Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Drew Friedman Encore
Episode Date: August 26, 2024GGACP celebrates the recent publication of our pal Drew Friedman's new book, "Schtick Figures" by presenting this ENCORE of a memorable 2020 interview with the award-winning illustrator and fan favor...ite. In this episode, Drew weighs in on well-endowed comedians, the last days of Mad magazine, the durability of “The Odd Couple” and Gilbert's hilarious turn as "The Great Emancipator." Also, Yoko Ono meets the Little Rascals, Uncle Floyd auditions for “Minnie’s Boys" and Frank attends a Stooge funeral. PLUS: “Crazy Joe” Gallo! “The Haunted Strangler”! Praising Al Jaffee (and Mort Drucker)! Mutant Jerry Lewis! And Drew runs afoul of the Merchant of Venom! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Hi this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast
with my co-host Frank Santopadre.
We're coming to you courtesy of the Starburns Audio Network and I'm having the French Vanilla
Latte. I'm having the French vanilla latte. Our guest this week is as close as we get to a regular on this show,
kind of like Rod Hull and his emu on the old Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle show.
He's a humorous cartoonist, author, showbiz historian
cartoonist, author, showbiz historian, and a celebrated award-winning illustrator whose work has graced the pages of The New York Observer, Spy, Esquire, National Lampoon,
Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and The Late Great Mad Magazine.
He's been a key figure in American comic book and comic strip culture for decades, publishing
the collections, warts and all.
The fun never stops, too soon, and private lives of public figures, several of them co-written
by his wife and frequent collaborator, Kathy Bidas.
Or Bidas.
Or Kathy Bidas.
She beat us with a rod.
Sometimes sometimes we pay her and she beats us.
Sometimes we say, Kathy, please beat us.
Anyway, he's also the illustrator and author of Drew Friedman's Sideshow Freaks, Drew Friedman's Chosen People, and the historical portrait
series Heroes of the Comics, as well as providing illustrations
for Howard Stern's bestselling books, Miss America
and Private Parts, his essential three-volume series, Old Jewish
Comedians featuring lovingly liver-spotted portraits of everyone from
Victor Borgha, Buddy Hackett to Gummo Marx, are practically guidebooks for this very podcast.
His brand new book is All the Presidents, featuring painstakingly accurate renderings
of the 45 men to serve as commander-in-chief. So, I assume he'll tell us if Calvin Coolidge had a bigger schlong than John Quincey Adams.
Back with us once again to shed some needed light on old things Shemp is the Vermeer of
the Borsch Belt and the artist formerly known as
Jew Dots.
Our pal, Drew Friedman.
Thank you, Gilbert. Thank you, Frank.
Thank you, Drew.
It's great to be back.
Um, I have a question for Groucho.
Yes.
And let me get this one out of the way, okay?
No time is wasted.
Let me get this one out of the way.
Groucho
Why did you fuck Richard Pryor up the ass?
Because
Chicago needs the money. Thank you. I always wondered. It's a nice icebreaker
Now is mad magazine really gone I I don't know what to make of that
It seems to be gone. I just got a new issue a few weeks ago.
Gilbert's not rating the supply room for free issues. So something is wrong.
Well, they moved to Los Angeles. So unless you want to fly out there,
free issues, 67 years, I'm not buying that they're gone.
I just don't get that sense. They just sent me a pile of issues.
I know it's I was surprised. I just by reading it here. Yeah.
You just learned about that. Yeah. Okay. I'm very surprised. Our pal Al Jaffe is
going strong at 97. He'll be 98 in March. I don't know if he's
drawing anymore. I'm probably a little shaky. Yeah. You know what these guys they
get a little like Charles Shultz got a little shaky towards you and David
Levine. So they you know somebody has to they get a little like Charles Shultz got a little shaky towards yeah, and David Levine
So they you know somebody has to convince them to stop Gilbert loved having Al on the show didn't you great great stories?
He's a sweet sweet man. I know he's become a friend. He's a sweet guy
He did an introduction to my book heroes of the comics he he gave that story
That was the most chilling story the one about his one about his mom and then closing the gate
at the train station. Yeah, he wrote a whole book about that. Coming over to this country
as a kid. But he was funny and he had talent so he went to the high school music and art
and met Will Elder and Harvey Kurtzman and those guys and the rest was history. It's
a great American success story. A lot of those guys are still with us. Not a lot, some of them.
Well, de Bartolo's still around, Arnie Kogan,
Frank Jacobs is still.
Sergio Argonis is still around.
Drucker.
The younger ones, and Mort Drucker is still around.
Angelo Torres.
Mort Drucker's still around.
I don't think, I got a call,
I don't think I've mentioned this before on air,
but a reporter from New York Times called me and said,
Drew, I'm writing Mort Drucker's obituary.
Could you give me a few lines?
I said, oh shit, Mort Drucker died?
This was like two years ago.
He goes, oh no, no, we write those in advance.
I said, oh, okay.
So I gave him some, I talked about Mort,
how special he is, what a hero he is to me and everything,
how wonderful he is.
And then, you know, he thanked me and everything. And then afterwards I thought, yeah, it was really,
I think I said some good stuff. It's like, I'm looking forward to seeing that in print.
And then I had to say like, no shit, I don't want Mort to die.
So, you know, like I don't mean that, you know, I was torn. I was torn.
You were torn.
Yeah.
How old is Mort?
Mort was born in 1929. So was torn. You were torn. How old is Mort?
Mort was born in 1929, so that puts him at 91.
91.
But he doesn't draw either.
I think he doesn't see so good.
You befriended the great Jack Davis too.
Well yeah, we did a whole talk and I asked him questions that he didn't really know how
to answer because I wanted to ask him about if he had met people he had drawn over the
years and if he was a fan.
So I asked him, are you a fan of the Monkeys because he drew them many times
and he said no no I didn't particularly like them. He was a sweet southern
gentleman and mostly he cared about watching football and playing golf you
know so and getting out on the golf course at two o'clock every
afternoon he just wanted to wrap up his work. So I said are you a Howard Stern
fan because he used to draw Howard for WNDC.
He goes, no, not a fan.
I said, how about Don Imus?
He said, no, not a fan.
Yeah.
So I said, how about Homer and Jethro?
Because he did a ton of their cover.
He said, no, never liked them.
So you know.
I were, it was like during the 60s,
every other movie poster was designed by Jack Davis.
That's true.
Yeah, it was a golden era, starting with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
It was the first one he did.
And then I think he also did, if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium.
Oh, the Night They Rided Minsky.
Oh yeah, that one.
No, he didn't actually.
That was Frank Frazetta.
It was?
I know that poster.
Yeah, that was Frazetta.
And he actually drew Frazetta. Frazetta. Yeah. It was? I know that poster. Yeah, that was Frazetta.
And he actually, he drew Frazetta,
Frazetta painted that, it's a beautiful poster.
1968.
And Burt Lahr is in the original poster,
but Burt Lahr died before the film came out.
So they took him out of the poster
and put in this British comic,
who's also in the movie, I forget his name offhand.
But he had to be removed from,
I have both versions, the Burt Lahr version,
and then you could see they replaced Burt Lahr's face
with this other guy.
And who was it that used to draw the border art,
like the edge of the pages?
Oh, well, Harvey Kurtzman did the original border art
for MAD, is that what you're thinking?
For MAD magazine? Yeah, like those tiny cartoons.
It was Harvey Kurtzman, then later on Sergio Agoniz.
That's sort of in your doodling style, Gilbert.
Yeah.
Those little tiny figures.
Yeah.
You've seen his doodles.
Yeah, I love him.
I wanted to get a book of your work published
from Fana Graphics and I was pushing for it
and I hope it still happens.
Yeah.
But you have to do more.
I think there's only 20 drawings.
Yes. You have to expand a little bit. Yeah. But you have to do more. I think there's only 20 drawings. Yes.
You have to expand a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, when you retire,
move to Florida, you'll have more time.
Exactly.
Oh, this isn't, oh, go ahead.
I would like to do a forward to that book
when you finally do it.
Absolutely.
So now if you, you know, if you're,
if that's enough to like get you working on new work,
you know, it's like, you know.
It's interesting, before the show started here in the men's room both me and Drew with our with our dicks out being in the urinals and this is
absolutely true Drew says to me so when Rondo Hatton, he was discovered by a guy in his hometown who was a movie maker,
and we got into a Rondo where they're holding our dicks and peeing and talking about Rondo
Hatton's career.
Well, first of all, I was jerking off because we, but Gilbert and I have known each other,
Gilbert and I have known each other.
Go on, tell the backstory to people who haven't heard of the show.
We've known each other for about 40 years, and when we see each other. Go ahead, tell the backstory to people who haven't heard of the show. We've known each other for about 40 years.
And when we see each other, we just launch into talking
about usually old horror movie actors,
like George Zucco or Anselo Stevens,
or more obscure, they're Bellegosy, of course,
or Lon Chaney Jr. especially.
But we just naturally just segue into that
as if we've been talking for the last week or so.
Lionel Atwell.
Yeah, Lionelel of course. And also Drew lived about a block and a half from my mother.
In the East Village. Yeah so I'd visit my mother and then on the way home I'd stop off and this
was always the same thing. He'd answer the door. I wouldn't, neither one of us would say hello to each other.
I'd sit down on the couch and you'd put in some movies.
I had a VCR.
Watch The Indestructible Man.
Gilbert, do you have a VCR yet?
Yes, I just bought one.
Okay, they come in handy.
But I had a VCR in the early 80s in the East.
So you would stop by Unannounced.
Yes.
And take off your coat and sit down
and we'd watch The Manster.
Yes. Or The Haunted coat and sit down, and we'd watch The Manster. Yes.
Or The Haunted Strangler, or our favorite,
the Lon Chaney Jr. film,
where he plays the convict who comes back to life.
Oh, The Indestructible.
Right, right.
And we'd sit there in silence and watch these films.
We didn't communicate.
No, no.
Like two mental cases.
And then Cathy would come home from work,
and she'd say to me, what is he doing here?
He's Richard Deacon.
I'd have to put his coat back on him and send them back to his mother's apartment.
Yeah, and then I'd get back, I'd get up without saying goodbye to each other,
and I'd just leave.
No, there was no communication, hardly any communication.
We'd just watch these movies, you know, because I had a little collection.
And the Jew dots is when we were both working for National Lampoon.
That's right. Those were the unfunny years.
Yeah, yes. Yes.
That's when they welcomed us in. Yes.
Become regulars. We became heroes.
That's right. Right.
Finally, when the magazine, they passed, it was an editorial decision, I believe.
OK, we're going to look, what should we do now?
Let's make the magazine unfunny.
Yes.
Let's not run any humor in it.
And that's when Gilbert and I finally became.
Right before the padlock.
Basically.
Well then it moved on to, you know,
God knows what happened.
Jim Jamiro.
Yes.
I'd be doing articles and then I would see like Drew
walk in with his art boards and his latest drawings.
And he used to make like the shading and dots,
millions of little dots.
And I used to start screaming,
Jew dots, did you bring some of your Jew dots here?
That's true, that's true.
That's how that started.
You just like, not taunt me,
but follow me around screaming, Jew dots.
Yes, Jew dots, Jew dots.
Okay, what's your point?
Yeah, show us some more of your Jew dots.
And yeah, that was, but now,
now because of your eyesight,
you're doing shading rather than dots.
I'm actually doing more dots.
Weirdly, I'm like kind of reverting back to the dots,
but with the brush.
Oh, okay.
It's an interesting process,
but I'm actually brushing them on so that it'll like,
more faded.
I mean, it's just like a revolving process
where I'm returning to that.
So you can, you know, revise that.
It's fine.
Yes.
But I do have another question for Groucho.
Okay, yes. Groucho. Oh, yes Groucho
Why did you murder Jimmy Hoffa?
course
Chico
Needed the money
He was a gambler right Chico or Chico
likes to gamble
He would lose money
gambling gamble and he would lose money gambling because you either won or lost and Chico would. So Chico needed some money so I had to kill Jimmy Hoffa.
I'm going to do a segue here since you brought up Jimmy Hoffa. We talked on the phone and you said
you had a story that's connected to The Irishman.
Well, first of all, Kathy and I love The Irishman.
We've watched it four times.
Did you finish it, Gil?
No, we gotta watch the second half.
Well, do you have Netflix?
No, I even have a copy of it.
Oh, okay.
Well, it's worth watching.
It's long, it's three and a half hours.
De Niro never sounds Irish for a second.
But he's great.
And Pacino, it's like Pacino won us over.
First time, it's like, OK, he's doing a kind of comedy,
Midwestern chic.
And he's so Italian, he's playing an Irish-German.
Looks nothing like Jimmy Hoffa.
No, not really.
Except he's short.
They made Nicholson look like him a little.
And Joe Pesci is absolutely amazing, I think.
But we love the film.
We keep discovering new things about it and everything.
But one of the particular reasons I was attracted,
I loved it so much is because there's a sequence
that features the murder of Joey Gallo,
where the character like is, takes responsibility for.
So I'm just gonna cut back to like the late 60s.
The actor Jerry Orbach was in one of my dad's plays.
They stayed close.
So in the early 70s, Jerry Orbach and his wife
used to host these parties in New York in their apartment
in a beautiful brownstone in the Murray Hill area.
And they invited my parents and us,
my two brothers and I to the party,
to the first party in the early 70s.
And David Steinberg was there,
it was like celebrities and friends,
it was beautiful brownstone.
So my brothers and I gravitated up to the third floor
where there was this great pool table.
And so we started like, we didn't know what we were doing,
but we started playing with the pool table,
shooting pool.
And this guy was standing there,
this little guy, not very tall,
kind of like nondescript,
he looked like Hector Elizondo without the toupee. And we were standing there, this little guy, not very tall, kind of like nondescript.
He looked like Hector Elizondo without the toupee.
And he had a big mole on his cheek.
And he came up and he says, hey, my name is Joey.
I'd like to show you guys how to play pool.
And we thought, oh, okay, great.
So he worked with us, like showing us how to,
like, you know, chalk the queue and shoot, shoot.
Crazy joke.
Well, it was like, you know,
he just seemed like such the sweetest guy
and he was just like fussing on us
and he like learned our names
and he said, my name is Joey.
And you know, so it was just great.
And then I went down to the kitchen.
He was down in the kitchen with the women,
like Jerry Orbach's wife, Marta, my mother.
I think Marta's mother was there, other women.
And he was like chopping onions.
He was helping them set up food.
He was just like the sweetest guy,
and he was just like keeping to himself basically.
But the next day, we lived in Great Decks,
so we drove home, so the next day,
I went up to my, after school,
I went up to my dad's office, and the rule was,
if you hear him typing, my dad was a writer, is a writer,
you don't go in his office,
because that means he's working, but he wasn't typing.
So I walked in, and he says,
"'Drew, what'd you think of that guy last night joey i said like a nice guy because.
Did you know he's a he's a gangster his name is joey gala he's killed people.
I was like twelve and i said really i was impressed yeah yeah i like them even more yeah yeah he said i was just curious what you thought.
Yeah, he said, you know, I was just curious of what you thought
Must've my father wasn't that thrilled with the idea that we were socializing with Joey Gallo because we got invited back to more parties Oh, Joey Gallo was always there the same thing
he would just fuss on us, especially my younger brother Kip who was really little at the time and
You know, so Joey like was really helping him out especially finally Joey Gallo invited my parents and us to dinner
So my dad who was friends with Mario Puzo,
they were old friends, they were talking on the phone,
my dad mentioned that to Mario Puzo.
He says, what do you think?
He invited us to dinner and Mario Puzo just said,
that's not intelligent.
So it didn't happen.
And just a couple of months later,
Joey Gallo was killed at, you know.
At the Clam Bar.
Yeah, at the Clam Bar.
It's in the movie, right? Yeah, that's in the. They well done. Yeah, they used to call him crazy Joe
I mean the actor in the movie doesn't didn't really look like the Joey Gallo
I I know none of nobody in that movie looks like yeah, and and I heard with
Robert De Niro, even when they try to make him look young he's walking around
Over he's supposed to be 20.
He's beating up a guy in front of a store
and you can see he's an older, he's 75.
You see he's an older man.
When he's kicking the guy outside.
And he's kind of like holding his hands tight.
You can see he's an old, you know.
Right.
You know, you gotta go with it.
I know, he never looked, I never bought the de-aging.
I love the film and I think it's just such a great comedy too.
I mean, there's just so much funny stuff,
especially the Jimmy Hoffa Provenzano stuff,
where they're like screaming at each other like children
and then they're rolling around on the floor
trying to kill each other.
You mentioned Steinberg.
I think Steinberg was the best man at Joey's wedding.
Yeah, they were tight.
I think he told that on this podcast.
And they probably met at Jerry Orbeck's apartment.
David Steinberg, the comic.
That's right.
David Steinberg, sorry to interrupt.
David Steinberg also wrote a show about the Marx brothers
in the late 60s before he was famous.
And I think he presented the script to Groucho.
This was before Minnie's Boys.
And Groucho didn't like the script, I don't think.
Interesting.
And then of course Groucho,
when they were doing Minnie's Boys,
they wanted to cast Toady Fields as Minnie
and Groucho was dead set against that.
They wanted to put Shelley Winters.
Proposed Shelley Winters.
Groucho was happy with that because he liked her big jugs.
You know, so.
I've never seen Minnie's Boys.
I saw it when I was 11 and I loved it.
But what did I know?
But Groucho was in the audience
because he was the consultant on the show.
So my mother and father took us to see the show.
It wasn't a hit, it was a flop,
but it ran for a few months.
But Groucho was sitting in the audience
at every performance in the fourth row.
So at intermission, I went through people's legs
just to get up to him and present him my playbill,
which he signed, which I still have.
And that's my first encounter with Groucho.
One of several.
Yeah, and he was 80 at the time.
And he hadn't had any strokes yet,
so he was still on top of things.
Somebody told us, and I can't remember which guest it was,
told us a very funny story about, it was Ron Friedman.
Check the-
No relation.
No relation, but check, there's a great story
about Shelly Winters and Minnie's boys,
which I won't go into here, but check out that episode.
Louis J. Stadlin, who played Groucho in that.
He's still around.
Yeah, he's the son of Alan Swift.
He hated Shelly Winters.
He said she was just the most unpleasant person
to work with, and not surprising.
Now.
I mean, she was like, you know,
but the review, I remember that show,
it wasn't a very good show, none of the music was good, but I think one of the Times reporter, uh, but, you know, the, the, the review, I remember that show, it wasn't a very good show.
None of the music was good, but I think one of the times reporter, Clyde Barnes,
or the reviewer said, you know, the show, just when it would start getting off
the ground with like Marx brothers, routine routines, like being revived,
Shelley Winters would enter and gummo up the works.
Oh, did you hear our interview with Bill Marx?
Yes.
Yeah.
So he got to see started singing spontaneously. Hello. I must be going. Oh. So did you hear our interview with Bill Marks? Yes. He's a sweet guy.
He got to, he started singing spontaneously.
Hello, I must be going.
Sweet guy, I've talked to him a couple of times.
Yeah.
Very sweet guy.
I remember, I'll never forget someone telling me
they saw Minnie's Boys and they said,
at one point something happened in the audience
and a guy playing Groucho started ad-libbing
and I'm thinking, I'll bet you if you go, you could probably time your watch to when
he starts ad-libbing in the play.
I would imagine.
But it might, you have to think that he felt under pressure because Groucho Marx himself
would be sitting in the audience.
Oh, it had to be. You have to think that he felt under pressure because Groucho Marx himself would be sitting in the audience.
Oh, it had to be.
Practically throughout its entire run.
And this Louis J. Stadlin, who was very good as Groucho,
was up there with Groucho looking at him.
Like, what must he have been going through?
He wrote an autobiography.
I didn't read it, but I always wondered about that.
I think Peter Rieger was in that show.
He was in one of the productions.
He was in one of the productions playing Chico. Yeah, that's right. He took the part over. Uncle Floyd auditioned for Chico for the original production. I think he was 17 at the time.
He didn't get it, but they had revivals that over the years. Kay Ballard was in one revival.
Like as Minnie. It's like all these miscast actresses. Yeah. And it just wasn't that, I mean, there's no memorable songs from it.
Yeah, and it wasn't it just wasn't that I mean, there's no memorable songs from it
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this
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So you're a Zepo guy.
Make a case for Zepo.
Oh, you know, it's like, well, first of all, you know,
he was only in those great Paramount films.
So, you know, it's just like,
if you go to see those revivals,
people really cheer when Zepo's name comes up at the beginning,
you know, just because, I think mainly because those are the best films,
those five films.
So it's like, it just feels good to see Zepo there.
There's also a dynamic.
Because you know he's gone by the time they go to MGM and beyond.
There's a dynamic with the four of them that they didn't recapture,
with the three of them.
There's something nice about it.
Those films are the best, I think the best written.
You know, Coconuts may be a little slow because it was kind of creaky.
But it still works.
Coconuts, still funny.
I agree.
Probably my favorite film is Monkey Business.
That's not every Marx Brothers fans favorite,
but I think that's my favorite,
just because, maybe because Bobby Barber is in it.
Yeah.
He had a frog in his tail.
I'm a duck soup man.
Yeah, most people are.
Yeah. And duck soup was the last of power? But you know when the Mugs Brothers?
After duck soup. Well, I always thought
Night at the Opera was the beginning of the end for them. Yeah, because they were slowing down in there
They were it was making sense why they were doing things.
Yeah, yeah, and they were heroes.
I mean, and they were like sticking up for the,
you know, for Kitty Carlisle,
Maureen O'Sullivan and the other one.
And also the musical interludes were really getting annoying.
Well, they weren't anarchists anymore.
Not really.
What was like David, you know, the producer.
Thalberg.
Thalberg, who Groucho loved, he adored.
He said like, you know, those are the best films.
Groucho's money. They also made money. They were profitable. They were huge hits. Oneberg, who Groucho loved, he adored. He said, like, you know, those are the best films. They were Groucho's money.
They also made money.
They were profitable.
They were huge hits.
One of the reasons Groucho liked them.
And they were big MGM stars,
and they were making more money.
And Chickle played poker with Thalberg, you know,
so they were really tight with him.
So when, you know, you know all this,
when Thalberg died, they were kind of like set adrifted
at MGM. Yeah.
And Mayer hated them.
He didn't get them.
He didn't get the Marx brothers, you know,
it wasn't his kind of humor.
So it was kind of over.
Chico needed the money.
No, it's, Chico needed the money.
And I heard that at one point,
Nat Huyken said he wanted to write a Marx Brothers movie,
which I think would have been great.
It would have been great, and also Billy Wilder wanted to make a Marx.
The Marx Brothers at the UN.
Later on, you know, it probably wouldn't have turned out very well,
because it was like they were old at that point.
It was after the story of mankind, so, you know, just a matter of magic.
Or the great Jewel Rock.
Oh, those were all...
They were hard to watch.
Those were scary.
So since you've alluded to it
and you've told the stories before,
but tell us again quickly about the other two meetings
with Groucho, because they're worth hearing.
Oh, well.
And he was a fan of your dad's, right?
I mean, your dad was a...
We, you know, my first encounter,
I was 11, at Minnie's Boys, and that was,
I didn't meet him, I just went up to him
and people were just getting autographs.
So my dad was invited to a party at this Jimmy's Supper Club,
which was a popular supper club.
We'll remind our listeners who don't know that your dad is Bruce J.
Friedman, the celebrated humorist.
So he was in the teacher. There was a party for teachers, Scotch,
teacher Scotch through the party because they were hiring old comedians to do
ads. Yes, I remember that.
They got Jessel and they got George Burns and then Groucho all of a sudden did an ad
for Teacher Scotch.
And so Jimmy's Supper Club hosted a party for Groucho and my dad somehow got invited.
This is late 1972.
So my dad mentioned it to me and brought me, you know.
So Groucho was there with Aaron Fleming and we approached, and Groucho had just seen The Heartbreak Kid,
which was based on my dad's short story,
and he knew it.
I mean, he knew my dad was connected.
He said, I just saw your film, The Heartbreak Kid,
and it was really wonderful.
So he was pleasant.
He had already had some strokes, he was slowed down,
but that was basically it.
Aaron Fleming was with him,
but Aaron Fleming liked my dad.
In fact, I think she had a little crush on him.
So, cause a couple of years later,
she invited my dad and myself and my two brothers
to Groucho's house.
This is 1975.
So Groucho would have been 75.
To his house for the whole day in Hollywood.
It's like that modern house he had up in the Hollywood Hills.
So I would have been 16.
So we spent the whole day at Groucho's house.
And it was interesting because there were famous people
coming in and out like Elliot Gould and Sally Kellerman,
Dennis Wilson came in.
And it was like people were kind of like saying hi
to Groucho and then disappearing in the back.
And my theory is that there was cocaine being offered
back in the bathroom.
Oh, interesting.
So that's what luring all these young Hollywood types.
Bud Court.
Yeah, all those types you've read about
that used to like hang out at Groucho's house
or always there, regulars.
But Dennis Wilson was there and he comes in.
I was just like, basically I was just like staring
at Groucho when I was there throughout the whole day,
just staring at him and thinking in my head,
I'm probably the luckiest kid in the entire world
right now at this moment.
Just like looking at Groucho and he was singing his songs
and everything, Aaron Fleming was doing the Margaret,
you know,
Dumont part.
And so Dennis Wilson walks in, it's like, oh cool.
And he goes up to Groucho,
he says, it's a pleasure to meet you, sir. And sir and Groucho looks at me has no idea who he is
He looks up he goes well it ought to be and then a guy comes in and goes he says he comes up to grouch
He goes my name is is mark and Groucho looks at me goes. What's your first name trade?
But how old would he have been at this point Groucho was 85 Keep track of the 20th century because Groucho was born in 1890.
In 1930 Groucho was 40 and so on.
So in 1970 Groucho was 80.
1975 he was 85.
He died two years later.
But you know he was really slowed down but he liked kids.
He liked young kids.
That's what I heard.
He'd fuss on my brothers and I.
You know he was like just, and I sat there and I watched
him eat his lunch and he was dribbling chicken, like cream chicken down his chin.
And his nurse had to like wipe it off.
And then we put him to bed.
We actually put him to bed.
Because he had to go to bed early, but before he went to bed, he wanted to watch the latest
episode of You Bet Your Life, which had just come back in syndication.
So they were airing it around 7.30 every night in Los Angeles.
So he wanted to watch that.
So we like took him into his bedroom
and he got in his pajamas and we hugged him good night.
And then-
The Alice Cooper role, because he used to put him to bed.
Right, right.
So he had to go to bed early, you know,
he was a sick old man, but he wanted to watch.
He had to watch You Bet Your Life first,
which was like a nice memory.
The first time I met Ron Delsner. We hadn't had him on the podcast yet
He we hadn't they we barely got introduced to each other and he said to me
About you know, he helped produce
Groucho at Carnegie Hall and he said
Delsner says to me goes, you know this Aaron Fleming used to blow
Groucho and and he goes
End of the sweet story. Yes
What what's his name? Oh fuck the composer Marvin Hamlin Marvin Ham and he goes and and Marvin
Hamlin's had a shot at a two
She was in the Woody Allen film.
She's in everything you always want to know about sex.
She's nude in that, I think, or topless or something.
She was a strange woman.
Like I said, she liked my dad, so I think she was flirting with him.
She wanted us to...
The conclusion of the Groucho story, visiting Groucho, is we went home.
We were staying in Malibu. My dad was working in Malibu that summer we were staying at his house my brother's
and I and then the next day Aaron Fleming called my dad and said you know
Groucho really loved having you he'd like to invite you back to the house
next week because Mae West is coming to the house they haven't seen each other
for 35 years since they both worked at Paramount so my dad like got off the
phone said guys Aaron would like us to come back next week to you know see Groucho and
Mae West and we like kind of looked at each other said that we had enough
Groucho. That's probably my main regret in life. Yeah I didn't witness that. Wow. Or meet
Mae West. Yeah that would have been interesting but you know this some
photos you know of that meeting but you know that would have been interesting. But you know, there's some photos of that meeting,
but we could have been there, so I do regret that.
And I heard with Alice Cooper that he said somewhere that,
or he was saying it, that at one of his concerts,
Groucho came there with Mae West,
and they watched the show together.
Remember Shep Gordon told us that Alice used to crawl into bed with Groucho and watch TV.
Yeah, they did a whole book called the revival of the book Beds, you know, which Groucho
wrote in the early thirties, but all these celebrities like Burt Reynolds and Carol O'Connor
and Sally Struthers and Alice Cooper just posing in bed with Groucho for these photo
sessions.
I think a lot of them were in People magazine.
But I do have another question for Groucho.
Okay.
Groucho, why did you pressure the new president of the Ukraine to announce an investigation
into the Bidens?
Because Chico needed a money.
That explains it.
I don't think you need to be impeached.
Did you stay up all night coming up with me?
All night?
Actually the middle of the night.
So you were telling us when
Rondo hadn't first noticed
or you were telling me when we had our dicks out
when Rondo hadn't first
You have a massive dick.
It's enormous. I mean, you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk about milk and you talk Or you were telling me when we had our dicks out when Rondo hadn't first you have a massive dick
It's enormous. I mean, yeah, he doesn't get enough credit talk about Milton Berle and Hunts Hall guy marks Eddie Fisher and guy marks
Yeah, Gilbert and forest talk Gilbert's right up there. It's like a devil. You know, he's very modest, but I gotta look
Yes, my dick is stretched out into the other room right now. It's in a different like a frozen banana
It's like a frozen better. It's another zip code. It's incredible. That's why we need two studios. I can see that. They keep moving us into
bigger studios here to accommodate. It's very impressive. You know I brought up
Rondo. I mean I would normally bring them up anyway but there's this new book
out about Rondo, the first biography of him, bring them up anyway, but there's this new book out about Rondo,
the first biography of him, that I did the cover for,
and I wrote the afterword to the book.
And it's a terrific book, and it's got amazing details
and photographs in it.
And to me, one of the interesting things is that Rondo
was a respected journalist in Florida early in his life.
I didn't know this.
He was a newspaper man, And I was talking to Gilbert
about how Rondo got into the movies,
but there was a director named, I think, Henry King,
who came to Florida to make a film.
And Rondo was already suffering from the acromegaly.
Acromegaly, yeah.
His head was getting more distorted.
And he looked very, he had an interesting face, of course.
And it hadn't got, he was gassed in World War I.
So it was just catching up with him.
But this director just like took, you know,
took an interest in, because he was,
Rondo was interviewing the director
and the director said, Henry Kang said,
you know, I'd like you to have a little part in this film
as a bouncer, you know, because you have an amazing face.
And so he took the part and he said,
look, if you ever want to come to Hollywood,
you know, I'll use you and I'll get you more work.
And that's when Rondo finally went to Hollywood.
Rondo, of course, is the actor,
the horror movie actor who didn't wear makeup.
And became the creeper.
Became the creeper later on, died fairly young.
But Universal, he was like the top.
Thanks to you and Josh, your brother Josh,
I learned what Acromegaly was.
Thank you.
In the heartbreak of Acromegaly.
Oh, see, see.
See, I grew up on those Monster movies.
You knew?
Yeah, when I was a kid, I knew.
Cause, well, I was like the main,
well, not just Rondo Hatton, but also the,
oh, Tarantula with Leo G. Carroll.
Right.
About, that had to do with Acromegaly.
That's right.
Very good.
Then they called it Acromegalia.
Acromegalia, well I think you and I were children
and that was like the one disease we knew about
because Rondo Hatton had it.
Yes.
So it was like famous monsters of film land
would actually like Rondo Hatton.
He claims the British actor from the Jeffersons.
Yes.
Paul Benedict.
Yes, I had heard Paul Benedict was doingersons. Yes. Paul Benedict. Yes. I had heard Paul
Benedict was doing a play and he got a note they said oh there's a doctor in the
audience who wants to meet you and he thought oh he wants an autograph or
whatever and he went there and he said I I said I'd like to examine you because I
think you may have acromegaly.
And I think you did.
I believe you did.
The heartbreak of acromegaly.
I believe you did.
The heartbreak, yeah.
When you rub a cream on it and it goes away.
Name one other podcast in the world that's talking about
acromegaly right now.
Have you heard of this, Daniel?
Do you have any idea?
Do you know who Rondo Hatton is?
No.
Oh, you've got stuff to Google tonight, my friend.
See, so you're not as big a Monster fan as we are, because when you're a Monster kid,
that's the first thing you learn.
I always love that story you told when you went to, when you were going to school and
the teacher said, oh, that's a great one.
Name a famous person with the initials. Take it from there.
Yes, yes. The teacher was doing a game. I think I was in the first grade or maybe even kindergarten.
And the teacher was doing a game like, I'm going to give you initials and you'll name
a fame.
And she goes like, you know, M.M., Mickey Mouse, B.H., Bob Hope.
And then she says, oh, yes.
And I'm a little kid. and I scream out excitedly,
Anslo Stevens!
Because he played the mad scientist in House of Dragon.
Did she accept Anslo Stevens as an answer?
Was she a fan of that film?
That was a satisfactory answer.
She was probably a Glenn Strange fan.
But that's like pretty obscure because he didn't,
he might have been the only horror film he was ever in,
maybe one or two. I think so.
But he was really good in that.
He was good.
The movie's a mess.
He was like a sweet guy, he became slowly insane.
Yeah, the movies, I mean, I loved it when we were kids,
but House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein,
you know, it's like, they're asking a lot.
Yeah.
Teaming all those monsters up in one film.
And it's like they always seem those two movies like, okay, first you had a little mini Dracula
film, he gets killed, then there's a mini wolf man.
You move on to that and then.
And it ends with Frankenstein being a total idiot.
It's true.
And blowing up the lab. At least Abed Kastel and me, Frankenstein was a total idiot and blowing up the lab.
At least Abin and Costello meet Frankenstein. It was a comedy and they didn't like, you know, it was like they were all, they involved all three of the monsters throughout the film.
Yes! I thought Abin and Costello meet Frankenstein was an improvement on the house.
Yes it was. It was well written and well acted and plus, you know, they played it not for laughs, the monsters.
Get on these damn.
Not really, although Glenn Strange does that,
like Herman Munster laugh at one point.
Oh!
Or it's like that yell, I mean,
I think Fred Gwyn might've gotten it from that.
Oh yeah, he goes, oh!
He's startled by Luke Hustle.
Yeah.
And then of course, you have Vincent Price at the end,
as the, as you know, the invisible man, a little bonus.
So it's like, I think of what my favorite film might be,
and that might be it.
Yeah. Over the years.
Kip, this is a good opportunity to thank Mike Herman,
listener Mike Herman for that great gift that you got
last week speaking of Cheney Jr.
Did you get a one sheet from him?
I got a movie poster of Lon Cheney Jr.
and Destructible Man.
And you know who else is in Destestructible man? Yeah, yeah.
The man with two names.
The man with two names?
Yeah, the guy who plays the reporter, the narrator,
he had two names.
Oh, what was?
Oh, oh, the detective.
Yeah.
Is it Robert Chan?
Bernie Casey.
Casey Adams?
Casey Adams.
Casey Adams.
Also went by.
Mack Showalter.
That's right.
Yeah.
Isn't Inspector Henderson in the indescriptible movie?
Robert Shane?
Yes, he is.
And Flynn is in it, from Michael Snapey.
Joe Flynn.
That's right.
Joe Flynn is the assistant mad scientist.
Is Richard Deacon in that?
I forget.
No, he should have been.
This is so thrilling to see those guys like pop up into some of those films.
Oh great. And you know what's funny? When you see, well by then he was Bernie, he was Casey Adams already I think.
He was originally Max Showalter.
Did he become more successful when he switched over to Casey Adams? Did that get him more parts? Well, I think they thought like Max Showalter aside from being harder to
spell sounded too German, which makes sense.
And but when he, you know,
you would never know from that film that he was, he was so good at comedy.
Yeah.
Cause he started playing these goofy parts.
He was very versatile. Like William Wyndham. He reminded me of him William Wyndham what we love
Yeah, Scott Alexander just sent out that thing today the every guest star in the history of the show
Haven't read that gold mine, you know, but you know, we wouldn't turn and I watched the complete Columbo, you know box set
Yeah, they're great. Amazing to see the guest stars who pop up on that.
Yes.
These 70s actors, has been actors and people who are like, you know,
people we've had here.
Dick Van Dyke, Lee Grant.
Yeah, Dick Van Dyke was the photographer.
Robert Culp, he's gone, right?
Robert Culp was gone before we started.
John Cassavetes is there.
And he's like, some people are doing it.
That's a good one.
And he's doing it because he's good friends with Peter Falk.
Yeah.
Jack Cassidy.
Yeah. A couple of times. Ohalk, obviously. Jack Cassidy.
Yeah, a couple of times.
Oh, twice, I think Cassidy was on.
And Cassidy, he plays a magician on that.
And he killed someone.
And at the end, Cassidy's, when he's found out,
Colombo exposes him, and he's's found out and he's going to jail.
He goes, I thought I had commit the perfect murder.
And Peter Falk says, there's no such a thing, sir.
It's just an illusion.
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first a word from our
sponsor.
I want to ask you about another one of your obsessions because it's, it's well timed.
It's the 50th anniversary of the Odd Couple TV series.
It's also Walter Mathau's hundredth birth year and Tony Randall's.
That's all very sad.
I was just talking to a friend about Tony Randall the other day.
You know he was a nude Marvel?
No.
Yes he was.
Lenny Rosenberg?
He was.
He was the nude Marvel for art classes back in the 40s.
And there's a photo of him online and if you don't believe me, just go online and Google
it.
Tony Randall Nude, he had a huge schlong.
Oh my God.
Who would have thought it? This? Yes go
online right now. Yeah. Yes it's all very exciting. Put the show on hold. The Odd
Couple 50th anniversary. I'm more of a fan of the odd couple the revivals. I know
but you're obsessed and it's on your blog. You post these various. Well
some of the cast members. Now you must have something to say about that
scary
Art-couple TV movie after Jack Clubman had his vocal cords taken out
You know at the time I thought it was not a good decision
No, I think the black-eyed couple was even more
Wilson and
More than a couple and they just were repeating the scripts from the white
It's like like I said, I like I'm fascinated by these revivals of the eye cover from over the years
Then these other productions like oh the women odd couple they did a few of those versions
But they also did there was a version with Don Don Rickles and Ernest Borgnein.
Yep, I wrote it down.
In Las Vegas.
Yeah.
It was directed by Danny Simon,
Neil Simon's brother. Can you imagine?
And Don Rickles played Felix,
and Ernie Borgnein played Oscar.
But there's a lot of weird productions like that
over the years.
Jan Murray did it, Jackie Coogan.
Yeah.
Eddie Bracken did one with Klugman.
Yep, and some of them, the original cast was Art Carney
and Walter Mathau.
And Mathau was not nice to Art Carney.
Art Carney was a drinker, and Walter Mathau didn't like that.
He didn't feel he was professional enough.
So he would badger him, and Art Carney actually had a stroke
while they were doing it on Broadway, in 66.
And then I think Mathau lobbied not to have Art Carney
in the film version, and he wanted Jack Art Carney in the film version and he wanted Jack
Lemon, you know, in the film version.
That's interesting.
The story I heard is that, cause at the time Jack Lemon was the biggest, was the big star.
Movie star, yeah.
And the studio said, we want you, we're making the art couple into a movie.
And he said, and they said said now we just need to find
an actor to play Felix because they thought Oscar was the media role and
that Lemon should play him and Lemon said no Mathau should do it. Yeah weird
because you know Mathau played Oscar on Broadway. Mathau won the Oscar for the
fortune cookie so he was really becoming a big movie star,
so he had clout, but he lobbied not to have Art Carney
in the movie version.
There was another version which never happened,
but imagine this, and it was announced in the newspapers,
Marlon Brando and Wally Cox.
And they had a scene where they fuck each other.
Emphasis on couples.
But that would have been fascinating. That I didn't know about.
It was like when there was Nithi with Brando in like 1968,
and he was speculating about doing this production in Los Angeles.
So that would have been special.
I wish to God it had been me.
Carney came back and did it with Don Knotts, which is on your blog.
Yeah, they switched roles.
Don Knotts played Felix, and your blog. Yeah, they switched roles. Like Don Knotts played Felix,
and Art Carney came back and played Oscar.
I guess he could.
You know, in a theater production in the mid-70s.
So I have all these playbills and articles
and their own Drew's blog.
And his blog, The Otter Couples.
You know what was added more horror to the horror
of the the
vocal cordless Jack Clubman doing that version of the is that they had a whole bunch of
different card players and it's like you go no no we want to see the
Card players who we know from the series
Yeah, yes, no, we're pretty deceased
But there was a Broadway production a one one night production done for charity with Oscar,
with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall playing.
The original play.
Yeah, they did it to raise money for Randall's theater.
So the co-stars, the card players,
that was the interesting part that night
because they had Cleavon Little.
Oh.
I think Vincent Cardena.
Abe Vigoda was one of the card players.
Wow.
A couple of other, just like, whoa, what a cast. I think Vincent Cardenia, Abe Vagoda was one of the card players. Wow.
A couple of other, you know, just like, whoa, you know, what a cast, you know.
Here's three people that did this podcast that were in stage productions of The Odd
Couple.
Bernie Coppell, Barbara Felden did a female version and Orson Bean.
They would do these versions like they'd get Bob Denver.
Yeah.
But he was such a big star, you know, even by the 70s people know from TV
that the co-star didn't matter.
So it was Bob Denver's name and I was like,
well, who's playing the other guy?
It didn't matter.
I think Nipsey Russell and Phil Foster's my favorite.
There were several black versions.
Ooh.
That would have been amazing.
Yeah.
Now, you mentioned Jack Klugman and we have to go here.
Yeah.
I've heard a rumor.
I heard a rumor too.
Jack Klugman. It's a horrible, could we talk? Oh no. This is a've heard a rumor. I heard a rumor too. And it's horrible.
It's a horrible, can we talk?
Oh no.
This is a horrible, this is one that he would like.
You know something, if I find something horrible
and uncomfortable.
You don't wanna go there?
Just say it, I can cut it out.
We can segue, you know, we can.
Oh, this has to do with the baby outfit.
If you want, not even that, it's even more horrible.
If you wanna segue, if want to start with Danny Thomas
We could segue and I think Apple's just involved scrambled eggs
Yes, you know this all right. We'll skip it. We'll hold off on that
Here's one thing about the odd couple that Randall verify this Randall had done it with Mickey Rooney
Somewhere along the line and wanted Mickey Rooney for the series and Gary Marshall knew of Mickey Rooney's reputation and wanted no part of Mickey Rooney. Yes they did a
production in Las Vegas. Yes and that's where Klugman came in. With Mickey
Rooney as Oscar and you know before Tony Randall was in the show. And they also
said that when Art Carney had the stroke, Matho said, why did you want to be in the art couple?
And he said, because she goes, need it or some money.
And I don't understand the connection between Art Carney and...
A post-stroke Art Carney sounded like Groucho.
It is amazing.
It's a small world.
And he was getting a blowjob from Aaron Flemming.
Here's two other great pairings.
Gig Young and Robert Q Lewis did it, Gilbert.
Oh, God!
And Dan Daley and Richard Benjamin.
Oh!
That's right.
And they also did this podcast.
And they're like 40 years apart.
That was a weird one.
Yeah, really weird.
I was like father and son, but so-
Really weird.
That's like some of them are.
So, was Gig Young Oscar?
He must have been.
Yeah, Gig Young did it a bunch of times.
He did one with Robert Q. Lewis.
They were teamed up for a while.
Just the oddest- my blog is called The Other Couple, so some of them are unbelievable.
I wish to God this was before everybody carried a camera with them.
And I was once booked in this place that was a theater, and all around the walls in the
back room there were these posters of all these different plays with TV actors in it.
Well that seemed to like, you know, like Frank Sutton.
Like, in the 70s all they had left was doing dinner theater.
Yes.
That was what they were, you know, they had open to them.
That's how Bob Crane, when Bob Crane bought the farm, he was doing dinner theater.
Basically, but yeah, does that go a list to them?
They were just, basically that's what they did, dinner theater.
When, I think Sally Struthers and
We know Marino. Oh, yes. Yes. They were the female
Worley did one version. There was one with Sandy Dennis and Stella Stevens odd couple. She's fascinating
I also noticed last of the red hot lovers is another one of your obsessions on your blog
Like these Neil Simon plays even if they weren't very good plays, but they would get
revived over and over.
Like, the last one that had Red Hot Lovers was one with like just-
Marvin Kaplan showed up.
Sid Caesar, George Goldblum, Frank Sutton, who you just mentioned.
Lou Giacobbe like the shirt.
Oh, and I think James Coco.
Yep, very good.
He's got that up there.
Original production, and Alan Arka was in the movie, not very good, but they shaved his head because, you know, the act,
the character was supposed to be bald.
But wasn't he already bald, Alan Arkin?
He was like thinning maybe a little, but they gave him like, you know,
An out, an out.
They turned him into Sidney Fields, basically.
Yeah.
Boys, boys!
Now that you've brought up Sidney Fields, go ahead.
Oh, before I forget, cause, you know, we can't go too long without talking about Lon Chaney Jr.
Someone came up to me at a club recently and they said they bought Lon Chaney Jr.'s book
for me, but they didn't know they'd be seeing me.
So if you're out there with Lon Chaney Jr.'s book, please try to mail it to me.
I hope you get it.
You wouldn't order it from Amazon, right?
No, no, no.
You want a free copy.
That's okay.
Because if I had a copy, I'd give it to you.
I don't have that one.
That would be $5.
He was writing a book before he died.
Oh, 100 Years of Chaney's.
100 Years of Chaney's, yeah.
That didn't come out.
And then he has a son or a grandson
who dresses up like the Wolf Man.
Oh, we we had
Ron Cheney nice guy. That's the Chinese long Cheney wrong Cheney
Sydney Fields, what do you know about Bud Abbott's porn collection? Well, you know you guys know that you know
That's FBI fire one who had the large for some reason a J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with porn collection
So yes, the largest porn collection supposedly were owned, but this is the 1940s Lou Costello
But Abbott and Red Skelton now skeleton we heard
Yeah, but both Abbott and Costello both had large see this and this shows like how red Skelton would go out of his way
To like be the wholesome, God-fearing.
Yeah, there was nothing.
Good night and may God bless you.
Always bringing up God.
He had the largest, think about that.
They had the largest porn collection in Hollywood.
Whatever that says about the man.
I'm not, you know,
I've not made it a secret
that I'm not necessarily a fan of all the
Jewish comedians I've drawn from my books.
Red buttons like drives me up the wall.
I don't get it.
Aaron Schwatt.
Yeah, Aaron Schwatt.
It's like, I'm not a big fan.
Eddie Cantor has never won me over.
He just makes my skin crawl.
And now, here's another horrible story that Drew told me.
See, I love horrible rumors.
That's all we talk about.
The ones Drew tells me are so fucking disturbing.
We know where we're going with this.
Like the Clark Gable Andy Devine one?
Well, no, that one didn't bother me.
That's not so disturbing.
I like the Clark Gable Andy Devine.
There's nothing disturbing about it.
That's kind of warm-hearted.
The original broke back mountain.
There was an affection between these two.
But according to Drew, and I'm not gonna believe this,
I'll believe any other story.
I can verify, so what is it?
Drew was saying to me, and fuck you Drew,
I hope you die on the way home for saying this to me.
Drew was saying, just fucking have a stroke
while you're crossing the street,
then get hit and then be crippled and live a long time.
I'm curious, what is this story?
I need to hear it.
Go ahead.
You know, with sores on your body like in the Bible.
Yeah, I want to hear this one.
Does it involve scrambled eggs?
No, you said that Eddie Cantor was fucking Shemp.
You know, I hear these things, people tell them to me, so of course I have to repeat
them. things people tell them to me so of course I have to repeat them you know
Shep was a good-looking guy back in the 20s he was kind of you know he was lean
regular Tyrone Tower really great hair he had long hair it's like he looked like
emo Phil he had emo Phil he had like beetle haircut he was like kind of he
wasn't married yet to Gertrude. I don't know if this is true,
but I heard it and I think I heard it from a fairly reliable source. I don't remember
that source. I'd like to think it's true.
And who would the source be that was true?
Oh, God. You know, I'll have to think about who told me that.
Oh my God.
It was a reliable source. Somebody who knew his stuff.
Okay.
Like, you know, like Orudetsky or some?
So I didn't doubt it. That's why, yeah, someone who just knew, you know, who I didn't doubt, and that's why I passed it on to Gilbert.
I said, look, chew on this.
That's a horrible armor.
Think about this.
Yes.
But I do have another question for Grouch.
Okay.
Grouch, why did you hang Jeffrey Epstein
in his prison cell?
Uh.
Because Chico needs some money. Now I heard when Eddie Cantor and Shemp would
fuck that Eddie Cantor would go, oh, oh, I'm coming. And then Shemp, hee-bee beep beep beep. Of course. You have that on good authority.
That I know for a fact.
Yeah.
And I heard it's something I have to draw just to make it,
put it out there.
I heard when Curly would come, he'd go, whoop whoop whoop.
Where did the Shemp obsession begin? Why Shemp?
Yeah, it's like, I don't, you know, people, somebody even said the other day, like, you
know, Shemp is my favorite too. I said, look, Shemp is not my favorite. I love them all.
I love Joe Dorita.
You do love Joe Dorita.
I love Joe Dorita.
I adore Joe Dorita.
I believe you're lying.
In fact, I stare at Joe Dorita, you know, in his little moves he makes.
I was at his wake.
That's right. You were.
We've told on the show.
Frank was at Joe Dorita's wake.
I'm not proud of that.
And our friend Mark Newgarden was there
and Mark asked Frank to get in the casket with Joe
at one point.
So why don't you get in the casket with him?
I don't know why he didn't, I would have.
No, he wanted to take a picture.
Now you also told me that the only other people
at the wake were like gardeners, like who worked at-
Drew, it was sad.
It was poorly attended.
Moe's son was there, Paul.
Jeffrey Scott or the nephew or something.
And then some guards like Spanish,
like Mexican gardeners and Frank was there.
Joe Dorita was the only cigar smoking stooge.
Also the only non-Jewish stooge.
Yes, yes.
That's true.
That's right, probably good.
He was Polish.
But I like, I stare at Joe Dorita.
He has his admirers.
And if you actually watch
these columbia shorts he made back in the forties and this it will explain
why moe wanted him to like
fill in and yeah i really died before shep
he was really good he was light on his feet that's what i heard but there was
no evidence of the watch the money and i was only three students or shorts
directed by jules way with with Christine McIntyre.
They seem like Columbia shorts with the theme song,
Mary Lee We Roll Along was the theme song
they gave to Joe Dorita.
I don't know who makes those decisions.
You know, you can say Three Blind Mice made sense
for the three stooges because they're three comedians.
Mary Lee We Roll Along was Joe Dorita's theme song,
but he made these shorts in the late 40s. Am Sitka pops up by Jamison Vernon Dent Christine McAther like three Stooges shorts
But just Joe Dorita and he's good
He's like kind of he looks like Shemp because he has long hair parted in the middle long black hair getting in his face
And they're basically the same gags they were doing the three Stooges films now. I heard
that after all the lawsuits,
after Moe died, uh, that,
that curly Joe Dorito wound up with all the money.
His sons, as far as I know,
his sons control the rights to the three stooges now, you know?
So if you need to license anything to do with the three stooges,
you have to go through his sons. That's what I've heard.
Who was it that put it in his paperwork and his contract that he couldn't be?
Was it Dorita? No, it was Besser.
He didn't want to be slapped around. He didn't want to be hit.
It was beneath him. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. That was Joe Besser.
You know, he finally left the three stooges.
It was after their Columbia contract ran out.
And his excuse was, well, my wife is sick.
His wife was, so I have to get back.
His wife lived on another 30 years
I think he just wanted to stop being I think so that was like that very
Convenient excuse they left at Columbia they had nothing going on. They're playing state fairs
Until you know, you know the story because you know, they were spread
They started showing the shorts on TV and they became hugely popular and that's what led to the movies
They started showing the shorts on TV and they became hugely popular and that's what led to the movies
You know in the cartoon show and all that's in the raw of revival their full-length movies are scary They're hard to they're hard to watch. Yeah, not very good and Norman Moore
Their son of Moe's son-in-law was directing them at that point. They're they're a little hard to watch a little mo
I can't even give them like moments like you know Jerry Lewis films
You can say what you all about Jerry and his films,
but they're always moments.
Yeah, there's always a moment of genius.
Yeah, there is.
Even if you watch Cindy Feller, it's hard going,
but there's always a moment they're like,
okay, that doesn't make it worth watching the entire film,
but there's not with the three Stooges films from the 1960s,
they're really tough going.
Yeah, those are-
You're watching Old Men and Larry,
I'm fascinated by Larry
Yeah, but you know, but the basically like at the end they were just like like fighting amongst themselves
They couldn't even hire like villains and stuff
So they're in the kitchen fighting with appliances and and if they did anything physical if they slapped each other
It's like old men worried about like, oh my god god like you know and then you watch mo on Mike Douglas
And he's really oh my god
Those on YouTube, but he hadn't gotten the memo that look you're a seriously old man now
And and he was like doing you know with Ted Knight
And he's like they're smacking each other and he's rolling on the floor and he died shortly after they they were doing a thing
They do it they he
Mike Douglas and some other famous actor.
I think Soopie Sales is on one of them.
Yeah, somebody, I don't know if it was Soopie, but it was another famous actor.
And they did the Niagara Falls.
And Moe was doing a thing where after he would do like the freakout when he hears
Niagara Falls, he would do this thing where he's shaking around
Yeah
like you like kids say he's
Going back to normal and he's shaking around and wobbling and you'd see the looks on the other two guys faces
Going oh is he having a stroke now? Because it looks like, oh, he's in trouble.
And you can watch those on YouTube,
you're really concerned,
because Moe's legs are kind of wobbly.
Yes.
It's like, I thought, you know,
I was excited to see Moe Howard on Mike Douglas
as much as I was to see John Lennon.
Yes, yes.
It was like, how did Mike Douglas get those shows?
And do you remember, there was a panel in the 70s
at one point on the Mike Douglas show.
So it was Yoko Ono, Darla Hood, Spanky McFarlane,
George Carlin and Robert Klein.
Wow.
Robert Klein was the cohost that week.
Yeah, wow.
So when I, Robert Klein, I did a talk with him
at the Strand recently for my new book,
with all the presidents.
Yes.
He did a beautiful job.
Which we should talk about.
But he talked about,
you know, he was sitting next to Mike the whole week
and he said when Yoko was sitting there on the panel,
Mike Douglas leans into Robert Clyde and says,
nice tits on her, huh?
That's like, you know, so the image of-
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
It stuck with me, but what a panel.
I remember when I was a kid watching the Joey Bishop talk show.
Yeah.
And Regis Philbin.
Yes, yes.
Regis Philbin was his Ed McMahon.
And Larry Fine walks out on stage as surprise.
Wield out or walks out?
No, he actually walked out
Yeah before his stroke the stroke of luck and any stroke of luck. He's holding a little box with him. Yeah, and
He says oh, I don't know he had some kind of gift for
For um for Joey Bishop he was, I guess he got a job
being a spokesman for something.
He was still a stooge at that point.
Yeah.
And so he brings out this box and Joey Bishop goes,
hey, what are you, do you got a pie in there?
And, cause he goes, cause when I see one of you guys,
I always expect you to
bring out a pie.
And Larry goes, would I wear a jacket like this if I had a pie?
Very good.
Do you remember the very last three Stooges appearance?
Oh.
Who's on Truth or Consequences.
The three of them, 1970,
before Larry had the stroke, they come out,
they stand there, they don't do a thing.
So was Curly Joe.
Curly Joe, Moe, and Larry.
Last appearance, Truth or Truth, with Bob Barker,
who's like a foot tall of them,
and they're just standing there.
They don't do any comedy.
It's like worse than Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, War,
where at least they're dressed as firemen.
They're just standing there, and it's sad, but it's the last time they were stooges.
And I think Larry had a stroke right after that and that was the end of the act.
And then they were even after Larry had a stroke.
Moe was trying to revive the act.
Yeah, and I think this guy who was an assistant to Al Adamson or his partner.
Yeah.
Yeah, I forget his name, Simon something.
And he wanted to, he was planning, he was talking to Mo about making a Three Stooges
movie, bringing Larry back into it, who was confined to a wheelchair
and they said they'd have some scene where they go to either
a health club or whorehouse
and Larry starts speeding around on his wheelchair
going up to each of the girls.
I know that that film became Blazing Stewardesses.
Oh yeah.
And they used the Ritz brothers
cause they couldn't get the three Stewardesses.
The two Ritz brothers who were still surviving.
Harry.
Harry, Harry and his brother.
Harry turns up in Silent Movie.
Yeah, well Mel Brooks was a huge Harry Ritz and so was Jerry Lewis.
They adored Harry Ritz.
It's like hard to even get a sense of how funny Harry Ritz was from the movies.
But supposedly you saw him on stage and, and he was just he would just like go crazy on on stage
Why was Bishop so hated since you bring up since Gilbert brings up Jerry?
I don't know I've heard that but he seemed like a nice pleasant guy to me, but I don't know was he hated
Yeah, we haven't heard a kind word about him. No him him and Danny Kate not a kind word about
Along a deck of Joey Bishop playing cards, okay my ex from the Jews from the Jews. Yeah, him and Danny K. Not a kind word about Danny K. I brought along a deck of
Joey Bishop playing cards. Okay. From my Jews. From the Jews. Yeah, yeah. I travel with that.
I want to read a section Jeff Ross wrote, our pal Jeffrey Ross wrote the four word too. Even
more Jewish comedians. Third volume. The third volume. I want to read this. Don't feel sorry
for us just because we're not lookers. It doesn't mean we don't get our share of conquests.
In fact, comedians often do better with the opposite sex than our more amorous but less
humorless friends.
Hell, even Gilbert Gottfried has a hot wife.
Of course, she's also blind and deaf.
Speaking of Gilbert, speaking of Gilbert, my new book is called All the Presidents.
So it's portraits of, you know, there's no Jews in it.
It was an experiment.
You know, how could I do a whole book with no Jews in it?
I almost do because in the beginning,
in my forward to the book, I drew Jared Kushner
and Lenny Bruce and-
Gilbert is the voice of Jared Kushner.
I know that.
Yes.
I know that.
On what's his name?
John Oliver. You really captured John Oliver. And I know Jared because he was the. Yes. I know that. On what's his name? John Oliver.
You really captured John Oliver.
You really captured him.
And I know Jared because he was the publisher
of New York Observer.
Oh.
So I met him a few times and he sounds just like you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In my book, it's uncanny actually,
but in my book, you know, it's not a history book.
So it's not like, you know, I wouldn't recommend it
to people who want to learn about the presidents,
but in the book, there's like a fun fact
that Kevin Doherty helped me put together for each president.
And some of them are,
a couple of them that are interesting, I thought.
I don't wanna give too much away
because I want people to buy this book, of course.
So Gerald Ford was the first president
who actually invited a beetle to the White House,
and that was George Harris.
Yeah, that's cool.
Wow.
And Barack Obama collected comic books.
He was a huge Spider-Man fan.
Did you know that?
No.
And Ulysses S. Grant is actually not buried in Grant's tomb.
Huh.
He's buried above ground.
And the Trump fact,
Trump is the last guy in the book, obviously.
I saved him to last to draw him
because I couldn't accept that he was the president.
I had to just, I it so you know so I
finally drew him he's the last guy so the fun fact about him is he is the first
Donald Trump is the first president to host a reality a reality TV series that
featured Gilbert Godfrey there you go oh excellent black and white that is the fun
fact with Donald Trump oh Oh, that's excellent!
When I was working on this book, one of the interesting things for me was like, I was
looking at these people, I was drawing them, and thinking like, well, who could play this
person in a movie?
Because some of them look like, I realized as I was drawing James Polk, that he looks
just like Boris Karloff.
Oh, wow!
And Millard Fillmore looks just like Alec Baldwin, right?
If you look at them, it's like, you know, it's uncanny
Uh, James Buchanan looks like John Lithgow
Uh, Andrew Johnson looks like Tommy Lee Jones
Jimmy Carter looks like William H. Macy
And Barack Obama looks like Gilbert Gottfried. Yeah
And George Washington looks like Stewie Stone Stewieie Stone, somebody else mentioned William Bendix,
which I didn't get. I don't see it.
And also the guy who used to write those Mickey Spillane.
And that one I see.
When Barack Obama was still in office,
I was always getting tweets where people would tweet
a picture of me and Barack Obama,
pictures of us together.
Yeah, you got the ears, similar haircut, and plus, you know, back in the old days,
he had a fro and you had the Jew fro.
Yes!
I'd like to point out that Gilbert played one of the people in this book, Abe Lincoln.
Yes!
Oh, I know.
Yeah.
Twice!
I love you, Lincoln. I love you, Hitler.
Yes! Yes!
On historical roads.
Suck up.
You really captured him. The leader, Hosen, I love your Hitler. Yes, yes. On historical roads. Suck up. You really captured him,
and the leader, Hosen, really put it over.
I think I'm the only person who's played
both Abe Lincoln and Adolf Hitler.
Well, look that up.
We mentioned Jared, and there's a documentary
being prepared about Jared for Netflix,
and the guys who made the Roger Stone,
Get Me Roger Stone movie have made this documentary.
It's gonna be on Dirty Money, this series.
And they actually came up to my house and filmed me for it,
talking about my relationship,
working for Jared at the New York Observer.
And then the time I met him at the Four Seasons,
he hosted a party and that's the first time I met him.
So I told this story on air and I'll tell it now.
It's like I approached him,
I saw him at the bar by himself and I said to Kathy, I'm going to go introduce myself. He knows who I am
because he had bought some of my artwork, the covers that I did for the Observer. So
I walked up to him. He was standing by himself. He hadn't been married to Ivanka yet, but
he was hosting this huge anniversary party for the Observer. He was holding a glass of
champagne. So I walked up to him. I said, Hey Jared, it's Drew Friedman. He goes, oh, hi Drew.
And he's like kind of looking around surveying the crowd
like Gatsby.
And he goes, Drew, I'd like to talk to you,
but there are a lot more, far more important people here
for me to talk to.
So, shocking.
So I nodded and kind of backed off and went back to Kathy.
And she said, so how'd that go?
And I said, well, this is what he said
and she couldn't believe it.
Like, he really said that to you?
I said, yeah, you know, and I found it kind of refreshing,
you know, his honesty, his blatant honesty.
So, you know.
And a friend of, a mutual friend of ours,
of Jared's and mine, Ken Curzon,
said he was talking to Jared recently and he brought that up.
He said, did you really say that to Drew Friedman?
And Jared thought about it.
He said, yeah, that sounds like something I would have said.
So confirms it.
Wow.
But the guys making this documentary,
they wanna have you come to the opening
to do your Jared impression.
Oh, okay.
You'll be fed, so don't worry about it.
There's a meal in it.
You'll be well fed. Here's worry about it. There's a meal in it. You'll be well fed.
Here's some more wild card questions for you. Why did Joan Rivers detest Jerry Lewis so
much? Because she... Oh, it's a real question. I have one more question for Groucho, don't
worry. I think it was vice versa. I think Jerry hated Joan Rivers. He made it clear
he didn't like women comics. I mean, not dating back the old, he didn't like Phyllis Dove.
Joan said Jerry should be electrocuted.
They hated each other, you know, they hated each other. But I think it was more him. He
just dismissed female comics and that got back to her. And it could have been more to
it than that. I think there's a Merv Griffiths show with both of them on the panel. Back
when Merv was doing those like really cool shows in the mid 60s. I think we had two guests on this show who what's amazing about them had nice
things to say about Jerry Lewis. Well you and I do have nice things to say about Jerry Lewis.
You mean yourselves. Yeah. I think Jerry liked you and he liked me.
He called me when my first Jewish Comedians book came
out and I was nervous about it, but he made a fuss on it. And he invited Jerry, he invited
Kathy and I to Las Vegas to be his guests at one of the telethons, the second to last
telethon. So, you know, we were there in Las Vegas. And then the night before they were
setting up, he was in his jazzy, but I wanted to meet him. I had never met him. So I approached
him and we had a little talk. He met Kathy, couldn't have been sweeter and nicer.
He starts moving away in his little jazzy cycle,
you know, cause he's like, you know,
zipping back and forth.
And I say, as he's leaving, he goes,
I just met Drew Friedman.
And someone says like, who's Drew Friedman?
He goes, the artist, you fucking idiot.
Charming.
I remember when they were dedicating that wall of the Fry's club to him.
And it was an outdoor ceremony, of course.
And I was sitting in a chair and I wound up sitting right next to Jerry.
And he was like, he would start yelling out,
it was everything you want Lewis to be.
He was like heckling the ceremony.
And when he'd yell out a joke, after each joke, he'd grab my arm and squeeze it, like
get it?
And I thought, wow, he's pulling me in on him.
He took a liking to you and he took, and I was nervous as hell when he first called me
and I knew he was gonna call
because the editor of The Observer said
Jerry Lewis is gonna be calling me
because I did some tribute to him.
So I said, shit, I had to get my nerve up.
And I knew when he was gonna call the next day.
So I said, okay, don't mention Dean Martin.
Don't mention Abby Greschler, his first agent
when we wound up Haiti.
And don't mention Sammy Petrello.
And I didn't, and we had a great conversation.
He would call back and everything.
So then, my friend Dave Eberson is writing this biography
of Sammy Petrello, and for those who don't know,
Sammy Petrello is the guy who used to imitate Jerry Lewis.
Mute Jerry Lewis.
Jerry discovered him as a teenager, hired him,
used him once on the Colgate
show.
Milton Berle also used them.
Eddie Cantor used them.
And then he broke off and appeared in that film with Bellegosi and Duke Mitchell.
And I think Eddie Cantor fucked them.
Well, of course.
Fucked everybody.
But, you know, my friend who's writing this biography said, like, you know, well, the
interview I'd love to get is Jerry Lewis.
I said, I can make that happen for you.
I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to be talking to Jerry.
I'm going to bring it up.
And I got my nerve up and I said, Jerry, um, my friend, this journalist,
Dave Abramson is writing this biography of Sammy Petrillo.
He would love to interview for it.
And Jerry paused.
I said, you know, I was like, Oh God.
He goes, why would anybody write a book about Sammy Petrillo?
I said, well, it's an amazing story,
this young kid who was obsessed with you
and basically became you, and then you hired him,
and then he went on to have this low end career
in show business for 50 years.
And he goes, all right, have your friend call me.
And it was interviewed for the book.
Wow.
He talked to Dave for a few minutes about Sammy
You know, he said I discovered him when he was a teenager on the street in time in on 49th Street
and he was imitating me and I brought him up to the studio and he met Dean and then I used them and and
Then you know, he didn't have a lot to say but he remembered distinctly
Sammy Patrillo and Sammy would have been 16 at the time. So the two of us can use that classic showbiz phrase,
well, he was always nice to me.
Yes, I used to with you, because people, you know,
I mean, Jerry, when Jerry liked you, he liked you a lot.
He would say, I like, when I like you, I like you a lot.
When I don't, when I hate you. I like you a lot when I don't when I hate you I hate you a lot and the best compliment I ever got was
One time they were like honoring Jerry Lewis somewhere and I went up and did a lot of like my
Crazy shit who did the aristocrats joke at the Hill? Yeah, and and and afterwards and and some even more
disgusting and At the Hilton. Yeah. And and and afterwards and some even more disgusting.
And afterwards, Jerry Lewis walks over to me with that serious Jerry face and he goes, Gilbert,
you are out of your fucking mind.
And then he goes, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
That's beautiful. Yeah.
Now, the disgusting story you told there,
was that even more disgusting than the Jack Klugman story
we're not allowed to tell?
Oh, geez.
That's horrible.
I'm gonna move fast then.
All right, all right.
Cause that's possibly the most disgusting thing
I've ever heard. That's horrible.
And you know the audience wants to hear it.
Yes, of course they do.
But I'm not gonna tell.
I'm not gonna tell.
Of course they do.
I couldn't live.
I had someone asked me today
They say we were listening to an episode with Richard kind. Yeah, who was the chicken Hawk? Oh, we're not gonna Yeah, we can't we can't repeat that. I have do have one more question
Oh, those certain people know this one this question. I've been wondering about years
And if you can answer this Groucho, why did you appear as Dr. Peabody
in Problem Child 3?
Because, because Chico needs the money.
I thought it was Gilbert needed the money.
That explains it.
See, that's how bad Chico is doing,
that I did Problem Child three to help Chico.
It had to be a good reason. Who else did you stay in touch with?
I mean who else got in touch from the, from the Jewish comedian books?
I know you ran a foul of Rickles and Sid Caesar and Jack Carter.
I didn't have direct contact with Don Rickles and Sid Caesar.
And what they were upset about is that their names were outed.
Their real names were outed because Kathy and I did research on what the real Jewish names were when they were born.
So Donald Rickles was born Archibald Donald Rickles.
He wanted that to be a secret.
Not on Wikipedia.
Not at all. Well, like his agent and everybody, they took that down.
And Sid Caesar was born Isaac Sidney Caesar.
So their legacy, you know, it was like about their legacy.
It's like Sid Caesar, Donald Rickles. That's it.
You know, see now, now I heard the way the name Caesar came about.
Sid Caesar said when his father was passing through Ellis Island, his father was a tailor
and he was trying to explain it, but he couldn't speak English.
So he started doing a move with his two fingers like scissors and he
goes you know Caesar Caesar that's interesting and I just wrote down that
his name was Caesar but you stayed in touch with other people like you got to
know Mickey Freeman you got to know when the book first came out some of these
guys we books were sent to some of the right you know comedian the still-living
ones so Mickey Freeman called instantly,
he loved it, Freddie Roman.
And then Jerry Lewis called.
And then the friars started throwing parties for the books
and inviting some of the comedians.
Storch obviously.
Larry Storch and Freddie Roman of course.
And Eddie Lawrence, the old philosopher was there.
Sure, did you ever hear from Marty Ingalls
or Buddy Hackett or any of these people?
No, no, some of them, you know, like, you know, they wanted to send books to Jackie Mason and
Joan Rivers. I said, don't do it. Don't do it. Because you never know. It's like, you know,
don't bother them. And some of them with happening careers, they couldn't be bothered with it. And
then other guys like Mickey Freeman, it basically revived his career. And Mickey would call me.
And you remember Mickey from the Bilko Show. He used to talk like this, Sarge, you know Sarge,
Joan Hogan is the best looking dame in the force.
But he would call me and all of a sudden
he had this English accent.
Oh jeez.
Hello Drew, this is Mickey Freeman.
I just want to, I really love you.
He would call me and he'd go,
you know Drew, all of show business loves your book.
And I'm thinking, Mickey is this,
Mickey somehow is the spokesman for all of show business.
So he was speaking for Sean Puffy Combs
and Britney Spears.
Jack Carter was pissed off at you, of course, famously.
You told that story.
My friend Ben Schwartz interviewed a few guys
for the Los Angeles Times, so he interviewed Jack.
Jack Carter was pissed off about his portrait.
He wanted me to draw him again. He said, look at that stupid face he gave me.
He gave me a balding head and he gave me liver spots
and he says, you should draw me again.
But he liked the Buddy Hackett I drew
and he liked Sid Caesar.
He thought I captured them, so.
It's funny.
We almost had Jack Carter on this one.
I know, very close.
Yeah.
He was another guy.
He wound up in a wheelchair.
He was bitter, but he was like banking on a comeback. I know, very close. Yeah. He was another guy, he wound up in a wheelchair,
he was bitter, but even though it was like
banking on a comeback, you know, like that kind of situation.
We should direct our listeners to Cliff's wonderful
shit Jack Carter says on his blog.
Jack Carter was gonna hire Cliff to write his biography,
you know, to be his ghost writer.
He told us that story, went to the house.
Yeah, it's great, it's great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then he was just like insulting cliff as he was
Lose it like you get to you know get a book deal
Insulting the guy and I wants to help him and get his name back in the public a bitter man
Who's angrier Jack Carter or or Pat Cooper?
Well, I think the co-workers was more schtick more Jack Carter, you know, but I think as, you know,
these guys get older and they're kind of forgotten,
you know, a lot of them become bitter.
Let's plug the Jewish comedian books, all three of them.
Well, they're all out of print.
All Jewish, they're all out of print.
Which is a good thing, but you can get them on eBay.
Okay.
And I don't think I'm gonna do a fourth
because I'm running that old Jewish comedians.
I have a list of, I mean, I never drew a...
The guy next to me didn't show up in any of the volumes.
Well, now he's eligible. Some of these guys, when I did the first book 12 years ago and
I couldn't draw Richard Belzer because he was still a younger man or Albert Brooks because
he was a younger man.
They're in the third volume, aren't they?
Belzer is in the third because he crossed like 66. I thought that's getting all but Albert Brooks when I met him
in Los Angeles
He
Had a party so he knew who he knew my books. So he the first thing he said with Drew
How come my dad wasn't in your old Jewish comedian book?
I said well because your dad wasn't old enough. He died young. Now his dad, of course, was Parker Carcas,
who died on the road at the Lucy Desi roast in 1958.
Did his act, killed, he was great.
It was recorded, sat down and leaned forward and died.
And he was, like, if you listen to the recording,
he was great.
And young Albert, who was 10 at the time,
helped his dad out with the routine.
He was really proud that night
because his dad went, finished his routine, and then died.
But he killed, he was funnier than George Burns was
that night, and Milton Berle, and Dean Martin,
were all on the roast.
So when I met Albert, he asked me that,
and then I said, well, he just died too young.
And then Albert said, you know, Drew,
did you know that Harpo's ex-wife married Frank Sinatra?
And I said, no, it wasn't Harpo's ex-wife.
It was Zepo's ex-wife.
He goes, no, it was Harpo's ex-wife.
I said, look, I have Andy Marks,
Groucho's grandson, standing right here.
I said, Andy, which of your uncle's ex-wives
married Frank Sinatra?
And Andy said, Seppo.
Barbara Marks.
Yeah, so that was my Marshall McLuhan moment.
It was like Andy Hall.
Basically, it was handy to have
Groucho's grandson standing right there.
It's a great story.
I just told it again recently,
but I love that story with Bob Einstein.
Yeah, your father died doing what he loved.
Yeah. And he said when he heard that, that made him cringe.
He didn't like hearing that.
And he said, What does your mother do?
And he said, She's a housewife.
And he goes, Let's go over to her house
while she's doing the laundry
and I'll pull out a gun and blow her fucking brains out
and we can say she died doing what she loved.
God bless Bob Einstein.
We just eulogized him.
I'm sure Albert was really affected by that,
but he was, you know, he was proud of his dad.
And it's like, I don't think he had issues
with the fact that his father died when he was 10 years old
because his father went out with a bang.
Sure.
Einstein supposedly had issues with the comics
that were cracking wise during his eulogy
or his funeral service.
Okay.
Yeah, that's my understanding.
You can listen to the recording of Parky Carter.
It's fascinating.
And they cut away right before he has a stroke,
because I've heard the stories
where Milton Burroughs is screaming,
like is there a doctor in the house?
And there's chaos.
And then Lucy and Desi separated right after and divorced
right after, I have to think that might affect.
And Gilbert, before we end,
could you just tell me tell the story of when Lucy walked in the dressing room with Desi the one time
and what You know the story wait
Desi was with a woman in the dress. Oh, yes, this story Lucy walked in and you're
What the Desi say?
Frank, do you remember this?
He's like, the woman is blowing him.
Yeah.
Right?
And Desi is like acting, Lucy walks in.
Oh yes.
And Desi is like acting like,
oh my God, what are you doing?
Right.
Like he had no idea.
I don't remember who told us that one.
And you know why that woman was blowing Desi?
That was Aaron Fleming.
Was it Aaron Fleming?
Because she goes. Flemmo. Needed the money. That woman was blowing desi? That was Aaron Fleming. Was it Aaron Fleming?
Flemo.
Needed some money.
We'll also plug the book, Drew Friedman's Chosen People,
because Gilbert and I are both in the book.
Yes, Gilbert is in that book, I think three times.
Three portraits of Gilbert in that book.
And then the new book is All the Presidents.
All the Presidents!
There's no Jews in it.
I'm holding it up, but we're an audio-only podcast. It was an interesting book to do because you know it was like unexpected so it was
kind of an experiment and again like I said no Jews in it but very some very interesting faces.
Anything else you can talk about in the planning stages? I have a new book I'm working on. I'm not
ready quite I'm not quite ready to discuss that but there are Jews in it so you know we're okay okay and you know we can you know hopefully I just want to say that hopefully
everybody is a member of the Bobby Barber group on Facebook and the Sammy
Petrullo group on Facebook. I take great pride in those two groups. We have questions from
listeners but we'll ask them in this little post show thing that we'll do
we'll do a little video for the people on patreon So please guys support us on patreon.com slash Gilbert Gottfried
And follow us on Facebook on Twitter on Instagram and the various
Listener societies on Facebook. Thanks to Stephen Varley Daniel spaventa Jason Shibairo. Am I saying his name, right?
Shibiro, I think I've said it wrong three weeks in a row. And all our friends at Starburns and definitely follow the Bobby Barber group
above all. Yes and let me just like plug briefly the the film that Kevin Doherty
is making. Oh I forgot to ask about the doc. Vermeer of the Borsch Belt which is
the documentary being made about me and my career. Yes! And in a lot of interviews
including with you guys and you know a lot and Pat Noswalt. And Richard Kind and everybody.
Gordesky, a lot of a lot of and you know, I'm not in the film. I'm not involved in
the film. I'm just the subject, but what I've seen I'm very impressed with and
hopefully it'll be out this year. Cliff Nestor Flavin.
Flavin' normal. Flavin' Nestor Flavin. And we love flavin'? Flavin'- Flavin'- Flavin'-
And we love Kevin.
Yes.
So he's doing a great job.
He's the best.
So if you wanna throw him some money,
making these documentaries is expensive,
so Kevin has a lot of expenses,
but it should be a fun film, I think.
All right, and go to eBay and buy us
these outer print books and all the presidents.
The new one.
Thank you, Frank.
Thank you, Drew.
Thank you, Gilbert.
Yes, and this has been Gilbert Gottfried's The new one. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Drew. Thank you, Gilbert.
Yes.
And this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre
and Drew Dutz himself, Drew Friedman.
And you know why Drew Friedman came here today?
Because Chico needed the money. You know why Drew Friedman came here today?
Because Chico needed the money.
The only reason.
We'll see you on Patreon.
Exactly. You know we can't smile without you.
We can't smile without you.
We can't laugh and we can't sing unless we hear
those telephones ring.
We feel sad when you call.
We feel glad when you call.
If you only knew what we're going through, we just can't
smile without you.
We just can't smile without you.
Once had a plan, then I began to follow it through. Isn't it great that now you're part of a team,
part of a dream, soon to come true?
So you see, we can't smile without you.
We can't smile without you. We can't smile without you.
We can't laugh, my big eye.
We can't sing unless we hear those telephones ring.
We feel sad, and then you call.
We feel glad when you call if you only
knew what we're going through
We just can't smile
Though some may be sung, some may appear
Don't lose the meaning of
One thing we know
This is a show called
Love, love
We can't smile without you We can't smile without you.
We can't smile without you.
We can't laugh, we can't sing
unless we hear those telephones ring.
Feel sad when you call.
We feel glad when you call.
It's perfectly clear to make it this year.
We just can't do without you.
Without you.
Without you. Oh!
Yay!
Yay!
Yay!
I got through it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
Thank you.