Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Bob Costas

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

Emmy-winning broadcaster and Baseball Hall of Famer Bob Costas returns to the podcast for an animated conversation about his five-decade career in television, his passion for TV westerns, his weakness for cheesy sports biopics and his memorable interviews with Rod Steiger, Jerry Lewis, Mickey Mantle, Don Rickles and Rodney Dangerfield. Also, Uncle Miltie drops the mic, Ralph Kramden does the mambo, Lon Chaney Jr. meets "The Rifleman" and Bob gets his very own Topps baseball card. PLUS: "The Million Dollar Movie"! Appreciating Joe Franklin! Babe Ruth to the rescue! William Conrad learns karate! And Bob remembers the late, great Tom Seaver. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. hi i'm gilbert godfrey with my co-host frank santopadre and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. Well, it's October and that's the perfect time to have this week's guest back for a return visit. The last time we saw this man, he was on all fours crawling on the floor at the Friars Club to get away from us. He's an Emmy-winning talk show host, radio host, TV personality, best-selling author, occasional actor, and one of the most successful and admired broadcasters of all time,

winning 26 Emmys in all. The only person in TV history to have won Emmy Awards for sports news and entertainment. He's been named National Sportscaster of the Year a record eight times. He's a member of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. And in 2018, he was inducted into the broadcaster's wing of baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. He's hosted the popular radio show Costas Coast to Coast, the HBO shows On the Record with Bob Costas and Costas Now. And from 1988 to 1993, he hosted a late-night interview show that would go on to influence this very podcast, the very much missed Later Bob Costas. Or Later With Bob Costas. Later With. That's not the first mistake I've made reading this intro. So just act like you didn't hear.

In a career that started way back when he was just four years old, way back when he was just four years old. He hosted seven Super Bowls, has been part of the coverage as either a play-by-play announcer or host of seven World Series and 10 NBA Finals. He's also been a prominent part of presentations of the Kentucky Derby, as well as the U.S. Open and 11 Olympics. He's currently working with the MLB Network on an on-air contributor to CNN. CNN. He will be launching a new HBO show on 2021. And

perhaps the most impressive of the man's achievements is the fact that he could sing the theme from the series Top Cat. Remember, also, name every one of the Stop Cat. From memory.

Also, name every one of the U.S. presidents in order. Frank and I are thrilled to welcome back to the show one of the greatest broadcasters of his generation and the only guest to

be immortalized with his own baseball card and a bobblehead figure, the legendary Bob Costas. You made it, Gil. Well, well, how about that? You know, by the way, I have been saying to people for quite some time, I believe that the upcoming census will reveal, among other things, that about one in every five Americans has a podcast, but less than one in every five of those are worth listening to. This is at the top or near the top of that pyramid of those worth listening to. I've gotten so much response, even though it was four or five years ago, so much response to being on this program, and including it gave me an excuse.

It had been about a year since I last spoke with Mary Lou Henner. But Mary Lou was on recently, and someone tipped me off to it, and I immediately listened to it, and she reprised part of the story about her appearance on later and there then ensued a lovely text exchange between Mary Lou and myself and actually we had last communicated on the 50th anniversary of men walking on the moon so that would have been July of 2019, which occasioned our entire connection. So take it from there if you wish. Do you know what he's referring to specifically, Gil?

I think, yes, I do. But go ahead, tell the story. Well, Mary Lou, as our research showed, and it wasn't as widely known then when she was on our program in, I think, 1989. It wasn't as widely known then about her as it subsequently became because she did a 60 Minutes piece, and then she talked about it elsewhere. But the research showed that she has that facility. I forget exactly what it's called, but she's one of those rare people who can recall where she was and what she was doing every day of her life. And if you give her a date, if you said December 8th, 1974, she would tell you if it was, oh, that was a Tuesday. And then she would tell you what she was doing that day.

So after establishing that, I threw out a few random dates. And she said, oh, I was in the sixth grade and I was in Mr. Jones's class and I was sitting next to Sally Jenkins or whatever it might have been. And so there were two or three of those. And then it occurred to me those dates don't mean anything to anyone else. Let me think of a date where everybody remembers where they were. And November 22nd, 1963 seemed too dark. they were. And November 22nd, 1963 seemed too dark. So I picked July 20th, 1969, the night men walked on the moon. So I say, okay, how about one that all of us remember? We'd be interested to know what you were up to on July 20th, 1969. And she says, who told you this? And I said, nobody. I just picked it out of thin air. Oh, come on. No,

I promise you, I would tell you, I just selected it randomly. Then she starts doing that nervous thing where she's twirling her hair with her index finger, you know, and then she crosses and uncrosses her legs. And she says, all right. And then she starts again and she starts and stops like two or three times, each time saying, who put you up to this? How do you know this? And then finally she says, all right, that's the night I lost my virginity. And there was no studio audience for later. Right, sure. The text, the stage manager, the cameraman, they're all cracking up.

And before I can utter another sound or ask a follow-up question, she offers on her own, standing up in the shower. And so I then say, well, one thing we know for sure, Neil Armstrong wasn't the guy. Great line. So that kind of bonded me and Mary Lou for a very long time since. And she has told me when we're not in constant contact,

but we have crossed paths and we do occasionally text or call. And she says to this day, people will still occasionally say to her, see her in a restaurant or whatever. Hey, Mary Lou, where were you the night man walked on the moon? That's hilarious. She's a good sport. She was a great guest for us. Oh, she's great. Yeah. She's great. She's a ton of fun. And now another thing I want to get to. One time years ago, I was

filming a guest appearance on some sitcom. And on the lot, it was the same lot where they were shooting Mr. Belvedere. And we got an announcement. We were the first to know, the people working on that lot, we were the first to know that Christopher Hewitt,

who played Mr. Belvedere, had just been rushed to the hospital because he accidentally sat on his own balls. Now, that that really is something that you want to avoid if you possibly can. And, you know, it's interesting how things intersect. We're not talking about his testicles in this case, but things do intersect. You know that his co-star on Mr. Belvedere was Mr. Baseball

Bob Euchre, who is one of my best friends. He and I broadcast games on NBC in the 90s together. He is one of the highest totals of appearances on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show was Johnny, who dubbed him Mr. Baseball.

He just loved him and his deadpan humor, the Major League movies and the Miller Lite commercials that he was part of. And to this day, he's 86 or 87 years old, and he's still the radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers. So I will call him up after we finish this podcast and ask for a detailed description of just what it was that happened to Christopher Hewitt's boys on that particular occasion. I heard Bob Yuka still wakes up crying. I heard Bob Yuka still wakes up crying. Yes, but Christopher wakes up with his voice several octaves higher than his voice.

I think we lost Christopher. So is he gone? Yeah, he's gone. Well, I think he died after he sat on his own balls. Gilbert, didn't they make an announcement like on the lot? Yes. That's where you really want people to find out. You want it to be on a loudspeaker.

Attention, everyone. Christopher Hewitt sat on his own balls. We all pray with him. I imagine there are two ways you could look at this. He might try to spin it, you know, well, in all humility when you're blessed as I am sometimes. On the other hand, the other interpretation

could be when age takes over, gravity affects all parts of one's anatomy. So take whichever explanation you prefer. You know, I haven't thought of this in 25 years. 1995 World Series. I'm doing the World Series in Atlanta with Bob Uecker and Joe Morgan. Cleveland's playing Atlanta. And I think it was Albert Bell, doesn't matter, at bat for the Indians. And he squibs a little foul ball down the first baseline. And the ball is kind of spinning around and you don't know if it's going

to spin fair or stay foul. And the first baseman runs over and grabs it while it's still in foul territory. And I said, Ueck, that ball had more English on while it's still in foul territory. And I said, you, that ball had more English on it than Mr. Belvedere. And he said, he said, well, I'm going back to the hotel. Cause he was like, where did that come from? The only Mr. Belvedere reference in the last 20 years on network television. You, you gave him a good ribbing at your hall of fame induction too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was fun. He was nice enough to come in. He and his wife came to the ceremony. So did so many other people I'd worked with were there. Tim McCarver came. It was very touching that a lot of people who had been part of my career, both as fellow broadcasters and as producers, directors, colleagues. The ceremony was in July of 2018, but they make the announcement as to who is elected in December. And within an hour of that announcement, Vin Scully called me.

And in that inimitable, but I'll try, Vin Scully voice, Bob Vin Scully, like who the hell else could it be? You don't have to tell me it's Vin Scully. Bob Vin Scully, I just want to say, welcome to the club. Well, if you're part of a club that includes Vin Scully, nothing wrong with that. And within an hour after that, Dick Enberg called me, the late great Dick Enberg, so gracious. He preceded me into the broadcaster's wing,

one of the all-time greats. And he congratulated me. And that was the last conversation I ever had with him because a week later, he passed away unexpectedly. But just so gracious. I realize that's a more serious note than we usually strike on this. No, it's fine. But so gracious. Two of the true all-time greats and great gentlemen, as well as great broadcasters. I remember Dick Enberg as the host of Sports Challenge. Yes. Remember that wonderful show? Now, you know, everything leads to a story doesn't it sure okay if you remember i know you do frank maybe gilbert does not but sports challenge i'm sure i'm confident he does not i threw in the maybe to be polite yeah okay so sports challenge would bring together three legends from some

legendary team I could be three Boston Celtics it'd be Bill Russell uh Bob Cousy and Sam Jones against three legendary Yankees be the Mickey Mantle Billy Martin and Yogi Berra and they would ask them sports trivia questions that's right but the the final round was a one minute long thing where you had to identify the sports legend who was backstage and seen only in silhouette. Yeah. And the clock would start 60, 59, 58. So the earlier you got it, the more points you'd get. If you got it right away, you might get 55, 56 points. So I can't remember what team it was, but one team that was trailing. And so they figured they have to, if they have any chance at all, they got to get it early. All right. So we see this figure in silhouette and

Enberg begins to read the clues and the clues are in ascending order of or descending order actually of difficulty okay so you shouldn't be able to get it right away but then as you get closer to the clock expiring it should become more and more obvious so here's the first clue this triple crown winner ding ding ding ding the team clicks in secretariat well wait a minute you see the silhouette it's a human being okay they didn't bring secretariat in and stable and backstage it's a human being that's great so it has to be it has to be someone who won the triple crown of baseball it has to be someone who won the Triple Crown in baseball. It has to be Mickey Mantle. It has to be Carl Yastrzemski. It turns out it was Frank Robinson.

So Frank Robinson comes out from backstage. That's great. That's a great blooper. But he didn't have a jockey on his back. That's a great blooper. Gil, you don't remember that show, huh? Oh, I think about it every day. Did you look at the Jerry Lewis clips with Bob that I sent you?

No, I don't look at anything you send me. Okay, good. Yeah. Bob and I were on the phone talking about later a show that we adored and that we've talked about before with Bob and that has influenced this podcast. I think Gilbert is interested if you have any memories of Rod Steiger or Jerry Lewis.

You know, Jerry Lewis, and this is well known, catch him on the right day, wonderfully anecdotal, open, candid, insightful, all those things. For whatever reason, I guess he liked me.

We did a double with him, back-to-back shows. He was absolutely wonderful. He was open about Dean Martin. There was a little bit of that brashness, but not in a way that was off-putting at all. So he was he was terrific. He was terrific. Steiger got so emotional talking about the last scene in the pawnbroker and what he conjured up in his mind's eye to get into the right frame of mind to to play the scene. And I wish I had a better payoff for this anecdote. But, you know, people often on a program like that, if you could establish some trust and you could get them comfortable, it wasn't so much how good the question was. It was whether they felt comfortable enough to just give it up. You know, if you create the right atmosphere in an interview program, sometimes you're just the beneficiary. You're just sitting there when they all of a sudden decide to open up and something terrific happens. I think you have that gift.

I remember Steiger because he was looking at a, you know, a guy who had just been shot. looking at a you know a guy who had just been shot and and he said he envisioned his daughter lying there that's right that's right that's right that that's what he said it's one of the great things about later we talked about it you know the diversity and the different kind of guests that you could have lev cell and you could have soupy sales the next night. Yeah. You know, Barry Goldwater and then Smokey Robinson and Don Rickles and Don Rickles and, and, and Ted, Ted Williams. And I,

I mean the, the variety, the sheer variety of guests and you, you always, and we talked last time you were here about that wonderful Anthony Quinn moment. You, you,

you obviously were very good at that. You had a gift for getting and still do for getting these people to open up for for trusting you as as Quinn did in that wonderful moment. Yeah. Well, I think Anthony Quinn, before he told that story about his son and how that affected his playing the the signature scene in Zorba the Greek. Yeah. He said before he delivered that story, which he said he had never talked about publicly before, he said, well, you've been very nice to me and you seem to honestly want to know a lot about me. So this was the word he used. So I'll confess to you that I live with the pain of losing a son. He said his son died when he was only two or three years old. He didn't tell me how.

I later found out that the boy drowned in W.C. Field swimming pool. Yeah, they lived next door to each other. Yeah, in the late 1930s or early 40s. And then Quinn went on to describe how he couldn't accept the boy's death. He adored the boy, of course. And so he created a life for him. And he imagined that he had grown up and he lived in San Francisco and he was an architect and he could communicate with him, talk with him, talk about their respective lives.

And so he was conjuring up his notions about the son he lost when, as it turns out, this scene at the end of Zorba the Greek, Zorba's talking about losing his little son, Dimitri. And he says that at the funeral, everyone was weeping, but I got up and danced. And I just stumbled across this. I said, what were you thinking of when you played that scene and uttered those words? And that's when he folded his arms across his chest and with that granite face, it looked like he could go on Mount Rushmore. He kind of jutted his chin out and kind of steeled himself, took a deep breath because he wasn't 100 percent sure, I guess, that he was going to go there. And then he said, well, you seem to want

to know a lot about me. I'll confess. And then he told the story. Yeah. You know, you and I talked about this on the phone, Bob, and you're proud of those interviews, as you should be. I mean, and never probably never a better McCartney interview than on those than on your show, Scorsese, you know, two nights with Jerry Lewis. I mean, there's there's so much wonderful stuff there. And I will tell our listeners that you can see some of these, including the Quinn interview on YouTube. of these, including the Quinn interview on YouTube. Yeah. You know, what's one of the things that's gratifying to me is even the ones that you mentioned, like McCartney or George Carlin. Yeah. Another great one. I will hear from people who really followed their careers, knowledgeable people who will say that was the most definitive. That was the closest to definitive. Of course, we had the time, but we didn't waste the time. And we had too much

respect, not just me, but the producers and the researchers, too much respect for the vast majority of people we had on as guests. Because even though sometimes you had to book somebody just because you had to fill a slot, the idea for the overwhelming majority of them was they had to have a body of work. They weren't talking about some film they were trying to peddle or a book they had just written. It was their overall career body of work that brought them there. And we had enough respect for that to have done the research. And in the case of many of them, because I'm a pop culture fan, I was familiar with a lot of it to begin with, but I always did the additional research.

And a lot of times, and you're probably familiar with this phenomenon if it is a phenomenon yourself, a few minutes into an interview, the subject can tell this isn't all just boilerplate stuff. The same questions I've heard a dozen times or more, I can just answer them robotically. These people have taken the time and have shown me the respect and regard to be really prepared and ask me some interesting things. So I better respond in kind. I better respect this opportunity and be on my A game. We strive to do that here. As I told you, you and Cavett have been profound influences on what we're trying to achieve with this show. And also, you're one of us. I'm watching you with Audrey Meadows last night, and you're like pulling out Mrs. Manicotti and Carlos Sanchez.

I know you're not nervous, Ralph. You're the man who bribes the dust. Why don't you just quit at $1,000 a mere bag of shells? I'm going all the way, all the way to the $99,000 answer, Alice. It's great to see, too, you interviewing somebody like Audrey Meadows.

And the thing you're talking about, she can tell right away, as you say that magical moment, five, 10 minutes in, she knows she's in good hands. She knows she's with somebody who has genuine affection for her accomplishments and what she's done. And that's why they were, among other reasons, that's why they were so pleasurable to watch. And people can see that Audrey Meadows interview, too.

It's so much fun. Oh, he's teaching you to mambo. What'slos doing here and how about the end scene right after as they inevitably do alice and ralph make up ralph is insanely jealous because he adores alice if if any if anybody including the 90 year old doorman glances sideways at alice he goes berserk, right? But now all has kind of been resolved, and they put the record player on, and the mambo comes on,

and Gleason starts doing those great Gleason dances, you know, with the arms spread out. You know, he was a nimble fat man. You know, he's light on his feet doing that whole thing. And Art Carney's doing some ridiculous thing. But you know what Alice told me, and you can see it in that scene. She said, I decided early on. I said Alice, it's really Audrey Meadows as Alice.

I decided early on I would play Alice stationary. Other than when entering or leaving. I always stood in one place because the set in that kind of living room of their apartment, I guess on Canarsie Street in Brooklyn, was small. They had the icebox and the table and the window and the dresser by the wall. It was small. And Gleason was big, both literally and figuratively. He was not just a large man, he played big. And Carney was a very physical actor if he was in the scene. So she just stayed stationary, and that was a good counterpoint to all of that motion and energy. And of course, very often the line that she would have would puncture whatever Ralph was up to,

whatever grandiose plans or absurd observations he was making, then she would just prick the bubble with some sarcastic remark. And that's the way she played Alice. And, you know, the mistake people make watching the honeymooners now is they'll say, oh, that's so awful where he's threatening to punch her. And, you know, yeah, he was threatening to punch her, but it always showed she had the upper hand and she was the more sensible of the two. And that was the way she answered that question. Even in, you know, 1990 or 91, whenever she was on, that was kind of a question that people wanted me to ask. And so I asked that question and she said, everyone could see the love. Everyone knew it was just

bluster and he adored her and there was no way he would ever muss a hair on her head. But you can't imagine now with political correctness being what it is, that even in the context of a sitcom with all the characters motivations understood, that you could get away with one of these days, Alice, bang, zoom to the moon. She also told a lovely story of the last time she talked to Jackie on the phone on your episode, which, again, people can find it. It's sweet. Gleason's Gle by his hospital bed. It was clearly in his last days, toward his very last days. And Audrey Meadows calls and Gleason is barely responsive. And he she says his wife says, Jack, Jack, it's Alice.

It's your Alice. And then his eyes opened and he perked up and she put the phone by his ear. And Audrey wanted to say something appreciative. And I think I've got this right. She said something like, thank you for making me your Alice. And then he said with that Gleason bravado, maybe the last time he ever summoned it up, I always knew what I was doing. I knew you were right. I always knew that you were Alice. I mean, does it get any better than that? No. And that's the last time she spoke to him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Truly great. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. 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,

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DQ. Happy tastes good. I also love the silly moments on later. I love when Harvey Korman out of the blue told you you looked like Jerry Lewis and you fell out of the chair. Because the resemblance is unmistakable. And tell us again, I brought him up before, but Don Rickles. What was it like having him there? Well, you know, it's a badge of honor to have been insulted by Rickles.

So right in the middle of some riff of his, he just looks at me and he goes, you're a dull guy. Even at 1.30 in the morning, it's dull. Look at this. He goes, some 30-year-old punk gets hot in this business, and I've got to chase after Johnny Carson's car going... And just then, you know, we're on the set in Burbank. So actually, the Tonight Show set isn't far away.

But just then, a motorcycle goes by, and you can hear it as clear as if it had driven onto the set. And he turns his head and he looks. As he's looking at it, he goes, Oh, real nice studio you have here, Bob. Real soundproof. Why don't you all pitch in and close the doors? He goes, what am I doing on a show like this?

I'm a big star. So now, now, now you talk about the last time you spoke to somebody, maybe, I don't know, four or five months before his death. I'm in a restaurant in Beverly Hills, a restaurant where I had had dinner with Don and his and his wife, Barbara, who were very good friends with Al and Linda Michaels. who are very good friends with Al and Linda Michaels. So anyway, on this particular occasion, I'm with my wife, Jill, and another couple, and we're toward the front of the restaurant.

And we must have gotten there well after Rickles and his party had arrived. So he's at the back of the restaurant, the last kind of booth or alcove before you'd go down a long hallway toward the restrooms. And his back is to the rest of the room. So I get up to go to the men's room. And as I'm walking toward the corridor, I see the unmistakable figure of Rickles. You don't have to see his face, just the shape of his body and his head from behind, right? So I come up behind him and I tap his shoulder,

right? Now remember, he's 89 years old at this point or whatever he is. I tap him on the shoulder. He turns, and in a split second, he has no idea I'm there. In a split second, he goes, I say this as a friend. People are getting tired of you. Fantastic. What about, going from one iconic comic to another, what about Rodney, who you had on your HBO show?

Yeah, Rodney and I first became acquainted. He had that back-to-school movie. Oh, sure. Where I'm'm gonna go out on a limb here and somebody's gonna take it out of context it'll wind up on the internet and it'll be fine for gilbert but it won't be so great for me but what the hell back to school remember he's he's sitting in a hot tub right he's like a 70-year-old guy who's like a freshman in college. And he's sitting in the hot tub, and these three co-eds go walking by,

and he says, "'Hey, honey, what's your major?' And she says, "'Poetry.'" He goes, "'Poetry, huh? Why don't you hop in here and help me out with my longfellow?' So... That's ridiculous. So anyway, back to school is coming out and NBC has the January 1986 Super Bowl between the Bears and the Patriots. So I'm hosting

the Super Bowl. And the idea is that Dangerfield will periodically appear during the pregame show. And the idea is he can't get periodically appear during the pregame show. And the idea is he can't get any respect. He can't get a ticket to the game. He's in a fleabag hotel outside New Orleans. And he's soaking his feet in a tub of ice because he's been traipsing up and down Bourbon Street trying to score tickets for the game. And his friend Bob won't help him out. But each time he'll mention something.

You know, oh, I went to a tough high school, Bob. On our team, after we sacked the quarterback, we went after his family. You know, that kind of stuff, trying to connect it to football. And they had this guy, you know, he was a guy who specialized in playing an old, decrepit guy. He was on Letterman a lot. A really skinny guy. Could it have been Carl Oldie Olsen? Does that ring a bell? Oh, yes. That sounds right.

That sounds right. Okay. So he played the bellman, all right? And he kept coming in with fresh, cold water to pour into this bucket of ice that Dangerfield was soaking his feet in. And each time, he would give the guy a tip. So he goes, here, a little something for yourself. And he walks out. Come next time, here, something for your wife.

And he walks out. Third time, something for your kids. And he starts to leave, and Oldie turns back and goes, I don't have any kids. And Dangerfield reaches back in his pocket with a huge wad and goes, here, get yourself some kids. So now Dangerfield and I become sort of friendly through this. And on HBO, I guess it must have been around 2005. It was whatever year Rodney passed away. And this turned out to be his last television appearance.

And we had a segment called 9 and 90, where a guest unknown to me would come out from behind a curtain. And I would have to hopefully recognize him or her. And then he or she would come with nine questions that I would have to answer in 90 seconds. But it was usually preceded by some sort of banter between me and the guest. So I have no idea it's gonna be Dangerfield. Rodney comes slowly shuffling out, and the crew goes nuts seeing it's Rodney Dangerfield. And while they're hooping and hollering, he says to me under his breath, ask me if I've been to the beach. And I they're hooping and hollering, he says to me under his breath, ask me if I've been to the beach.

And I'm thinking, well, that should be my first question. Here's like an 85-year-old guy who's white as a ghost. I'm sure he's spending the entire summer at Fire Island. So I say, Rodney, it's summertime. You've been to the beach? He goes, oh, yeah, Bob. I like to hang around a nude beach. And then the crew goes nuts again. Every time he says something,

it's punctuated by them cracking up. Yeah, I like to hang around a nude beach. Oh, really? He goes, yeah. The other day, a guy came up to me. He weighed 100 pounds. I go, oh, a skinny guy, yeah? He goes, yeah, 100 pounds. And 50 of that was in his testicles.

And now the crew is going nuts. I said, well, that's rather interesting. He says, yeah. He came up to me. He said, I'm depressed. I said, you're not depressed. You're half nuts. And that was so far as I know. He said, you're not depressed. You're half nuts. And that was, so far as I know, that was the last joke that Rodney Dangerfield ever told on the air.

And like a lot of great comics, a lot of great comics, it isn't remotely as funny unless it's told by Rodney. It's like you roasting George Takei. It isn't just the setting that you can get away with it at a fryer's roast like that. It's material that only works for Gilbert Gottfried, but it works to a 10 on a 10 scale for Gilbert Gottfried. Same thing with Rodney Dangerfield. He had created this persona. He'd created this character. If you or I

just sat down next to Johnny Carson and rattled off these jokes, not only would it not be good, it would be awful. We would bomb and never be invited back. But for Rodney, perfect. Those Carson appearances were so great because, as Gilbert says, you got two sets. You got the set when

he came out and the set in the chair. I always got the set when he came out and the set in the chair. Right. I always thought the set in the chair was even funnier. Even better. All Johnny would say is, how you been? Right. One, the transition was, I'm all

right now, but last week I was in bad shape. Last week I was in rough shape. Oh, and this other thing was, hey, Johnny, you got to go to the doctor. You know my doctor, Johnny. Dr. Vinny Boombatz. I mean, just last week he had three cases of BD in his office. I mean, he's all right now, but... I think one of my favorite Vinny Boombots jokes was,

Doc, I got yellow teeth. What should I do? Gilbert, you know the punchline. Wear a brown tie. Right. But, Bob, being that you're such a Rodney and a Gilbert fan, are you familiar with the cinematic gem that co-starred Gilbert and Rodney? Gilbert, you want to fill Bob in? Okay.

I was actually in two Rodney films. Oh, two. Forgive me. The last one I don't think was ever released. Oh, you're in Meet Wally Sparks, too, right? Meet Wally Sparks. Right. I? Meet Wally Sparks, I was in. That actually made it to theaters. And the other one was Back by Midnight, which even I haven't seen.

Nor have I. Bob will find it. Bob's a completist. He'll find it. I got a question from a listener, Bob, for you. Okay. find it. I got a question from a listener, Bob, for you. Oh, okay. John Breyer, if you could make a biopic of any sports figure, in what role might you cast Gilbert as the lead? Wow, that's great. You know what? Okay, if we do the life story of Larry Bird, okay,

or Bill Russell or John Havlicek, any Celtic great, Gilbert could play the legendary radio voice of the Celtics, Johnny Most. Johnny Most. Who had this gravelly voice, right? Am I right? Yes, very good. Good casting.

Now here's, oh, Havlicek stole the ball. Oh, Havlicek stole the ball! Havlicek stole the ball! I can't believe it! Now, I'm going to tell you a true story about Johnny Mose. Okay? He was having some difficulty with his hearing, right? And he goes to uh the uh the emt and the guy examines his ears and the tip of the ifb that broadcasters wear you know the little pink thing yeah yeah sure wrap it around your

your your earlobe and then stick it in your ear the tip of it had been lodged in there for God knows how long. Because apparently Johnny's hygiene was not the best. Okay? So I believe I've discovered your problem, Mr. Most. This has been plugging up your auditory canal

for the last six months. Silver would be ideal. the movie i want to be in is where i could go out on the field and go today i consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth that would play well why if you had been around gary cooper would never have gotten the role i watched pride of the yankees, Bob, which I was telling you about. We'll talk for a minute about these bad biopics. And Gilbert's particular bugaboo is the bad, what would you call it, Gilbert, the bad biopic exposition scene?

Oh, there's always those scenes, any biopic, where my favorite, my all-time favorite is one about Bobby Darin. Yeah, Beyond the Sea. And John Goodman is Bobby Darin's manager and Bobby Darin goes, well, like Kevin Spacey is

Bobby, says, ah, my career's nothing. And John Goodman has to stand there and go, are you kidding, Bobby? You've won seven Emmys, five Academy Awards, your album went triple platinum,

which has never been done before. And he gives a whole listing of every fact of Bobby Darin's career. Well, you know, I never was a soap opera fan, but my mom, when I was a kid, my mom would watch soap operas. And even then, at like 11 or 12, I figured out what they had to do. They had to catch people up in case they had missed a few episodes. So here'd be some woman sitting across from the male lead, let's say, and she'd say, well, you remember how difficult last year was for me. And then he'd say, yes, your daughter left home and you haven't been able to find her and you fell and you had amnesia for six months so you missed that portion of your life and then your husband left you and you took up

with the bartender but that didn't work out very well so yes of course i recall how difficult 1963 was for you but here we are now in 1964 and you started a new job here at General Hospital. It's the normal kind of dialogue that people engage in over lunch. I love when two characters sit down and one says to the other, okay, you're Bob Lane and you're a doctor and you lost your job as a doctor because you're of your alcoholism. Now, me, I'm a bank robber. And they had to explain it. There's some pretty bad exposition like that in the Babe Ruth story, which I watched again.

Nice to see Fred Mertz, by the way, turning up in the Babe Ruth story. Yeah, Fred Mertz, William Frawley played the Babe's first manager before he got to the Yankees when he was in Baltimore, right? They're on the train. That's right. And he has a line when they're punking him and they tell him to put his arm in the little luggage carrier on the

train and he says, don't you realize you're pitching a game against the world champion connie max philadelphia a's later today it's like 70 words right well you know you're fond of the dog rescue scene oh yeah that's one of the movies that is so bad okay it's so bad that it's good yes entertaining in just because of how atrocious it is uh will william bendix you know it's so bad that it's good. It's entertaining just because of how atrocious it is. William Bendix, it's disputed whether Babe Ruth really called his shot at Wrigley Field in the World Series in 1932. It kind of depends upon your perspective. Some of the last remaining

survivors had different ideas about it. And then some grainy old film showed up. And it made it look like he was sort of motioning out toward the pitcher and then motioning toward the Cubs dugout, but not emphatically pointing out into the distance to center field. But if you watch William Bendix, he stepped out of the batter's box and he pointed as if he was pointing toward the moon, not just the center field bleachers. And then, of course, he homers out in that direction.

But my favorite scene, actually, the early scene links to the later one. He hits a line drive during batting practice. And who knows why, but there's a little dog on the field down the right field line. So the ball, the ball strikes the dog okay and naturally the babe being the open-hearted fellow that he was runs to the dog's aid scoops up the dog forgets about the game and sprints to the

nearest hospital in full uniform to try and save the dog's life. So he walks in, the doctor says, babe, we'll do the best we can. They patch the dog up and the dog survives. Now, fast forward 15 years or whatever it is, and babe has throat cancer. And so they wheel him into the operating room and he looks up and who is the doctor? The guy who doubled as a veterinarian is now his oncologist. Of course.

And he says to his wife, hey, I know this guy, Claire. He's big league. That's it. That's it. And what did you think of the John Goodman? You know, I know John Goodman pretty well. I might as well be a St. Louis and I lived in St. Louis for 35 years. And John is from St. Louis. And he's a huge Cardinal fan. And that's our bond. And I've interviewed him several times. We've done charity things together. And I and he's a huge cardinal fan and that's our bond and i've interviewed him several times we've done charity things together and i think he's a magnificent actor it's a wonder to me that he

hasn't received nominations for best supporting actor because he's had so many wonderful turns in so many memorable movies but the babe ruth story was not one of them no No, sir. No. And it really hurt John because he's an honest to God really knowledgeable baseball fan and he wanted to do justice to it and it just didn't work. It just did not work.

And it was even more ridiculous in some respects than the William Bendix version. Frank and I were talking about this the other day. There's one scene where, to show just how he truly was the Sultan of Swat, he hit a pop-up so high that he was able to round the bases from home back to home before the ball descended to the earth. Now, keep in mind that Babe Ruth was known for many things, but not necessarily for his speed. And John Goodman as Babe Ruth didn't exactly conjure the idea of Lou Brock

or Ricky Henderson speeding around the bases. So he's in his little mincing steps, but somehow the ball is up there as long as Sputnik. So by the time it hits the ground. It's ridiculous. He's back in the dugout. That film had no respect for Babe Ruth or physics. No, no, just bad.

Frank and I were talking. You're a big fan of old New York television. Yeah, yeah. Joe Franklin. Joe Franklin's memory lane. We had him on this show. Yeah, yeah. Joe Franklin. Joe Franklin's memory lane. We had him on this show. Great, great. Brought to you by New New Nuko.

And there used to be those things like he'd have a lounge singer and a dentist. And he'd go, Joe so you as a lounge singer, you would need good teeth when you perform, right?

Bad segues. Yeah. Yeah. Billy Crystal sent him up pretty good on SNL. Oh, fantastic. And you know what's great about that yeah they just didn't care because someone in omaha had no idea no who this character was based on and they just didn't care they just did it because it was great and a new york audience got it you know and and all this and all they didn't even bother having they had george carlin

playing a fire chief yeah even bother bother to cast a celebrity in it. He was here. He did one of our first shows, Bob. Gilbert and I had great affection for the man. He was probably a member of the Friars Club, I would guess. Oh, yes. Yes. But we spent time with him there.

I'll never forget, Frank and I were sitting there talking, and we looked down this long hallway, sitting there talking and we looked down this long hallway and Joe Franklin, it's a silhouette of him as he disappears. And I thought, oh my God, you couldn't set this up any better. We were both standing in the hallway and noticed it at the same time. And he almost disappeared like Chaplin into the Iris. It was a poetic exit. You know, Joe always felt, you'd be watching Joe in 1984, and he would talk about something that happened in 1934

as if it was hot news. Yeah. You know, these kids these kids today these these hep cats today doing the charleston and everything else i can't keep up with it and you know so i was i was saying to georgie jessel i said what the what's going on is shirley Temple ever going to grow up? What do you guys think? Discuss. And what was funny, too, at the beginning of the show, there would be a collage of photos of him talking to, like, Al Jolson and people like that. And there was never anyone vaguely famous on it.

No. A cavalcade of all-time show business greats. And then our guest is someone who once saw Bobby Short at the Carlisle Room. We'll be talking to Herman

Finkelstein for the next hour about how much he enjoyed Bobby's catalog of American pop classics. There'd be a woman sitting there crocheting, and he'd suddenly ask for her opinion of Hoagy Carmichael. Right. But he was a treasure.

When I was hosting the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, at the opening ceremony, they played Georgia. So I say, so here in tribute to the host city and state, here's Hoagy Carmichael's Georgia. And some people misunderstood and NBC got letters back when people still wrote letters, maybe not a flood, but at least a trickle of letters. Why did Bob Costas say Georgia is a hokey song? No, I said it's by Hoagie Carmichael. I got one more thing on the Babe Ruth story. The doctor operates on the dog. They don't keep the dog.

He hands the dog right over to him, the babe. And he runs away. Thanks, doc. And he runs away, basically swinging the basket. And you can see the dog, the post-surgical dog, is basically strapped into this basket. Right. The babe takes off, goes to the game miller huggins reams him out for what for you know

finds him suspends him for suspending for for saving the dog i mean it's it's it's it's ridiculous from start to finish and bendix looks as much like the babe as gilbert does Now, how much truth and how much fiction is there in a dying child? I always wonder. Oh, Johnny. Was it Johnny Sylvester? Yeah, Johnny Sylvester. Yeah. Who was a real kid.

Right. And apparently he did promise Johnny that he would get a home run for him. he did promise Johnny that he would hit a home run for him. Whether it was under the exact circumstances as depicted in the movie. That's, that's debatable. It's the called shot. They combined. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. And they come, they combined the two of them more, more than poetic license. Right. Apparently he did, he did promise and he did love children.

He was, he was great. He was great with children. And then there was in the, in pride of the yankees they made it as if uh lou garrig had hit two home runs because he had to go the babe one better and it's two home runs for a sick kid in the hospital and you know you know what would always happen the kid would be all but gone all but comatose sure the game would be on the radio and then as soon as the homer cleared the wall the kid's face would brighten his eyes would open and he'd all but jump up and hit a home run himself right well in the goodman movie the

kid is an adult and finds and finds the babe in the tunnel as as as babe is leaving the game right never which never happened no and and the thing in pride of the game, which never happened. No. And the thing in Pride of the Yankees never happened. But also my favorite is in the Babe Ruth story with Bendix, there's the other kid who's at spring training who's disabled but learns to walk again because the Babe speaks to him. Right. Right.

The Babe made more people walk than Ernest Ainsley. That's a reference. Remember Ernest Ainsley? Of course. The late night televangelist. Yes, of course. And he would put his hands on the person's head and say, deaf spirits out. And then all of a sudden the hearing impaired

person could hear perfectly. And blind spirits out and all of a sudden supposedly, and there were a couple of times where they got confused, his handlers got confused. And the person said, no, it, no, it's my arthritis. When he actually thought there was something with their hearing. And he would always say, there, you got it. There, you got it. That's great. Well, no, no, it's my hands.

I can't go. There, keep it moving. Keep it moving. And I always thought to myself, on why I had a taste for this stuff when I was like 12 years old, and in the summertime, I'd be up at two o'clock in the morning,

that if he really had the power to rejuvenate faltering parts of one's anatomy, why couldn't he regenerate hair growth atop his own skull? That's anatomy. Uh-huh. Why couldn't he regenerate hair growth atop his own skull? That's right. Rather than wearing one of the worst toupees in the history of America. Now, a sports movie that I like,

because I know nothing about sports, but a sports movie I like is Bang the Drum Slowly with Robert De Niro. It's not bad. Mm-hmm. De Niro is Bang the Drum Slowly. Yeah. With Robert De Niro. It's not bad. Mm-hmm. De Niro is very, very good. You know, Vincent Gardena played the manager.

Yes. And he was, and Michael Moriarty was also very good. I think Moriarty was the pitcher and De Niro was the catcher. That's right. And Gardena played the manager, as I remember. And Gardena was a guest on later. And so eventually we got around to that movie and Gardenia, you know, you looking at him, you'd think he's this guy is probably a baseball fan. They probably grew up, you know, in an era rooted for Joe DiMaggio or whatever the case might have been.

And he said, I knew so little about baseball that when they told me to run to first base, I ran to third. He thought you ran the bases clockwise. So next to Vincent Gardenia, Gilbert, you know, next to Vincent Gardenia, you're like the baseball savant. Gilbert could play Eddie Gay Dell, Bob. Easy there, Frank. I'll let our listeners look that one up. Gil, when we had Danny Aiello on the show, didn't he tell us that he taught De Niro how to throw and swing a bat?

Oh, yeah. I think he did, and bang the drum slowly. You wanted to talk a little bit, Bob, and Gilbert just alluded to this when he talked about you growing up and watching TV in New York. Because a lot of people think of you as from St. Louis. They don't realize that you're actually born here in Queens.

Yeah. A Queens kid like me. And one of the things you grew up on that we discuss on this show a lot is the Million Dollar Movie. Yeah. The Million Dollar Movie, every kid of roughly our generation knows that

it was on Channel 9 and they showed the same movie at seven o'clock each night, Monday through Friday and then back to back Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. So if you were a kid who really liked King Kong or Godzilla or Yankee Doodle Dandy, you could watch it nine times in one week, which I actually did at least parts of it nine times in one week with the movies I just mentioned. And long before I ever knew anything about Gone with the Wind, Tara's theme was the theme for Million Dollar Movies. Sure. Nah, nah, nah, nah. And even as a little kid,

that struck me as deeply nostalgic. It was something about that that made me misty. I didn't realize I felt guilty about it afterwards. I didn't mean to be misty for the antebellum South. Right. What did a nine-year-old kid know? It's just a song. It had no lyrics.

Gilbert, you had a million-dollar movie obsession. Gilbert, you were, you had a million dollar movie obsession. Yeah, I remember I think watching with my sisters we must have watched Rebel Without a Cause about ten times. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Yankee Doodle Dandy was one

they really loved to trot out. Oh, they did. And over and over and over again. I also remember on New York TV, they would have the Bowery Boys. Oh, yeah. The Bowery Boys. Leo Gorsi. And Hans Hall.

Hans Hall. Yeah. And Bernard Gorsi, who was Louis the Candy Store. Louis Dombrowski. Oh, you crazy kids. get out of my soda shop. That was Leo Gorski's father. Unbelievable. Oh, who knew?

Here's another wild card question from a listener. From Joseph Chiarolanza. Yes. I want to know from Bob, what would Joe Namath have done, what could he have done to make the Waverly Wonders survive more than three episodes? He could have boldly predicted, as he did in Super Bowl III, that it would last at least five. We talked about this, too.

Gilbert and I lament things that are gone. Like, you know, like great TV. Last time you were here, we did the Top Cat theme. You don't hear great, you know, original TV theme songs anymore. Or, you know, wonderfully catchy commercial jingles that become earworms and stay with you the rest of your life. And athletes guest starring on sitcoms. Yes.

Yeah. Remember Leo DeRocher on the Munsters? Giving Herman a tryout. And, oh, on Car 54. I think they had Sugar Ray Robinson. Oh, yes. And Rocky Graziano. Well, I'll tell you a couple of things. I'll tell you a Graziano story in a moment.

But last time we did Top Cat, the indisputable leader of the gang, whose intellectual close friends get to call him TC, provided it's with dignity, because why not? He was an alley cat who lived in a trash can, but after all, a certain amount of dignity in the quorum is called for. But there's a holdup in the Bronx. Brooklyn's broken out in fights. There's a traffic jam in Harlem.

That's backed up to Jackson Heights. There's a scout troop short a child. Crews just do it. Idlewild car 54. Where are you? That was a great one. A car 54 theme. And and I remember I knew the words to it, but most people didn't know there's a scout troop shot a child. Right. That was the one where they, if they sang, they go. And, oh, one of my favorite theme songs was only one man lived down. That's Chuck Connors. Yes.

All but one man died there at Bitter Creek. Chuck Connors. Yes. All but one man died there at Bitter Creek. And they say you ran away. Branded, scorned is the one who ran. What do you do when you're branded and you know you're a man? Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you must prove you're a man. That was Chuck Connors' less heralded follow-up to The Rifleman, which is The Rifleman is my favorite Western of all time. You got to know Chuck.

You were telling me on the phone. Yeah, you know, Chuck was a baseball player. Yeah, sure. He played briefly with the Cubs and with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He also played in the early NBA, again, briefly with the Boston Celtics. And I mentioned how much I liked the Rifleman in one of the early later episodes. And he got wind of it. And he and I got together. We had dinner several times. He came to St. Louis to do a charity event for me. I just love the guy.

And, you know, he had that kind of ballplayers sense of humor. You know, the anecdotes, the stories. I just loved him. And I really thought that the Rifleman, and a lot of them are still playing regularly on me TV. Oh, yes. You have it on your cable system. You know, Sam Peckinpah wrote the pilot for the rifleman and he directed several, several episodes. And there were other noted directors who also chipped in from time to time.

And the guest stars, Lon Chaney was a guest star. I remember. Young Dennis Hopper, young Dennis Hopper was a guest star. Young Robert Culp. There's a long list. And the relationship, even though almost every episode ended with him righteously because it had to be done, killing three or four bad guys. But the relationship between him and his son, Mark, the widowed, the widower rancher and his adorable son, Mark, played by Johnny Crawford, who might have been the best child actor in the history of American television. I mean, he was really good. But the thing that

the thing that always made me wonder by the time this kid was 12, he had seen his father come within an inch of losing his life on almost every episode. He himself had been kidnapped and tied up several times. He'd watched his father, again, with justification, kill several dozen people. But by the next episode, there was always a bounce at his step. He never needed any counseling. There was never any trauma of any kind. In fact, in fact, in the little wind up scene after the last commercial, even as the as the blood still ran through the streets of Norfolk, they would just be sitting around and it would always conclude with some kind of laugh. You know, oh, well, that's the way it goes, Sonny.

Well, every TV show, particularly the 70s, with, like, Chips and Starsky and Hutch, you know, they, you know, they'd shoot the bad guy, break for a commercial, and then there would be the joke ending. Yeah, the little epilogue.

Wah, wah. Yeah, the little epilogue. Wah, wah. Yeah. You know what's something else? Who was the character that William Conrad played? Cannon. Buddy Epson was Barnaby Jones. What was William Conrad? Cannon.

Frank Cannon. Okay. Here was the part. I get it. That they were seasoned and elderly detectives. Yes. And their understanding of how to crack a case was better than anyone else's. You know, they were sort of like Peter Falk in Columbo.

But Falk never had to get physical with anybody as Columbo. But what would happen, William Conrad, who could not could not chase down a mule. OK, William Conrad would would would encounter two young punks on the roof of an apartment building. And by using swift karate moves, karate range disarmed both of them. Buddy Ebsen, who by this point looked like a stiff wind, would blow into the next area code. He, too, in hand-to-hand combat with vital young evildoers would somehow prevail. I'm all for willing suspension of disbelief,

but let's not push it to the limit. Great days. Those are Quinn Martin shows, both of them. A Quinn Martin production, as was one of the greatest shows ever, The Fugitive. Yes. When a train wrecked freedom, freedom to run

from the relentless pursuit of the police lieutenant obsessed with his capture. He's good, Gil. and you also do the lawman bob just did a spit take i was trying to sneak in a swig of water john john russell as i remember is the lawman, and Peter Brown is his deputy. It was one of those series of Westerns like Sugarfoot with Will Hutchins and Cheyenne with Clint Walker. They were part of those Westerns that were on ABC, kind of on a rotating basis.

Another one was Bron uh bronco lane uh ty harden i think was bronco ty harden was almost batman bronco bronco tearing across the texas plain bronco bronco bronco lane show me a gal who's kissed him once i'll show you a gal who's kissed him twice once any gal has you a gal who's kissed him twice. Once any gal has kissed him twice. She's dreaming of shoes and rice. Bronco, Bronco, tearing across the Texas plate.

And then there was Sugarfoot. He's formidable, Gil. Sugarfoot, Sugarfoot, easy loafing, cattle roping, Sugarfoot, riding on to who knows where, a loafing along with a heart full of song

and a rifle and a volume of the law. Because he was an aspiring lawyer. That was a twist. You'll find him on the side of law and order from the Mexicali border to the roaring hills of Arkansas, Sugarfoot, etc., etc. Which brings us to, what were we talking

about? What was the initial one? The Rifleman. Branded? Not branded, but it was one of the ABC ones. Bronco Lane, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, and what was Lawman. Lawman. Lawman. Lawman. Lawman. The lawman came with the son. There was a job to be done. And so they sent for the badge and the gun of the lawman. A man who rides all alone. And all that he'll ever own is just a badge and a gun and he's known as the lawman. Amazing.

You know who's great at those? And in fact, we had a duel once on Later. Rob Reiner is great on those. We challenged each other. We got to get Rob on the show. Now, here's one that's not as obscure, but I want to hear your rendition anyway. Yeah.

And that's Rawhide. You know, I don't really know that one. And it's almost like it has almost a rap rhythm to it. Yeah. Rolling, rolling, rolling. Keep those doggies rolling. Keep those doggies moving, though they're disapproving. Right?

Rawhide, don't try to understand them. Just rope and ride and brand them. And then moving on, which I don't really know. And then some notion that some gal was waiting for him at the end of the line. Isn't that Frankie Lane, Gilbert? Yeah, that's Frankie Lane. Yeah, Frankie Lane. It is Frankie Lane.

Who sang the Blazing Saddles theme. Oh, man. I remember they said, making that movie, Mel Brooks said, I want someone who sounds like Frankie Lane. And they said, Frankie Lane's still alive. And according to Andrew and Norman, the two screenwriters we had on the show, they told him it was straight.

They told him to sing it straight. They didn't tell him he was singing for a parody. All the better. Yeah, all the better. All the better. You know what's something else about all these Westerns, though?

It's brought to mind. I don't care if you're talking about Bat Masterson. Mm-hmm. Back when the West was very... Is that you, O'Brien? There lived a man named... No, you, O'Brien, was...

He was Wyatt Earp. Wyatt Earp. Wyatt Earp. Wyatt Earp. Gene Barry. Gene Barry. Gene Barry. Yes. Later of La Caja full fame.

Gene Barry was, and he was also Amos Burke's secret agent. Remember that? Oh, Burke's Law? He was Burke's Law. And then after the first James Bond movies, when secret agents were all the rage. Remember, like, Robert Conrad was James West, and he was like a secret agents were all the rage. Remember, Robert Conrad was James West, and he was like a secret agent in the old West.

With Ross Martin as his sidekick, Artemis Gordon. So then they just all of a sudden made Amos Burke Amos Burke's secret agent. But first in the 50s, he was Bat Masterson. Back when the West was very young, there lived a man named

Masterson. He wore a cane and derby hat. They called him Bat, Bat Masterson. And those with too ready a trigger forgot to figure on his famous cane because he had a derringer in the bottom of his cane. He would just lift the cane up and fire a derringer into the unsuspecting bad guy's gut. Oh, Bob, you got to do a podcast. Oh, God, no. I unload all of it. I unload all of it here, including this observation. Whether it was Wyatt Earp or Lucas McCain, the rifleman, the Lone Ranger, it didn't matter. This was a truism of all old Westerns, including great films like Shane. There'd be a fight, whether it's in the street or at the ranch or usually in the bar room.

And both the guy who prevailed in the fight and the guy who lost the fight would land several haymakers, clean shots on the jaw and big punches to the gut. The kind of punch, any one of which ends a heavyweight fight with a single punch, the guy is out,

even though those guys are wearing gloves. Okay, but these guys could absorb several of those, not to mention maybe a whiskey bottle broken over their head if it's a ballroom brawl before eventually one of them is out. But without fail, 100% of the time, if you are hit in the back of the head with the butt of a gun,

you are automatically knocked unconscious. Automatically, you're knocked unconscious, but there's no real after effects you are automatically knocked unconscious. Automatically, you're knocked unconscious, but there's no real after effects. You're knocked unconscious. You've clearly suffered a concussion, but you will wake up in about 10 minutes, by which time, though, the bad guys have gotten away, and now you have to form a posse to chase them down.

Yeah. And you get up, and you shake your head. Right. You've got to shake the cobwebs out, and you're usually rubbing the back of your head. Right. You got to shake the cobwebs out. And you're usually rubbing the back of your neck. I'll be all right, Mark. You sure? I'll be all right, Mark.

Just call Mike up. And I want to ask a doctor how in every movie where the good guy gets shot, how it's a bullet in your shoulder is nothing. Right. They always get a bullet in the shoulder and it's like nothing. It's like you couldn't bleed out. You couldn't get an infection. Yeah.

Your arm couldn't be paralyzed. Right. Right. Yeah. And every good every good guy was able with such precision the wind didn't make any difference if he wanted to just shoot the gun out of your hand rather than shoot you he would shoot your wrist and the gun would fly from your hand yes yeah i loved how how a guy would get hit on a with a broken bottle in a western and just be gazed it would yes but if

he got hit by the butt of a gun, he's out. Never put him down. This question pertains to this conversation from Don Simon. Who does, in Bob's opinion, can he give us a sports figure who went on to become a pretty decent actor? There's probably several of them, and I'm not thinking right away. Fred Dreyer, who did pretty well. Yeah, he suggested Jim Brown, actually.

Jim Brown? Yeah. Yeah, you know what? We're going to finish this, and then I'm going to think of about 10 of them. Yeah. Help me out here, Frank. Help me, Gilbert. Well, I won't mention OJ.

Although, look, again, even if it rubs some people the wrong way, don't tell me he wasn't good as Nordberg in The Naked Gun. Oh, yeah. Because he was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see. I'll think of somebody too late. What was that movie that Joe Namath made?

Was it CC? Yeah, CC and Company. CC and Company with Ann-Margaret. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Alex Karras is in Blazing Saddles. He's Mongo, right? Yeah, Alex Karras.

And then, you know, Euchre was a decent actor in Mr. Belvedere. And Karras was in that sitcom that I didn't watch. Webster. Yeah, yeah little kid. What do you remember about your friend Stan Musial on That Girl? Oh, yeah. Stan just, you know,

randomly showed up on... Willie Mays used to show up on Donna Reed. And Willie told me a few years ago that he was friends with Donna's husband, Tony Oren, who was the producer of the show. And Willie, you know, ballplayers, even he and Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron were at the top of the salary scale. But that just meant they made 100 grand, which was good money in those days, but nothing like what players make today.

So Willie would say, you know, if I needed, you know, kind of an injection of funds, I would call up Tony Orrin, say, Tony, I need 10,000. He'd say, well, we'll write you into a script and we'll pay you 10,000. And I forget what the name of the town was that Carl Best as Dr. Stone and Donna Reed lived in. It was, you know, one of those towns like Midvale or something like that. And, you know, Shelley Fabre and Carl Peterson are there. Not Carl Peterson, Paul Peterson. Paul Peterson, yeah. Paul Peterson and Shelley Fabre are their children. And, you know, like most sitcoms and television programs of the time,

you never saw a black person, except when Willie Mays just randomly showed up, like, you know, at their country club or rang their doorbell and they would react as if it was the most natural thing like he just like like he lived next door and Willie would be in a suit and tie hey Willie how are you come in. Hildale I just looked it up Hildale. And one thing Frank and I had discussed on this podcast, we did a whole show. At the height of the Beatles, they would have like every family in a sitcom

would have like this English group who had to stay at their house. Right. Oh, yeah. All the British Invasion special episodes. And it'd all be mop tops. And every song, no matter what the lyric, had to include, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yes. By the way, here's an athlete who was a good actor, Mark Harmon. Oh, yes, very good. He was an All-American quarterback at UCLA, and his dad, Tom Harmon, won the Heisman Trophy at Michigan, if I recall correctly, and And Marcus had a very, very successful television career. Very good. Very, very good. Now, do you remember the Eddie Cantor story that used to show a lot on TV? Yeah, that was on Million Dollar Movie, wasn't it?

With Keith Berzel. Back to bad biopics. Right, right. Right. Right. And there's one part of the movie where it's supposed to show he's friends with Jimmy Durante. And so a guy shows up in a horrible rubber nose and he's like, hey, Eddie, it's me, Jimmy. The schnoz. Bob, before we get you out of here, I want to talk a little bit about baseball cards. I'm wearing the shirt.

You were immortalized on a Topps card, as Gilbert mentioned in the intro. I saw you paying your respects to the late, great Cy Berger when he passed. Yes. Of Topps fame. We were talking about it before we turned the mics on, your obsession with petrified pink gum. Yeah, you know, and that's one of the things that's been lost. First of all, for a lot of kids and adults these days, a baseball card is an investment. And in fact, some of them do have great value. But for us, the value was only sentimental.

The value was only the thrill when a Willie Mays popped up in between an Eddie Casco and a Pumpsie Green. Because we always believe that the Tops people put 10 times as many Norm Seaburns out there as they did Hank Aaron's or Willie Mazes or Mickey Mantle's. You know, that the guys you really wanted were more scarce. Therefore, you'd have to keep throwing down a nickel for another pack. That was a hud. And another pack. Yeah. And so for a nickel, you got five cards and a chalky rectangular piece of bubble gum, which if you dropped it on the sidewalk, it would shatter like glass. And whatever card was face up against the gum, that card would retain the residue and the fragrance of that gum in perpetuity. So somewhere, once Earth ceases to exist as we know it, a faraway civilization will be making its way through the wreckage,

and they will discover a 1962 Bob Perky, which will still smell like a piece of that damn gum. Bob Perky. Yeah. Cincinnati Reds. Chris Cannizzaro. Oh, another thing. In the movie Airplane,

there's one scene where the woman says, I want really light reading. And Julie Haggerty says, well, here's a booklet of Jewish sports heroes. A pamphlet. A pamphlet of Jewish sports here. A pamphlet. Right. A pamphlet of Jewish sports. But you actually can name a bunch.

Well, you got Hank Greenberg. Oh, you got Sandy Koufax. Sure. You got Mike Epstein. Who else we got? Julian Edelman. Julian Edelman. That's a good one.

We got my pal, the late, great Marty Glick a good one. We got, uh, my, my pal, uh, the late great Marty Glickman, uh, one of the first athletes turned broadcaster. Um, and was on the 1936 Olympic team with, with Jesse Owens. Uh, so, you know, there's, there's a, a fine, a fine list, but it's not as, it's not as fulsome as some other ethnicities might be. Here's here's the here's the great thing about airplane and the naked gun. The great and the sad thing. Airplane is so funny that even even a 20 year old kid today, as long as he's not lost in ridiculous political correctness, is going to laugh at it. Movie came out in 1980. You could not make that movie today. That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. There's nothing hateful in it at all. It's just funny, period.

Yeah. Our fans are going to start sending us Jewish sports stars now, Gilbert. Of course they are. Al Rosen was one MVP, right? Of course. I think Al definitely was the MVP in the early 50s with Cleveland. Might have won the batting title or he just missed the

triple crown by a point or two on his batting average or something like that. But before we wrap this up, and I'm not anxious to wrap it up, but I think that you guys may be. I have to mention this, and I should have mentioned it off the top. Just this up, and I'm not anxious to wrap it up, but I think that you guys may be, I have to mention this, and I should have mentioned it off the top. Just this week, before we sat down to do this podcast,

just the day before yesterday, I became familiar with Gilbert's reading of the lyrics to Cardi B's WAP. Let me just say this. This is clearly in the tradition of artistry and elegance of Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne.

This is a fine contribution to American culture. Wow. Are you proud of it, Gil? Oh, very nice. The question is, should Cardi B be proud of it? And here, by the way, and here's, I'm a lifelong left of center guy, but here is something that somebody ought to just address.

And maybe in an oblique way, I'm addressing it now. OK, people's people's entire careers, not you, Gilbert, because you're you're in a category of your own where you operate and you're you're inoculated against it. But we know that no matter what a person's life and career has been like, step on one mine in an increasingly cluttered minefield, and it can be the end for you. But then listen to the lyrics of WAP and consider them. And then not only listen to the lyrics of WAP, but then consider that only yesterday, only yesterday, I'm not making this up, Cardi B was on a Zoom call with Joe Biden,

confiding in him her concerns for policy initiatives that she hopes that Biden would carry out. And who better to advise? Right. Okay. It is not, it is not at all out of the question. Not at all out of the question.

You would not be shocked if we were to say that not this year, because there's no fans and everything, but you know, a year from now, that Cardi B was the Superbowl halftime entertainment. Is this possible? Right?

And then listen to the lyrics of WAP, and then consider all the poor souls who for one slip of the tongue, without any malicious intent, are now wandering somewhere in the hinterlands. And you have to listen to my version, not Cardi B's. Oh, I've heard both.

I have not heard hers. I've not heard hers until I heard yours. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. Nobody goes on vacation for the moments that are just okay. That's why Sunwing vacationers go all in like it's a buffet of fun. Whether you're skimming the treetops like Tarzan's long-lost twin, or deep-end swimming with your flippers and fins.

Or maybe you're just perfecting the art of doing absolutely nothing. Whatever vacationer you are, with Sunwing, you save more so you can do more. Book with your local travel agent or Sunwing.ca. How do stop losses work on Kraken? Let's say I have a birthday party on Wednesday night, but an important meeting Thursday morning. So sensible me pre-books a taxi for 10 p.m. with alerts. Voila! I won't be getting carried away and staying out till 2. That's stop loss I want to direct our listeners to check out some of the later episodes that are on YouTube, which are so worth it, as well as the Ted Williams interview. Wonderful if you're a baseball fan. Also, your wonderful Mickey Mantle interview, which was so touching, especially, you know, you were trying to convince him that people saw him as a hero.

And, you know, he was very humble, had a hard time seeing himself that way. It's a very, very sweet interview. You know, he said, and I incorporated not this story specifically, but this notion of the difference between a role model and, for a kid, a sports hero. And toward the end of his life, he actually got it. I think the most important part of it was when he went to the Betty Ford Clinic, he got thousands of letters, thousands of letters from people pouring out their heart to him. Not people who wanted his autograph or whatever, people pouring out their heart and what he had meant to them. And he told me that grade school teachers who had remembered him when they were younger

had their fourth and fifth graders, they explained the situation to them, had their fourth and fifth graders write him letters. And it got through to him. He was such an honestly humble man. And he was so hard on himself. As great as he was, he felt that he should have been better. He felt he let people down, including the memory of his late father who had taught him to play ball. But another small aspect of that was Billy Crystal and I.

And you know how much Billy loves baseball and loved Mickey. Sure. There's a good baseball movie, by the way, 61. Yeah, 61. A terrific, terrific. Thomas Jane as Mickey Mantle and Barry Pepper, who looks just like Roger Maris. Excellent casting. And because Billy knew the whole story so well, it feels authentic. Anyway, Billy and I are sitting with Mickey at the Regency Hotel in the

bar restaurant of the Regency Hotel in Manhattan, like at about one o'clock in the morning. The evening is winding down and we're swapping stories. And he says in that Oklahoma drawl, he says, well, shit, I did all this stuff and you little shits remember it better than I do. Which was true. And he told me afterwards that it was when he was sitting there with two guys whose names he knew who were his friends by this point they weren't just part of a mob of people you know he's naturally shy they weren't just people kind of in his mind tugging at him or wanting a piece of him these were flesh and blood human beings who he liked.

And we were explaining to him what he meant to us, not when we were Billy Crystal, the great and successful comedian, or Bob Costas, the reasonably successful sportscaster. We were kids. And we were giving a name and a face to the feeling that millions of people had. And I think it helped him get it along with all those letters he got at Betty Ford. So he understood that he wasn't always a role model, but he got why people felt so affectionately toward him. I'm glad.

I'm glad you gave him that. I mean, that interview was like a therapy session. You know, he's so vulnerable. He's so vulnerable. And he's so brutally honest about himself. Yeah, I think the one you're talking about was on the news magazine with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric. Yes.

He was also on later a couple of times. So I think there were probably later episodes with him knocking around on YouTube. But the NBC news magazine, I think it was called Now with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric. That's probably the one you're talking about, because that was right after he came out of the Betty Ford clinic. And I'm going to make you, before you get out of here, I'm going to make you say just a couple of words, since you grew up in New York, you were born in Queens, about Tom Terrific, who we just lost. Tom Seaver. Tom Seaver was one of the most thoughtful, well-spoken, heartfelt athletes I have ever been around. What Ted Williams and later Tony Gwynn were to hitting, there were other

great hitters, probably Williams was the greatest of the great, but not everyone can talk in an accessible and well-expressed way about what it is they do. Lots of people are funny. Seinfeld can tell you about how a joke is constructed down to the last syllable. He's just particularly good at talking about his craft. Tom Seaver, of all the pitchers I've ever spoken with or interviewed, Tom Seaver could break down what he did, both head and heart, Tom Seaver could break down what he did, both head and heart, better than anyone I've ever spoken with. And the last of several interviews I did with him was at Cooperstown on Hall of Fame weekend in 2011. And after he died last week, the Baseball Network replayed that hour-long interview. And I think it was probably the setting.

He himself had long since been inducted, but all the Hall of Famers come back each induction weekend. So he was there in that setting. And all of it, the history of the game and the fact that he's now a prominent part of the history of the game. And as he said, yeah, it's a craft, but sometimes it rises to the level of art. And he was actually a patron of the arts. And he cited, he said, you know, you can look at a beautiful Cezanne or Monet. I didn't have that talent. My art was on the mound, 60 feet, six inches from home plate. That was my art.

And he touched his heart and he started to choke up about the whole thing and about how he now has a place alongside Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson and Lefty Grower and Satchel Paige and people he had only read about when he was a kid. So I'll always remember him for that. He was one of the greatest of the great, you know, he's, there's, there's a hall of fame and then their inner circle hall of famers. No question. Where if you said, Hey, we don't, we can only have a couple dozen, you know, some of you guys are going to have to leave. Willie Mays doesn't have to leave. Babe Ruth doesn't have to leave. Tom Seaver and Sandy Koufax don't have to leave.

No. You know, but what I'll remember him for is that combination of head and heart. He was being a Met fan growing up in Queens. He was my guy. And you know this and you feel this as well as I do. When we lose these people, you know, parts of our childhood die. Yes. Yes. And he and he and Lou Brock, Lou Brock, the Cardinal Hall of Famer, passed away within days of each other. And what was the real relationship between Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali? Very, very close. Mutually appreciative. Howard, toward the end of his life, would really get emotional, as older people sometimes do in general.

But when the subject was Ali, I saw Cosell really break down and cry. You have to recognize there were some in the press, Dick Schaap, Red Smith. And I don't know if Red Smith was one of them. I may have misspoken, but there were people in the print press, Robert Lipsight, for sure, at the New York Times, who were in support of Muhammad Ali and what he represented and appreciated him for what he represented. But much of the press, especially the broadcast media, either wouldn't hop on board or were still somewhere hostile to Muhammad. Some insisted on calling him Cassius Clay long after he had changed his name. And Cosell, with all of his influence and the platform of ABC.

I mean, those fights, they might have been on pay-per-view when they happened, but a week later, they were shown in their entirety on ABC to the whole nation when the broadcast universe was much different, and the ratings of programs like that were through the roof. And Howard Cosell defended Muhammad Ali in thoughtful, he was a lawyer, he was in his best moments, he was brilliant. He could also be bombastic and ridiculous, but he defended him intelligently with evidence and logic. And he, like Ali himself, Cosell was on the right side of history on that issue and on several others. And I know that Mohammed appreciated it. And Mohammed, when he made fun of you, that meant that he liked you. So he would say to Cosell, Howard Cosell, your name is phony, and your hair comes from the tail of a pony.

Because Cosell's real name was something other than Cosell. He had shortened it. And people would say, here's a guy who claims to tell it like it is, but changed his name for television. And, of course, he had the toupee, which is not a crime. But, you know, Muhammad liked it. Muhammad had great affection for Howard, and it went both ways. Gil, we've got to let this man get back to his life. We're saving the recitation of the presidents for the next time.

This guarantees that I get to come back. Well, don't let it be five years next time. Well, you know, by the way, after this, this may be my only broadcast island that I can return to. And don't forget to watch that video I sent you of the 60s softball game. Oh, I watched the first 10 minutes. It's funny as hell. Yeah, and Jimmy Pearsall turns up later.

Right. Well, Vin Scully is calling the game, and Jerry Lewis is his color man. It's great. It's weird. It's great. And Uncle Miltie's coaching third. So you really couldn't ask for more. All right, Gilly. Well, let's see. Oh's weird. It's great. And Uncle Miltie's coaching third. So you really couldn't ask for more. All right, Gilly.

Well, this is. Oh, wait a minute. Should I? Should I? I might as well. I've dug myself. I don't even think I've dug myself a hole. But I've gone down.

I've gone down a path I usually don't go on. Okay. But I did that. I did that the last time with you, too. You have that effect on me. No one's really listening, Bob. I got a Milton Berle story. Okay.

We'll go out on that. And it rests on the premise that I know that both you and Frank are familiar with one of the many things that Milton was known for and was most proud of. What could you mean so it's 1993 um milty is up in age but he's a big sports fan and like many people in entertainment stays up late so he was the fan of my interview show and we book him on the show when we're doing some tapings out in los angeles and he says he wants to do a card trick at the end of the show he wants to do a card trick. At the end of the show, he wants to do a card trick. And in order to televise it properly, he needs an overhead camera.

So we set this up and we set up a little table between the two big cushy chairs so that Miltie can deal the cards and set everything up for this card trick. And I don't know why, but we put a lovelier mic on him because he was going to stand up at some point. And they had this sort of, instead of a little box, you know, that you would clip on your belt or on the side of your pants

when you're walking around with a microphone on, they had this thing that was a heavy sort of cylindrical thing that went down from his belt to the side of his leg, like to his thigh, and that's what they jacked the mic into. So now, we've completed the interview. Right?

And he said, now it's time for the card trick. So they get the overhead shot, it's all very artsy and everything. And he stands up. All right. And the wire falls down the leg of his pants and the heavy cylindrical thing lands with a thud on the floor. And he goes, what was that? And I said, well, in your case, we can't be sure.

And he says, oh, you know about me, do you? Swear to God. That's gold. Wonderful. Bob, good luck with the new series on HBO. It's HBO. They won't cancel it because of this. Do you want to plug it?

We don't even know for sure because of COVID when it's going to start. Because of COVID. Okay. We think it'll start. We think the coast will be clear. We were going to start it this year, but I didn't want to start it under these circumstances where all the interviews would have to be done virtually.

So we think it'll start in probably the first quarter of 2021 or the second quarter. You know, you've got to play it by ear. And please write that memoir already. I'll get around to it eventually. Okay. I guess I have a few stories, don't I? Yes. Gilbert will write the foreword for you. Yes. Gilbert will write the foreword for you. You know, I may just give Gilbert his own chapter. Here. Chapter 16. You just write whatever you want. I'll come back in chapter 17. Bob Costas and I walked into a brothel in Nevada.

Thank you, Bob. This was a special one, just like the last one. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Gilbert. Of course. So this is officially the end of Bob Costas' career. Thank you, Dara. Thank you, Bob. And we want to thank Pam Davis, who's been so helpful.

My trusty assistant. Yes, she's wonderful. She's the best and this has been gilbert gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my uh co-host frank santo padre and the man who used to be known in the business and bob costas was there uh when mr belvedere sat on his own balls and he rushed him to the hospital. Yeah, tell Euchre we want him. Where oddly enough, Babe Ruth's doctor was also a urologist. Full circle.

Thank you, Bob. Tell Euchre we love him. See ya. I love Mickey. Mickey who? You know who? The fellow with the celebrated swing. Oh, I love Mickey. Mickey who? You know who? The one who drives

me batty every spring. If I don't make a hit with him, my heart'll break in two. I wish that I could catch him and pitch a little woo I love Mickey Mickey who? Mickey you!

Mickey me! That's who I love Mickey Mickey who? You know who His muscles are a mighty sight to see Oh, I love Mickey Mickey who?

You know who The one I want to steal right home with me Oh, I'd sacrifice most anything to win his many charms I'd like to be a fly ball and pop right in his arms. Oh, I love Mickey. Mickey who? Mickey Mantle. Oh, I love you.

Who, me? Oh, I love you. Not Yogi Berra? I love you. Not Yogi Berra. I love you. Mickey!