Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 281. Phil Rosenthal
Episode Date: October 14, 2019Emmy-winning comedy writer, food lover and raconteur Phil Rosenthal returns to the podcast for an in-depth conversation about New York-style pizza, celebrity PSAs, "non-ethnic" character actors, t...he cinema of Stanley Kubrick and the emotional resonance of "The Honeymooners." Also, Will Ferrell works the men's room, Peter Boyle turns down "The French Connection," Brad Garrett salutes The Merchant of Venom and Phil breaks bread with Steve Martin and Carl Reiner. PLUS: Nick Apollo Forte! "Ratatouille"! The timelessness of "Tootsie"! Appreciating Walter Matthau! Gilbert hangs at Larry David's place! And "Broadway Danny Rose" inspires the Amazing Colossal Podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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I'm alright.
Nobody but about me. Why you got to give me a fight? hi this is kenny loggins and you're listening to gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast Why don't you just let me be?
Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre.
Our guest this week is back for a return visit because he's a great raconteur,
a wonderful entertainer, and because we were hoping he'd bring us a little Danish or some cake or something.
He's an occasional actor and director, a multiple Emmy-winning comedy writer and producer,
and the creator of an iconic television comedy, the long-running Everybody Loves Raymond,
the long-running Everybody Loves Raymond,
a show that took home an impressive 15 Emmy Awards, and I was never on it once.
He's also the creator and host of two terrific docu-series
about his love of food and foreign cultures,
PBS, I'll Have What Phil's Having,
and the Netflix hit Somebody Feed Phil, a show that takes him from Bangkok to Buenos Aires in currently filming its third season. In a busy and prolific career, he's worked with Tom Hanks,
George Clooney, Norman Lear, Martin Short, Carl Reiner,
Robert Mitchum, Elaine May, and even former President Bill Clinton,
among dozens of others.
But more importantly, he knows where to find a good egg cream.
We're thrilled to welcome him back to the show
direct from his sold-out appearance
at Weinstein's Majestic Bungalow Colony.
If you can love a man, we love Phil Rosenthal.
I can't believe you got me to come here after that intro of all the things I've done.
And now I'm here.
Hello, Philip.
Wow, what an impressive thing.
You even recognize the Danny Rose reference in the Majestics.
No, I love it.
That's my favorite Woody Allen movie.
Yeah?
Broadway Danny Rose.
It's a great one.
I think of all of them when I think of my favorite Woody Allen movie. Yeah. Broadway Danny Rose. It's a great one. I think of all of them when I think of my favorite.
I think it's,
if you've ever been
in show business at all,
I think you know
that there's that side to it.
Yes.
And you love him
for having done,
embraced that side.
And it's kind of a love letter
to that side of show business.
Oh, yeah.
It really is.
It really is.
We did a whole episode about it.
You did?
Yeah.
With?
We did it just ourselves. We did a shorter episode. So. You did? With? We did it just ourselves.
We did a shorter episode.
So you like it too?
Yeah.
And we had Will Jordan here.
Yeah.
Great.
And Joe Franklin was here.
You know, my Morty Gunty lived in my town.
I think we talked about this last time.
Oh, Morty Gunty.
Tell us about this.
Well, New City, New York was where all the Catskills comics, but it was kind of between New York and the Catskills.
So it was kind of ideal for them to – so I'm talking about Freddie Roman, right?
Morty Gunty, Myron Cohn was there.
Oh, wow.
Only the Jewish ones?
Corbett Monica.
I was just going to say Corbett Monica.
Yes.
Yeah, Jackie Gale.
And they all – I didn't know Jackie, but these guys, first of all, they all went to the same temple where I went.
I mean, there must have been something in the water. I don't know what, but these guys, first of all, they all went to the same temple where I went. I mean, there must have been something in the water.
I don't know what it was, but they – I was very good friends with Freddie's son, Alan Kirshbaum.
Alan, yeah.
And Morty Gunty had a daughter, Lori Gunty, who I was friendly with in high school.
She was a year or two behind me.
But then she went to Hofstra University and met my wife now, Monica, and they're best friends.
Wild.
So there's a personal Danny Rose connection.
There is.
But when I saw that, when you see the George Washington Bridge in that movie, your heart swells because it's never in a movie.
It's always the Brooklyn Bridge.
Yeah.
But if you were me, George Washington Bridge is my bridge.
Yeah.
That's my bridge.
So it feels like home movies in a way.
You know, the way the Sunshine Boys feels.
Oh, yes, yes.
Like home movies, right?
That also embraces that side of show business.
Yeah.
That small, you know,
because so many times movies like to focus on the glamorous side, big stars.
But that's 1% of show business.
Yeah.
At best.
Probably 0.01%.
And there is that part of show business that people don't realize where some people are
just, if they're successful, they're just eating out a living.
Trying to get the gig.
Yeah.
I'll play.
Yeah.
Weinstein's Majestic Bungalow Colony.
Does it pay?
What are they paying?
I think it was a real place.
Will they pay for transportation?
These are the things you're worried about when you have nothing.
They're like 70 and still worried about paying their rent.
And so Broadway Danny Rose, for people who don't know, Woody Allen played a character.
And, by the way, here's another reason I love that movie more than his other movies.
He's playing a character that's not, quote unquote, Woody Allen.
The usual Schlemiel.
He's putting on a voice.
Right.
Mia Farrow was putting on a voice, playing an Italian mall.
Right.
Right?
Right.
And you know the genesis of it, she saw a lady like that in a restaurant and said, I
want to play someone like that, and he wrote the movie.
And it's like, it's funny.
Every other Woody Allen movie, now when he's not in the movies anymore, it's some other actor going, well, I'm a writer.
And it's usually a nice, gentile young man who's putting on.
Yes, that's right.
Or John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway.
Yeah.
Yeah, Owen Wilson.
What am I doing in Paris?
Yeah.
Kenneth Bronner was the strangest one.
He's got wavy blonde hair.
Yeah, that's right.
And he's going, but I have to call my therapist.
And, yeah, oh, Kenneth Bronner was scary.
That was in Celebrity.
Was that Celebrity?
Yeah, that was the weirdest one.
Well, you have a fondness for these kind of things, these kind of people.
I mean, you've had your own lunches, famous lunches with comics.
Yes.
Situations that are –
And what I love about Danny Rose is that it takes on the quality of a story being told by comedians.
Oh, it's great.
It has that heightened reality and the exaggeration that a comedian would naturally put into it.
Absolutely.
So it takes on a fable quality. And they have, you know, most people have that idea that if you're in any form of show
business, you're a multi-billionaire.
Of course.
Yeah.
And that everyone knows everyone.
Yes.
You know, and he felt so lucky to meet Milton Berle.
Yes.
50 years after Milton Berle was Milton Berle.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, when we started this podcast, it was almost like, in some ways, it was informed by the Carnegie scenes that Gilbert and I discussed.
Which is just sitting around and kibitzing with people.
Isn't it the best though?
I mean, our early guests were people like Larry Storch.
You know, we had a lot of old-time comics at the very beginning.
And that was part of the conceit of this.
Why don't we just sit around and bullshit and tell stories?
Tell showbiz stories.
For 25 years, we had a group that met at Victor's Deli every Sunday, 1230.
Who was in that group?
And it was just like that.
Well, it was Alan Kirschbaum, Eddie Gordutsky, Mike Rowe.
You must know Mike Rowe.
I know those guys.
Oh, yeah.
I know Eddie, too.
Eddie, a bunch of other guys, Lee Frank.
Oh, my God, so many.
And, you know, special guest stars would come in once in a while.
Sarah Silverman, everybody.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
And what I always think about is, like, in the Carnegie Deli with the original owners,
they would serve Henny Youngman for free all the time, which is the way it's supposed to be.
And that was like, you know, people would go in there and they'd go, hey, I was sitting
a table across from Henny Youngman.
You know why the Carnegie Deli could afford to do that?
Because they were stealing the gas from the city.
Yes.
That's why they closed.
Really?
That's what closed them.
Yeah.
The city presented them with a bill one day for the stolen gas of 40 years.
And they said, oh, guess what?
We're out of business now.
But you know what also happened?
I think, I don't know if they switched owners or whatever,
but the new owner said, we're going to put a stop to this free lunches for the Henny Youngmen.
Yeah.
I mean, that's what brings millions in.
You're seeing someone from TV.
That's the problem with the world is short-term goal.
They're not thinking ahead.
They just get it now.
Wait, we could save a nickel if we don't give Henny Youngmen a free sandwich.
Yes.
Yes.
That's exactly it.
I heard you talking with Leonard about Broadway
Danny Rose on his podcast, too, and the story
of finding Nick Apollo Forte is also
kind of fun, because Stallone turned
him down. Which is stunning. To do
Rhinestone. To do Rhinestone Cowboy.
He would have brought a whole
other dimension to Sylvester
Stallone's career. Yes.
Instead, he has to play
Alta Caca Rambo now. Yes.
Alta Caca Rambo. It's kind of
sad. And it's like
they have...
And with the Rocky
movies, he's playing a dying
Rocky in each one.
Imagine if he had
a sense of humor. Yeah.
And could have done that part.
Now, Nick Apollo Forte happened to be a stroke of genius to find this out.
He really was.
He told his assistant, go down to Colony Records
and look through the Italian singers and bring me a stack of records.
And this guy had a record.
Yeah.
And I think Ajita was on it.
He's so real, it's almost cinema verite when you're watching that movie.
It's almost like you're watching a documentary.
What happened to him after that movie?
I have no idea.
He turned up on Joe Franklin.
Oh, boy.
Who didn't?
Yeah.
By the way, brilliant, perfect use of Joe Franklin in Danny Rose.
Yes, yes.
You are New York.
What can I say?
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
That's that level of show business.
Perfect for that. Yeah. That's that level of show business. Perfect for that.
Yeah.
He nailed it.
Everything you could get in that New York, midtown air where we are right now is there.
When Franklin was on the air, I thought, this is a great time to commit suicide.
It was three in the morning.
Time of the night, right?
And this, yes,
zero budget joke.
And like,
there'd be an opening montage
of photos of him with,
you know,
Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis
and Bing Crosby.
And on the show,
there would be house painters.
There was a man,
Sri Chim Moi.
Sri Chim Moi
was a yoga, Sri Chinmoy. Sri Chinmoy was a yogi and he probably has a very serious following of devotees, right?
But he says, I write you a song, Joe.
Here it is.
And he pulls out this little thumb piano.
Bling, bling, bling, bling.
Joe Franklin, Joe. Joe Franklin, Joe.
Joe Franklin, Joe.
You are oneness, Joe.
Joe Franklin, Joe.
And Joe is sitting there smiling, smiling.
We got to go to a commercial, my friends.
I love the song.
It sounds like a hit, but I have to go.
And what I love that Joe Franklin did is he'd have some, like, hotel lounge singer and a guy who had managed a shoe store.
Right, and he held diamond.
Yes.
Yes.
And he'd get them in a conversation like, and you sing, so when you sing, it's important I have nice shoes, right?
Oh, we do those bad segues.
Yes.
Can you sing us a song about shoes?
Yeah.
You used to have Morris Katz.
Who was the guy that painted with the toilet paper?
Do you remember that guy?
Oh, no.
He would do paintings.
Remember this guy?
He would turn up on the Joe Franklin show.
That seems very familiar.
Yeah.
But when you're in college and you're smoking something late at night, there is no better show.
Oh, my God, no.
Yeah, that and I always wondered how many people kill themselves during Joe Franklin.
Back to that. but after when they go,
this concludes
our broadcast day.
That was a low point for him.
That had to be,
there must have been
people shooting themselves.
That was the most
depressing thing.
My parents said
I watched so much TV
that I would actually
watch the flag.
Yes.
So did he.
I'm not leaving until they do. Yes. So do we. I'm not leaving
until they do.
Yes.
And then
and then you wait
for it to come back.
Yes.
These kids don't know
how lucky they are.
I was going to save
this question until the end
but Salomon said
But I feel like
it should be the end already.
Gino said
ask him
because you're also you're so into the older comics,
ask him if he was going to have one of those famous Phil lunches,
like at Arts Deli or now that Carnegie's gone, obviously, or the Stage Deli,
which three Golden Age comics would he invite?
Oh.
I think I know one.
Who?
Well, your favorite, the great one.
Jackie Gleason.
I would have Jackie Gleason or Art Carney.
There you go.
Because that was the biggest influence on me as a little kid.
I just thought it was.
Now, here's a question for you.
Yeah.
Do you think Jackie Gleason and Art Carney hated the Jews?
Honestly?
Yes.
Look at the credits for that show.
Where did you get that?
I just assumed.
Look at the credits for that show.
Remember when Red Fox did the famous story?
Yeah.
Oh, yes.
Fired them all.
And then.
I want all black writers now I want and he got the first script
because they
these people
not that they're black
or
they had not written
for TV before
okay
he just wanted them
because they were
black
and he was going to
make a statement
and he read what they did
and he said
where are my Jews
bring me my Jews
bring me my Jews back
yes
so maybe they did hate them
Art
and Jackie and Jackie.
And Jackie.
But they sure worked with them.
Yeah.
They wouldn't have had a show without them.
But didn't Walt Disney have Jews also working with them?
I heard that that was a fallacy, that Neil Gabler wrote a whole book and researched it extensively.
And there's zero proof that Walt Disney was an anti-Semite.
Didn't you find out years later that Art Carney liked Raymond and you were thrilled to know that?
Yes.
So there's one Jew he liked.
Oh!
Did you ever reach out?
He was nice to me.
Hitler was nice to me.
I met Hitler.
He was nice to me.
He was nice to me.
He said, how much for that Danish?
And it was great.
Always very polite. Always nice.
What makes you think Gleason and Carney
were? I just assumed so.
Because they're Irish? They're Irish,
yeah. I don't know. Or just Gentile.
Although my wife is Irish, and there is a case
to be made. Yes, yeah.
Now, Bob
obeyed the Jews, didn't he?
Bob and Bing.
All these people depended on them.
Yes.
Right?
Maybe that's why they hated them.
But listen, I know Jews who hate Jews.
All the Jewish heads of networks don't want Jews on the network.
Oh, yes.
We were casting Raymond. I was told, listen, don't be too ethnic. the network oh yes were you casting raymond i was told listen don't
be too ethnic what do you mean wow well brett garrett doris roberts this is we would like you
to go non-ethnic ethnic what the hell does that mean and and they said so like if you're casting
the father can you do a non-ethnic ethnic, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. And then it turns out that Peter Boyle is the perfect example of a non-ethnic ethnic.
Ah.
That's fascinating.
Yeah.
That's non-ethnic ethnic.
Wow.
So it says New York without saying Italian or, God forbid, a Jew.
And I heard, too, that when Mary Tyler Moore was creating her show, she was originally supposed to be a divorced woman.
That's right.
And what the producer said to her, no, no divorce.
One thing the public hates are divorced women and Jews.
That's hysterical.
And this guy was probably divorced and a Jew.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
I always wondered if that's how Costanza,
Larry David's alter ego, became Italian.
Every single person, I hate to blow this for people,
every single person on that show was Jewish.
Yes.
Yeah.
And every depiction of the families were all Jews.
It doesn't matter what they called them. I don't care what their names families were all Jews. Stiller, Jerry Stiller and Estelle Harris playing Italians.
It doesn't matter what they called them.
I don't care what their names are, all Jews.
Everyone on Raymond, the family, this was Jewish, Jewish, Jewish.
There's a famous saying, right Yiddish, cast British.
Yes.
It's like, could the Costanza family were the Jewish family you could ever meet.
Who's Jerry Stiller, for Christ's sake?
Because they're funny.
Yes.
And Louis Dreyfus was like the ultimate Jap playing, you know, Elaine Venice.
Jews are funny.
I'm sorry.
That's just how it is.
That's how it is.
I had lunch.
I got to have lunch with Carl Reiner and Steve Martin.
They're close friends.
They filmed lots of movies together.
And we're having lunch.
And I don't know how this came up, the 2,000-year-old man and how funny it was.
And I don't know, Jewish came up.
And I said, I think, what would the 2,000-year-old Gentile be?
And Carl Reiner says, we're here with the 2,000-year-old Gentile be? And Carl Reiner says, we're here with the 2,000-year-old Gentile.
And he points to Steve Martin. Is it true
that you were alive 2,000 years ago?
And Steve goes,
I don't really remember very much about it.
Fantastic.
And it went from there.
Fantastic.
The unfunniest, driest answer.
It was brilliant.
It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life.
How on it they were.
Right?
That's hilarious.
Did you have Carl over for one of the movie nights for Dead Man Don't Wear Plaid?
Yeah.
How'd that go?
He's proud of that one because we had him here and that's one of the unsung ones that people don't talk about much.
Everyone talks about the jerk, of course. And all of course yes but that one was a real that was kind
of his young frankenstein really smart i was just thinking about that scene where the girl faints
and when she wakes up he's pushing her breasts around yeah and he goes, I was adjusting your breasts. When you fainted,
they became a whole lot of whack.
Probably can't even do that today.
No.
No.
Right?
Possibly not.
How could you get a laugh
on such a thing?
Oh my God.
That would be,
the movie would be banned.
Was Carl thrilled
that there was a room full of people
in your house
quelling about his movie?
Listen,
he's so great.
He's so, he's such a like understated fella like your uncle he feels like your uncle but i've been
blessed to hang with these guys norman him and they feel like family and they make you feel like
family and you know like norman and my my my daughter he knows her from when she's
two years old and they're like couldn't be closer like she she she considers him grandpa you know
it's unbelievable that's cool it's so sweet and and uh you know i got to hang with larry gelbart
and neil simon and these guys amazing and i would organize dinners with them and Mel Brooks and,
and have the,
and they would tell me we wouldn't have gotten together if you didn't call.
Oh,
because nobody went as you get older and separate and everybody goes off and
they lose touch.
If someone isn't organizing it,
they're not doing it unless there's a funeral.
Yeah.
I had to be gratifying for you. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. That had to be gratifying for you.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But just to be a fly on the wall.
Sure.
And at dinner, then Mel says, all right, I got three stories.
And there's a dinner of 30 people.
I got three stories.
I got the Cary Grant stories.
I got the phone down the stairs story.
And I got the whatever, Betty White story, whatever it is.
And raise your hand for the one you want.
Who wants the Cary Grant?
Everybody raise their hand.
Who wants this?
Less people. Who wants this? Less people.
Who wants this?
All right.
I'll do the Cary Graham first.
We'll see what happens.
And, of course, he tells all the stories.
Of course.
He's going to tell all the stories.
The Bill Cullen story.
Of course.
Yeah, he's got them all.
Oh, my God.
The Bill Cullen story.
It's a great one.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, that's great.
So just to explain to our listeners who don't know and our listeners should know, but you
have these, and you've been doing them for quite a while at your house.
You have these pizza and movie nights.
Called movie night.
I've been doing it since I'm 15.
When I was 15, HBO came out.
And it was the only way to see an uncut, uncensored movie in your house.
People don't realize.
This is before discs, before DVRs, before videocassettes.
HBO, when that came out, you could see an R-rated movie in your house.
Yes.
And there was no other way to do it unless you lived in Hollywood and had a projectionist.
Right?
That's it.
So here we are, 15, and here comes R-rated movie.
Hey, guys, come over.
We'll order pizza.
We may see something.
We may see some action.
Yeah.
And we did. A n see some action. Yeah. And we did.
A nipple.
Something.
Right.
And every Saturday night was this.
Right.
So now it's Sunday night, and I've gone from a small 19-inch Sony Trinitron in my parents' den with the cable TV box that was actually wired to the TV.
A wire went from the box to the TV, and you punched it like an old punch clock.
It had a dial that would give you two levels.
That's right.
That's right.
This brings back a memory.
The only time I was up at Larry David's apartment was he had cable.
Yeah.
And there was going to be some movie with some actress that both of us liked who was going to be naked in the movie.
Of course.
So you invited me.
We both watched the movie.
And if you weren't there at 10 p.m. on that night, you missed it.
That's it.
Yeah.
That's it.
Right?
No VCR even.
There's no VCR.
There's nothing.
So this is the thing.
10 o'clock Saturday night.
We're ordering pizza.
We're having a thing.
the thing. 10 o'clock, Saturday night,
we're ordering pizza, we're having a thing. This has now evolved from that pathetic
little room
to a dedicated
Dolby Digital cinema
in my house where I get first run
movies. You're state of the art now. State
of the art with a pizza oven in the kitchen
and great people
coming. The best part is that
we sometimes get the filmmakers
with the movies before they open.
They think that we're creating.
Now, but here's the thing.
I think movies now, I mean, it's the death knell.
Yes.
They're like, it's meaningless.
True.
Theaters are like, I mean, if someone said, hey, we got a big part for you in a movie.
Yeah.
I feel like, oh, movie. No, it's like, it's not like it was. It will soon be the part for you in a movie. Yeah. I feel like a movie.
No, it's like it's not like it was.
Your house will soon be the fifth largest theater in Los Angeles.
That's right.
It's not like it was.
And by the way, most of the stuff we show are these little movies
that would have been the staple of the 70s or the 80s.
It would have been what we would all go to see.
Like imagine, they wouldn't make Dog Day Afternoon today.
No.
No. Impossible. Maybe for cable, but not't make Dog Day Afternoon today. No. No.
Impossible.
Maybe for cable,
but not theatrically.
Exactly.
Not theatrically.
Remember the lines
around the block
for that movie?
Of course.
The Deer Hunter.
Or the Deer Hunter.
None of these movies
of Pacino and De Niro
would have been made.
By the way,
Pacino and De Niro
today are doing
a movie for Netflix.
Yes.
There you go.
Or say his next movie is for Netflix. Yes. There you go. Mercedes' next movie is for Netflix.
Yes.
There you go.
Right?
And thank you, they're going to let it be in the theater for a few weeks before.
And it's like what always gets me is when they say it's in the theaters, but they say it's, and it's playing on TV at the same time.
So why would you go?
Yeah.
Why put your shoes on?
Why spend $100 for your family?
They're not going to do it.
It's insane.
So they only make superhero movies.
Right.
Because those are the big people think they're really getting their money's worth.
It's like straight plays on Broadway.
It has to be really, really, really special Pulitzer Prize winning thing.
Otherwise, people for that money, shouldn't we see a big musical with costumes and sets?
That's it.
Yes. Also, those big action movies that aren't we see a big musical with costumes and sets? That's it.
Also, those big action movies that aren't dialogue dependent play well in foreign countries.
Oh, yeah.
They forgot about us a long time ago.
It's all for China now.
Yeah. And I see these movies, I mean, some that I remember and I go, oh, none of these would be in a theater.
Or a character study, a movie like Serpico.
Oh, forget it.
Or something like that.
Yeah.
The Sunshine Boys?
Yeah.
Never.
The Sunshine Boys.
Never.
I mean, who's going to laugh like that?
You can't have it.
Bradbury, Danny Rose.
Look, Woody Allen can't get the movies out.
There might be another reason for that.
Sure.
It's a stupid reason.
Yeah.
It was happening anyway, even before.
I do wish he would slow down, actually.
Me too.
Like take a year or two between, but he's doing it for him.
And comedy's completely out of going into theaters.
And those action films, the Charles Bronson, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris. Out.
Out. We got Norman
and Andrew Bergman coming in here next week to talk
about the 45th anniversary of Blazing Saddles.
Oh my God. I know you know Norman.
And there's a movie that,
imagine that theatrically. There's no way.
Or Young Frankenstein. There's no way.
No. No. By the way, just the
content of Blazing Saddles. Forget about it.
That too. Can't do it.
Right?
Tell us a little bit about Peter speaking of Young Frankenstein.
Yes.
I'm going to make a segue there.
Please.
And I, you know, we love to talk about old 70s movies.
Yes.
Good movie output.
I mean, Friends of Eddie Coyle.
Yep.
Terrific.
Joe, Taxi Driver.
Do you know what he turned down?
What did he turn down?
French Connection.
Yes.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
I heard that.
He had just done Joe, and he didn't want to be pigeonholed.
He had enough trouble.
People were yelling at him on the street, and he's not that guy.
Yeah.
He's a gentle soul.
Yeah.
He's a liberal.
Yeah.
He was not Joe, the guy who shoots hippies.
Right.
And he hated being that, and he didn't want to play another one.
So that was the biggest regret of his life.
That's fascinating.
And.
It's so convincing.
I think they also, didn't they offer or were seriously considering Jackie Gleason?
Yes.
We heard that for Popeye Doyle.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely right.
Did Friedkin tell you that when he came over with the French Connection?
Yes.
But I heard like, he hated the Jews too much. Now cut that out. I hate it. He didn't want to work for the guy named Friedkin tell you that when he came over with the French Connection? Yes. But I heard, like, he hated the Jews too much.
Now cut that out.
I hated them all.
He didn't want to work for the guy named Friedkin.
Yes.
That's funny.
Peter's good in small roles in a movie called Hardcore that Paul Schrader made.
Or a movie called Outland, which is High Noon in Outer Space.
He's good all the time.
He's good all the time.
He's really funny.
Andrew used him to great effect in Honeymoon in Vegas.
Hysterical. Yeah. As the Hawaiian chief. Wonderful. He's hysterical. You wait for him to come on the time. He's good all the time. He's really funny. Andrew used him to great effect in Honeymoon in Vegas. Hysterical.
Yeah.
That's the Hawaiian chief.
Wonderful.
He's hysterical.
You wait for him to come on the screen.
So here's two things you don't know about him.
Yes.
First one is he studied to be a monk.
Oh.
He went to the seminary.
I said, why'd you give it up?
He goes, not enough girls.
Good answer.
Yeah.
And the second thing is, you know who the best man was at Peter's wedding?
Oh, I know.
You do know?
Yes.
Gilbert doesn't know.
John Lennon.
Wow.
So the girl he was going to marry was a writer for Rolling Stone.
And she became friendly with Yoko.
And then they all became friends.
I think I do remember him saying in interviews he was friends with Lennon.
Yeah.
Isn't that amazing?
They would hang out.
Now, one guy who always would say my best friend John Lennon was Marty Allen.
No way.
Well, they worked together on Sullivan in the 60s, maybe once.
Are you kidding me?
So, like, Marty is on his way from the stage to passing the Beatles in the hallway, and that's my buddy?
There's a couple of pictures of them together.
I think you see Marty Allen in a Sgt. Pepper cover.
That's funny.
See, now that
sounds like a really funny thing to do
if you're John Lennon.
Put Marty Allen on that cover.
That would be hilarious.
When Peter walked in the room,
and I know he was angry
because you kept him waiting.
You're talking about the audition.
For Raymond.
Actually, it wasn't even an audition.
It was a meeting.
We were going to meet.
He was going to see if he liked us
or if we liked him.
And it was going to be
at Universal Studios
and he came that day
and somebody gave him
the wrong directions
or whoever he was with
didn't tell him
where it was
and it was a very hot day.
And when he finally found us
45 minutes late,
he was angry.
So this is how I meet
Peter Boyle
who I only know
from Young Frankenstein
and Joe.
Yes.
Right.
So he eats punks like me for breakfast.
Yeah.
So he scared the hell out of me, and I just said, oh, you have to pardon me.
And you know what's funny?
Aside from Boris Karloff, he was the best Frankenstein monster.
Oh, that's great.
Did he talk about that movie?
Sure.
Did he have fond memories of it? What's funny is that he met his wife because she came to the set to do a piece on this new Mel Brooks movie,
and she met him in the makeup.
Oh, that's great.
I said, it must have been the wedding night when you took the makeup off, and that's when she got afraid.
That's great.
He was a gentle giant, wasn't he? Yes. Now, one time I remember meeting him, and it was one of those sad things, but also very telling about show business and that life.
He was at some event, and this was the last days.
He was really weak.
Yeah.
And, you know, his eyes looked glassy.
Yeah.
And so we got into a short conversation, and I, and he was, his voice was weak.
And I said to him, so, you know, it was right when Raymond was going off the air.
And I said, so, what do you think he'll do now?
And he said, look for work.
Yep.
And I thought.
He didn't want to stop.
Yeah.
He really didn't. We stop he really didn't
we kept going as long as we could
I think that
it maybe was a reason
that he kept going
but he had a terrible disease
and he had it
probably he had it the last year
year and a half of the show
I can honestly say it's one of the reasons
we actually wanted to stop.
Because we couldn't imagine the show without him
or any of them.
Of course not.
And the other thing was we had run out of ideas.
Yeah.
We had 210 episodes.
It was enough of anything.
I would notice on Everybody Loves Raymond
that you'd see they were using up all their tricks to make it look like he was moving around more than he was.
Well, there were times when you could just plant him in the chair and he would be there for the scene.
Yeah.
Which was, by the way, half the shows he did that anyway.
Yes.
Because he was dad.
Yeah.
And that's what dads do.
Yes. They find their chair and they insult you from that anyway. Yes. Because he was dead. Yeah. That's what dads do. Yes.
They find their chair and they insult you from their chair.
Yeah.
I don't think his performance ever suffered, even though you could know that he wasn't maybe as robust.
A trooper to the end.
Here's some deep research on Peter Boyle.
Did you know he hosted a kiddie show in Philly?
Yep.
Oh, yep.
You know why?
Because his dad had done.
No shit.
That's right.
Uncle Pete Presents.
Yes.
Apparently, if Wikipedia is to be believed, he showed little rascals in Three Stooges shorts.
I think his dad did that.
That is very cool.
Yes.
He was great.
Great talent.
They all were great.
Doris was great.
Doris was another great find.
Then she had another big movie career in the 70s.
Listen, you know, all the planets have to line up just to get one of these things on the air.
And when you find that cast, it's like, you know, God blesses you over and over and over again.
It's like crazy.
The luck of that.
Yes.
Well, you had an eye for casting.
I mean, you knew when they walked in the room that, what did you see, 100 people for Doris Roberts?
Yep.
Yep. Yep. But when she came in and hit it out of the ballpark
and got nailed it the way you had better than you had dreamed it.
By the way, Brad Garrett, there's a perfect example.
Ray in real life, his real brother,
who said everybody loves Raymond, was jealous,
was a real police officer.
And the reason he was so jealous from birth was that he was shorter than his younger brother.
Yeah.
That hurts.
Ray's older brother in real life, shorter than Ray.
So I think that's genius.
Let's look for that.
And we're seeing all the short actors in town.
And then this talking tree
came in the room
Brad Garrett
and with that
voice
everybody loves me
we fell over laughing
this was way better
than what we had
dreamed of
and that happens too
that's great
I love watching the show too
because I love seeing
actors like Phil Leeds
and Len Lesser
and these older
character actors turning up.
Couldn't wait to use them.
I couldn't wait to put them in.
This goes back to Danny Rose.
You have a fondness for those people.
I love them.
I love that they bring their entire lifetime of schtick with them.
Yes.
Or their face, like Phil Leeds' face.
Who has a better face than that guy?
You don't have to do anything.
Yeah.
You just point the camera at him and he'll automatically laugh.
You already know what he is.
Like Matthau.
Yeah.
Matthau can just look at you and you die.
Yeah.
So that's what you want.
Let me hear those Matthaus again.
That was good.
Once more with a finger.
Say goodbye to the finger.
Say goodbye to the finger.
I loved him so much.
Now, the Mathau films would never be made now.
No.
You mean like Laughing Policeman or Charlie Varadar?
Because you would say to the studio head, look at his face.
And you're just going to laugh just from his face.
Well, we don't, who cares about that?
Yeah.
They would say.
Get Johnny Depp for it.
Get a giant, can you have a big, can you have a guy fuck a pie?
Yeah.
That's a show.
Yes.
That's a show.
By the way, Doris turns up in Taking a Pelham 123.
Who doesn't?
Yeah.
She's a heartbreak kid.
She's a honeymoon killer.
She had a hell of a career.
Had a huge Broadway career too. Yes, she did.
She did.
And they were great together.
What chemistry.
It was amazing.
How everything clicked.
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast.
But first, a word from our sponsor.
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That's the sound of
fried chicken with a spicy
history. Thornton Prince
was a ladies' man.
To get revenge, his girlfriend
hid spices in his fried chicken.
He loved it so much,
he opened Prince's Hot Chicken.
Hot chicken in the window.
This is one of many sounds
in Tennessee
with a story to tell.
To hear them in person,
plan your trip
at tnvacation.com.
Tennessee sounds perfect.
I want to ask you
about other movies.
Go ahead. I saw you online you about other movies. Go ahead.
I saw you online in that being locked in the Criterion closet.
By the way, we've got to get Gilbert in there.
I think you'd love that because you're a movie fan,
and you know what Criterion does, right?
They restore great movies.
Are these Criterion special edition DVDs?
A lot of art films, a lot of foreign films,
but a lot of even popular films.
They made, because they found it insufficient or degrading, they found Tootsie.
And Tootsie is already almost 40 years old, believe it or not.
Yes.
Amazing.
82.
Has there been a better comedy, by the way, since that?
That movie wouldn't be made today.
No.
All it is is about a person, a guy who puts on a dress.
That's not a big movie to people.
And it's one of the best comedies of all time anyway they
restored that and because i knew a lot about the movie they actually asked me to do a feature on it
explaining why i love it so much so you could do that but short of that you go in their office
and they have what's something called the criterioniterion Closet. It's about twice the size of this room and it's wall-to-wall DVDs and Blu-rays of all their movies.
And they give you a bag and they say,
take whatever you want.
And as you're choosing your movies
or even as you're just looking at them,
just talk to the camera and tell us what you think about that
or why you're taking that or why you don't want that.
Whatever you want.
And they make a five-minute thing and they put it on their YouTube channel.
You should do it.
Now, here's something.
We'll get them in there.
I wonder about color movies like from the 50s and 60s.
And I think, you know, I don't remember like when I first saw them.
I mean, color to me, look.
I don't remember like when I first saw them, what they – I mean, color to me, look. I mean, my family just had black and white till way past.
Yes, me too, me too.
And so color, I was like, oh, my God, what is that?
And now, did color of those older movies ever look really good or have they gotten bad in aging?
They get bad in aging.
Things fade.
And part of what the criterion people do is restore them.
Yeah.
That they look brand new.
Because like some of these color films that pop up on TV, you go, boy, those are weird colors.
Well, they're faded.
Yeah.
Or they use cheap film stock, right?
Yeah. But if you ever film stock, right? Yeah.
If you ever watch one of my all-time favorite movies is The Ten Commandments.
Yes.
Because it's alternately spectacular and hysterically funny.
Yes.
Yes.
Right?
Cheese ball.
It's the Siegfried and Roy of movies.
Yes.
and so just for color alone
watch that movie
on as big a screen
as you can
you will be
completely dazzled
yeah
you can't believe
the production
the beautiful
the beautiful way
it was shot
and then you'll be laughing
also because it's so
hacky and corny
those restorations
are incredible
incredible
they really take it seriously
the actors in that
it's like an Irwin Allen picture.
It is.
Like the stars are popping up.
And, you know, Yul Brynner and—
Edward G. Robinson.
Yeah, Billy Crystal did a whole routine out there, right?
Oh, yeah.
But Yul Brynner was like, on this day, Moses, you will surely die.
You pulled out in the video online, you pulled out Strange Love.
I know you're a Kubrick guy.
Absolutely.
Sullivan's Travels.
Huge.
Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent.
All great choices.
Well, these are.
How many did you leave with?
Did you fill a bag?
Countless.
Yeah.
And I've done it more than once.
Oh, you've done it more than once?
I've done it off camera, too.
Okay.
I may go tomorrow.
Okay. I love that. They're here in the city? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. You've got to go. Oh, we done it more than once. Oh, you've done it more than once? I've done it off camera, too. Okay. I may go tomorrow. Okay.
I love that.
They're here in the city?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, okay.
You've got to go.
Oh, we'll get Gilbert in there.
Gilbert, free movies.
Yeah.
I saw you in there, John Waters.
There's a bunch of people.
Oh, yeah.
Is there free lunch thrown in?
Then maybe.
Yeah.
You can stop by the soda machine.
We're doing a spinoff of your show.
Somebody feed and pay for Gilbert.
Now, Yul Brynner, you mentioned.
Yeah.
Did he hate the Jews?
What was Yul Brynner?
Was Yul Brynner Turkish?
What was he?
I don't know.
He's one of those people no one knew.
No, there's a thing.
He may even be Jewish.
Oh.
Wouldn't that be nice?
Oh, my God, yeah.
We got to see.
No son of Hebrew slaves will ever be king.
I think if only there was a device that we could look it up.
Yes, yes.
Yul Brynner.
Should we take a look?
Okay, look up if Yul Brynner.
I say he's not.
I think I'm going to.
We'll talk amongst ourselves while Phil looks up Yul Brynner's heritage.
Okay. I think I'm going to I'm betting on Turkish We'll talk amongst ourselves while Phil looks up Yul Brynner's heritage Okay
You don't get that
on most podcasts
People can't call in, right?
We're not lying
No, no, no
It's all on tape, my friend
Somebody
Somebody right now
is cursing all of us
saying
Don't you know that
Yul Brynner is Irish?
Yeah
If he spelled it
like David Brenner Yes He might be Jewish But Brynner is Irish? Yeah. If he spelled it like David Brenner, he might be Jewish.
But Brenner is B-R-Y-N-N-E-R.
Correct.
This was the king in The King and I.
He was certainly not Ty playing the king in The King and I, right?
My phone is not connected to the internet.
Maybe Paul can look it up in there.
Don't you know that there's somebody in the booth checking on Yul Brynner's heritage?
Is Yul Brynner a Jew?
Jew or
not a Jew?
Look up Yul Brynner,
people.
I'm so glad we talked.
I know you like Barry Lyndon and the way it looks. Days of Heaven is
beautiful. It's a gorgeous movie.
But it's not as exciting to me as Barry Lyndon.
Yeah, they're both great movies.
Barry Lyndon is not only spectacular.
Uh-oh, uh-oh.
Is someone running in here?
Okay, Mark Malkoff's coming in.
And we may have a verdict.
Who wants to guess?
I'm surprised.
Was Phil close?
What did you guess?
I guessed Turkish?
No.
Is he Middle Eastern at all?
No.
An Armenian.
I'm going to guess...
I'd say he's a Gentile.
He's part Kali Polish
Russian
Russian
that's a surprise
one of your people
that's what I always thought
he was Russian
did he ever play
Russian
in a movie
he must have
yeah
for smoking
and he died
he died of emphysema
I am dead already don't thank you Mark Mark we'll see you soon For smoking. He died of emphysema.
I am dead already.
Thank you, Mark.
Mark.
We'll see you soon.
Do you know who did a heartbreaking PSA?
That was the guy that played Hamilton Berger on Perry Mason.
Oh, he did an anti-smoking? Yeah.
From Beyond the Grave?
Well, he did it, you know, when he was alive, he did it.
And they show home movies of his family.
And he said, this is my wife.
These are my kids.
And then he holds a picture of him and Raymond Burr. and he says, here I am with a friend of mine.
And he said, I didn't mind losing all of those cases on Perry Mason, but I'm in a fight now that I don't want to lose.
And that was just heartbreaking.
Saddest thing I've heard.
Can I ask you a question?
It's short in Johnny's life.
What kind of show is this?
This is what you're bringing up.
Let's talk about PSAs of people who died from cancer.
I want to give you the feeling.
This is fun for the people.
People are shooting themselves as we speak.
We cover both sides of the street here.
I want to give you the feeling.
I want to give everyone the feeling of what it was like hearing this is the end of our
broadcast. This could be the end of our broadcast.
This could be the end of your broadcast.
Yes, yes.
I can just see the Stitcher people going,
Gilbert, can we talk to you?
Yes.
Could you not bring up...
Why don't you
strangle puppies on the air?
What Gino always says to me is that sometimes during the show,
the guests will be, it'll be a light moment.
The guests will be cracking up and just riffing back and forth.
And then I'll go, now, when your daughter died at age six.
Wow.
Holy cow.
We had Ron Delsner in here, the famous rock and roll promoter.
Of course.
And he's telling Beatles stories that you would just die to hear.
Yes.
And this guy says.
Oh, why was this one?
We asked him a question about culling the deer population in Montauk.
See, but that is funny.
I enjoy.
You can hear the show go.
Yes.
Goodbye, everybody.
But that's, he understands.
We're going off the air.
He understands incongruity.
He understands why that's funny.
He's the master.
But for a good 10, 15 minutes, we were on PSAs of people who died.
Yes.
All right, you like old comics.
We'll pick it up again.
I like old comics like you do.
Share with Phil your wonderful impersonation of Jackie Vernon.
Oh.
Who will go for this more than him?
Okay.
Here's some slides from my vacation.
Here's a picture of us with our tour guide, Manuel.
Here we are being walked across the quicksand.
Here we are waist deep.
Now here's a bunch of ropes and hats and things.
Awesome.
That's awesome.
Who else does Jackie Vernon?
No one.
There you go.
Well, see the kids.
The kids are demanding.
They scream for that at your concerts.
Later we'll have them do his John McGyver.
Do Vernon.
They get the lighters up here.
Do Vernon.
I'm told by...
Fat Jackie Leonard?
Yes.
Yes.
Jackie Leonard.
The roast that's on YouTube, you can see this.
The roast of Walter Cronkite.
Oh, man.
I think he's the MC.
What did they call him?
Roastmaster.
Roastmaster.
Yeah.
Walter Cronkite.
I didn't recognize you without the world.
That's great.
And I learned from listening to Mark Malkoff's podcast that Jackie Leonard was bent out of shape by Rickles stealing his act.
Yeah.
By the way, so turnabout is fair play.
Brad Garrett stole Rickles' act.
If you ever see Brad Garrett's act, he does basically what Rickles did.
I haven't seen him live.
Only without the apology.
Yeah.
So, he's a totally hateful individual.
No, he's fantastic.
I haven't seen him live.
But people going expecting, you know, shy put upon Robert from Raymond,
are shocked and walk out of the show because he's literally insulting them.
Well, people used to come to see Gilbert at Caroline's
expecting the raucous Gilbert from the Howard Stern show.
And instead they would get Leonard Barr and Ned Glass references.
And here's a PSA you may remember.
There was a great, this one I recommend.
There was a great PSA the Stooges did.
And they were talking about, you know, they were Curly Joe,
and they're both bombarding Curly Joe, and they're saying,
hey, I heard you're suffering from arthritis.
Well, we've got these pills.
And then Larry comes over and he goes, we've got a special oil made out of weasels.
And then Mo looks into the camera and goes, double talk, sure.
But millions are lost on these phone and cures.
And then they say, I'm Mo, I'm Larry, I'm Curly Joe.
And they say, you know, gift to the arthritis founder.
It's so powerful.
Wow.
Of course, because it comes from the guy you love.
It comes from the funny people who only made you laugh.
And I mentioned it to Penn from Penn and Teller.
He said he's very familiar, and to him, that's the original episode of his show Bullshit.
Right.
Yeah, it's just putting comedy in but exposing bullshit.
It's putting comedy in but exposing bullshit. Well, I talk about this in the book even that the most powerful moment for me of the Honeymooners was the episode where Norton gets hurt in the subway.
Oh, yes.
I mean, not in the subway, in the sewer.
In the sewer.
And they had had a fight and it was beautifully written.
They had had the fight.
He had said, get out for the last time.
Yes.
We are not friends anymore. Right? Because Norton put on his, get out for the last time. Yes. We are not friends anymore.
Right?
Because Norton put on his ring and couldn't get it off.
The ring he was going to give someone else.
Right?
And he was like, God, we are not friends anymore.
And Norton was heartbroken.
But Ralph, who are you going to go bowling with?
I'm going with this guy.
But that's our bowling.
That's what lane you're using.
Lane number two. That was our lane. That's what lane are you using? Lane number two.
That was all lane.
That's really well written.
It was beautiful.
And he's about to go.
And how great is this?
The guy they cast does Norton.
Yeah.
So he comes in.
He raids his fridge.
He does everything annoying.
Even Alice says, oh, hi, Norton.
And he goes, that's not Norton.
That's him.
This is my new friend, Teddy.
Okay.
They're about to go bowling.
And the day player, the guy who, there were two, they could afford two actors other than them to play all the other roles.
George Petri was the one.
He comes in.
Petri was everything.
And he goes, hey, I'm looking for, he's been looking for
Norton's wife. He can't find them. That's why he knocked on
Ralph's door. We're trying
to reach, why, what is it?
Norton was hurt. We're trying to reach
Trixie. What do you mean
Norton was hurt? Ralph.
And he says,
yeah, in the sewer. He was hurt
in the sewer. What do you mean? Where is he?
And
he goes, and the guy leaves because he's going to run now to find Trixie.
And Norton is there.
I mean, I'm sorry.
Ralph is there with the new friend.
And he goes, you ready to go bowling?
He goes, I can't.
If something happened to Norton, I'd never forgive myself.
What do you mean?
You just got done telling me how much you hate the guy, right?
And Ralph gets really angry.
I mean, this is like a well-written play.
Oh, yeah.
And he grabs the guy right in his face and he goes,
What I say about Norton is one thing.
How I feel about him is another.
And I remember as a little kid bursting into tears.
You still get emotional thinking about it today, don't you?
Yes.
Yes.
Because all these guys did was make me laugh.
And to think that one of them could be hurt and to see the love that the other one had for him, that's everything.
It's great.
And it taught me the most important lesson in show business.
When you care about the character, you'll go anywhere with them.
You'll go anywhere. And you want go anywhere with them. You'll go anywhere.
And you want to be with them forever.
They become your family because these are feelings that you only have for family and
the closest friend.
The only part of that show I didn't like is when Cleason says, Norton, I hate the Jews.
I can't stand living next to Jews.
They got too much control over the media.
I got to tell you, Ralph, when you're right, you're right.
Let's have a drink.
Let's have a drink.
This grocery on the corner, Goldberg's.
Why do they get all the groceries?
Make sure the couch didn't change when you buy something.
By the way, I think that was Ned Glass playing the replacement friend.
The guy from West Side Story.
You're right.
Yeah.
The guy who played Doc in West Side Story. Your kids make this Side Story. You're right. Yeah. The guy who played Doc in West Side Story.
Your kids make this world rotten.
That's right.
Yeah, same guy.
Yeah.
He's in Charade.
Stanley Don in Charade.
I heard that the new Spielberg West Side Story is going to cast Rita Moreno.
Wow.
Who was Anita and won the Oscar for 1960 West Side Story,
as Doc's wife.
Doc is dead.
Wow.
And Rita Moreno, that's how they get her in the movie.
Why not?
Why not?
And she was at your house with West Side Story, was she not?
She was, and I have a good Rita Moreno story.
First of all, to watch that movie sitting next to her
when she's on stage, like, vibrant, brilliant, hilarious, best dancer you ever saw.
She's a ball of fire.
Ball of fire.
And for her to sit and just you're looking at her, that's you.
That's you.
That's you.
That's you.
And then she gets up in front of our 25, 30 guests and tells us all about the making of the movie.
That's the most special thing.
The next time she came over, because we now are friends, she went into the movie room, which is on two or three levels.
And she went in early to get a seat for herself.
And she tripped on the step in the dark and sprained her ankle.
Damn.
I can't tell you the horror
of walking into your
room and seeing Rita Moreno
lying in pain on the floor.
Oh. Wow.
So now the theater is
the Rita Moreno Theater because
she owns it.
Oh.
Laughter Laughter is the Rita Moreno Theater because she owns it. Oh. Yeah.
She was doing
my friend Mike Royce
and Norman Lear's
show at the time.
Yes, yes, yes.
And the next day,
you know Mike?
Mike called me and said,
you broke my star.
It's like you broke
my Rigoletto.
Yes, yes, yes.
Very good.
Another favorite. Another good. Another favorite.
Another favorite.
Another favorite.
How great were those guys?
The greatest.
Is there a Rickles story?
There is.
Okay.
There's always a Rickles story.
The first time I meet him, I'm at a restaurant, and I happen to know Peter LaSalle, who's a wonderful guy.
He produced the Johnny Carson show and then David Letterman show.
Do you know?
Have you ever met him?
No.
The loveliest man.
Anyway, he's friendly with Rickles for many, many years.
And they come into the restaurant and they come over to say hello.
And it's Don Rickles.
Yeah.
And this is when Raymond, I guess, is popular and still on.
And he goes, this is the guy who created the show.
And Rickles goes, thanks for all the calls.
So first thing he says, and I die laughing, right?
And my friend Lou Schneider is a writer and a comedian, and he was a writer on the show.
And he says, Mr. Rickles,
I just want to say, he goes, what's your name?
And he goes, Lou Schneider. And Don Rickles
smacks him in the face!
And says, another Jew!
Ah!
And I look
at Lou like, you've been
knighted! Yes!
You've been, never washed that face.
Right?
I can't believe, we are dying laughing.
We can't believe this is happening.
Rickles goes now, insults us a couple more times, and goes and sits down.
We can't believe it.
We can't believe we got to meet Rickles, and he slapped you in the face, and he insulted me, and he insulted you.
Send over one of these, we were at a Spago or something.
Send over the smoked salmon pizza to him from us, please.
He's sitting in the other room, whatever it is.
And we continue our meal.
And halfway through our meal, all of a sudden, I feel something next to me, and I look, it's Don Rickles.
He's now sitting next to me for no reason.
And I go, oh, oh, hello.
He goes, richest guy in the world,
you send over a pizza?
Where are the entrees?
What a thrill.
Right?
And Lou starts to go, Mr. Rickles, we're sorry.
And he slaps him in the face again.
And Lou starts to go, Mr. Rickles, we're sorry.
And he slaps him in the face again.
It was like we were in a show.
It was the greatest night ever.
And we became friendly after that.
And we had dinner.
We had things.
I remember we were out.
I was out with Brad Garrett, and Brad had a very young girlfriend at the time and was out with us.
And she looked even younger than she actually was.
Yes.
And Rickles goes, who's this?
And he says, this is my girlfriend.
And it says her name.
And he goes, blink if you've been kidnapped.
Gold.
Nobody funnier.
Nobody funnier.
Oh, he was wonderful.
Well, we know, listening to your interviews with Mark, that you used to stay up in bed
watching those old Carson shows and watching those Rickles appearances.
My parents had a five-inch Sony black and white with the antenna,
and I would sneak it into my room,
and I would sneak it into my bed under the covers
because it was way past my bedtime, 1130.
But goddamn, I was not going to miss Johnny Carson,
especially when Rickles was on.
Those Rickles.
Again, pre-VCR.
You couldn't tape in and watch it the next day. There was no YouTube to see the when Rickles was on. Those Rickles. Again, pre-VCR.
You couldn't tape in and watch it the next day.
There was no YouTube to see the great Rickles segment that was on the night before.
You either saw it that night or you had to wait for Best of Carson.
The two that stand out are when he broke the cigarette box when he hosted.
Amazing.
And Johnny went and found him down the hall. Don't you think, I mean, you should ask Mark Malkoff this.
Mark, was that all planned? Let's bring
him in here. Mark? I felt
he must plan. I think that
the CPO sharky was conveniently
right down the hall. There's another
segment we can talk about, too, that I had
to be planned, but Mark,
was that,
do you happen to know, was that a planned bit?
I do know.
They told me to use this. I do know, and it was absolutely, Rickles did not know about it, was that a planned bit? I do know. They told me to use this.
I do know, and it was absolutely,
Rickles did not know about it, but it was planned.
Carson had heard about it,
and he came up with this whole thing.
That's how they were able to get the camera,
which they never did,
and they never did into the studio.
Through that door,
and across the hall into the next door.
All these things had to be said,
otherwise we would be 20 minutes of, can we get in there?
I want to mention one thing that I found interesting.
When you see it now when it's played,
it cuts to the actual camera of CPO Sharky.
That's right.
But on the original broadcast of... Oh, Mike.
Oh, sorry.
But of the original broadcast on The Tonight Show,
because I've seen it,
it's actually just that one single camera and you never see that other shot.
But yeah, but Carson, yeah, knew it.
I could never tell.
I went back and forth.
I always felt that one famous one where, you know, Dean Martin and George Goebel and I guess Bob Hope.
That struck me as
a bullshit one. I didn't think so.
Really? I thought that was... Doesn't Dean
put his cigarette, flick his cigarette in
George Goebel's... You thought that was planned?
Yes. I didn't think so.
And I felt like George Goebel's line, that
ever in quotes, like I feel like...
With the tuxedo and the brown
shoes. And I thought,
I bet you that's a line he does in his act
every night. I think that that
was written and delivered
perfectly, but maybe not
the cigarette putting the cigarette in his drink.
What about the geisha girls with the rickles?
That is completely set up.
Why? Because if you're doing the massage
scene, why is
that pool there? Good question.
There's no reason
for that pool to be there
other than to dump
Rickles into it.
That's right.
And I didn't know that
until Phil told me.
I never thought about that
because there's so many
spontaneous moments
on Carson's show.
You would never do that.
It's too expensive
to build an extra thing
that you don't need
for decoration.
I never thought of that.
There's no reason
to have a pool. There's a giant tub there.
Yeah.
For the sole reason of putting Rickles into it.
But nobody thinks that because they're too busy laughing that Rickles went in the water.
Thank you, Marky.
Wow.
Mark, you left already.
He'll come back.
Look how he runs away from me.
That's all right.
Mark is the, you still people, the leading expert.
He's been on this show.
Yes.
Of Johnny Carson.
Yes.
All things Carson.
He's been on this show and he will be again
I don't know why
and he played me a clip
sooner than you think
he played me a clip
at the end of our interview together
you and Mark
yeah
Carson doing a joke
and mentioning me
what was the joke do you remember a joke and mentioning me in the joke. Wow.
Yeah.
Very nice. What was the joke?
Do you remember the joke, Mark?
Come back in here.
Hey.
We keep running him like a monkey into the other room.
Back in your cage.
All right, come out of your cage.
Here's a peanut.
Tell us a story.
Here he comes again.
Okay.
Come here.
I don't remember.
The joke was something about the Emmys.
It was definitely about the Emmys, and I think it was him talking about it because it was just the week before. Oh, and I got't remember. The joke was something about the Emmys. It was definitely about the Emmys.
And I think it was him talking about,
because it was just the week before.
Oh, when I got in trouble.
Yes, when you got in trouble for the Emmys.
And Carson was just saying,
applying that you probably wouldn't be working
for a long time, something like that.
Yes, yes.
When I showed you that clip,
I could not,
I can't describe your face to the audience.
I mean, you were in complete shock.
Your jaw dropped.
And you're just like, can we watch it again?
Can we watch it again?
Yeah.
I never knew Carson knew who the hell I was.
There you go.
Yeah.
I was never on the show.
Okay, now run back.
More Carson questions to come.
Now I want to think of shit to keep running him in here.
And I appreciate it.
You are appreciated, especially for your running skills.
I appreciate you, Mark.
Now, I told you the story.
I told you my Carson story last time, right?
Yeah.
Okay, so you don't have to hear that.
But is there a Cher story?
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this.
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There is a share story. to learn more. that he delivered a futon to Cher. And we said, oh, was she nice?
Oh, I don't know, because she wasn't there when I delivered it.
I said, wow, you are a master storyteller.
What a great story.
You should just get up at parties and tell that story.
And we made fun of him for the rest of his life for this story.
So I'm out with Ray and Lou Schneider and our wives.
And we're at a restaurant.
And Ray gets up to go to the restroom.
And we happen to notice at that moment, three tables behind us is Cher eating in the restaurant.
And we're like, oh, my God. how do we do the futon thing with Cher?
What do we, we've got to do something.
And Lou Schneider, I said, see if she'll stop by.
She if so, I'd like to.
So Lou goes over there and says, listen, we're, I don't know if you know the show, Everybody Loves Raymond, but she goes, oh yeah.
and says, listen, I don't know if you know the show Everybody Loves Raymond,
but she goes, oh, yeah.
She goes, well, Ray always tells this story about delivering a futon to you when he was like in his 20s,
and if you could just stop by and say anything you want about it,
it would be so great.
And when Lou came back to the table before Ray got back,
he told us, I have no idea if she's going to do it or not.
I mean, she seemed to not,
but she was with people
and everything.
And so we forgot about it.
It was a shot.
And we're eating.
All of a sudden,
Cher is standing next to us
at the table.
And she goes,
Ray,
and he looks up
and he says,
yes,
I want you to know
that futon sucked.
And she walks out.
That's great.
Isn't that fantastic?
Just the way you wanted her to be.
Isn't that fantastic?
Delivering on cue.
How great is she?
Fantastic.
I mean, I love her the rest of my life.
Fantastic.
I wrote one more down.
Will Ferrell?
Oh, my God.
We did Ray.
Ray hosted SNL.
My God.
We did, Ray hosted SNL.
And he was allowed to bring me and Mike Royce to SNL to help make him comfortable.
And we actually wrote a couple of sketches that got on the air, which was the thrill of a lifetime.
And I don't know why. Because that show meant so much to you, too, when you were young.
It's our childhood.
I was 15 when you were young. Oh, well, it's our childhood.
It's where we grew up when I was 15 when it premiered. And Ray, too, you know, this was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
It was to host or just beyond in any capacity, SNL.
So this is the years of Will Ferrell and Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sands.
And these guys, I was like, hey, you want to go get something to eat?
And they go, what do you mean?
Well, you want to go?
We're so thrilled to be here.
And nothing's happening tonight.
You know, they don't even start writing the show until like Tuesday night.
Right?
They do an all-nighter.
So it's Monday.
And I say.
He was on it.
You were on it.
Yeah.
Worst season ever.
He was in a cast.
No, I remember. Yeah. Of course. It wasn't ever. He was in a cast. No, I remember.
Of course. It wasn't the
worst season ever. Great minutes. No, no, no.
But listen, I don't have to tell you
it's a miracle that anything is ever
funny on that show. Yes, yes.
Considering the way they do it.
Yeah, it's insane. The production
week is crazy to me.
I don't understand it. Anyway, so it's
Monday night. I say, you want to get something to eat?
They go, like what?
I'm like, I don't know.
I'll take you anywhere you want.
What do you mean?
You'll take us?
Yeah, I love you guys.
This is really an honor to take you.
So we all go to Peter Luger's, okay?
And we have the greatest time.
And the next night, you know,
I'm just so thrilled to be with them.
And they seem so delighted to be fed.
Like no one has
ever done this? You've had giant stars
and they don't take you
to dinner? Nothing?
I remember they would have
parties after each
show where we'd all go to a restaurant,
a nice restaurant,
and each person has to pay for
their meal. Oh, no. Yes.
Well, that was a Domanian no. Yes. Well, that was a Romanian year.
Yes.
No, I remember hearing this as well.
You didn't get shit at those parties.
I remember hearing this as well.
Terrible, terrible, terrible.
So it was my honor to do it.
I mean, I was thrilled to do it.
So the next night, I'm ordering Chinese food.
So we become friendly.
The very next week after we have this wonderful, wonderful week on SNL,
Ray and I take our children to Disneyland in California.
And we go out to whatever, you take a boat even out to this Huckleberry Island,
whatever it is, what is it, Davy Crockett's Land?
Something like that.
I don't know.
Anyway, I have to use the restroom, and there's one toilet in the bathroom
and one urinal in this log cabin-esque bathroom on Davy Crockett Island.
And I go in there to pee.
And from in the stall, on this island, in this tiny bathroom, I'm hearing this.
Oh, God! this island in this tiny bathroom I'm hearing this oh god jesus christ oh my god and it's getting worse and worse and worse. And I think someone is fucking dying.
Someone is dying.
And now Ray has to go in after me.
And I'm like, Ray, something's going on.
I don't know if you should go in there.
He goes, what do you mean?
I really have to pee.
I said, listen, there's somebody I think having a heart attack in the toilet.
And he goes, how bad could it be?
And he goes in there. And he comes out, and he's white-faced.
Ashen, like, should we call 911?
The door opens.
It's Will Ferrell.
Oh, shit!
He must have seen through the crack.
Someone go in, and this is schtick he's doing for that stranger.
The coincidence that we had just
been with him in New York
and that he was at all places
not just Disneyland
an island in the middle of a
lake in the middle of Disneyland
and the one toilet in the middle of that island
in the middle of the lake in the middle of Disneyland
in California. What are the odds
of this happening? Hilarious. But it just goes, in the middle of the lake, in the middle of Disneyland, in California. What are the odds of this happening?
Hilarious.
But it just goes to the comic genius of the guy that he's going to do schtick for whoever.
Yeah.
That's great.
That's gold.
Right?
Wonderful.
What do you want to talk about?
When Peter O'Toole came to your house for a screening.
I did tell you that.
I told you that last time.
That's a good one.
That's already boring to you.
No, no.
We loved it. We're going to make you tell the Jerry Lewis story again. No, you can't. Only told you that last time. That's a good one. That's already boring to you. No, no. We loved it.
We're going to make you
tell the Jerry Lewis story again
only because Gilbert ate it up.
Or do you want to tell us
about Leon Vitale,
which is also interesting?
He's fascinating
because Leon Vitale
was Stanley Cooper's
right-hand man.
Leon Vitale was in Barry Lyndon.
He played Lord Bullington.
For those of you
who know Barry Lyndon,
he's the stepson of Barry Lyndon who linden he's this he's the the stepson
of barry linden who hates barry linden because he knows the truth about barry linden barry linden
only married his mother to get her money yeah so he hates this guy and so they duel at the end and
everything and he was great in the movie leon vitale leon vitale was so enamored. It's fascinating. And in awe of the genius of Stanley Kubrick that he gave up his acting career to work for Stanley Kubrick for the rest of Kubrick's life.
Isn't that wild?
So that means every single piece of development, every movie, he was the guy.
I Googled him and he's everywhere.
He's in The Shining.
He's on the set.
He's everywhere.
He cast the little boy out of thousands.
Yeah.
You can imagine how meticulous Kubrick was in every aspect of making a movie.
He was the on-set wrangler for the boy.
He trained every actor for Full Metal Jacket.
There's a horrific story in this week's Hollywood Reporter about an actor who was supposed to be the drill sergeant that Kubrick kept waiting for a year and kept him rehearsing with Leon Vitale over
and over and over, but then gave the part to Lee Ermey.
Wow.
And this guy was suicidal.
He then gave him a tiny role in the film, but the way he was treated was awful.
I think I know the actor you mean.
We should have Leon on the podcast.
He's probably a great cinema history.
Leon, there's a documentary before you have him on called Film Worker that I believe is
on Netflix.
That's right.
And it's about the sacrifice that Leon made of giving up his own life and career in the
service of a genius, of probably the greatest filmmaker who ever lived.
Yeah, we got to get him.
All the way through The Shining and Full Metal Jacket and the last one, Eyes Wide Shut, which he has a part in.
The greatest stories, the most unbelievable.
I mean, there's nobody like Stanley Kubrick, and Leon Vitale knows all the stories.
He's in L.A.?
He is in L.A.
Did you extend an invite to him to come to the house and show something?
Leon has been to my house several times.
Oh, he has?
Not just for Kubrick movies.
By the way, he came to Full Metal Jacket with Matthew Modine.
Great.
Wow.
And they both told Kubrick stories.
Wow.
I mean, I can't get over it.
When there's a restoration of the film, they go to Leon because Leon knows.
Leon knows that Kubrick was calling the theater operators and the projectionist to make sure that it was being shown in the right aspect ratio.
Oh, geez.
Yeah, that's how.
Because when you think about it, you make a movie, and if they show it wrong, they're not seeing your movie.
show it wrong,
they're not seeing your movie.
On the same vein,
I worked with Matthew Modine in Funky Monkey.
Will you have Gilbert over
for Funky Monkey night?
I want you and Matthew
to tell me all the
Funky Monkey stories.
Who else is in it?
The best review,
the best review
I ever heard of that movie was, because everyone hated it, one review was just one line.
It said, Matthew Modine once starred in a movie made by Stanley Kubrick.
That was the whole review.
Oh, my God.
That's awesome.
That hurts.
That is awesome.
Wow.
You're the food guy. I am. That is awesome. Wow. You're the food guy.
I am.
Tell us your favorite food.
By the way, somebody stopped me in the airport, and he says, hey, you're the food guy.
That was my research.
I said, wow.
I've always wanted to be known as that, right?
And he goes, hey, listen, I'm just the guy.
Wow.
So that meant a lot.
That's profound.
Wow, that really is.
Right?
That's profound.
Yeah.
So when somebody says, hey, you're the parrot guy, you go, well, yeah, thanks.
I always wanted to be known as the parrot.
Hey, listen, I'm just the guy.
In the business, you start going, well, that guy's a notch higher and that guy's 10 notches higher.
But I'm three notches above this guy.
We should be lucky to be known as anything guy.
Well, I always think whenever I'm depressed about my career,
I think like all those people that were at like the improv catch and all these clubs
every fucking night yeah and i ran into them for years and now i don't know their names
i don't know what if they're still alive anymore they're gone it's nice that you have that
perspective yeah because i mean i think like like, oh my God, I'm working
and these people,
I don't know
if they're still alive.
You've done
a couple things
that are iconic
and will live forever
beyond you
and you will be known
as that guy.
Yeah.
Instead of just a guy.
Yes.
So you want him over
for Funky Monkey Night
with Matthew Modine.
I still haven't seen it.
What about Problem Child 2 Night?
Sure, whatever you want.
There was Problem Child 3?
I'll tell you something.
I can't tell you the name of this guy.
But I made a mistake
and I'll never do this again.
Oh, boy.
So I got to have a small part in a film.
And the lead of the movie
is a pretty well-known actor.
And I was thrilled to meet this guy because I was a fan.
And one of the things I'm able to say to somebody that I admire is,
hey, you want to come over for movie night?
Right?
Because now we're going to be friends.
That's how I make friends.
Listen, we use whatever we can.
I'm not handsome or charming, so I have a movie night with pizza.
Maybe you'll like me.
And a pizza oven.
Maybe you'll like me.
You got a pizza oven.
Okay, so this guy goes, not only would I like to come, but I just made a movie that I directed.
I would love to show it.
And I'm like, great.
The movie starts.
Everyone's thrilled that this actor is there.
Yes.
It's horrible.
Oh.
I mean, awful.
Even if I told you this man's name and told you the name of the movie, you've never heard of this man. Yeah.
Oh.
For very good reason.
And it's so bad.
And when it's over, everyone is like, oh.
And he leaps to the front of the room and says, any questions?
Oh.
Oh.
Always know what movie you're showing.
Yes.
That's a valuable lesson.
We've all been to screenings like that.
Right.
Public screenings like that where people sneak out.
But not when it's a friend and a thing and friends.
There's nowhere to go.
You can't sneak out of your own house.
So I had to, you know, break the ice.
How did you get so-and-so to be in the movie oh yeah oh my god it was all apropos of
nothing there's an actor you worked with in the italy episodes of raymond that i always liked
david proval david proval was in the sopranos he was a very tough gangster horrible great gangster
meanest toughest guy i thought, he was so fantastic.
What an actor.
I wish I could work with him one day.
And I'm watching The Sopranos,
and he gets killed in The Sopranos.
And I jump out of my chair and I go,
he's available!
And we got him.
He plays a great scary guy.
He's in a movie called Nunzio that's very good.
Oh, I didn't know that movie. An indie film that's a favorite of Scorsese's. He plays a great scary guy. He's in a movie called Nunzio that's very good. Oh, I didn't know that movie.
An indie film that's a favorite of Scorsese's.
He was awesome.
Yeah.
He played Stefania, the beautiful Italian girl's father.
I love those episodes.
I told you on email.
It's a little like Local Hero.
The cynical guy goes and falls in love with the place.
The place he's enchanted by.
So you know what came from that episode?
Somebody feed Phil.
Because what I saw happened to Ray,
the character that I wrote,
happened to Ray, the person.
And I saw that.
He really said, I'm not interested in other cultures?
That is the exact thing he said.
Unbelievable.
I asked him, what are you doing for your hiatus?
What are you doing on hiatus this year?
Between season one and two.
He goes, I go to Jersey Shore.
And I said, that's nice.
You ever been to Europe?
He goes, nah.
I said, why not?
He goes, I'm not really interested in other cultures.
I love him.
Even his own culture.
Yeah.
Italy.
He'd never been.
So I thought you got to write that episode.
I got to write it.
Fantastic.
I got to send them over with that in his head and send them back as me.
Someone excited to go.
Right?
And it took years to get him on a plane.
He didn't even want to get on a plane.
He didn't want to go anywhere.
So that was the actual episode was about him getting woke.
Right?
It's great.
And then I saw it happen to him to the point where this summer he's texting me from Sicily. Phil, you got to try the pizza down here. It's unbelievable. Right? It's great. It's touching. And then I saw it happen to him to the point where this summer he's texting me from Sicily.
Phil, you got to try the pizza down here.
It's unbelievable.
Right?
You handled it so well too.
When he goes and he gets the slice and he kicks the soccer ball with the kids.
It's really –
We all get those moments.
Lovely.
But we get them in the tiniest – the tiniest thing can change your life.
Right?
To suddenly understand, oh, this is what traveling is for.
This is why you go.
And as you've said many times, that's why you do the show. Because you want to share what you've experienced with other people.
It's what you do.
This is why you're sitting right there.
It's because you want to turn people on to stuff you like.
It's what drives us.
That's good.
That's all we do
is try to connect with people.
If you're not driven by something like that,
it's hard to get out of bed.
But listen,
that's all the show is for me.
It's not really about the food.
Yeah.
Well, let's talk about the show
before we get out of here.
You're doing season three.
Do we have to leave?
You're doing season three.
I know Gino hooked up with you for what, the **** episode?
Yeah.
I heard he brought food to the set.
He's a genius.
Yes.
Because he brought not ice cream, custard.
What's that?
Frozen custard.
Yes.
To the show.
I'm not even allowed to tell you what city we were in when he did this.
Oh, okay.
Because I'm not allowed to divulge.
Netflix, for some reason, thinks, you know,
next summer when this comes out,
you're going to remember that I said this.
No, I think I already said it, so I'll trim it.
Whatever.
Yeah.
You can say it.
I didn't say it.
So you're doing a third season.
Third and fourth.
Third and fourth.
Fantastic.
Wonderful.
Ten episodes we're filming.
Wonderful.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Listen, we were nominated for an Emmy this year.
Congratulations.
Which I was so thrilled about because what are we?
We're a tiny little show on Netflix that seems to have hit.
It hit a chord.
I get letters and emails and DMs from around the world.
As you should.
Saying that people traveled because they watched that show.
Nothing could make me happier.
It's great.
People send me two-year-olds.
They're two-year-olds imitating me,
which is a little insulting,
but it's very sweet.
You must get it all the time.
Oh, yeah.
You have little kids imitating you?
Yeah.
Is that hilarious?
Don't you love it?
No, I've been asked to stay away from little kids.
That I understand also.
Yeah.
We were talking about,
I was telling them about the New York episode.
You went in search of the best pizza.
Who doesn't?
In New York.
You're sitting here with two pizza mavens.
Something that drives me crazy is people always say to me, oh, New York, that's the best pizza on the planet.
And I think I live in Manhattan.
I don't remember the last really good pizza I had.
You got to go to your hometown, Coney Island.
But can I tell you at least one in Manhattan?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Have you been to 106 and Broadway?
You're not going that far.
Let me write this down.
It's called Mama's 2.
T-O-O.
Mama's 2.
And I want you to see my friend Frank.
Tell him I sent you.
You bet.
Maybe he'll give you a free bite.
Yeah.
If it's free, I'll go there.
Yes.
For you, it might be because i'm telling you it's really really super good the other great one and by the way i would
have filmed there if we if it was open when we well because the two i was saying that gilbert
and dara the two you picked were two in brooklyn one in coney island that's right another one in
brooklyn and then the one in jersey the one in Jersey is like off the charts, crazy great.
It's called Raza.
Gilbert, we'll do a road trip.
It's seven minutes on the path.
You can go to Raza.
I'll take you.
I'll even pay for you.
Sold.
I'll even pay for the subway fare.
Now he's in.
Now, do any of the pizza guys do that thing of twirling the dough in the air?
I've never seen a professional, like a real person do it.
I used to see that all the time.
When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, I would see them swing it.
It would like go around like a flying saucer in the air way up and they'd catch it.
You know, it's part of show business.
Yeah.
I think it goes back to when pizza was invented. Do that in the air way up and they catch it. You know, it's part of show business. Yeah.
I think it goes back to when pizza was invented.
Do that in the window.
You're going to get attention.
Yes. You're going to get people in the store.
Oh, it's smart.
There's no real reason to do it.
It was amazing.
Some, like the town, they could have been on TV, these guys that swooned the door.
Listen, there are pizza makers who think that handling the dough too much actually hurts it.
Oh.
Right?
That you want to leave a little air in so it gets that nice, that beautiful crust.
They concern about, they'll say, look at that whole structure, right?
Where you see the little webs of dough and the whole, the air, that that's important because of crunch and feel.
All this goes into it.
Everybody likes something else.
Do you love pizza?
What food makes you excited?
I don't know this about you.
Oh, jeez.
I've never really seen you get particularly enthused about food.
Whenever someone's paying for it for me, I'm usually happy.
You would have been so happy in my parents' house.
The cuisine of our house, the cuisine was cheap.
Yeah, yes.
Whatever was on sale.
What are we having?
Whatever's on sale.
Same with my upbringing.
And I remember there were certain brands that you would never see in our house.
Those would be the more expensive.
We'd never see that.
By the way, talk about cheap show business people.
So there was a hit sitcom where the writers, producers, could have Coke and Pepsi and Dr. Pepper.
And the PAs had to drink Shasta, Wall Bounds.
Oh.
Yeah.
How about that?
Oh.
I was on a show where a memo was passed around.
My hand to God, this was a hit sitcom.
On this sitcom, a memo went around the office.
A hit.
We noticed some of you are putting milk on your cereal when you come in in the morning.
The milk is for coffee.
The cereal is for snacks.
We do not provide breakfast for you.
Please do not put milk on your cereal.
Oh, wow.
And I literally, it went through me like a knife.
I said to myself right then and there, if I'm ever lucky enough to have my own show, we're going to have milk on us here.
Good for you.
And we had the best craft service in town.
Bless your heart.
Yes.
That's half the point of doing a television show, right?
Of course.
It's to eat food.
Yes.
Yes.
What else is there?
Listen, you'd be in a room writing.
It can be a long, long day.
The only sunshine coming in is the menu.
I remember like on certain sitcoms that I did guest spots on Monday when they'd have the first read-through.
That was the best day.
They'd have like lox and bagels and everything.
Not everybody.
You said the food on Hollywood Squares was good.
Oh, very good.
Yeah.
They'd have a great lunch at Hollywood Squares.
That was a great show.
Because their lunch was the best.
I don't give a fuck whether it was funny or not.
How were the jokes?
Terrible.
But the lunch.
I'm not letting you out of here until you tell me the best egg cream in New York.
Because, first of all, the PBS show where you the best egg cream in New York because first of all
the PBS show
where you make the egg cream
for the Japanese people
hilarious
thank you
that was unplanned
really funny
that was
I didn't know what to do
with these people
and I didn't even think
the scene was going very well
because there was such
a language barrier
really great
and I had
an interpreter
and everything
and it was quite awkward
actually
until this moment
where I just said I was actually said toers, why don't we wrap it up?
I'll say goodbye.
And I said, so nice being with you.
Thank you.
And I don't know why I thought to ask the patriarch of the family, this grandpa, what do you do for fun?
Because he was kind of quiet the whole time.
He goes, oh, we have champagne night.
I said, really?
What's that?
He said, I like champagne.
This, by the way, I'm getting this through an interpreter.
Yes.
I like champagne, and I pick up, choose a bottle from my collection, and we celebrate the week with champagne.
I said, isn't that beautiful?
My house, we have egg cream night.
Yeah.
Okay.
And they lean forward.
These just Japanese family.
The women are in kimonos.
Oh.
It was great.
And in English,
they say to me,
what is this egg cream?
Oh,
and I laughed because I've never heard the word egg cream come from a Japanese person.
And,
and,
uh,
I said,
well,
it's,
it's,
it's some milk and some chocolate syrup, and you stir that.
And while you're stirring it, you add sparkling water.
And as you stir it, a chemical reaction takes place, and a foam rises to the top of the glass.
And they, in unison, went, oh.
It's great television.
And so I laugh because I've never heard that reaction.
And I turn to the producers and I go, I wish we could make egg creams for them if there was any way.
And they go, Phil, you're not in the jungle.
There's a supermarket across the street.
Right?
Please get.
And they bring in, cut to, milk, syrup, and I make these people egg creams.
And I show them how to make it.
And sure enough, when I pour the seltzer in and the foam rises,
they all go, oh!
And they drink it on camera.
It's great.
And the lesson was, you think as a foreigner in another land,
you're an American.
What do I have to offer this culture?
Nothing.
Except egg cream. We all have something. You think you have nothing to offer this culture? Nothing. Except egg cream.
We all have something you think you have nothing to offer you do.
That one woman sipped it, and you could tell she was horrified.
Well, the bubbles.
She was trying.
Oh, the bubbles got to her.
The bubbles went up her nose.
I see.
And so she went, ooh, ooh, ooh.
But then looked at me when she saw I was looking at her and gave me the OK's, big smile sign.
I'll show you the clip.
Yeah.
It was adorable.
Eisenberg's on the Flatiron District.
Great.
Has a great egg cream.
Well, they know what they're doing.
Russ and Daughters.
Russ and Daughters.
And what about Sammy's Romanian?
Great.
By the way, Sammy's Romanian, they leave you the seltzer on the table.
They give you the whole thing.
They also leave vodka on the table for you and a block of ice.
Yeah, like the-
You've been there, right?
Yes.
The old days of growing up, you ordered a malted and they'd fill the glass and give you that metal pitcher.
Extra cup.
Yes.
Because it wasn't an exact science.
And they knew there was going to be some extra, so why not give the customer that extra?
Yeah, they never do that.
It's such a psychologically great thing to do.
They'd rather dump it down the sink
than give it to you.
It's true.
It's true.
What's with people?
You ever go to Mousseau and Franks
and have a martini?
Years ago.
They give you a sidecar.
Yes.
With an extra martini
in this little glass jar
next to your martini.
And you think you got a free one.
And you love them.
And it happens to be the best martini.
Have you been
to the 83rd Street
Luncheonette on Lex?
You can sit
at the old fountain.
Oh, I love it.
You can sit
on the old stools
and the fountain
and get an egg cream
which makes it taste better
because you're actually
in that environment.
Don't you love diners?
There's not,
these things are dying.
They're dying.
Diners and delis are dying.
Coffee shops
going away.
We have to support
these things
because these are,
it's how I want to eat most of the time.
That's what I want.
I want a sandwich.
I want a hot dog.
Really, a burger.
And I agree with you that Ratatouille is a wonderful movie about food.
It has the best –
It's a perfect movie.
It has the best moment about food, if not life, ever in a movie,
which is when he bites this food, the
critic, who's been a jerk, who happens to be Peter O'Toole, by the way, and he flashes
back to childhood.
Yeah.
Because that's everything in life.
That's all we do is try to chase that feeling of childhood in every field and every thing
we do.
It's true.
We don't even know that we're looking for that, but we do it.
That's why we're doing this.
Yes, because it's fun and it reminds you of playing with your friends.
Yeah. Did you get to go to the park this time and sit on your bench? Of course. You and Monica? Of course. Every time. looking for that but we do it why we're doing this just because it's fun and it reminds you of playing with your friends right
did you get to go to the park
this time
and sit on your bench
of course
you and Monica
of course
every time
wonderful
wonderful
people can figure out
what we're talking about
if they watch
somebody feed film
and if they're not watching it
what the hell's wrong with them
exactly
so we'll plug it
when does it come back
probably in the summer
but you can see
all of them
there's 18 episodes
between that and I'll Have What Phil's Having.
They're all on Netflix.
I hope you watch and I hope you'll
write to Netflix and say, you people don't even know
what you have here.
We'll tell our listeners to do that.
The sandwich in Cape Town
was mind-blowing.
That's called a Gatsby.
Giant sandwich.
Tell them what's on that sandwich before we get out of here. That's called the Gatsby. Giant sandwich. Show Gilbert. Tell him what's on that sandwich
before we get out of here.
That's a giant...
It's a sandwich.
It's literally...
It's a six-foot hoagie,
but it's for you.
With french fries on the sandwich.
With fries on the sandwich.
Yeah, it's pretty great.
So we'll tell him to watch
somebody feed Phil.
Find your feature,
Exporting Raymond.
Of course.
Which is a lot of fun.
Get the book.
You're lucky you're funny.
You can get an audio book of it.
It's very nice.
It's like having me in the car
with you for seven hours.
Yes.
And if they want to hear
the three Jerry Lewis stories,
they're going to have to go back
and listen to your first episode.
Yes.
Because that is a classic.
Thank you.
I've almost run out of cards.
Look, you have a lot of cards.
How about treating him
to another one of your
wonderful impressions of older comics? I love this. How about treating him to another one of your wonderful impressions of older comics?
I love this.
How about a little Jackie Mason?
Oh.
This will make him happy.
And this person over here is thinking, oh, you're so much better than I am.
And he's looking at him going, and it's thinking, you know, a Jew goes into a restaurant.
It's like he's the captain of a ship.
I want that table over there,
and that table has to be moved to the next window.
Look how happy he is.
Then Myron Cohen would be like,
Arnold George Mann,
he is working in the same company for 45 years.
He always comes in 8 o'clock, right on the dot.
One day he comes in 9 o'clock.
He's all bloody, his clothes are torn up.
He's bleeding.
The boy says, what happened to you?
He said, I fell down a flight of stairs.
It was horrible.
I nearly died.
And the boy says, so that took you an hour?
We're not going to beat that, ladies and gentlemen.
We're not going to top it.
That's for you, Phil.
Awesome.
Thank you, pal.
Thank you.
This is fun.
This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre,
and our return guest, Phil Rosenthal.
Thank you, Phil.
The sound of one hand clapping.
Think about Problem Child tonight.
Please, sit down. He enjoys every meal, every bite that I steal
Achita by Goomba in the barn zone
Some people like their pizza, some people like a sofrito
And others like hot pepper on everything they eat
You hunger with a woolly To taste some bakalow
Then all at once you think
Will I answer to Goomba
My lovely, lovely woman
I hate to see her cry
But when I start to manja
Get the evil eye
My woolly's getting stronger
Ah, the hell with my Goomba
Did I get it from my woman?
Que de voz serás, ya-ha
Ah, cheetah, my Goomba in the barn zone
When I eat, he gets a treat like a gonzo
He enjoys every meal, every bite that I steal Ah steal achi tan by Goomba in the bonzone
tasty veal and peppers with linguine on the side I know it gets confusing you just cannot decide
but if you cross your Goomba There is not a place to hide
So think about the Lavanza
With that little man inside
Archie
Ta my Goomba
In the barn zone
When I eat
He gets a treat like a gonzo
He enjoys
Every meal
Every bite that I steal.
Ajita my Goomba in the barn zone.
Ajita my Goomba in the barn zone. Thank you.