Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: David Zucker

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

The Amazing Colossal Podcast celebrates the 40th anniversary (original airdate March 4, 1982) of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker's much-loved series "Police Squad" with this episode from 2017 featuring writer-director-producer David Zucker ("Airplane!," "The Naked Gun," "Kentucky Fried Movie"). Also in this episode: Vincent Price takes a pass, Woody Allen boxes a kangaroo, "ZAZ" lifts a plotline from Charles Bronson and David discusses the greatest hits (and misses) of the Marx Brothers. PLUS: "Top Secret!" "A Fistful of Yen"! In praise of Chevy Chase! John Byner sends up Robert Stack! And David remembers his old friend Leslie Nielsen! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your teen requested a ride, but this time, not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute?

I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino. Where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. TV comics, movie stars, hit singles and some toys.

Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough For something so fantastic So here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal classic Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And once again, we're recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa.

Our guest this week is a writer, producer, and director, and a member of the legendary comedy dream team known as Zazz. Zucker, Abrams, and Zucker. You know his films, of course, like Top Secret, Scary Movie 3, 4, and 5, Basketball, The Onion Movie, Ruthless People, The Naked Gun, Naked Gun 2, The Smell of Fear, Naked Gun 3, The Final Insult, and his debut film, Kentucky Fried Movie, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, and last but not least,

one of the most quotable and beloved comedies in cinema history, 1980's Airplane, voted one of AFI's top 10 comedies of all time, and preserved in the Library of Congress National Film Registry. He's also co-created the short-lived but much-admired series Police Squad, starring his friend and frequent collaborator Leslie Nielsen, a show that consistently tops the list of TV series canceled before their time. You want more from the guy? He's also produced non-comedic films like A Walk in the Clouds and Phone Booth, as well as short films and TV series. such as Peter Cushing, Ernest Borkneit, George Carlin, Bette Midler, William Shatner, Kevin Hart, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Steve Carell, and Donald Sutherland as the clumsy waiter. We're thrilled to welcome to the podcast a bona fide comedy legend and a man who has never once seen Airplane 2, David Zucker. And I also never saw Avatar.

I think that's on my Twitter. Really? Yeah. How did you manage to avoid that? I don't go to movies that much because I just don't like them. So I don't like many. My son and four of his friends dragged me to this comedy. This was about three or four years ago.

And I was going to bring a book and a flashlight. But it turned out to be. And the comedy was called Bad Grandpa. And I sat there and I loved it. I laughed harder than. With De Niro. Is it Bad Grandpa? No, no, bad... He did another grandpa movie.

Oh, he does another grandpa movie. This is Johnny Knoxville. Dirty grandpa. This was bad grandpa with Johnny Knoxville. Oh, Johnny Knoxville. Yes. Really funny, really funny. And then the other one I saw, and I just, you know, I have to say that I do like some things.

Yeah. And Bridesmaids I liked. So these are the comedies I liked. Otherwise, I don't think there's the comedies I liked. Otherwise, I don't think there's anything that really interests me about movies, but on TV, it's The Impractical Jokers, who we're

all fans of. Yes, that's where we met. We were both on the cruise, invited by The Impractical Jokers. That's right, and it was an all-gay cruise, so it was you and I were there, and it was wonderful. Did you have a better experience than Gilbert did, David? Because he was miserable.

Evidently, because he's alone now. So anyways. And you're a birthday boy. Oh, yeah, happy birthday. It was my birthday on Monday. Happy birthday. Along with Tim Robbins and Angela Lansbury. Oh, she turned 92.

October 16th. Yeah, thank God I'm not 92. Now, we'll have to jump right ahead to the movie, yes, that everybody knows, and that's Airplane. How did that come to be? Well, that was the first movie we ever wrote. We wrote it actually before we wrote Kentucky Fried Movie. And, you know, we used to do the you know, we should read dub overdub of serious 50s black and white movies. And so, you know, like the kind where the guy would say, what time is it? And the guy would, you know, pull out his hand and say it's 12 midnight very dramatic and we'd go we'd have

the guy saying where's your hand it's right here at the end of my wrist you know just stuff like that and so we thought instead of overdubbing a movie why don't we actually cast these roles with these stiff, you know, old time, you know, stylized acting? Yes. And so that's what Airplane was. So we discovered this movie called Zero Hour, which was done in 1957 with Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Sterling Hayden. And so we just, we bought the rights to that movie and we just filled in the jokes. Because it's funny. I remember, I didn't remember seeing Zero Hour and then it came on TV.

Yeah, and it's the same plot. People get food poisoning. And in fact, on YouTube, people have, you can Google, or not Google, on YouTube, just put in zero-hour airplane, and people have done scene for scene. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I found it. It's great. Yeah.

It's so, I mean, it's the entire airplane. Yeah, right. We never made any secret of it. We just copied this movie because we didn't know how to do a plot or characters or scenes or story arc. And we proved it in Top Secret. And I heard when you first started pitching that movie, the studio wanted comedians in it. Well, yeah, there was a number of mountains to climb there, barriers. There was a number of mountains to climb there, barriers.

And one was that, you know, we were three first-time directors directing together. We wanted to make a comedy without comedians. And it was really to Paramount's credit that they ever did this. And I think in the end, you know, the budget was low enough. I think it was like $3.2 million. And so they just took a flyer on it. And so we were able to do it. And they did want to cast like Chevy Chase or Bill Murray. Those were the comedians at the time. But we just wanted to cast all these guys. And in fact, only Robert Stack was our first choice. Everybody else was a second or third choice.

And I think Leslie Nielsen was fourth on the list. Was Charlton Heston somebody too that you considered? Yeah, Charlton Heston was there. And, you know, he turned it down. Vincent Price turned it down. It's a lot. Zimbalist turned it down. A lot of people passed on it.

And so, but. And finally, when we finally cast Leslie Nielsen, the casting director at Paramount at the time just blew up. He had just had it with us and with casting these stiffs. And he said, Leslie Nielsen? Leslie Nielsen's the guy you cast the night before.

And we were already six weeks out from principal photography. I saw Graves, Peter Graves, in a reunion about airplane about 10 years ago and he was saying that the script offended him oh yeah he threw it across they all had various reactions you know uh peter read the script and said he threw it in the garbage he said this is the worst piece of trash i've ever read in my life because you know he didn't really warm to the whole playing a pedophile concept. So Howard Koch was our executive producer, godfather, put on our team by Paramount, by the studio,

to kind of, because we're three directors and they had no idea what was going to happen. And he turned out to be our guy at Paramount and he called, he called Peter and as he did Robert Stack and everybody and said, just come in, meet the boys as we were, became known as. And so he met us and we, you know, we did our aw shucks. We're just three guys from Wisconsin and, and actually we, we were. So, three guys from Wisconsin. And actually, we were. So, you know, and he agreed to do it. And what's interesting, you know, you created Airplane and you also created then the Naked Gun series, which was a takeoff on all the police shows and movies. And then it seems like every filmmaker watched the success of those and thought, oh, okay, I think I know how to make those.

Yeah. It's not as easy as that. Yeah. You know, we evolved this style over really 10 years from when we started in around 1970. from when we started in around 1970. And it really, if I can be serious for two seconds, you know, it does take discipline, and we even evolved a set of 15 rules.

And, you know, the things that we couldn't do, and we really thought about why things were funny. And in addition to, we had our show, our live show on Pico called Kentucky Fried Theater, which we ran for five years. And we really, you know, we thought about how to do this. And it does take a lot of discipline. And, you know, you can't you can't just put in jokes willy nilly and do anything. There's a there's a certain there's a certain motivation for it. And what the other movies seem to do, like, I mean, Airplane, 99% of the people who saw it were not familiar with Zero Hour, but it was still funny.

Yeah, they didn't need to. They didn't need to be because it was a, you know, your generic airliner in trouble disaster movie. And there had been 100 of them all through the 70s. And so the 80s, you know, the 1980 was a perfect timing to do this. And what I've noticed with the other movies, it would be like, let's dress someone up like the character in some current movie. And if we all recognize it, that's comedy. Yeah, well, that's, you know, we had this, one of our rules was knocking down the posts. So it's not enough to just do the reference.

And we had to learn this because there was a scene in an airplane from a movie called Since You Went Away. And one of these 1940s black and white movies where the girl is saying goodbye to her soldier boyfriend and he's going away on the train and she's running along the train, running along the platform. Oh, yeah. So we do that in airplane and she's running along the runway. running along the runway. And so we thought it would get big laughs just to see her running along the play, and people would think, oh, that's funny because it's a spoof on these old 40s movies. But nobody laughed until she started knocking down the posts of the platform.

So that got the laugh. So just doing a reference wasn't enough. So we tried to learn from all these things. And you and Jerry and Jim sat down and you had these 15 rules. Well, Jerry and Jim did very little. It was mainly me doing all the movies. You're supposed to laugh. No, of course, I'm kidding.

But, yeah, we evolved these rules together. Through the Kentuckyucky frat theater through the kentucky frat theater days well it really yeah the rule the first rule started when some friend of jim's uh named alan mandel came to and he was a comedy writer and this was in 1972 when we did our first show. And he said, yeah, your show is great, but in the 10 minutes in, you do such and such a joke, and it's a joke on a joke, and you shouldn't do that. And it never occurred to us to even think that there were any kind of rules. So that was our first rule, is joke on a joke. Oh, yeah. While Gilbert tries to remember who our guest is. And what's your name?

A few words from our sponsor. Oh, Gilbert. Boo. The holidays are coming up, Gil. Yes. So why not give yourself the gift of Stitcher Premium? They have an incredible Black Friday deal going on that you will not want to miss. You get 50% off your first payment for a limited time when you go to stitcherpremium.com slash Black Friday. Black Friday, also the name of a Karloff Legosi picture.

I remember that one. And you use the promo code Black Friday. Black Friday, also the name of a Karloff Legosi picture. Yes, I remember that one. And you use the promo code BLACKFRIDAY. That's $17.50 for an entire year of Stitcher Premium. Such a deal. Spend cozy winter nights binging on shows like The Complete Wedding, Stolen Idea, Hollywood Masterclass, and Questions for Lennon. I'm assuming that's the Lennon sisters. Listen to new episodes each week of premium shows like Big Grande,

Teacher's Lounge, as Gilbert's cell phone goes off. Yet again, even though we told him to turn it off. I thought I did. Thousands of times. That's what makes it worse. I thought I did turn it off. Go to StitcherPremium.com slash Black Friday and use the promo code Gilbert. What's the promo code? Gilbert. No, it's Blackcom slash Black Friday and use the promo code Gilbert. What's the promo code?

Gilbert. No, it's Black Friday. Black Friday. 50% off your first payment. Oh, wait, wait. No, no. It's over. On the next Gilbert and Frank's Colossal Obsessions.

I don't know if we talked about this, but I got into a conversation with um, with Jackie the joke man. And you know how in Hollywood Boulevard, she's having a funeral for her

pet chimp? Yes, in Sunset Boulevard. Oh, Sunset Boulevard. Right, right. I mean, Uh, and according to legend, these old actresses and rich women in LA would train

chimps to go down on them. I will never look at J. Fred Muggs the same way. Good boy. Wow. But now Plena the Apes gives me a hard knock. It's not a possession. It's Gil and Frank. Your deepest confessions to Gil and Frank. They now control you.

So give up. You doesn't have to call me Johnson. My name is Raymond J. Johnson Jr. Now you can call me Ray. Or you can call me Jay. Or you can call me Johnny. Or you can call me Sonny. Or you can call me Junny. Or you can call me Jay. Or you can call me Johnny. Or you can call me Sonny. Or you can call me Junny.

Or you can call me Ray Jay. Or you can call me RJ. Or you can call me RJJ. Or you can call me RJJ Junior. But you doesn't have to call me Johnson. And ladies and gentlemen, you have been listening to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, wonderful, funny, hysterical podcast. Live from Nutmeg Post, we now return to Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal podcast. To Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal podcast.

I noticed with Leslie Nielsen, in the beginning, it was funny because he was the Leslie Nielsen of the B movies. Right. Yeah. But then he started to realize, hey, I'm getting laughs. Well, what happened was other directors and filmmakers thought, hey, this guy's funny. And then they just thought, put him in the movie as if he were Jerry Lewis. Yeah. And then just let him riff. you know, had a particular skill, you know, within a structured format and doing, you know, the particular jokes like we did in The Naked Gun where he could be successful. But if he was put in a position where he had to be funny.

Well, he's in the fugitive parody, wrongfully accused, and there's an exorcist one. But they play it broadly, whereas you guys were playing it straight like a genre picture. I guess so. Yeah, I think he was good in the Fugitive parody. But in some of the other ones, I think they played it too broadly. Yeah, because what you did with him was, you know, it's like he was hijacked out of one of his early pictures. Yeah. And what just other directors thought, hey, let's just put Leslie in a movie and we're home free.

So it didn't work that way. that's trying to be airplane and Naked Gun and all the others was a 2001 space tragedy or space something like that. Missed that one. I know he was in an Exorcist parody called Repossessed. Yes. And then there was the Dracula, Mel Brooks' Dracula movie. Yeah. And they were all like things of like, hey, we both saw this film.

Yeah. So that means satire. Right. You really wanted Robert Stack. You thought Robert Stack was going to be the linchpin. Well, he was the one. We wrote it for Robert Stack. Everybody else was, you know, was interchangeable, but

Robert Stack, we were prepared to camp out on his front lawn until he did it because there was just nobody else that could have that weight. I mean, possibly Charlton Heston, but Charlton Heston didn't want to do it. Right, and with him, you've got the airport background. And, in fact, Universal was not happy about our doing this parody of their airport series. So they – actually, George Kennedy was one of our choices for one of the roles. And they – I think they prevented George from doing it.

But finally, we were able to cast him in The Naked Gun. And – oh, God. Now – to cast him in the naked gun. And, um... Oh, God. Now, um... You're blanking on it? You're not 70 also, are you? Jeez, it strikes. You're thinking of Lloyd Bridges? Yes. Oh, well, I mean, like, the funny thing with

Robert Stack is one of the things it seems he was famous for when you watch him. He never smiled. Yeah, he was like, he was so deadpan and so humorless in all of his roles. But, you know, in person, he was a wonderful, wonderful person and full of jokes. He was always telling stories and jokes and very proud of having just been in Spielberg's 1941. Oh, he's good in that.

Yeah, he's funny. And he thought that was going to be a big hit. General Stilwell. General Stilwell. He's funny. He seems like someone, if you met him in real life, he'd be like, you know, a stone. Yeah, but he's a great guy.

He was a great guy, yeah. Is this bullshit, or did you guys show him a tape of John Biner impersonating him? No, but this is a good question you're asking, because what we did, we wrote this one line. It's his ship now, his command. He's the boss, the big cheese. And that was from a John Biner routine from, I think, Vaughn Meter's album about JFK. Oh, wow. First Family.

First Family. Wow. And he did, he was doing, John Biner was doing Robert Stack. Or it was either from that or just John Biner on The Tonight Show or something. That's fun. So we remembered that. And so we actually wrote it for Robert Stack. And so we get it on the set, and we're doing the take,

and Robert Stack goes, it's his ship now, his command. He's in charge. He's the boss. We said, no, no, no, Bob, we want you to do it. And we didn't want to say, like, Elliot Ness. Oh, wow. So Jerry was following Robert Stack around the set saying, giving him line readings to be Robert Stack. That's hilarious.

No joke. Yeah. And Jerry's doing John Biner to Robert Stack. We had John Biner here. Oh, really? Yeah. Does he even know this? I doniner here. Oh, really? On this show, yeah. Does he even know this?

I don't know. We'll tell him. He's in Florida. If you ever see him, tell him we absolutely used that. We'll reach out. Yeah. He's in Florida. I heard that happened with Peter Lorre, where they wanted him to come on and just say, Hi, I'm Peter Lorre.

And he went, Hi, I'm Peter Lorre. And they said, No, no, it's, Hi, I'm Peter Lorre. And he went, hi, I'm Peter Lorre. And they said, no, no, it's, hey, I'm Peter Lorre. That's the exact story. Yeah, that's it. You have to get these guys. I heard Bridges, his kids talked him into doing it, too, that he was similarly reluctant. Yeah, I'm not sure if he was reluctant,

but his kids loved the script. And I think, you know, Peter Graves' daughter loved it and his wife loved it. And they were sitting behind me, the Graves family, at the premiere. It's the first time they saw it. And they laughed so hard and Peter laughed along with everybody. And Stack also loved it. But it was bittersweet for him because he was offered points on the back end, lots of points.

Oh, interesting. And he took the money up front instead. Oh, interesting. So he said after the premiere, he said, never in my life have I been so wrong about anything, you know, any movie. And he and Leslie, they told me later that they kind of said privately to each other, you know, the shit hitting the fan. He said, that's never going to work. That's just never. They've gone, the boys have gone too far.

It's never going to work. One of the great gags of the film. And tell us about one of your favorite films, Airplane 2. Oh, yeah, Airplane 2. No, we never saw it. None of us ever saw it. To this day. To this day.

That takes some doing. But why? But I don't see every movie. That's interesting. And you don't even have a perverse curiosity about it. Don't even have a curiosity. Isn't that fascinating?

And it's probably, even the opposite, it would be painful to watch it. And to watch, you know, Bob and Julie and I think Peter and Lloyd were in it. And we get asked this a lot.

You know, we do a Q&A after we screen Airplane. Why didn't you see Airplane 2? And Jim Abrams said, well, if your daughter became a prostitute, would you go watch her work? Wow. So that's really the accurate kind of kind of sums it up yeah i saw it and really all it is is uh you know the best of airplane they just repeated they repeated the jokes they're a mad bomber thing like van heflin and in an airport with sonny bono like 90 of it i've never seen it all the way through either.

Is a rerun of Airplane. Was Pete Rose originally in the Kareem role? Pete Rose was originally written for that Kareem role. And I've read some of the old scripts and it just didn't go very far. Right. And what happened was we shot Airplane in the summer of 79. And it was baseball season and Pete Rose couldn't make it. So we had to get Kareem, which was yet another fortunate turn of events.

And then we wrote so much more, the whole thing about him not trying to the playoffs. Right, right, right. Yeah. Tell your old man to drag Walden and Lanier up the court. Yeah, it was just perfect. Just great. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor.

FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino. Where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem?

Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Gifting dad can sometimes hit the wrong note. Oh. Instead, gift the Glenlivet, the single malt whiskey that started it all, for a balanced flavor and smooth finish. Just sit back and listen to the music. Ooh.

This single malt scotch whiskey is guaranteed to impress dad this Father's Day. The Glenn Libet. Live original. Please enjoy our products responsibly. When you were doing Naked Gun, did O.J. Simpson say at any point that he was planning on killing two people? You know, he never came out and said that. He's been waiting to ask that question.

He was always a nice guy, and I really didn't know anything about what was going on, because I guess he had beat up Nicole a few times. And I don't read the papers or know anything that's going on but but he was he was always nice to everyone except for one time um you know jerry

and jim and i had an office together in brentwood and for our hold music as a phone instead of music we played howard cosell reading his book so howard cosell's going that juice was crying on the phone i told emmy to talk to him i couldn't take it any longer so and so so they all and so i would do that it was just a a goof and uh and they all said you got to do it for oj you got to do it for the oj i said no no i don't got to do it for O.J. You got to do it for O.J. I said, no, no, I don't want to do it. Come on, come on. So I did. And, oh, my God, he turned. He just suddenly got dark and not the nice O.J. we all knew.

He just said, this is bullshit, man. Never happened. Bullshit. Never happened. Interesting. Kind of a glimpse. A little glimpse. It was like I had never seen that side of him before.

So he's someone who had the angry side. He did have an angry side, evidently. But, I mean, I never saw him socially. I mean, the last time I ever saw him was the wrap party for Naked Gun 33 and a Third. You know, I shook hands, said goodbye, sold him my knife collection, and that was the last time I ever saw him. I never saw him again. Oh, God. in my knife collection and i was the last time i was it saw him i never saw him again he's been waiting to ask that since you were booked yeah david yeah let me ask you about another piece of casting because i saw you guys just doing some research i'm sorry that's the end of the casting questions let's move on no no i'm sorry just go ahead saw the three of you guys

on an old letterman episode and you're and. Saw the three of you guys on an old Letterman episode, and you tortured him, the three of you, by pulling out his audition tape for Airplane. So, yeah, we auditioned a lot of, a number of people for Airplane, and, you know, Letterman came in and read, and he was really funny. He even came in to read for a Kentucky Fried movie, and he was great in that. Anyway, so he, and we actually screen tested him but he didn't really want to be an actor

and and his uh and uh I think Jerry talked to his agent and Jerry said you know he was really good he really made us laugh he'd be great in the he did it. And the agent said, fat chance, something like that. You know, he just, David did not want to be an actor. Right. And if you think of it, you know, he is that kind of comic that. He did some variety. Acting is lying, really. Oh, yes.

And he, you know, I think he's just so real about stuff. I saw him in one acting part. I think it was Mork and Mindy. Yeah, he did a Mork and Mindy. He's forever embarrassed about it. Well, he would turn up. He was in Mary Tyler Moore's variety show, Repertory Company, with Michael Keaton. Very embarrassed about it.

Yeah. And just cringes when people bring it up. Yeah. And wasn't he in with the Starlight Vocal Band? He was in their variety series, the Starland Vocal Band. Yeah. Yeah. Before he was a talk show host.

I mean, he was a comic in L.A. casting about. He had to do something. Oh, you should see some of the stuff Woody Allen did. Oh, yes. He dressed up as a kangaroo. Yeah, he bought a kangaroo. He bought a kangaroo. He bought a kangaroo.

It's ridiculously humiliating stuff. He's dancing with a top hat and cane. Yeah, he fought a kangaroo. He boxed a kangaroo. It's ridiculously humiliating stuff. He's dancing with a top hat and cane. Yeah, I know. When you see interiors, you can't imagine that he was boxing a kangaroo. Oh, yes. Yeah, but everybody had something embarrassing. Tell us about Barbara Billingsley and the jive scene, which I guess is a scene in a movie that you can't do nowadays, probably.

Yeah, I don't know. We get that question sometimes. Who knows? I mean, it's just, you know, 1980 was, you know, one particular space and time. And at the time, you know, we wanted to, you know, we just, we wanted to, that was pushing the envelope and we wanted to do something on this black jive. And so who's the whitest person on the planet? Probably, you know, Barbara Billingsley or Harriet Nelson, as it turns out. And actually, we met with Harriet Nelson first. You did?

Yeah. That's wild. No, she turned it down. It was a little bit too edgy for her. Oh, yeah. But Barbara Billingsley was totally game for it. Can I get you something?

It's your mofo butter laying into the barn. Jack me up. I'm sorry, I don't understand. Cutty say can't hang. Oh, Sturdis. I speak Jive. Oh, good. He said that he's in great pain and he wants to know if you can help him.

All right. Would you tell him to just relax and I'll be back as soon as I can with some medicine. Just hang loose, blood. She's going to catch up on the rebound on the med side. What it is, big mama? My mama don't raise no dummies. I duck her rap. Got me some slack, Jack.

Say, cut me some slack. Chomp the one and a half. Chomp the one and a half. Don't get the hell. Say can't hang. Say seven up. Job ass dude don't got no brains in here. I love this trivia, too.

Is it the actors, when you were having trouble casting the people that do the voices over the announcements at LAX? Yeah. Well, it wasn't trouble. We just, you know, we cast, we wanted to cast voices that sounded like those recorded announcements. So it turned out that it was the husband and wife team that sold the equipment to the airport that does these announcements. Love it. And the dialogue was from a bad B-level novel. Yeah, from one of these romance novels. So they're talking about, you know, Vernon, tell the truth.

You want me to have an abortion? We just copied it right from there. And your mom's in the film. My mom's in that and 17 other movies. And my mom's the lady who's trying to apply lipstick, and it smears on her cheek. And now Naked Gun. And in Naked Gun she was Ricardo

Montalban's assistant. The one that says, I must kill Pap Schmir. That's my mom. That's great. Of course she's dead now. You guys had to bring that up. It kind of brings me down a little bit. I was having fun until now

you guys used a lot of family members we did my sister my sisters in every movie uh-huh yeah she's i remember yeah and there was a beaver thing because tony dow we are the connection between barbara billingsley favorite show even to beaver and And Jerry and I were in many ways, you know, Beaver and Wally. Right. I remember Jerry. Is it Jerry playing Beaver? Jerry played Beaver in the Kentucky Fried movie with Tony Dow. Right, right, right.

Yeah. Right. Let's talk about Kentucky Fried Theater, which started in Madison, Wisconsin. And that's how far the three of you guys go back. To high school, actually? To high school. We all knew each other in high school. Of course, I don't think Jerry was even in the high school,

not even in seventh grade when Jim was a senior. I was probably in eighth grade. Jim was a senior. But our families were friends. Our fathers were actually business partners. It was a real estate firm called Abrahams and Zucker. And our mothers were close friends and our sisters were college roommates. So the families were really close and the families would get together.

And more often than not, Jim and Jerry and I would end up in our basement rec room playing ping pong and just talking and, you know, sharing. We really did have a shared sense of humor. And it did come from Milwaukee. You know, Milwaukee was a place where things didn't come from. They came to. And so, you know, and I think the Kentucky Fried Theater was our way of throwing everything back. It was all it was satires on media, not politics at all.

We thought what was funny was the media, what we were seeing in TV and the movies, pop culture. There was a student newspaper review that kind of turned you guys in a positive direction? Well, our first show was a disaster. Tech problems? Tech problems. And because we, Jerry and Dick Chudnow,

one of our original partners, lived in Madison, and they were in school there, and then Jim and I lived in Milwaukee. And so we put this show together in two different cities, and we had never rehearsed it all the way through. So after 25 minutes, we were out of material, and it was an hour and a half show. Right. So we called a hasty conference, and we decided, well, we'll call an intermission.

Oh, smart. And our other partner, Dick Chudnow, was brilliant at improv, and he kept the audience entertained for like an hour with improv and games. And, well, Jerry and Jim and I were debating how much money to refund. We just totally panicked. We just totally lost it. But anyway, so we thought it was a disaster. And so there was a review in the school newspaper that said,

this is an amazing show, it's great, and it kind of saved us, this one review. And so we had the confidence to go on. So we got a permanent theater, which was, you know, we remodeled from the back of a bookstore just off campus. And we called it the Kentucky Fried Theater. How long did you guys stay in Madison before you made the move to LA? We were one year in Madison. And I remember we could only charge $1 ticket and there were 70 seats. And we were able to buy videotape equipment. We weren't able to

pay our salaries or anything. We paid the rent. So we loaded up a U-Haul truck and moved to L.A. Topico. Topico Boulevard where we found an old warehouse that we remodeled into a theater. This time it was 150 seats.

And that was very good. We could charge $ into a theater. This time it was 150 seats. And that was very good. We could charge $2 a ticket. Did you have movie aspirations at this point? I mean, the airplane script was already... We didn't know really what we were going to be. We thought we were going to be a performing group. There used to be this group that appeared on The Tonight Show every couple of weeks called Ace Trucking sure sure and we thought deutsch and i guess and there was a fat guy and was billy saluga in the ace trucking i think so i think he was and

we thought you know they were funny but we thought we could do that you know there's you know there's something we could do so that's one of the reasons why we moved out to L.A. So sure enough, Tonight Show came. They saw the show. We had an audition along with the Pitchell players and the committee and Kentucky Fight Theater. Wow. And we got the gig. So we were on the Tonight Show. But, you know, it just didn't set the world on fire, you know, because our stuff really didn't come off on TV. I saw you guys on the Midnight Special.

Yeah, we were on a Midnight Special. In 1974. That's the first time I saw you guys. Oh, really? Yeah. Bert Sugarman's Midnight Special. We were in a bunch of other shows. And I used to say we made a joint decision with the networks not to do any more television.

So we decided to do any more television. So, you know, we decided to, so we recast the show, and we did a show called, and we recast it with four of the actors from the show and called the show My Nose, so that our listing in the LA Times calendar section would read, My Nose runs continuously. And that's our way of, yeah. And so that year, then we rewrote Airplane.

We wrote the script to Airplane. And then we couldn't sell it. Nobody would finance it. So we decided we just, you know, we did a combination of the first show that we did, which was called Vegetables and Beating a Dead Horse, and called it – no, no. My Nose and Vegetables we combined to be a new show called Beating a Dead Horse. And so that's what we did in 1976. And Naked Gun actually started as a TV series.

Yeah, it was a TV series because we, after Airplane, we didn't have any, we didn't have an idea of what to do. So we loved this. There was an old TV series called M-Squad. With Lee Marvin. With Lee Marvin. Yeah. And he was the template, you know and he was the template you know he was the robert stack character and so that's we cast leslie nielsen that call it police squad

and then you know and made it in color in color all those quinn martin show all right police squad in color right great gag tonight's guest star and we showed the guest star Would be killed In the first two minutes Yep Yep And so It was a budgetary matter So It was a little M squad A little felony squad Kind of a I don't know

I don't know if we Did felony squad But you got the guy That did the Quinn Martin Announcements Yeah we got The actual Quinn Martin Announcement

Wasn't his name I don't know Yeah But I'm sure he's dead now He may be dead Yeah How many episodes Did you actually do We shot six episodes I don't know. Yeah. But I'm sure he's dead now. He may be dead. Yeah. How many episodes did you actually do? We shot six episodes and it was canceled after four and they couldn't cancel it fast enough. They they they they showed the next the last two episodes during the summer.

And, you know, there was an outcry, I think, from the critics because they liked it. And there was a press conference in which the head of ABC, Tony Theropoulos, had to answer for this. And he said, police squad didn't work because you had to watch it. Yeah, I love that. Great quote. A show you had to actually sit and watch. Now, so when you announced you were going to make police Squad into a movie, you must have had people going. What from? Well, it wasn't you know, we went into it.

This was after we did Top Secret and Ruthless People. And then we were kind of at that point, Jerry and Jim and I were going off in our separate directions. And so Jerry wanted to do Ghost and he started working on that. At that point, Jerry and Jim and I were going off in our separate directions. And so Jerry wanted to do Ghost, and he started working on that. Jim did a movie called Big Business. Oh, yeah, with Bette Midler. With Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin. And I wanted to do, I really wanted to do Police Squad as a movie. And what we needed was to do a real plot character and story arc.

And so, you know, we learned from doing Ruthless People with Dale Launer and just – Because you guys didn't write Ruthless People. We didn't write Ruthless People. Dale Launer did. And, you know, we didn't write the plot to Airplane. I mean, we just – we thought we knew what we were doing. We really didn't write the plot to Airplane. I mean, we just, we thought we knew what we were doing. We really didn't. So we went back and so we did the plot and we did the Naked Gun.

And Jerry and Jim and I and Pat Proft each wrote a quarter of the Naked Gun, the first draft. And then I took it and wrote the next, you know, 10 or 20 drafts and then, and kept writing every day on the set. And so, uh, and that became the naked gun and then, and that became a franchise. It was, it was very successful. It's, it may be one of the few successful film franchises spun off from a, from a failed TV show. I don't know.

I don't know if there was another one. Yeah. Yeah. It's if there's another one. I don't know if there was another one. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a unique situation. We pitched it to Paramount with Frank Mancuso, and it was the easiest pitch we ever had. He just said, yes, let's do it. You'd think they'd go, wait. You'd think they'd go, what, are you crazy?

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Well, the series is funny. I mean, there's so much going for it. The series is very funny. Ira Newborn's music is great. Yeah, it just wasn't right for TV. Yeah, it series is funny. I mean, there's so much going for it. The series is very funny. Ira Newborn's music is great. Yeah, it just wasn't right for TV.

Yeah, it just wasn't. You know, we were making, you know, little half-hour movies, and people don't watch TV the way they watch movies. And so I guess in a TV show you need, you know, you watch in your house, you know, without an audience there, and it probably needs a laugh track. And you want to see another family on TV. And we were kind of not doing all those rules. It's possible that today, there's so many different things on TV, maybe it would be more successful.

Well, you have a different landscape now. You had three networks. Yeah, three networks. You could conceive of it now as a Showtime show or an HBO show. You'd think that it would have succeeded with only three networks. But no. So I can't make any other excuses for it except that it really didn't work. It's so hip, David.

You watch it even now. I love its time. Well, all my flops, I just say they're ahead of their time. Well, that one was. So even with no competition. No competition. It was like it was gone after four episodes. Yikes. Do you feel up to any questions? I'll try.

Where were you when all this happened? I was right here at my desk working. And when was the first time you noticed something was wrong? Well, when I first heard the shot, and as I turned, Jim fell. He's a teller, Frank. But Jim Fell's a teller? No, Jim Johnson. Who's Jim Fell?

He's the auditor, Frank. He had the flu, so Jim filled in. Fill who? Phil did, and he's the night watchman, Frank. Holy fill, I've been here. Now, wait a minute. Let me get this straight. Twice came in and shot the teller and Jim fell. No, he only shot the teller, Jim Johnson. Fell is ill. Okay, then after he shot the teller, you shot twice. No, I only shot once. Twice is the holdup, man. Then I guess I did shoot twice.

Well, so now you're changing your story. No, I shot twice after Jim fell. You shot twice and Jim fell? No, Jim fell first, and then I shot twice once. Who fired twice? Once. He's the owner of the tire company, Frank. Okay.

Once as the owner of the tire company, and he fired twice. Then twice shot the teller once. Twice. And Jim fell, and then you fired twice once okay all right that'll be all for now miss decker i will need you to make a formal statement down at the station oh of course you've been very helpful we think we know how he did it oh how he couldn't have done it he hasn't been in for weeks well thank you again. Why didn't George Kennedy do this one either? Was he approached again?

Because Alan North plays the part that George Kennedy winds up playing. I don't know. I don't know why. In the franchise. I think we wanted to save money, I think. You know, there also wasn't a lot of absurdism in primetime television at that time. No, there was nothing like it. This was absurdism, which was barely started in the movies.

I mean, we were doing it in the movies, and it was... With Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln. I think television audiences watch and say, what is this? Right. Lincoln gets a shot at every opening sequence. Lincoln returns fire. He returns fire. There's just so much going for it.

They really hold up quite well. The DVD set is great. Even though there's only six, you want to watch them over and over again. And the best jokes we've used in The Naked Guns. Like, you know, when they walk from one room to the other and Leslie goes outside the set and passes it. And Al, the guy whose head is out of frame, and he says, you've got something on the side of your mouth, Al. No, the other side.

And then a whole chunk of banana falls down. There had been spoofs. I mean, there had been things like at Smart, but the way what you guys were doing. It was different. You were breaking the fourth wall in every conceivable way. You were doing, like I said, surrealism. Yeah, it was. In prime time.

Because what, you know, was things that have been called spoofs that really weren't. It's kind of like, well, like. Well, I think. Well, you mean since airplane or before airplane? Before. Kind of like, well, like me. Well, I think, well, you mean since Airplane or before Airplane? No, before. Before, well, you know, Mel Brooks did Blazing Saddles, which was really a spoof on Westerns, but he did it with comedians. And Young Frankenstein was a spoof on those horror movies, but it was also with comedians. And they were funny, but a completely different style.

Yeah, yours was a different animal. And what also used to be called, like when they call Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. Right. It's just, you're combining. Yeah, I suppose that was a spoof, but not in the airplane way. Because they weren't really, they were respectful of the monsters. Yeah, so these two guys, well, it was like Chevy Chase and Aykroyd did a movie called Spies Like Us. Sure.

And there were some very funny things in that. John Landis. Yeah. And they, it was ostensibly they were spies in a serious thing, but they were doing these routines much like Hope and Crosby. It's sort of a Hope and Crosby movie. Yeah. Which Ishtar was intending to be also a Hope and Crosby movie. Yeah, but you still need comedians.

You need Chevy Chase. Yep. You know, if you watch Chevy Chase in those movies, he's amazing. He's so funny. He's so amazing. He looks like he's another of like professionals. He looks like he's another of like professionals. He looks like he's doing nothing. Yeah, effortless.

It's like, you know, in acting, Steve McQueen could act as though he wasn't trying at all. You know, the best actors are just effortless. And Chevy was actually intrinsically funny and didn't have to try. I don't think Ackroyd, Ackroyd was very successful at it, but didn't have those kind of chops. Interesting. And I remember sitting at a table and I heard two people talking and one said, was Jack Benny ever funny? And the other one said no, there were funny people on the show and he just kind of stood there. And I thought

missing the entire... Missing the whole thing. It's like missing the talent of Mary Tyler Moore who she played Mary Tyler Moore and was surrounded by crazies but she was a master. Well, she had to be the straight man but she also had to be funny. And she was funny. She was surrounded by crazies, but she was a master. Well, she had to be the straight man, but she also had to be funny.

And she was funny. Yeah. She was very funny. It's just like they tend to ignore the straight men in comedy teams. Like, oh, it's the funny guys. Yeah, Dean Martin was so good. Yeah, Sam's a good example. Bud Abbott, too.

Bud Abbott, yeah. Underrated. Bud Abbott, I thought, was when you really watch those Abbott and Costello movies, Bud Abbott is hysterical. Well, even when you're watching Burns and Allen. Oh, yeah. And she's getting laughs, but he's goddamn good at what he does. You know, who's on first

is an interesting routine because Costello is the funny guy. He's the crazy funny guy, but he's the straight man in it. Yes. And Bud Abbott is the serious one, and he's doing the funny line. Never thought of that.

That's interesting. It's a complete reversal, and it's the only instance that I can ever remember where anyone did that. That's true. And it's also like— See, you guys had never thought of this before. No. I'm brilliant that's pretty heady stuff yes right and what what's also funny about it is the premise itself

is completely ridiculous that they'd have these names but abbott sells it he sells it and yep i don't remember that ever being done before i mean we, we've, you know, copied that, you know, and other people have. I mean, we did, you know, we've done a who's on first in almost every movie that we did, you know, with Airplane. Well, we did in Kentucky Fried Movie, we did Who Are These?

These are just lost drunken men who don't know who they are and no longer care. And who are these men? These are lost men who know where they are and care, but don't drink. You know, it's just like,

so it's kind of that. These are men who know where they are in car, but it kept going. You know, we just played with words. And then in airplane, I think we did, how soon can we land? I can't tell.

You can tell me, I'm a doctor. So it's that word play. You've also got Roger over and all the mayo. Over Roger. So we've always been fascinated with that with those words and even a lot of that stuff, the way things

sound, you know, Don't Call Me Shirley. One of the fun things about Airplane is every imaginable kind of comedy is in there. There's a lot of, yeah. There's sight gags. It's not just physical. It's sight gags.

Yeah, it's, and then we did some weirdness like this Robert Stack mirror scene where he steps through a mirror because we always wanted to do stuff like that. And then we did a lot of that in Top Secret. Yeah. Well, you play with perspective in Top Secret. There's the giant phone. That's right, the giant phone. The magnifying glass with Peter Cushing. All that stuff, the visual puns.

Yeah. And we just had so much fun doing that. There's one takeoff on that line you've heard in a million movies, and it's like he's being held captive, and they say, you know, the foreign guy says, you have become, how do you say, irreplaceable. Indispensable? Indispensable.

And Val Kilmer says, indispensable. And the guy says, that's what I thought. How would those actors do? Because they always say, how do you say? Yes. Yeah, the accent guys. How are those actors doing comedy? I mean, Omar Sharif and Peter Cushing.

Yeah, they all love, first of all, they never get to do comedy, so they all love it. And so that's why Stack wanted to do it. I think Graves, despite his misgivings about the script, and they all wanted to do comedy. Everybody wants to have fun. One joke that I think you used in two of your movies, and it's certainly in

Top Secret, is they go in a room, and there's boxes there, and one says, like, explosive They go in a room and there's boxes there and one says like explosive dynamite and the next box says a must see. So it was like blurbs. Is that a top secret? I don't think that may have been from airplane two.

Yeah. I think I'm done here now. You've confused your Zucker picture with your Zucker ripoff. I think, but I think there were two in the gang. I don't remember that gang, but some people come up to me and say, I saw your Airplane movie. The funniest gag is, and then they'll say something that I never heard of. It's from Airplane 2.

The underwater fight scene is just, I mean, how you guys even thought of that and then managed to execute it. Yeah, that was done, of course, you know, like a minute and a half at a time. And, you know, we undercranked the film so that it would go slightly faster. And Kilmer, talking about committing, you're talking about his commitment. Was he a Kentucky Fright Theater fan? He was, yeah. He was a big ZAZ fan. He loved Airplane and Kentucky Fright Movie.

We were casting, we were trying to find somebody to play Nick Rivers and Jerry and Jim and I went to New York and we saw an off-Broadway play called Slab Boys with Val and Sean Penn and somebody else who was later became very well known. He's great in the picture. He really commits.

Yeah, he's great. And you had no trouble with Val Kilmer. I wouldn't say no trouble. You know, Val was, you know, he was of quiet, and he would have his moods. You never know which Val we'd get. But we all liked him, and we had a lot of fun doing it. And then later we thought back on it. We thought, well, maybe it was because we really didn't write him a character.

He had no character. You know, actors really need to play a character. And, you know, we took the wrong lessons from Airplane. We just thought, well, you just fill, you know, 85 minutes with jokes and that's what we have to do. So, but there was no, he didn't really have a character. So that may have been part of the problem. But, you know, he was a little moody. And I remember one time, you know, we were at a party together and we were just

sitting on the side together and I didn't have much of a relationship with him. And, you know, and I was just, and I just, I was just in some kind of a mood that night. And I said, just and I just I was just in some kind of a mood that night and I said I hate everyone and he turned to me and said hey and that was like he connected with me I hate everybody and he it's like he was for one night he just he just we had we had a great time we bonded yeah are you aware there's a movie, a documentary called Jews and Baseball that opens with the scene from Airplane? I did not know that. That opens

with the scene, the great Jewish sports legends. Which Gilbert appreciates. I want some like light reading or like... Yeah, it's a tiny book. I didn't know that. Going back to Kentucky Fried Movie, and I a tiny book. I didn't know that. Yeah.

Going back to Kentucky Fried Movie, and I'm sure you guys get asked this a lot, you just did a... Was it in April or June? You did a 40th anniversary? Yeah, it was one of those anniversaries. Yeah, I think we did it at somewhere in L.A., yeah. How much from Kentucky Fried Theater

survived and found its way into the movie? Was Fistful of Yen in the stage show? No, Fistful of Yen was completely way into the movie was fistful of yen in the in the stage show that no fistful of yen was completely new for the movie but uh you know the we did the sex record uh that was that's a good one yeah that that was from the stage show and yeah big jim slade we did on stage and and there was a bunch of things from from cleopatra Schwartz was also written for the movie. No, that was for the movie. But there was Danger Seekers. That's a bold one.

There's an out on the edge there. There's a ballsy piece of comedy. Yeah, and then that was from the show. And yeah, there's I think about half the material. And then Jacques Cousteau, that thing where the mic goes, we did that on stage. And the couple making out watching the newscaster, we did that on stage. We had a monitor, a TV monitor mounted on stage. So you kind of had an idea.

We know what works. We have enough that we know what works. Yeah, we knew half the stuff was going to work. And then we just, the other stuff, we just, you know, we were confident. was going to work. And then we just, the other stuff, we just, you know, we were confident. And I think, and John Landis added jokes, you know, that where the lady is, the TV host has the little gerbil and she says, that's very cute and everything. He says, now, now what are we bringing out here next? And she just throws it over her shoulder, just throws it away. That was completely Landis. And so he had it a lot of great.

You guys had never been on a film set at that point. We had never been. And there's Bill Bixby and George Lazenby and Donald Sutherland. Yeah, and we didn't know what a director did. And so Landis took us through every phase of the whole thing, from pre-production, casting, you know, the actual directing. And, you know, to his credit, he took a lot of our suggestions. You know, we were all back on the watching the monitor and making suggestions. And, you know, he didn't take all of them, but, you know,

for a director, he was pretty good about it. I have to say, even by 2017 standards, and I'll say this to our listeners if they haven't seen it, it's still pretty ballsy. It's still pretty edgy. I think half of it still works if you can watch the right half of it. Yeah. Well, and the commercial parodies are good. You guys knew how to do those. Yeah. And a lot of them we had done like household orders.

We did it on stage. We did video on stage. We had a video monitor. Now, Donald Sutherland, I heard, is another one of those guys who could be in any mood. Well, I don't know because that was completely through Landis. Yeah. John knew him, had worked with him, and then he was just there for one day. Oh, the closey-weater. I barely said hello, yeah. Yeah. John knew him, had worked with him, and then he was just there for one day. Oh, the close-up.

I barely said hello, yeah. Yeah. But he was such a big star. It was amazing. We got Donald Sutherland. I didn't even get my picture with him. Yeah, you got – For some reason.

We spent – Jerry and I spent an hour with Bob Hope here in New York. And this was in 1982, I think. And he told dirty jokes. What was the context? He had seen Airplane. He liked Airplane. And we knew Rick Ludwin, who knew Bob Hope, produced a lot of his specials. And so we said, yeah, we'd love to meet Bob Hope. So he arranged it. And we spent an to meet Bob Hope. So he arranged it and we spent an hour with Bob Hope. But the reason I'm mentioning it is because this was before cell phones, where routinely you'd take a picture. Right, of course. And so we don't have

a picture with Bob Hope. Well, I always think whenever they mention the Zabruta film, I think there's one biggest moment, one of the biggest moments in history, and there's that grainy little— Yeah, just one guy filming now if that happened today. From every single angle. Yeah, from every single angle. There would be a million. Yeah. There'd be too many. Yeah, there'd be too many.

Yeah. I found this was fun in my research, David. You were skeptical about Jerry doing ghosts? Yeah. You know, I have to preface this with saying I wanted to do Naked Gun. And he said, do you really want to go back to that stuff? Go back to police blood. And then he gives me ghosts.

I read the script and said, I don't know. I don't get it. You know, no matter how you slice it, you end up with a dead guy read the script and said, I don't know. I don't get it. No matter how you slice it, you end up with a dead guy at the end. Pretty much. How smart was that? So we have not been each other's best cheerleader and guide to what to do. You have different ideas of what to make good movies. Yeah, totally.

But I think I just, it's hard for me. I hate reading scripts. It's just so hard for me to concentrate on a script. And also, you know what Jerry did with that in the casting and the direction. And, you know, he added so much to it. And it was it was so entertaining. so entertaining and bruce rubin who's a great guy and i got to to know um the the story is when when he you know his baby you know he wrote this script when he heard that jerry zucker was going to direct it he cried really yeah because here's this goofball airplane you know, hitting the fan. Crazy guy. Wow. And so then, and Jerry knew that Bruce had misgivings. So Jerry said, Bruce, let's just go out to dinner. Or maybe Bruce said, let's just go out to dinner, not talk about the movie or anything. Just go out to dinner. So they did. And they, yeah.

I like Jacob's Ladder, too, which he wrote. Bruce Joel Rubin, right?, yeah, they just. I like Jacob's Ladder, too, which he wrote. Yeah. Bruce Joel Rubin, right? I guess so, yes. Yeah. Pretty good movie. Another person from the Naked Gun movies, much like O.J., to go on to Scandal, you had Anna Nicole Smith. Yeah.

She was, yeah. Yeah, she was, yeah. Well, she was in Naked Gun 3, and, you know, the first time she read for the part, you know, we put her on tape, and everybody thought, oh, it's too bad, you know, she can't do it. And so I said, wait a minute, let me work with her for, you know, 20 minutes. So we went into the room, you know, I told her how I wanted her to do the part. And she went back and everybody said, yeah, she can do it. Yeah, it's okay.

She's fine. And then, you know, later, you know, I premiered the movie at the White House. I went to, I was invited by Bill and Hillary because Bill was a fan of the Naked Guns. And so this was in 1993 before any of the scandals broke. I guess some people, somebody had told me this guy's got a zipper problem. Evidently that means, you know, he's going to screw around a lot lot so but i i didn't know anything about that so he corners me before the screening and he says uh so uh david you know the uh the the girl in the movie what's what's the name of the girl in the movie and i said uh priscilla

presley it's like i'm such a boy scout it's like and so he said no no the the other girl the uh i said oh you mean uh anna nicole smith and he said yes yeah that's the one and then and i'm going i'm just i just don't have anything to say i have nothing to add. So he says, she's the guest jeans girl, right? And I go, right, yes. Again, what am I going to say? I said probably seven words to her the whole time that we were on the set. I didn't know her really. And so he said, you know, one time on Air Force One, you know, I went into my stateroom and I closed the door and they had put her fold out on the inside of the door.

And so I go, I've got that smile, that Woody Allen smile during Annie Allwood. He's got the glued on smile. And I said, great. And I still don't say it. I didn't. It was years later when I realized that he wanted me to set him up. And so I'm such a dope. I could have double dated with the president.

He would have gotten me some girl. You know, I just, and I just totally passed it up. And I didn't know. I was just, I was pretty much straight out of Milwaukee, I think. I had no idea that the president would be interested in some woman other than his wife. Fascinating. Yeah. Yeah, he's better remembered for that stuff than anything he did in office.

We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Let me ask you a question from one of our listeners, David. This is a thing we do on Patreon. This is from Frank Salerno. I wanted to know, is David still interested in his Davy Crockett project? And has he ever discussed the Alamo with Phil Collins? I guess Phil Collins is an Alamo enthusiast. No and no.

You know, for a long time I was like obsessed with Davy Crockett. And, you know, it's something I became a collector. I have four Davy Crockett letters. You know, I've gotten to know some amazing people. You know, this professor of history at University of New Mexico named Paul Hutton, who's one of my best friends now. And so we wrote a movie when we were at Sony, but it just never – it's just hard to do that, to make a biopic out of a guy's life who doesn't really fit into three acts. So the movie never got made, and so I just kind of gave up on it. Right. You would do it straight as a drama.

Well, I was going to do it straight as a drama, but there would be funny parts to it. Davy Crockett himself was he was a very funny humorous. He was like the Will Rogers of his day or Mark Twain. And he would entertain audiences by making them laugh. And he wrote an autobiography that was funny. And, you know, one of the first biographies to really use that vernacular frontier dialect. So, and he had an amazing life. I think it still would make a good picture, but probably not a movie. I don't think you could fit it into even three hours to tell the story. So it could be a miniseries. But, you know, right now, I think I have to, you know, I have to work on other things and then come back to that maybe. Interesting. Yeah. There was another actress. Oh, she was in that same Naked Gun with Anna Nicole. And that was who I always liked her,

gun with Anna Nicole. And that was why I always liked her. Kathleen Freeman. Yeah, that sounds familiar. She was in three. She was paid Ma Barker. Yeah, she worked with Jerry Lewis a lot. Yeah, she was great. I mean, I don't remember too much, but yeah, she was perfect. I remember there's a scene Anna Nicole Smith is in some sexy bathing suit, and she's very buxom and everything. And Kathleen Freeman says, why are you wearing my bathing suit? Oh, that's right. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

A lot of those lines are Pat Proft. And then Phil Collins. I'd love to meet Phil Collins, but I don't. He's apparently also obsessed with the Alamo. He also is a letter, he collects letters. He's got four also. But I've got the last letter that he ever wrote. It says, tomorrow I leave for Texas.

Wow. So take that, Phil. Let me ask you a question about somebody we had on this show, and that's Bob Costas. Oh, yeah. Who's a great sport. How did you get him to say that stuff in basketball? He does it so, he does it so effortlessly. Yeah. Like he was great and then was instantly completely mortified at the movie. He had the same reaction to doing this podcast. Oh really? Yeah. So what did he say about baseball he was he was he you know he was very

tough on me after basketball he was like did nothing but you know rag on the movie but then i think a funny thing happened first of all the movie you know kind of rose in popularity as a cult favorite. And I think his kids grew up and thought it was great. And so then their dad was a hero for being in it. And so he totally saw it in a different light. I think when he saw it, well, we had a joke. We had a gag when we said, and Al Michaels is saying, or Kosta is saying, and everybody is on their feet and we're panning the crowd and then we we get to the wheelchair section and then he says well

almost everyone we cut it out of the movie because costas said you know my mother he i made the mistake of inviting him to a one of the previews and And he said, can you cut that out? Because my mother is sick and in a wheelchair. So, you know, so I cut it out. So, but then, and then he hated the movie. And then Al. He seems like he's having a good time. He does. And he's great.

Feel these nipples. You watch that. He's great. And I remember he said, he did the wrong inflection he said he said uh you're excited feel these nipples and i said no you have to say feel these nipples right that there's a difference right and he debated me me me who invented comedy and so i said bob trust me this is gonna be funny and he said and then when he saw it in the preview, he said, when he saw it, he was so embarrassed to have done that. And he said, I said, Bob, if it doesn't get a laugh, it won't be in nothing.

I will promise you, you will not bomb in this movie. If it gets a laugh, it's going to be in And if it doesn't get a laugh, it's out. And so he interpreted that to mean I promised him, don't worry, we'll cut it out of the movie. So and that got into Al Michaels book, who said, you know, the director said, yeah, we'll cut it out. And then, of course, lied like all directors and Harvey Weinstein. we'll cut it out. And then of course lied like all directors and, and Harvey Weinstein. So, but anyway, so, so then, so then he years later he had, he asked me to be on his show cause he was having Kareem on the show.

And I said, sure, I'll be on it. I mean, he didn't call me personally. His people called and I said, sure, I'll do it. And then I had a conflict, so I couldn't. I had to back out of it. But it was for no reason except that I really did have a conflict. And so Jim Abrams did it. And so Jim went on, and he said that Bob said, is David mad at me? He was, like, worried that I was mad at him because he thought I backed out.

He was worried that I was mad at him because he thought I backed out. But anyway, someday we'll have dinner with Al Michaels and Bob Costas. We'll have a little reunion. I've already had a few dinners with – I've become friends with Al Michaels since the whole thing. with Al Michaels since the whole thing. Gilbert did a play-by-play, a dirty joke, and Bob reinterpreted it in play-by-play style. We have video of this. And Bob became so mortified that he got on all fours and crawled away.

We were in the Friars Club. I started telling him. This was at the Friars Club? We recorded the show at the Friars Club. Oh, yeah. Was it a roast of Costas? No, it was just this show. Oh, it was this podcast.

Oh, okay. And I started telling him some really long, dirty, disgusting joke. And he just started slowly sinking under the table and crawling. He's Catholic or something. I think he's also concerned about his brand. He's very concerned about the image. And so, first of all, all in baseball he neglected to read the script the script it was always

rated R it was always rated R he thought he'd breeze in there and it was going to be another like a naked guns but this was going to be R it was with Matt and Trey and so they wanted to make it edgy so anyways so he thought I had you know

I don't know what he thought another friend of ours who's been on the show was Craig Bierko oh yeah I love So anyways, so he thought I had, you know, I don't know what he thought. Another friend of ours who's been on the show is Craig Bierko. Oh, yeah, I love Bierko. Who you've done some great stuff with in the scary movie. Funny, funny guy. I'd love to cast him in something. Yeah. Yeah, he's got a lot of talent.

He's actually funny but can also play the straight man. You see Cinderella Man where he was the heavy with Russell Crowe, that Ron Howard made? That was before the scary movie, I think. Yeah, I think so. Check it out. He's very good. He's very menacing.

Yeah. He's great. He can do anything. And he's funny. If you watch Bjerko on a talk show, he's funny. He is. He can go on. Whereas, you know, Leslie was funny on a talk show, but only because

he brought his fart machine. Right. He brought the little... He was obsessed with that fart machine. Yeah, that's what he did. That was his shtick. I didn't know it went back to airplane, that he was on the airplane set with that machine. Oh, before airplane. Yeah, it went back to police squad at least. But he would do this thing, and then

you know, I would be on press tours with Leslie. We'd be in like Charlotte, North Carolina, and we'd be on an elevator. People would recognize him in a crowded elevator. And then he would be very pleasant and say hello and then fart in the elevator. And people would get off on the first floor. You wrote a nice tribute to him, too, in The Hollywood Reporter. Well, I found out when The Hollywood Reporter called and said, can you write something for us about your recollections of Leslie? And I said, sure. Wait a minute. Why?

That was when I heard that he was dead. So that's how I heard. I remember meeting Leslie Nielsen. And he, of course, had his fart thing with him. I remember meeting Leslie Nielsen, and he, of course, had his fart thing with him. And I said, oh, I got one of those, and it never really worked when I did it. And he goes, is this the one you have? Is it the black rubber and the top of it's red?

And I said, yeah. He goes, oh, that's useless. He was an expert. He was a complete expert. Yeah. He knew. expert. He was a complete expert. He knew. I miss him. He was a great guy. Can we throw a couple of other actors' names out at you for fun?

What was working with Ricardo Montalban like? Yeah, it was very nice. He was great. Just a very nice man. Professional and totally got it. Was no trouble at all. He did object to one line. There was one line, another prof line, where it's like he's in the hospital at the Our Lady of the Never Had the Pickle.

That was the line. He said, can you please not put that in? And we said, yes. Is the plot of Naked Gun, the first one, lifted a little bit from that Charles Bronson movie? Yeah, of Telefon. Yeah, we just lifted it from Telefon, but we didn't have to buy the rights

because it wasn't the entire plot. I love that. What about one of our favorites? And then the other part of it was from Day of the Jackal. The Day of the Jackal. That's a good movie. Yeah, good movies. How about one of our favorites who comes up a lot on this show, Ernest Borgnine?

Oh, yeah. She did Basketball. Yeah, he was excellent. By the time they get to be, you know, he was probably in his 80s when he did uh i think it was basically basketball yeah and they can't remember lines anymore leslie couldn't either he so we would do we used to do a walk and talk walk and talk yeah which was you know you you you track with the actors and they they talk and so with leslie it became a walk or talk.

Either way. Anyway, so so with Ernie Borg nine, we you know, we had him just stationary, but he couldn't remember a line. I mean, they just can't. You know, you can imagine when you get into your well, your 70s, I guess. But but he so we had a teleprompter for him. And so he was very comfortable with that. How about Robert Vaughn, who's also in the baseball? Robert Vaughn, he was great. Yeah, Robert Vaughn was great. They were all wonderful. And so, you know, Robert Vaughn often, you know, he had a great instinct.

And he would have it on the first take. And I was always trying to chase, trying to get something better. So, and Matt and Trey would write down all my quotes. And so that, and I guess I said to Robert Vaughn that your best take is always the one before I started directing you.

So yeah. Give you an extra sense of satisfaction to see these guys who you've been watching your whole life in straight roles. And then they've never really gotten a chance to be funny i can't think of robert vaughn in a comedy i think of him in the in yeah bullet but anybody who's straight like that will be wonderful in a comedy right is it particularly satisfying it's it's it's so great because direct that make that well you know it's this you know it's kind of what i've called the uberization of comedy which you know uber and lyft is like you don't need any skill anymore as a taxi driver.

That occupation used to connote skill. Like the taxi driver had to know where to go. But now with Waze and GPS, anybody can do that. So you get in a car and anybody can be a taxi driver now. So with an airplane, anyone could be funny. So Robert Stack, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Vaughn, Peter Graves, all these guys could be just as funny as highly skilled comics like Chevy Chase or Jim Carrey or Robin Williams. Interesting. And did you ever have to remind them, I mean, if they ever did make this mistake,

did you ever have to remind them, no, no, don't be funny? Yes, yeah. You know, when we did the first table read for Naked Gun, Priscilla Presley was very nervous. And she said, you know, I don't know how to be funny. And I said, you don't have to be funny. You just let the lines do the work. And that became the direction that I gave to actors most is just let the lines do the work. And most of the people got it and just did it straight.

And Priscilla was wonderful. I never had to direct her. I really, I just had to work with Leslie to, you know, on just a lot of nuances, but Leslie also got it to be absolutely straight. If you watch airplane,

you watch Lloyd bridges performance. There's a little, there's a 5%. He knew he was in a comedy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and so he was much better in Hot Shots. Interesting. So he learned.

He learned from that. And then also in pre-production, Lloyd was trying to make sense out of his dialogue. He was trying to actually change his dialogue. And, you know, we don't care. The dialogue doesn't mean anything. And finally Stack told him, Lloyd, you know, we don't care. The dialogue doesn't mean anything. And finally, Stack told him, Lloyd, you know, no one's listening to us. You know, there's watermelons dropping,

there's spears flying under the wall. Nobody cares. Just keep talking. And so Stack totally got it. Watching Zero Hour, the thing you were referring to, where somebody actually assembled the two of them and put them back, put them next to each other, and you watch Sterling Hayden say,

you know, looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. Obviously, no one will ever take that movie seriously again. No, you can't. But we would take like one line, like the guy says, it looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. And then we did that. And then, but we kept going. We kept, you know. Sniffing glue.

Yeah, sniffing glue. You know, the next one was, you know, drinking. And then I think the last one was sniffing glue yeah sniffing right well you know the next one was uh you know drinking and then i think the last one was sniffing glue right yeah amphetamines yeah so and it worked it just worked it was just that was what we call ad absurdum what did you mean uh david when you said uh i hope i have this right you said airplane was your night at the opera and top secret was duck soup right so the marks brothers did but we did it in reverse order so the marks brothers did uh their funniest movie which was ducks duck soup uh but it was a flop at the box office because there was if you go back and watch it it was just like top

secret very funny all the way through but no character no arc no act structure. It's just anarchy. It's just anarchy. And because of that, there's no ending. And audiences subconsciously attach a lot of importance to the ending. And the ending is literally 50% of a movie. And so what happened was that that was the Marx Brothers' last Paramount movie. And they were finished. They were kicked out of Paramount because duck soup flopped. Of course, now we have no idea. This is just one of the funniest classic movies ever.

And then Chico was playing cards with Irving Thalberg, who was the head of MGM. And he was saying, well, you know, they can't get arrested. They can't get a deal. And Thalberg said, you know, you guys can make, you know, twice the money with half the jokes. And Schickel said, what? You know, they didn't know anything. And so Thalberg got them, you know, good writers like

Maury Riskin and George S. Kaufman. And they did a three-act structure, and they did Night at the Opera. And so we did just the opposite. We did Airplane because we copied the structure of an Arthur Haley movie, Zero Hour, which is a very fine story and plot and characters. And so it worked fine. And then we did Top Secret, which was just a joke book. So you did it in reverse. We did it in reverse.

That's interesting. You know, we've talked about the Paramount films and the MGM films a lot on this show. And Gilbert and I are of the school that it's almost disappointing in a way that Night at the Opera was the more successful film because it's not really the it's not the funnier film. Well. Certainly not. Yeah, it is very funny. But, you know, of course, Animal Crackers and Monkey Business, Horse Feathers are great.

Yeah. And, of course, Duck Soup. And then they do Night at the Opera, which was their most successful movie. And then they do Night at the Opera, which was their most successful movie. And then Thalberg dies. And then they did Day at the Races, which really was terrible. It was half terrible. It's a sharp line.

And then after that, it was terrible. Rock bottom. Yeah, they're the lost. At the circus go west. It was in room service. Terrible movies. They're really unwatchable and sad. But Night at the Opera, I felt like Spielberg, Thalberg, put them on a leash. Night at the Opera?

Yeah. But I think within that Night at the Opera, in those scenes, they were fine. They're great. It was great. They're a little bit in service to the love, in those scenes, they were fine. They're great. It was great. They're a little bit in service to the love story, which is what we object to. But the way that it should be, that's the way it should be, because movies are an hour and a half, and you have to tell a story. You have to satisfy the audience.

You can't leave the audience hanging. It's just that's the nature of that art form, and it's different than TV. In TV, you don't need that. You can do half-hour bites or whatever. You don't need to do that. But in a movie, that's why the bar is higher for a movie. You have to tell a story. You have to check all these boxes.

And it's really harder than TV. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. I'm about out of cards. Gil, you got something else for this man? No. I do want to ask about. I had nothing to ask him when he came in.

I have no shortage of stories and verbiage, as you can see. I think Gilbert did want to ask you about, you did a series called HUD? HUD, yeah. Wanted to ask you about, you did a series called HUD or HUD? HUD, yeah. Wanted to ask you about working with Theodore Bickell? Right. Well, that's, yeah, that's after I did basketball. Of course, you know, after a flop, you're in director jail. So my partner, Gil Netter, got us a deal at NBC to do television.

And that was in 2000. And so we did a, we did a pilot called HUD, which was a secret agent movie, which was, and HUD stood for the department of housing and urban development. So it's like, and the premise was that the, the CIA, NSA, FBI in this media age had become too public and they couldn't keep anything secret. So they needed some kind of obscure and useless agency like HUD to be the real secret agency. So we did that and we need to cast the lead. And so we couldn't find a lead. But finally, they showed me this one guy who was great. And so we cast him because he had been a correspondent on The Daily Show.

And the pilot was great. But NBC didn't pick up the series. But Steve Corrin on that. Steve Corrin was my co-writer. Right, right, right. He was a friend of Daris. Oh yeah, Steve Korn is great. Very funny. And so

NBC didn't pick up the pilot because the lead was Steve Carell. And who the hell was Steve Carell? So it never got made. Well, how was Theodore Bacall? Theodore Bacall was great. I had actually met him years before at, of all all places the Playboy Mansion and Theodore Bacall was he in the grotto yeah not in the grotto but it was alongside

uh uh Wilt Chamberlain and you know Wilt Chamberlain going around trying to get girls phone numbers you know they wouldn't give him his phone number he'd say just give me three digits insanity so we're waiting I met Theodore Raquel and so I thought of him when we did this so I

and my parents were big fans of Theodore Raquel Fiddler Fiddler yeah so I cast him in this, and he was great. Very nice fellow. And during it, my mom and dad came out to visit, and I invited Theodore Bacall and his son to dinner at our house. And so we had dinner with Theodore Bacall. What did we learn about Theodore Bacall on this show?

There was something interesting that came up, that he had this other life. In secret, he's a neo-Nazi, evidently. You've probably been asked this a thousand times, David, but I'm going to ask it. Was there some gag or some bit in Airplane that you had to lose that you loved or did everything, everything got in. Everything that was funny and wanted, of course. Because you took it out to colleges, right? You tested it? Yeah, we tested it at colleges.

And, you know, there were things that were cut out. I mean, that's why, you know, deleted scenes in comedies are never any good. It's stupid. They're deleted because they weren't funny. So why would you go, oh, boy, I'm going to see these. I went through Carell's series, The Office, and they have lots of deleted scenes. You watch them and invariably you say, I see why they cut it. But even the outtakes of comedies are stupid because what do they do?

They forget a line and people laugh. What's funny about that? I always hated that. Why do they do that at the end of comedies? Stupid. Yeah. And they did that in Being There, which is supposed to be dramatic ending. Oh, yeah.

And it's then it's all cracking up on the set. Outtakes. Yeah. So, yeah, they crack up. They forget a line and they think it's funny. I don't know. I don't get it. My favorite gag in Airplane, I have to tell you, is, yes, birds too.

Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yes, birds too. Which is just one of those things where you don't want to dissect the frog and you don't want to explain why it's funny. I don't think, I don't know if they, if even it gets a laugh. It is just great.

Yes, it's true. And the other one of my favorite gags is, it says, stewardess, can you face some unpleasant facts? And she says, no. And then he keeps going, he just ignores it. He goes on. Also very subtle sight

gags, like there's the bulletins from around the world. Yeah. And there's the guy with the drums. Also, very subtle sight gags, like there's the bulletins from around the world. Yeah. And there's the guy with the drums. Oh, and they do the cut. And he cuts the camera. And he turns to the other camera. And he turns to the other camera.

And plays a different drum. Which is just. No stone unturned. Yeah, it's a perfect film. Yeah, thank you. It's a perfect film. People do say that every time they see it, they see, you know, gags that they missed. Well, it's like Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles and even a film like The Godfather,

which is we talk about films that come on the television. You absolutely have to watch them. You get stuck. You're compelled. Yeah, for me, it's Midway. Have you ever watched Midway? Oh, Henry Fonda? You just get stuck.

Yeah, Henry Fonda and Glenn Ford, Charlton Heston. I just get stuck watching it. But I'm happy to say I know a lot of people that consider Airplane to be one of those movies. Oh, I'm very proud of that. They get stuck, yes. Yeah. I work with Whoopi at The View, and she is constantly quoting Airplane. Whoopi Goldberg.

Yeah, I know she's a friend. I know she's talking with Jerry. Yeah, she's a friend. I know she's talking with Jerry. Yeah, she's a friend of Jerry. But she loves that film. Oh, that's nice, yeah. More than life itself and just constantly quoting it. And there's another actress who was quoting it and was on. Maya Rudolph.

Maya Rudolph, yes. She just went on Kimmel and did a. She did the whole thing. She did the whole black jive. She did the whole jive thing. She knew the whole thing. On the Jimmy Kimmel show. Yeah.

Well. Well. Well. I think that killed the conversation. It's about 20. One mention of Kimmel and we're done. I'm sorry, Jimmy. Okay. That was about 20 cards worth of questions.

Well, thank you. This was fun. We covered a lot. Let's talk about quick plugs. What do you got in the pipeline? Anything you want to talk about? I wrote a movie. We wrote a great film noir parody called The Star of Malta.

And so we've had that for a while. Of course, it's hard to raise money for anything. But now we're writing a script to Naked Gun, 444 and a quarter, and Nordberg did it. So that's what we're doing. Wow. And we're almost done with that. We're going to bring it into Paramount. Paramount has no idea this is coming.

But I'm just torn from the headlines, so to speak. And there's a part for Nordbury in it. He's driving an Uber in the Broncos. We could ask you a million other things, David, but in the interest of time, this has been fascinating. Oh, I'm glad. And an education. So, I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast

with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we have been interviewing a guy who's brought us some of the funniest movies ever made David Zucker, thank you David

thank you, it was my pleasure are you going to promo the next one right now? Bob Costas coming up. You didn't give him shit. You've been known to do, you know, very famous filmmakers who have not used you. Like that we had Barry Levinson on the show. Oh, really? And Gilbert abused him for not casting him.

So you let David off the hook. And actually, Barry Levinson has done things where he uses comics in his movies. Yes, yes. I only use straight guys. So Barry Levinson goes out of his way, not teaching. Right, yeah. So I haven't really gone out of my way. I just think the garden variety, I'm not using you.

Oh, yeah. So yeah, it was like offhand. It was like, yeah, you don't need to be insulted by that. This was a kick, David. Thanks. Sure. So much fun. ¶¶ Thank you. by Frank Verderosa. Our researchers are Paul Rayburn and Andrea Simmons. Web and social media

is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley-Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to John Murray,

John Fodiatis, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance.