he's gone, we'll be eulogizing him on this show.
The more I do this show, the sooner that could be, actually.
It'll be harder to find things to compliment him on.
Thank you, Paul, for sitting in.
And thank you, Frankie.
Thank you, Daryl.
Oh, there it is. Perfect.
I'm going to cry.
And we have to take Gilbert out for ice cream now. Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok