Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 184. Ed. Weinberger

Episode Date: December 4, 2017

Gilbert and Frank are joined by veteran comedy writer and producer Ed. Weinberger, who looks back on six decades' worth of career highlights, including touring Vietnam with Bob Hope, penning jokes for Johnny Carson, firing Tony Clifton (but not Andy Kaufman) and befriending the late, great Dick Gregory. Also, Dino hits the sauce, Vaughn Meader hits the skids, George C. Scott hits the roof and Ed. remembers the infamous Harry Crane. PLUS: When Orangutans Attack! "Ted Baxter's Famous Broadcasters' School"! Ol' Blue Eyes places a bet! Gilbert makes like Lenny Bruce! And Ed. auditions to play...himself? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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five must be 19 or older Ontario only. Please pay responsibly. If you or someone, you know, has concerns about gambling, visit connects Ontario.ca. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa.

Our guest this week is a nine-time Emmy winner and one of the most prolific and successful comedy writers and TV producers of the past six decades. Credits include The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Dean Martin Show, The Betty White Show, Phyllis, Amen, Dear John, The Martin Short star of The Associates, and a little program called The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He also co-created two of the most successful situation comedies of all time, The Cosby Show and Taxi. He began his long career working with the late great Dick Gregory and would go on to work with and write for just about everyone, including Bob Hope, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, George C. Scott, Henry Fonda, Madeline Kahn, Albert Brooks, and Andy Kaufman, as well as former podcast guests John Amos, Stuart Margolin, Dee Wallace, Dick Van Dyke, and Amy Hekeling. In addition to those nine Emmys we mentioned, he also won three Golden Globe Awards and a Peabody, and in 2000, he received the Writers Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award. His new book, co-written with former podcast guest Ed Asner,

is called The Grouchy Historian. An old-time lefty defends our Constitution against right-wing hypocrites and nutjobs. Please welcome the creative mind behind some of the funniest hours in television history and a man who once provided the voice of a talking orangutan, Ed Weinberger. That's some research you guys did. I don't remember half of those credits myself, but we go deep, Ed. I'll say.

Okay. Before we go on to anything else, I think it may have been on Thick of the Night, Alan Thicke's show, or something. I had worked with three orangutans. They used to be an act. I forget what they call themselves. One of those orangutans went on to be the star of this show, Mr. Smith, where it was part of the show was an actual orangutan. The other part was like a obviously phony animatronic puppet orangutan. Bill Cosby saw me on Think of the Night and recommended me to do a guest spot on Mr. Smith, and I auditioned and didn't get it. You auditioned for The Voice?

No, just a guest appearance. Oh, you would have been a great voice or a guest appearance. I don't remember much about that show. I blanked it out. As much as you can blank out a show, I blanked that out. Now, tell us about as much as you remember about this show. All right. Well, I'll tell you one story which I haven't told maybe ever.

Okay, good. It's an exclusive. Okay. So we were shooting at Paramount and we had Mr. Smith who had been in a movie prior to that. Oh, he was in the Eastwood movie. He was in the Eastwood

movie. Right, right. Oh, Any Which Way You Can. Yeah, CJ the Orangutan. uh prior to that had been oh he was in the eastwood movie he was in the eastwood movie right right all right oh any which way you can yeah cj the cj the orangutan yeah cj and uh the trainer also had a second orangutan who was not as well trained uh that we used occasionally as the dumb brother because Mr. Smith could talk through an accident in the lab. He became a genius and could talk. It was a political satire, right? But the brother remained an orangutan. So we had – this is the story, the episode. The Russians were going to try to kidnap Mr. Smith,

who had secrets, nuclear secrets, whatever that was. But they made a mistake, and they captured the dumb orangutan. That was the episode. So we had two actors who were playing the Russian kidnappers. And one was Joe Martegna, by the way. The other I forget. Anyway, the second actor was afraid of the orangutan, the dumb orangutan. And the trainer said, look, you can't show fear.

He's not going to hurt you, but you can't show fear. Well, the actor showed fear. They were in the backseat together. Mantegna was driving. We were shooting late at night at Paramount. driving. We were shooting late at night at Paramount. And suddenly the orangutan, the dumb orangutan, not CJ, began to sexually abuse

the second actor. Oh my God! In the back of the car. So we had to stop shooting. And the second actor, sort of smelling an insurance policy deal here, claimed he had been injured and said he had to be taken to the emergency room. So I went with him to the emergency room. So I went with him to the emergency room. And when we got to the nurse, the nurse said, what seems to be the problem here? And I said, well,

he was sexually attacked by an orangutan outside of Paramount Studios. And I'm not sure if I remember the look on her face, but anyway, we began to fill out the forms. And so that's one of the events of that shooting was that at 4 in the morning, I found myself in an emergency room with an actor filling out an orangutan, a sexual attack by an orangutan. That's hilarious. So if you show an orangutan fear, it will rape you?

I don't know much about orangutans. It was an idea that I probably should have never had. And if I had, I should have stopped myself immediately from going forward. But when I told people about it, they said, oh, this is a hit show. This is a number one hit show. But when I told people about it, they said, oh, this is a hit show. This is a number one hit show. And so I continued from one disaster to another with that show.

The cast was good. Stuart Margolin, who we mentioned, and also the very funny Leonard Frye. Leonard Frye was great. Stuart was great. And so was the orangutan. But it just met with one problem after the other. And I remember giving an interview for TV Guide where I think the orangutan was on the cover that week. And I said, well, you know, CJ, he's worked with Clint Eastwood. He's worked, you know, he's he's terrific. And he he always hits his marks. He does. I got calls from the I got calls from the actors saying, how could you praise C.J. and orangutan and say nothing about us?

And so there was always a problem with that show. And mercifully, it was canceled, I think, in the first year. I believe so. And like I said, there was the real orangutan, and then other scenes was the most phony, fake man-made orangutan. Yeah, well, we had trouble with that. That was a big, giant puppet that never worked,

and we had two puppeteers within it that never worked. Please, you're gone. I will say one last thing about Leonard Frye. Not one of the classiest shows I've ever done. No, it's just Gilbert brings it up because he had a connection to it. I don't know if I could actually watch one right now. But if we ever finish the one about the two Russians kidnapping the dumb brother, I certainly might be able to watch it with a couple of drinks. Leonard Frye was in Fiddler on the Roof, Gilbert. He was the tailor.

Oh, wow. You know that actor? Very funny guy. Very memorable in the Ted Baxter's famous broadcasting school episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. We worked together on a show called Best of the West. Oh, yes. John Marcus said, ask Ed about Best of the West. That's where I first met Leonard.

And now you traveled with Bob Hope. You wrote for Bob Hope a lot. I did, yes. I wrote a lot, but there was one year where I worked for Bob Hope. And you would travel on the plane to, like, Vietnam and places like that? I actually, let me tell you my Vietnam story. I actually went to Vietnam on a Christmas show. I think Frank looked up the year, but we don't have to give it.

I won't give up the year. We don't need to do every year here, please. Yeah. Let me tell you my Bob Hope story. Go ahead. I mean, I have a few Bob Hope stories but this is – so we – this was living out a fantasy in a way because growing up, I had obviously been very interested and listened to and watched Bob Hope and had heard about his USO tours and so forth. And so when Mort Lockman asked me to go with him, Mort Lockman was Bob's head writer,

to go with him as his writing partner, we went to Hawaii and we went to Guam. And then we flew into, we couldn't stay in Saigon that year because the hotel had been bombed. So we stayed in Bangkok, and we took helicopters from Bangkok into the heart of Vietnam. So the first trip we made from Bangkok was to the Da Nang Marine Base in the heart of Vietnam. And this is, I have to remember this, the war is going on full fury. And after the monologue, I only worked on the monologue, and after the monologue, which was different for each base, I had already seen the rest of the show.

I left. I walked out of the base and stood on the side of the road, and I smoked my cigar. And as I'm standing there, behind me I can hear the laughs and the music coming from the show at the base, about maybe 200 yards from me. I see in the distance a convoy, a military convoy, flatbed trucks, armaments, troops, machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, just maybe a truck convoy, 20 trucks long,

winding its way down this dirt road. And it comes, the first truck comes right in front of me and stops. And the officer or the driver, he had a guy next to him, leans out of the window and he says, excuse me, can you tell me how to get to Wang Chi? And I say, I don't know how to tell you this, but I just got in from Beverly Hills yesterday. And they laugh. They laugh. I laugh. We they laugh. They laugh. I laugh. We wave goodbye.

And the truck moves. And the convoy moves on. And I said, right then and there, we can never win this war. If they are stopping and asking directions of a comedy writer working for Bob Hope, and they're lost, and I'm standing here. This is unwinnable, and we should get out right now. Unfortunately, nobody asked my opinion, and we went on for another five, seven, God knows how many more years. They should have asked. Yes, that was my one Vietnam story.

You went down there with Jill St. John. It was Don Ho and Charlie Pride and Jim Neighbors, which I found fascinating. And the Gold Diggers. And the Gold Diggers. Okay. Now, here's the story, the Bob Hope story I heard as far as those Vietnam shows went, story I heard as far as those Vietnam shows went, that he would always hire an actress or a dancer or a singer who he wanted to have sex with. And when they were out there, if they weren't obliging, he would threaten to leave them

in Vietnam. I personally know nothing about that. I do not. I don't. I don't comment on the personal lives of the people I worked with. And I never said. And I know that he did – he was what we called in those days a womanizer. And I'm sure he had somebody on that trip that he may have been interested in. Leaving them in Vietnam, I don't know. Was Jerry Colonna along in all the corporate regulars? Colonna was World War II. Oh, he was still alive.

He was still alive, but he didn't – Jerry Colonna didn't go with him on the Vietnam trip. I remember – I usually sort of hung out with Les Brown, not him, but some of the guys in the band. Sure. Not him, but some of the guys in the band. Sure. And one afternoon leaving after a show, I accidentally got into the same helicopter, military helicopter with Hope. And he was surrounded by brass, military brass. Big, I mean, four-star generals, three-star generals, admirals. And there was a couple of gold diggers in that helicopter.

And there were young airmen with machine guns circling, going back and forth as we ascended. We got up about 200 feet, and the helicopter then slowly came back down to the ground. And you could see sort of the blood draining from the generals' faces because nobody knew what was going on or why we were going back down. And I was watching the generals very closely, and he sent a lieutenant up to the pilot to find out what was going on. And what had happened was one of the gold diggers had left her camera back at the base and had gone up to the pilot herself, sort of flirting with him, and asked him if he would mind going back down to get the camera.

Now the generals were sort of committed. They didn't want to panic and say, no, we're getting it. So we were now in a very tense situation, in a battle zone, while we got this young woman's brownie, it turned out, an Instamatic brownie, brought it back, and the helicopter took off. But for a minute, we thought we were under attack, and it was just a gold digger who had left her camera behind. That's funny. That's funny.

Hello, this is and we will return to Gilbert Scott for his amazing collage podcast right after this. Gilbert and Frank we can't live without you. And now back to the show. What did you tell me on the phone, Ed? I thought Gilbert would find this interesting, that Hope used to isolate the writers.

Well, he didn't isolate the writers, but we never, I was never in a writer's room with Hope. In other words, everybody worked individually. We turned our material into Mort, and then Mort assembled it and gave it to Hope. Hope only dealt with Mort, really. And the writers, we worked separately, which was true of a lot of, I mean, true of Johnny, too. We had writers meetings, but we didn't write together. Everybody did monologue or stand-up or one-liners by themselves, and then Hope assembled the monologues himself. There was one other story. I was alone with Hope two times, and, of course, I was in awe

and a little uncomfortable in his presence. But we were alone in a – I'm not sure where. I think it was on a plane. And he turned to me and he was – no, I think Mort had just left the room. We were in a hotel room. And Mort had just left the room, and Hope was agitated because Fortune 500 had just named him one of the richest men in America with $2 billion in property in the San Fernando Valley. And Hope was outraged. And he said, I have nowhere near $2 billion.

How dare they say that? And he's looking for sympathy from me in some way. There they say, and he's looking for sympathy from me in some way. Because this is, you know, and I'm saying, you know, I'm making decent money, but I'm not in that world. And I have to feign this outrage. I have to say, well, yeah, you should write a, maybe call your lawyer or something. And I'm trying to chime in here and be enthusiastic. And Hope's big problem was that they overestimated his wealth by a billion dollars. Unbelievable.

And I'm saying, yeah, yeah, what a terrible thing. And which reminds me of one other moment with Bob Hope. I was the Northridge earthquake, which you may or may not remember, but a pretty big earthquake. Oh, in the 90s. In the 90s. Yeah. And somehow I was – I'm not sure about the dates. But anyway, it was an earthquake. a property that I was talked into by my business manager at the time and had bought a property

on the epicenter of this earthquake, which was totally destroyed. So casually at one point, knowing Bob Hope owned all of the San Fernando Valley, I said, do you have any damage in the earthquake? He said, no, absolutely not. My one property was totally destroyed. He owned acres and not a scratch. How dangerous were those Vietnam trips? I think they were dangerous. I think there was, except that I think it would have been a very bad move on anybody's part, I guess the Viet Cong or the Vietnamese, to go after Ho. That would be a PR nightmare. So looking back, I assume that they did not want to do anything. But easily they could have because I remember dining in the officer's mass at one point in Vietnam, and I noticed that all the waiters in the kitchen help were Vietnamese.

And I said to whoever was my escort at the time, I said, how could you tell the good Vietnamese from the bad Vietnamese? And he said, we can't. And by the way, this is a good lesson in war. If you cannot recognize your enemy, do not go to war in that country. But I said, so that anybody in that kitchen could be a sympathizer to the Viet Cong and could poison us immediately. And he said, absolutely. So that was another insight into Vietnam at the time and the war. To Hope's credit, he was quite remarkable in certain ways. Whatever you thought of his politics, he would go into hospitals.

I was with him on one of those hospital trips. on one of those hospital trips, and he would go into wounded soldiers and sailors and marines and just go up to them and just say, hey, where are you from? He'd do a joke. He would move on. He'd shake hands. I, at a certain point, had to turn around, go outside, and just gasp for air and tried not to get sick. The injuries were so horrific. So to Hope's credit, whatever his motivation was, Nielsen's ratings, money,

he provided a great service because nobody else was going out there and entertaining those guys. So it was quite a learning experience. And as to Danger, I think it was there, but I think he felt protected and nobody was going to get him. Was it creatively satisfying in any way, Ed, for a young comedy writer since you'd grown? He was a comedy hero to have him do your material? Yeah. Who? If you grew up listening to Bob Hope. course, and that's what I mean.

And one of the great American comedians, whatever you think about his, again, as I said, sure, his political points of view. Yeah, it is. It's always, it's always amazing. It's always amazing, and I don't think it's stopped being amazing that you write something one day, and then it comes out of the mouth of one of your heroes the next, and it's quite special. Yeah, it is. Yeah. We'll just give our listeners a little backdrop, too, a little back story.

I mean, you're from Philadelphia. You didn't come from a show business family. You were working in Bloomingdale's. My father was a butcher, so that was not as far from show business. Right, that's what I mean. You found your way into comedy while you were working

in retail, and you found your way to Dick Gregory. Well, I was in Bloomerdale's. I was in wallpaper and area rugs. I was a district supervisor. I was a floor walker. I had a little white carnation.

And I started as Christmas help. And during the day, I wrote jokes. And at night, after I left, after the store closed, I wrote jokes, and at night after I left, after the store closed, I would bring these jokes to whatever comic was playing in New York at the time. So I had taken jokes to and been rejected by Jackie Carter, Jackie Mason, Jackie Vernon. All the Jackies. Not Jackie Gale? All the Jackies. Not Jackie Gale?

I'm sure Jackie Gale. There's another Jackie that I'm forgetting. And then Dick Gregory, I think it was the Blue Angel, came in, and I wrote jokes for him and brought him material. And you traveled with him. We traveled together. We were roommates, so to speak. And as he got more and more involved in civil rights, I found myself more and more involved less in the show business and less in the joke writing and involved in civil rights.

I was down in Mississippi. I was giving turkeys in Alabama I'm not sure I could tell the difference between the two states even now probably not but I was there sometimes on my own doing work for him and sometimes with him

I remember once, there are a lot of stories from that time period. But I remember once at a church, a small black church where he was preaching at. And it was freezing cold. It was Mississippi, I think. And freezing cold in the winter. And they had no heating system. They had these little room heaters that were lined up

along the side of the wall. So to get warm, I stood in the back next to one of the heaters, and after a while, there was sort of a smell. People in the last four rows looked back at me, and I was going up in flames. My raincoat had gotten too close to the heater and had caught fire. And now the half of the church had to rush back and put me out before Dick Gregory could go. So that's one of the – one of those anecdotes. So I was at the March with Washington. I met – Wow. I met Medgar Evers. I met Malcolm X and many people involved in the civil rights movement.

It was a very special time because we were on the right side and we were doing good work. And it meant a lot to me and and and i think uh changed me in a way because i saw things that i that i think most of us don't see and never would see if i weren't uh weren't under very special circumstances like that it's an interesting journey why did you see what kind of things? Well, when I was in Mississippi, I saw another country. I didn't recognize it. It was the segregation.

That was a time when black, you couldn't stay at the same hotel, you couldn't really eat at the same restaurant. I saw the outright cruelty of people down there towards people of another color. And I saw the African-American standing up to that, finally standing up to it, and fighting for rights that should have been theirs without them.

So, you know, I remember once we were giving out food in, again, could have been Alabama, could have been Mississippi. And a group of really, I guess you would say rednecks pulled up, a truck of rednecks pulled up. And I had wandered off'm not given to heavy lifting. I had stopped pulling out the food from the truck. I was just standing on the side smoking. And they came up to me as a fellow white person, and they said, what are they, and they used, you know, they used the word, what are they doing? They didn't say they and I said beats the hell out of me and I sort of inched towards their side of things

and watched sharing cigarettes with them so I was capable of switching sides when I thought that I was under some physical direct but again I think I had a unique view of the civil rights movement,

a comedy writer working for Dick Gregory during a time in our country of special significance. And it's interesting, too, because that he turned out to be the comic of all the comics. You were going and you were giving material to people. You look back on that and think that journey obviously would not have happened. If it had been Jackie Gale, no. Well, I mean, yeah, or any of those people. It's just that it had been any of the Jackie's. No, right.

It's funny how it worked out. Jackie Mason. That was the one. Jackie, we forgot. Jackie Mason. It's funny that this is the comic that accepts your material and it worked out. Jackie Mason. That was the one Jackie we forgot. Jackie Mason. It's funny that this is the comic that accepts your material and it winds up changing your life. Changed my life, yes. And I was forever indebted to him. Good man.

Getting back to regular show business, you used to write for Johnny Carson. Yes. I have very few stories about Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson. Yes. I have very few stories about Johnny Carson. Yeah, that was after Gregory, and that was my first television job. And at that time, I was hired as a monologue writer. I look at the credits now on the late night shows.

They look like they have 30 to 40 writers working on those shows. We had three, and only two were working on monologue, and the others were working on what we called the five spot, the part of the show where Johnny sat back down. When I started and the show was done in New York. The monologue wasn't even seen around the country and wasn't seen in New York. It started. Most people don't know or don't even. Yeah, that's interesting. I know that either. Yeah. Yeah.

That they didn't show the monologue. They didn't air it. Then I was surprised the show started at eleven fifteen and the network feed did begin till 1130. And it started with Johnny at his desk. And so one of Johnny's peeves at the time, one of the early ones with the network was that somewhat after I started was, you know, he wanted to start the show at 11.30 and start with the monologue, which made sense. And so that first 15 minutes went back to the local stations, and he began starting the show at 11.30 with the monologue. But it wasn't that way when I started. When I had been working there only maybe two months. I think my first joke was a Halloween joke, the first joke that I got on.

My first day was Halloween. And in November, President Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy was assassinated. And at the time, I was working on, everybody knows where they were when President Kennedy was shot. I know specifically because I was writing jokes about his trip to Texas. I was in the process of writing jokes. When we heard that he had been shot, and first I thought that was – somebody was – it was a bad joke. And then, of course, we got to go home early. And I don't know where those jokes were. I often wondered what I was writing at that time. But when that happened, I guess we – first we think of the tragedy of it.

Now, we sort of, I guess – I don't know if I'm unique this way, but I started thinking of my own situation. And I remember thinking foolishly now. I said, well, this is the end of topical comedy. Who can write jokes about anything after this event? write jokes about anything after this event. There's no way that we're going to pick up and Johnny's going to do political humor ever again, or anybody else for that matter. And curiously, of course, within a short period of time, we were back doing the same material. But I always remember Lenny Bruce's joke on the day of Kennedy's assassination.

Do you remember it at all? Yeah, with Vaughn Meter? Yes. Yes. We've talked about it. I think that's the great line. So even on that kind of tragedy, there's a way of finding a joke in that. Coach, Vaughn Meter, his entire career was his Kennedy imitation. And he said,

boy, what was that? I feel sorry for Vaughn Meter. No, no, no. Lenny Bruce, no, I don't think, I don't know that Lenny Bruce ever used the words, I feel sorry for him. But I think he did say, you know, that's the end of Vaughn Meter's career. There goes that. I think that was his opening line. Yeah. On the day of the assassination, that was his line at a club. I think that's the end of – or not even I think. I actually got to watch Lenny Bruce in person in Chicago a few times and later in San Francisco.

So that was sitting in an audience watching him was special too. And he was right, by the way. Yes, he was. Yes. Vaughn Beter never recovered. No. And I hate to pile on, but I met Vaughn Beter and he was really that nice a guy, at least to me at the time. Oh, he had a sad life after that.

Yeah, it's too bad. It's funny because then years later, after September 11th, there was that thing of, oh, can we ever make jokes again? jokes again. Yeah, I think there is that period of time, but you did a you did very shortly thereafter, did a joke that worked, that's recalled and remembered. And and when I read it, I said, that's that that joke works. It's funny and is surprisingly still in good taste. So I mean, to manage all of that at once after. And you know, you're the first person who ever accused me of good taste. I'm not accusing you of good taste. I am commenting on that joke and saying that.

Well, but you're flirting. You're flirting with some serious blowback. And I think – I don't know what the reaction was, but I think it's a great joke. For clarity for our listeners, you're referring to the joke about the stopping off at the Trade Center? Yeah. The Empire State Building is what you said. The Empire State Building. Oh, yeah.

I said I have to fly to – I was at the U-Hefner roast that I did it. And I said I have to leave early tonight. I have to catch a flight to L.A. I couldn't get a direct flight. We have to make a stop at the Empire State Building. And everyone yelled too soon. Yeah. They did? I don't know what the reaction was. Yeah, one everyone yelled too soon yeah they did i don't know what the reaction was i just yelled too soon i thought that meant i didn't take a long enough pause between the setup did you work with harry crane at the carson show no i bet harry worked on the dean martin show he

was oh harry worked on the dean martin too. That's where, no, no, he, that's the only, that's the first and only time I met or worked with Harry. And, and I don't know if your audience knows who Harry, well, he's come up on this show.

Cause Persky's talked about him and legend, legendary comedy writer, the legend, legendary, even then. And, uh, and, and, and he was the old school comedy writer. He was the knife in the back kind of guy with a reputation of being, you know, you had to watch yourself with him.

He'd steal your material. He would do anything to, you know, to get you fired or to, I mean, I'm not saying any of this was true, but he had this reputation. And I do remember Harry saying to me at one time he would come into – I was working with Arnie Kogan at the time and Stan Dandles. We were all on staff at Newmark. And Harry would come into our little cubicles. And one of the things he would say was, you know, if I was writing, if Shakespeare and I were in the same room, I'd break his legs. He had this overriding confidence that he was the best ever.

And he called on Shakespeare as a comparison. And I guess you heard the story from Persky. There's a few famous Harry Crane stories. There's a few famous Harry Crane stories. One is the story with Greg Garrison when Greg Garrison told Harry that he had booked Zero Mostel. I think it was Zero Mostel. And Harry immediately went into a diatribe. Harry said, you can't book – they were considering booking Zero Mostel.

He said, you can't book him. He doesn't go with Dean. He's Broadway. He's New York. Nobody knows him. He's too fat. He's not, you know. And Garrison cut him off and said, you know, Dean loves him.

I love him. We're booking him. And Harry said, wait, you didn't let me finish. Ed was saying it might be the origin of that joke. You know, you know, that joke. Yes. Yes. Let me finish. You didn't let me wait. You didn't let me finish. I swear is a real story that Harry Crane, because it's it typifies Harry Crane in terms of his in the the the backroom politics of comedy writing. And Wait, You Didn't Let Me Finish was told to me as somebody who, so if it's become a joke, it started out as a true story with Harry Crane. Harry Crane was, and I guess Persky told the story, this is a real writer's story,

and this is typical, again, of Harry Crane. They were doing, I guess, an Andy Williams special. Yeah, that sounds right. And Harry had hired Persky and Denhoff. Somebody had hired Persky and Denhoff. And Harry was the head writer, and Persky and Denhoff were the kids on the block, new kids on the block, new kids on the block. And they had the table reading.

And page four, a line gets a big laugh. And Harry turns to everybody, including Andy and the producers. He says, the boys did that, points to Persky and Denhoff. Page eight, another big laugh. He says, you know, the boys did that too. And Persky and Denhoff are thinking, as they say later, hey, Harry is a great guy. He's giving us credit for these jokes.

And they're just saying, well, you know, his reputation is misleading. It's not true. Well, for the rest of the script, after big laugh, after big laugh, Harry says nothing implying that they never did another joke that got a laugh. And all the other jokes were his. I blame them.

And it took him until about page 45 to realize that Harry was sinking the knife into them deeper and deeper as the script went on. So that's Harry Crane, and he deserved a roast, which he never got. Oh, that's too bad. And you wrote for Dean Martin. Well, I was about to get fired when Mary Chllivore hired me, thank God. I was not a good Dean Martin writer.

I never really got a grasp of that show. And I think if we were to look back and see the sexism of that show, not saying that I wouldn't write a sexist joke if they were paying me at the time, but it was, but in any case, I was not, I was, I wrote but not successfully for that show. And did you have any dealings with Dean Martin there? No, no. Dean talked to Greg Harrison and he knew Harry, but Dean never really talked to any of the writers. It's like the Ted Williams, the gods don't answer postcards. I think Dean did not look upon the staff writers as somebody he was going to talk to. It was enough just to see him walk down the hall in a tux with a drink in his

hand and say, hey, I'm working for Dean Martin. By the way, speaking of Dean Martin, going back, when I was with Dick Gregory, Frank Sinatra summoned him, a way to Calneva when we were, Greg and I say I Greg was playing the Hungry Eye in San Francisco and I was with him and he got a call, Sinatra

wanted to see him at Calneva so I forget when we went up there we went up there together and this was quite an event for me I forget when we went up there. We went up there together. And this was quite an event for me. And so I have one Sinatra story that came out of it. But Dean was at the bar, dead drunk. And so the drinking about Dean Martin was never an exaggeration.

It was really part of a lifestyle. But Frank Sinatra heard. We went in, and we were all introduced, and Frank Sinatra said, let's go talk. And we had to cross the casino to go into the restaurant where Sinatra and Gregory were going to talk, and I was going to hang out with Sinatra's guy. And as we passed the crap table, Sinatra said to the croupier, I'm trying to find the word for the guy who rolls the dice in a crap table, trying to find the word for the guy who rolls the dice at a table. And he says, put 10,000 on pass and let me know what happens when I come back.

And I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever heard in my life. And it came from Sinatra, 10,000, and let me know what happens when I come back. That is pretty cool. Yeah, I thought you couldn't, and so that was the first time I ever heard Sinatra speak offstage. It's funny that you saw Dean Slosh, because you'd hear rumors that there was just soda or water in the glass. I don't think so. He drank.

I think he drank during the show, during the television show, and it was part, and so... You've heard that, right? The booze was a prop. Put ginger ale. Put ginger ale or... Well, I don't know.

He drank. I mean, I saw him at a bar. And, of course, I don't know after that. And, you know, things do tend to get exaggerated. But I'm inclined to think that there was a – where he was really drinking. Since you brought up Harry Cr crane that's just you and i talked on the phone too about pat mccormick another legendary comedy writer yeah you know i never had a story about pat well i never worked with pat but yeah that was you know there were

always a pat mccormick good with you did you meet pat at all at any point? I never met Pat, but now should be my time to ask you the question. I've told this story a few times, and we had one guest who backed me up on it. Two of them. Oh, two guests. Buck Henry and Ronnie Shell. Well, I'm not going to contradict

either one of them, by the way. Pat McCormick helicopter story. I've heard that, too. I can't vouch. I can't vouch. I cannot vouch for it. Could you tell it?

No, I can't tell it. I don't know it that well. What's the Braille? Is there a Braille story? Yes. Well, yes. Let me tell you the story that I do have good. I do have verification because I know somebody who was in the car with him.

And they were driving by. it's the 101 Freeway, and adjacent to the freeway is the Braille Institute. This was around 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock in the morning, 1 o'clock in the morning. And Pat McCormick says, you know, somebody says, you know, the lights are all out. And Pat says, yes, they're working late. I didn't do that justice, but yes, they're working late tonight. And I thought that may be one of the better, because it was quick.

It was impromptu. Pat was usually given to to using props for example you know babies you know with fruit around them at the middle of a dining i think he put his own kid at the middle of a dining room table and pulled back the silver cover and there was his kid you know being served up apparently so he he liked props, like the helicopter story and so forth. But that was one joke that I always remember because I thought it was witty, and it is. And you were one of the creators of Taxi, and you worked with Andy Kaufman.

Yes, I did. And that was so weird. Fired him. Yeah. Well, no, I didn't fire Andy. Oh, you fired Tony. I fired Tony Clifton. I never brought –

I stand corrected. This is very – because – all right. So this is – all right. So we're getting into the weeds, comedy weeds here, so to speak. But let me tell you why. here, so to speak, but let me tell you why. So when we hired Andy, Jim Brooks and I went to see him at a club, and he was doing Tony Clifton, and he was doing Andy Kaufman, and we loved him, and we wanted to find him. We said, we're going to write a part for you, to find him. We said, we're going to write a part for you.

And his manager was George Shapiro, and we made a deal. And I sort of made the deal with him, and George and Andy said, look, we'll do the show, but we want you to write two episodes for Tony Clifton as well. And we said, okay. And then they said, you have to swear to us that you'll never tell anybody that Tony Clifton and Andy Kaufman are the same people. And is this story going to make any sense for people who don't know Andy Kaufman? Oh, they know. Our listeners know.

All right. So I said, okay. And we had Zamuda on the show. Okay. So Zamuda, I really didn't get to know Zamuda until later in the taxi run. And he was not involved in any of these negotiations or conversation.

Anyway, it came the time for the Tony Clifton episode. came the time for the Tony Clifton episode. And we wrote a part where Tony Clifton was Danny DeVito's brother come back, and I forget the episode. So after the – and I told – I think I gave some speech to the cast. I said, look, this is a very unusual guy who's coming in, but we think it will work out. I tried to calm their nerves. Anyway, we did the reading.

We did rehearsal. At the first run through, it was a disaster because Tony Clifton was – and this was our first year of Taxi. We're biting our nails as to pickups and things like that. So I called George and then I called Andy and I said, look, this isn't working out. He can't do the show. He can't – and then I tried to say, you know, Tony Clifton can't act. He can't write. I tried to put it in terms he might accept. And Andy said to me,

I think I had Andy in my office, and I said, Andy, we can't do this. And he said, okay, I want you to fire me. Okay, but I want to be fired on the set tomorrow. And I said, okay, I'll fire you on the set tomorrow. And listen, could you get – so I'll come in and I'll pretend to be drunk and you fire me because I'm drinking. And I said, okay, I'll fire you because you're drinking because I don't want to be fired because I'm a bad actor And I said, okay, I'll fire you because you're drinking. Because I don't want to be fired because I'm a bad actor. I said, okay, I understand.

So the next day, now word had gotten out somehow at Paramount that something unusual was about to happen on the taxi set. So I get a call. Tony Clifton is, oh, he wanted me to hire two women to be on either side of him as he two extras, and this is what they have to do. Just come in, and then they'll go. I said, they said fine. So that afternoon, Tony Clifton is on stage. I am called. Tony Clifton is here.

I go down. And he's drinking from a bottle, pretending to be drunk. He's got the two girls on either side of him. And he had come with presents for the cast, little wind-up animal, little wind-up toys, little bunnies and squirrels that sort of walk back and forth. So we had all this going on back and forth across the state. walked back and forth. So we had all this going on back and forth across the state. And I come down and now I'm playing a part. And I say, Tony, you're late. You're drunk.

You're fired. Get off. He said, you can't fire me. I'm not leaving. I said, Tony, now I'm getting angry. No, you've got to get off. And he starts strutting back and forth. You can't fire me. This script stinks. You need to rewrite. He's throwing the script back and forth. And I say, I go to the AD.

I say, call security. And the AD says, well, you know that's anti-coffin. No, it's not anti-coffin because I'm remembering my job. So now I look a little crazy. I said, I'm remembering my – I'd given my word. Oh, they're not the same people. And security comes. Security is an old guy, you know, and not ready to manhandle somebody.

And now the rehearsal is going. We're about an hour and a half behind. Judd Hirsch and I now grab Tony Judd. He's a very strong guy. We both grab him on either side, and we pick him up, and we take him out, and we sort of drop him on Melrose. Just drop him on the street and come back, and we go back to work. I go back to my office.

And I am furious because I thought he was going to go. I was going to fire him in the meantime. I'm back in my office. I get a phone call. My secretary says, it's Andy Kaufman. Pick up. And I said, where are you? my secretary says it's Andy Kaufman pick up and I said where are you he said I'm at a phone booth on Melrose

I said okay he said I want to say something I said what is it Andy he said you were brilliant today I said brilliant I was in a psychodrama, and I was simply being angry and pissed off at this guy for going back. And he said, you were brilliant.

Thank you. Okay. We took all the Tony Clifton stuff, and we threw it out on the sidewalk. stuff and we threw it out on the sidewalk. And I also got a call shortly after from Army Archer to Variety who said, I understand you fired Tony Clifton. And I said, well, yes, I don't know whether he knows, who knows. He said, you fired Tony Clifton. And he said, what reason? I said, Army, look, he's a young guy in the business. Let's not ruin his career this early. I'd rather not discuss the issue.

He said, well, can I put it in? Yes, just say we created differences or something. And it went in. And so anyway, that was the firing of Tony Clifton. The next week, Andy came and showed up as if nothing had happened and nothing had gone up. Very funny. And did you or the crew ever get the attitude of like,

oh, cut this shit, Andy? No, Andy was the most punctual, knew his lines, knew exactly what he had to do. He was a pleasure to work for or work with, I should say. Tony Clifton was the other character, was totally crazy. But Andy was the nicest, sweetest young man in the world. And at that time, he was also reading The Great Gatsby at the improv from beginning to end. He was working at a delicatessen as a busboy. We would go see him.

as a busboy. We would go see him. And when he did Tony Clifton at, I forget what theater, I know it was Carnegie Hall at one time, but in LA the first time he did it, he had Zamuda play Tony Clifton. And so at one point, Andy and Tony Clifton were on the same stage together. And of course, I was on the floor, historical. That's when he took us all out for milk and cookies. So Andy – go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I was going to say Gil knew him in the day from the improv. Didn't you?

You see him – Not well. But you'd see him early on. Yeah. He was the sweetest guy in the world. I mean as Andy Coffin, but, but at, at times you got, he would,

he, I remember when he, he got injured in that wrestling accident, which was all fake. And again, he fooled me again. And I was sending, you know,

I was sending doctors to his hospital to get, you know, hoping he could come back to work. And he was, and he had, he had, so he, he liked playing with you that way, but

he himself was just a sweet, sweet man. Yeah, tell Gilbert about auditioning for Man on the Moon, for the Kaufmanman movie because that's kind of funny. All right. So they sent me the script, which is the story of Andy Kaufman, and they wanted me – and they had written that scene where I had fired was in there because it had been well discussed. And

the director helped me with this. Oh, Milos Forman. Milos Forman. I met with him at a hotel near Sunset Plaza Drive. And he asked me to read.

And I said, you know, it's me. I mean, you know, I don't – one, I don't know how to read me, first of all. I'm not an actor. And second, I really don't want to do this. And he said, why? I said, well, I'm not sure I like the script and I'm not sure. And you have me cursing throughout the whole. And I said, you know, I, I, I did curse when I lost my temper, but as a rule, those are not words that I use all the time.

And I, he said, well, if you don't actor, what an actor may have to go through. And I never did it. They hired somebody who I don't know if you followed through on that thread at all. I think they hired Peter Bonners from the Bob Newhart show. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And it was – Taxi was really a small part of the movie.

Right, right, right. And you created the Cosby Show. Well, yeah. That's not a credit that has the luster it once had. No, I would say not. Great of the original Cosby show, too, the Bill Cosby show. There were two Cosby shows. The one was The Half Hour is the Gym Teacher.

Yeah, we've talked about that. The one-carat film show. Chet Kincaid. Bill liked, I don't know, he always named his own characters in a strange way. So he had Chet Kincaid, which was like, I said, Bill, that's like a cowboy name, isn't it? He wanted that. And once he wanted something, you couldn't talk him out of it. And the second was Huxtable, which I, again, questioned him about.

But that seemed to work out all right. But, yeah, that was – but I – you know, now the only question I'm asked is, you know, what do I know about Bill Cosby personally and not much. That original Cosby show was hip. We talked about it on the phone too and it was bold for the time for not using a laugh track. No laugh track no laugh track and uh one camera and yeah single camera right some great people uh guest stars on it yeah frank and i were talking it there was a lot of celebrity major names yeah well gilbert's excited that elsa lanchester was on yeah brian frankenstein uh no we had and uh, we had all kinds. I mean, it was amazing.

Henry Fonda, Dick Van Dyke. Yeah. What happened was the show was, I think, number two in the ratings in the second year. And Bill goes on The Tonight Show and announces that he's quitting the show and moving to New York, which was the end of the show. The ratings plummeted after that. And that was it. Why did he quit? Well, if I remember correctly, and I'm not sure of the time frame, but this was the time

of the, this was right after the Manson murders. And his wife, I think, really freaked out about that and wanted to get out of L.A. And I think there was a lot of that among celebrities in Hollywood at the time. I don't know that they all left or could have. But I think that was his reason. And they went back to New York and that was the end of the show. I didn't work for him again until the second series. It was a funny show, and it had that great Quincy Jones theme song.

I think Bill probably is responsible for that. No, I – and the first year, not knowing anything about half-hour comedy, I thought I had to write them all myself. And it was only the second year I found out, you know, I could hire people and get help. And we did some funny shows. I remember the Henry Fonda one, which was written by Stan Daniels, who was then still at the Dean Martin show,

where he did the two of them in the elevator together. So we experimented. We did some different things on that. You remember that show, Gil? It was a good show. Oh, yeah, where he's the gym teacher. Yeah, it was very smart. Yeah, and I remember it was always, like, funny, like a major star would just pop up.

Yeah, yeah. I was talking to Ed, including moms Mabley and Manton Moreland showed up one night when I was watching it on TV land. Uh, we, we have this thing called grill the guest. These are just a couple of quick questions from listeners that they wrote in for you while we were talking. No, no, we prep it. We prep it. We asked for them ahead of time. I was going to say, okay, no, this isn't live. Andrew Ford says, I'd like to ask about the origins of Stan Daniels doing a Yiddish rendition of Old Man River that he would do as a warm-up. Is this so? Yes, it's so.

And it was brilliant. And I don't know where he got it from. It's original with him. It's original material. Because he wrote songs. He loved musical theater. He was a songwriter, and he wrote the book, Lyrics and Music, to more than one show. And he was sort of – I don't know whether he was a cabaret entertainer or not,

but he did this, we did this on the Mary Tyler Moore show at every, you know, between scenes he would come out and he would do Old Man River in Yiddish. I will not do it justice and can't. If you tried it right now, Gilbert, you would probably, you know, we could work on it together. You'd have five minutes that would play anywhere. Could you try

it? Do you know any Yiddish, Gil? No. Could you? This is going to be very awkward. Old man River, that old man, whatever. He just keeps trying. Who knows why he's trying.

All right, that's about it. That's really funny. Where that came from, I have no idea. But the lyrics work. I don't know the lyrics, but if you transpose the lyrics, you're going to get something very funny. And then I read where there was a that routine, and I said I hope they got permission from Stan Daniels' family to do it. Or maybe they didn't. It doesn't matter.

But I guess it shouldn't be public domain. But it was Stan's bit, and it was always sensational whenever he did it. One of Stan's lines about me that he always said after every writer's meeting, but he always said, Ed will not take yes for an answer. So that's a funny line. Did he write that great line on the Mary Tyler Moore show where Ted is fixed up with the old lady? Excuse me, where Ted fixes Lou up with the old lady? And he says, maybe you've seen me.

She says, you look very familiar to me, Mr. Baxter. You know where I'm going with this? No, go ahead. And he says, well, you've probably seen me on television. And the old lady says i i don't i don't watch television i have a fireplace yes yes that's that stands that stands joke after great joke and by the way i should say that you know the the writing credits on the mary tyler moore show are are are not truly accurate of who did what, when, and how, and why.

Oh, that's interesting. They weren't individually written. There was a name on it. The policy that Jim Brooks and Alan Burns started and that I try to maintain was that if the writer was assigned a script, whatever happened to that script, we didn't take his name off it. We didn't arbitrate it. And he was always invited to the rewrite session.

At the rewrite, you know, scripts would be turned inside out and redone, and some of it was kept, some of it was not. And at the end of maybe a season, we probably didn't know ourselves who did what or when, though we pretty much were pretty sure that Jim we had done or what we hadn't done. And you created a show called Mr. President. Oh, you're going to go there. Why would you bring that up? He doesn't want to talk about it.

On a comedy show, why would you talk about that up? On a show? He doesn't want to talk about it. On a comedy show, why would you talk about that one? This is supposed to be about comedy writing, and you're supposed to be funny, and you want me to be funny, and then you bring up something. I'll just keep filibustering until maybe we're out of... Don't we have any more

questions? Wait a minute, what happened to the questions? Wait a minute. What happened to the questions from the audience? Academy Award winner John C. Scott. Oh, my God. Well, this was, look, he's one of the great actors of the universe in his time. But his time was not when I was working with him, by the way. Okay, here's another quick one. So wait, wait. What was the problem?

Trying to let him off the hook. What was the problem you were having with George C. Scott? I'll tell you one problem I had with him. Okay. I won't tell you the real problem because that's going to get too serious. Please tell me the real problem. I'll tell you the, no, no, maybe we're off. Did he drink? Well, he did. I'll tell you the – no, no. Maybe we're off. Did he drink?

Well, he did. I don't know whether he was drinking. I drank at that point. I don't care whether he was drinking. I hope I was drinking because there was no other way I was going to get through that. But I remember one – and I was afraid of him, obviously, or, I mean, George C. Scott. And we had, he was in the Oval, the set was the Oval Office, and we had three scenes in which he did all, did each one of them behind the desk.

So after the run-through, I went up to him, which he did all, did each one of them behind the desk. So after the run-through, I went up to him, and in the most, not even polite, I mean, in the most sycophantic way I could say, Mr. Scott, I think I always called him Mr. Scott or Mr. Scott. I couldn't think of George as a possible name for him. Mr. Scott, you think in the last scene, in the third scene, you could stand because, you know,

you've been behind the desk for the whole show. I mean, I put it in certain. Well, he went absolutely ballistic. And I think at that point I realized that this was not going to be working out too well for either one of us. And, of course, it didn't. And strangely enough, one of the best reviews I ever got was for that show. And it taught me a lot because I knew where we were headed. I knew, I knew how much trouble I was in. And I, and this said something about television criticism that if he couldn't spot it, I don't know what he could spot because this was going

directly into the toilet with me, with me and Mr. Scott together. And I don't think of him as a comedian. I mean, a wonderful actor. No, he's been an actor of a generation. Wait a minute. A flim-flam man. What? He's funny in a movie called The Flim-Flam Man.

What is it he in the Kubrick movie? Oh, that's right. Strangelove. Is there anybody funnier in Strangelove than George C. Scott? That's true. That's true. He didn't appear in a lot of comedies. But that didn't stop me.

Yeah. That's a bold move on your part. Well, remember, this was the first year of the new network. So they wanted names. Oh, that's right. It was Fox. It was Fox. And so they wanted names, and they wanted ratings, and they wanted names. Oh, that's right. It was Fox. It was Fox. And so they wanted

names and they wanted ratings and they wanted to make a splash. And this seemed like a good idea at the time, like, you know, like Mr. Smith. Anything that I name with a Mr. in front of you should stay as far away from as possible. Okay, here's another quick one from a listener. John Shetler, how did that iconic John Charles Walters tag come about? And do people say goodnight, Mr. Walters, to you from time to time as a reference to that? No, nobody does that. Well, it's been off the air for a long time. But I got a reputation, I suppose, for mumbling.

I just mumbled at certain times. Either I couldn't think of an answer or it was just a habit. So we needed a sort of – what is it called? It's not a logo, but we needed – Like a sign-off. A sign-off that nobody had done before, really. We were the first to do that, I think. And we were looking for an idea,

and so Jim, I think it was Jim Brooks, we were talking about Jim Brooks, said, you know, you should do your, whatever I was doing. And so we got a very perky young lady who who I think was our script supervisor. She had a very perky. I don't mean this in any demeaning way. She just said it was a very personable young lady and and had this voice.

So she did. Good night, Mr. Walters. And I and I did the voice. And we hired this really very handsome, tall, gray-haired actor to do the Mr. Walters walking off. And that was it. And I never applied. I never asked for any money for that. So I think I may have.

I wonder what my case is. Yeah. All those reruns. Check with AFTRA. I think I should. You remember that, Gil? It was the sign-off at the end of Taxi. If anybody from AFTRA is listening, please, you know, look that up and see if they can send me a check.

Yeah. I mean, a dime for every time that got played. Oh, my God. Put that up, Ed. Oh, my gosh. Well, this is, well, all right. You know, probably a statute of limitations here. Well, put the word out.

Yeah, but. Okay. Let's ask about the book as we wrap up. The Grouchy Historian, which you wrote with our friend Ed Asher. Can you hold it up a little bit? I'm going to. No one's going to see it. I'll hold it up. Oh bit i'm good no one's gonna see it i'll hold it up oh there's no it's just from me yeah yeah tell us about my copy here too so i know it's i know it's it's uh it's uh the least uh important thing here

but let me read the title one more time the gr grouchy historian, an old-time lefty, defends her constitution against right-wing hypocrites and nutjobs. By Ed Weinberger. Two old-time lefties in this case. In this case. Ed Ashton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, but it's his picture on the cover.

That's right. And he's got top billing. But he's saying you did the grunt work and the lion's share of the heavy lifting. That's true. That's right. And it's his, he's got top billing. But he's saying you did the grunt work and the lion's share of the heavy lifting. That's true. That's true. I'm not going to pretend I didn't at this point. And it's got jokes in it

too. Yes, it's funny. And you read it, which is very nice. I appreciate that. It's educational. And it started – It's educational. And it started during the election, during the campaign. And I just got tired of hearing conservatives and Republicans just talking about the Constitution as not only as if they owned it but as if they wrote it. And I said they can't be right.

They can't be. They're not right about anything else. Why are they right? So I, really not knowing much about the origins of the Constitution and the history, I began doing some research, and I did a couple of chapters, and Ed gave me notes and comments, and we sent it off to an agent or a lawyer, and they got it to Simon & Schuster. We got a book deal, and now I was faced with the problem of having to actually write a whole book. But the more I got into it, the more excited I got because I just found one thing after another and you just start peeling back information and you just, you know, one thing. So you just read a little bit about James Madison and then you say, wow, this is, he's not a,

he's not a right-wing conservative. He's not a states' rights guy. He's not Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz isn't right about the Second Amendment. He isn't right about the separation of the church and state. The left, because I don't think of myself as a Democrat, but I do think of myself as a leftist in some way. We're closer to these people than anybody knows, and there's something here that needs to get out about what these people are saying about our Constitution and our history and the people who made it. And that's where the book is. Well, it's fascinating. The Second Amendment, which is very, unfortunately, too timely these days.

Yes. Was a chapter I'm really proud of because I just didn't know what I was going to find when I got into it. But there is no fundamental right in the Constitution, in the Second Amendment, to own a gun. They're not saying that. You guys make it very clear that it's clearly referring to state militia. Always about a state militia.

This whole – What Madison wrote. And the first draft of Madison's Second Amendment, which was really the smoking gun, no pun intended, seems to have been neglected or ignored. And we make the case that the country was founded on gun control, which I won't go into because it's not a funny story and I don't want to lose Gilbert here. So Shay's rebellion is not going to get too many jokes.

Oh, he's interested in Shay's Rebellion. No, he's not. I will say no and well enough to know he doesn't give a hoot about Shay's Rebellion. It turns out to be a history book, but a history book with a sense of humor. It reads a little like Howard Zinn, but with jokes. It's very accessible. Well, Howard Zinn is a great compliment, and thank you for that. But there are out and out flat one-liners in there because the editor said, you know, you can't go too many pages without getting a laugh, sort of like a network note in that sense.

It's legitimately funny, and it makes its points very well, and also how much they were motivated by self-interest. That's another aspect of the challenge. It doesn't denigrate them at all to pull back the curtain and say, look, these guys had skin in the game. They were land owners. They were slave owners. Absolutely.

Land speculation was the big occupation or preoccupation of the time, and they were all speculators in land, and they were all debt were, uh, brilliant geniuses and, uh, uh, and men of the enlightenment and are, and the first real Americans. It's enlightening.

It's educational. And it's, it's a page turner. I mean, I read a lot of books for the show and some are, some are less rewarding than others, but this one was fun. Thank you.

It was, it made history fun. And it wasn't preachy. It was – Well, it points – you know, I do – It was entertaining. We do go after Ann Coulter and – That I enjoyed especially. Ted Cruz.

Ann Cruz and Carson and Scalia and – And all of them. And all of them. And all of them. And, of course, Scalia, one of the great myths of our time, that he knew what he was talking about. Let me ask you this about Ed. I'm going to put you on the spot. Ed contends that Lou Grant, which was a show that was doing well in the ratings at the time, may have been yanked off the air because of his politics. I think that had a lot to do with it. I'm not that familiar with the circumstances.

I was not at MTM at the time. Alan Burns went on to do Lou Grant. Jim Brooks and I had moved on to do Taxi. I think Jim still had some connection to Lou Grant and was one of the creators of it. But Ed did run into trouble because of his stand on El Salvador and his defense of the Sandinistas, which was a very, very serious and dangerous subject at the time. There was a lot of network interference on all levels. That was the age of family values.

I know we had lots of censorship problems on Phyllis. And I don't remember what it – so that was CBS. Paley was still there. I don't remember what it is. So that was CBS. Paley was still there. I'm sure there was blowback from the sponsors. He was very public in his position at the time.

And from what I understand, there was no reason to cancel the show. It certainly wasn't canceled because of its ratings. And it was in the top ten, I believe. And it was a well-received and well-regarded Class C network show. Isn't that interesting? I admire him greatly. You know, I was saying to Gilbert before we put the mics on, I mean, he's a guy who's always put his money where his mouth is. Yes.

He's advocated for teachers, advocated for uh for for hiv patients for for holocaust survivors i mean he's and autism autism now there's a great legacy i mean we we had him on here we had a lot of laughs with him but there's there's just a lot to admire about the man right here's the book gil yeah the grouchy historian an old- time lefty defends the constitution against right wing hypocrites and nut jobs a fun read Ed now and

after we get off the air you're going to have to tell me your extra George C. Scott story I will tell I'll tell it to you off the air off the air I'll tell you my Sherman Helmsley you off the air. Off the air. Okay. I'll tell you my Sherman Helmsley story off the air, too.

Okay. We'll figure out if you guys were actually in shul together. Yes. Yeah. Off the air. I swear they used your name to lure me into a Purim play. Yeah, in some temple in L.A.? Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

That's some temple. A big temple on Wilshire Boulevard. If you were never out here, how they, you know, there's only one of you, so I remember the name. Yes. And they said, we're doing it. They said, Gilbert is going to be working on this Pur and play, and we want you to work on it, too. I said, well, sure.

If he's going to work on it, I'll work on it. And I said, my big contribution was I said, put the rabbi in a dress, and you'll get a big laugh, which they did. And that was it. I figured I got my laugh. I'm done. What you did after that was your business. But apparently I never heard a thing. It's shocking. You're such a pious Jew. You're such an observant Jew. I never saw you in shul. So I said, I wonder where.

Yeah, well, there could be two of you. But anyway, that's the story. I'm sticking by that story. Okay, Ed. All right. I'm Gilbert Gottfried. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And this has been another episode of Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. And we have been talking to the man who thought I wasn't good enough to be in Mr. Smith. No, no. I never said you weren't good enough to be in Mr. Smith. No, no. I never said you weren't good. I may have said you weren't right. You weren't right.

I probably said you weren't right. I never said people weren't good enough. Where it starred a sexual abusing, a sexual harassment orangutan. Orangutan, yes. Ed, this was fascinating and fun.

Thanks for doing it. Thank you, the great Ed Weinberger. Thank you, guys. Thank you. and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, and John Fodiatis. Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance. Good night, Mr. Walters.