Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 197. Dave Thomas

Episode Date: March 5, 2018

Gilbert and Frank check in with one of their favorite performers, actor-writer-director DAVE THOMAS, who talks about his years with Second City (and SCTV), his transition to dramatic series writing, his admiration for Bob Hope and his working relationships with Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Tom Poston and Martin Short. Also, Richard Harris gets rough, Buck Henry storms out, Gilbert dances with John Travolta and Mel Blanc plays Dave's dad. PLUS: "The New Show"! The origin of Bob and Doug McKenzie! Yasser Arafat hits the links! Dave praises Al Jaffee! And the comedy stylings of Max von Sydow! This episode is brought to you by Babbel (www.babbel.com/GILBERT code: GILBERT), Just For Men (www.jfmgrowhair.com code: Regrowth25), and Leesa (www.leesa.com/GILBERT). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Walk with us. Connect to the land that connects us all. Sit with us. Share in our stories and hear our voices. Eat with us. Taste the many flavors of our cultures. Dance with us. Join in.

Feel the beat of the drum and celebrate. Come. Walk with us. Indigenous Tourism Alberta. This ad was expressly recorded to create a sense of simplicity. Just a few simple sounds. No complexity. Like Neutral. Made with just vodka, soda, and natural flavor. Neutral. Refreshingly simple. I'm George Shapiro, and I love, I'm listening toiro and I love I'm listening to

and I'm dedicated to Gilbert Godfrey amazing colossal podcast don't miss it don't miss it perfect

I thought that was good perfect did you feel my passion I did yes very much so I got a tear in my eye okay I'm gonna go cause they going to tow my car away.

Oh, thank you. This is SCTV Channel 109 in Mellonville, Cable 6. Hi, I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my... I was going to say with my roommate. Go ahead. Okay. With my room. With my life partner.

Brando Wally Cox thing. Frank Santo Padre. We're once again shooting at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank. Are we shooting? I think we're recording. Fuck it all. I made 10 mistakes with three sentences. Okay.

Our guest this week is a prolific and popular actor, writer, comedian, producer, and director, and one of the most inventive and original comedy minds of his generation. You've seen him in films that include Stripes, Rat Race, Coneheads, Boris and Natasha, The Experts, Sesame Streets, Follow That Bird, and Strange Brew, which he co-wrote and co-directed with his longtime friend and colleague, Rick Moranis. You've also seen and heard his work on hit TV shows like The Simpsons, King of the Hill, TV shows like The Simpsons, King of the Hill, That 70s Show, Saturday Night Live, Weeds, Arrested Development, Primetime Glick, How I Met Your Mother, and Grace Under Fire. He's also scripted episodes of critically acclaimed series like Bones and the Blacklist. For five seasons, he was one of the writers and stars of the influential and much-admired sketch comedy show SCTV, breathing

life into such memorable characters as Bill Needle, Tex Boyle, Angus Kroc, Harvey K. Tell, and of course, one half of the beloved fierce willing siblings, the McKenzie brothers. You want more from the guy, fine. He's also won two Primetime Emmys, a Sports Emmy, a Grammy, a People's Choice Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Canadian Film and Television. In a long and distinguished career in show business, he's worked with Henry Fonda, Mel Blanc, Bob and Ray, Bill Murray, Martin Short, John Cleese, Steve Dooley, David Steinberg, and Paul Schaefer. Please welcome to the podcast a performer of multiple talents and a man who once played Bob Hope's nephew, Chester Hope, our pal Dave Thomas. Thank you very much. What a long and drawn-out intro. I just feel so old now.

Yeah. I always feel like these intros should be followed with, found dead in his los angeles apartment yes it's a little like this is your life dave without the the school teachers showing up now now we started to talk about something before we went on the air this yeah i don't know how long ago this is this is probably 20 years but uh there was a thing in toronto which i only went to because i'm not a stand-up i did you know sketch comedy but i was never a stand-up and but i would get invited to stand-ups because a lot of people that ran these

things didn't know i wasn't a stand-up and if i if i could get a free plane ride somewhere and uh and not really have to do anything or embarrass myself, then I would say yes. So I said yes to this thing, and I said, but I can't go on the dais because I'm not a stand-up. Oh, don't worry. We don't need you to go on the dais. So Joe Piscopo was the host. Laughing already. Joe Piscopo always made me laugh, and he made me laugh for all the wrong reasons.

And I remember when I did SNL as a guest host with Rick Piscopo was in the cast with Eddie Murphy. There's a little restaurant, just catty corner to the Brill building in New York, an Italian place. And it had a little kind of a vestibule where you go in before you get to the restaurant and you can hang your coat. There's photos of all the stars there. And there's a photo of Joe Piscopo is Frank. And then it's to Tony or whoever the owner of the restaurant was to Tony. You are a kooky,

kooky guy. Love Joe Piscopo. And then in brackets almost frank when i saw that i almost threw up in the vest you know so cut to toronto you're there, Gilbert. Yes. I'm there. I took a free plane ride. Joe Piscopo's the MC. He starts by taking a boom box and putting it on the, on the, on the desk.

And he goes, you know, wherever I go all over the world, you know, uh, people always come up to me and they say, Joe, do your Frank. So without any further ado, and he hits the boom box and you are the sunshine of my life, whatever it was you're singing. And you know, for about eight or 10 bars, it's not bad, but because Joe is never satisfied with something that's just good, he has to go and make it just a pile of shit. So it turned into a really horrible impersonation of Frank. And then other comedians got up.

Then you get up and you go, friends of Earth. What is friends of Earth? I guess I'm a friends of Earth. I don't know. What is friends of Earth? I guess I'm a friend of Earth. I don't know. I mean, the way I see it is, you know, Earth, wherever it goes throughout the galaxy, people always say to Earth, Earth, do your Frank. Earth, do your Frank. I'm paraphrasing it, but it was just boom, ba-da-boom, ba-da-ba. You just nailed him so well.

And everybody on the dais just died. So there's two kinds of comedy. You know, they say, you know, there's the kind of comedy that's pointless and just kind of silly. And then there's the kind of comedy that's really like, you know, a baseball bat. And that was one of those baseball bat jokes that I love. What's the other Gilbert story, Dave? When we were on the phone, you said you had two Gilbert stories. When we were on the phone, you said you had two Gilbert stories. And I remember at the Friends of Earth, I think Jim Carrey and Mike Myers were there, too. And Henny Youngman.

Yep. But none of them were anywhere near as memorable to me as the Friends of Earth. Joe Biscopo. Joe Biscopo. The other time we met Gilbert was, you know, as you were listing all the crazy and insane things I've done, I directed a movie for Paramount and I inherited John Travolta as a cast member.

I didn't choose him as a director. He came with the package. And it was one of those things. Your agent said, no, Dave, you got to do this. You want to be a director? You're going to do this. I wasn't even sure I wanted him as a director. He came with the package. And it was one of those things your agent said, no, Dave, you got to do this. You want to be a director? You're going to do this. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be a director. Anyway, and he needed a sidekick. And you came in and read with Travolta for his as the sidekick in this movie called The Experts.

Oh, yeah. And your memory of this? I do. It was a hilarious mismatch i wished god i had the tape it was just there is no way that gilbert godfrey could be john travolta's partner in this movie. Wait, was it? God. I remember flying out to L.A. to read for that.

And I found myself sitting next to Mike Nesmith from The Monkees. Really? Yeah. And I take out the script and I'm like leafing through it and he goes, what you reading? And I take out the script and I'm like leafing through it and he goes, what you reading? And I said, oh, it's this movie, The Experts.

It's about these Russian spies who kidnapped two Americans to teach them American hip culture. And Mike Nesmith, without changing his facial expression facial expression goes sounds like a piece of shit well that's what the audience thought too so there you go maybe Nesmith's not as stupid as we think. But I did get a chance to dance with Travolta. Oh, yes, you did, didn't you? And look who's talking, too. Yes, I remember that. And Dave introduced John to his wife on that film, to Kelly Preston.

Yes. Yeah. So something good came of it for him. Oh, for sure. Now, this is an interesting comment that you made, Dave, and you're talking about the different kinds of comedy when you're talking about Piscopo. What did you mean when you said you think comedy is a disorder as opposed to a talent? I found that fascinating. Well, you know, one of the things I've done over the years, like I was the head writer for SCTV. So I'm, I was the guy that would bring in the writers and hire the writers. And that was my

introduction to finding out what comedy writers and what comedy people were like, because I'd never really thought about it. And as it turns out, if somebody walked in and they're like a handsome looking jock, it's just like, okay, forget it. This person isn't going to be funny. The person, they have to be really short. They have to be really ugly. They have to be really fat. Or they have to have some kind of messed up childhood that caused them to be funny. I don't believe being funny is a talent.

I think it's a disorder. And I think that handsome people can develop or have a talent or be – no, I don't think they can. I'm sorry. I don't think it's possible to be really funny unless there's something wrong. Look, all the people in my cast in Second City, they were all messed up in some way. And so that's my theory. It's like that story when Redford, they considered Redford for the graduate. It's that story you mentioned on the show.

Yeah, it was like when they were making the graduate into a movie, the studio wanted Robert Redford. The studio wanted Robert Redford. And Mike Nichols met with Robert Redford. And he said, have you ever not gotten laid? And Robert Redford said, what do you mean? And Mike Nichols said, that's it. I'm getting the snobbing. A similar principle. That's great and i i know whenever i see like you know a handsome guy or a really pretty girl there's a comedian i always am extra suspicious and you're usually right i bet yeah you know

listen to them for a little while and now there are plenty of exceptions too there are a lot of homely and ugly and messed up people tell us about your dad introducing you to comedy dave and the uh and the stuff that he used because your dad was a philosopher he wasn't in show business but he was a comedy buff yeah he was yeah um we were i was born in canada but i we moved to uh durham when i was six north carolina and um dad was at duke and um so at at age, it started and it was like Andy Griffith records before Andy Griffith did, you know, no time for sergeants, let alone Mayberry. It was a standup and he had record and his jokes were like, they were like stuff that we did as a family. We would drive down to Florida and us route one. And,

uh, he did it with his hillbilly family. And, you know, there were jokes that he did that became kind of family jokes. They were where, you know, he says,

you know, we're driving along a us, uh, one. And we saw this, uh, sign free picnic tables, one mile.

I said, let's stop and get us one. And then he buttons it with, we kind of wish we had waited till we was on the way back, being as it was made of concrete and all. Well, okay. There's those kind of rural southern jokes. And then my parents were both British, so then he would get goon show records

and it was introduction to you know spike milligan and peter sellers my dad was a huge jonathan winners fan when he was very early in his career tom lair oh great uh you know um spike jones musical stuff that he used to do. So he was always playing these records and he would just be dying. He would just be laughing his off. And the best thing you could do in our house is make dad laugh. That would be like, that would be like,

you know, the, the prize. Uh huh. And so that's how I got into it, you know, was, you know, the, the prize. And so that's how I got into it, you know, was, you know, being kind of tutored and schooled with comedy and, um, my dad being a real comedy buff. And so, uh, yeah, that's it really. That's the end of my story. But you went into advertising first, whichilbert and i found kind of fascinating i didn't do that because i was an ad man you know that i just wanted to be

an ad man i was in godspell oh that's right and after godspell i couldn't get a job as an actor that was my first gig and i went around and the only thing I got was a commercial for Ontario Hydro where I played a guy, MOS, no dialogue, who pushed a sailboat into a high – it was for Ontario Hydro. I pushed a sailboat into some overhead wires and got electrocuted, and that was my one job after Godspell. A year went by, and I didn't get a job, and I thought, screw this. I'm not going to be a waiter who says he's in showbiz. So I had been editor of the student paper. I went back to my college and I made up a bunch of fake ads. And then I went to, I went to the yellow pages in the Toronto phone book.

I just started phoning ad agencies alphabetically and go and trying to get interviews. And by the time I got to the M's at McCann Erickson, I got hired. That's great. And then inside there, it became like a whole ad career because I got lucky. I did some spots and I was really, you know, audacious, I guess, you know, ballsy. Like I don't ever say you can't do anything. You know, if they ask you, can you do something? You say, yeah. And I wrote this, they put me on, uh, as a junior writer on the Coca-Cola account, which meant I did all the retail stuff. And these are

like basically print ads for newspapers and things like that. And at that particular time, Coke and Pepsi were in a bottling war where they kept going and doing mold, different molds of the bottles to make the bottles taller so that in the store people would go, oh, look, that one's bigger. I'm going to get that one. And so the ads and the creativity there

is really limited. But one of the things I got asked to do was a contest commercial where they would, you know, get under the cap of Coca-Cola. There'd be like a thing. And you'd, if you got lucky,

you'd win. So, um, I did, there was a TV commercial that was part of that. So I wrote a TV commercial and they gave me 28 and a half seconds of legal copy for a 30 second spot, which is like,

Oh, what the hell am I going to do with this? So then I thought, Oh, I remember that old weatherman bit that Don Knotts used to do on the tonight show, uh, the early tonight show with Steve Allen and the breakaway pointers too much information, too much data. So I made the 28 and a half seconds of legal copy that I had my, that was the bit that became the bit that the guy had to give all this information. He couldn't do it all. And so I went into the creative director

and pitched this and he said, you can't write this and take, send that to Coca-Cola. They're not even going to get it. You have to go up there and pitch it. So, all right. So I went up to the head offices and pitched it. And then they liked it. And they said, who do you see doing this? And I said, Tim Conway. I pulled the name out of a hat. A week or two weeks later, I was on a plane to LA to shoot this spot with Tim Conway. And it was like, holy shit.

Instant gratification. And then I got put onto more then i ended up doing more tv stuff for coca-cola and they fired the girl who was head writer and then the i did one spot that got the attention of this guy in new york who was creative director at mccann his name is bill backer we talked about him on this show the he was kind of a legend of course he thought if things go better with coke it's the real thing coke and that mountaintop commercial i'd like to buy the world that was his spot yeah he passed away last year yeah so i he saw one of my spots he said i want to meet that kid get him on a plane get him down here so i went down to new york and um and i go into his office. It's on Lexington Avenue.

It's a corner office, and he's got a grand piano. He's this little guy in a gray suit with a bow tie. And he's sitting in his office, and I walk in, and he says, I'm Bill Backer. And I say, I'm Dave Thomas. Sit down. And he starts quoting Shakespeare. Now, I had just done a master's degree in English. And I'm thinking, the hell is he quoting Shakespeare for? What is this guy's game?

But he started quoting stuff and I thought, all right, well, I'll quote stuff back. So I quoted Shakespeare back. Well, that was my ticket. It was like the stupidest thing. That is how I, i won him over then he says to me hey um i want you to come up have you ever written a jingle and i went yes i hadn't lying of course and he said i want you to write a jingle and i want to make it keep it simple keep this i wrote this jingle and then they put me on a plane to go to England and shoot with these kids.

And then I was, I was on a roll in advertising, mostly by luck. A lot of these things are luck and timing. And so then they, I hear they're opening second city in Toronto. That was the gig I wanted. And I missed the first one because of stuff i was doing advertising but the second time that it opened because uh the first one failed because they couldn't get a liquor license the second time it opened they were having auditions and i and i went auditioned and got it and then i quit i went in to see my boss and I said, I'm leaving.

And he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm going to go do Second City. And he said, how much are you making? I said, $145 a week. By this time, I was making like 50, 60 grand or something like that in advertising, which was good for a single guy. And he said, you're crazy. And he said, look, go there, do it for a year and get it out of your system. And if you want to come back here in a year or two years, we'll give you your job back.

So that's how I got into advertising. I guess a shorter version of that would have been something that you probably would have rather had. No, we got the time, Dave. I don't know how to edit. We got the time, Dave. I don't know how to edit. We got the time. Good luck getting the knife in there because I talk like a politician. And how much were you making with Second City? $145 a week.

Big come down. Oh, geez. Yeah. Big, big bucks. And who was in Second City at the time? Dan Aykroyd, Kevin O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Brian Doyle Murray, Gil Radner. No, he had gone. He was in the earlier one that closed because they couldn't get a liquor license.

I see. In Toronto. And then this was 74 and 75. Lawrence started, uh, recruiting, um, for SNL and Gilda went first and then, um, then he hired Belushi and then Danny was going to go down, but I worked with Danny backstage and we ended up augmenting our 145 bucks a week. Cause he heard I was in advertising and he said, uh, David, we do some retail stuff there's a way we could you know do radio spots for that wacky audio guy on young street and maybe some other guy and i said yeah sure let's he said

how much yeah i said i know that for the freelance spots when i was at mccann it's like a grand a spot so he was that was big money to us so we went let's do it so we started writing spots we were doing a lot of those radio spots together so you were writing ads by day to make a little money just to supplement that income obviously you needed you needed a couple of bucks and you were doing second city how many nights a week six nights a week six nights a week jesus and you and akroyd had a thing going before he got, uh, before Belushi managed to succeed in pulling him to New York.

Didn't he used to say, come to the big stage. That was Belushi. Yeah. That's what I mean. Belushi was trying to convince Danny to come to New York. And Danny was like, Oh,

I don't know why. Oh, you don't even like, I never saw anybody do Dan Ackroyd before. I know. Cause his, his laugh know. Because his laugh. I love his laugh. It's like, oh, oh, oh.

So Belushi said to him, Danny, Danny, Danny, come to Rome. And Danny got it. What that meant is when you're in Toronto and you're in these little satellite Detroit and these satellite cities, that's not where the arena is. You know, it's like in the movie Gladiator with Russell Crowe. He's like, you play the provinces, but you're not doing anything until you're in the Circus Maximus. You got to go to Rome. And I thought it was a cool thing that Belushi said to Danny.

Yeah, so he went into New York. He got sucked in. You stayed put with, who was in that cast? Who was left? Oh, well, Catherine O'Hara was there. You started working with Catherine. Catherine was there. Andrea Martin was there.

Andrea Martin. Marty Short joined later. Yeah, but we were all in Toronto after Godspell hanging around trying to get work, you know, and thank God second city came to Toronto. Cause, uh, I don't know what I would have done. I probably would have stayed in advertising, you know? And Paul was the musical director in that, in that Godspell production. Paul, Paul Schaefer.

Yeah. Yeah, he was. And when I went down to New York to work with Bill Backer, Paul was doing the Lampoon show. Oh, Lemmings. Right. No, not Lemmings. The radio hour. Oh, the radio hour.

Radio dinner. Yeah. And it was with Brian Doyle Murray and Joe Flaherty and Bill Murray and Belushi and, uh, uh, oh shit. The guy that did the movies with, um, Eugene Levy. Um, um, um, I can't think of his name.

Chris guest, right? Chris guest, Chris guest. So there were, there was a hell of a cast down there doing that stuff. So there was always, yeah.

And there was cross pollination between like Murray came to Toronto for a tour and we went to Chicago and Belushi came up to Toronto all the time to visit Danny. So there was, you know, there was traffic back and forth. We knew all the players were. And,

and everybody who works with Paul Schaefer usually winds up with a Paul Schaefer imitation. So let's hear yours. You have a pretty good one too, Gil. Oh, ah, well, uh, let's see. I don't actually do Paul. I can't really do. No.

I mean, if I, if I heard him do something, I might imitate him, but you know, we have a little thing we do on the phone what i call paul i just say six and it's a reference to something that sinatra yelled out in one of his songs meaning six and based on another thing that some other guy in toronto used to say paul will call me back and if he misses me, it'll be ho. So it goes six ho. And that's our little link. I just missed his show. I saw, um, in Vegas, he was playing, um, uh, in Caesars at Cleopatra's bars, one of the lounge rooms there. And, um, Marty went and Eugene went, I was supposed to go with them, but I got a new chair for my office. Okay. And I thought my old chair was hurting my

back. I get this, this amazing thousand dollar, $1,200 chair. It's really good for your back. But what I didn't know is that the wheels make the chair roll more freely than my old chair. So I get up at this very desk thinking I got to do something. And then I, when I'd sit, I just kind of drop in the chair, but the chair had rolled away and it was gone. And I dropped back down onto my sacrum and just like, holy crap, back down onto my sacrum and just like, holy crap, I couldn't sit, stand, or do anything over the whole holidays. So I couldn't go see Paul's show and I was really disappointed

about that. Anyway. Do a little Paul for Dave. Yeah, let's see. Yeah, you know, you know, Gilbert, Gilbert, you know, he's talking to Harry Shearer. Harry Shearer,

he hates you. We love Paul. And now while Gilbert heads into the nutmeg kitchen to steal more Perrier, a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 hours of clinically proven odor protection. Free of aluminum, parabens, dyes, talc, and baking soda. It's made with pH balancing minerals and crafted with skin conditioning oils.

So whether you're going for a run or just running late, do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't. Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. This episode is brought to you by New Balance Running. New Balance believes if you run, you're a runner. Whether you're going for your first ever run around the park or going for your personal best in a marathon, speed, strength, stamina, whatever goal you're working toward, New Balance has the running shoes, clothes, and accessories to push your run further and help you run your way.

Find yours at newbalance.ca slash running. New Balance, run your way. At this exact moment, you're just five minutes away from mouth-watering golden french fries. Five minutes away from crispy onion rings and potato tots too because five minutes in the air fryer is all it takes to serve up a delicious batch of cavendish farms new quick crisp onion rings potato tots and french fries faster than ever before just 300 seconds between you and your all-time favorites quick crisp from cavendish farms made our way enjoyed your way

available right away. It's Frank and Gilbert time. Yes, yes, it's Frank and Gilbert time. It's Frank and Gilbert time. It's Frank and Gilbert time. And now back to more hilarity and trenchant insight, Gilbert Gottfried. For more hilarity and trenchant insight, Gilbert Gottfried. Now, I think you said that when Second City went on the air, it was actually bombing.

It wasn't bombing. It's just nobody was watching. Yeah. I guess that's another way to bomb. Yeah. We were – the show was syndicated in the U.s it wasn't on any network and it was sold through um this guy named jack rhodes who was involved with a company he might have even been his company called film ways and they were syndicators of things and nobody knew what to do with this little bastard half hour of sketch comedy and so we're in 48 markets in our first season of the u.s in most of the major markets like los angeles and new york

but not in enough markets and certainly no no promotion or advertising people had to discover the show to find that it was on and it was on really late so it's very hard to discover the show to find that it was on, and it was on really late. So it's very hard to discover a show like that unless you're a night watchman, you know. And that was Candy, Eugene, Catherine, you, obviously, Flaherty, Andrea Martin, and Harold Ramis was the head writer? Right, for the first year. And then Harold left, and I became head writer after he left so um and you started auditioning misfits writers yes that's right yeah there's a guy that i hired named eddie gordeski who was sure you know eddie oh sure oh yeah yeah i gave him his i gave him his first job no kidding he's a big deal ed Eddie. Josh Weinstein and Bill Oakley.

Oakley and Weinstein, yeah. I gave them their first job. I gave Dave Cohan and Max Muchnick. Sure, the Will and Grace creators. I gave them their first job. So I got them in the WGA. This is one thing you didn't mention in your run of things that i did i was the producer of uh the dennis miller show for a while oh yes yeah his tribune show

so that's where i met those guys was overton on that show who was on that writing staff oh overton was yeah he came later i forget all the guys that were on it yeah i find it interesting too that you're not only a student of comedy but you're a student of comedy writers you you were i saw in your interview with kevin pollack that you were firing off the names of guys that used to write for mad magazine and guys like arnie cogan and larry siegel who used to cross over to tv and and write. And Dick DeBartolo. By the way, I sent Dick DeBartolo who's a friend and who's done this show, I sent him your clip and he

was enormously flattered that you mentioned his name. Really? Yes. Well, God bless him. I mean, those guys, when I was a kid, I was like, man, that's where it's at. Those guys got a nice turn. They know how to tell jokes. You know Al Jaffe?

Remember snappy answers to stupid questions? We had Jaffe here. We had him on the show. Yeah, he's 96. Holy shit. I remember one of his jokes. It was like a guy at the maitre d' at a restaurant standing there alone.

He said, no, he's there with his wife. It's a couple standing at the maitre d'. And the maitre d' says, table for how many? He goes, table for one. My wife will be sitting on my shoulders. Al is still going strong, Dave. He's still doing it. They're all borscht belt jokes, but God bless them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us about, and how long were you doing the stage show before? Was it Bernie Solins who decided that we have to turn this into a television show? Yeah. So how long were you doing the stage show? And it's interesting too. You talk about luck and timing and serendipity,

how all this is happening for you. You audition for this thing because you just want to have fun and that's what you want to be doing. And sooner before you know it, you're on TV. Well, I went to college with Eugeneugene and marty right so i knew those guys from school and i didn't just i in all fairness i didn't just hear

that second city was having auditions eugene called me and he said you got to get in here in addition i see they they marty and eugene called me for godspell too they said you got to get in here in addition and i said oh okay oh, okay. So I drove in from Hamilton. I was teaching first year tutorials at the time while I was working on a master's degree because I didn't know what to do, you know. And they went to Toronto to try the acting thing and I was too chicken to do it at first. And they called me. I drove to Toronto and got in Godspell. So Eugene called me and said, you got to get in here in addition for Second City.

There's an opening. And so I went in addition. And he did some lobbying for me in all fairness, but I got in. You have to do five characters, five through the door, they call it. So you go through the door, do a character, do some jokes, blah, blah, blah blah and then clearly and cleanly establish your character

then exit and come on right away as another character and do that do five characters in a row and then and then there's other stuff that they do but that was one of the things and and i don't do him but can you do a eugene levy does anybody do e Eugene Levy? Does anybody do Eugene Levy? He is a very thoughtful guy. And will take his time to nail something down. He,

we used to tease him relentlessly, you know, about his, he has a natural kind of Jack Benny speed. That's what, that's his speed. That's Eugene. Isn't doing a bit. That's him.

He has a different clock than the rest of us, you know, but you know, God bless him on sctv he was like a robot oh my god go off by himself and he would just bang bang bang bang bang bang he would just he would write a piece every day he was like a robot i have to say going back and watching those sketches you know what what what what occurs to you is how how edgy how savage you guys were especially when it came to show business characters, how ruthless that satire was. People like Lola Heatherton and Sammy Maudlin, I mean,

even today, it's still, it's got a lot of teeth. Well, it's worse today. I mean, you got these snowflakes in the audience today. I don't think you can do anything today. I'm so glad i'm not trying to do comedy now and i have to tell you moving into drama is largely because my stuff is so dark and so different that i couldn't give it away yeah so you know i found transitioning to drama really easily but you know uh i don, we never like my impersonation of Bob Hope was something that was based on, you know, admiration and, and respect and not for the guy who became, you know, uh, the, the guy that people in the seventies thought was a warmonger and things like that.

He wasn't really. I got to know him. I spent time with him. I did shows with him. I got invited over to his house one day. I was shooting Grace Under Fire at CBS Radford. That's very close to his house in Toluca Lake. And I'd done some stuff with him and met him and been at his house before.

And his publicist, a guy named Ward Grant called me and he said, Bob wants you to come over to the house. I went, okay. So I just got in the car, left the rehearsal and came over to Bob Hope's house. I mean,

Bob Hope. So I get there now he's still sharp, but he's, he's slowing down a little, you know, and Ward says he's upstairs, uh, outside the bedroom. There was a, he had a little kind of a, a makeup area that he set up outside his bedroom. Uh, and he would get made up there before going over to NBC. Then he wouldn't have to go to makeup at NBC. And, um,

so I walk up the stairs and he's, he's sitting there when I get up there and he turns and he sees me, he goes, he goes, Oh, hi, Dave, what are you doing here? And I said, well, Ward said you wanted me to come over. And he looks at me, he goes, Oh yeah. Well, what do you want? are you? Well, what do you want? I know you don't get into it with an old guy like that. No, no. Ward said, you told Ward you wanted me to come over, and now you're

saying, what do you want? So I didn't get in. When he said, what do you want? I just looked at him. I said, I want to see that picture you got of Patton pissing in the Rhine. I'd heard about this. Hope lights up like a Christmas tree. He's like, you heard about that? Come here, I'll show you. And he walks me to this hall of pictures outside the bedroom.

And he's describing as he walks, he said, you know, Patton said he'd cut a swath through Hitler's Europe and he'd piss in his Rhine. And he said, I got a Patton said he'd cut a swath through Hitler's Europe and he'd piss in his rhyme. And he said, I got a picture of him doing it. And he said, you know, the family, they they they won. There were three of these pictures and the family wanted them all back.

And they got the other two. But I'd never give them this one. Oh, Lord. And there's this picture of General Patton, twin colts on his hip, you know, the colt pistols on his hips, and Dick out pissing in the Rhine. And

I thought that was just amazing. And then he goes to the picture right beside, and he said, yeah, this is Neil Armstrong. He did my special right after he got back from the moon. Who can say that? You know, that impression is uncanny.

I got into him when I was doing SCTV and then that became my ticket. You know, everybody loved that impression, you know, from, uh, you know, Robert Klein and, uh you know, from, uh, you know, Robert Klein and, uh, Albert Brooks to Johnny Carson, you know, and I ended up doing the tonight show with Johnny Carson. Everybody wanted me to do Bob Hope, but unlike Joe Piscopo, I never thought I was almost

Hope. I just did my stupid impersonation. I was on his 90th birthday special. I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. And that's where I did Chester Hope. Right. His nephew.

And the producer of the show said, you know, when you finish your bit, Dave, I want you to walk down this ramp. Bob and Dolores are going to be sitting here. And he said, he won't recognize you. He won't be able to hear you. He won't know who you are. I said, well, then why do you want me to walk down the ramp?

And they said, because everybody's doing it. So I walked down the ramp and Hope gets up. He gets up and walks over to me. And so I see the camera's repone. You're always watching that stuff out of the corner of your eyes, right? Like, where's my camera? And Hope walks up to me. He says, hey, Dave.

He says, it's been some time since I saw you up there in Toronto there. You know? And I'm like, holy crap. He knows me? And I said, yeah, Bob, how you doing? I said, happy birthday. It's a pleasure to be on your show. And then as we're talking, I notice he's blocking my camera and I just think,

ah, he's old. He made a mistake. So I just counter a little bit so that I can see the camera covering me. Cause there's a two shot and then there's a cross to me and across to him. So I counted a little bit and then he counters with me blocking me again. And I counted a third time and he was blocked. He was blocking my shot on purpose.

And so I looked at him, I needed a way out of this. And I said, I said, Hey Bobby, I can do something with my ski jump nose that you can't do. And he said, Oh yeah,

what's that? And I, I had as part of my Bob Hope impersonation, this makeup SCTV woman, Bev Sheckman, who did makeup on SCTV. She made me a little kind of a ski jump thing for the end of my nose, a prosthetic piece that I'd glue on my nose. So I'm standing there with Bob and I said,

I can do something with my ski jump nose you can't do. And I just pulled that piece right off and handed it to him. And he laughed. I got him. And it made me feel so good. That was my out. You know what I always found strange with Hope?

It's like there were two of him. There was the early Bob Hope where it's kind of eff feminine and eye rolling and loads of nervous energy. And then in the later, uh, hoping Crosby movies, he, he already started doing that one.

You know, it became the later Bob Hope. I, I think if by that you mean like road to Hong Kong, which he did in 1960, which was much later you're absolutely right um what what happens with a lot of comedians and i think this happened with bob he had this amazing energy and when he did his monologues in the 40s during the war and things

like that they used to call him rapid robert rapid robert and the reason they called him that was because his monologues were so fast if you listen you listen to those old radio shows, not only is he fast, he'll be doing his jokes real fast. The audience is fast with him. The whole thing is speeded up really fast. And I thought it was like, well, this is a weird recording. This is an issue of the recording. And then I heard other things and realized it wasn't. So then there's that thing that comedians do where one day they have had some success and then girls are paying attention to them.

Because women like guys on television more than they like guys who aren't on television. Then they walk by the mirror and they go, know hey i don't look too bad that's the beginning of the end that's that's when when the con when a comedian thinks that they can play a leading man i saw belushi make that mistake when he did continental oh yeah with blair brown you know and it was just like come on you know the year this short albanian guy who is known for shoving potatoes in your face you know know, so it, it, I do, I do think that that affected Bob. And then Bob started hobnobbing with all the presidents. And I used to do this joke.

This was just for, you know, Brian Noah Murray and Paul Schaefer and people like that. But Bob would actually drop his voice about an octave when he was talking about either generals or presidents. We're going to have my special and I'm going to have Kiki D is going to be on it. And also President Ford is going to drop by for a little while. And so his voice would drop. His voice would drop very reverentially for, you know, politicians.

And I was down there at Da Nang, and Joey Heatherton did her number, and then General Westmoreland dropped by. It was marvelous to see him there, you know? So that, that, that was, I think, you know, the beginning of the end for Bob when he became a guy who golfed with the politicians and you lose touch with your audience and you don't, you're not, you're not in, you, you become part of the joke instead of being the guy who's standing outside at doing the jokes you know but god bless him he had this longevity and this amazing energy that just pushed him right through to the 90s i don't think anybody's gonna have a career like that these days you know things are

much faster and more disposable and do i think a lot of performers, too, they reach the self-proclaimed grand old man of show business status. Yeah. And it's a shame. Well, you know, those later specials, I mean, if you're a fan of his, they're a little difficult to watch because obviously he's more than lost his fastball. And he does another thing on those later specials. He got into this thing where he would do his joke and then he'd turn like this.

He'd do this real serious. Oh, yes. And he'd go, hey, this is Bobby. Get that bunker bomb out of my cave. Hope, coming to you live from Tora Bora, Afghanistan's holiday hideaway spot where Mujahideen families can get a luxury cave for less than $5 a day.

I wish we run video so people could see that tape. Yeah, it was that classic Hope look that you did where he uh, underneath his eyelids at the audience. And it's like, Oh, I just did something naughty and you're going to love it. You know? And it's like, no,

you didn't Bob. Did you, did you ever share what, uh, play it again, Bob with him? Oh God. Yeah,

I did that. Jeff Barron, who was a writer on SCTV and also one of hope's writers took me backstage while we were doing sctv and i i had set up a monitor he was playing in toronto at o'keefe center and i i had a monitor and uh i brought a video cassette with me and we set this stuff up that was the second time I'd actually met hope. And, um,

but the first time he actually knew who I was. So I played, um, played again, Bob for him. I played, we did this other bit. Hope did this thing in the,

uh, eighties where he went to China. And he did a monologue in China and he had a Chinese interpreter. All of hope's jokes are like references to American culture. And there are things that these people who are behind the, you know, the iron curtain of China,

they're not going to get that. They're not going to get any of the stuff because it's such a cultural difference. So the guy, the interpreter is saying something completely different, probably making fun of him. And so one of the sketches we did on SCTV was Bob and Mel Shavelson, played by Rick Moranis, who was one of his writers, sitting backstage with some Chinese writers trying to come up with some topical stuff that Chinese people relate to. And I played that for Hope, and Hope laughed. He didn't get into the joke of what we were doing as much as he got into, you know, that really happened. He said, you know, we did a show in China there.

into, you know, that really happened. He said, you know, we did a show in China there. And that was so hard to come up with the references that those people would like, you know. Hilarious. Anyway. I remember the Bob Hope Desert Classic, too, with Bacon and Arafat. That was another SCTV sketch. That was the first time I did the impersonation.

And Brian Doyle Murray wrote that with me. That's great. He was one of the authors of Caddyshack, because collectively, we figured that Bob's two things were golf and war. So we did a desert classic in the Middle East with Menachem Begin and Yasser Arafat as golfers, and Bob bringing them together. Yasser Arafat, isn't he something, ladies and gentlemen? It's on YouTube. I urge our listeners to find it because it's wonderful. But you met him when you were 16 the first time? Yeah. Yeah.

He played in Toronto, and I ran backstage as he was getting into his limo. He was already in the limo. I put my hand in the limo to shake hands with him, and he almost closed my hand in his limo. He's already in the limo. I put my hand in the limo to shake hands with him and he was close. He almost closed my hand in the, in the limo. And then I met him again, Catherine O'Hara, Marty Shorten, Andrew Martin. And I did this really horrible gig at the playboy GERD playboy gorge club in New Jersey. And we didn't, we had no idea what we'd signed on for. it was one of those things that your agent goes yeah it's terrific you're gonna love it it's a great gig and and the money's good so anyway we go there and what we found out when we got there was they were closing

the club and they were doing a show they were going to come out and say to the staff, ladies and gentlemen, don't bother coming into more because you're all fired. And now a show. And then Catherine O'Hara, Marty Shorten, Henry Martin, and I had to come out and try to make these people laugh. We've just found out they have no job.

And I hope was the main event on that night. And so we were walking in the lobby towards the backstage area and then Hope came in with his entourage and I said, hey Bobby, I met you in Toronto. And he stops and he says, oh yeah? He said, where? I said, at the Canadian National Exhibition. He said, oh yeah, I remember that.

And I said, yeah, I shook hands with you. You almost closed my hand in your power window. And he looks at me, he said, oh, I know what it was. He was still walking, and I was walking with him while we were talking about this. And I said, I met you in Toronto, yeah, and you almost closed my hand in your power window. And he said, yeah, I must have been in a big hurry. And I said, like you are now, Bob? And he stopped. And he said, no, I'm not in that big a hurry. Who are you? What's your name? So I talked to him a little bit there. now so I met him at the Gorge Club and then the third

time was backstage with Jeff Barron when I showed him these sketches and and one of the things he said was he said you know he said you know Rich Little he's tried to do me and he said he could do all these other voices he can't do me at all he said but you got all these other voices. He can't do me at all. He said, but you got it down. That's wild. I watched Play It Again, Bob, last night.

The random Anita Ekberg reference. It's just wonderful. It's on YouTube for people who haven't seen it. Shame on you. Watch it. And Flaherty shows up as Bing, of course. So we got a leading lady in this thing for me Flaherty shows up as Bing, of course. So we got a leading lady in this thing for me?

Well, it's not really a leading lady, per se. What, do you got a troupe of girls? Well, actually, there's an affair that you get involved in. Oh, that's good, yeah. And then from there, like, there's sort of a... Can we get Joey Hetherton for that? Well, actually, for that, I was looking at a terrific actress. I don't know if you know her, Diane Keaton.

She's really, really, really great. That string bean that was in your movie? What do you mean? She's terrific. She's versatile. She's attractive. She's great. Geez, I don't know.

I don't know. I need a girl to build. If I'm going to fall in love with her, it's got to be realistic for me. Realistic? I mean, it's exactly what I'm going for, you know? I mean, I don't want to mug or go too broad with this thing. Yeah, well, what's wrong with Anita Eckberg?

At least she's, you know... What, what, what? What's with the hands? You want an actress with arthritis? Mr. Hope? Yeah. Okay, look, Woody, you hang loose, okay? I'm going to be right back.

Look, your mood ring's turning black. Take it easy, boy. Take it easy. Mood ring? What is this, 1968? And now, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bob Hope. The Village People, ladies and gentlemen, aren't they something? They're the first rock group to stay at the Waldorf Astoria

and request bunk beds. Now seriously, ladies and gentlemen, I think that our next act is gonna be something that you're gonna love. I was interested in the structure of his jokes too you know they were like if he was doing ISIS jokes today it would be something like hey how about that ISIS aren't they something fighting the jihad to the last man

jihad that the last man. Jihad, that's Arabic for I'll believe anything that some crackpot in a beard tells me. You know, it's like those definitions are very much a Bob Hope thing, you know, or yes, sir, what a country. Mountains, caves, desert, poverty, mutilated women, a 24-hour day prayer. Who needs paradise when you can get it all here in Afghanistan?

You know what I mean? So there's these structured things that were real. And after a while, I could write them. It was like, oh, yeah, okay, I know how to write that. And Jeff Barron came in, and I learned from him how to write Hope jokes. So I'm doing a special with him. This was before the 90th birthday. It was Bob Hope Salutes the young comedians.

And it was Crystal Bernard and I were the hosts of a Bob Hope special. Bob wasn't even the host of his own special. And, oh, and I wrote the monologue for it. And Bob's reading the script. His daughter, Linda, told me this. He's reading the script and he goes, he says, hey, when you do this, when we do this earthquake joke, do the bit you know, I danced around the house and then the house danced around me. Do that. And Linda said, well, that's not your monologue

dad. That's Dave Thomas's monologue where he's doing you. And Hope looks at him it he goes you're there yeah well tell him to put it in anyway because if he's gonna do me he should do me the way i would do me so i had hope punching up my monologue you know i love it it was amazing yeah tell us we and gilbert wants to hear your uh your von seedow tell us about getting max von seedow for strange brew because it's such a fun story well i was a huge fan of max von seedow primarily from three days of the condor i'd seen all that stuff the bergman stuff that he had done and then he was the first jesus to ever show his face sure so you know when we were sitting in freddie

field's office at mgm and they were going to do the movie that freddie fields was the president of mgm former manager of judy garland and mickey rooney probably one of the most evil men in hollywood anyway he says who do you want for Brewmaster Smith? I said, Max Fonsetto. So he goes, hey, Adele, get Max Fonsetto on the phone. So they call him in Sweden. And he goes,

Max, yeah, hi, Freddie. And he had done a movie with him. And so Max knew Freddie. And he said, I got these two guys here, Dave Thomas and Rick Maranis they got this very funny movie I'll forget I'll let them tell you about it here and he hands me the phone so I had to tell Max what this what you know do a short summary of the plot of Strange Brew and I stumbled through it the best way I could and I didn't hear anything on the other end of the line

and then I finished. And then he goes, so it's a comedy then. And so he said, send me this, send me the script. I'll read it. I'll read,

you know, so I found out later that he called his son and his son lived in the States. And he said i'm getting an offer to do a movie for mgm with uh baba and doc mckenzie do you have you heard of them and uh his son said oh god yeah you gotta do that dad they're great they did and so he did it and i met him in toronto we were shooting that night and he showed up when we were shooting the riot at the theater at the very beginning of the movie where Bob and Doug try to wreck their own movie.

And, um, I walked out and, you know, I was introduced by our, by the producer. And I said, I'm Max.

I'm so thrilled you're doing this. I know everything you've ever done. Um, Bergman, all the Bergman stuff, first Jesus to ever show his face and greatest story ever told. And I said, and three days of the Condor, I said, God, I memorized your last speech. And he's 6'6", you know, he's a big man. And I'm a little guy. And he looks down at me.

And he says, oh, can you do it for me now? of me he says so can you do it for me now i have to do this speech right there's the condor and i get part way through it and he cuts me off and he said yes that was my that was my idea and i said what was your idea he said the script was but he will leave the door open. And I, because I'm playing European, I said, no, he will leave open the door. And I was kind of like, that's your brilliant. He's fun and strange brew,

Dave. He's fun. He's an inspired casting choice. He's so good. Yeah. And so professional and set such a high bar for, especially Rick and I, who'd never done a movie, let alone directed a movie, you know.

Yeah. What a mad thing that they gave us the job of directing that. It was insane. There was a director attached and they fired, MGM fired him. What was this? How did the mckenzie brothers come to be as a well-told story but it's the cb um cbc the cbc version of the show was two minutes longer meaning that it had two minutes less commercial content than the American syndicated version.

So this was in the third season. So CBC said, do something distinctly Canadian with that two minute difference. And we were kind of insulted by that. It was like, what are you talking about? We're all Canadians doing this show. You want us to,

this isn't an issue of nationalism. And so I, or Rick and I collectively said, what do you want us to do? You know, wear toques and parkas and sit in front of a map of Canada and drink beer? And they said, yeah, that's fine. If you could have a Mountie on the show, that would be good too. And if you look at the early Bob and Doug's, we had a Mountie mug that was in the shape of a Mountie. And it was a mean-spirited joke bug that was in the shape of a Mountie. And, um,

it was a mean spirited joke aimed to make fun of the CBC and ended up becoming a gold mine for Rick and myself. And it's just, you know, you never know what an audience is going to pick that they're going to like. You don't ever know what's going to be what they call going viral today. We, we had no clue that, you know, people were going to like you don't ever know what's going to be what they call going viral today we we had no clue that you know people were going to like it we were just doing it for ourselves

to amuse ourselves and people got into it and um and then some yeah it spawned an album and yeah you know the album made so much money for us that i bought a like a house with an indoor pool in toronto what the hell you know and i was never good with my you know the um uh uh right uh what's his name the comedian right steven right steven right joke i love this his joke which is how did the fool and his money get together in the first place i think that you know so i was driving mercedes at a house with an indoor pool and it was all bob and doug money it was just crazy yeah uh theme song in the movie by your brother ian yeah yep yep yep painted Painted ladies, I remember. Yeah. So here we go.

Here's a couple of wild cards that are on our cards. You can tell us about the great Tom Poston, which you said was the best experience, the best part of the experience of Grace Under Fire was befriending and working with Tom. Or you can tell us a Buck Henry story because you worked with Buck on the ill-fated new show. Yep. a Buck Henry story because you work with Buck on the on the ill-fated new show and of course everybody who's who's we've had on the show who's worked with Pat McCormick I have to ask if they can tell their version if they know it of the helicopter story

I don't know the helicopters oh wow well we'll another time we'll tell you the helicopter story okay uh all right really quickly uh buck henry um so we're doing the new show i'm having dinner with lorne and um candace ber. And, you know, this is another one of Dave Thomas's free rides in the business where I don't know how I got there, but there I am. And, um, and Lauren tells stories and is known for his storytelling. And, um, I love Lauren. He's, he's, he was very nice to me in new york but he's not the most self-aware person and so he's telling these stories and he's we're sitting at dinner and he's saying it was 1968 and i was doing laugh and uh and buck goes that fucking doesn't

he puts drop throws his knife and fork down, stomps out of the restaurant. Candace Burke is like, what, what the hell? And I'm what the hell? And Lauren is, is like unflappable. You can, you can have a, you can literally self combust in front of Lauren. He won't react. So Lauren says, gee, I wonder what's bothering Buck. And I said, well, Lauren, I don't know.

I've only known you about six months, and I've heard that 1968 Peter Sellers story, I don't know, maybe six or seven times. Buck has known you for a long time. He must have heard it maybe a hundred times. Maybe that heard it maybe a hundred maybe that was it a hundred times and ornlinson goes no i don't think that's it i think something else is troubling him so i get back to the offices we had offices in the brill building and buck's there in his office and i said what the fuck happened i said what, what the fuck happened? I said, what, sorry, what the heck happened? And Buck says, if I have to hear that goddamn story one more time, that was exactly why he stormed out.

You know, the new show was a very funny experience because it was, Lauren wasn't totally committed to the show. It was something he was doing between his two stints on SNL. Right. He never did it. And then he left the show. Dick Abrasal was producing it for a while. And there's somebody else was,

I forget, a female producer. Oh, anyway. Um, so he wanted to get, I think he'd already had it in his mind that he made a mistake by giving up SNL and he wanted to go back. So he didn't really put a lot of effort into the new show.

And I remember storming into his office one time really mad because he said he was going to – like, Dave, I'm bringing you to New York. You're going to – you never became a star on SCTV. You're going to be a star now. So I stormed into his office. We were 68th in the ratings of 70 shows. It was just awful. And I throw the ratings on his desk and I say, hey, not bad for the legendary producer of SNL. I cannot believe that you are doing nothing to make this show work. You promised me you're going to make me a big star. I'm not even going to be able to get a job after this show.

And he looks at me and he goes, you know, it's true. These days, instead of thinking about what great comedy idea I want to do, I think about what I want to eat that day. When I get up, I burst out. about what I want to eat that day when I get up, I burst out laughing. This is the stupidest response. It's so typical of Lauren because nobody knows how to defuse rage from performers better than Lauren. Lots of talent.

And he just, you know, pricked the balloon on Dave Thomas and let all the air come out. And it was, you know, it was his. It's a shame because you look at them now and I was watching a bunch of them and the talent that's on that show. I mean, not only yourself and Buck, but Valerie Bromfield and John Candy did a bunch. And you got Randy Newman in there. Steve Martin's on there. Penny Marshall. It's incredible.

And the writing room was amazing. I bet. George Myers and Gamelin Pross. Oh, they're great. Franken and Davis. Yeah. Was Y. Bell there still? Y. Bell.

Yeah. Buck Henry. Yeah. That's an amazing room. I love that writer's room. It should have succeeded with all of that talent. Sure. Yeah, it should have.

So what about Pat McCormick? Anything? I was doing a Bob Hope roast at the Beverly Hilton. And I'm not a stand-up, so I needed jokes. So I'm doing Bob Smith, who was one of the Tonight Show writers, was also a Grace Under Fire writer. So he came over to my dressing room. He was helping me with jokes. Tom Poston was also on the roast with me.

And he was helping. And then Tom said, I'll call Pat McCormick. He'll come over. So Pat came over to Grace Under Fire and sat in my dressing room. And he gave me one joke, which I thought, nah, it's too cheap. I can't do that joke.

And the joke was on the theme of Bob being so old. He says, the joke is, I complimented Bob on his new alligator shoes. He says, I'm not wearing any shoes. So I thought, well, that's too cheap. I can't do that, Joe. So cut to the evening and on the dais with me, Phyllis Diller, Norm Crosby, Sid Caesar, you know, Connie Stevens. Phyllis Diller does that alligator shoe joke and kills with it. So I didn't know what I was doing, you know.

Oh, I didn't know what I was doing, you know, and I had this joke that I wanted to do at the beginning, which was a long get and post and warned me not to do it. But I did it anyway and totally tanked. I don't mind tanking. You know, if I if to me, it's all an experiment. I've already done way more had way more fun and got way more had way more opportunities than i honestly believe i deserve so if i go out there is it's like try this see what the hell is i don't i never really looked at any of it as real yeah the money was fake you'd get this money you know well how much you want for doing it i want this much and and i'll walk if i don't get it well it was like ridiculous amounts of money that you didn't need and that you didn't

deserve and that they gave it to you you know and i this business just amazes me i read i read an interview with you you said one of the great things about show business is that you can be the guy looking in the window and if you if you want it badly enough that it can actually happen. I really believe that, you know? Yeah. I mean, I know Oprah's made kind of a religion out of it and now people want her to

be president. But I mean, uh, God, I, I do believe that I sat in Canada watching Bob Hope on TV when I was a kid. And to say to any of my friends,

I'm going to work with that guy, they would have thought that I was committed. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I was in Dundas, Ontario, Canada. Hollywood and Bob Hope might as well have been on Mars for its accessibility to Dave Thomas. And you were saying that people come up to you and they say, how can I make it in show business?

And that means they're never going to make it. Because if they ask that question, they're already disadvantaged. The people that make it are the people who, the question they, you ask them is, is there anything that could have stopped you? That, you know, they were so relentless. And, you know, when I, when I, when I, I told you when I got that advertising job, I was relentless. I went, I made up fake ads. I went through the yellow pages. I phoned every ad agency.

I had doors slammed in my face. I knew it was going to be bad. And the whole job in this business and it's worse today i mean i have a son that's in the business and and it's just it's harder for actors today than it ever was i got in at a lucky time i got in when they were paying before the internet lowered the bar and lowered the money boy that sure that sure happened right yeah i mean absolutely well there's so much free content and then this generation is not used to paying for it yeah the the whole age of seinfeld friends and everybody loves raymond money is gone totally and that's part of why I moved over to drama.

Right. And we'll reiterate again that you're writing shows like The Blacklist now. Yeah. So there's still some of that money around if you come up with a drama or even if you're on staff for a drama. Or if you're Chuck Lorre. Yeah. You can still make pretty good money, you know uh but that old model is dying fast and and you know that the studios just look at and they go wait a minute these internet companies are getting this content for what nothing or like 10 cents on the dollar then lower the bar lower everything you know so yeah the money isn't going to get better it's going to get worse i think you want to tell us a little bit about about poston um see i became uh here's how we got on the show um i another guy you were probably watching when

you were very young oh for sure steve allen yeah i was a huge fan and brett butler was famous she was the star of grace under fire i was originally hired as her co-star, but I became the platonic friend when I wouldn't kiss her. Anyway, in the second or third season, they hired this really terrible actor to play my father. And Brett was famous for tantrums. And I had never had one cause you know, I didn't care. And, um,

and I had a tantrum when I saw this guy, I said, yeah, I'm not, I'm not doing this. This guy's my dad. And they said, well,

who do you want to be your dad? And I said, well, let's get somebody good like Tom Poston. And I meant Tom Poston as an example. Right. And next day I come in Tom's there. Wow.

And he walks up to me and goes, I understand. I have you to thank for this job. So, uh, we just had so much fun together and it really became like a father and son relationship, you know, and I would do stuff on the show just to make Tom laugh. That was my goal was to break him up, you know, and, um, he had a sixth sense of humor, didn't he? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what we've heard. JJ wall told us that too. Oh yeah. Work with Tom. And he's fearless. Like he, and he does totally off-color, racist, sexist.

I know someone like that. There was a guy that Brett kept going through her male co-stars. So come to fifth season, there's this guy D.C. something, a black guy. And he had one of these kind of voices like that.

Tom is standing backstage as this guy does his first scene. And the guy walks off and Tom's got his arms folded. He's looking at him very critically. The guy looks at me. He's a big guy. And he goes, what? What are you, a problem problem what are you looking at tom just looks at him and tom says that is the worst impersonation of a black person i ever heard

i mean come on so what a funny guy yeah yeah when he his wife died and he suzanne plushette's husband died and they'd had a fling together in the 50s and then they started dating and um she said uh we my wife and i went out for dinner with them and, um, when they got engaged and Suzanne told the story and says kind of course, but funny, you know, course funny. And she says, yeah, Tom gave me a ring. And I, she said, I told him I wouldn't sleep with him unless he gave me a rock. And I mean a big effing rock. And so she said, Tom says, so, and tom picks up the story here he says so i went to a jeweler he said i had a piece of gravel mounted on a very expensive he said i had it put in a nice little box and he said i took her out i got down on one knee and he

gave her the ring he, she opened it and just laughed her ass off and said, yes, I do. So they got married. And then I was at their, um, reception, which was at the Beverly Hilton Merv donated the Beverly Hilton. This was one of the best nights of my life. It was just like everybody from seventies TV was there. You know, there. I was at a table with Merv and Bob Einstein and Don Rickles and just everybody from that era. There was a band that

what was the guy's name? The trumpet player on the old Merv Griffin show. Oh, was it Jack Sheldon? Yeah. Jack put together a band and people could go up and sing. was the guy's name the trumpet player on the old merv griffin show oh jen was it jack sheldon yeah jack jack put together a band and people could go up and sing anybody who wanted to sing could go up there and there's a full orchestra and they knew everything it was a fantastic evening i think he was in your army's army i think tom post and he hung around with those guys yeah don knots and don and uh and mccormick and, uh, Jack Riley and Don Adams,

all those great characters. I was in my office one day and he said, Don Knotts has the stupidest message on his answering machine. He said, we got to call it and hear it. And he said, the message is you have reached. And it's really high. So we called Don Adams and, He said, the message is you have reached.

So we called Don Adams and he says, he gives me the phone. He says, you got to hear this. So I put the phone up to my ear and Don picks up. And wait, am I, am I saying the right guy? The guy from Mayberry? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don Knotts.

Don Knotts. I said, Don Adams. Yeah. Yeah. Don Knotts. Don Knotts. I said Don Adams. Yeah. Don Knotts. I meant Don Knotts. And Don says, hello? And I went, shit. It's him.

We didn't get the answering machine. And I said, hi. Hi, Don. It's Dave Thomas. I'm here with your buddy, Tom Poston. And why don't you just hand the phone to him and he can explain. And I hand the phone to Tom. Embarrassed, you know, that Tom, that Don had picked up and we're just going to be laughing at his message.

And Don says to Tom, what do you want? And Poston says, I wanted Dave to hear that stupid message. Or your voice goes up real high and you sound like an idiot and anyway so yeah and what was brett butler like to work with that was whenever i was going to ask that question because it came in from one of our listeners but is it really yeah yeah well so everyone wants to know. Bjartmar Janssen is his name. People would say to me, so what's the story with her? Is it drugs?

Is it alcohol? And I said, no. You don't get to where she is just by abusing drugs or alcohol. I've worked with plenty of people who have those problems. You have to be insane first. of those problems. You have to be insane first. And then headbutt. To get the kind of

punch that you need. Since we're talking about our listeners here, we got one for you. There's a bunch of them here, Dave, but time permitting. Eric Connor says, how the hell did you get Mel Blanc to play your dad in Strange Brew? Well, believe it or not, it was about money.

And Mel was $10,000 an hour for voiceover work. Wow. And so back then. And so I said, I want him to do the father. And they estimated it would be like a three-hour session, $30,000. So Freddie Fields says, no way I'm paying that guy 10 grand an hour. So I thought, oh God, how am I going to do this? So I said, okay.

I said to the producer, tell him we have a three-hour session. And we talked him into doing the three hours for 10 grand. We got a deal on Mel's price. And Freddie Fields says, yeah, okay. He says okay to that. Well, we gave him – I knew we could get him in and out in under an hour. So he got his 10,000 an hour. And you got to work with another hero, another child, another childhood hero.

And when I met him, I've, I got a great picture of the two of us together, but when I met him, he had this thick pipe, this throat that seemed thicker and more dense and had more larynx cords than most people. Do you know what I mean? larynx cords than most people do you know what i mean he he was genetically made to do those voices you know like yosemite sam and uh daffy duck and bugs i don't know i don't know he's a unique talent yeah really really yeah really and speaking of doing impressions and voices i love your richard harris story and i found that i found the i found found the SCTV skit. Which is what? I'm trying to remember the bit. Mel's Rock Palace?

Oh, Mel's Rock Pile. Mel's Rock Pile, excuse me. Well, it's based on Richard Harris singing MacArthur Park. Which, by the way, Gilbert, we had Jimmy Webb here and Gilbert sang MacArthur Park with Jimmy accompanying him. He did?

You did. Oh, it was one of the big thrills of my life. I'll send you the clip. So you know the high note? Yes, yes. And it's a note, don't forget to bake it. And I'll never have that memory again. Oh, no.

It's a high note there. And so everyone knew Richard Harris didn't do that I know so I go on Mel's Rock Pile as Richard Harris and my impersonation of him was based on two things really and that was Richard Harris had a low voice a low voice down here like this a very high voice up here like this and no voice in between so we had the high shouting voice and the low voice so i do the macarthur park thing and um we had a girl sitting in a chair

and reading a novel right beside me during the whole thing is so great how's she doing there and then when it gets to the high note, I just step aside. She leans into the mic and does the high note. And then I lean back in and take credit for it as though it was mine. Cut to, I don't know, 20 years, 25 years later. I'm at some film thing. And somebody pulls me up to meet Richard Harris. And says, Dave, you've got to meet Richard Harris and says, Dave, you got to meet Richard Harris.

Richard, this is Dave Thomas. He impersonated you on SCTV. He did. He hated me. And he physically pushed me. He was just like, I never saw that bit you did of me, but I heard about it, and he's pushing me while he's doing that. I've never seen anyone communicate like that, where they punctuate every sentence with pushing somebody hard. So he claimed that he hadn't seen it, but I could tell that he had.

Gilbert, did you ever have a bad reaction from somebody where you were doing the impression? I don't think so. Seinfeld didn't appreciate your impression. I used to imitate Seinfeld back when no one knew who he was. Because we used to work at the same clubs, like Catch a Rising Star and Comic Strip and he was just another comic and I would start imitating him on stage and all of the waitresses and wait staff would run in and the other comics and laugh at that the audience had no idea do a little bit for Dave so he gets and they and I heard when I would do that,

Seinfeld wouldn't come in for that, and he'd pace the bar angrily going, that doesn't sound anything like me. Is that the worst of it, though, of anybody that you've ever done an impression of? I think so. Nobody ever gave you a hard time. And, oh, I just remembered a Bob Hope story I heard that was.

Oh, yeah. That I heard it was when they were cutting for a commercial. Carson said to Hope, he said, you know, I was reading about you and I heard you were born in London. You were raised in like a rat infested apartment. And your parents, your father was an alcoholic. Both of them died when you were young. Your older brother died and you were left to fend for yourself on the streets. And Hope just goes,

yeah, that's wild. Cause he didn't hear. Probably didn't hear it. You know, he had a real hearing handicap, right? Oh,

no, no. Oh God. We only assumed, we only assumed it was later in life that he went well no he started going deaf in his uh like bad deaf in his 80s uh-huh and where he really couldn't hear you and um and that may and he wouldn't wear hearing aids and that benefit that I told you, that roast was, was, uh, hosted by the house ear clinic, which is this famous doctor, Dr. House in LA that, you know, does amazing things with people who have hearing handicaps. So, but Bob was very, very handicapped in terms of hearing.

And he could hear, I taught, he said to me, he said, you know, I can, I can hear, I can't hear other people, but I can hear you. And I said, I said to him, but that's because my voice is up in the same pitch and range as yours. You just love yourself so much that you can, you can only hear people who sound like you. He looks at us. Yeah, maybe that's right. It's uncanny. It is uncanny. You know, next time we talk to you, Dave, we'll do this again down the road.

And I was watching my favorite brunette, and Peter Lorre's in there, and I thought it'd be fun to have you doing Peter Lorre. Oh, yeah. And Dave doing Bob Hope. Oh, that'd be great. And actually read a scene. Yeah. And we'll do it next time.

Last question I have on here here and we could go on forever because this is so damn entertaining do you have a tape of a conversation between marty short and jerry lewis that you trot out and listen to i did and i misplaced it i don't know where it is i think marty still has a copy of that but i'm not sure marty gave it to me this is one of the sore spots between marty and me because i think i lost that thing and i don't know where it is but um yeah i had that tape and it was a video of marty and jerry and jerry was just the biggest dick that you've ever seen. Such a jerk.

My take on Jerry was that when he discovered the character Buddy Love in The Nutty Professor, then he never wanted to be anybody else. And it was the man that women loved and men feared. And that was the character that he played on his telethons. And he'd have the tux and the cigarette and Mr. Cool, you know. And he was like Jerry the Swinger. And I found out, actually, I don't know if you know this, he got paid a million per telethon at a point in his career when he wasn't working anywhere.

Did you know that, Gil? No. Wow, that's news. Yeah, that was his gig. And he was getting a million bucks per telethon. So he's like, for Jerry's kids, we raised $220 million at a million for Jerry. Wow.

They'd fly him in on a private jet, and he would do the telethon, get a million bucks bucks and go home. Wow. When he got bounced off that, I guess that's part of it, right? I will tell you one final Hope story where I was sitting with him. I was doing one of his shows and I got him mad. He got mad at me. And I always wanted to know why Hope never played Vegas.

He was a guy that would do a Boy Scout breakfast if he could get 25 grand for it why why do you never do the big money and play you know the sands or the sahara or any of those clubs and so i said to him we were sitting there i said hey bob how come you never played vegas in a typical style like the way the story i told you before he looks at me he goes well why do you want to know? And I said, well, and now I'm on the spot and I said, well, you know, I'd heard that you'd never done it. And I'd heard that maybe that it might have something to do with, you know, Dolores being so religious and, and, you know,

Vegas being sin city and he looked, he gets really mad and he said, she has no say in what I do. And I'm like, whoa. Now I got hope mad and I got to back that up fast. I said, well, sorry. I said, that's just what I heard. Somebody's theory, it's not even mine. He said, I'll tell you exactly why. He said, around about 1960, I had this idea for a show that I would do in Vegas

and the idea was that I would be the highest paid entertainer to ever play there laughter laughter that was his idea laughter he said my people talk to their people they wouldn't come up with the money

I just said screw it I never went there laughter our listeners are going to be upset Gil He said, well, my people talk to their people. They wouldn't come up with the money. I just said, screw it. I never went there. Our listeners are going to be upset, Gil, if we don't mention the Jack Frost, which I sent to Dave. Did you watch that clip, Dave, of Bob as Jack Frost in the last Christmas special? Yeah. Gilbert has a theory about that. I truly believe, because when you watch that, it looks like he died 10 years ago. I mean, he is in horrible shape.

And he's there with, like, a glue-on beard and a pointy elf hat. And the icicles. And, yeah, icicles and fake snow around. And I think it was like Dolores's revenge for all the times he fucked around on her. Well, I got to tell you, there's some truth to that. Because, you know, when he said she has no say in what I do, that was definitely him, you know, reacting to being led around by uh dolores and linda because you know they had no real connection with him when he was at his in his prime you know he was flying all over the world and with different babes and dolls and different people on his arm at different times and you know he was he was a real uh, he was a real hound.

No question about it. I heard stories that he'd go to, like, Vietnam and stuff, you know, for those shows. And he'd bring along always a sexy girl with him. And it was like he would hint to them or out and out tell them that if they didn't fuck him uh he would leave them there all right i became friendly with a lot of his writers and yes there's yes that's partly true from what i heard from writers yeah wow a gilbert godfrey rumor wow that's actually true that's a first on this show it wasn't just one girl either it would be more than one girl and um you know it's it's like uh yeah that side to him i don't relate to that

side you know i mean if if he was a younger today, he would definitely have been on the Harvey Weinstein. He would threaten to leave them in like Vietnam and stuff. Well, I heard that story from one of his writers. So I would assume it's more than likely. It's the first time in 180 plus shows, Gilbert, that one of your writers so i would assume it's it's more than likely it's the first time in 180 plus shows gilbert that one of your stories had validity and here's something i i always ask about every old performer uh do you know anything about bob and bing hating the Jews. Really? No. I'll tell you why.

All his writers were Jews. Oh. And he loved his writers. I think you know that anti-Semitism was, you know, open and rampant back then. And he may have said things as a joke, but you know, guys like, you know, Mel

Shavelson and, uh, people like that, that Larry Gelbart and people like that, that were with the, he loved those guys. Oh yeah. Yeah. These guys were, he knew that he was nothing without those guys. was nothing without those guys and um and and i'm i've won here's one story that i heard which was um one of his uh uh one one the wives of one of the writers called uh looking for no bob was calling uh yes i know this one right you know the story? Yeah. The writer was in bed with his wife at the time, and Bob calls them like past midnight. And the writer said to his wife, Bob's there.

I'm not home. And she goes, oh, sorry, Bob. You know, Mel's not here right now. No, no, he said he was with you. He said he was working for you. That's what she said. Yeah, yeah. And so, and the writer's going, no, no, no.

And then Bob goes, oh, yeah, wait a minute. He's just walked in. Okay, it's good. It's good every time. And that proves, that's wait a minute. He's just walked in. Okay. It's good every time. And that proves that's the smoking gun on how many times he's fucked around on Dolores. Yeah. We should wrap and let this man go back to his life. Dave, we've covered about half my cards, so we'll have to do this again down the road.

This was fun. And I'm, you know, I haven't really seen you much since that. I gotta, I gotta tell you, I'm a big fan and I love to laugh. And when you do this for a living, there aren't very many people that can make me laugh and you're one of them and i've always loved you so you know wow keep it up oh thank you nice thing thank you yeah we we have some we have some fun episodes you'd enjoy listening to dave with stephen wright and einstein and people like that and buck oh yeah we'll share them with you yeah yeah yeah somebody's got to tell richard lewis to get off larry David's show because he's looking so cadaverous. If you think Bob looked like Jack Frost, check out a recent episode of Curb with Richard Lewis. Oh, my God. of curb with richard lift oh my god that's that's the ultimate insult that he looks older than more pathetic than bob hope honestly it's insane did you see the wheel k Douglas outlasted? Oh, my God. Yes.

Yeah. I wish they hadn't done that. Yeah. It's just. He looked so horrible. 101. And you go 101. I would say 130 more like it.

He's lying about his age. He's had some work done. It shows you the terrible job that gravity does on just pushing us into the ground when we get really old because you were looking at him going i mean i know what kirk douglas looks like and that doesn't look anything like kirk doug my wife said when they put the mic down for him to speak, he should have said, putting on the Ritz. Monster and young Frankenstein. He would have said it like this.

Couldn't understand him. If your interpreter is Catherine Zeta-Jones and she can't understand you, you've got a pair of problems. Yeah. There was a coxswain in his day, Kirk Douglas. Oh, yeah. Looking at him in that shape. This is not a business for old people, which is why I'm glad I've gone behind the scenes and I'm writing now.

I did a movie called White Coats. It was a hospital movie you know and there was me and one scene with me dave foley and then another guy who's kind of like looks a little bit like dave foley only he's a lot younger like a decade younger and his name's peter oldring we i was let i was director and i let them watch the playbacks and make their decision if we want to do another take and we looked at the take and foley looks at it and he goes oh god and he said what he said you know when i think of myself and even sometimes when i look at myself in the mirror i think i look more like peter but when i see myself on the monitor like this i realize i look like dave and it was a real reminder that you what, it's time to just stop going on camera, you know?

All right. Next time we'll do it again, Dave, if you're willing to have us again. And we'll do the Clee story and we'll talk about, we didn't get to Candy or Ramus or any of that good stuff. And we'll do it next time. Okay. And you want to rap, Mr. G? What do you think? Yeah.

Well, first, I just want you to know, if they ever plan, I want you to keep my number, if they ever plan on doing a sequel to The X-Perch. I'm available. Okay. We've been talking to the great Dave Thomas. What a show. Dave, can't

thank you enough. Thanks for putting up with us this long. I enjoyed it. All right, man. We'll talk again soon. this long. I enjoyed it. Alright, man. We'll talk again soon. Decent singing, eh? Yeah. Yeah, he's good. Okay, so good day. Our topic

today is music. That's right. Because my brother and I are now experts in the field, eh? Yeah, right. Because we're a band now. Yeah. Well, except for him. I off to the great white north. Hey, Jose. Yeah, what? Listen to this, it's coming. You know what it is? What?

It's a drum solo. Okay, everyone, like, this is me on the drums, eh? Oh, get out. It is not your lot. It is so. Stop lying, will you? Take off, eh? Take off to the great white north. Take off.

It's a beauty way to go. Take off to the great white north. Take off. It's a beauty way to go. Take off. Beauty, eh? Like magic, eh? It's coming in.

Well, that's like. It's like it was sung by angels. Hey, Jose. Yeah, what? Guess what? What? It's like magic, eh? It's coming in. It's like it was sung by angels. Hey, Jose. Yeah, what? Guess what? What? It's over. Take off.

That can't be. It is, yeah. It is. Because hit records are short. No way. Yeah, they're not that long. Okay, so that's our topic for today. So, good day.

Good day. Hey, you guys. What? Take off. No. Hey, don't go. No, come back, eh? Look what you did. Everybody's. Hey, you guys! What? Back off! Hey, no! Hey, don't go! No, come back, eh? Look what you did.

Everybody's going because of you. Come back. I won't let him do it again. Yeah, my fault was you. Yeah, your fault. Yeah, you're such a hoser. There's no way I'll ever do another record with you, hoser. Okay, that's fine.

I'll do a solo album. Fine, and you'll be looking for me on another label. Now everybody's gone. Good day. Good day. Good day. Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre with audio production by Frank Verderosa.

Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fodiatis, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance. Thank you.