Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - "Blazing Saddles" 45th Anniversary Tribute with Andrew Bergman and Norman Steinberg

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

"Blazing Saddles" screenwriters ANDREW BERGMAN and NORMAN STEINBERG return to the podcast to commemorate the film's 45th anniversary and to regale Gilbert and Frank with behind-the-scenes stories of deleted scenes, writer's room antics, last-minute casting changes and characters who didn't make the cut. Also, Mel Brooks sends up Humphrey Bogart, Cleavon Little replaces James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor puts on a maid's uniform and John Carradine plays "John Carradine." PLUS: "Honeymoon in Vegas"! "My Favorite Year"! Marlon Brando mumbles! Stanley Kubrick tortures Slim Pickens! And the boys remember Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman and Gene Wilder!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Baseball is finally back. Get in on Major League action and swing for the fences with BetMGM, the king of sportsbooks. Log in or sign up to play along as BetMGM brings the real-time action. Embrace a season's worth of swings with BetMGM, your one-stop shop for all things baseball. BetMGM.com for Ts and Cs. 19 plus to wager.

Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. because the skip app saves you so much time by delivering stuff like your favorite cool treats groceries and bevies you get more time to have the best summer ever like riding roller coasters, learning to water ski, applying sunscreen to your dad's back. Yep, definitely the best summer ever. Squeeze more summer out of summer with Skip. Hi, this is Gilbert Godfrey and this is Gilbert Godfrey's amazing, colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. movie producer and a celebrated screenwriter and director, whose work includes the films Soak Dish, Oh God, You Devil, and the original Fletch, as well as the classic comedy that

we've discussed previously on this very podcast, 1979's The In-Laws. He also wrote and directed the features Honeymoon in Vegas, So Fine, It Could Happen to You, Isn't She Great, Striptease, and The Freshman. and the Freshman. Norman Steinberg is an Emmy-winning TV writer, screenwriter, and writing teacher with numerous credits

on situation comedies, variety shows, comedy albums, and feature films such as Yes, Giorgio, Wise Guys, Funny About Love, Johnny Dangerously, and a movie that we love to talk about on this show, the terrific 1982 comedy My Favorite Year.

Between them, they've worked with some of entertainment industry's admired performers such as George Carlin, Alan Arkin, Peter O'Toole, Peter Fult, Madeline Codd, Alan Olda, Michael Keaton, Bette Midler, Gene Wilder, George Burns, Burt Reynolds, Luciano Pavarotti, and Marlon Brando. That's enough. Back in the early 1970s, they joined forces with Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor to write the screenplay based on Andrew's original story for a movie currently celebrating its 45th anniversary, the iconic Western spoof Blazing Saddles. Please welcome back to the podcast two nice

Jewish boys from Queens and Brooklyn and two of the men responsible for arguably the funniest film comedy ever made Andrew Bergman and Norman

Steinberg. Especially. Are you? He got some of that right. That's the part I'm speechless about. That was great. That was great. Welcome back, boys.

Good to be here. Andrew was here in March. Norman, it's been a while. Yes. Yes. You were in the old joint. I know. The old space.

In the old space. Yeah. But The old space. In the old space. Yeah. But this sumptuous. This is gorgeous. This is unbelievably beautiful. This is great. The sarcasm has started. And by the way, the brisket.

Fabulous. You're happy with the brisket? They lay out a buffet here that's just fantastic. Fantastic. Now, we probably asked you both before, but just a quick one of how you two got into show business in the first place. Andrew, you can go first. That's a very good question. I got into show business. I had a PhD in American history, and I couldn't get a teaching job. And I had written this story about a black sheriff in the old west

and I got a job at United Artists as a very inept PR guy for a year and during that period of time

I somehow sold this story to Warner Brothers much to my amazement and delight and one thing led to another

and eventually as these things always do it became a hit movie now your turn norman i i did something that probably none of you have done i was in the army you're correct i was after law school i went to law school, passed the New York Bar Exam, and I had a job as a lawyer at 57th Street and 7th Avenue. And I would go there every day. I was making $100 a week.

That's good money. Not bad. In 1960s. And every morning I would go downstairs to Chalk Full of Nuts, and there was Mel Brooks. And I started pulling on his jacket and saying, I want to be a writer. I want to be a writer.

And he would put his hands on my shoulders and look deeply into my eyes and say, leave me alone. But I didn't. And I hope Mel will be listening to this because we both came out of that Mel Brooks universe. Yeah. He's the reason you both met.

Yeah. Certainly the reason we met. Yeah. And one day he just he just said you're a real pain in the ass and here call this guy who is a producer of get smart and i called him and he and mel indeed had called him and said this kid wants to be a writer. And he said, he tells me you want to be a writer, so write something. Write an episode for Get Smart, which I did. And I sent it to him.

A week later, they called one of the writers on Get Smart, Chris Hayward. Chris Hayward. I know that name. Great, great guy. And he said, if the show is picked up, which it wasn't, if the show is picked up, we'll buy the script. And so I went in the next day and quit being a lawyer. That was it. That was my start.

You were officially in show business. Officially in show business. That was pretty amazing that Mel Brooks did that. He, listen, he is for all his brashness and he is at base a wonderful man. He's a loyal guy.

Yeah. He is a loyal guy. And he loves, he protects writers. He protected us. And both Andy and I were in his face. And he took it. And both Andy and I were in his face. And he took it. He said, we immediately became,

because we didn't know what the hell we were doing. That was the good news, that none of us knew what the hell we were doing. I mean, he could have had me, you know, I'd written this script, like, 140 pages. No margins. Tex-Ex. And the Warner Brothers had bought it,

and originally Alan Arkham was going to direct it, and James Earl Jones was going to play the sheriff, and that fell apart, and so they went to Mel. And the first thing that Warner's executive said, well, you'll lose the original writer. You dump Bergman, and you get some guys. But he wouldn't do it. He said, I want him to work with him.

And I was 27. I was beyond nobody. I was sub-nobody, you know. And that's something I will never forget. I heard him say that he was trying, his original impulse was to have you normalize the other guys in the room. And then he realized you were the craziest one. I was. That's a resonant.

Yeah. I was down in Acapulco with him. I got a job on a special. They called it it was

Aquacade in Acapulco. That was a hell of a show. I love that title. What was Aquacade in Acapulco?

It was memorable. We had Tony Randall, Ed, Johnny'sall, Ed McMahon, and Stiller and Meera. Jan Pierce. Jan Pierce. And the Aquamaniacs, and special guest star Mel Brooks.

And so suddenly I'm working with him. And we just, he would tell tales at dinner and it was the greatest and at the end of the 10 days in Acapulco, he said I got this script, read it and tell me if you think it's funny. And it was Andy's script. And I said, I think it's hilarious. He said, great. Meet down at this restaurant on Houston called Bellato's with him and Anne Bancroft,

who was pregnant at that point with Max. Max, yeah. And he's like, what, 42 now? Something like that. I found out in my research he was born during the movie. Yes. He didn't with Max. Max, yeah. And he's like, what, 42 now? Something like that. I found out in my research he was born during the movie. Yes. He didn't know that. Yeah.

Yeah. So, and that was, and he said, okay, come on, you're going to do it, and the guy who wrote this is going to be there. And that's where Andy and I met. In that restaurant or in the writer's room for the first time? I wasn't allowed in that restaurant. You weren't allowed. It's a pretty high class restaurant. You weren't allowed. It's a pretty high class restaurant.

You guys have been friends ever since. Yeah. And that's amazing. I mean, do you remember, do you have a vivid memory of the initial meeting?

I do. I certainly remember the first time we all gathered in that room. Uh-huh. Yeah. And it was,

you know, we were feeling each other out, for sure. And I'd never written a thing except for this first draft. And I wasn't thinking of myself as a comedy writer, per se. I was a writer.

But Mel made me feel, I remember the first night after I met with me, called me at home. My wife was at, when I came back,, he called me at home. I was, my wife was at, when I came back, she said,

Mel Brooks called. I said, God, I wonder what he wants. He said, so it wasn't so terrible with me, right? I'm not such a monster.

That was great. It was so brilliant. It was so brilliant. It's kind of, I mean, I was, you know, whatever,

27. You said it was like playing tennis with Borg and Lendl and McEnroe. Well,, I was, you know, whatever, 27. You said it was like playing tennis with Borg and Lendl. Well, particularly when Richie Pryor came in. Yeah. And I've written a PhD dissertation. Now I'm writing comedy with Mel and Richie and Norman. And it was really like, you know, up with, you know, Federer and those guys. Incredible. Let's hit with for a while.

What was it like working with Pryor in the register room? It was great. I mean, he was such a mishugana, but such a lovely person. I mean, he really was. You never knew which Richie was going to show up, but it was never like a really hostile Richie. He was just all over the place. It certainly coked up in Kavuasi. But he would come up with some. One day he just disappeared and showed up dressed over the place. It certainly coked up and cavuasi-ed up. But he would come up with some.

One day he just disappeared and showed up like dressed as the maid. I was just going to ask you about that. And started dusting the room. I'm never going to. The day that Mel called his agent to get him to work with us, would he work with us? Mel phrased it in the following way. Listen, we have four Jews sitting in a room. We need someone to come in and do the windows.

That was tactical. And he was in the room like three days later. And didn't he disappear to like, well, he disappeared a few times. To Detroit. Richard? Yeah. He didn't keep bankers' hours. We didn't think that he would be a compulsive Jew writer.

He wouldn't be Babalu and, you know. But he worked and he showed up and he was hilarious. I was sort of his companion because I would go with him at night. And one night we went to the Tonight Show, and my friend Steve Landisberg was on the show that night. Funny guy. And he wanted to, Richie wanted to see Steve. So we went there, and Richard was in the room, in the

green room, and talking the way he talks to this motherfucker and there's a guy, a guy comes over to him kind of big guy and says, hey pal take it down a notch because there are

women here. He was from the Sierra Club and Richard said I'm going to kick your ass. a notch because there were women here. He was from the Sierra Club. And Richard said, I'm going to kick your ass. I had to take him out of the room. Out of the room. I would meet him at night and we'd go somewhere. But in fact, the first day he came in with we were

he was late and was sitting there everybody's late Mel was late every day he said he had trouble shaving

he said he needs to really get his face really wet before he can shave that's why he was 40 minutes late

Mel yeah that's hilarious now but didn't prior one time he wasn't at the meeting and he called up from Detroit.

Well, Michael Hertzberg tells that story in the documentary that he wound up calling in and he said he needed money to get home.

Does this ring a bell? I think he was in Chicago. Okay. He needed train fare. Okay. Train fare? Trains. He wasn't flying. On the commentary,

Mel says when he hired him, he said, I'm coming by train. You'll have some Remy Martin for me. I thought he was a Kavassi. He was a Kavassi. So Mel got it wrong. The first day he came in, we all

brought him up to speed. It was about noon. And Mel was saying, here's what we're doing. And Richie was going, uh-huh, uh-huh. And doing up some Coke as he spoke. Like a little kind of golden container. Like a small thimble-sized thing. I mean, it's okay. And I was four schmucks watching himsized thing. I was like, okay.

And I was watching him do this. No, we were so innocent. It was 1972. What was he doing? You're a kid from Corona. I knew Thunderbird. I didn't know Coke.

He slid it over to Mel. And he said, offering him the Coke, and said, Brother Mel. And he said, never before lunch. And when he ordered lunch, we all ordered, he ordered a roast beef sandwich and a bottle of Kuvvass. Yeah, right. Hilarious. Yeah.

But you had a little history with him from the Flip Wilson show. You had worked with him. I had history with him from the Flip Wilson show. You had worked with him. I had worked with him on the Flip Wilson show. And the only thing I'll disagree with, Mel said that to the room. We're four Jews, and we need a gentleman of color. I remember the windows. I can't get that out of my head. At the same time, we had a secretary who wanted to be an actress,

and she would show up every day dressed in a different outfit. Like she was going to be the school mom. That was a tough job I mean, floor lunatics she had to keep it all straight on legal pads there's something sweet that I think that he wanted to create the experience from

Show of Shows, he could have come in, for Swedish that's the way it was done he says he was nostalgic for he might well have been but it served done that's the way to attack this thing he says he was nostalgic for it he might well have been but it served both yeah

I mean the thing about Richie what Richie did for us and that was behind we're three Jews you know we need

someone to do the windows was he gave us permission sure this movie could not have been once Richie was

in this it's like you rented a car and they told you you can run all the stop signs and the red lights. That doesn't apply to this vehicle. And that's how we wrote the

movie. And he said recently in an interview that blazing saddles could not be done nowadays. Hello? Yeah. Nope. I don't think there's two pages of it that could be done today. Forget about it.

I'm not even sure somebody like Spike Lee could make it. Forget about Jews. Well, Tarantino did a version of it in... Oh, Django. In Django. Yeah. If you remember, I mean, there was one really funny thing that they couldn't see out of their Ku Klux Klan masks.

Right. But they were pretty out there, I thought. And that came close. I don't know. Why not? Why not? I mean, times have changed. And maybe in an aspect way, maybe trump has opened things up but we're going

to see we're taking things down to the the grossest level i wonder every time i think that we've reached that point where people say you can't do comedy anymore and then i watched the comedy central roast of alec baldwin the other night and it was entirely outrageous yeah and over the top and it was a breath of fresh air. Just to see that that can still be done. And maybe it's because it's that protected environment. I always thought like Trump got, one of the reasons Trump got in office is because I think people are going, oh my God, he's a guy that says whatever he feels like. Yeah.

And we're tired of being scared. But look what you did with planes after 9-11. Yeah. Uh-oh, they know your work, Gil. That was outrageous. Planes are stopping at the Empire State Building. Come on. That was, in that respect, it's the same thing.

It's interesting in his case because he did that joke and I would say it almost gave your career a boost. Yeah, because I lost the entire crowd and they were booing and hissing and then I went into the aristocrats joke. And one of them, they're saying, oh, the father's fucking the son. That's good. That's not offensive. The flip side of that coin is when you did similar, shall I say, irreverent material about the tsunami, you got punished. Yes. So you were somewhat, you were rewarded and punished for similar bad taste.

Yeah. Yeah, which I find strange. Did Mel write a sign, please don't write a polite script? No. Okay, that's bullshit. Can you say it's true? That's a good line. It is a good line, but it wasn't true.

The stuff you find when you do research. Oh, God. I thought you were going to shoot down the prior came into the room dressed as the maid, for sure. No, he did. Refresh. Yeah. It's nice to know that actually happened. And now, what I find so strange is like years later, Pryor and Wilder would become this big movie comedy team.

Isn't that great? And Mel wanted him for this movie. He did. He did. He did. Richard never believed him. No, it was true. He was just radioactive at that point. At that stage in his career.

But Mel fought for him, and that would have been an interesting film. I mean, it would have been outrageous. Cleavon was fabulous. He was the right person at the right time. And we interviewed, I think, every black, mulatto, high yellow comedian. Did Flip ever audition? Who? Flip?

No. Because I know the studio had suggested him. Okay. Couldn't have done it. Didn't have those chops. Didn't have those chops. Lou Gossett is interesting in the pilot, which is on the DVD. Yeah, he was.

And he's more of a prior. He's more that way. He's edgier. Absolutely. Cleavon plays it like a sweetheart. Yeah. Well, he was a sweetheart. That was the thing.

He was not a person with a lot of Yeah. Well, he was a sweetheart. That was the thing. Yeah. He was not a person with a lot of edge. He was just a wonderful guy. Yeah. And gorgeous, which also helped. Yeah. Well, we've discussed this before with both of you when we brought up the movie. You know, the talk about a happy accident.

I mean, not only Gig Young falling out and Wilder coming in, but that the two of them would have that automatic chemistry like that. What a miraculous surprise. Who knows? Who knows? And what happened? They did bring Gig Young in. Yeah. To be the Waco kid.

We had Dan Daly before him. Was Carson asked or is that also a B? Yes. We went to the Tonight Show. I think we went through those steps. That was our first dream, that Johnny would play the Waco kid. Right.

I went to the Tonight Show with Mel. He was doing the Tonight Show. And afterwards, I remember I was carrying his suit for him. Oh, Mel's suit? Yeah. He had changed. I didn't know your duties included that. And Johnny,

we went into Johnny's dressing room. He said, is this your valet? And Mel said, had sent the script to him. And Carson said, Mel, this is what I do. This is what I do, and I will not, I'm not up to it. I'm not up to it. I'm not up to it. And he was right. He was.

I heard that Geek Young was supposed to be the voice of Charlie in the Charlie's Angels series. Quite possibly. The same thing. When they called him, he was loaded. On the floor, right. Yeah. So they went from Carson to Dan Daly. And Mel says on the commentary that Dan Daly loved the script, but then he called back and he said, I can't see.

I'm almost blind. I'm wearing Coke bottle glasses. Then Gig Young, who did have a little bit of a habit with the bottle, which gave him maybe a leg up. But that was a bridge too far, as it turned out. Yeah. No, this was just a favor. You know, he just, Mel said, please do this for me, to Gene Wilder. Yeah.

And now, yeah, it happened. In exchange for doing, Mel doing Young Frankenstein, which was Gene's script. So that was. A happy barter. Happy for everybody. Happy for everybody. It was, that was practically overnight that Gene came in. Yeah, no, it happenedter. Happy for everybody. Happy for everybody. That was practically overnight. Yeah, no, it happened like it just showed up.

Yeah. And just walked into the role. And now you can't picture anybody else doing it. Oh. Well, a movie like that, you can't picture anybody else doing anything. Anything. It's true. It's true.

I mean, once it becomes that. Oh, it's true. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. Baseball is finally back. Get in on Major League action and swing for the fences with BetMGM, the king of sportsbooks. Log in or sign up to play along as BetMGM brings the real-time action. Embrace a

season's worth of swings with BetMGM, your one-stop shop for all things baseball. BetMGM.com for T's and C's. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. We all have the power to shape the world. We're connected to the world we share, with iGaming Ontario. Top at Toronto Lakeshore Boulevard West. The world is yours to create. Tickets at Cirque du Soleil.com. Echo thanks its presenting partners Sun Life and its official partners Air Canada and MasterCard. And we always love talking about great old character actors. And that movie is packed. It's full of them.

Yeah. Every one of them is so good. No matter how small the part slim yes well slim is the greatest oh frank and i were talking about that he was given a hotel room but he chose to sleep outside is that true too with his dog and his rifle this is another this may be another urban myth the The book of Apocrypha. Would you just please agree? Sure. He slept on the Western Street with his hat tucked over his eyes.

The story that's been published, and it's funny because you see it in several places, was that he passed on the hotel room and said, I'm going to sleep outside with my rifle. It's a great story. To stay in character. That's a fabulous story. I hope it's true. was that he passed on the hotel room and said, I'm going to sleep outside with my rifle. It's a great story. To stay in character. That's a fabulous story. I was there when Mel interviewed him. Interviewed him.

Just told him what it was going to be like. And he said, we're going to put you, we're going to build you up. We have special boots made that are going to be like platform boots. He said, Mr. Brooks, I going to be like platform boots he said mr brooks i i like to wear my own boots and he said and we have okay fine but we have this horse that's this beautiful magnificent mr brooks i have i have my own horse i had everything. Oh, he's a great writer.

I mean, you don't need a stunt double for this guy. He was amazing. Oh, he was great. Yeah. He did tell us. He brings so much to the movie. Oh, God, he was hilarious. He did tell us the Dr. Strangelove story, which was that he was hanging upside down on the bomb. And Kubrick was shooting him,

and he said he did about 40 takes, and he said he threw up, Slim said, he threw up like five times, and he said, of course, Kubrick used the first take. One of those actors like Jack Warden that's incapable

of giving a bad performance he's always good he's great even in subpar movies you stick around and watch them he had them in so far

Jack's he's amazing oh yes he's a fantastic actor yeah you work with Warden in So Fine which we talked about last time one of our favorites

oh god loved him and the funny thing is like, you know, Harvey Korman, who's known as like the second banana all the time, and in there, he's like as

big a star as the other two. And he gives an amazing... I remember he came in and said, they're really letting you do this movie? I mean I couldn't I couldn't believe it

and that's what I mean about running only running red lights and stop signs the original choice was John Cassavete

John Carradine John Cassavete John Cassavete I would have loved to have seen him as Teddy Lamar deadly and John Carradine?

Yeah. Oh, Gilbert's favorite. He was going to play a character named John Caradine. Yeah, that's funny. That's funny. We had a guy, we called him the man in the arrow shirt. It's a guy stumbles into the bar, and he's got all these arrows in his back, and he falls down, and arrows in his back and he falls

down and the line was, we didn't use this, the line said, who did this to you, Saul? And the dying man, the man in the arrow shirt says,

John Cara Duh and he dies. And they cut to a shot of all the townspeople going, John Caradur. And Cleavon looks at the camera and says, and they say, my people are dumb. Wow. I don't think we shot that. No, we didn't. There were various subsidiary characters. I think last time I

talked about Bogey. Tell us again. The cowboy named Bogey, who Mel was going to play. Mel did a pretty good Bogart with the crazy eyes and the wet lips,

you know. And every time you cut to the campfire, Pokey would be saying, now you had two quarts of strawberries. How many strawberries did you use? He'd be doing the whole queef. That's great.

There was another character called Sidler who just sidled into the, he just would always walk around sidling in. It was very sneaky. And he died, of course, falling down sideways. And the line was, he died like he lived sideways. And we had a character called Astray. Astray was... That was really terrible.

The first time we saw him, Harvey Korman is lighting a scar and says, Astray! John Carradine. That was thehtray! John Carradine. That was the thing, was John Carradine's character. Yeah. And he disappears. And the ashtray disappears. And this small person appears, Johnny Paleo, because Mel loved him because he bit people on the ankles.

Paleo because Mel loved him because he bit people on the ankles. And it turned out that ashtray had been hanged but he didn't die. He had a wooden neck. Mel conceived of this guy and Kyle described

it's a real twist though. He said he'd have a hump but in the front he was a hump hump front not a hump so this whole thing he had this wooden neck and he and John Carradine

communicated ashtray which is wrap on his neck it's hilarious this like Morse code kind of thing and it was a grotesque character it was a grotesque

but it had one of my favorite lines ever which was you cut to ashtray in the middle of the prairie, wrapping on his neck. And John Carradine says, Schopenhauer never said that. Wow.

They're having this philosophical debate. Wow. So then we hear that Woody Allen has done this movie called Everything You Want to Know About Sex, and that John Carradine is in it, and he has a small person as an assistant wow two people

that could see such a perverse that's surreal thing so we see they let us see a couple of reels

of Everything You Want to Know About Sex and indeed there's John Carradine who looked like 400 years old yeah and this little guy

and John Carradine is just kicking the shit old and this little guy and John Carradine just kicking the shit out of him and we realized this is disgusting you couldn't go through with it it's horrible it was a terrible terrible character both Andy and I wanted to get rid of this guy

and finally I remember the day we were walking over to 3rd Avenue. I said, we can't. You've got to let it go. All right. All right. It was, that would have buried us. Yeah.

We did fall in love with him for a while. Everybody in the town was named Johnson. Right. But we did not, and I think Mel threw the flag on this one. He said, no Lyndon Johnson. Right. But we did not, and I think Mel threw the flag on this one. He said, no, no Lyndon Johnson. Why? He's not going to make it. And he was absolutely right. Oh, and he died.

Right around that time. We were out there in 73. I remember I said to Mel, I saw Johnson in if you listen. I think we, this isn't going to work. He didn't look like he was going to live another year. He didn't. Yeah. Love going to live another year. He didn't. Yeah. Love those inside jokes.

Olsen, Olsen, Johnson. Olsen, Johnson. He saw John Carradine in the Warner Brothers commissary. He came back. He said, can't do it. Can't do it. Wow. We had a door where it was John Carradine.

He was the solicitor general or something and had all of his film credits. There were a lot of them. So does this exist in some form? Obviously this stuff was not shot. Are there notes? Are there pages with these characters? With ashtray, sure.

And Mel's records somewhere? I have 160 pages. Why did he say John Carradine couldn't do it? Because he looked like he was at death's door He looked like an old man And yet the joke of him playing a character named John Carradine

would have fit perfectly Because there's so many inside movie jokes Richard Dix and Randolph Scott. And Olsen and Johnson. And the Laurel and Hardy handshake, which I must tell you, I saw the movie maybe 15 times

before I ever stopped to get that joke. But that was the beauty. The thing was so dense. So dense. Or the Mongo Santa Maria joke. Oh, yeah. Which until I was in my 40s, I didn't know who Mongo Santa Maria was

and the day that I heard his name in a different context I said son of a bitch it's a Blazing Saddles joke we wrote it and I still never entirely got it I said really that's funny Mongo Santa Maria

I remember the actor too it was a stand up comic named Jimmy Martinez oh yeah very good or the Andrew outside just said I don't need no stinking coffee stand-up comic named Jimmy Martinez. Oh, yeah. Very good. Or the Andrew outside just said,

I don't need no stinking coffee. Right. I offered him a cup of coffee from the Alfonso Badoia guy on the line of thugs. Right.

The worst people in the West, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I want to go back to the writer's room, too, just to get back to casting, but something, what you said

you learned in that room about the specificity of comedy writing with the education you got. Yeah, which is, it's so,

forget the consonants and the, you know, Buick is funnier than Ford and all that stuff. It's just one word too many in a thing and a joke becomes a sentence.

It's just all the, like, you just knocked all the air out of it. It's so. You learn the poetry of it. You learn the, yeah, it is. It's the scanning of the lines. You can't avoid it. His timing and just his name knowledge. There's a name that he gave me in my favorite year.

I have a character named Rookie Carroca, who is a phantom weight boxer. Great character. Yeah, he said, and Rookie says, he said, you were beaten by Manny Serpa. He said, Manny Serpa? I took him apart. I turned him into guava jelly. It all came from Mel. Great stuff.

Just those kind of alliterations. It was wonderful. And then Mel Brooks said, well, as the famous line, they're in the dark, uh, Madeleine Kahn. Right. Oh, the one line. And she says, you know, it's true. Right. That is, has got a big penis. And what was the line they

cut out? It was You're sucking my arm. Yeah. We went through a lot of things. Excuse me, Ms. Von Stubb. You're sucking my arm. You're sucking my arm. You're sucking my elbow. That whole scene is,

depends on how much vitamin E I can get my hands on. Well, it starts with the sausages. The sausages and the... He said, he stopped it. That was a surprise to me because I think that would have been maybe. A bridge too far. But I don't think it would.

Not in the context we were in. You think so? You think audiences would have rebelled at that? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think sort of the genius of it, of having her be a semi-Narzi, you know, is the way to actually have an interracial romance in the movie, sub Rosa, because she's such a grotesque girl. Yeah.

And she's madly in love with him. Yeah. And everybody thought it was great, you know. And the cutaway. And it just blew away that barrier in a comic way which was quite brilliant he brings her back

during the fight scene she's leading the Nazis right doing her Lily Marlene so at some point Alan who had come in with you

your writing partner at the time he left yeah Richard was doing a bit of a disappearing act I know it well after six months

Richard just said oh six weeks he said that was it that was it he was like a pitcher you know you have right

you're going to get five innings out of him you're going to be happy with what you got and then you got the bullpen up and you know and it sort of boiled down to the three of you guys.

It did. Yeah. Yeah. But as I say, Richie's contribution, which was to open the windows and say, hey, go for it. Go for it. You can do it. It was our protection. Yeah.

Because they said you can't afford Jews writing this movie. Yeah. Was enormous. And then Norman and I did all the little stuff. I mean, and big stuff. Afterwards, it was a lot of... Chinese restaurants. Yeah, there were a lot of drafts to go.

And it was a lot of work because, as you know, getting these things right is like diamond. You're polishing a diamond. What was the length of time from the moment you guys, ballpark, from the moment you sat down in the room to when you turned

into Warner Brothers? A year and a half. A year and a half. Well, you mean the original draft? Well, from when you guys first sat down together when the clock started ticking.

I think about a year and a half. Well, no. It was faster. Faster? We turned the draft in, yeah. Because we went out to... In April, we turned it, we were out was faster. We turned the draft in, yeah. Because we went out to... In April, we were out in L.A. in March of 73 or something. Because they started shooting like April of 73.

So it was... Yeah. And Mel bought that house in West Hollywood and you guys went out there to do polishes or to work on it. Yeah, and casting and stuff. And casting, yeah. Yeah, we were working at Warner Brothers. In the writer's building. It was very exciting.

Yeah, I can imagine. It was great. But I was just thinking of a line. When everybody is leaving town, which I love this line, and they're getting the hell out of town because the town's being terrorized and it makes this speech. He said,

can't you see this is the last act of a desperate man? And he said, and somebody in town says, we don't care if it's the first act of Henry V. Yes, it's Hillerman's line. John Hillerman.

Very literary. It's greaterman's line. John Hillerman. Very literary. It's great. So smart. So smart. So you guys were involved in early casting. You were there when these people walked in the room. Did you have personal suggestions?

Did you have, you got to call this guy in? Well, I was obsessed with Slim. You were obsessed with Slim Pickens. I worshipped from, you know, originally I believe in Strangelove that Sellers was supposed to play that guy. Interesting. And he had this first

hard episode of something and Slim wound up playing that guy. Which makes sense if you think about it. Yeah. Because he played the Englishman,

he played the Strangelove. Strangelove himself. Right. Chairman and Randre. Murph and Muffy. Murph and Muffy. Murph and Muffley. Right.

So it makes sense that he would have also put him in there. But Slim was... Pickens gives you that Western authenticity. It's just suddenly it's a Western. Yeah. It is. Because he really rides. Right.

Because, I mean, you know, Cleavon couldn't ride. When he comes into town on that horse, you just can see he's holding onto his hat so it doesn't blow off. And what about Burton Gilliam? Oh, Burton. Oh, you used him again

in Honeymoon. Yeah, I mean, Burton was fabulous. He's great. But we saw him on, what was the Bogdanovich film? Oh, he's in

Paper Moon. Paper Moon. He's great. You have, he's in Paper Moon. Paper Moon. He's great. You have three cast members in Paper Moon because Madeline's in it and who's the third person I'm thinking of?

Hillerman's in it. Right. Yeah. He was great. One of the townspeople. Yeah. He's the guy who has the Henry IV line.

That's him. Yeah. And Huddleston, David Huddleston who did such great work turned out to be the big Lebowski many years later.

When you guys are sitting there and these guys walk in the room, do you just, and you've both cast films over the years since, do you have that moment where you just know? Yeah. Yeah, sure. You know it was Cleavon. Cleavon was the first person I ever saw the old script. I sent him because I saw him in a show called

Scuba Duba that Bruce J. Friedman wrote. Oh, Bruce J. Friedman. Yeah. And he played this frog man. He was hilarious and said, this guy is so funny

and so whippy and so cute. And of course, he never read the script. His manager would give him the script. Pearly Victorious. Yeah, he's great.

He's very funny, man. He's great. Yeah. But usually, you know, very funny, man. He's great. But usually, you know, you just, they walk in, they have it, or they don't, you know?

And of course, the most famous scene from Blazing Saddles, the campfire. How did that come about? It was the other shoe. The other shoe. They said, look, if you have a campfire

and they're eating beans, as long as there's no red lights. And they did a preview in Australia. Really? Yeah, and they did a, instead of a meal, they had a bean dinner at the beginning of the show. At the beginning of the... But, yeah, I mean, I think we got just about every race. We got the Irish, too. That's a great joke. Alston's joke about the Irish.

The Irish, the Asians, everybody. It's so good. It's so good. You mentioned Peter Sellers. Now, this could be bullshit again, but did Peter Sellers come in... Go right ahead and say it is. Did he read for the Busby Berkeley character?

No. Okay. Ah, see? More bullshit. There's a lot of urban myths out there about the making of this movie. I'm sure that was promised

to Dom on, you know. It must have been. Well, Dom's in the 12 chairs, right? So they had a pre-existing relationship. And he's hilarious. Well, you know,

as someone who's directed, you really try to work with people you've worked with before. It just, it eliminates a lot of intermediate steps. You just... You know they're going to deliver. You just know,

you don't have to say anything. It's like, I did two pictures with Nick Cage, halfway, a third of the way through the first one, I don't have to say anything anymore. It's just, you know.

That's nice when that happens. Getting back to the campfire, did they censor the sound effects? No. Not on TV. On TV, they had horses neighing. Every time the guys were, like, squinching up their faces and rising up, you'd hear horses neighing, which was completely ridiculous. Yeah.

It's not a movie you should watch on TV. No, it is not. Mel did all the sound effects on his arm. He did a lot of them. Oh, yeah. It's so funny that now, it seems like you can't make a comedy

without a fart sound effect somewhere in it. Right. Back then, that was like... It was earth-shaking. It was like the first performance of The Rite of Spring or something. It was like a revolutionary...

People... Saves the culture. It did. Literally, people could not believe it. And after the first fart, you couldn't hear anything anymore. People were so out of their minds. I heard they were saying

somebody complained that in the making of the movie that the farts were too loud. You couldn't hear them. Maybe it's on an empty theater. It's possible. The first screening, when he first screens it for the Warner Suits,

nobody laughs except John Calley. Were you guys there? No. Mel was there. We saw him afterwards. When nobody laughs except John Calley. Were you guys there? No. No. Mel was there. Okay. We saw him afterwards when he came back to the office. He was white.

He didn't know. He said, I'm going to recut the movie. But we had a screening that night with the Warner Brothers, all the office help from Warner Brothers

and they went crazy. Oh, trust the executives. They were screaming, and Mel got up and said, oh, fuck them. Onward. Right. They still thought it would die. They thought it would just fall right off the screen. Didn't you guys, wasn't that something you guys comforted yourselves with in the writer's room nobody's this thing's never going to get made it's never going to get released

so right now i don't write what you want no i had i had a sense that it could get made i'd know what they was going to see it i see and warner brothers was confident that nobody was going to go see right yeah mel still remembers the name of the executive that came up to him and said and and one of the things that particularly bothered him was the Indian speaking Yiddish. Was it Ted? Ted Ashley? Ted Ashley. You can't release this outside of New York or Los Angeles.

It's not going to play anywhere. Or at least he says they wanted to dump it and take the loss. Well, here's the thing about the Yiddish speaking. Obviously, it was a specialized joke. I had a friend of mine who lived in Portland, and he went to see the movie. He said he's the only person who laughed at the Yiddish speaking. It's great. He has one man laughing.

It's so good. What is he talking about? But there were so many jokes. I mean, there was so much. It was such a blizzard of comedy material. It is. comedy material. As much as any movie I remember. I talked to somebody who was doing a TV series based on Paper Moon in Idaho.

They made it into a series. With Jodie Foster. And they're in a theater watching Blazing Saddles and he hears people in back of him when Mel does The Indian and this guy says to his wife he's speaking Sioux. He hears people in back of him when Mel does the Indian,

and this guy says to his wife, he's speaking Sioux. As in Sue me? Now, Harvey Korman's character, Hedley Lamar, was of course a takeoff on the actress Hedy Lamar. What happened? She sued. She did sue. She did sue.

And in the film, he said, what are you worried about? We can sue her. It's 1874. Yeah. You can sue her. And she sued. And they, come on, they threw it out. It was scurrilous.

I heard Mel Brooks said, just give us some money. She's Hedy Lamarr. That's what he said. She didn't need the money. She was very rich. It doesn't, you know, and Harvey loved it. Harvey was so great. He just rolled with every punch.

What a wonderful performance. You know, the performance, he's a terrible, terrible human being. And he manages to make himself vulnerable. Because he's so ridiculous. He's so ridiculous. But he's got a froggy. He's got a toy froggy for the bathtub. Even though he's just a black-hearted scoundrel, there's

so much dimension to the character. He's just great. And those speeches to the... Wonderful. Great speech. Go do that voodoo that you do. And Methodists and Methodists Methodists he's a gem so let's

let's talk about Madeline coming in too and again this could possibly be bullshit she was fired from the movie Mame

that is possible right before I think so even read speculation that she wanted out of Mame she wanted to work with you guys

so she tanked the performance to get fired I don't know if that's true that's dubious dubious I think that's dubious

because she was thorough going professional she was great she was just a wonderful woman that's an incomparable performance

I know but this is the kind of stuff you read oh I thought you meant that rumor no it's incomparable sui but this is the kind of stuff you read oh I thought you meant that rumor no yeah it's incomparable sui generis there's nothing like it

no yeah no you had worked with her before I worked with her on the Variety show my first first time I worked with her

was on my first show with Bob Robert Klein called Comedy Tonight oh yes she was a sketch player and

I the wrote a great sketch for her where she was doing a Marlene Dietrich character and wrote a song called And They Ate Garbage at a supper club. And she was talking about Weimar, Germany. And then I worked on the last show that she ever did, which was Cosby. And she was fabulous. She was dying.

And she worked through, and she was just this wonderful, free soul and pure instinct of talent. She's great in everything. Everything. She's great in Paper Moon, and she's great in High Anxiety. She's wonderful. Again, one of those people that just can't give a bad performance. Because it always comes from an angle you weren't quite expecting. because it always comes from an angle you weren't quite expecting

even when after Cleavon leaves and she says oh don't go and he goes I gotta get some vitamin E and he goes out and she falls against the door and says what a nice guy

that's great and she's hugging herself that was her line that was her line nice guy. That's great. And she's hugging herself. She's hugging herself. That was her line. Really? That was her line. That was not in the script. I don't want to leave out her performance in Young Frankenstein, too, where she's just

electric. There was a funny story I heard that all of you, like Mel Brooks was definitely in there in the commissary, and you ran into John Wayne. Yeah, Mel supposedly asked John Wayne. It's possible. I've heard that. Yeah. Yeah.

He had a great sense of humor. He said that John Wayne said he heard in this new movie that they're going to have the line blow it out of your ass. Blow it out of your ass. And Mel Brooks said, do you want to be in the picture? He goes, well, I won't be in it, but I'll be the first one to see it.

Well, it's a good story. I bet he wasn't the first one to see it. There's so many apocryphal stories about the making of this movie. You could write a book about all the things that never happened. BS, BS. Yeah. This is a tiny part

because we're talking about actors in small parts. I want to ask about Alex Karras. Bob Ridgely doing The Hangman. The Karloff. The tribute to Tower of London. A favorite of ours. We had the child star from Tower of London on this podcast. Donnie Dunnigan. He's the boy from Son of Frankenstein,

still alive and living in Dallas. But, I mean, even the smallest part, or George Firth, who maybe has, or Dom DeLuise's wife, Carol Arthur, who does the number one asshole in the state everybody makes something wonderful out of the littlest moments

and the beauty of the hangman is he's hanging a guy in a wheelchair yes talk about brutal which is logistically very hard how the fuck do you do that and the wheelchair is up there, and this guy with a beard, it was just

so nuts. That was the Dr. Gillespie murder. Dr. Gillespie. What a reference. And Liam Dunn, too, as the preacher. He did that. He was great. During that speech, he was making

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Duck. And Duck. And he, after he finished a take, he was a gay man. He said, he was hoarse, and he said, does anyone have a rectal mic? He was so great. This is a question about Richard, too. Was it just the drugs? Was it just that he was radioactive?

Or was it that Warner Brothers couldn't see a guy like this who put the N-word on his album titles being the face of Warner Brothers movies. I think there is that. I think he had a reputation for occasionally slugging a director or two. I think his last albums had bombed. He wasn't like a hot commodity. Right.

And he was thrilled. He was thrilled to get the role because when I spoke to him, he was breathless. I said... You mean to write on it? Yeah. Yeah. He said, would you want to come to New York and work with Mel Brooks? He said, and he was, Mel Brooks?

He couldn't even get Brooks out. Brooks? Yeah. And he was, he was in awe of Mel. And so, and Mel was in awe of him. I mean,

that, what a brave, Lenny Bruce, and then here comes, here comes Gilbert. Gilbert got to work with him late in his life on one of the, one of the Wilder pictures.

It was going to be the last of the... It was a terrible movie. But what I found with him is I just walked on the set and he came over to me and he treated me like he was some little kid meeting the biggest comic in the world. How nice.

And he knew everything that I did. I'm sure. Oh, no, he was a really complicated dude, but a lovely, beneath all that stuff, he was just a lovely human being. Because I remember he said to me, he goes, you're super funny. It's like even if you don't want to be funny, you're going to be funny.

And I thought, wow. I couldn't get over it. The last time I saw him, I was talking to him about this Casablanca idea. Oh, yeah. You told us about that. And he said at the end, and it was so great to see him again. It had been 15 years. He said, you know,

I don't remember anything from that car. Not one thing. He said, that's the worst part. It's like blank. Unbelievable. You can see, I never met the man. You know, you can see, I never met the man, obviously, but you can see,

as edgy as his performances are, you can see the sweetness. Oh, absolutely. It's something, bingo long, the Traveling All-Stars movie and in Silver Streak, and you can see the warmth in the man comes through

in his performances. There was part of me that was like nine years old, always. Yeah. He was like a kid. It comes through in those early stand-up specials too. There's a genuine sweetness to them

inside the darkness. He said something to me, gave me some advice. And he said, Norm, if you're ever in prison, I said, yeah. And you have to go to the shower after the shower don't put no towel around you I said what why is that he said because they'll think you're hiding something good that's hilarious that's certainly good advice sage advice

i got a couple of quick i got a couple of quick questions for you guys from from previous guests that we've had on this show really your friend phil rosenthal yeah uh where everybody loves raymond crater wants to know Richard Pryor's specific contributions the specific contribution I know you guys don't usually

is there a written part of this exam or is this an oral exam no you know that we had a rule that nobody took credit

for anything that's my joke that's a and I don't think any of us ever did no and there was all this mythology. He wrote all the Mongo stuff.

Everybody wrote everything. Mel says he wrote a lot of the Mongo stuff. Mel did. The only pant-porn in Game of Life. But who remembers? You guys don't know who wrote what line. He did not write that. Okay.

We have a scoop. That was not... It was really the United Nations. I think I remember specific lines of the road, but it's, what difference is it? It blurs. It blurs. And wasn't it that it was so crazy in the writer's room, you don't know if it was your line. Oh, yeah. Five guys shouting.

It's the game of telephone. Right. It comes out, it goes around and around, it comes back. That's the game of telephone. It goes around and around. It comes back. That's it. After time in the room, did you notice that you guys all developed a different kind of a – did it get a little smoother? Was there a different kind of system? It was just –

Or was it chaos? There was no system. I mean, the system was this poor woman trying to get all this stuff straight. You've described it as more like being in a Marx Brothers movie. Well, it was. And what was wonderful, and this goes back to the, there's no red, you go through the red lights. We were trying to figure out whether a character

should be named Dwayne or Earl. One simple character. And I said, how about Dwhirl? And Mel said, he dictated, Dwhirl, a cowpoke starts doing fancy it was in

it was in that was it that was it when you said twirl that was it hilarious he never made it either twirl

our friend Michael Weber Norman who's also a screenwriter he wrote 500 Days of Summer he's been on this it's a good movie he's been on this show he said

I have hundreds of questions but they're all about Yes Georgio he's no friend of ours been on this show. He said, I have hundreds of questions but they're all about Yes, Giorgio. He's no friend of ours. Touché, Michael. Yeah. Andrew's friend,

Beverly D'Angelo, was here a couple of weeks ago. I have no questions but I love Andy and I can't wait to work with him again. Oh, that's sweet. I love her too. Isn't she a doll?

She is great. She was pretty bawdy on this show. We welcomed it she has that streak she surely does last but not least Treat Williams

says he wants you both to know that he's deeply offended by the farting scene okay I respect that thank you

he clearly has some intestinal issues and are there any more Brando stories? Well, I remember how you started that last show. Good Brando stories. Forget about it. Oh, yes.

That Brando fucked Richard Pryor. Yeah, that was his icebreaker. Yeah. I'd been in the room for one minute. And yet you came back. He asked me. I did come back. I take a punch.

Yeah. Yeah. That's based on something Quincy Jones said last year when, I don't know, maybe he's not with it anymore. Why would he fuck

Richie Pryor when he had Wally Cox? There you go. You'll figure that one out. I read that Blazing Saddles

is, for what this is worth, Michael Bloomberg's favorite movie. Have you heard this? Yes. Mayor Bloomberg. Yes, it is his favorite movie. Have you heard this? Yes. Mayor Bloomberg. Yes, it is his favorite movie.

And it's a favorite of Barack Obama's. It was the first R-rated movie ever sold. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And he gave him that award, you know, the citizenship award. Absolutely. And Mel was, I saw him there.

I'm surprised he showed up for that, but he did. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this. When your celebration of life is prepaid in advance, it becomes a gift from you to your family later because no one should have to plan for a loss while they're experiencing one. Paying in advance protects your loved ones and gives you the peace of mind you deserve. Let us help you plan every detail with professionalism and compassion. We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at DignityMemorial.ca.

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Find yours at newbalance.ca slash run further and help you run your way. Find yours at NewBalance.ca slash running. New Balance. Run your way. A little bit about the reception, too, because I've heard you talk, Norman, about seeing lines around the block and going in. When it was finally released and you saw you were wandering down East Side or... Yeah. Sutton Theater.

Sutton Theater. East Side. Yeah. Sutton Theater. Sutton Theater. Also gone. Yeah. But I also saw it in Midtown. Was it the Roxy? Originally, we were just in two theaters. We were in one in LA and at the Sutton. And a friend of mine worked in that building where the Sutton was.

He worked in some company there. And he called me at noon on the first day. He said, there's a line around the block. I said, are you serious? Wow. A movie you thought was never going to get released. I said, it was unbelievable. And Madeline Kahn's mother

lived in that neighborhood. And she would go into the Sutton Theater every day. With a clicker, right? Yeah. How many times did you guys go in and see it with an audience? And now it's happened many times over the years, obviously, as it's trotted out. Well, when it first came out, I would, you know, get chummy with the people at the Sutton. Say, I want to go in for 10 minutes.

Because you want to hear that. Of course. You wanted the reward. You know, you get chummy with the people at the Sutton. Say, I want to go in for 10 minutes. Because you want to hear that. Of course. You wanted the reward. You wanted the eruption, you know. And you knew when the laughs were coming. Once you know, it's just. I may have seen it 15 times at the Sutton. Because I'd walk home from past the theater.

And years later, we showed it at Radio City. They did some tribute to old Warner Brothers pictures and they asked Norman Knight to speak at Radio City Music Hall and they screened the movie with 6,000 people. And it was the same thing.

And it was like a greatest hits album. Now, here it comes. Watching it again last night, too, and this is one of the things that sticks with you is not only is it funny, but it's a very, very broad comedy that's about something.

Yes. It's about an idea. There have been funny movies like Airplane and Young Frankenstein is brilliant in its own way as well. to make it sound too highfalutin but it's it's it's making a statement about the history of this country certainly the history of race relations in this country that we're not that far removed from though we think though we think we are it it tears at the side the american myth that the west was was settled by white heroes as instead of on the backs of immigrants it it's got a lot to say. It's courageous. It does. And it's a love affair, after all is said and done, between these characters.

And that's the beauty of those two performances, because you really do believe those guys have a real affection for each other. Never seen a better buddy relationship on screen. And the ending is surreal, where they escape from the movie. Right. Let's drive me off this film. Yes. No, just the limos.

The limos are beautiful. Oh, I love all that. The Count Basie. I love the breaking of the fourth wall. The Count Basie stuff. Count Basie stuff. It's just great. I just want to read you guys a quote from a website about the movie this is interesting uh the language the writers use in blazing saddles

has been culturally shamed out of the national lexicon in small part because of art like blazing saddles which aggressively shamed and marginalized anyone who acted in such a way. This is written by who? It's on a website called Den of Geek, which is actually a pretty smart website about filmmaking. It's interesting that we're supposed to be in a post-racial age after the election of Obama. Remember that whole thing? We had Rod Serling's daughter here, and we were talking about the Twilight Zone, and what a wonderful job he always did of putting important information into entertainment, in that case, in science fiction.

You know, the monsters are due on Maple Street. I don't know if you know this famous Twilight Zone episode. House of Un-American Activities. All of that stuff being done as a science fiction anthology series. You guys managed to do the same thing with the comedy. Maybe the broadest comedy ever made that has a theme and an ideology. It's something that's important and worth saying. That's one of the reasons I don't think the film's ever going to

go out of style. After 45 years, it hasn't gone out of style yet. It's not going to go out of style. Mel goes around the country. Yeah, I saw him at Radio City. Radio City does. Every time he goes somewhere,

it sells out. You can track the laughs. And it's a revelation. It's fresh. It's new. And there are new audiences. Yeah, that's the thing. And even in 74, there was a lot going on when you guys were writing it.

I mean, Nixon, Watergate had not happened yet. The Southern Strategy was still alive. Dr. King had just been killed, what, seven, eight years before. So, on some level, it must have occurred to you guys, not only were we making a, I guess this is a question, not only are we making a crazy comedy that's offensive, but we have a responsibility here? No. You didn't think about that? No, I thought, well, that's what the movie was. The movie was about that.

How do you make it funny and still about that? Does it get in your way if you think about that? Does it get in the way of the funny? Absolutely. Yeah. You can't second guess yourself. I want to know why

we're not being interviewed by John Meacham. Yeah. It's an important movie yeah it is it is I don't want to

I don't want to lose sight of that you guys do you guys remember somebody named Ralph Manza Ralph Manza? yeah or Manza I bring this up

not Mamza no I was working on a terrible sitcom in the 90s and he walked in to audition and I recognized him immediately and I got up

and I said you're Ralph Manza and he had in to audition and i recognized him immediately and i got up and i said you're ralph manza and he had he you know a working character actor had never been recognized by name only face and he was thrilled that somebody for the first time knew his name because i'm so obsessed with blazing saddles he's the hitler in the commissary they lose me after the bunker scene well it's got to be any picture that Mel is involved in. There has to be at least one hit. Of course. That's Ralph Manza.

Did he make it possible? Did Mel make it possible for the Jojo Rabbit? That's interesting. That's an interesting question. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. See, now that film is coming out,

and we're supposedly living in a climate where there's no room for that movie. And yet, did he ever tell Frankie Lane that he was singing for a comedy? No, no. That would have ruined it. Frankie Lane thought he was doing a hit single, which he was. It's a great song. Yeah. a hit single,

which he was. It's a great song. Yeah. You want to ask these guys anything else, Gil, before we let them, we let Norman dry off? Yeah, no.

I'm dry, dog. Everything we've brought up has been untrue. We've debunked one myth after the other. Andrew was going to tell us why he chose the pseudonym

Warren Bogle for Big Trouble. Well, I wasn't going to put my why he chose the pseudonym Warren Bogle for Big Trouble. Well, I wasn't going to put my name on that. That's the first thing. It had to be some pseudonym after Cassavetes wreaked havoc. Oh, God. No, W.C. Fields used a name Charles C. Bogle on a bunch of scripts that he wrote. Because he wrote all his own stuff, but he didn't use his name.

And he used the name Charles Bogle so I just switched Charles to Warren I thought it was hipper so that's Warren Bogle didn't want to go with Alan Smith he's only for the DGA now now yeah it's a cliche a real good one when you left here last time you didn't

tell us any James Caan or Burt Reynolds stories do you have a quick even if it's just a thought or a quick memory James Jimmy Caan or Burt Reynolds stories? Do you have a quick, even if it's just a thought or a quick memory? James, Jimmy Caan, really had like stage fright. And he worked at the last possible second, you know? This is Honeymoon in Vegas. This is Honeymoon in Vegas, you know,

and he's always bullshitting, and he's a great bullshitter, and he talks, he's a talkie. He and he talks to talk he likes to tell dirty jokes just schmooze and i i realized i would have to walk with him and listen and i would walk with him and walk with him and walk with him until we got to where this the shot was going to be. And then he realized it was all set up. He said, you son of a bitch. There was no way. If I was waiting in front of the camper, he would have

50 other stories about, you know, Godfather. I mean, he had great Oh, we got to get him on here if he'll do it. He has a wonderful story about the start of the first table reading of Godfather. He says, they say, start. And Marlon has the first line.

And Marlon's like. Nobody can hear a word he's saying. It's Marlon Brando. So now the other actors. They're just all mumbling for three hours. And Francis Culp was going completely crazy. I can't hear anything. He had a lot of great stories.

He did an interview recently with Alec Baldwin on his podcast. Oh, I have to listen. Yeah. Jimmy did? Yeah. It's worth listening to. What about, I'm going to throw one at you, Norman. You worked on a show called The Bay City Amusement Company.

Yes. I found Pat McCormick's name in the cast. Pat McCormick, he was wonderful. He played one of the writers. It was a Saturday Night Live type situation in San Francisco. And I found, somebody brought me this guy. They said, you got to see this guy. We were looking for the head writer, the head sketch player.

And he said, this kid, you got to see him. And he comes in. It's Robin Williams. Wow. And he comes in. It's Robin Williams. Wow. And he just exploded. And I called. We were in Burbank, and I called NBC. I said, I have him.

I have the character. I'm coming down. We were there in a half hour. He was brilliantly funny. They asked him to step out of the room and they said too crazy. Too crazy?

And the next thing, which even was dumber, they said, why don't you do it? You know all the words. To you? Yeah, to me. I said, what? Who are these geniuses? I digress, but Pat McCormick came in the first day.

I remember the first joke. He was waving a piece of paper. He said, I got my license. I can shit in the street. Is it television show? It's Pat McCormick. This was just a rehearsal. Oh, a rehearsal.

And then the second thing he said, he sat down and he said, oh, I have Lenny Bruce's old typewriter. It has four extra F's in it.

That's funny. We've heard a lot of stories about him on this show. Oh, his news. Like putting his newborn baby on a platter at a party and putting a garnish

around it and drove around he was a harvard graduate yeah drove around in a red rolls royce and he ended up in the the writers guild home out in uh supposedly rooming with Stanley Kramer. And so Jack Riley came in and he said to Pat, Oh, I see you finally got a meeting. That's good. Can you imagine living in an old writer's home? That is the scariest thing I've ever heard of. Just the thought of it. I couldn't sleep with one eye open.

I maybe have one more question for each of you. Timmy Rogers. Ring any bells? You worked with Timmy Rogers on a show called The Wonderful World of Aggravation with Klugman and Randall? Does this mean anything? Holy moly. That's like an Alan King.

Larry Storch, Alan King? Yeah. No memories. Boy, I'm trying to forget that. Okay. I loved Alan King? Yeah. No memories. Boy, I'm trying to forget that. Okay. I loved Alan King, by the way. Yeah? Alan King was, I loved him because he loved writers.

And he owned part of, I think he owned the Eastern Distribution for Tanker Agent. Yes, he had some booze connection. Did he? You want to tell these guys your Alan King story? It's worth it. I remember there was a big show, a big comedy show at Lincoln Center and he was the

emcee. And he introduced me. I went up and I was out there in jeans and a sweatshirt and sneakers. And as I'm walking off and the audience is applauding, Alan King goes back up to the mic, looks at me, stares at me, and then looks at the crowd and goes, When I come up on stage, my hair is combed and quaffed. My suit is pressed.

My shoes are shined. And then he walks out looking like he rolled around in shit. Shit. Good night. It's been great, folks. I want to tell our listeners, if you haven't seen Norman's wonderful movie, My Favorite Year, what are you waiting for?

By the way, we had you, we had Macy here, we had Richard Benjamin here. We have put the word out about this wonderful movie. Well, we are now developing a TV series based on it. Wonderful! Yes, with Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana. You couldn't get two better guys.

The greatest. What a fantastic movie. So, it was great. So many levels. We also have to recommend, we didn't talk about The In-Laws, but we could do whole episodes about these wonderful movies. If our listeners, if you haven't seen The In-Laws, what are you waiting for? What are you doing listening to this show?

And Andrew, it's wonderful it could happen to you, which I think of as the best Frank Capra movie that he never made. Bless your heart. It's terrific. It's terrific. And it's a great valentine to this city we all...

Well, thank you. We all live in. That's all I got, Gil. Yeah. Okay. Unless you want to tell Norman about Cosby and the Asian models,

we can get out of here. Last time we were doing John MacGyver imitations. Oh, yeah. Hit him with your John MacGyver imitations. Hit him with your John MacGyver. Okay. Everything must be run according to schedule. We will have no

slackers working here. I run this company like the captain of a ship. It's my favorite. It's sick. It just kills me. Have you heard of Peter Lorre? Yes. The MacGyver is so perverse.

I've heard of the Peter Lorre's. Nobody does John MacGyver. John MacGyver didn't do it. The Bill Cosby story is the writers of the Cosby show told me that he had an hour set apart in the schedule and the day where uh it he teaches uh comedy to Asian models so you I had his own Cosby stories.

Intensively. Yeah. What did you say? It explains why you see so many beautiful Asian comedians. So many funny Asian models. The comedy clubs are packed with Asian models. I got in trouble. We had Griffin Dunn here, and I did not ask any questions about Johnny Dangerously.

I had lunch with Griffin. He's the best. He's really good. And he's in This Is Us now. Yes, he's doing all kinds of stuff. Yeah, he's great. So my fans, our listeners will get mad at us if I don't ask one Johnny Dangerously story. Was it loosely based on Manhattan melodrama?

No. The Clark Gable, William Powell. No. Not at all. There was a guy named Bud Austin who was head of Paramount Television said, hey, you did Blazing Saddles, why not do Blazing Tommy Guns? And that was the genesis. And that was it. What a cast in that movie. Great. Great. It it. That was it. What a cast in that movie. Great. Great. It was a lot of fun.

And, you know, it resonates. It's on, they tell me, on social media. It's a big hit. Yeah. They got after me for not asking Johnny. By the way, Andrew, since you were last here, the stories of the Brando phone call levels. Yes. Our listeners, I'll send you more. I'm still getting mad about it.

Is it the tuna fish? The tuna fish. The tuna fish one, tuna fish two. You had to be there. It's all true. This was fun. This was a lot of fun.

It's just so easy to interview you guys and talk to you. We're sorry nothing that we said was true. It's better that way. If it was true, it would be so depressing.

Oh yeah, that's right. You'll come back. We have a million more questions about John Cleese and Joe Bologna and so much, so much stuff. We could go on for hours. And this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast

with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and our return guests, Andrew Bergman and Norman Steinberg, who, among a million other credits, helped write the film Blazing Saddles, which is celebrating its 45th anniversary. You guys have officially been friends for 45 years. We have. Pretty good. 47 years. More than that.

We met in 72. Came out in 45. We met in 72. Right. You throw a great party, too, by the way. We're older gentlemen. Gentlemen. Older gentlemen.

Older Jewish. I'm in high middle age. I'm approaching high middle age. I'm approaching high middle age. We love talking to you guys. Thanks for schlepping out in the rain. Yeah, yeah, enough. Next time we get a cab service. Okay.

Let's step up a little. Talk to him. He was then the goddess of desire. Set men on fire. I have this power. Morning, noon, and night, it's drink and dancing. Some quick romancing, and then a shower. Stage door johnnies constantly surround me.

They always hound me with one request. Who can satisfy their lustful habit I'm not a rabbit I need some rest time. Sick and tired of love. I've had my fill of love from below and above. Tired of being admired. Tired of love uninspired. Let's face it, I'm tired. I've been with thousands of men, again and again. They promised the moon. They're always coming And going And going

And coming And always too soon I'm tired Tired of playing the game Ain't it a crying shame I'm so tired. God damn it, I'm exhausted. Hello, cowboy. What's your name?

Taxman. Taxman. Tell me, taxman, are you in show business? Nope. Well, then why don't you get your friggin' speedo back? Nope. Well then why don't you get your friggin' beat up? Hello handsome, is that a ten gallon hat or are you just enjoying the show? Oh, Miss Lily.

Oh, my lovely baby. Push it, Jack. Put it there, baby. Put it... I'm tired of playing the game Ain't it a cryin' shame? I'm so tired She's tired She's tired And tired of love Give her a break! She's had, she's tired Sick and tired of love

Give her a break She's had a bit of love She's done a snake From below and above Can't you see she's sick? Tired, she's bushed Tired of being admired Let her alone

Tired of love like it's fire Get off your phone She's tired Don't you know she's pooped? I've been with thousands of men, again and again. They sing the same tune. They start with Byron and Shirley. They chomp on your belly and bust your balloon. balloon I'm tired

tired of playing the game ain't it a freaking shame I'm so let's face it everything below the waist

is kaput!