Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Gabe Kaplan

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

Actor, writer and comedian Gabe Kaplan (finally) joins Gilbert and Frank for a truly hilarious conversation about working strip clubs and Burlesque houses, meeting (and portraying) Groucho Marx, the clunkiness of the Dean Martin Roasts and the backstage drama of "Welcome Back Kotter." Also, Jack Carter buys a shirt, Buddy Hackett makes an omelet, Pat McCormick passes out on Jerry Lewis' couch and Gabe crosses paths with Jack Ruby and Golda Meir. PLUS: London Lee! The comedy of Buddy Mantia! "Battle of the Network Stars"! Howard Cosell narrates the Bible! Richard Pryor makes a run for it! And Gilbert auditions to play Chico Marx!? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. Our guest this week is a man of many talents and someone we've been trying to rope into doing this since the podcast began way back in the late 1950s. He's an actor, writer, producer, author, TV host, professional poker player, and one of the most influential and accomplished stand-up comedians of his generation. As an actor, you've seen him in films like Fast Break, Nobody's Perfect, The Grand, Fast Break, Nobody's Perfect, The Grand, as well as the series Police Story, Murder, She Wrote, Bojack Horseman, and on stages all over the country in Groucho, a show set in the 1970s, you saw his memorable guest appearances on dozens of classic television shows, including the Merv Griffin Show, the Mike Douglas Show, the Sonny and Cher Show, Donny and Marie, Dinah, the Dean Martin Show,

Donnie and Marie, Dinah, The Dean Martin Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, a show he also guest hosted on 18 occasions. But of course, he'll forever be loved and remembered by millions as the creator and star of one of the most popular situation comedies of the 1970s. Welcome back, Cotter. This man would go on to become one of the world's most successful competitive poker players and the co-host of the long-running series High Stakes Poker. And he recently penned a very funny article for Emmy Magazine and the TV Academy about his well-documented appearance on ABC's Battle of the Network Stars and his showdown and later reunion with the late Robert Conrad. Frank and I are thrilled to welcome to the show one of our favorite performers and raconteurs and the only guests out of nearly 400 who've come to the show with anecdotes about David Frye, London Lee, Jack Ruby, and Golda Meir.

Mr. Cotter! Gabe Kaplan. Hey, what an intro. What an intro. Hi, Gabe. I mean, there's not a lot of people that knew London Lee, Jack Ruby, and Golda Meir. Kaplan. Hey, what an intro. What an intro. Hi, Gabe. I mean, there's not a lot of people at New London, Lee, Jack Ruby, and Golda Meir. Yeah, we almost had Jack Ruby on this show.

Gil, I was giving you a Horseshack intro there. It's Mr. Cotter. Oh, Mr. Cotter. To get Jack Ruby on the show, you had to do the show in the basement somewhere. Now, I remember we met and we knew each other from the early, early days of Catch a Rising Star. Yes, I remember that. I remember all those days. I remember the first time I went to Catch a Rising Star, it was like the second club, and everybody gradually went over there,

and we'd do a double every night, you know, do the improv in Catch a Rising Star. And who were some of the people? I get the generations mixed up. Who were some of the people back then? There's so many. Like, there's the first wave, wave wave 1b wave 1c one second wave so i think when i first went there uh robert klein ron carrey richard prior uh they were there and

then gradually wow that's a name yeah great guy really funny guy. Then Richard Lewis came, Brenna, Rodney. But Rodney was strictly an improv guy. I don't remember Rodney at Catch too much. Then it just kept coming. Leno, Jimmy Walker was there in the beginning. Freddie Prince thought it would come. Freddie Prince would come and sit in the bar in the beginning. Freddie Prinze started to come. Freddie Prinze would come and sit in the bar at the Improv, have a drink, and wouldn't go on for a long time.

And then when he finally started to go on, he started to get his little niche. He started to come up with jokes. And all of a sudden, he got on TV before I did. Wow. Now, Gil, Gino tells me that you and Gabe also have some history. Was there something that, Gabe, was there

something you brought Gilbert to? Yes. I had noticed that Gilbert had an affinity for the Marks Brothers. And I told him that we were doing a show. This is like three weeks after I was signed to play Groucho. And I told him that we were doing a show. This is like three weeks after I was signed to play Groucho.

And I met Arthur Marks and Robert Fisher, the authors of the play. And I said, I got a great guy who could play Chico. And Arthur, who is he? And I says, Gilbert Gottfried. You might have seen him on television. All right, well, we'll look at him. And you came over to my house. You remember this, Gil?

Yes, yes, I do. You came over to my house, and it was Robert Fisher and Arthur Marks, and we read part of the script together, especially I think we did the contract scene. And you were great. And I thought they were going to be really impressed. You had the accent down. You really seemed like Chico.

And afterwards, Arthur says, he looks like Chico. I said, yeah. And he said, all right, well, we'll talk about it. And then I don't know what happened, but they wound up going in another direction. They went with Michael Tucci from Greece. Right. Yeah. Right.

And you eventually get Robert Hedges or Robert. Right. Well, Michael Tucci did it in Pepperdine. We rehearsed for like a week and then we taped it just from the script. It had never been done for a live audience. And afterwards, I did the show in a lot of different places, and Robert Hedges played Chicko most of the time. Yeah, because I remember when I first read the script and knew you were doing it,

I thought, I'll bet you anything I'll get Robert Hedges. Because, I mean, that character on Welcome Back, Carter, was like, hey, Mr. Carter. So it was Chico. Right. And he would do the, well, that was the Harpo face, the face that Harpo made when he. Oh, the gookie.

Gookie. Yeah. Right. So Bobby would do that all the time on the show. And it just was a natural. And he fell into it. And we must have done it in about six or seven different cities, including the Westwood Playhouse in L.A. We were hoping to take it to New York,

but Arthur always wanted more singing. My father was a good singer. I said, yeah, but I'm not. How many songs were supposed to be in the show? You were supposed to sing, what, Lydia? Lydia, I Must Be Going. The song that Groucho, I forgot what it was, but it was I Love You and the World is Mine, something like that. Yeah, I can't think of the name of it.

Right. And maybe four or five songs, and I cut most of them out, and he went along with me. But then he would say, why do we want to put Lydia back in? I said, I can't sing, Arthur. So finally, he took the show to Broadway, and I wasn't in it. And then I said, Arthur, do you mind if I do my version of the show without any singing? And then I still did it occasionally for 15 years in different places. Every few years I did it in Boston and Florida.

I would do it. And it was an introspective, more of a comment on what a comedian's life is like and how unhappy Groucho was and how entertaining he was and how he made millions of people around the world happy, but he himself was not that happy. So that was the show that I wanted to do. And I finally got a chance to do that. And what was your relationship like with Groucho? I met him a few different times. First time I met him, I had been on the Merv Griffin show and he had seen it. And I went into Nate Now's Dolgateson in Los Angeles,

and he recognized me. And I went up to him, and he knew me, which was surprising. And he said to the guy he was with, this is Gene Kaplan. He was on the Mary Griffin Show. And he was very funny. He did a bit about old people in his aiding game, and I thought it was hysterical. And I said, well, thank you, Groucho, but my name is Gabe.

He said, oh, yeah, I'm going to call you Gene. And I said, okay, I'm going to call you Zeppo. Great. And we established, you know, like, I thought that he was my friend and I was hoping to run into him again. And the next time I released the record, comedy record, and I got a summons that Groucho Marx was suing me. And I had no idea what he found so offensive in the record.

And the record was what eventually became Welcome Back, Cotter, about these guys and that they insulted each other. And we called it ranking and other people called it the dozens. Oh, yeah. And it's kids insulting each other on the street. And there was one kid who was the champion ranker and this kid from Philadelphia came and not only could he rank, but he could do it while doing impressions. So one of the impressions was Groucho Marx and he would insult the other kid and say, uh, I understand your mother sat on the Washington Monument last night

and that it wasn't enough. And Grouts who heard this, and he filed a lawsuit that wanted the record stopped. And I talked to his lawyer, and I said, you can't be serious about this. And he said, well, he is. You know, he sues a lot of people. So can I set up a call for you to talk to him and maybe apologize or do something? And I said, I'd love to talk to him. You know, I met him.

And he said, OK, here's his number. Call him. He's expecting you to call him. So I called him and I said, do you here's his number. Call him. He's expecting you to call him. So I called him and I said, do you remember we met in Aiden House? Yes, I remember, but I never did anything like that in my life. I would never say anything about anybody's mother. I said, I understand you would never say it, but it's not you saying it. It's supposed to be a kid.

And if it makes you feel any better, I only did that on the record. I don't I don't do that anymore. All right. You're not going to do it anymore. You know, I said, no, I won't do it anymore. I promise you. It's it's not something that people really got upset or think badly of you for. He said, all right. All right. And he dropped the lawsuit. And the next time I saw him was when he came to Welcome Back, Carter. And everybody, it's so funny, everybody has different recollections of what happened that day. We did a reunion on, you know, Nick at Night.

And Marsha said that Groucho was supposed to dance with her when he came on the show, which would have been hard because he couldn't even move. So I don't know how he was supposed to dance with her when he came on the show, which would have been hard because he couldn't even move. So I don't know how he was going to dance with her. And I heard Mott Evanier on your show talking about it. What I remember is that we're talking about maybe he would do something. And he came up to me and he said, you know, they want me to do something. And I said, yeah, but what are you going to do? And I said, you know, one idea might be I'm sitting on the bench outside the schoolyard

and your back is to the audience. And I say, sir, as long as you're waiting for the bus, let me tell you about my uncle. And I do this uncle joke. And he said, well, what joke are you going to do? And I told him the joke. And I said, after I do the joke, you say that's the worst joke I ever heard in my life. You turn around, everyone sees his groucho marks, and they scream, and you say, that's the worst joke I ever heard in my life.

He said, well, that's not going to be hard to do because it is the worst joke I ever heard in my life. And then Aaron Fleming asked for a lot of money I think ten thousand dollars and they weren't going to give him you know they were hoping to do it for free and but he was ready and he was excited about doing it wow and we never got it what was it like dealing with Aaron yeah I was going to ask the same thing what were your impressions of Aaron? I didn't deal with her.

The producers dealt with her. I just dealt directly with Groucho because I kind of knew him a little bit. And we were going over the bit and what he was going to do and what he was going to say. So I didn't have any of that relationship with her. They just came and told me. I remember seeing her there, but they came and told me, it's off. He's not going to do it. And everybody was so disappointed. And she wound up being homeless.

Terrible ending. And then shooting herself. Right, right. Yeah. She, I don't know how long they were together because I actually, you know, I didn't really know him that well. I never was at his house, and I never really met her. I think I was introduced to her that day when he came to the Cotter set, but I didn't know her at all, but she had a real sad ending.

Was there an amount he sued you for, Gabe? Do you happen to recall it? No, I don't recall what the amount was. I think it was funny. Gabe and I were talking over the weekend, Gilbert, and I found it funny that Groucho was objecting to the idea that he never used that kind of language. And if you read the Richard Anabeele books, as we all have. Yeah.

I think the thing was that he was saying it about somebody's mother. That was like, that was something. That's interesting that that was crossing a line for him. Yeah, that was crossing. He just liked to sue people at one point. He sued Arthur. He sued Arthur at one point. Sued his kid.

Why did he sue his son about it? A book that he had wrote about Groucho. Wow. I think it was Groucho and Me or one of those books. And they had an on-and-off relationship where they would talk, they wouldn't talk, and he liked to sue. He was very litigious. Did you get any feedback from any of the other Marks family members

about the show, Melinda or anybody? The only one that I know that came to see the show was we did it in Rancho Mirage and Susan Marks, Harpo's wife, came to see it. It was very complimentary, especially about the old Groucho. And she said, I felt I was in the room with him. You know, it was scary. So I don't know what her relationship was with him, but she really liked the old Groucho. Gilbert does a pretty fair old Groucho, Gabe, as I told you. I love to hear it. Yes. I remember working with Margaret so much, and this was on a theater.

And years ago in my city, they had theaters. This was a place where you'd stand on a stage, and the audience would watch you. And the people who were watching was called the audience. That was great. That's great. We could have you guys tour together. Yes.

We could do the odd couple together. That would be fantastic. Also, I remember years ago talking to Milton Berle and he said he had just shot a roast, a Dean Martin roast that I know you're familiar with. And he said that they would just put the camera on him and the director would say, OK, you just got hit with a real zinger now. And now, oh, I'm shocked. I can't believe somebody said that on TV. And he would do the reactions to jokes he wasn't even hearing.

The director would say and they shot them all separately. So what was it like with you? Well, Gabe was Gabe was even a man of the hour weren't you gabe yeah you were a real team i did about i would say five or six of them and they would take these shots and and cut them in and the editor was not that good so it did didn't look realistic. It looked really strange. Sometimes somebody would be laughing at something, and it wasn't that funny. And they put, like, three different shots of people hysterical. And the jokes were bad anyway. I was telling Frank when we talked, the Muhammad Ali one was the best

because everybody, there was boxers and comedians, and Ali came up at the end, and he looked at the teleprompter, what he was supposed to read. He says, all these people's insulting me, and I don't care because I have stared in the face of death many times, but enough about Phyllis Diller. And then he said, Dean Martin, he looked at Dean Martin, he said, did you write this joke, Dean Martin?

Now, why do you want me to insult this lady, Phyllis Diller? I don't know who she is. I don't know anything about this woman. Why would I insult her like that? I want to tell you something, Dean Martin, all these jokes, these comedians and these boxers are saying, they're all bad jokes. Well, boxers can't talk anyway. They get up here.

Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And, you know, these comedians, don't you have any better jokes? You're building these big hotels. I mean, you got millions of dollars. Can't you write better jokes? I ain't saying any. Let me see this next. That's a worse joke than the Phyllis Dillard joke.

Dean Martin, how much you pay these people that write these jokes? And then he went on for like 15 minutes. He was hysterical. Talking about how bad the jokes were, how phony this whole setup was. That's great. Just ripping the thing apart. Just ripping the thing apart and talking about the cutting, how they wanted him to do this and do that.

And Greg Garrison got so pissed off that he did this. Meanwhile, the audience was hysterical. Everybody on the dais was falling down. Because the jokes were bad. Most of the people would get there, and they would read the jokes in the dressing room, and then they would read them on the teleprompter. They didn't know what they were going to say. So they wound up cutting Ali down to about a minute and a half and they didn't use any of the great stuff that he had done.

That's a shame. Greg Garrison, for our listeners, was the producer of those roasts and the Dean Martin show. So you didn't interact much with Orson or Ruth Buzzi or John Wayne or any of those people you were on those shows with. They were in and out. Yeah, everybody was in and out. You got there. They had your – well, I wrote my own stuff. A lot of the comics wrote their own stuff. But most of the other people didn't.

They had this whole group of writers that would give them these jokes, and they just recited them, and the concept worked. Including the legendary Harry Crane was one of those writers, Gil. Yeah. I remember what used to be uncomfortable for me was when I was watching it, and they wouldn't go, and now, ladies and gentlemen, Art Carney. It would be, and now, ladies and gentlemen, Ed Norton. Right.

And they wouldn't say, now, Peter Falk. Oh, yeah, he roasted as Columbo. Yeah, yes. And that always made me uncomfortable. I thought that never worked. Yeah, sometimes the people would come out in character. Charlie Callis was always a character. Right.

And Ruth Buzzy was always Gladys. Yeah, right. Now, I know since you're a Marxist, we'll move on. I want to ask you about Richard Pryor, Gabe. But since you are a Marx expert, what do you know about Harpo stooping Amelia Earhart? I saw the film. No. stooping Amelia Earhart? I saw the film. We had a Marxist historian who comes on this show on occasion, Robert Bader,

who claims there was some hanky-panky. No, I know nothing about that. Never heard that before. Can you make something up? Yeah, right. Well, he had just come back from Russia. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor.

Gabe and I were talking, Gilbert, and he shares our love for the, our preference for the Paramounts over the MGM. Oh, absolutely. Because he is ultimately a purist i always thought that to me night at the opera always looked like the beginning of the end for them because they were more under control in night at the opera and there were pauses for the laughs and yeah They were portrayed as heroic. Right. As good guys.

It was Thalberg's idea of what the Marx Brothers were like. And with the Paramount stuff, they went on the road, and they did that as plays. All those coconuts and animal crackers were plays that they had worked for months and honed the material. And that was really the Marx brothers at their best. So I totally agree with you guys. Yeah. It's like duck soup. You're seeing like the ultimate insanity and hilarious insanity. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the chaos was gone when they got to MGM. I guess mayor and Thalberg decided they needed

an emotional center. Right, and there was a lot of people that those movies appealed to. So, you know, they, not the purists, but it did have appeal and they did revamp their careers. But then it did get

to that, it really dropped quick at that point where it was like you know at the circus uh out west oh yeah why why were those why did they do those films gilbert because chico needed the money there's one for drew friedman gabe you you mentioned Richard Pryor, who you knew. How well did you know him? What was your experience of him? And we've heard all kinds of stories on this show.

Good and bad. Gilbert liked him personally, and I think it was mutual. Yeah, I was doing, I got booked to do some movie called Another You. That was a monumental failure. But Richard Pryor would talk to me like I was the biggest star he ever met. And he was like an excited kid. He was like so complimentary and so nice to me. That was Richard number one.

Yeah. Oh, many Richards like many Jerrys. Right. I met that Richard a lot at the Cafe Wall, who was very interested in, you know, what I was doing. And we had a mutual thing to talk about where we were two of the only guys that ever worked in strip clubs he had done that part of show business he had worked in strip clubs and and i told him i was doing some of that because i was performing at the cafe war but i didn't have the balls to get up at the improv and do anything so i would make money by doing these tours where i would do a

strip club for three or four months and I'd come back to New York. And he loved to talk about that. So we had that in common. And I remember when he did his first television show, it was something that was a summer replacement show. And Rudy Valli was the host. And he went on and he did all the clean jokes that he had. Segues were not that great. He had to put it all together, and he put together six minutes of clean stuff.

And he had his hair in a big pompadour, he was clean-shaven, wore a suit, and he did well. He did really well, and he was happy. But then he got a little thought he could have done better, thought he might have been a little edgier. Did anyone ever talk about Richard Pryor at the Gay Rights Concert? No. I don't think so. I think you'll enjoy this Remember when Anita Bryant was doing the whole anti-gay thing

Sure Anita Bryant was I think Miss America and she was Orange Juice Lady and she came out with this whole thing about God didn't make this to happen God wants to be a man and a woman. And this is, so she had this whole thing and she got some traction and then some repercussions. And the Hollywood community was up in arms. And Aaron Russo, producer Aaron Russo,

decided to have a rally at the Hollywood Bowl and invite 15, 16 different entertainers and sell it out and rally for human rights and human dignity. And of course, Bette Midler was there and they had some ballet dancers, and I'd say the audience was like 70% gay guys, 30% Hollywood people, and then people who supported the cause. And everybody gets out, and it's going really well. And then Pryor walks on stage, and he says, stage and he says everybody is talking about this being about human rights and human dignity and the freedom of choice what this rally is really about is the right to suck a dick. All you motherfuckers want the right to suck a dick,

and you should have the right to suck a dick as long as the guy whose dick you're sucking wants you to suck it, then with me, that's okay. You should have that right. Now, you would think, well, how are they going to react to it? They loved it. The whole

audience goes wild. And then he said, I want to say one more thing. Now, all these people that are talking about human rights and human dignity, there ain't one motherfucker that's come up on this stage tonight and said they have sucked a dick. Now, I want to tell everybody that I have sucked a dick.

I was 12 years old. I sucked my friend Wilbur's dick. I didn't get a Jones, but I have done it. And now at this point, they love him. Wow. It's like, and then the drugs he was taking that night or something kicked in, or he meant to be offensive at the beginning, and he surprised himself where they really loved what he was doing.

And then he got really offensive. And he said things like, you know, when they were burning down Watts, there was no rallies in the Hollywood Bowl about human rights and human dignity. Where are all you motherfuckers then? You're probably sucking dick somewhere. That's where you are. Wow. And he created such animosity that he had to, like, run off the stage and run backstage.

And people were chasing him because he went from, like, a hero to, like, a villain. And I think it was just, like, something kicked in in his head. And he had to do it. He couldn't stop himself. And he just escaped because there were some really angry people there that night. I have never heard that. Gil, did you know that story? No.

No, that's a great story. Yeah. Now, if you heard the. I knew he was going there. You become so predictable. Yes. Yes. What's his name?

Why do I forget? Marlon Brando. No, no, no. The composer. Quincy Jones. I'm going to help you hang yourself. Yes, yes. Quincy Jones said he was there when Brando and Richard Pryor got coked up and fucked each other.

Richard Pryor and Marlon Brando. Right. Was Amelia Earhart and Hoppo Mox in the room? Yes. He's quick. He's quick. Gabe, I heard you on with with mark maron and just talk a little bit about those stand-up days about which i think something gilbert by the way uh gil gabe was very surprised

to find out you started at the tender age of 15 yeah that's the earliest that's the earliest i've ever heard of he doesn't remember it but and i i don't even remember the club that it was he was in manhattan and you know you wrote your name down and uh then they just called out your name and it was uh yeah he was 15 years old wow how'd you do you think it you think it was the the village gate gill or or we've been over this? Maybe the Bitter End? No, it could have been the Bitter End. Every Monday night, the Bitter End had a talent show.

Had a talent night. But you never did strip clubs, Gil, because Gabe drove strippers to the gigs. That was the whole thing. When you went into an agent's office, they didn't ask how funny you was. Do you have a car? That's wild. Did you get any action from these strippers? Occasionally.

Occasionally it was more not action, but it was like aggravation. You had to drive them. They wouldn't say much on the way to the gig. Back, it was, you know, I told this story on Marin that one girl tried to kill herself with me at the same time. She grabbed the wheel and was going all over the highway. But it was usually just talk about how fucked up their life was. And I became like a psychiatrist trying to talk them out of the depression that they were in. So it was a time when weekend gigs were like the only paying gigs that there were.

And all the weekend gigs included stripper or belly dancer. answer. You would go to these clubs in New England, Connecticut, Massachusetts, make like $60 for the weekend. You had to pay for your own gas. You had to pay for the hotel, stay overnight. It was a Friday and Saturday gig. So I did that for about, I would say, two, three years. Were these older strippers who were carryovers from burlesque? Some of them? No. Most of them were like just, you know, they weren't the kind of strip clubs that they are now where, you know,

girls can make a lot of money. I see. This was, they were making the same thing. You know, they were making like $75 for two days. So it was a whole different thing. But I actually did work. What about this one that tried to kill herself? Can you tell me more about that? Yes, we still keep in contact.

See this Christmas card every year. She was sitting in the front of the car. We were driving back. I think it was from Bridgeport, Connecticut. And all of a sudden she grabs the wheel and she says, my fucking life's not worth living anymore. Fuck it, you know. And we're swerving all over the highway.

And I pull over to the side of the road. And then she calms down a little bit I said okay uh sit in the back and she sits in the back and we drive and then she grabs me from the back again and says the same thing I want to kill myself I wanted this to be over and then I drove to a bar and I called the police and they came and they kept her overnight and then I called the police, and they came and they kept her overnight. And then I heard the agent told me she came back the next day. Wow. See, Gil, you had it easy. Yeah.

Gabe, what were you starting to say about burlesque? I actually did a week in burlesque. I did a club in Kansas City, and then I met a stripper. We were living together and I liked it in Kansas City, but it wasn't working. And then they told me that the straight man at the burlesque theater, there was a burlesque theater called The Strand. And it had, uh, you had to do four shows a day. They had dirty movies. And in between the movies, they had a burlesque show. It was four shows a day, and the straight man and the comedian had a fight. The first show, 10 o'clock in the morning.

So they said, they need a straight man immediately. Have you ever done burlesque? I said, oh, yeah, sure. I've done burlesque. Oh, yeah, sure. I'm done. And I went over to the theater, and the manager says, go see the comedian.

I think his name was Slinky or Stinky. Slinky. And I go down to the dressing rooms, and there's this really disgusting old man, and he had a bruise on his face. I guess they got into a physical confrontation and I said, I'm the new straight man. And he said, all right.

I do the queen's box. And I said, he never did the queen's box. He never did the queen's box. Everybody knows the queen's box. I said, I don't know the queen's box can you teach it to me i'm a quick study ah god damn it so he teaches me the queen's box it was a burlesque routine and uh he would be on stage with a few of the girls

and then they would leave and i would walk walk by, and he would say, hey, Georgie, I haven't seen you for a while. And I would say, just came back from London. Oh, yeah, what'd you do over there? Well, I went to the races at Ascot. Oh, yeah, well, my ass got caught on the bench last night. I said, no, no, this is a big deal. Races, they have races every year. I said, no, no, this is a big deal. Races, they have races every year. Oh, did you get a good seat? I said, yeah, I sat right in the queen's box.

Oh, that was a good seat. You sat right, where'd you sit? In the queen's box. I wasn't the only one. The king was there. The duke and duchess were. A couple of the royal guards. Everybody was in the queen's box.

Well, she must have a really big box. And that was it. in the queen's box where she must have a really big box and it's so funny to me that you know you'll feel bad when you hear these stories about famous comics and what became of them like abedin costello and stuff but when you see the ones that didn't make it, like guys like that. Oh, thousands and thousands. Guys that have been in Vaudeville, Burlesque, never got a shot, never got a sniff at getting on television or anything like that. It was all the cities that I went to, there was a lot of comics.

None of them ever got a shot. I asked Gabe if he played mob clubs, Gilbert, and he had a couple of good stories. One that actually involved a relative of mine. Oh, geez. Yeah. There was a club on Long Island called the San Susan. And I remember Rodney did a joke about it. Yeah, San Su San.

They came up with the name San Su. They didn't have another word. They said, oh, throw in another San. In Mineola. In Mineola, right. And the owner, or the supposed owner, was Sonny Francesi, who was a relative of Frank's. Yeah, my grandmother's cousin. And he supposedly owned the club, but there was somebody else listed as the owner.

But he was in there every night. And they would have pretty big stars there. And they would get comedians to open who they didn't have to pay a lot. So I worked there one time with Frankie Avalon. I was making $300 for nine days. And Sonny Franchese was always friendly and said, good show, kid, you know, good show. One time he said, hey, we're going to breeze in the city.

You want to come with us? And I said, no, thanks. I got some stuff to do. It's a good decision. And I said, no, thanks. I got some stuff to do. It's a good decision. I didn't explore that or what happened.

Gilbert, I never told you that my third cousin was the underboss of the Columbo family. Jeez. But then we're even because you never told me you auditioned for Chico. Yes. Been holding out. You guys are even now. I do like that story, Gabe, too, about, if you can tell it, where you went into the club,

you were between shows and you went to get a bite to eat. Oh, yeah. This was in Atlantic City. This was in Atlantic City. Gilbert Atlantic City? This was in Atlantic City. Gilbert will like this. It was a club called the Paddock Club. I guess this is around 1966.

It was a strip club. And I went there. It was Monday night. I did the first show. It was two shows a night. I did the first show, and it went well. And I said to the owner, you know, is there a place to eat around here? I'd like to have some meat.

You see about five, six blocks away, there's an Italian sandwich shop. And they got great roast beef. They cut it right there and ham and turkey, whatever you want. And it'd be fast. So I go to the place. place i order a roast beef sandwich give it to me right away i sit down and there's like three old men sitting at the table place is pretty empty and one of the old men comes over and he goes back to the table. Oh, God. And I open the manila envelope, and there's like, I'd say like $1,500 and a picture of a guy. And also a white envelope that had some, must have been some instructions or something.

So I realize immediately what's happening, and I don't know what to do. So I put the envelope down, don't finish my sandwich, walk right out of the place. As I'm walking out, I had like a sport coat and a like a thin 60s tie. And a guy about my age is coming in with a sport coat and a thin 60s tie. And I get out of there, get in my car, drive back to the strip club. And I said, look, I have a family emergency. Someone's very sick. I got to leave. And the guy said, well,

do the second show. I said, no, I can't do the second show. It's a Someone's very sick. I got to leave. And the guy said, well, do the second show. I said, no, I can't do the second show. It's a life and death thing. I got to get out of here. And I get in the car. I drive back to New York. And I didn't go back to Atlantic City for like three years. So I'm not sure exactly what that was, but I got a pretty good idea.

I got a pretty good idea, too. Did they want you to kill somebody? They thought he was the other guy. The guy coming in. Yeah, I pretty much think that was it. Could have been something else. Maybe beat him up or something. I don't know. Or maybe convince him, threaten him.

I don't know what it was. It would have been great if you would have pulled him off. Just taken the money and shown up. Taken the money, yeah. Hey, I was only making $100 for the strip club. I could have made $1,500. Years later, the guy sees you on Cotter and goes, there's the guy that beat the shit out of me.

And you used to do a bit about the crucifixion. Yes. You used to do a bit about the crucifixion. Yes. Yeah, I was Howard Cosell broadcasting the crucifixion. And I got a lot of flack about it. A lot. I did the Central Park with the Righteous Brothers.

Some people were throwing rocks at me. Wow. And I got off stage and the righteous brother says, what the hell was going on out there? What was happening? And I said, I don't know. So if you did this in the wrong place, I would get really bad reaction. Now, I did a lot of college tours where they loved it,

and you just couldn't do this in the wrong place. Now, I did the improv and it always went well, the improv. But I did it at Catch, Catch a Rising Star, a few times, not with as much success as I had at the improv. But at Catch, after one show, you know, there's a lot of tough guys at Catch. And there was a table and one old man came up to me and he grabbed me by like the part of the throat like the turkey part of the throat and he said what the hell is the matter with you are you something wrong with your head what are you talking about stuff like that out there you know there's a lot of people very offended at stuff like what's the matter with you and then a couple of his friends grabbed us all right come on right, come on, come on, come on.

Wow. And I got out of there. I went back to the improv. And Buddy Mantia, Bobby Alto, and Marvin Braveman were the untouchables. They were at the bar. And I was telling them what happened. I said, do you think that anything's

going to happen from that? And they all said, nah, nah. You know, this guy got momentarily mad. You know, it's a comedy routine. Nobody's going to happen from that? And they all said, nah, nah. You know, this guy got momentarily mad. You know, it's a comedy routine. Nobody's going to really get that offended. So I grabbed a drink, and I'm sitting in a bar, and Bud said, there's a call for you. And I get on the phone, and the guy says,

you don't know me, but I saw you tonight at the Catch a Rising Star. You offended a lot of very good people. I want you to know that there's a meeting going on right now at a bar in Brooklyn, and they're deciding what to do about what you said. And, you know, if it goes the wrong way, you better get out of town. You don't hear from me in like 30 minutes. You better get out of town and stay out of town. You don't hear from me in like 30 minutes you better get out of town

and stay out of town you won't hear from me again and I said holy shit so I go in the bar and I tell buddy and Bobby what happened and Bobby said oh when they convene a meeting like that they're serious they must be really offended the was convened, and now I'm thinking, what am I going to do? Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? So I'm sitting there, and then Buddy Mantia came up to me, and he said, it was me.

I made the call. Son of a bitch. We know Buddy. That's a great story. We know, buddy. That's a great story. You told me you finally told Cassell, or someone else had told him, that he was part of this bit, the crucifixion, Howard Cassell at the crucifixion.

No, he told me he had heard about it. Oh, he'd heard about it. We were doing a different Merv Griffin show. He was doing one right after me. And he was waiting for me to get off the stage. And I had never met him before this. And he came up to me and said, so you're the kid that does that routine about me and the crucifixion.

I said, yeah, it's really not that bad. It's nothing to do with religion. Tell me one thing. Do I kill Christ at the end? I said, no, Howard, you don't. Well, at least you spared me that. So good. Let's do a segue and go from one buddy to another. I believe you have a Buddy Hackett anecdote.

We were on a, I think it was Celebrity Sweepstakes, one of those game shows. And he was pretty friendly while we were talking. He had seen me on television. I think this was before Cotter. And at the end of the, she did five shows. The end of the five shows, he said,

you want to go out and get something to eat? You want to go out to eat? Why? I said, because I'm hungry. Do you like omelets? I said, yeah. I make the best omelets in the world. You want to come over to my house and have an omelet?

Uh-oh. I said, yeah, I'd love to. So I go over to his house, really nice house, and he makes a great omelet. And we become a little friendly. I said, you know, it's going to be my 50th birthday at the Sahara Hotel, and everybody's coming to the late show on Saturday night, and then we're going to have a party. You want to come?

I said, yeah, I'd love to come. So I go to the party, introduces everybody, introduces me last. I said, here's a young comedian. I see him on TV. He's going to be really a big star. Gabe Kaplan. Everybody applauds. And then we talked to each other.

We're really friendly. And then one night, we're saying goodbye. And he says, I want to tell you one thing. 10 years from today, you're going to look back on yourself right now. And you're going to realize how fucking unfunny you are. So out of left field, you just say that. What a prick. So in character.

Now, I heard a story that you were on the Dean Martin show, and you went to his dressing room and introduced yourself. No. I don't know who told you that story. You did find your way into Jerry's dressing room. With Pat McCormick.

With Pat McCormick. With Pat McCormick. Pat McCormick says, you want to go to Vegas one day and we'll leave? He wanted to gamble because he had just got a check for $4,000 from somebody, from some show that he had written on. And we went to Vegas. He lost the $4,000. And I said, I've never seen Jerry Lewis. And he said, I know Jerry, you want to go to the show? So he went to the show and Pat's depressed and he's drinking.

And we go up to Jerry. Oh, and I got to tell you about Jerry Lewis. It was, there was a one point in Jerry Lewis's show, a guy is talking in front of him, and Jerry Lewis says, excuse me, sir, I'm a comedian. I'm working on stage. What's your vocation? And the guy stands up, and he says, first two weeks in July. Jerry Lewis had that.

The audience laughed. Jerry Lewis, you guys didn't, but the audience lived. But Jerry Lewis had that guy travel around with him for 20 years just to do that one line. It was amazing. There you go, Gil. Not Bill Richmond.

No. Who later wrote for Cotter. So then we went to Jerry Lewis' dressing room Pat McCormick introduces me to Jerry, Jerry says hi starts taking pictures of me and he had these

these taps on the phone, not taps but like recording devices where you could record any conversation on all the phones in the dressing room. And there was a couple other people there, and Jerry Lewis didn't say anything else to me. And then all of a sudden, Patton McCormick passes out on his couch.

And this is a 300-pound, 6'7 guy laying across the couch. Everybody ignores it. Jerry Lewis keeps on talking to the people that are there. And then he leaves about 20 minutes later. And actually the first thing he says to me was, it's your job to get him out of here. I got a better Pat McCormick story. How is it your job? I don't know. Yeah, right. I got a better Pat McCormick story.

How is it your job? I don't know. Yeah, right. We're in New York, and he said, you want to go out to dinner? I said, okay. Where do you want to go? He said, have you been to Elaine's? And I said, no. He said, oh, that's the place to go now.

I'll make a reservation. So we go to Elaine's for dinner. And I'm telling a lot of stories. That's what this show is. Okay. So we go to Elaine's for dinner and she comes up to the table and she says, you see that table is four people over there. and she says, you see that table with those four people over there? They're from the New York Times, and they say that your show and the Fonzie show are ruining television. Now, here's the owner of this restaurant that I'd been in for the first time coming over and insulting me.

And I don't know what the fuck to say.'m thinking of what i'm gonna say and then pat mccormick looks at her and says excuse me and she says yes he says would you blow us and she says, what? And he says, are you Lois? And she said, no, I'm Elaine Kaufman. This is my restaurant. He said, oh, you look like Lois O'Connor, who worked as a barmaid at Patty's Clam House. Passed on his feet.

Yeah, and she just looks at him and leaves. And that was the only time I was ever in the lanes. What was the Billy Barty line with Pat? Oh, we were going up to Vegas to see Jerry Lewis. We ran into Billy Barty at the airport

and Pat saw him first and he got him to come over to me, and Pat said, you requested a suppository? Now, you mentioned Fonzie. And it's funny because at that time, when Henry Winkler was big as Fonzie, there was like practically an identical character on your show. And that was John Travolta as Vinnie Barbarino. Yeah, there's a similarity. And what do you remember about John Travolta?

He was really fun to work with. You know, he always had a lot of fun doing the bits and rehearsing. So that's what I remember mostly. He was pretty easy to work with and a lot of laughs. You know, it wasn't any difficulty at all. He was like, and he would come up with little bits. He would do little funny things. He was really, and they said one time they wanted us to move a table,

and he picked up the table and he started singing. It's a moving day today. And whatever you have to move, we're going to move it right now. And he started walking around. And he was a really fun guy to work with. To John's credit, he came to the TV Land, the project you and I worked on, the TV Land Awards, when we celebrated Cotter. He's a big star, you know, and certainly had reasons to not come, but did. To celebrate with all of his old friends.

Yeah. And that was great to be together. We hadn't seen each other for a long time before that. I enjoyed working with him. Here's a question, Gabe, from Andrew Milner, since we're talking about Cotter. Was Gabe aware of some unauthorized Cotter tie-ins, like a novelty single called Fonzie Meets the Sweathogs, or more importantly, the softcore porn flick, Hey, There Are Naked Bodies on My TV? I never heard of either one of them. Well, there you go. I looked it up there's apparently an installment in this soft car porn movie about which is a spoof of cotter called don't come back cotter i gotta see this one yeah

i never heard of it no who plays me and me? And you mentioned Israel for a second there. So what were your relation with Golda Meir? Well, we started dating back in 38 after her husband died. No, I had no relation with Golda Meir. There was, I was hot doing, is it okay I'm telling these many stories? Yeah, man. Yes. That's what the show is. And I'm going to make you tell that David Frye story too when we come back to it.

So I'm really hot on The Tonight Show. I'm doing all those shows you mentioned. Whatever variety show there was on television, I'm really hot on The Tonight Show. I'm doing all those shows you mentioned. Whatever variety show there was on television, I'm doing it. You did a lot of them. Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin all the time. So my agent gets a call, and he calls me, and he says, look, I got a call from the Jewish Federation. Golda Meir is doing what she says is her last trip to the United

States. And they're having three fundraisers, one in New York, one in Chicago, and one in Los Angeles. And she wants you to be on all three events. But you can't really do it because you're booked for the first two in New York and Chicago. So I just want to let you know this. We really shouldn't cancel the date. And I said, no, no, no, but I can do the Los Angeles one. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. I said, well, let them know.

So he lets them know, and he calls me back. Well, they were disappointed, and they said that she was going to be disappointed. But you're booked for Los Angeles. So the Los Angeles date comes, and Steve Allen was the master of ceremonies. There was a singer. I forgot who the singer was. And gold in my ear was having a little reception before the event, and people were, like, in a line waiting to say hello.

And I get to the front of the line, and I say, Mrs. Meir, I'm so thrilled to be here, and I'm so sorry I couldn't do New York and Chicago, but it's really an honor to be here with you tonight. And she looks at me, and she says, you look like a very nice young man, but I have no idea what you're talking about. And then I realized that, you know, they had told me she's not watching me on the tonight show. She has no idea who I am.

They just gave me this shit because they wanted me to do the – Oh, that's hilarious. They wanted me to do all three shows. At least she didn't drop the Hackett line on you. You know, Gilbert, I don't think we knew about you, Gabe, that you wrote for David Frye, who was a favorite of ours. But you've got to tell Gil what you told me about – because we had Will Jordan on this podcast. Oh, yeah.

David Frye, I knew David Frye really well. We started working in the village. He lived not far from me in Brooklyn. And if you ever went to David Frye's house, you would see comedy albums, Shelley Berman, Bob Newhart, with their heads cut off. And magazine, LBJ, with LBJ's head cut off, Bobby Kennedy, William Buckley, all these people, articles on all these people, and their heads were cut off. And David Fry would take these little pictures of these people and put them in his pocket and then look at them right before he went on stage.

And it would help him with his impressions. But it just looked really strange being in the apartment, the headless apartment. The serial killer's house. Yeah, right, right. I remember when the Nixon movie came out, and they did like an article in a magazine talking about all the actors and comedians who have imitated Nixon, and the one that was left out was David Frye.

Can't believe it. He invented the Nixon. Yeah, he started all. Yeah. He and I invented the Nixon, but he invented political impressions. People had done occasional political impression of whoever

was president, but he did a whole thing. His whole bit was about the political impressions. What was the Will Jordan thing? Because that was funny. So David Frye's working at the room, and he's walking in, and Will Jordan is waiting in the shadows at the entrance to the living room. And he says, David.

David sees Will Jordan. He says, oh, hi, Will. And Will says, David, you're doing my sabu. Let's love that. And Fry says, I'm doing sabu. It's not the same lines as you. David, you know what I mean. You're doing my sabu.

The way you're doing it, that's how I do sabu. That's my sabu. That's so funny. And so petty. Yeah. And so what is the Jack Ruby story? Oh, boy. Gabe and I wound up having a long conversation yesterday about the JFK assassination.

Gabe and I wound up having a long conversation yesterday about the JFK assassination. And Gabe was at the Carousel Club. He was at the place. He was at Ruby's place. Wow. In Dallas. Yeah, because Jack Ruby was the guy that shot Kennedy. Right.

Right. Right. So I don't know. This is now a story. You got a 45-second version of it? A 45-second version is tough. I was in – 45-second version is I was in Dallas not working. This is May, June 1963. I was with a stripper who I had drove across country from Buffalo, New York with,

who just wanted me to split the driving. And then she said, you can stay with me for a week in Dallas. I had about $150. So I wanted to do it. And I met one of the other strippers' husbands, was a guy who gambled, and he said, you want to find out where there's card games? And I said, yeah, yeah, I'd love to play in a card game. So we went to this restaurant, Italian restaurant called the Egyptian Lounge. It was owned by Joe Campisi, who was pretty famous in Dallas. He had a lot of restaurants,

and he's very well known. And this other guy knew him, and he told him about me, that I was looking, I was a comedian. And he said, I know Jack Ruby. He owns a carousel. I'm going to call him and see if he can use anybody. And whilst we were there to just find if it was a poker game, and he said, yeah, yeah, there's a few games around. But then he came back later in the night. He said, yeah, Jack Ruby said if you go to his club tomorrow, he'll talk to you. He has a comedian, but he'll talk to you. He has a comedian, but, you know, he'll talk to you.

He's a friend of mine. I said, okay. So I went to the Carousel Club, and it was really worse than any of the clubs that I had been in. I'd worked in about five or six strip clubs, and this was worse. I was upstairs, and I said, you know, I'm the comedian. He said, come in the office. And he talked to me. He said, where have you worked? I said, East Coast, a lot of clubs. He said, all right, well, the comedian's going on in five minutes.

Watch him, see what kind of stuff he does, and then we'll put a couple more girls on, and then we'll put you on for like 10 minutes and see how you do so i watched the comedian the comedian was a little better than most of the comedians at strip clubs and then a couple dances went on and then i went on and i did like 10 minutes and i got more laughs than the comic because there was young guys there that night and they liked me better and i had done i of Alfred Hitchcock, Lawrence Welk, and one of the impressions was Bela Lugosi.

And I had a line something like, I'd say, well, the girls in this club, they have beautiful tits, but I like their necks. Their necks are very smooth. And, you know, it was like a strip club kind of joke and uh and I and I thought I did good so I came off stage and he said and he's mad and he says uh come in the office I walked to the office he says do you think this is a toilet you think I'm running a toilet here and I said no it was a really nice club

nobody has ever said tits on my stage how can you say tits what's the matter with you saying tits I said well I've done it in all the clubs I worked before they didn't seem to he said you don't say that in a nice club I said I'm sorry I just didn't have a problem doing it before. And he said, well, you don't say that. But you were pretty good. He calmed down a little bit. He said, you were pretty good. Give me a number I can reach you at.

And this guy is going to be here for a little while longer. Get some more experience. And I might call you up, and I might have you come here and try you out for two weeks. I said, oh, great, great, great, great. He said, all right. So the next night we went to a poker game and Campisi was there and he said, Jack Ruby's coming over. He wants to talk to you. And I said, he's going to give me a job? He said, no, but he feels he was too rough on you. And he wants to say something. So Jack Ruby comes to the card game, and he's got something in a paper bag.

He gives me the paper bag, and there's a mask, a Halloween mask of Bela Lugosi in the bag. Wow. And he said, hey, that's for your Bela Lugosi bit. You can wear that. Be funny with the Bela Lugosi thing, but don't say tits. I said, okay. So everybody at the game said, put on the mask. I tried to put on the mask, and you can't breathe.

It has a little thing for the nose, but you can't talk. You can breathe a little bit, but you can't talk. And everyone said, well, say something. I said, well, there's a lot of stiffs in this poker game. And I took it off, and that was it. I never, you know, heard from Jack Ruby again. And the next time you saw Jack Ruby, it was on television.

I was working in Lakewood, New Jersey. I got a job as a bellman because I wasn't making much money as a comic. I got a job as a bellman and I could emcee The Late Show on Saturday night. And when it happened, I told everybody in the club, I mean, I told her at the, you know, it was called Laurel and the Pines. I told her, I know that guy.

I know Jack Ruby. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. So you offended the delicate sensibilities of a killer. Yes. Yeah. I saved tits.

And Groucho. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this. Gil, did you have something you wanted to do with Gabe? Oh, can

we both do, you know, have you heard about my uncle's show? Oh, can we both do, you know, have you heard about my uncle show and show? Oh, you have some uncle jokes. By the way, did those Cotter jokes originate some of them in the strip clubs? They were old jokes. They were old jokes, but they just I heard, you know, I used to go see comedians. There was a club in brooklyn called ben maxix it was a huge cavernous place and during the week you could just go there

and sit in the back and you would see um these comics that would open and you know they they had a lot of jokes most of them were telling jokes so they were all jokes that i had seen in the borscht belt in in nightclubs and i just switched them around and say my uncle said this and my uncle said that nice now uh also we were frank and i were talking about how i mean you you know i i remember when you used to do your uh bit on Horschak and stuff at Catch Rising Star. So you created that show, and you wound up being pushed out of the show that you created. Yeah, sort of. It was always a conflict between me and Comac, who was the executive producer.

He always saw the show as a different. Comac, you know, he wasn't without talent. But I don't know how many people remember Chico and the Man, probably 10% of your audience. And the courtship of Eddie's father before that. Well, those were Comac shows. That was Comac in charge doing what he thought was funny. doing what he thought was funny. And he didn't understand my concept of Welcome Back, Cotta.

It was four guys who are different ethnic backgrounds, they're the best of friends, and they're funny, they're underachievers, and the teacher tries to help them adjust in life and become something. And he just always went for something different than what I thought was funny. So we had conflicts. And by the fourth year, I always thought that it was really strange because some of the sweat hogs were like in their 20s when we started filming. And now they're pushing 30. That was the fourth year.

Right. And they still wanted to do the same thing. And I said, you know, it just doesn't work anymore. It's getting to look really strange. And so we reached an agreement that I would do like four or five shows the last year. And then Comac had his way and hired a group of writers who agreed with what his concepts were and did his version of Welcome Back, Cotter in the fourth year. Did Gloria Swanson audition for Cotter or is that bullshit? I found that on the web.

I would say that's bullshit. Just to show you how unreliable IMDb is. Just to show you how unreliable IMDB is. That she auditioned before Woodman was changed to a male, the principal. There was some rumor. It was always a male. Okay, so there you go. Internet BS.

How did they explain why Cotter wasn't around anymore? They explained it in the Comac way. know not really an explanation i was sick i was i was so i i didn't watch many of the shows in the last year but there was no real explanation just that i was out of town doing something and marsha was in teaching all of a sudden the teacher's wife is a teacher they had uh other guests della reese showed up della reese was a teacher for a while so yeah it sort of didn't make any sense but comac got what he wanted he was in charge well you had a vision for adapting to the times and and you just ran into that old network the network laziness they didn't want to change horses they wanted to keep flogging it yeah i thought it would be great if cotter gets a job at a junior college yeah it made sense and then the first day who shows up you know there there they are they graduated now they're in his

class there or you change some of the guys you know couple are out and then maybe they have a couple of guest appearances once or twice a year but you get a couple of new kids who really look like they're in high school but they wouldn't go for that at the time well i i always thought it was funny i used to watch they used to show the ballery boys all the time on tv and i thought okay these are supposed to be some troublesome, troublesome juvenile delinquent boys. And and they were all like, you know, had like drunken lines in her face and like balding and potbelly. Yeah, they always always stay too long at the fair. Gil, did you want to try your your Cotter-esque jokes on Gabe?

Is Gabe going to do any? I'll think of some. Go ahead. Okay. Did I ever tell you about my Aunt Edna Gottfried? Edna walked into a dentist's office, took off all of her clothes, and spread her legs wide open. The dentist said, I think you have the wrong room.

And Edna said, you put in my husband's teeth last week. Now you have to remove them. It says Cotter after dark. What is this did i ever tell you about my uncle stanley gottfried uncle stanley and a woman started to have sex in the middle of a dark forest after about 15 minutes, Uncle Stanley gets up and says, damn, I wish I had a flashlight. The woman says, me too. You've been eating grass for the past 10 minutes. Or in game.

Did I ever tell you about my Aunt Lorraine Gottfried? No, you never did, Gil. Aunt Lorraine walks out of the shower, winks at her boyfriend and says, Honey, I shaved myself down there. Do you know what that means? And the boyfriend says, Yeah, it means the drain is clogged again

did i ever all right did i ever tell you about my uncle leo godfrey uncle leo saw a lady with big breasts he asked excuse me can i bite your breasts for $1,000? She agrees. They go to a secluded corner. She opens her blouse. The man puts his face in her breasts for 10 minutes. Eventually, the lady says, aren't you going to bite them? He says, no, it's too expensive.

All right, we can stop you there, Gil. Gabe, how did you know I was going to use it? Those would have been great on Cotter. Fantastic. The ABC censor would have loved them. You might have to clean it up somewhat. No, no. Just go away.

Gabe still owns the Cotter franchise, Gil, so you could bring it back. Oh, my God. Welcome back, Gottfried. We own it, me and Alan Sachs, who was my co-creator, we own it for everything but network television. So for movies, plays, they didn't pay a certain price that they had to pay, so Warner Brothers only owns it for network TV. So, Gilbert, you can do it. And one of our guests on the podcast was John Sebastian.

Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Great news song. No, it was interesting because they were looking for a theme song, and I came up with the concept, let's get these acts that were really big a few years ago to write songs on spec, and we'll see if we get anything good.

And John Sebastian was one of them, and Dion, Dion of the Belmonts came up with a great song too, a really great song, and it was really close between the two songs. The original title was Cotter, and then they changed it right before they had the first show to Welcome Back, Cotter. I think Cottish would have been a good title. The fourth year, that would have been a good title. The fourth year, Cottish.

What's the Jack Carter story, Gabe? Oh Oh, you like Jack Carter stories Love them We feed on them Jack Carter He was from that time in show business Where you had to open up with a song Yes, yes

When you're smiling When you're smiling How when you're smiling. How about these buffets at cruise ships? You ever see one of them? But he had to have that. When you're smiling before he did. So Freddie Roman calls me up one time and he said, well, I'm going to

do Catskills on Broadway in Chicago and Dick Capri and Mel Z. Lawrence aren't available. So I'm going to do it with you and Jack Carter. You want to do it? I said, yeah, it'd be fun. You know, I never met Jack Carter. And we go to Chicago. We're doing Catskills on Broadway. And Jack Carter was a pretty nice guy. You know, I heard stories about him. When we went out to eat, he did send things back. That was something that I'd heard that he really did it,

like two, three times on every meal. I don't like this. Can you do something? And he would bother the waiting. And they knew about him, and he would do it. He would send things back. But one day we had lunch, the three of us, and we were in a shopping center, and Jack Carter said,

I need a shirt, a new shirt for tonight's show. And the three of us, we go schlepping into a store, Neiman Marcus, wherever it was, and there's a 20-year-old sales lady behind the men's shirt department. And Jack kind of walks up to her. He says, I need a shirt. I'm in show business. I need a shirt tonight. And I want a shirt with a Billy Eckstein collar. What the hell? And she says, is that a designer?

He says, no. Billy Eckstein, Mr. B. You don't know Mr. B? What's the matter with you? She says, no. Billy Eckstein, Mr. B. You don't know Mr. B? What's the matter with you? She says, no, I don't know who that is. But that was his, he thought everybody was in show business in 1950. And do tell Gil quickly the London Lee story. Because that one.

So London Lee, I knew London Lee from new york and he was really hot at one point he was on the sullivan show all the time oh yeah with a with a poor little rich kid and then he ran into a real dry period and somehow we took we taped the first year of welcome back hot in nbc somehow he got on the tonight show. And he came by to say hello. He said, I hope something happens to you tonight. This is really important for me. And finally, he got back on The Tonight Show. And I said, good luck.

And he went on. He did a stand-up. He did okay. And they told him, no panel. And he started to walk over the panel trying to push things, and Freddy the Court of a physically stopped him. He just went, get out of here. Get out of here.

Go. And Carson had never seen anything like that, so Carson, all right, that was London Lee. We'll be right back. Get out of here. Yeah. London Lee. We'll be right back. Get out of here!

Nobody had ever violated, you know, you were told whether you were going to do panel or whether you weren't going to do panel. And I don't think anyone had ever violated that agreement. And London Lee was the first one to try to sneak on the panel. I love these stories gabe uh tell us a little bit you know we didn't get to the uh the article we didn't get to talk about uh about robert conrad that's okay i think i'm gonna i'm gonna try and do that as a mini series to show what television

was like in the 70s when there was three networks. And all of a sudden they have this what really was the first reality show. Yeah. About, you know, they based it on the superstars competition on the weekends where athletes would compete in other sports other than their own. And they decided to have this competition and just taking what it was like when there was only three networks and how big each celebrity was and putting them together in an athletic competition, which was the birth of reality TV, really.

And because I think Robert Conrad got so upset that time, and we did have that, that really made the networks feel, oh, there's something in this type of entertainment. And it was like the kickoff to reality television. We will direct our listeners to the Emmy magazine article that you wrote called Macho in Malibu, which is a terrific read about not only your run-in or run-ins with Robert Conrad, but everybody, it's a great trip down memory lane to see those names. Yeah, and it was great to get together with him after all those years and completely bury the hatchet

and become like friends. That's nice. Although he did threaten to kill you in a German accent at one point. Yes. Yes, on the first Battle of the Network stars, At one point. Yes. Yes. On the first Battle of the Network stars, he said, wanted to tell us about this. He said, he's Greek.

The Greeks are great athletes. And then he pointed to me, he's Jewish. He wants to negotiate. And I'm German. I want to kill both of them. Our listeners have to find this article there's great stuff about Telly Savalas you running with your hair

trying to prevent your hairpiece from falling off it's truly funny and it's surreal Cosell and Bruce Jenner are doing color commentary and Farrah Fawcett has no faith in you whatsoever you have a great line in the article.

She looked, because Robert Conrad looked like an athlete and you looked like a guy who hangs around a delicatessen. Right, right. She did not think I could beat him. I didn't know Farrah auditioned for Mrs. Cotter. Yes, she did. Which is also fascinating. And Comack said something that was very insightful for him. He said, nobody would believe Which is also fascinating. And Comack said something that was very insightful for him. He said, nobody would believe she would marry you. And tell us, your daughter's a comedy writer, your daughter Rachel. Yeah, she's a comedy writer. She worked on BoJack Horseman.

Funny show. Yeah, she started out as the writer's assistant, and then she became a full-'s a comedy writer. She worked on BoJack Horseman. Funny show. Yeah, she started out as the writer's assistant and then she became a full-fledged writer. Wrote a couple episodes. Actually got me on an episode. I did an episode with Richard Lewis. We played an old comedy team

writer, a team of comedy writers. And now she's writing her own show. I think she's got some kind of deal with Amy Schumer's company. So, hope that comes through for her. That's great. Keeping it in the family. Yeah. I'm convinced Gilbert's son is going to go into comedy. Don't you think,

Gil? There's no keeping that kid out. Yeah. We've got to thank Dave at Patches Sound in L.A., who came to our rescue with this episode. So thank you so much, Dave. Thank you to Patches Sound. This was a really touch and go until the last minute. Yeah.

Whether we'd be interviewing Gabe. It also took seven years to get him. Yeah. We don't give up. Gino Salamone never surrenders. So thank you. Thank you to Gino. I got a lot of emails.

Gilbert loves to thank Gino. A lot from Gino. Gino was a really nice guy. Persistent, but a nice guy. Gabe, do you have one for us? Do you have one relative joke? I got a lot of them. The one I think that people reacted the best to was my Uncle Bill goes over to see my Uncle

John. He said, John, what's happening? John said, well, I'm trying to sell my car. Nobody's buying it. He said, how many miles you got on it? He said, I got 126,000 miles on it. He said, Johnny, nobody's going to buy a car with 126,000 miles on it. You know miles you got on it? He said, I got 126,000 miles on it. He said, Johnny, nobody's going to buy a car with 126,000 miles on it.

You know what you got to do? Is the car in good shape? He said, yeah, the car's in pretty good shape. He said, lower the odometer. You know how to do that. Just lower that odometer. You lower the odometer, you'll sell your car. He said, okay.

Comes back the next week. He said, well, John, you sell your car? He said, no, I'm not going to sell it. I've only got 32,000 miles on it. There you go. It's not quite false teeth in the vagina. No. But, Gabe, if you bring back Connor, you can do the false teeth. I allow you to do the false teeth and the vagina.

Okay, that's the number one. That's the first joke. Gabe, you are welcome here any time. We're so glad that it finally happened. No, it was great. You're also the most resourceful guest we've ever had, which we appreciate. And, again, we appreciate Dave at Patch's Sound. Gilbert, if you have no other offensive material to share,

although you are talking to the man who offended Jack Ruby. Yes. Don't ever say tits in front of Jack Ruby, David. All right. What do we Ruby, David. All right. What do we think, Gottfried? Okay, so I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre.

That's me. And we've been talking to Mr. Cotter, Gabe Kaplan. And a guest I worked with for a change on this damn show. Gabe, a pleasure, as it was eight years ago or nine years ago, whenever we did that gig. Great. It was a lot of fun, guys. I think I wrote you too many Eliot Spitzer jokes, so I apologize. Yes, you did. You did. I think I used one. You did. I think I used one.

You wrote like 14. I used one. That's my life story. We appreciated this a lot, and the fans are going to love it. And honestly, come back anytime. I will. You got an open door policy here on this show. Okay. Thank you, pal. Thank you, Gabe.

I got a great story about Dr. Mudd. I love a Lincoln joke. See you next week, all. Something that made me come back again And what could ever lead ya What could ever lead ya Back here where we need ya Back here where we need ya Yeah, we tease him a lot

Cause we got him on the spot Welcome back Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back And I know what a scene you were learning in Was there something that made me come back again? And what could ever lead ya? What could ever lead ya?

Back here where we need ya. Back here where we need ya. Yeah, we tease him a lot. Cause we got him on the spot. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back.

Welcome back. Welcome back. Yeah, we tease him a lot Welcome back, welcome back Cause we got him on the spot Welcome back, welcome back Yeah, we tease him a lot Cause we got him on the spot Welcome back Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back