Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 84. Bobby Slayton
Episode Date: January 4, 2016The legendary "Pit Bull of Comedy" -- actor, comic and horror movie aficionado Bobby Slayton sits down with Gilbert and Frank for a funny and freewheeling discussion of a number of essential topics, i...ncluding the brilliance of Ray Harryhausen, the tragedy of Bela Lugosi, the haunting of Sammy Davis, Jr. and the greatness of "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." Also, Bobby roasts Hal Roach, hangs with Buddy Hackett, breaks bread with Woody Allen and "becomes" Joey Bishop. PLUS: Una O'Connor! "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane"! The return of Rondo Hatton! Bobby meets Otis the Drunk! And the death of Louie Dumbrowski! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Thank you for your generosity. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're once again
at Nutmeg Post with the engineer, Frank Verderosa. Our guest this week is a stand-up comedian,
an actor, and voiceover artist, and possibly the only guest we've had on this show who's as obsessed with
old horror movies as yours truly. He's appeared in films like Ed Wood, Get Shorty, Bandits,
and played Joey Bishop in HBO's Rat Pack movie. TV roles include Duckman, Home Improvement, and Family
Guy, and he does
the best hunch hole
in the business. Welcome
to the Pitbull of comedy,
our pal, Bobby Slate.
You know, thank you very much.
You know, the hunch hole thing, you know,
it's very funny, was that when I
read for Ed Wood, you know, I wanted
to do that movie so badly, because like you, I'm a tremendous horror movie fan.
And when I say horror movies,
you know, not the new stuff as much.
I mean, I think the last great horror movie I loved
was Nightmare on Elm Street.
I'm talking about the old Universal stuff
and the old, you know, the Val Luton stuff
and the Catwoman stuff.
And I walk with the zombie.
And then Ed Wood, who had a special place in all our hearts.
Because you and I
and I think Frank too
we grew up with
Chilla Theater
back in the 60s and 70s
well you're a local kid
from Scarsdale
from Scarsdale
you know
I was born in the Bronx
no born in New York City
lived in the Bronx
when I was two
then grew up in Scarsdale
Chilla Theater
had that monster
thing with the six figures
coming out of the mud
going
Chilla
Chilla
and then what it also had was and when you're 10 years old because you and I Gilbert are pretty much the same age And with the six fingers coming out of the mud, going, Chiller! Yeah, Chiller.
And then what it also had was,
and when you're 10 years old,
because you and I, Gilbert, are pretty much the same age,
when you watch Plan 9 from Outer Space,
which now everybody knows is horrible,
but it's a cult classic.
But when you're 10 years old,
and my parents would leave me to babysit my two younger brothers,
and I would be watching Chiller,
and the lights are out in the house,
and even though my parents are two blocks
away playing Mahjong and you see
Vampyra walking at you. You remember?
Oh yes. For playing that.
So that movie scared the hell
out of me. And they had like
this gorilla.
It was like a collage
and one was a gorilla.
They had
Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.
Harry!
And I remember with that, you know, phony-looking guy in a gorilla suit with the vampire.
And what I remember is my mother had a big coat.
I think it was like, what was those old style coats?
The gorilla coats.
Yeah.
What, like a big mink or something?
Yeah, not a mink.
Vicuna?
Yeah, no, it was cheap.
She would never have a mink.
But she had a big coat.
That's where he got it from, yeah.
And I used to put that coat on and pretend I was the gorilla in that chill at the end.
Robot monster.
Robot monster. There was a gorilla costume with an astronaut head.
Oh, yes, yes, and a bubble machine.
Right, right.
So anyway, so Ed Wood, when I heard they were making a movie called Ed Wood,
I was actually in a hotel in Sacramento.
I was playing the punchline, and I'm reading this book, Nightmare in Ecstasy.
Sure, I know, yeah.
And I go,
I have to read for this movie.
So I go to read for the movie.
And my part,
and you know about Bela Lugosi,
at the end of his career,
when he's doing all those horrible movies,
he had the morphine addiction.
He, you know, he screwed up,
I think it was on the Milton Berle show.
Yeah, I was going to say that.
Milton Berle started ad-libbing. I think it was Milton Berle. And he couldn't follow it. But he was on the Milton Berle show. Yeah, I was going to say that. Milton Berle started ad-libbing.
I think it was Milton Berle.
And he couldn't follow it.
But he also did the Art Linkletter show, and he did the Red Skelting show.
So what the writers told me was my character was a composite of all these guys,
and I'm playing the befuddled moron in a hat character.
Larry and Scott, who we had on the show.
Right.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Those guys.
So I'm going to befuddle moron in a hat. So I'm going to be funneled more in the head.
So I'm thinking of Clem Cadiddlehopper.
Hey!
Even as a kid, I hated Clem Cadiddlehopper.
I never found him funny.
Yeah.
You know what?
He's idiotic.
What's so weird is that I was the same way.
Like, I felt like I had to respect Red Skelton.
Of course.
But I never really laughed at Red Skelton.
Never.
And I saw him years later at Caesars Tahoe because I was playing the comedy club up there.
And I saw him and he's Red Skelton.
He's a legend like Milton Berle.
We all know Milton Berle was an asshole, but he's still Milton Berle.
Yes.
Okay.
And you got to respect the guy even though he's an asshole.
And we'll get to Joey Bishop in a second.
Sure.
So anyway, I see the part says befuddled Joey Bishop in a second. So anyway, I see the part. It says, befuddle moron in a hat.
And there's no way that I'm going to go read for Tim Burton and do Clem Cadiddlehopper.
So I got a Hunts Hall hat.
Louis, oh, hiya, fellas.
Make me malted.
Oh, hiya, Dracula.
Whatever.
So I did that.
And I said, if I don't get the part, I don't get the part.
But I'm not going to go in there and do Clem Cadiddlehopper.
I'm going to do Satch.
And I got the part.
Hilarious. So that was my big claim to fame. But here's not going to go in there and do Clem Cadiddlehopper. I'm going to do Satch. And I got the part. Hilarious.
So that was my big claim to fame.
But here's what was amazing about the movie Ed Wood.
Oh, but before I go on, do you know that Leo Gorce was Jewish?
His mother was Irish.
His father was Jewish.
He has to point out.
Well, his father.
Bernard Gorce.
Bernard Gorce.
Yeah.
Ran the soda fountain. Yeah. He has to point out. Well, his father. Bernard Gorski. Bernard Gorski. Bernard Gorski. Yeah.
Ran the soda fountain.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Louis.
Louis.
Louis Dombrowski.
Louis Dombrowski.
And he was killed.
He was hit by a car.
In a car crash.
And after that, Leo just fell apart.
You know, there's a famous, I never saw it.
I don't know if it's available anywhere.
Have you ever seen Leo Gorski?
You know, he's on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Oh, I think I did.
Yeah.
It's got to be out there somewhere.
You know, his other tonight show, Johnny Carson.
Oh, I think I did.
It's got to be out there somewhere.
And but I know like when his father, his father died in 55 in a car crash.
Right.
And and yeah, he never got over it.
I was born in 65.
No wonder my parents were so sad at my birth.
Yeah. It was all about Louis.
Yeah.
He just he didn't care about anything.
He was he continued working, but he just didn't care.
He's going to point out everybody who was Jewish.
Just so you have a heads up.
I feel like he's pointing at me.
He's old, he's Jewish, he works, but he doesn't care.
He was an alcoholic.
This is me, Gilbert.
I'm one of those people.
I'm that guy.
I don't care.
So basically he was every Jew, whether you lost your father or not.
But here was the great, because I know you guys love showbiz stories.
Here was the great thing about shooting Ed Wood and why Tim Burton is such a genius.
And after Ed Wood was shot, Leo Garcia never got over it.
He never got over that either.
He had a tough first time to me.
But Plan 9 from Outer Space, you know,
we did a scene. So we do
that scene and Martin Landau is
Dracula and I'm playing the photo moron and
I'm ad-libbing. I'm being Milton Berle.
So as you know, because you've done a lot
of movies, it takes days to
shoot five minutes. Oh, yeah.
So I have no patience. I can't
sit in my little trailer, which is half the size of the studio.
So I'm walking around.
They're shooting at wood in these nondescript little old buildings in the west side of L.A.
So I'm walking around.
And I walk into the one room where they're about to shoot that scene with Lugosi,
Glenner Glenda.
I met a man, I met a woman.
You know, with the shrunken heads.
Remember he's sitting there in that chair?
And after they shot the scene, I'm saying to myself, God, I want to take one with the shrunken heads. Remember he's sitting there in that chair? And after they shot the scene, I'm saying to myself,
God, I want to take one of those shrunken heads.
And I'm such a good guy, I couldn't steal it.
But here was the best part.
First day I'm there.
I was only on the movie for three days.
I walk over to where they're recreating the graveyard scene
where Tori Johnson comes out of the grave.
Okay, they're recreating it.
I'm watching these guys.
And there's union guys doing storyboards.
And they're making those little cardboard crosses.
And they're making the graves and the trees.
And I come back the next day.
They're still working on it.
That must have taken them.
It must have cost them a million dollars to do this.
It probably cost Ed Wood $35 to do this whole thing.
It probably cost, to feed these union guys lunch, these teamsters, more money than the entire budget of Ed would put together.
George the Animal steals Swedish lessons.
Exactly.
Now, the wrestler in that, was that his voice?
I don't remember.
I didn't work with that guy.
I heard he took Swedish lessons to sound like Thor, but I don't know if they dubbed him.
I wasn't sure if that was his voice or not.
Don't know.
We'll ask Scott and Larry. You know what was great?
The three days that I'm working on that movie, this is
such a thrill for me. And you know when you work on
a film or you get to meet
people in showbiz you grew up with and you love.
So there's Martin Lando and he's
in his Dracula costume and he doesn't want to sit
in his trailer and Johnny Depp could not have been a
nice guy and Johnny doesn't want to sit in his
trailer. So me and Johnny are sitting there and Martin Lando, dressed and Johnny doesn't want to sit in his trailer so me and Johnny
are sitting there
and Martin Lando
dressed up like Dracula
is telling us
all these stories
about Hitchcock
because he worked
on North by North
classic
one of the greatest
movies of all time
and he's talking
about all these films
he worked on
he's talking about
Mission Impossible
and then after about
an hour I brought up
and by the way
you were also in
the Harlem Globetrotters
go to Gilligan's Island
which he was
and Jesse was.
And he goes, well, yeah, I did that too.
With Barbara Bain.
Yeah.
But he actually was in that.
But Johnny Depp was so cool that, you know,
my daughter wanted to come to the set.
My daughter was about 5'10 at the time or whatever.
She wanted to come to the set to meet Edward Scissorhands.
You know, and you have children.
Yeah.
And, you know, when kids are a little you're not sure if maybe
they're autistic because they watch the same crap over and over and over again
they go back and forth and you know I'm not sure if my kid you know they said
they like to watch the same movies in the same TV shows my daughter watched
Edward Scissorhands 30 times so now I'm doing this movie Edward with Edward
Scissorhands and my daughter goes daddy I have to go meet him and I take her to
the set and I swear
to God, on my wife's life, so if I'm lying
I still win. I take my daughter
I take my daughter to the set
and she meets Johnny and he
cannot have been more of a gentleman
and she says to me, he looks
nothing like Edward Scissorhands.
Johnny goes to his trailer, he had one of the gloves
he was actually doing a photo shoot
that week and he came out with the gloves and he said, yeah, yeah, you want a haircut, kid?
You want a haircut?
And he says, chasing my daughter and she's screaming.
That's when you needed cell phones with cameras because it was a moment that I just –
You didn't get a shot.
I didn't get it.
But I showed you.
I got a shot of Robert Englund.
That's a good one.
We'll put it up on social media.
Yeah, that was a great one.
A shot of you and your daughter and Robert Englund.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I worked with Robert in The Adventures of Fort Fairlane.
Oh, my God.
The movie that you got my part.
Yes.
Scumbag.
How did he get your part?
I thought it was Howard Stern's part, but he didn't want it.
You know what?
I forgot about that.
Well, Gilbert should have got it.
No, but I don't get very many movies.
And everything I read for, I'm talking about this in my book, which I'm not going to plug now because it's not done.
But it's basically called 40 Years of Showbiz Hell because I've come so close to getting so many things.
And three times, again, not exaggerating, on my wife's life, once again, I lost at least twice.
I'm exaggerating.
I lost a part to two big fat black guys.
Now, if I lose, okay.
When I lose a part to you, I'm going, okay,
he's a short, psychotic Jew.
He's different than me, but we're close
enough where, oh, goddammit.
But a big fat black guy...
Johnny Brown from Good Times beat you out of...
They went a whole different way.
But the Fort Fairline part, you played the disc jockey, right?
Oh, yes. Yeah. I've lost a few
parts to you, but the one thing... you do a lot of voiceover work.
I was, do you remember, I asked this before we started the show,
did you ever remember reading for the part of the Pink Panther when they made him talk?
No.
I never, I don't think I ever read for them.
So there's one you didn't lose to him.
Yeah.
Tell us about that.
I will tell you, Frank, that the Pink Panther, you know, never spoke, as we know.
So they did, right after Roger Rabbit came out, which at the time was groundbreaking animation with live action.
I mean, Uncle Remus and they did, of course, Gene Kelly dancing with, you know, they'd done it before.
But when Roger Rabbit came out, it was really, they took it to another level.
And when people are interacting with the animated character.
So MGM, CBS, came up with this show.
Oh, I remember this.
You do remember this?
Yeah, in the 90s, a guy named Kelly Ward was the guy that developed the show.
But it was never shown.
Right.
Hey, I'm getting a mental block now.
What?
My character's name in Fort Fairlane, Johnny...
Oh, you got me.
Oh, God.
Well.
It should have been Johnny Slayton just to put another, to twist the knife on my back a little bit more.
Oh, God, now this is horrible.
Our researcher will look it up.
Have someone look it up.
But back to the panther.
Yeah.
And the ill-advised idea to have the pink panther speak.
He reminds me of my wife when we were about to have an orgasm.
Did you feed the dog?
Yeah, I know.
And the big crescendo of my not really a good story to begin with, Gilbert has to come in and get back to him.
Like, it's his show.
He sensed it was a story that wasn't going anywhere.
No, anyway.
Wait, this is horrible.
What's my character, Johnny?
Dara's looking it up.
Ford Fairlane.
The part that I should have had, Dara.
Look that up.
Johnny Crunch.
Johnny Crunch!
Oh, my God.
Now you bring up...
I remember that.
Pay dirt with K-dirt.
Yeah, okay.
You're killing me because I remember paying an acting coach $200.
I remember getting into becoming Johnny Crunch.
I became the character.
You paid an acting coach?
I think those acting coaches are like the biggest fucking scam
in the world.
I think what you said to Gilbert,
you paid for anything.
Yeah, yeah.
You don't need acting coach
attached to that.
Just you paid.
Yeah.
Right there, he's freaking out.
Paid for a can of soda.
Let me see if I have this right.
Hey.
You paid for an acting coach
to get you a shot at a part
in Ford Fairlane that Gilbert got.
Yeah, and I didn't pay
and got the part.
I know.
Now listen to me.
Twist the knife more.
Much like me.
Can we have some salt?
I got a little cut right here.
Can you bring some salt into the studio?
Much like me, you don't like Hammer films all that much.
Oh, let's get back to monsters.
You know, that's sacrilegious to real monster people.
Yeah.
Okay, now you and I, like I said, we grew up with Chiller Theater,
Million Dollar Movie,
which we would have the giant behemoth,
Mothra,
you know,
it came from beneath the sea,
all that Harryhausen stuff,
which by the way,
we talked about that.
Oh,
loads of fun.
The Harryhausen,
he was a god,
you know,
I know Willis O'Brien
and Marcel Delgado
before that,
but basically,
Harryhausen with us.
One of the greatest things
in the history of film is
Well, Harry Housen was
I think a disciple
of Willis O'Brien. I believe that's true.
Mighty Joe Young, they worked together.
And Marcel Delgado, who did a lot
of the silent film stuff.
And Willis O'Brien in The Lost World.
But what Harry Housen did,
it's almost like the Rolling Stones. Yeah, you
took from Chuck Berry, and yeah, you took from Robert Johnson, but you took it to another level and you're better than them.
But if it wasn't for them, you wouldn't be where you are.
But, you know, what Ray Harryhausen did, I think the three of us will agree on one thing.
The skeletons in Jason and I.
Oh, yeah.
It was terrifying.
The sword-fighting skeletons.
But to do that, Gilbert and I, and I'm speaking for Gilbert right now,
I don't think we could sit for more than 10 minutes on one conversation.
Can you imagine sitting in your garage with 30 skeletons that are falling apart
under a hot lamp with your wife yelling,
it's time for dinner!
And trying to get this done?
Fighting?
In search of a segue. Now, I heard in that remake of The Lost World with Charles, not Charles, Claude Rains.
Claude Rains.
They did the remake of The Lost World.
And it was in color, like technicolor.
And I think Pat Boone may have been in it.
I remember Pat Boone in have been in it but I remember
Pat Boone in Journey to the Center of the Earth
oh maybe that's it
wait wait was that with the
Ratbat Spider?
the remake of
The Lost World with Claude Rains
as the professor which was
awful and I
heard that they
hired Willis O'Brien for it.
He was looking forward to doing it.
Like now he'd have all the money to do the stuff he really wanted.
And they basically just wanted his name there.
And they put in those fucking filmed lizards.
Oh, yeah.
I hated that.
That was horrible. That was horrible.
That was horrible.
I hate, as a little kid,
I'd get mad
when they'd have, like,
a little lizard.
The salamanders.
And they'd put a little thing
on his neck,
like he was a velociraptor.
Yes, yes.
They taped it on.
But they did that
in The Lost World.
They did the same crap.
It was awful, you know?
And then you get
the Corman movies.
He did Teenage Caveman
with Robert Vaughn.
No, but in the original silent Lost World, they were doing stop action.
That was amazing.
Was that Willis?
That was Willis O'Brien in Amazing.
But Harryhausen, when he did that stuff, and to this day, I will still watch it.
You even like the latter day Harryhausen, like The Clash of the Titans?
No, no didn't like the movies, but I like
what he redid.
His animation was
just so cool.
When they started doing the mummy,
with all the thousand mummies,
and that computer animation crap.
When I moved to San Francisco, I started
doing stand-up.
I moved there when I was 21,
back in the 70s. I wanted to see all these things to San Francisco, I started doing stand-up. I moved there when I was 21, back in the 70s.
And I wanted to see all these things in San Francisco.
I wanted to see Haight-Ashbury.
The first thing I wanted to see was the ferry building with the octopus.
And it came from beneath the sea.
Oh, yeah.
And his arm went down Market Street.
Fast forward 30 years later, I take my daughter, Natasha.
She's five years old.
I take her to New York.
We go to the Empire State Building.
She says to me, Daddy, where did King Kong – which side did he walk up?
Which side of the building did King Kong walk up?
And I said, this is my daughter.
That's your kid.
You know, I turned my daughter on to so many horror movies.
I don't know.
I'm sure you've tried to with your children.
Oh, yeah.
Has your wife stopped you at all?
My proudest moment with my son was he was watching the Three Stooges.
And I think he was like four or five at the time.
He's watching the Three Stooges.
And very seriously, he says,
Shemp looks like Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolfman.
How great is that?
And I thought, you don't need any DNA testing.
After that,
catch my kid.
The greatest thing my daughter ever said,
actually was probably
five or six years old,
and I actually
tried to put it in my act,
but nobody would laugh at this
but you two.
My daughter,
we're watching King Kong
for the 10th time,
and my daughter says to me,
Daddy,
why would they take
a gorilla back
from Skull Island
when you can get a dinosaur?
I've seen gorillas.
How great is that
of a line?
That is perfect.
And then I said, you know, why would you take a gorilla
back? I mean, look, if you found
out that there was a 50-foot gorilla
or a brontosaurus
or a T-Rex, and then I said,
well, you know, a T-Rex can't walk up the Empire State Building.
There'd be no story.
I mean, if you're really going to sit and reason
this moronic conversation out.
But the fact that she said that,
and you know what scared her more than anything?
Me and Frank were talking about this the other day.
The house on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price, Roger Corbin.
Right, right.
The one in Emerge-O where they would bring the,
I think that was-
That was the Tingler they did.
No, the Tingler was in...
That was the one where they wired the seats.
Tingler, that was the buzzer under the seat.
The buzzer.
Merjo was when they had the ghost that came out on the clothesline.
That was before our time.
Right.
I read about that.
They did it at the film forum about 10 years ago.
In Famous Monsters, you'd read about that.
Oh, yes.
Speaking of your son, tell Bobby what happened when Max met Sarah Karloff at the convention.
when Max met Sarah Karloff at the convention.
I was doing like a convention,
and Sarah Karloff was there at the convention.
I was visiting one of these conventions.
Sarah Karloff was there, Boris's daughter.
Right.
And, you know, it was all like pictures of him as the Frankenstein monster.
And I said to my son, who was like about three or four,
I said, oh, this is Boris Karloff's daughter. And he looked at the Frankenstein picture and goes,
you don't look like your father. That's great. That's great. You know, the fact you guys are horror fans, you know, I showed you before we went on, you know, I have a picture on my phone, a phone case of Karloff from the original Frankenstein.
I'd also like to point out to our listeners that you're sitting here in a Rondo hat and T-shirt.
Oh, yeah.
By the way, this T-shirt I've not worn since I went to a chiller convention in New Jersey, maybe 10 years ago,
where I bought an original Basil Gogos painting,
a chalk drawing, a charcoal drawing of the creature,
which is still to this day my most prized possession.
Bless your heart.
And if you don't know Rondo Hatton,
the most recent movie...
Then turn off this show.
That's right.
The most recent movie would be The Rocketeer.
Rocketeer.
Rocketeer.
Oh, The Rocketeer.
Where they made up a guy to look like Rondo Hatton, would be the Rocketeer. Rocketeer. Oh, the Rocketeer.
That's right. Where they made up a guy to look like Rondo Hatton.
I thought that was so cool.
Who died of acromegaly.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, Mickey Dolan's his mother.
Remember we had him on and he said his mother worked with Rondo Hatton?
Oh, yes.
Yes.
His mother was an actress.
I can't remember.
That's why Mickey has that big chin.
Right.
Now she's slipping the line out.
Here's a story I heard that the English guy from the Jeffersons.
Oh, Paul Benedict.
Yes.
I heard he was doing a play or something, and a doctor came up to him afterwards and said,
I was watching you in the play, and he figures he wants an autograph.
And he goes, I think you may have acromegaly.
Yeah, we've told that on the show.
Yeah.
It's true.
Because he had like a long face and big hands and all that stuff.
A long face.
Maybe he was just sad.
Yeah.
Maybe he didn't like the play.
That was too obvious.
I'm sorry.
A guy with acromegaly walks into a bar and says, why the long face?
He walks into a bar and wants 10 to 6.
Why the long face?
By the way, can you imagine if Gilbert wasn't drunk how great the show would be?
They have wine here.
When I wore this shirt, I said to both of you, and I insulted you.
You know what this is?
You couldn't have said Rondo Hatton, Alice Cooper the same way.
I wore this years ago when I met Alice because I'm a big Alice Cooper fan.
And as soon as I walked backstage, Rondo Hatton, the creeper.
You know, you're not going to get that from a lot of women.
Aren't going to know stuff like that.
I know Rondo Hatton from a Drew Friedman strip.
Now, another guy I want to get on the show.
There's a guy from Metallica.
Kirk Hammett.
Kirk Hammett.
Oh, my God.
He's supposed to be a monster freak.
Oh, my God.
He's got – you knew he should have on.
He lives in L.A.
Ron Borst.
You know Ron Borst?
You must know.
Ron Borst was friends with Forry Ackerman, you know, famous. Oh, okay.
Sure.
And Ron has the complete – he has a store, Hollywood Book and Poster.
There's two stores.
Yeah, I think it's Hollywood.
Hollywood Book and Poster.
I used to buy posters from him back in the 70s.
And I used to buy a lot of horror movie posters.
And I bought a Plan 9 from Outer Space for like $20.
And I remember paying like $50 for Attack of the 54.
And how much did you pay that acting coach?
For the part you didn't get.
And it wasn't.
I just wanted to get.
I just want to keep bringing that up.
And the funny thing was, I'm not sure the part even paid as much as I paid that acting.
For my Johnny Crunch part that I didn't pay a dime for.
And you paid $200.
It might have only been $100.
It does.
I don't remember.
He'll never let me forget this.
No.
Hey, hey.
And one thing, another thing we have in common is we both love Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.
The greatest movie.
I dated Carvey, too.
Favorite movie of all time.
The greatest movie.
That's one movie I watch with my daughter.
Do your kids watch that a lot?
No, I don't think they've seen it yet.
I have to show that to them.
Bob made an argument yesterday on the phone that it's the greatest American film.
Of all time.
Yeah.
It's my favorite movie of all time.
Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein.
I mean, look, we all love Abbott and Costello.
First of all, tell me a better Abbott and Costello movie than that.
No.
I like The Time of Their Lives.
Time of Their Lives is great.
You couldn't walk through the door.
Yeah, I like that one because it's sweet and well-made.
Wistful Widow of Wanky Gap.
Tell me, my soup speaks for itself.
With Marjorie Maine.
I know.
I love all the-
There is, like, see, I love, I laugh at Abbott the most when I watch Abbott and Costello.
He's totally underrated. Oh, absolutely. How funny Abbott the most when I watch Abbott and Costello. He's totally underrated how funny
Abbott is. And there's
one part where they're doing
the thing where Costello
is trying to explain
Frankenstein and Dracula.
And you're...
And he's
like waving his arms
around like Frankenstein, like
Dracula.
And Abbott at one point just goes, okay, okay, put your hands down.
For no reason.
And if you notice, he calls him Abbott instead of Chick.
He goes, Abbott!
Chick!
And then he goes, Abbott!
Oh, that's great.
I never caught it.
There was a lot of, and I got to admit, I went on IMDB,
and I noticed, but even when I was a kid,
I noticed the fact that Lugosi, Dracula,
twice his reflection was in the mirror.
Oh, yeah. As a kid, I noticed that.
You've seen it so many times, you're finding the gaps.
Well, when he walks down the steps,
you see his reflection in the mirror,
and when he's up there with Sandra,
and she's about to hypnotize him and they're sitting there.
He leans in to her and they –
His reflections in the mirror up there.
And, you know, the famous thing that happened to Cosombes Frankenstein, the famous – that there was a scene where, you know, the monster, Glenn Strange, had hurt his back.
So it was Lon Chaney.
That's right.
It was a monster.
Yeah.
And that's where he like
kind of swings his arms back and forth.
Well, Gilbert and I talked
that it's actually scary for a comedy
when you're a kid,
when he picks up that nurse
and tosses her out the window,
it's scary.
It's absolutely scary.
Yeah, that scene where he throws her out the window,
that was Lon Chaney Jr.
It was really, really...
The only thing missing in that movie is Karloff.
But it's picky uni. If you really want to be picky. The only thing missing in that movie is Karloff. But it's picky uni.
If you really want to be picky, the only thing missing, and it's fine, is Claude Rains, Invisible Man, and not Vincent Price.
Instead of Vincent Price.
They couldn't get Claude Rains?
He was that busy?
Was Herbert Lomb taking his job?
What was he so busy doing?
Herbert Lomb.
This is important.
Herbert Lomb was a Jew.
Oh, good.
Let me make a note of that. As was Peter Sellers. Well, that I knew. Herbert Lomb was a Jew. Oh, good. Let me make a note of that.
As was Peter Sellers.
Well, that I knew.
Was Peter Sellers a Jew?
You know.
In honor of Rosh Hashanah.
Yeah.
By the way, I wish we could have done this at the Friars Club.
I know they were booked.
Yeah.
But I think that would have been more distracting.
I like the fact that we're in this little solitary studio.
But Abbott still meets Frankenstein.
When my daughter was little, we watched this movie over and over and over again.
And the fact that Karloff didn't do it.
I mean, it was just – Glenn Strange was fine.
But people would say –
The bartender from Gunsmoke.
Yeah, bartender.
Glenn Strange.
Exactly.
Exactly.
He didn't have much to do.
He was on the cover of Famous Monsters a bunch of times.
Yeah.
You know?
And when you were a kid, he was still really scary.
But, you know, Carlos never goes, yes, master.
No.
You know, that's where I think that whole Aurora Monsters thing with the arms stretched out.
Because Carlos never acted like that.
Yeah.
Gilbert's got a poster in his living room.
It started.
Where it started, the outstretched arms was Lugosi in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman.
Oh, that was horrible.
Because he's supposed to be blind was originally in the script.
Is that true?
I never knew that.
Yeah.
That's great.
Because in Ghost of Frankenstein, the monster goes blind at the end because the brain doesn't match the blood.
doesn't match the blood.
And, you know,
and he's,
Igor's brain is in the body and it's like,
Frankenstein,
you played on me a trick.
What good is a body
without eyes to see?
And so in
Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman,
the script was originally
that he's blind.
And that's why he's walking
without stretched arms. Yeah, well, you know who's blind? The that's why he's walking with outstretched arms.
Yeah, well, he was blind, the guy that wrote the script and directed it.
That was in real life.
It's not good.
And you know what?
After Son of Frankenstein, I can see why Karloff called it quits because, you know, you think the guy—
First of all, in the first Frankenstein movie, he got no credit.
The monster?
Right, the monster, sure.
Okay.
By the third movie, they put him in a big vest.
Probably borrowed from your mother. Oh, yes. The vest. It was your mother's coat third movie, they put him in a big vest. Probably, Bob, it's from your mother.
Yes.
The vest.
It was your mother's coat.
Well, why do you have a vest?
They found him in a giant, you know, like, remember that?
Yeah.
Karloff hated the vest.
Why did he have a vest?
That weird fur vest kind of thing?
Yeah, that weird.
Why did he wear the vest?
He said they mucked him up with furs.
He was like Jerry Garcia with the vest.
He said they mucked him up with furs.
He was like Jerry Garcia with the vest.
By the way, Bride of Frankenstein is one of the few movies where just like The Godfather 2 with a sequel.
Oh, yeah.
Fantastic.
The first one was genius.
But Bride of Frankenstein was great, but I never did really get Dr. Pretorius.
I never really did get The Little King.
He's very freaky. With the tweezers. Once you realized that James Whale was gay, then you understood Praetorium.
You didn't see Gods and Monsters?
And you understood Uno O'Connor, too, for that matter.
I liked Uno O'Connor.
When he came out of the window.
Yeah.
I like Cloris Leachman as Uno O'Connor.
That was great.
But there was no reason to do.
Sometimes, like, Weekend at Bernie's 2 is better than Weekend at Bernie's 1.
Who doesn't like Weekend at Bernie's 2?
Now you're going too far.
I'm not taking away from Weekend at Bernie's 1.
But 2, and I'm not going to tell you about 3.
That would be a spoiler alert.
Hey, can you hum the music from Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein?
No, but I thought you were's that? Oh, man.
And, you know, I'd also say Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein is a better horror movie than House of Dracula that came before it.
With John Carradine?
Yeah, John Carradine, Glenn Strange, and Genie.
It's a better horror movie than a lot of those sequels.
Oh, yes.
You know what upset me?
I can't believe people listen to this. That's why I love your audience.
Don't assume anything, Bob.
I don't know who else would
if I was on any radio show, any
podcast, anywhere, people
go, what are these people talking about?
But the fact that your fans like this shit,
I could do this show every day.
Even if you're not here.
You don't think other podcasts are talking about
Uno O'Connor and
Rondo Madden?
And while
before I forget, I'm
still searching for Pappy
Han Susu.
She was the girl in
full metal jacket.
No, that's the part you lost and you paid $200. Susu. She was the girl in full metal jacket. Not Zazu Pitts.
Not Zazu Pitts. No, that's the part you lost and you paid $200
to an acting coach
to get and I got it and I didn't
even pay for lunch.
I didn't even go to McDonald's
and get an order of fries.
He's trying to find the girl from Full Metal Jacket.
The one that says Miso Horny.
Miso Horny.
I'm trying to find her. from Full Metal Jacket, the one that says, me so horny. Me so horny. Me love you, $5. Yeah, I'm trying to find her.
You know, it's so funny.
That was something.
Me so horny, me love you, $5.
That was something that stuck in my head over the years.
And I finally went to Vietnam, and I wasn't married.
And I said, I don't really like hookers, but I went up to one.
And she said, $100, $100.
And it wasn't $5 anymore.
It went up to $100.
Inflation.
You know, Obama.
Yeah.
Fucking Obama.
That's major inflation.
A Vietnamese hooker for $100.
And I paid for the acting coach.
You wonder why I have no money.
Yeah.
I pay all the pay for everything.
Back then, Vietnamese hooker would have been like five cents for a month.
Five cents.
Yeah.
But you know what's great, though?
Let me ask you this, Gilbert.
And Frank, you can chime in any time.
No, I don't want Frank to talk.
I'm just watching.
Please.
Don't ask Frank to say anything.
Don't you love Having people on your podcast
Or meeting people or working with people
That those oddball characters
You work with
I've done a lot of movies and I've worked with a lot of major stars
But I remember when I first went to LA
And I did a couple of TV shows
And I met some famous people
And it was great
But I remember driving down Santa Monica Boulevard
And stopping at a light And there's Otis Campbell.
Otis the drunk.
Hal Smith.
Hal Smith.
Oh my God.
Now we're talking about, I guess, late 70s.
Yeah.
And he still looked like Otis.
Yeah.
You know, because, you know, he really had become Otis.
Yeah.
Probably in the 50s or 60s when he played Otis, it was like Captain Kangaroo.
He always looked old.
Yeah.
But the older he got, the less makeup he had to put on.
Yeah.
But by the time Captain Kangaroo died, he really looked like Captain Kangaroo. He worked looked old. But the older he got, the less makeup he had to put on. By the time Captain Kangaroo died,
he really looked like Captain Kangaroo.
He worked a lot, Hal Smith.
You know what was horrible? When they did the
TV movie Return to
Mayberry, where they brought back
all the original cast. Oh, I remember
that. And Otis
now had given up drinking.
Oh, that's right. Yeah.
That was horrible.
He's in The Great Race, another movie. DC. Yeah. That was horrible.
He's in The Great Race,
another movie that we've talked about on this show.
Oh, The Great Race with Tony Curtis?
Yeah, Hal Smith shows up as the mayor
of the western town, Barracho.
But when I pulled up next to him,
he goes, I go, Otis.
And he was straight.
He goes, how do you know me?
I go, because you're Otis.
And I like seeing those guys.
You know, right before he died,
you know, in L.A.,
when I shop at Gelson's,
I would see at least once a week
Kevin McCarthy.
Oh, wow.
You know, in his 80s.
And I could not help but do this,
and I'm sorry,
but I'd see him,
and I'd go,
they're here!
They're here!
Well, now you got it.
Wait, it gets better.
It gets better.
So my wife goes,
why do you do stupid things like that?
My daughter would get so embarrassed.
So one time in McGelson's, and Kevin McCarthy, I think he's looking for garlic or something.
They were out of garlic.
And the guy says, I got to go get some more garlic in the back.
He said, it's here.
It's here.
The garlic.
You're next.
I'm sure no one ever yelled that at him.
No.
I used to pull that shit in L.A.
You know, I, you know, in the aristocrats, in one part I said, like, you know, I did the whole thing.
I'm an aristocrat, too.
Yes, yes.
I just want to let you know. Are you Frank in aristocrats?
I am not.
Then you stop. You're not part of this conversation. And I said in one of the variations, I'm talking, you know, guys fucking the dog, blah, blah, blah.
And I said, this is a common practice in the house of character actor Kevin McCarthy.
So somebody who worked on the aristocrats knew Kevin McCarthy.
He was 100 at the time.
Right.
And he told him this.
And he says, you know, he talks about, you know, fucking his daughter and getting blown by his son.
And he says, this is common practice from character actor Kevin McCarthy.
And Kevin McCarthy said, well, that's offensive.
And he goes, well, yeah, Gilbert has a habit.
He goes, I'm not a character actor.
I'm a lead.
Don't you love that?
Wow.
Wow.
You know, when I first met Shelley Berman, and I should have said it because he was a
very eccentric kind of...
I was playing the improv in San Francisco when there was an improv and Shelly came in.
I go, didn't you used to be Shelly Berman?
What do you mean?
No, no, no.
I probably should have said that to him.
Yeah.
Don't forget to follow us on our Facebook page.
Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast,
on Twitter, at Real Gilbert ACP, and on Instagram, Gilbert Podfried, P-O-D-F-R-I-E-D.
D-F-R-I-E-D.
You see, it's kind of a pun on the last name.
Ah, never mind.
As long as we're talking about old comics,
I mean, you hung out with Buddy Hackett, with Rickles.
You told me you had a Hackett story.
I have a Hackett story? Oh, God, this is a great Hackett story.
Because, Gilbert, you love the old comics.
Oh, yes.
We all do.
And again, when I called Milton Berle an asshole earlier,
you know, the one Saturday Night Live that Laura Michaels refused to release.
And I think I asked Bill Murray about it when I met him.
That Berle came on the set.
It's finally on the box set.
It finally came out.
It did come out.
I don't know how it looked.
But he's telling everybody what to do, where to put the lights.
I know you missed the television, but you know what?
These guys know what to do. where to put the lights. I know you missed the television, but you know what? These guys know what to do.
They have a successful TV show.
So, Buddy Hackett, I have never been a fan of the Friars Club Roads.
Not the ones – I know that's your specialty.
But where I always had a problem was I did one with Hal Roach.
I did one with Mickey Rooney.
And I did one with Jackie Cooper.
And I go, who am I to make fun of these people?
Oh, yeah.
Now, you became – and I love when you do it.
You're the highlight of those.
And the late, great Greg Giraldo and Jeff Ross.
Greg was great.
And I don't – it's fine when you're – and you probably can understand this.
When you're making fun of fellow comics, but when you're making fun of showbiz icons, how do you – you know what I mean?
I heard that's the reason Don Rickles was always putting off those roasts because he figured like everybody
he worked with is dead.
Exactly.
When he made fun of Sinatra and Reagan made fun of Lucille Ball and when these people
were all peers.
So I remember when I did the few at the Beverly Hilton in L.A., you know, we did one for
Hal Roach.
And there's like I said, there's Red Buttons, there's Buddy Hackett.
And I go, who the fuck am I to make jokes about these people? You know, we did one for Hal Roach. And there's, like I said, there's Red Buttons, there's Buddy Hackett. And I go, who the fuck am I to make jokes about these people?
You know?
And I remember when Dean Martin was doing them, where it was like a weekly show.
Right.
And that, you know, you'd see like Gary Coleman roasting Orson Welles.
Lawanda Page.
Hitting Orson Welles with a purse. That's right. Ruth Buzzi hits Orson Welles. Lawanda Page. Hitting Orson Welles with a purse.
That's right.
Ruth Buzzy hits Orson Welles with a purse.
She hits Sinatra.
You almost knocked his piece off.
That was, yeah, so I didn't like that.
So I'm up on that dance.
And here's what I hate, too.
You know, you're making fun.
And then you have to sit up there for hours.
And everybody's sitting up there and making fun of each other.
So I'm roasting. I got my stuff written. think it was hal roach or jackie cooper and and i'm doing
the thing and i'm just trying to get through this and it's going okay as i recall and the one or two
jokes i had buddy hackett was sitting there and he might have been a little buzzed it's okay and
he stepped on my joke which i didn't care he got a laugh whatever
everything went fine
the next day
Buddy Hackett calls me up
and he says
listen I'm sorry
that I ruined your
I go it was fine
he goes no
I didn't really feel bad
because you know what
you're a young comic
and I shouldn't have been
making fun of you
I said if you really feel
that bad Buddy
you should take me out
to lunch
because I want Buddy Hackett
to take me out to lunch
so it happened it's great it happened to be a week
where I like to drink
and I drink a bottle of wine
every night.
I cook dinner.
I want to play comedy clubs.
I'll knock over a bottle
of vodka for a week.
But I had a week
where I wasn't drinking
and I was going to the gym
every day.
I hired a personal trainer
between that and my acting class.
I had nothing left.
I had nothing left but my health.
And you hired that trainer for Fourth Rail.
Right.
I just wanted to be able to beat you up for getting that part.
So, okay.
So I call up Buddy Hackett.
I call Buddy Hackett.
I'm in the valleys in Beverly Hills right over there.
And I said, where do you want to go for lunch?
He goes, why don't you come to my house tomorrow at noon?
I will go to lunch from there.
And I'm thinking, well, I could just meet you somewhere.
I had worked out.
I took a shower.
Feeling great.
Hadn't drank in five days, which is a lot for me.
I go to Buddy Hackett's house.
I knock on the door.
I go in there.
The blinds are drawn.
He's sitting there in the living room with Louie Nye.
This story just gets better.
Here's what's great about Buddy Hackett's house.
And I've never been to your house, Gilbert, but if you want to have a couple of posters up.
I remember the late, great Rick's journey.
People said they'd go to his house and his American Comedy Award is sitting there as soon as you walk in.
You know, if you're a real actor and a lot of people don't even – you want to have a display room and a display case.
But as soon as people walk in, we know who you are.
We know what you've done.
Buddy Hackett's house, it's all white.
It's a real Jew-Italian thing.
Yeah.
White carpet.
Everything's white.
It's horrible.
Like THX 1138.
Exactly.
And he has Rolodexes on the bar of him with all the pictures.
The entire living room.
I'm talking about a living room.
Pictures of him with Carson.
We know what you've done.
Him and Louie are sitting in the living room with a giant bottle.
They have glasses full of booze.
But he says, hey, so what are you drinking?
I said, you know what?
I'm actually not drinking this week.
I just want to go to lunch.
And he said, well, what do you drink?
What do you drink?
I go, I drink vodka.
Goes to the bar.
He pulls me, not a giant tumbler.
A lemonade jug. Like it's a big slurpy I drink vodka. Goes to the bar. He pulls me, not a, a giant tumbler, a lemonade jug.
Like it's a big slurpy thing of vodka at noon.
And I'm going, and him and Louie.
And the blinds, it's like a hideout.
It's like, it's like after a bank heist, you know.
It's like Louie and the boss hiding up, hiding up from Superman.
It's a beautiful sunny day.
So they're drinking.
And I take a couple of sips of vodka and i'm trying to be as
diplomatic as i can i want to get out of there let's go have lunch and uh buddy goes well we're
going to go to this chinese restaurant that i love so i'm thinking it's beverly hills it's going to
be a beverly hills chinese restaurant and he goes no no no it's way downtown and i'm thinking what
the fuck this got to be one of the best restaurants if he's going to make me schlep downtown or Koreatown to a Chinese restaurant, like, because Beverly Hills or whatever, there's a million great Santa Monica.
And I said, you know what?
Let me just follow you there, Joey.
And he's a buddy.
He says, because I got a Joey Bishop story.
He goes, you'll never be able to follow me.
I drive too fast.
He goes, let me give you the directions and you'll meet me there whenever you get there. And now I'm going to enjoy Bishop's story. He goes, you'll never be able to follow me. I drive too fast. He goes, let me give you the directions, and you'll meet me there whenever you get there.
And now I'm pissed.
What do you mean I can't follow you?
You drive too fast.
So he goes to the bathroom to take a leak.
I said, I'll meet you at the restaurant.
And I run out the door.
I said, I'm not going to let this prick meet me there.
And I drove as fast as I could.
I can't follow you.
What am I, a girl? So I get in my car, and I drive to fast as I could. Wait a minute, I can't follow you. What am I, a girl?
So I get in my car
and I drive to Koreatown
and I drive as fast as I can.
I didn't care if I got a ticket.
I want to beat him to the restaurant.
And in LA, I made every light.
I went 80 miles an hour
and I get to the restaurant.
Three seconds later, he pulls up behind me.
I'm going, how fucking,
he took a leak
and he's still there at the same time as me.
This guy's a lunatic.
And I walk into the restaurant.
I go, this place is going to be terrific.
And I walk in and there's pictures of Buddy Hackett all over the restaurant.
And all the menu is beef and broccoli, wonton soup.
It's the same shit you can get anywhere.
But it's a great restaurant because there's pictures of Buddy Hackett all over the joint.
Hilarious. I heard a Buddy Hackett story where Buddy Hackett was talking to
one of his friends in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel casino. And some young comic walks over
and goes, oh, Mr. Hackett, I just this is my big break. I'm doing a week in Vegas and I just started yesterday and Hackett goes, oh yeah, I saw you yesterday.
You were really good. But let me give you some advice. Don't do a delivery. Just recite the jokes.
Don't worry about it. Just recite them like you're reading them off the page. And then he goes, oh, okay, I'll try that tonight.
And when he walks off, Buddy Hackett says to his friend,
oh, he's going to bomb so bad.
You know, I hate to badmouth these guys because they're the guys that paved the way for us.
But another guy.
Could you forgive him for Bud and Lou?
What?
Could you forgive Bud and Lou?
You know who should have played?
Shecky.
No.
Instead of Glenn Strange.
They should have got Glenn Strange.
He would have been better.
Glenn Strange would have been better.
And Dwight Pearl.
Chick.
Chick.
But you know who else was not a nice guy?
And I hate to talk about these guys.
Go ahead.
It was Joey Bishop when I played him in the Rat Pack.
You know?
Joey.
You ever meet Joey?
No, I never met him.
I heard he was a scumbag.
Scumbag.
The Rat Pack movie on HBO.
HBO.
So when I went to audition for that, I didn't. I heard he was a scumbag. A scumbag. The Rat Pack movie on HBO. HBO. With Ray Liotta.
So when I went to audition for that,
it was the only,
I didn't get an acting coach because that's the only time I knew.
Only time.
And then Gilbert would not have got this part.
He couldn't beat me for this part.
He couldn't play Joey Bishop.
A big fat black guy I could have lost to.
But not Gilbert Gottlieb.
I could have seen
that my wife was a black guy.
But I'm not losing this
to that fucking little Jew.
It ain't gonna happen.
So when I went to read for the part, Ray Liotta's 42 years old. But I'm not losing this to that fucking little Jew. It ain't going to happen.
So what I went to read for the part, Ray Liotta is 42 years old.
I'm 42 years old.
Frank Sinatra is 42 years old.
Joey Bishop is 42 years old.
And we all look like we're about 40 to 42 years old.
So I went in to read and they thought, well, Bobby might look a little too old for the part.
And I go, what do you mean I'm too old?
I look the same age as Ray Liotta.
I'm not a girl. But I look pretty much the part, the part. And I go, what do you mean I'm too old? I look the same age as Ray Liotta. I'm not a girl. But I look pretty much
the part, the age.
So I said, well, have Bobby come back, but maybe he could dye his hair.
Not only do I dye my hair,
I get that Joey Bishop, my favorite
Martian medieval man monk do
that he had.
I got that whole, I got a
shark skin suit, a skinny tie.
It wasn't that hard to do Joey Bishop
because I never played a real person.
You know, you pretty much played Gilbert.
Who else did you play?
You ever play a real person, Gilbert?
You never did.
Except for Johnny Crunch, who was Gilbert.
They should have told me before I spent $200.
Which I got without paying $200 to an acting card.
Did you ever play a real person?
In real life, he can't play a real person.
I was Abraham Lincoln in A Million Ways to Die in the West.
And on The View.
I was better than Daniel Day-Lewis.
And better than Lincoln?
Yeah.
So I figured, okay, to become Joey Bishop, I'm going to go to the Museum of Broadcasting.
And, you know, I'm thinking of like Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, gaining weight, learning how to box.
I'm with Meryl Streep playing violin, getting a German accent.
I am going to become Joey Bishop.
And I took a sandwich and I got my little cubicle and I started watching Joey Bishop.
And five minutes ago, I fucking get this.
You know, you talk like a little like, you know, Jackie Mason.
Hey, it's me.
Hey, Joe.
Hey, Dean.
Hey, Sammy.
And I got it.
So I go back in and I sound exactly like him and I'm reading for the part.
And I finally get the part and I call up Joey.
And, you know, he didn't think anybody could recreate the Rat Pack.
And he said, there's no way you're ever going to pull this off.
And it wasn't just me, but I could see they never consulted him.
Frank Sinatra just died.
Dean Martin didn't want to have anything to do with it.
So and they never called Joey Bishop.
But even though he wasn't really, you know,
the fourth head on Showbiz Mount Rushmore,
it was Dean, Sammy, and Frank.
He was like Tito Jackson. He was
Bobby Slayton. I was perfect for this part.
And Joey just was
not nice. I invited him to the premiere
and he'd been a real prick. But you know what?
He did send me an 8x10 saying
someday, hopefully, I can play you
in a movie. But what was really creepy when we did that movie, and you love showbiz, you know, Vegas lore.
Sure, sure.
I'm thinking, okay, I get this part, the rap act.
We're going to go to Vegas and shoot this movie.
We'll have an audience out there.
But as you know, when you're shooting scenes with audiences, rarely are there audiences.
There's nobody out there.
You're just shooting it on a soundstage.
When I did Ed Wood, there were no people out there.
Dream Girls, when I introduced Eddie Murphy, there were a few people out there.
But we couldn't shoot anything in Vegas because there was nothing in Vegas that was anything like the old Vegas.
You know, the old Vegas, everything took place in 1960 at the Sands Hotel.
Remember that cylindrical tower and that iconic Sands, the place of the sun,
which the amazing Colossal Man destroyed.
That's correct.
That's why we couldn't get it.
He destroyed it.
I tied this whole show in with...
Beautifully done.
Off the top of my head, that's how good I am.
But the amazing Colossal Man, that sign's long gone.
But I'll give you another piece of trivia.
We couldn't find anything in Vegas, so the producers couldn't find anything in Vegas to shoot because there was nothing that resembled the old Vegas.
So they had a stock shot of that famous Sands Tower.
The movie took place in 1960 when Kennedy got elected.
That tower wasn't built until 62.
So even that—
Another gaffe.
Another gaffe.
And tell us about the ambassador.
Oh, my God.
You want to hear a great story, Gilbert?
No. Okay. Darryl great story, Gilbert? No.
Okay.
Darren, get some more Johnny Crunch.
Get some more Johnny Crunch info.
Do you have a boring, mediocre story you can tell us?
I don't want.
Don't waste a great story.
No, this is a creepy story.
A creepy.
So do you remember, Gilbert, ever going to the Ambassador Hotel in L.A.?
It was the hotel where they had the Academy Awards for eight years.
The Coconut Grove was there.
Yeah.
I think.
Didn't he buy it or something?
They had the Coconut Grove.
The Academy Awards were done there in the 30s and 40s.
Marilyn Monroe lived there.
Ruta Valentino.
And they used it for many, many years to shoot movies in.
So we're shooting the Rat Pack scenes in the hotel.
The hotel is so seedy, it's gone to shit, and I'm walking around the hotel because,
you know, things are crumbling.
It's like New York.
I walked by today, the subway bar he used to go to, it's closed, right across from Bloomingdale's.
Oh, yeah, that was a landmark.
It was a landmark.
Yeah, great bar.
And they're closing more of those places.
Remember when we were kids, the luncheonettes, the diners, they're all gone.
And this was one of those places in L.A. that, you know, you walk around and it's this iconic,
you know.
So everything was closed up in that hotel except for the lobby, which they were shooting
stuff in, and the coffee shop, which they use to do movies.
So we're shooting a scene in the Ambassador Hotel
of John Kennedy's inauguration party.
Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford
were owners of Puccini's Restaurant in Beverly Hills.
And when Kennedy got elected, they had a big party.
So they recreated the scene of me and Ray and Don Cheadle
and a big Rat Pack party in Puccini's,
which was taking place in the Bassett Hotel.
So during the breaks, I would wander around the hotel,
and everything's saying, sir, you can't go there, you can't go here.
Everything's closed off.
And I walk into the kitchen where Robert Kennedy got assassinated.
In the pantry, right?
He got assassinated in the pantry.
And the Mexican busboy was holding up his head.
We've all seen that picture, you know, when he's dying.
So here we are.
It's not lost on me that here we are celebrating a scene where one brother is getting elected,
where in reality, 30 feet away, there's a little X on the pavement in this cold pantry.
And I'm not one of these big ghost guys, but it was really fucking creepy.
And this woman comes up from behind me because I worked for the hotel.
Yeah, that's where he got shot.
And that's what Saran Saran came out of.
And that was the, you know, he said, let's move on.
We want California.
And Rosie Greer.
Rosie Greer.
Yeah.
And she goes, that's a dumb waiter.
They put him in as he's dying.
And it was just creepy.
So she says to me, you want to see the rest of the hotel?
I said, sure.
So she takes me down this hallway and we get in this elevator.
And, you know, it has not been inspected for 50 years.
And I'm going, you know, this rickety, it looks like Berlin after the Blitzkrieg.
It was, there were the rats.
And she takes me up to the top floor and she walks me into a suite.
And the hotel, it was like The Shining.
I want to see the dead twins with the blood coming down any moment now.
She takes me into a suite, and it was peeling snakeskin wallpaper.
She said Sammy Davis lived here towards the end of his life,
and in the middle of the living room was a little stage.
And I go, what is this?
She goes, I don't know.
I mean, it was a stage.
Because Sammy was obviously, I don't know, he was still performing.
He had people coming over.
And you realize that Sammy Davis was the ultimate entertainer. obviously, I don't know, he's still performing. He had people coming over and, you know,
he realized that Sammy Davis was the ultimate entertainer. I mean, Michael Jackson,
not to take anything away from that guy,
but Sammy Davis wrote the book
on tap dancing, on playing drums,
and Don Cheadle, who played Sammy
in that movie, learned how to play drums.
I play drums and I score. It's never good,
but I played.
And Cheadle got behind the drums and he played.
I go, how long have you been doing that?
He goes, about three weeks.
And I don't think they even showed him playing the drums.
But that's the consummate, ultimate actor that he learned how to play drums and tap dance to become.
And that's why he won an Academy Award and that's why I'm doing this stupid podcast.
Hey, listen.
Okay, now here's my problem.
That's a great ending.
With that movie where, you know,
whenever there's like a black joke, they have a close-up on Don Cheadle
looking like tears are welling up in his eyes as Sammy.
And I'm thinking, Sammy probably didn't give a fly.
No, he did, though.
No, he did.
Yeah, because I read every single book ever written and every documentary because I've always been fascinated by the whole Rat Pack era and all those guys.
He was haunted.
He couldn't play down south.
He married a white woman.
Oh, yeah, my Brit.
He made Brit.
And Joe Kennedy, who was a Nazi, that prick, Kennedy's father, barred him from the wedding.
And Frank Sinatra.
Frank Sinatra was the one – because Sinatra could be a bully if you read about the guy.
He could be a horrible man.
He'd punk somebody out and then he'd tip you $200.
He was an asshole.
You know, it's Frank Sinatra's world that you were living in.
But he wouldn't play these hotels unless a black guy could walk through the front door.
And he was great about that, you know.
So Sammy actually was upset.
Oh, big time.
You know, if he, of course he was upset he married
to a white woman he was no I mean I understand the stuff in real life didn't he date Kim Nova
but I mean they're joking on stage yeah like of Dean and Frank right what was he no I don't think
he's upset about that no that's what they show in the movie like they're making jokes about him oh
no no no I don't I don't think he cared about that.
Yeah.
No, I heard that he actually loved that.
Here's the award, the NAACP.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's famous.
To show you what an asshole I am and how I can't act and to show you why Doc Cheadle is an Academy Award winner, we're shooting a scene.
It's a famous rap act.
You know, they do the routine where they roll out the liquor cart.
Yeah.
And then Dean, like I said, Sammy jumps in his arm
and then they
walk out of their underwear.
Remember that? And they have the drinks.
So me and
Sammy Davis, Don Cheadle,
are supposed to walk out in a minute
and Cheadle says to me, now he's
in character, he says, what are they doing out there?
What's going on? What are they doing?
And he's saying this to me as Sammy.
I go, it's in the script. They're in their underwear.
And I'm answering him as Bobby Slate.
Would you gag why he won an Academy Award?
I don't pay $200 to get a Gilbert Gantz award.
I'm an idiot.
What are they doing? I don't think I got the wrong script.
I'm on the wrong page. I'm a moron.
Now, I heard a story.
Maybe you're familiar with this.
Where Frank and Dean beat up the chairman of
hunt's foods oh i never heard this yeah that he was like celebrating with another couple
like their kids were getting married and frank and dean bombed out of their skulls were being
loud and raucous and he asked them if they could hold it down a little.
And they beat the shit out of this guy.
And he crashed through a glass coffee table.
And he was in a coma for a while.
And never pressed charges, which makes it even creepier. I heard this story.
But you know what, though?
What they did was wrong. But if you ever have their catsup,
I liked Heinz, and I would go to restaurants
and they'd have that Hunt's ketchup,
which is a, I could see where
you'd be a little pissed at the guy.
Is the ambassador all gone now, Bob?
Yes, and Donald Trump, that prick,
was going to buy it, and they
were trying to save it and preserve it because
half of it was going to be a school.
And I think they preserved a little piece of it,
but most of it they tore down.
And it was really horrible because it was one of those great places.
Yeah, the landmark.
I never went.
Yeah, all those places.
You know, when they did that movie Sunset Boulevard, you know,
with Norman Desmond.
Oh, yeah.
That house was – and if you're familiar, we are familiar with L.A., both of you.
Sure.
It was right on the corner of Wilshire and right in Westwood, which is now a giant parking lot.
But the fact that these giant homes were in these places.
Yeah.
Well, when I got out there, everything was gone.
Chasen's was gone and Nicodell's was gone.
The Coconut Grove was gone.
Nicodell's was great.
Nicodell's was next to the Paramount.
Near Paramount, yeah.
And Moosonwood Franks is still there.
You know, I remember when they tore down Chases.
You know, it wasn't known for its great food later on.
And it was old Hollywood.
You know, Reagan died.
You know, and all these old farts.
And everybody wants to go to the hip places.
Hey, there's a Kardashian, you know.
And the Derby was gone.
The Derby was gone.
The only thing that's left, I think, is Musa's.
It's Musa's.
There's nothing else left in that town.
Yeah.
And it's almost like New York.
It's just so horrible.
You know, when I go to these cities,
and, you know, when my daughter,
when I take her to New York,
I'd walk by the Brill Building.
And, you know, next to Caroline's
used to be Hawaii Kai, that tiki bar.
I love those places.
Oh, yeah, and Colony Music.
Colony Music is gone.
What is it forever?
It goes back to Tin Pan Alley.
God!
Broke my heart when it closed.
Broke my heart, too.
Really did.
And I remember there was
the Howard Johnson's on the corner,
but all those places. And I never used to go Howard Johnson's on the corner. But all those places.
And I never used to go to them, so I'm as guilty as anybody.
And then when people find out these places are closed, they all start to go.
Palisades Amusement Park.
Swings all day and after dark.
Howard Johnson's in Times Square had the most rancid-smelling men's room.
I mean, you would had the clam strips.
You would feel the smell on you.
The smell would press down on you.
You can see if you watch Sweet Smell of Success
or all those movies,
Times Square in the 60s,
you always see that neon Howard Johnson sign.
It's sad.
So much of it's gone.
It's sad.
You know, the Metropole they closed,
which is a really high-class strip joint
from like the 1920s and 30s.
They just closed the coffee shop in the Empire Hotel.
It had been there forever.
They closed it?
Yeah.
Finally?
Yeah.
And the Variety Place from the, you know, the 1920s when they showed silent movies down on 1st and 2nd Avenue.
Of the old Jewish theater.
You know, and it's the one thing that we all got to grow up with was those cool places in New York. And, you know, our parents and grandparents, we saw them.
And you still got Yonah Schimels.
You still got Russ and Daughters.
You still got Cats.
It's a few things.
I mean, they closed the stage deli, you know.
Even the Ziegfeld's in trouble, which is really heartbreaking because it's the last great New York movie theater.
Yeah, it's pretty horrible.
It's pretty horrible.
Now, you are friends with Woody Allen and Sid Caesar?
Well, Sid Caesar is dead, so we're not friends anymore.
Yeah.
But you hung with Sid.
But you call him sometimes.
Well, Carl Reiner is more of a friend.
Not even a friend.
But you talk to them.
If I had to move, I wouldn't say, hey, can you help me?
If I need to borrow money, I'd call you before I call them.
That's how friendly we are.
You know, Woody, you know, it's interesting.
But by the way, the next time we do these comedian dinners, you have to come to one.
Will you come?
Okay.
With Woody.
Yeah.
You'll come, won't you?
Yeah.
I invited you to the last one.
I think I had, you were out of town.
I looked at your website.
You were out of town.
Here's what happened with Woody Allen.
A friend of mine, a buddy of mine is good friends with Woody, and he's got this really amazing house right on the Upper East Side.
And it's like a half a city block.
He's got money.
He's friends with Woody.
So I'm playing in Florida about three or four years ago.
And he comes to my show because he has a home in Florida.
And he says to me, Woody Allen's a fan of yours.
I go, Woody Allen?
He goes, yeah, Woody comes over to my house for dinner a lot.
He goes, he's coming over next Friday.
And I said, he's coming over next Friday.
Now, first of all, I'm on the road all the time, and I wasn't on the road that following Friday,
and I was going back to L.A.,
and I said, if I fly out to New York,
can I come to your house?
I would never invite myself to somebody's house,
but to have dinner with Woody Allen,
I said, can I fly out and have dinner with you and Woody?
He goes, sure.
I go, why don't you ask Woody first?
He goes, no, no, no.
He's coming to my house.
I go, who's coming to dinner?
He goes, me, Woody, and his wife.
And I said, it's kind of creepy. It's a lot of pressure, no. She's coming to my house. I go, who's coming to dinner? He goes, me, Woody, and his wife.
And I said, it's kind of creepy.
It's a lot of pressure, too.
It's a lot of pressure.
And I said to my wife and I said to a couple of friends, should I fly all the way?
I'm coming home from the West Palm Improv.
Should I fly back five days later and get work?
Like you, I'm going, this ticket's going to cost me a fortune. I don't get a year in advance. I know you're buying tickets.
I can't even get a 21-day advance purchase.
So I got a good deal on a ticket, and my friend said, I'll even put you up at a hotel.
Come back.
I go, you know what?
I can't pass this up.
So I went to dinner with Woody and his wife, and I said, I'm not going to ask him about his movies.
I don't really give a rat's ass about
the Knicks. I know he's a sports fan, but I
know that Woody likes jazz and I like
the blues. But when I
start out in San Francisco in the 70s,
Woody, even though he's a New York guy, started out in the
60s. And he started out
with the Purple Onion, the Hungry Eye.
So he was also kind of
a San Francisco comic, along with the Smothered Brothers, Phyllis Diller, John of the Winters, of hungry eye. Hungry eye. So it was also, he was also kind of a San Francisco comic,
along with the Smothered Brothers, Phyllis Diller,
John of the Winters, of course, Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl.
And we had a lot of mutual friends
because when those people all died or moved on,
we went to the same restaurants.
So, you know, it was, we sat there
and Sunyi doesn't talk a lot.
Woody doesn't talk a lot.
My friend Jeff doesn't talk a lot.
So I'm going,
well, I'm going to have to do all the talking here.
Anyway, it went great.
And before you know it,
it's a three-hour dinner.
And I, you know,
Woody, once he gets to know you,
really likes to,
he's like Gilbert.
Gilbert's very shy.
But if you know Gilbert,
which nobody does,
but if they did,
he would talk.
I hear he would talk.
His wife said.
It's true.
His wife said he'd talk. Like once in a while. I liked him better when he didn't talk. I hear he would talk. His wife said. It's true. His wife said he'd talk.
Like once in a while.
I liked him better when he didn't talk.
What did you guys talk about?
Did you talk about the old San Francisco clubs in the old days?
They talked about me.
But anyway, so we had a thread there.
And Woody's a very, really great, relaxed man.
And we talked about the Marx Brothers a lot.
And Charlie Chaplin and Harold Wood.
That's great.
Because he's such a big fan of those people. And we talked about the Marx Brothers a lot and Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd and he's a good
because he's such a big fan
of those people
and we talked about
the Marx Brothers movies
and about comedy
and the fact that I'm friends
with Carl Reiter
and it's weird
because he hasn't talked
to Carl in so many years
and they all worked together.
They were writers on a staff.
They were writers.
He wrote,
I go,
have you talked to him
about Brooks?
He was not in 20, 30 years
and I just talked
to Tommy Smothers
and Tommy Smothers
said to me,
tell Woody I said hello and they hadn't talked in years.
So I don't know.
You know, Woody's so busy writing all these movies and directing.
That's all he does is write and direct movies.
And I told him I was writing a book.
And I remember saying to him, you know, I'm writing a book,
and if not for my iPad, I don't know how I do this.
He goes, you like that iPad?
I go, yeah.
You know, he still writes every movie on a typewriter.
On a manual typewriter, not even an electric typewriter.
On a manual typewriter.
Yeah.
And I'm thinking, how do you even find ribbons?
He said to me, and I can't believe this is true, but this is what Woody told me.
He said, I have this guy come over.
And he goes, he's not really that friendly with him anymore, but he's the only guy that
really knows how to change your ribbons on my typewriter.
You would think for 50 years, Woody would have that down.
You know? And I don't even know where you get typewriter ribbons, but for 50 years, Woody would have that down. You know?
And I don't even know
where you get typewriter ribbons,
but he gets them
and he's still typing.
Anyway, so we had this dinner
and Woody's not, you know,
really in character
and I must have gotten up to pee
four or five times
because I'm 60.
I must have knocked off
a bottle of wine
and Woody never got up
to pee one time.
And as we're leaving,
you know, I said to him,
it's amazing to me,
you're this old,
you're drinking two or three beers,
you didn't get to pee once during dinner.
And that's when he became Woody Allen.
That's one of my attributes.
I don't pee.
Yeah.
I had to do it.
So he had such a good time
and my friend calls me up
and goes,
Woody had a great time.
We got to do this again with some other comedians.
You know, any other comedians?
And I go, well, you know, put together comedians.
First of all, I'm an L.A. guy.
And I come to New York.
I go, you know, I know Chris Rock.
I kind of know Gilbert.
I don't really hang out with these people.
He goes, well, see who can get over.
So for everybody to be in town at the same time.
So I put together another dinner. And Louis Black happened to be in town at the same time so I put together
another dinner
and Louis Black
happened to be in town
and David Brenner
in town
and still alive at the time
and
so I invite those two guys over
and Woody brings over
Dick Cavett
who I also grew up with
you know
and these guys are
friends since they were 20
and they both love magic
and in the middle of dinner
David Blaine shows up
and after dinner
David Blaine starts showing us magic tricks.
Now, to shut up Dick Cavett,
me and Louis Black
and David Brenner
for 45 minutes
to do magic tricks
was one of those magical little,
it was just great.
So then we did it again.
I think Jackie Martling,
Jay Thomas came over,
Nick DiPaolo,
and my friend said,
you got to invite over Gilbert
and you were out of town.
By the way
to tell your wife because I know she'd like to
go it's no women it's just guys
it's just guys but
I saw my friend Jeff today
I go I'm doing Gilbert's podcast because you got
to have Gilbert over next time we do a dinner. I said
Gilbert's not coming over without his wife
or he won't talk he needs somebody he knows
his interpreter. He kind of
knows her. You got to pass. He comes needs somebody he knows. His interpreter. He kind of knows him.
You got to,
Darryl,
you got to pass.
He comes with Marlee Matlin's interpreter.
No,
you'll make Gilbert talk.
You'll poke him.
You'll do what you have to do.
You'll slip up somebody
and make them talk.
Gil,
you got to go.
Yeah.
But I brought my wife last time
and it was great.
You know,
he's just hanging out
with these guys
because there's not a lot
of them left,
you know?
Yeah,
true.
We had Cabot on the show.
He was great.
He's great, isn't he?
Yeah, the best.
Yeah, before he passed away.
He wasn't Jewish.
No, no, definitely not Jewish.
As we're winding down, Bob, you want to tell Gilbert about,
you want to talk about either the gong show or being on Sandy Becker when you were a kid?
Sandy Becker.
Yeah, I heard Sandy Becker hated kids.
I don't think anybody.
You know, I saw Sandy Becker in some interview, like on Channel 13 or something, where I couldn't
believe what a pretentious prick he sounded like.
You know, he was one of those guys, though.
If you look back at the few kinescopes you know Norton Norrick and all these
things he did if you go to my website
not to anybody because bobby slayton.com there's a
picture of me with
I don't know if you remember this but about
1959 before he did the Norton Norrick
and he had Shotzi the dog he would interview
two kids and he would
I say Popeye the sailor man
and he would show cartoons for half an hour
and it was a WNDW.
I remember seeing the doobie and the don't be in a romper room.
Oh, yeah.
That was a big thing when you're five.
And I heard years later that Sandy Becker didn't like kids.
He had a collection of German guns and Lugers, which is fine.
They're all Nazi stuff.
But Andy Kaufman, when I met him one night at the Improv in L.A., we're talking about howdy doody.
You know, Andy was, you know, Andy.
And I told him I was on the Sandy Becker show, and I heard he didn't like children.
I heard that from a lot of people, that he hated being Sandy Becker.
And Andy almost started crying.
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't kidding.
Like, people think you're kidding, but you're not kidding.
He does hate children. Is that really Gilbert? Oh, by the way, before he wasn't kidding. Like, people think you're kidding, but you're not kidding. No, he does hate children.
Is that really Gilbert? Oh, by the way, before
we go, here's one thing I do have to tell you. Here's what
we have to end with. I've been married to the same
woman for 27 years, and my wife is gorgeous.
And I have a beautiful daughter, Natasha.
And your daughter's in the business, too, we should say.
I don't even get to tell you the story about
how when she was an actress at nine,
she was at Universal Studios, and I would
go to the tapings. She had her own parking spot
at nine years old at Universal.
And we'd walk over to the cycle house
and we'd sit on the steps.
And she'd go over the lines
on Norman Bates' house.
And then we'd walk down
to the Transylvania Square.
And I'd go home
and I'd show her the movie
where the father's carrying Maria's body.
I said, we were there today.
We were there today, Natasha.
And I said, someday you're going to appreciate this.
And she loved it.
And I took her to stage 28 where they filmed Phantom of the Opera.
And the thing about Universal is there's a few little things left.
But you know what?
It's almost like New York.
You go to stage 28 and you walk in there.
And I walked in there with my daughter.
And I went to the Abner Costello stage.
And I walked into stage 28.
And I said, this is where they shot the Phantom of the Operator
I think in 1920 whatever
I think it's stage 28 and you walk in there
and you go I think they were doing a
Jamie Kennedy movie and I go fuck
this is really
that was like going to Auschwitz and seeing
graffiti
going to a Jewish cemetery and seeing
it defaced I felt like I was in
a Jewish cemetery at Bitburg with his Nazi soldiers.
But it was like, God, this was –
I remember being at a studio and I don't think it was even Columbia.
I don't know.
But I was at a studio.
Yeah, with the Stooges.
We were doing a show and they said that the Stooges used to do their shorts there.
Yeah, probably Columbia, which is now a Sony picture.
Yeah, Poverty Row.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You go over, there's a school right there where Alfalfa and Spanky went to school.
That was, but anyway, what I was going to tell you.
Amazingly, the Stooges were Jewish.
Who gets that out?
By the way.
They don't look it.
One of the funniest things ever,
I look back at a lot of the Stooges, and I'm still a major Stooges fan,
what always pissed me off is when you watch Ghost Breakers with Bob Hope,
which was great, and it was always disappointing as a kid
because we were all Lamar and Lewis.
When they did Scared Stiff, it could have been so much scarier.
It could have been Abner, Kassabian, Frankenstein, and it wasn't.
But to this day, one of the things that still makes me laugh, and I saw it, and I wasn't stoned, I don't smoke pot anymore.
But the greatest thing was when the Bowery Boys or the Stooges or Hold That Ghost, when they went to a haunted house.
Hold That Ghost.
Bowery Boys meet the Bowery Boys.
With the money in Moose's head.
Oh, but one of the greatest things ever was the three Stooges when they're in that haunted house, and the parrot walks into the skull and starts flying around.
Yes.
The flying skull.
It's great. I love skull. It's great.
I love that.
It's great.
It still makes me laugh.
And even my daughter, when she was seven, goes, what are you, an idiot?
Even my daughter.
The flying parrot skull.
I love it.
What do you want to close with?
Sammy Petrillo?
Oh, no.
No, here's what I want to tell you.
Yeah.
What I wanted to say was I get a beautiful wife and a beautiful daughter.
And for years, people have said to me
every time I meet my wife
how is she married to you
how have you stayed
married so long
they see pictures
of my daughter
and go how did you
give birth to this
how is your family
so talented
and the only person
that's taught me
in that world
is you
is Gilbert Gotson
is how is
first of all
is how is this man married
you can be married
to Ruth Gordon
and they go
she married him Ruth Gordon any woman they go, she married him?
Ruth Gordon.
Any woman named Ruth married him.
You had this beautiful wife and two gorgeous kids.
You go, what the fuck is wrong with this picture?
I have nothing compared to this guy.
Alice Ghostly.
But now people say to me, people in the business who know Gilbert or see pictures of his family,
when people say to me, your wife's beautiful, your kid's beautiful.
Well, you're not exactly the elephant man.
You're an attractive fellow.
They shouldn't say that about you.
Don't try to make this
better than it is.
But it's not,
I'm not talking about being ugly,
but thank you, Frank.
I'm talking about
just being a monster.
I'm talking about the fact
that the jokes I say
about my wife
and the things I've done about her
is horrendous.
And it's amazing
that I can stay married this long.
And anytime anybody points at it,
I go, what about Gilbert
they go oh yeah
he's actually beat me
he's actually beat me
in the world
his children are beautiful
his wife
what about his wife
his wife is beautiful too
yeah but they're
obviously insane
okay
but he's beat me
in that world
you want to go out
on an insult
yeah of course
I'm the pitbull of comedy
we'll be doing part two
so we haven't even touched.
Look at all the stuff I haven't got.
What do you got on your list?
Tell us.
I didn't get to the gong show.
We never talked about, oh, my God, the Pink Panther.
We'll do this again.
Sammy.
We didn't get to Sammy Petrillo.
I didn't really have anything about Sammy Petrillo.
Right.
Or Famous Monsters of Filmland.
There was so much more.
I had the greatest collection of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
One of the world's... Rico Browning.
Biggest collection of
stuff.
Next time, we'll talk about it.
I have to tell this to Gilbert.
I was talking on the phone with you yesterday. I found
it, and you mentioned it here, I found it
very strange that Plan 9 scared
you as a kid.
Because looking at it now...
No, I'm sure sure what was the other one
you said Horror Hotel
Horror Hotel
which actually
I just did some research on
Horror Hotel
do you remember
Horror Hotel
with Christopher Lee
it took place
in Massachusetts
in Salem
you know
and they
they actually had
a sacrifice in the movie
it was black and white
it was atmospheric
it was done in 1960
do you remember the movie
sure
not that well
these people check into the hotel and underneath there's a coven of witches, and they kill this woman.
And at the end, Selwyn, whatever her name is, they burn her to steak.
You're 10 years old.
That's really a beautiful, scary film.
Is Christopher Lee in that?
Christopher Lee, yeah.
He plays the head of the coven and the head witch guy.
But what's interesting is you Google Horror Hotel, the movie is actually called City of the Dead.
It was an English film.
But it took place in Massachusetts.
And the reason – and this is IMDB.
Is that right?
The reason they changed the name to Horror Hotel because in the 50s and early 60s, they said American audiences, teenagers, wanted stupid names for movies.
And Horror Hotel would bring them in.
City of the Dead wouldn't do it.
So they did it to placate the stupid American audiences
and call a movie Horror Hotel, you know.
What movie really scared you, Gil, as a kid?
I know we talked about scenes.
Plan I didn't scare you, Frank?
No, I think I saw too late.
I think I was too old.
But you talked about those isolated scenes
in Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.
Oh, yeah.
Were there any that really, really gave you the creeps?
Oh, I don't remember.
Do you know what I remember scared me?
That wasn't a horror movie, but when I was a kid,
they had that movie Caged about the women's prison.
Oh, yeah.
And when they grape her and are shaving her head balls.
Oh, that was Susan Hayward. That's How I Want to Live. I Want to Live. That's How I Want to Live, yeah. And when they grape her and are shaving her head balls. Oh, that was, not Susan Hayward.
That's How I Want to Live.
I Want to Live.
That's How I Want to Live, yeah.
Yeah.
That, I was like, ooh.
Really?
Yeah.
What the hell?
Okay.
Yeah.
I would have gone for Carnival of Souls.
Oh, yeah.
That's a creepy movie.
Yeah, seriously creepy.
Oh, the best one, though.
The one that really scared me and my daughter, and you've got to show this to your kids,
was, not William Castle, aren't you, groom? House on Haunted and my daughter, and you've got to show this to your kids, was not William Castle.
Why don't you call me?
House on Haunted Hill.
Oh, yeah.
That's a Castle film.
Is it Castle?
Yeah.
With Elijah Cook Jr. with the blood dripping from the ceiling.
And Vincent Price had a skeleton.
He took the vat acid.
Right.
And his wife falls into the vat.
And that woman on the wheels, remember?
Oh, yes, yes.
I used to do that to my daughter.
You know, that woman, that old lady, the caretaker.
The most frightening thing in the...
Scared the hell out of me.
I think Corman's pit in the pendulum was pretty creepy, too.
I saw Night of the Living Dead.
The original at the Waverly Theater.
And it was like they'd have midnight shows of it. The old Waverly.
And that film scared me
back then. That was a beautiful
piece of work and that's why, if you look at
Romero's stuff, you know, that paved
the way. There's too much zombie crap now.
Oh, it's horrible.
I used to love the zombie
movies of Night of the Living, Dawn of
the Dead was great. Val Luton.
I walked with a zombie and the Catwoman.
Now it's like idiotic.
Idiotic.
Yeah.
Idiotic.
And even now I look back at some of these movies and, you know, your most idiotic thing
ever?
And my daughter pointed this out.
It's another thing.
And I did this in my act.
But I had done it before she pointed it out.
That's how we think alike.
At the end of Bride of Frankenstein, he goes, we belong dead.
Oh, yeah.
And he pulls the switch to blow up the castle.
I used to do that in that.
Why?
I used to do my acting.
Why is there a switch to blow up the castle?
Why do you even have that switch?
Yeah.
What is that for?
Yeah.
On, off, blow up castle?
Yeah.
Hey, check the air conditioning.
Don't blow up the castle.
You're pulling.
What is that for?
What do you need that for?
Yeah.
I always said, well, the
guy who built the castle said, you want a
living to blow it up? I can throw it in.
Yeah. And that shows
you why women have
let us down on every level. You bring some
fucking broad back to life and she still
won't put out. You let her live in a castle,
you bring her back to life
and she still won't put out.
Next time we'll talk about all the other stuff on your list
I get so much more stuff
alright
don't you do a big ending
yeah
you sing a song
you mouth music
okay
we don't sing a song
there's just one place for me
and that's near you
that's what I wanted to hear
our fans actually love it
when he sings
he'll sing
obscure theme songs.
What was that from?
Milton Berle.
Last week he sang the theme from
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.
Yeah.
Marmalade, molasses,
and honey.
Cinnamon
and sassafras tea.
I know our lives could be so happy and sunny.
I warned you.
If you'd go away with me, I know I'd really like to do.
Head for the hills,
the hills with you.
You know what's amazing? I've
grew up with the Beatles. I must have heard yesterday
a billion times. I can't remember
more than one line from that.
I know. Or any stone song. He remembered the theme
from the Lords of Flatbush. I mean,
real weird shit.
Remember Bang the Drum Slowly with De Niro?
He remembered the friggin' song
that they perform on a TV station.
Please excuse my tears
but I've been on the road
to tribulation
and I find no consolation
here.
Oh my god, I'm exhausted from this.
That's me, not you.
We do that to our guests.
And yeah, lots of like, hey,
hey, what do you say?
Looks like it's going to be a very fine day.
My girl is with me today. You got a song in you, Bob?
Yeah.
No, I'm emotionally spent.
I'm drained.
I know the actual, see, I sang the David Pomerantz songs from Zapped.
But the one that was performed by a group called Plain Jane, if they ever actually really existed outside this film,
the actual theme song to Zapped was,
Something's happening to me.
Where is that quiet kid
I used to be?
Not long ago
one I used to know.
You know, once a famous
saying, and I think Fred Astaire once said it,
I'm not sure, leave him wanting more.
It's way too late for that, isn't it?
We've gone way beyond
that. I'm just giving the fans what they want. I'm looking at my notes that, isn't it? We've gone way beyond that.
I'm just giving the fans what they want.
I'm looking at my notes going, what can I end with?
Don't drag this out anymore.
Bring in Javorkian.
Just put it out of his misery.
People have to go home.
My phrase is, leave them where they don't
want to listen to the podcast ever again.
He doesn't have to do it.
I'm the one responsible for this.
Great.
Yeah, we'll blame it on you.
Thanks, Bob.
Thanks for having me, guys.
So this has been
Gilbert Gottfried's
Amazing Colossal Podcast.
I'm Gilbert Gottfried
and I'm here with my co-host
Frank Santopadre
at Nutmeg Post
and we've been talking to Bobby Slater.
Bobby!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Thank you, Frank Verderosa.
Thank you, Bob.