Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Jason Alexander

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

GGACP commemorates the 25th anniversary of the final episode of "Seinfeld" (May 14, 1998) by revisiting this 2020 interview with Tony-winning actor and director Jason Alexander. In this episode, Jason talks about network interference, working with animals, classic "Twilight Zone" episodes, Woody Allen's influence on George Costanza and how a "show about nothing" impacted popular culture. Also, Robert De Niro yuks it up, Liza Minnelli lends a hand, Jason and Martin Short perform "The Odd Couple" and Gilbert warbles a tune from "Duckman"! PLUS: Remembering Joe Besser! "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle"! The genius of Jerry Stiller! The golden age of comedy albums! And Jason gets advice from William Shatner! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Try the new creamy parmesan and bacon Quarter P pounder today and discover how words are so unnecessary for a limited time only at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. 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 producer, writer, director, acting teacher, children's book author, award-winning magician, semi-pro poker player, and one of the most versatile and popular and likable actors of his generation. You know his work from feature films like Pretty Woman, Jacob's Ladder, Coneheads, Shallow Hal, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Love, Valor, and Compassion, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, and hit TV shows like The Simpsons, Friends, The Larry Sanders Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm,

Curb Your Enthusiasm, American Dad, Star Trek, Voyager, The Orville, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, as well as starring in the cult series Duckman. And, of course, as one of the most indelible characters in the history of television, the lovably neurotic George Costanza in the iconic show Seinfeld. And there's more. He's also starred in national tours on Broadway and off-Broadway stage with Merrily We Roll Along, The Rink, Broadway Bound, Fish in the Dark, and Jerome Robbins Broadway, for which he was an awarded a Tony for Best Actor in a Musical. In a career that started way back when he played a member of the Von Trump family. Or Von Trapp family. Von Trapp family.

Oh, Von Trump, yes. This was the one that had to do with Donald Trump escaping the Nazis. And when you hear Donald Trump sing Sound of Music, it is unbelievable. His Edelweiss will tear your heart out. Yes. And this man has gone on to work with Stephen Sondheim, Mel Brooks, Hal Prince, Liza Minnelli, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Neil Simon, Larry David, Robert De Niro, and most impressively of all, Gilbert Gottfried.

true renaissance man and one of our favorite performers and a man who almost single-handedly responsible for killing the mcdonald's mcdlt the multi-talented jason alexander wow what an introduction and by the way i am running out to write The Sound of Music with the Von Trump family. That is next. Screw West Side Story. That is the new revival. That's a million dollar idea. Oh, God. Now, I just watched that commercial yesterday.

Frank and I watched that. And I remember when that was out. It was like a styrofoam container. The patty was on one side, the lettuce on the other. The lettuce stays cool. The meat stays hot. Exactly. Right.

And the commercial is like you like Robert Preston in Music Man. You get into this town, and people, you read them. Do you remember the song? Yeah, sure. Please. I mean, people shove it all the time. It's a quarter pound of cheese

on the hot, hot side and the hot stays hot and lettuce and tomato on the cool, cool side and the cool stays cool. Something that's in between. It's a new McDLT. and then it was like a rap thing we created rap the sandwich died but the rap genre was born so

and and it's a perfectly integrated area you healthy, happy people so excited about the McDLT. Yes. Our mutual friend, Rupert Holmes, who we were talking about off mic, Jason, says there was something about you, there was some controversy about you not knowing a mic was on while making that spot. Does that mean anything to you? That's true. I didn't quite understand body mics, which of course, you know, we all wear now for even in the theater, we wear body mics.

But the McDLT commercial being a musical commercial was all lip sync to playback. So why? I had a couple of spoken lines, but that's why I was body mic. The the the video village, as we call it in the industry industry but where where the clients and the director and everybody was sitting watching the monitors was over a block away from where we were because it was a long street scene and we are we were now into additional days of filming and i couldn't quite understand why it was taking so long and now we're matching we're matching something that we shot two days earlier. And they were pausing for an hour at a time because the clouds in the sky didn't quite match what had happened days earlier. So we did one take and we waited an hour. We did another take.

We waited an hour. We did a third take. We waited an hour. And as far as I can tell, they've got it. They've got it in abundance. And everyone's worn out. No one's being told anything. We're sweating in the sun and, you know, being treated like cattle the way actors usually are.

And we finish another take and they go, all right, back to number one. We'll do another one. And I, a block away, go, may I use profanity on your show? Sure, please. Yes, okay. I go, oh, my God mcdonald's bullshit they got all the fucking money in the fucking world and they're just gonna do this over and over and over and i'm just complaining to myself in the wind and i and i over one of the speakers i hear oh

jason i'm so sorry you're and i went oh i'm so, I'm so dead. I'm so dead. I'm just dead. That spot is on YouTube. Yeah, oh, the spot. The commercial has lived on. The product went right into the toilet. The product, the McDLT. The commercial was a hit.

It tanked. How many commercials did you end up doing, Jason? I mean, Hershey's Kiss. In my life? A lot. Delta Gold Chips. Oh, yeah. Planner's Peanuts. The one with Yogi Berra. Oh, my God. doing jason i mean the hershey's in my life a lot delta gold chips oh yeah planners peanuts the one with yogi berra oh my god in my career i've probably i've probably done you know 50 or

60 a lot yeah i did one with joey fay gilbert oh yeah i did hershey's kisses yeah i have a vague remembrance i'm pretty sure it was you where you you're like arrested by some in some southern town for speeding yeah it's a western union money order spot and it ran for like four years wow it was a huge spot it was in vignettes but my little vignette was the kid who's been arrested by you know the mirror reflecting uhlecting cop with the shades. And I'm in the office. I'm on the phone with my father, and I'm going, Dad, is there any way you could send the cash today?

And then I get wired the money, and I actually ad-libbed in one of the takes. I handed the cash over to the police officer, and I patted him on the shoulder and went, keep in touch. And that made it into the spot, and apparently it was funny enough to run for four years. That's what I remember. That line, keep in touch.

Keep in touch, which I stole from Woody Allen. It's a direct Woody Allen steal. The jail cell in Annie Hall. Yeah. Yeah. Keep in touch. I knew, I knew. It's a direct steal.

And you did an out and out imitation of him in that. You bet. Keep in touch. Yeah. With the sputtering and the spitting and, yeah, absolutely, the thinning red hair. I did everything I could. And now you also, when you started Seinfeld, was an out-and-out imitation of Woody Allen.

Well, it was certainly, the audition was, because the, and I've told, forgive me if I'm repeating myself, the audition, there was no Larry, there was no Jerry. They were doing everything here in LA, but the audition for a couple of actors was in New York and they were just asked to put 20 actors on tape or whatever it might be. So they only sent four pages of the original pilot script with no indication of what to do with it. And when I read it, it read like a Woody Allen film. So that's where I went, well, I'll use that. So I went and got the glasses that I didn't wear at the time.

And as George, eventually I did a thick New York accent. But for the audition, I was literally doing, you know, Woody Allen and sputtering and pontificating. And I thought, well, you know, that's ridiculous. I'll never see that again. And then when Larry called, Larry and Jerry called to have me come out to LA to screen test, they said, love everything, do everything you were doing, just not quite the Woody Allen sound. And so I backed off of that. But for the first season, season and a half, yeah, Woody Allen was my role model for the kind of nebbishy guy that I thought George was intended to be until I realized that it was an avatar for Larry

and then my whole thinking about him shifted. The Seinfeld Chronicles, as it was called in those days. Right. Day. I think it was day. That's right, the day. And you, at your hippest, I guess, pussy-ch chasing time in your career uh you were once entered magic camp oh yeah we jump around jason as you can see yeah i was at tannins tannins magic well i thought i i

had no interest in being an actor when i was a kid because i was actually pretty uh pretty shy and and a pretty uh intimidated kid kind of frightened little kid. So I was a latchkey kid. I'd come home to a mostly empty house and I'd go in my room and I would screw around with magic books, you know, cards and coins and that kind of stuff. And, you know, if you can do a magic trick, it kind of makes you feel powerful. If you can have somebody go, whoa, wow. And I thought that's what I was going to do. And I was serious enough about it that I went to magic camp when I was about 12, and there was a bunch of kids there. Again, I wanted to be that close-up magician, and they had a wonderful magician.

His professional name was Slydini, who was a gorgeous close-up magician, and he looked at my hands and went, he was Italian, and he went, it's not for you. It's not for you. He looked at my stubby little hands and my fat little fingers, and he just went, no, no. And he was right.

And so that's sort of when I started looking around, sniffing around for something else I might be able to do. And the other things that you couldn't do because of your small hands was playing the guitar or the violin oh well i knew listen i when i had to so i don't know if this was true when you guys were growing up in third grade we had to take an instrument there was no choice you had to study an instrument well i would have been happy with drums but my parents refused uh drums i would have been happy with piano. We didn't have one. And I had really heavy orthodonture when I was in third grade. So I couldn't play anything that was going to go

in or press hard against my mouth. So that left, you know, things like violin. And I went, well, come on, they're already kicking my ass. Just, you know, walking down the street, my fat little ass is being if i start carrying a violin case they're gonna shove it up my so i i had an uncle who played the flute and he was able to get me a flute for free and so that's how i i became a flute player i would never have played the violin i knew that was instant death the flute case doesn't look like you could be carrying a weapon in there. It doesn't give itself away. So I bought a little time with the flute.

I appreciate the Slidini reference too, Jason. I saw him in the Ricky Jay documentary. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. He was famous. Oh, he was brilliant. They called him the Fred Astaire of magic.

He always wore a top hat and a tails coat, and his hands just moved beautifully. Do you remember him? No. You'd see him on variety shows. Yeah, yeah. He had a career. He worked. He had a career.

And when you entered acting school, you had some acting teacher, Mr. Spruill? Yeah, Jim Spruill. Oh, you did research. Yeah. Wow. Frank Schock, because I usually come on these

shows and go, so you were on Seinfeld, right? Jason, he's worked hard for this. This is amazing. Yeah, Jim Spruill, he reset my whole thinking about working as an actor. I went to

having been highly influenced by charismatic performers like Ben Vereen and Bill Shatner, I thought I was going into sort of the dramatic world. I thought I would be the next great dramatic actor. And I spent my freshman and first half of my sophomore year sort of trying to gravitate towards those roles. Jim Spruill was African-American. He was probably in his 50s when I was at school in the late 70s. And he had come up through street theater in, I think, in Boston or Pittsburgh, you know, doing this sort of rough around the edges, real hardcore theater to sort of change people's view of the world. And he was a real down to earth guy. And he brought me into his office and he said, here's my assessment of you. I know that your heart and soul is Hamlet and that you would be

a profound Hamlet, but you are never going to play Hamlet. So you best get good at Falstaff. And what he was saying was he took an accounting of me that I was too immature to take. I was short. I was always a minimum of 20 pounds overweight. I had already started losing hair. There was no way I was going to be the next Olivier. So he kind of said, if you want a commercial career, you got to start thinking about comedic roles because that's sort of your look. And I hadn't ever really thought about it. So heic roles because that's sort of your look.

And I hadn't ever really thought about it. So he was the guy that said, think about comedy. And that's when I did. I started really paying attention to the comedy albums and watching great comedic actors or comedians who performed and trying to figure out what made funny funny and steal as much as I could. This is fascinating. What kind of comedy albums? I'm interested to see what kind of education you were. Oh, everything that was out from, yeah, everything from, you know, the singles like Cosby, Carlin. Robert Klein. Robert Klein, Bob Newhart.

Yeah. Those guys to Fireside Theater, you know, to all the, Monty Python had albums out at that time. So anything that was working as comedy, you know, Woody Allen. So I would listen to those routines over and over and over, not just for its content, but for what they were doing in performance that elevated it.

You know, because you can take any one of those guys. You can take a Cosby story, a Woody Allen story, a Newhart routine. If they don't do it it not it doesn't necessarily land it's not it's not bulletproof writing it is written for their persona and so trying to understand how they were making this stuff work was what i was really sort of focused on that's fascinating the timing and the and the structure too timing structure musicality character you know we talk about that don't we

how musical how how how comedy is musical well because i i remember hearing mel brooks say when he auditions actors he wants to hear them sing uh because it's like when you figure it's like you know the marx brothers, Jack Benny, all these people. Henny Youngman. Yeah, Henny Youngman. They were all musicians. Victor Borga. Sure.

Yeah. So how come you're so tone deaf? Because you're a brilliant Canadian. Well, you know, just because I studied it didn't mean I wasn't an A student. I was asking him. Oh, Gilbert. Yeah. I was asking him.

Oh, Gilbert. Yeah. Gilbert has established his own melody that, you know, it's that tone right there, that melody. It's got a note and a half, and it's played on a very specific instrument. Jason, he has sung on this show with Tommy James and Jimmy Webb. And who else, Darren?

Neil Sedaka. Neil Sedaka, Tony Orlando. We'll have to send you the clips. Please. How is the album not out? It is something to behold. Yeah. He's very musical. At one point, you were actually trying to wear a toupee.

At one point? Not only at one point, one point after Seinfeld had ended. Yeah, after I had well established that I was a bald man. So you weren't fooling anybody. I wasn't trying to fool anybody. I was actually making a life statement. So around that time that Seinfeld ended, I was up for a couple of film roles that I was really excited about. I really thought I'd be good. And I didn't get them.

And one of the reasons that kept coming back to me is I just look so much like George and there's so much George and, you know, they just couldn't imagine. And up until Seinfeld, really, most of my living theatrically as an actor had been being sort of a chameleon, changing the way I look, the way I sound, the way I do things. So now all of a sudden, you know, they're meeting me in real life and they're equating me with this one single character. And I got so tired of it that I went, OK, you know what? Bullshit. I'm going to put on a toupee and I don't have to look like George. Watch, watch me. And I did it blatantly in the open, not to fool anybody, but to really sort of have the industry go, oh, oh, if you put a wig on me, he doesn't look so much like George.

After two years of that, the industry didn't give a shit and I felt stupid. So I took it off and my wife said, you were such a horse's ass for two years with the toupee. And I heard you used to, after with the toupee and i heard you used to after wearing the toupee for a while you would take like a knife or something and scrape like the goo and oh no because i didn't know that's that you may be confusing me with guys so there are many different kinds of toupees there are kinds where you attach them with like a surgical glue and you just wear it straight for weeks at a time, you know?

And when you do that, oh, I know what you're talking about. Early, early, early. No, I get it now, Gilbert. Yeah, okay. So when I was still in my 20s and there was, I was not really bald,

but I was balding and it was neither fish nor fowl. And I thought, I thought, really bald, but I was balding, and it was neither fish nor fowl. And I thought, you know, I got to go one way or the other. I either got to shave until I'm really like a bald, or I got to add more hair. And that was when men's club, hair club for men, was a big thing. And what they do is they take a toupee, they make a toupee, and then using where your hairline or what passes for a hairline is, they make a braid out of it with what is essentially fishing

line, and then they sew the toupee into that braid, so you can't take it off. And you go for about three weeks at a time until your hair grows out a little bit, and then they take it off and they re-sew it so it lays flat again. But in that three week time, you can't clean under the damn thing so your your your head is building

up like a cottage cheese that just kind of sits under this thing and when they take it off you just kind of it's like scraping soap scum off the top of your head and it it's got an odor and it i mean it was just a they would give you products to sort of kind of tamp it down a little bit was it was just a freak show it's interesting jason i watched um i watched you in uh in bye bye birdie yeah and i also watched and i asked we do insane research on this show and i also watch dunstan checks in yeah i don't i don't notice it. Two, three minutes into each production, I just accept it. I'm not sitting there

going, oh, wait a second. Sure, because you're used to seeing actors play many different roles. Yeah, I just completely buy the character. I know. I think this is something that producers and directors worry about more than the audience. They're worried that when I go on screen and anything else now,

the audience is going to go, oh, look, it's George. And they will for about two seconds. And then if I do my job and the audience does their job, we're on to the next thing. But why that hurts TV actors where I guarantee you for a while when Tom Hanks came out in a movie, they went, oh, it's Forrest Gump. But nobody seemed to care about that. Right.

You know, it's just something that happens, I think, because I played this character for so long and people just equate me with it. So they cry bullshit if they see me look like something else, unless it's really, really hugely different. I think it's a credit to you. I mean, I watched the character you played in the paper too, which is so different than George or a character who's likable.

And I'm not sitting there going, oh, it's George Costanza. I mean, you're very good at disappearing into parts. Thank you. Where the hell did you learn to dance like you did in Bye Bye Birdie? You're very light, I may say. Well, bless your heart I when I fell into theater

shortly after that incident at Magic Camp I tell the story about how we moved from Maplewood, New Jersey to Livingston, New Jersey and it's the girl in the pool so I was

I knew nobody it was summer I wasn't even in classes yet and my parents had gotten me a pass to the community pool you know thinking i would meet people there and i'm standing in the pool i know nobody and this beautiful girl comes up and says hi do you sing and uh i was smitten so i said uh yeah sure and they pulled me into

a production of what will now be called uh the sound of with the Von Trumps. But it was a community production of The Sound of Music. And so I was pulled into theater, and because of the camaraderie of theater, more than the performing, I loved the instant community and friendships and bonds that, you know, casts get. So I got kind of serious about theater and performing and acting and shortly after that i kept we kept this group of kids would go into new york city and we would see broadway shows on the weekends because it was cheap if you were a student

and we saw pippin and i got blown away by ben varine i thought he moved like nobody had ever seen in my life yeah and i wanted to be him so So the next day I said, I've got to learn to dance. Not realizing, A, I'm white and Jewish. B, I'm about 35 pounds overweight. You know, it just wasn't a pretty picture. And I went into tap class. I started taking tap dancing, which is good for learning how to kind of move your feet

and change your balance. And then in college as a theater major, we had to study ballet and modern dance. And when I finished college, moved to New York, started doing theater, I would take dance classes in New York all the time. But I was largely helped by wonderful dancers and wonderful choreographers. So Anne Reinking choreographed Bye Bye Birdie. And she And, you know, she'd throw things at me. Some I could do, some I couldn't. And the ones that I could kind of do, she'd figure out, she'd kind of teach me how on my body to make them look better than they should. I've always had pretty good body awareness.

I just, you know, I'm just not a trained dancer in that sense. So what attracted you to theater and acting was really like making friends. Yeah, it was community. I was, I'm not kidding when I said when I was little, I mean, I had a couple of friends, but I was a very lonely, kind of shy, very easily intimidated, sort of frightened kid. I did not have a community. I didn't know quite where I fit in. And then, you know, I sort of had some magic friends growing up peripherally, but we're all geeks. All young magicians are geeks.

And then moving didn't help. But all of a sudden, I go into the first day of rehearsals on this show, you open your mouth, you can sing a little bit and you're not a complete screw up and everybody goes, oh you're so good, oh you're so great and now there's cast parties and now there's after rehearsal parties and everybody's it's instant rapport and instant community so that's what I fell in love with. The performing

was icing on the cake I came to enjoy that but what first got me was just this notion of I suddenly have a whole group of people around me, then I'm accepted and I fit. That's nice. And you found that, that feeling of community never went away. Never did. And it extends right into the Broadway community. I always tell people back in New York, I did a good 15 years of work in New York, and then I came out and have lived most of my life in L.A.

There is a Hollywood community. There's no question. It's very big. It's very sprawling. We do a lot of stuff ostensibly together, but it's really, you know, it's a benefit here and a thing there and a thing there. But there is a different feeling to the Broadway community. When I go back to New York, when I went back to do the first show back I did,

it was Fish in the Dark, maybe. I hadn't been on Broadway in God knows how many years. Easily 20. And I was welcomed back like, Hail Fellow, well met. You are one of the guys that knows what it is to get up eight times a week and do this thing. You're one of us. They just never

let you go. It's great. I love that. And speaking of the community and the spirit, tell the Chita Rivera story, because I think Gilbert will be fascinated by that. And that was a turning point for you. Well, it was a big... A lesson. Yeah. A professional lesson. It was a role model, because, you know, suddenly suddenly I met Cheetah during my second Broadway show, which was around the time when I thought, oh, you know, I might actually squeak a career out of this thing.

I might be working. The Rink. The Rink. Yeah. And so The Rink, at this point, Cheetah Rivera was a, you know, one of the great divas of the American musical theater. She's a star. There's no question. And The Rink was created by her good friends john

candor and fred ebb who wrote the score it really is a vehicle for her to win a tony she had not yet won her tony and they wanted to write a great role for her so she'd get it and it became a mother-daughter story and um sort of at the last minute the daughter was cast as liza minnelli and the casting of liza was actually as you cannelli. And the casting of Liza was actually, as you can imagine, bigger news than the casting of Cheetah and the Bear. So all of a sudden, Cheetah was sort of in the shadow of Liza and always handled it so beautifully, gracefully, supported Liza, loved Liza. You never got a glimmer of any kind of discontent or envy or anything of the kind.

But the particular story that I really took note of is there was a policy during that show because Liza was out several times during the course of her run. She got very ill during that show. She eventually left our show to go to Betty Ford. But when Liza missed a show, the policy was that the audience could get a refund. So they didn't have to stay. And on this one particular show, I guess there was about 100 people stayed for the show. And the stage management went to Chita Rivera and said, you know, look, you just don't have, we're not going to make you do a show under these circumstances. It's insulting to you. The first thing Chita said, so there are six men in the show.

The show with the two ladies, a little girl, and the six men. And Cheetah said, if we don't do the show, will the guys lose one-eighth of their salary? Because you get paid, I know it's a weekly salary, but it's prorated per performance. So if you don't do a performance, you missed that part of your salary. She said, if we don't do the show, will the guys lose their salary for the performance? And they went, yeah, sure. So she said, call the guys. I want to talk to them.

So we all go down to her dressing room and she is basically saying, I am here for you. I don't want you guys to miss your paycheck. There are reasons to do this show. Liza's understudy had never been on. She said it would be a great sort of full rehearsal for the understudy she'd really get performance situation and we always had a great time doing that show

we were goofy on stage we had little inside games that we would play we had a great time performing that show and she said you know if we do it we'll go out we'll have a fantastic time we'll play we'll have fun with each other it'll be great and we're all going yeah you know what screw it we'll make our money and we'll just treat it as a lark and we're not

gonna we're gonna screw around and she probably saw that energy in us and she said however the hundred people that stayed stayed you have to give them our show do not cheat them and it was at that moment that i went the the the ego that this woman has the professionalism that she has it is such a slap in her face that an entire audience would walk out because her performance wasn't deemed to be enough they had come for liza and they were being um just i have no other way to say it. It's a slap in the face. She didn't, if she took it as that, she didn't portray it as that. She accepted it.

Her first concern was about her fellow colleagues in the show. And her second concern was for the audience. How about that? And I just went, if I am lucky enough to have a career in this business, I want to hold those ethics. I want that model of how you comport yourself, what's important. I want to try and hold to that. And she really, for many reasons, that being the penultimate, just really changed the way I thought about things. It's a great showbiz story, and it's the opposite of Gilbert's work ethic.

It's a great story. It's a great showbiz story, and it's the opposite of Gilbert's work ethic. If they said to you, if they came to you, Gil, and they said, there's only 20 people in the house, you don't have to do a show. I'd say, do I still get paid? He'd blow out the door. To that degree, he'd be, yeah. But you are. It's a great story.

You had great admiration for Liza Minnelli also. I did. Liza was fantastic. Liza, first of all, I don't think I've ever come across anybody in my life as generous a human being, not just with her wealth. I mean, she was always taking us to dinner and gifts and parties. But with her time, with her energy, She sat with me on a number of occasions and talked about things that I was doing in the show and, you know, offering me tips on phrasing songs and understanding the candor and ebb sort of feel of a song.

And she was incredibly bright, incredibly generous, funny, and oh, so talented. I mean, you really understand why there are stars and then there are liza manali's she she vibrates on a different level and she shared all of it with us beautifully um she she had issues you know of her own mountains that she had to climb, and sometimes they got the best of her. So it was a mixed bag for her. It was a fantastic experience and education for the rest of us. It's quite astounding, the people, the giants that you were working with so early in your career. I was incredibly... Right out of the box, Jerome Robbins and Hal Princeton, Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera and Stephen Sondheim

and then you win a Tony at 29. It just doesn't happen. No, it doesn't. And it messed me up for a little while because I had always held the Tony as, well, that's the end of your days. You know, at 70, they'll give you a Tony just for hanging in there long enough, you know. And I thought there was nothing beyond that. And to get it at 29 and to not have it change your life necessarily.

I remember, you know, going home with my wife the night that I won it and really sitting in it for a minute and going, you know, I'm the same guy. I'm going to wake up tomorrow. The world is not going to be different. I'm awfully glad to have this thing. But it hasn't, it isn't a magic wand. Right. It didn't transform me. And that was another great life lesson.

But it did kind of kick me in the head for a while. A Tony for a show he turned down three times. Yeah. Amazing. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. Planning for a summer road trip? Check. Luggage? Check.

Music? Check. Snacks, drinks, and everything we can win in a new game at Circle K? Check! With Circle K's Summer Road Trip game, you can win over a million delicious instant prizes and a grand prize of $25,000. Play at games.circlek.com or at participating Circle K stores. Another story that hit me was when you did the pilot episode of Seinfeld, what were the notes? Well, it wasn't the notes. It wasn't notes.

I think what you're referring to is when they tested the pilot, the official NBC test results were things like, and, you know, memory is a tricky thing. So these are things I've heard and experienced once or twice that I've told the story a hundred times, and hopefully I'm not augmenting it. But I remember things like the lead character is not believable as a stand-up comic. things like the lead character is not believable as a stand-up comic the the supporting characters are obnoxious and unlikable that i actually think they nailed right on the head um and then they had categories of like too hip too urban too jewish and i remember saying that to jerry is there a kike meter somewhere? Eight is acceptable, nine we're over the... As a Jew, I'm offended

to Jewy. What does that mean? Is that part of why George became Italian? I have no idea. First of all, God bless you for saying George is Italian. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know. He's got a father named Frank Costanza.

Right. And everybody in that family is being played by a Jew. That's fascinating. I have no idea. We laugh about that. What always strikes me about Seinfeld is it really is. The characters are the most Jewish characters you can find. I mean, the Costanzas were the biggest bunch of Jews

you'd ever find, but they were somehow Italian. Right. But Italian with no religious, no crucifix on the wall, no Madonna. I mean, you know, it was so ambiguous. No Jew and no Italian would

ever conduct themselves like this. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus is supposed to be a total wasp somehow. Yeah. With the biggest head of Jew hair you've ever seen in your life. You know, it's funny, Jason. I've heard you talk about how fortunate you guys were, how you can't grow a show today the way that show was allowed to find its way and you know heroes like rick ludwin who passed away last year who was obviously an angel uh for

the show people people can read about that uh it's it's amazing you you look back on it it's also i've heard you talk about you know larry's bravery that lar Larry was always willing to walk away. More than willing, he walked away on many occasions. That he walked away several times. That it was a lesson in letting creators create. Absolutely, but it's a lesson that it seems has not gone very far. That network television, at the very least, has not caught on to. Yeah.

It's still, from my understanding, I haven't done a network show in a while, but yeah, it's creativity by committee which doesn't really work. And Larry and Jerry proved it. And Larry proved it again with Curb. It is, you hire people that you believe in, they have a vision, and

you support the vision. If it works, great. If it doesn't, you say, hey, nice try. But you don't try and alter their vision to make it what the numbers tell you it wants. I always talk about things like audience testing. I come from the theater, so we always do preview performances of shows. The audience, collectively and spontaneously, is brilliant. If you just listen and pay attention, they'll tell you. I'm sure Gilbert is a comic, you know.

They'll tell you when something is working and not working. But don't ask them why it's not working. Because they don't have that information. They'll give it to you, but they don't have it. You have to figure out, I intended this to have a result. It's not having the result. What am I going to do differently? All they do is hold the mirror up for you in a brilliant way.

But they are not collaborators. And that's the mistake that I think the suits make. It reminds me of when I was on Saturday night and the reviewers would attack the show which was fine but they never knew why like they were saying stuff like well we don't know who these people are and it's like nobody knew belushi or akroyd of course of course of course are you familiar with a project that the uh in which gil which Gilbert worked with Larry before you did, Jason? Not sure. Are you familiar with a famous Gilbert Gottfried-Larry David collaboration called Norman's Corner?

I am ashamed to say I am not familiar with Norman's Corner. Well, you fit yourself in with the majority. They once were doing what was called a backdoor pilot i think it was a cinemax comedy experiment back when they did those and i was a guy who worked in new stand and uh larry david wrote it and then and it was not a hit although arnold Stang was in it. Yes, I asked for Arnold Stang. And then years later, when they were pitching Seinfeld as a series, the head of the network,

one of the heads of the network said, who's going to be writing this show? And they said, Larry David. And he said, who's going to be writing this show? And they said, Larry David. And he said, isn't he that guy that wrote that piece of shit for Gilbert Gottfried? That's our boy. So the show I did was so bad, it almost kept Seinfeld off the air. Well, I tell you. And nobody would have been less surprised than Larry David.

I think Larry must wake up every day and go, what the hell happened? How did this happen? Well, he has that great line that he went from a poor schmuck to a rich prick. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I also love the example, too. I didn't even know this until I saw an interview with you,

that the episode where Kramer just is, not Kramer, where George just goes back to work, just goes back to the job in hopes that nobody knows. Oh, I was based on Larry quitting SNL. Absolutely. The funny thing is, my conversations with Larry David, which were usually horror stories about trying to get laid. But so many times I'd watch a Seinfeld episode and go, oh, I heard that story. Oh, yeah.

They came out of his notebook. Absolutely. Tell us about the legendary Larryry david notebook uh notebooks i mean he's got them going back i don't know how long um yeah larry larry keeps a daily journal of names that he hears that he goes oh that's a good name i'm going to use that or you know the tiniest little hint of a situation he'll overhear a bit of conversation about I couldn't go to the movie I had to walk the dog

and he'll go oh a dog in a movie a dog in a movie he just notes these things passing thoughts that he has about should I have said this or should I have done that

and he writes them all down and so when it came to episodes you know initially the episodes came out of routines that Jerry had established. He was using his material, his source material for the show. But eventually Jerry was being forced to do stand-up segments in the show that A, he didn't always write, and B, he was not comfortable delivering these things.

He likes, you know Jerry, he likes to hone his material. So it required different source material all of a sudden, and that's when I think they started going to Larry and his notebooks. And there was just so many different things. And it also, I think, became the character of the show, of these three and four stories floating through one episode and somehow dovetailing at the end. Yeah, it was brilliant.

I remembered one Larry David david horace story he was gonna he got a date with some girl so that was already unbelievable and he he's gonna meet her in central park and they're right it's he's there right outside tavern in the green and he she hasn't shown up yet so he sits down in central park and he sits on a pile of shit and then he went into tavern on the green and i think he took his pants off in the men's room to try to clean it and like security was telling him to leave. To get out. He's a homeless person. He's got Larry David stories you don't even know.

Oh, my God. I'm amazed we haven't seen them. I think one of the things that Gilbert and I are amused by on Seinfeld 2 is the weird Abbott and Costello motifs. Yes. I know. The name of the character, Sidney Fields. Yeah.

Right. And your friend Waynene knight's character newman is is so much it's sort of strange stinky joe and on one episode we're so fond of that seinfeld even says to to uh, he says, boys, boys. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. There's a lot. Jerry had a couple of, not only Abedin and Costello, there were always things that he would do. Stooges, absolutely.

But he, I stole a phrase from Jerry. I stole many things from Jerry. But I stole a phrase that he would use all the time that he stole, and I didn't realize it was Tom Snyder. But it's that all right, sir. All right, sir. After anything that makes no sense, you just go, all right, sir. We jump around a couple of more things on Seinfeld, Jason. And we could ask you about a lot of those wonderful actors like Len Lesser and Barney Martin.

I mean, great, great showbiz faces, great showbiz veterans. But we have to ask you about Jerry Stiller because you were also the roast master at his Comedy Central roast. Tell us something about Jerry, who we adore. Well, the first thing I'll tell you is you have every right to adore him. He, well, going from when I heard he was coming. So Stiller is the third guy to play my father in the show. Most people don't know that because before we ended shooting,

we went back and shot every episode, scene from every episode that he wasn't in where there was a Frank Costanza, and we put him in so that in syndication, it's always him. But he was the number three guy. When I heard he was coming I my head fell off because I grew up with Stiller and Mira on the Ed Sullivan show I had seen them do Neil Simon plays off Broadway I had I watched Jerry Stiller and Hurley Burley

on Broadway I knew him as a classical actor I knew him as a comedian actor. I knew him as a comedian. So I was thrilled. And when he stepped on the stage, I think Stiller came into our world at a time when his world had really started to go away. You know, Stiller and Mira were not a thing anymore. And I think the jobs were coming few and far between. And all of a sudden he gets invited to this hit show where he thinks he's beholden to everybody. And I'm going, we are so lucky to have you oh my god i'm so excited and sweet he and i bonded very very early

um and and are still close to this day he is so sweet and so kind and so unassuming he is he's just so grateful to be to have the life he had, to work with the people that he's worked with. And he's genius, and he doesn't realize that he's genius. I think he would tell you that he is an underwhelming actor when, in fact, he is really a unique, talented, and intelligent actor. And it could be that I kept reflecting that back to him all the time, how much joy I had being with him. You know, there's... If you look at the outtakes,

I think they're on YouTube, there's one where you can see how much, A, I adore him, and B, I can't survive him because for some reason, Frank has had to move in with George. And we do the end of the show in bed together. We're sharing a bed, and he's eating a bowl of Kasha

Varnicus and I just have to sit and watch him eat this thing for like a minute and then at the very end with me looking at him like I want to kill him and kill myself he takes a spoonful and offers it to me and goes Kasha and I can't I never

I never got through a take. They had to cobble together. I couldn't do it. His face, his attitude, everything about it was just so great. And my favorite moment between him and me and, and Ben, his son is when Stiller and Mira got their star on the walk of fame. You know, Jerry said, would you be so gracious as to be one of the speakers? You can have one or two speakers. Ben was not one of them, but Ben is standing right there. And in front of the whole crowd, I go, you know, you're his actual son. You're allowed to usurp me here if you like.

But he's just great. I hear from him a couple of times a year. You know, things have been tough for him since Ann passed away, but he's got wonderful people taking care of him, and I think he is still happy. And I go to New York in April, so I'm hoping to catch him. We watch him in anything. Oh, he's hysterical. Wonderful.

The best. And the best. You said in some interview, a lot of the Frank Costanza character was because he'd mess up his lines and mispronounce words. Yeah. Sometimes he'd mispronounce, but it was more about he doubted his memory. He always had it. He always had it.

He knew his lines. But he was so stressed over it that they would come to him in like two and three word fits. And he was so frustrated that he couldn't get it all in one shot. He wanted to be able to say, are you telling me there's no

vacancies at Del Boca Vista? That's what he wanted to do. But it would come to him in little things. And the rage of Frank Costanza was the rage at himself. Are you telling me this? No vacancies! It's just, it's building

rage because he's just so upset with himself. It's fantastic. I have to say, as wonderful as the ensemble of four is, the scenes with you and Estelle and Jerry, the three of you, just gold and Jerry, the three of you. Oh, there haven't. Just gold. We had the best bench.

Just you guys were a great trio. The best bench in show business. There's never been better. And you said somewhere that you were always afraid. You had so much fun doing that show that you were afraid they just find out they're paying you to have fun. Yeah. It's a line I use all the time.

I say, you know, we would go to work, we would laugh our asses off for anywhere from five to eight hours, ten hours. I'd do that four or five days a week, go home, and at the end of the week they would pay me. And I went, they're going to catch on sooner or later that, A, we're overpaid, and, B, we'd probably do it for a lot less. It was, it was, even when things were, you know, potentially when there was grist in the oyster off stage during, you know, times when we would be negotiating or renegotiating, none of that ever came on stage. When we all got onto that set and we started playing together,

it was a love fest and a laugh fest every single day. And it was just for nine years. How do you do that? It was amazing. A show that continues to make millions of people happy. Yeah. It must feel important, special to you that you got to be part of that. Tell that wonderful story about the Marines approaching you in the restaurant.

Oh, yeah. So one of the unanticipated things about Seinfeld, because I think we always think of it as our stupid little comedy show. You know, we don't over-inflate its importance in the world. But I meet people or I get letters from people literally every week who say it was more than that for me. I was going through some really dark stuff. Either they were sick and they were being treated or they had lost someone dear to them. And they would talk about how the show gave them back their laughter.

And I've heard this from a number of people in the military. But on this one occasion that you're talking about, there's a hotel in San Francisco called the Marines Memorial Hotel. And I believe any active service member can stay there for free. So it's frequented by a lot of military people. I was having dinner at the rooftop restaurant in that building. And my back was sort of to the room. And suddenly towards the end of the dinner, I feel a presence behind me and I turn around and there's about 50 Marines in uniform and they've been drinking for a while. So it's a little bit sloppy, but the designated speaker comes forward and he says something about, Mr. Alexander, I don't mean to interrupt your dinner, sir. I just want to say, you know, I'm making up names. I'm Corporal Johnson. This is the 203rd Platoon of the U.S.

Marine Corps. We all served an 18-month deployment in the theater in Iraq, and in about three months, we're going to be heading out to Afghanistan, and we really enjoy serving together. But what we wanted to say to you, sir, is that, you know, when we're out operating in the theater, you know, we see things and we do things, we're engaged in things that are really hard, really hard, that can strip away your sense of humanity, your sense of self. And we would come back from those deployments, we'd get back in our barracks and we had the DVDs of your show, sir and we would we would throw them on as a group we would sit and watch three or four episodes and slowly we'd begin to laugh together again and drink together again and our humanity would come back to us and we were able to sleep that night and go out and try and do god's work the next day so we just want you to know sir that we think of you

as the 51st member of this platoon and with that he yells out Semper Fi and they all snap to attention and snap out a salute to me and I'm like man I'm you could mop me off the floor I just was blown away by by the fact of that story but that these guys would come over and share that it's but that that's the kind of reaction i've had and i'm sure all of us have had around the world from people that you just never expected for it's great it is an amazing thing because i've had i've experienced that too where people come over to me and break down crying about how they used to watch it with their parents. Where they'd see me on TV with their parents or with other family members who died. You don't realize.

No. That you touch me. And Gilbert, in your case, and I talk about this a lot, and I only know about it really because we were both in the Aristocrats together, but, you know, what you did at the Hefner Roast right after 9-11, where that room was dying, there was no laughter to be had, and you launched into the Aristocrats, Joe, and took it as far as any human being can possibly take, and it was so brave. And it was so brave. And it was so, only someone who we know,

and I don't want to undercut the whole comedic image that you have, but only someone that we know is as humane and loving as you are could have gotten away with that bit at that time. But man, you turned that room around i mean honestly it was it was the first step of a way back from something that many people who love new york thought there was no way back from and and i always credit you with that i think that was an amazing magical about that wow thank you jason my pleasure sir launched a feature film and i liked your version of the aristocrats, and your friend Peter Tilden was absolutely no help to you, by the way.

My favorite moment in my story is where all the male members of the family are lying on top of each other with penises inserted in anuses and then spinning in different directions while orgasming like the Bellagio Fountains. That was great. I thought that was a nice... It was nice what you did with it. Do you want to talk about doing Duckman? Do you have any memory of this man being on Duckman?

A beloved show. Of Gilberto and Duckman. Now, here's the problem. We didn't record together, I'm sure. No. He was art to sell. So I forget. Yeah.

I was art to sell. I'm sure I saw the episode. Uh-huh. Yeah. I was art to sell, Paul. I'm sure I saw the episode. Uh-huh. Sure. And even though I only had one line of a song, I remember the song. You're ahead of me. What was the song? Okay.

I finally made it. My dreams can come true. I finally made it. It's the ultimate lazy man's coup i got oh what a beautiful more no i can spend it with porno cause it's just what i'm aching to do cause I finally you finally we finally made it Bravo my friend Does that ring any bells Jason? It actually does Who was Art DeSalvo? I'm trying to remember

He was like a sleazy agent as opposed to honest agents Yeah A departure from the normal depiction of an agent. A science fiction. What a smart, subversive show that was, Jason. Oh, it was heaven.

And everybody was on that show. I mean, everyone. Yeah. And amazingly, it just happened before the big wave of South Park and those kind of deviously subversive shows in animation. So it's a little bit of a lost gem. We've been trying to find a market to reboot it because the, I mean, everybody would love to do that again.

I think it would work just as well now. I remember when I was doing it, the character had to be violently throwing up and we spent like an hour they had a plastic bag for me to make throw up sounds and then they said well fill up your mouth with water and make it more

gurgling and I was spending like over an hour going it was so much fun you know you're talking about the joys of it that an actor committing every episode you you you sounded like you were putting your your heart and your spleen into every one of those reads oh those sessions used to kill me i can imagine out and go i hope i can speak tomorrow because they were brutal i can imagine i want to work and another thing we sort of did together but never did together oh jafar i i know yes that's yes return of jafar absolutely and and the other one is i was in the first episode of the marvelous mrs mazel

oh that's right i think you're the first person on camera. They kept us far apart. Yeah. God, that show is so much fun to do. I just want to work in quick a couple of questions from listeners, Jason, if I can. We do this thing called Grill the Guest, and this is about Duckman.

Jacob Reed said, I do believe there was an instance, because you talk about not recording with the other actors, I do believe there was an instance when you were able to record alongside Tim Curry, Nancy Travis, there was an instance, because you talk about not recording with the other actors, I do believe there was an instance when you were able to record alongside Tim Curry, Nancy Travis, your co-star, and Judith Light in an episode. Is that the thing where you were

doing the Who's Afraid of Junior Wolf kind of a thing? Absolutely. We did it like a radio play. It was great. It took a very long time for the very reason that they don't have people record together. It's very rare that you nail what they want on the first read. So it's easy when you're alone to go back and do a piece over and over and over, do a line over and over and over. When you're

reading together like a radio play, you're kind of married to the group performance. So it took a while. We did it in little chunks but it uh it was great so much better to do it that way because you're living off the other voices we will return to gilbert gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this we're going to give you your choice here do you want to talk about working with the great robert duvall yeah working with the great but you found him quiet and intense robert de niro uh-huh or something we like to talk about working with the great Robert Duvall, working with the great, but you found him quiet and intense, Robert De Niro, or something we like to talk about on this show, which is working with a monkey. Dealer's choice. What do you like? I'll tell you, they were not dissimilar.

They were all... No, I'm kidding. That's a joke. Well, Dunstan, I mean, it's fascinating to watch. We've talked to people on this show who've worked with chimps. Yes. And with monkeys, and it's something that we remain fascinated by. Yeah. Dunstan was neither of those, by the way. An orangutan.

And an orangutan is an ape, not a monkey. Excuse me. And I couldn't tell you the real difference between them, but they kept making a big distinction. A simian. Apes don't have tails. There you go. That's exactly right. He was an extraordinary creature.

I mean, it's one of the thrills of my life that I actually got to have a relationship and an experience with an animal like that because, you know, unless you're a zoologist or you work with animals, you would never have that. And this creature was extraordinary. If I'm remembering correctly, the trainers would say,

we really didn't have to teach him much. We kind of talked to him, and we demonstrate stuff, and then he kind of does it. And he, unlike most movie movie animals will always be looking at their trainer so if the shot is over your shoulder um the camera would tell the story that the that the animal is looking at the actor the animal is always looking at their trainer waiting for the signal waiting to be told what to do and then late waiting for its reward this orangutan would deal with me and he would deal with eric lloyd who

played the little boy in the movie um it was as if he was engaging with us it is a creature that without effort could have squashed any of us like a bug he has 20 to 30 times the strength of a man and he was so gentle and so sweet and and there were games that he and I would play that when I saw him, we had wrapped the film. And now five months later, we're doing publicity. And the minute he saw me, he signals for those games again. I mean, it's like I lived in his memory. And amazingly, I just got back from Australia. I was doing a comedy tour and I was doing a meet and greet.

And a woman came up to me and she said, I worked with the animal's name was Sammy. He said, I worked with Sammy in the wild animal park that he went to, to retire and that he had a wonderful life, but he actually died very young. He was six years old when we did the film and he died around 12 years old, which is unusual because orangutans can live to be in their eights. So it was a short life, but apparently he got some sort of a cancer or something and didn't make it. But he had a nice retirement. He was an amazing creature. That's a lovely story. I mean, we had some actors on the show who didn't have – Dick Miller was bitten by a chimp.

Yes. This is an ape, obviously, so it's a different situation. And I had a part in Funky Monkey. Yeah. How much did you interact? Was that an orangutan or it was a chimpanzee? I think it was a chimp. And chimps are, I mean, this one was a nice chimp.

But there have been horror stories about chimps. Oh, please. They go for the groin. They go for the fingers, the lips. I like all of those things. I like them where they are. Yeah, I've always heard. They specify.

One time there was a woman ripped to shreds by chimps. Yes. And then one man. Sure, many cases. One man, they said, they bit off his fingers and mutilated his genitals. Yes. Chimps. Yes. And then one man. Sure, many cases. One man, they said, you know, they bit off his fingers and mutilated his genitals. Yes. So they go, they're vicious creatures. So this could have happened to you.

Strangely, that's what I did in the gun attack, but I didn't want to talk about it. I was going to say the director, Ken Kwapis, was it? Yes. Got a performance out of the orangutan. I mean, it's very... It wasn't hard to do. Yeah. This animal was just an extraordinary.

Yeah, really sweet. My favorite moment is when he's in the hotel room and he finds Planet of the Apes while he's... Yes. He's channel surfing and finds Charlton Heston kissing Kim Hunter, I think it is. Talk to about Rocky and Bullwinkle, which you looked like you were having the time of your life making. We were having fun. I know they put you in a fat suit and shaved your eyebrows, which couldn't have been fun. Well, that's true.

It was great fun to do. I mean, I was basically teamed up with Renee Russo the whole time Who I adore She is so much fun For reasons I will never understand She came to me right after we did the first reading of the script And she said I'm not funny You just tell me what to do and I'll do it

And I went I guarantee you after having just heard you read this thing You are brilliant And we had a great time together. We kept screwing each other up. We both had to do Pozzolvanian dialect lessons to sound exactly like the cartoons did. But the crazy thing is that the accent for Natasha and Boris in the cartoon, they never collaborated.

So they're doing different things. They're making different sounds. And if I listened to her, I would do the wrong thing. And if she listened to me, she would do the wrong thing. So we had to keep retreating to our separate corners to get, you know, re-advised on the, uh, on the dialect. And then De Niro was just, you know, friends of mine would, would keep saying, you're in a De Niro movie. And I'd go, yeah, kinda. keep saying, you're in a De Niro movie. And I'd go, yeah, kinda. Kinda. A very different

kind of De Niro movie. Bob was great. Which he also produced, by the way. He did. And he was great. I had to learn so clearly I'm intimidated by everybody, but I was very intimidated by him. I didn't know what kind of a set he liked to be on.

So Renee and I immediately, we're wackadoos. We're just goofing around all the time. But when Bob was on the set, we thought, well, should we tamp it down? Do we include him? Do we not include him? How do you know? I don't know what to do here. And I don't know where it came from.

After about 10 days of being intimidated we're we're setting up for a shot and one of the camera guys says uh hey bob would you mind taking a step to your left and i don't know where this came from i started doing pesci and i went wait a minute hold on bobby don't don't move who the fuck are you to tell this man to move who the fuck are you move your fucking camera to move? Who the fuck are you? Move your fucking camera over there, you piece of shit. And I start going full pack. And Bob is laughing. And I go, okay, I know the way in.

I start busting. So you play with him. And he just had a great time. And again, another guy that you go, is he going to be gracious? Constantly, come into the trailer, have a drink. He's called me to do a couple other things, projects that actually did not happen, but he would call me and fly me in to do a reading.

He's just been really lovely. You could never tell, but it sure looks, watching the movie, especially the dance scene, it sure looks like he's having fun. I think he was having fun. I think, you know, it's so funny, but I think Bob looks to have fun. I think he takes his work seriously, but I think he finds it all really fun to do. And when you look at the full breadth of his work, you know, yeah, sure, half the time he's strangling people or beating the shit out of them.

But when he's not, he's playing comedians turned out you know turned out to be a good comedian i mean if you look at performances like midnight run comes to mind yeah we had a funny moment you know this was back when i was intimidated by him so you know he has a reputation for liking to ad lib and and be kind of loosey-goosey and takes. And initially, in a couple of the scenes, he was doing some of that, and I had nothing on this. We had a moment side by side, and I said, Bob, you know, I know you like to play with improv

in your films, in your work, and you get some great results. Do you find that that's useful in comedy films as well, comedy work? And what do you mean? I said, well, you know, some writers, there's a music to how they write. So if you don't say a Neil Simon line the way he wrote it, it won't quite work. If you don't say a Woody Allen line the way he wrote it, it won't quite work. And he looked at me and he and he said uh well i'm certainly not going to debate comedy with you and i didn't know did he just compliment me

wow or ask me to go fuck myself i just i couldn't i i couldn't read it and and so i i crawled under a shelf for a little bit until i realized he was being very complimentary that's nice of course he had that bad Neil Simon experience where he was he did it was a goodbye yes yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah because he couldn't get the panties off the shower yeah we uh this is this is some good trivia Gil we have now had two live action actors who played Boris Badenoff on the show because Dave Thomas was here. Oh, sure. So there you go. Yeah. More trivia for you, Jason. What do you have in common with Murray Hamilton from Jaws fame and Robert Redford?

What do I have in common with Murray Hamilton and Robert Redford? Yes. It's not a birth date. No. It has to do with an on-screen performance. An on-screen performance. Gilbert, do you know? Murray Hamilton. You certainly know Murray Hamilton. Yeah, Murray Hamilton

and Robert Woodford. Do you know, Gil? All three of you played Death on the Twilight Zone. Oh my God, yes! Oh, I knew that about... Yes! Yeah, I knew that about... not Murray. Redford.

But I, yeah. Well, Murray's the one with Ed Wynn. The one with Ed Wynn is great. Yeah, and Redford was really young when he did it. He plays a cop who's shot in an alleyway outside a woman's home. She has an apartment. She's an old woman, and she's so afraid of death, she is a shut-in.

She never opens her door. That's right. And she sees this young cop get shot and out of humanity she allows him to come inside and then eventually he reveals himself as death and mildred dunnick i think was the act yeah he says you just have to take my hand just hold my hand and it's a it's a beautiful episode and gilbert and i both watched your tw Zone episode. Yes. Very good performance. Yeah, it was a fun one. Thank you. Disturbing. Disturbing.

Were you a fan of the original show? We had Anne Serling here. Loved it. Yeah, loved it. I remember a bunch of the original ones that kind of freaked me out. And I remember with the Murray Hamilton one, he says to Ed Wynn, he says, well, we can let you live if there's some important thing in your life that you haven't done yet. Unfinished business. And Edwin says, well, I never rode in a helicopter.

Who else is doing Edwin in this day and age, Jason? Right? I'll tell you. I asked you. I reported the market on that. Hey, Dan. Bye, guys. Just lost the video. Hang on, Jason. We're I'll tell you. I asked you. I courted the market on that. Hey, Dan. Bye, guys. You just lost the video.

Hang on, Jason. We're trying to get your video back. I don't look any better, I promise. Yeah, we're Twilight Zone fans. Do you remember the one, the first one I ever saw was a really strange one. It was Sebastian Cabot

and Larry Blythe. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. Where he plays the little gangster who goes to heaven and Larry Blythe. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. Where he plays the little gangster who goes to heaven and everything is too easy. What is the name of that one? It goes, I want to go to the other place. And Sebastian Cabot goes, this is the other place. Yeah, because that's where he wins every bet immediately. And he doesn't like it.

Right. He wins bets and he doesn't like it. Right. He wins bets, and he robs banks, and it's too easy. He never gets caught. Yeah, the whole shebang. Okay, I have something here from Rupert Holmes. You played a character named Alan Ballinger. Yes. Who had a romance with a series.

This was a Rupert series, Remember When. Remember When. Yeah. He had a romance with a series diva, Hilary Booth, whose name was inspired by Hilary Brooke. There we go. We're back to Abbott and Costello. And he sent me a picture of you.

You probably can't see this. Oh, but I remember the look. It's very Max Maven. Yeah, very Max Maven. Very much so. Yeah. Rupert sends love. He's done this show a bunch of times.

Oh, that's so sweet. yeah Rupert sends love he's done this show a bunch of times oh that's so sweet I I remembered another thing you said that you were once talking about Michael Richards that he was once confused about how to play Kramer oh no no no I if this is the story that uh that I think it is uh not that he was confused um i think uh one of the secrets of michael's success in that role is and you'd have to check in with larry or jerry about this but in my memory the the intention on kramer was that he was going to be very much a secondary character you know that he was the the uh the nutty neighbor across the hall and that he wouldn't play that much into storylines and the concept was always that he's the dumbest guy in the room he's just a dummy but michael once said to me um what i did that i don't think they expected was

i play him as the smartest guy in the room. And it sounds like something that would be only perceived as a subtle shift, but it actually was such a magnificent way of doing that guy that I believe Michael showed the writers how to write that character. I feel like, certainly I, maybe Julia, I think Julia and I learned who George and Elaine were from the writing. The writing would show up every week. It would add another piece to the puzzle and we'd go, oh, okay, let's incorporate that. But I think with Michael's case, it went the other way.

I think Michael would do things that no one expected, no one anticipated, and in Larry's case, that no one appreciated for a while. And then they went, oh, you know what? Let's get on his bandwagon, because he sort of reinvented that role. I love, too, that, yeah, I mean, everybody... Well, you know, and they're all composites, right, of people that Larry knew.

I mean, the lane is loosely based on several people, including Carol Leifer. That's what I've heard. And that Kramer's kind of Kenny Kramer. Kind of Kenny Kramer, but other people. I love the moment, and people are always asking you to pick a favorite episode,

and you don't, but you do have that moment, which is the pendant publishing scene with the cleaning woman, which was a seminal moment for you. Why? Because I started to understand one of the big characteristics of george was

his ability to dodge his own consequences um and it's true uh and i found i found it creative and funny and charming so and i had nothing to do with this other than appreciate the writing. But the moment that we're talking about is George has been having sex with the cleaning woman in his office at Pendant Publishing. And he's been caught. And now he's in front of the boss who boldly and baldly says, George, it's come to my understanding that you've been having sex on the desk in your office with the cleaning woman. Now, what do you write? If you're Larry with the cleaning woman. Now, what do you write? If you're Larry David or Jerry Seinfeld,

what do you write as a response? No, I didn't. Who said that? You know, I'm the victim. I'm the victim. There's a number of things you could go through. But what they wrote was a long pause of consideration and then George going,

was that wrong? Should I not have done that? Because I got to tell you, I've worked in a lot of offices and that kind of thing goes on all the time. I mean, you know, it's just this whole, this such a unique way of deflecting back, you know, the ignorance of, I thought that was acceptable behavior. I just thought it was so brilliant. It is. It could key me into George's way of thinking. And to that extent, I could at least be a fraction more helpful when scripts would come and I'd go, well, maybe it's this or maybe it's this.

And every now and then I'd have a good idea, but only because they showed me how he thinks. Did you like playing the physical comedy as well? I'm thinking if you're running out of the men's room in the Vandelay, trying to put your pants at your ankles. I mean, a lot of pratfalls. And you and Kramer sort of, in certain episodes, become like a Mutt and Jeff team.

Yeah, I mean, Michael is, listen, Michael's ability to simply move his body is light years beyond what I can do. But I've always loved. It's the ballet to the comedy. Yeah, I've always loved, you know, the pants, the fall was my idea. That was something that came during rehearsals. It's great.

I thought, oh, my God, if his pants are down, that would be great. I have to, and I have a habit of doing this and bringing the room to a dead halt at times. But I have to ask you this, if we'll even use it on this show. And that is, there was an actor who used to play your boss on this show. Don O'Hagan, I think was his name. He was like a husky guy and it was like will george and his boss when he worked for the yankees yeah no no no no no yeah it was like a if this is the guy that i think you're talking about is this the actor who eventually committed suicide yeah uh yeah

yeah um oh no you're talking about you're talking about the guy who was found dead recently no no no no this happened about three or four years ago he he was in that episode where uh uh george remembers they took his clothes and threw it into the ocean okay and he he used to talk like that he he would play cops and army sergeants in movies. Yeah. Was his name, I thought it was something like Daniel Von Vargen or something like that? Something like that, yeah. Kruger?

They're telling us here it was Kruger. Yeah, Kruger. He played Mr. Kruger. That's right. And it was Kruger Industrial Smoothing was the company. And the bit was that Kruger was a boss who was he had no idea what the company did he had no idea you know it was one of those things where you you couldn't screw up because there were no rules there was there was no standard of

behavior or performance um and i think daniel did he probably did about five or six of our episodes yeah i didn't i didn't get to know him very well. Very sweet guy. And I hadn't seen him for, God, I mean, since the show had wrapped. And it was years later that he took his life. And I, yeah, you just, I know. You know, it's kind of amazing. If you do a show as long as we did, with the numbers of people that we intersected with

the sad truth is i i have with the exception of the careers that really went on to be kind of big careers that either launched or were enhanced by our show i probably couldn't name most of the wonderful actors that were on our show and i i often wonder you know i i when i do bump into people who did a single episode and they say things like I was the close talker I was the close talker and I go well how has that been for you and they go it's it I can make a living off of it oh that's great you know people go oh my god you're the close though we want the close talker so I know a lot of good things have happened for people but you know you do wonder about what what is a life yeah like that when you you have a great

moment on something that's as big as and well people like o'hurley and larry thomas i mean they're still and and renny santoni i mean who had a career absolutely career before i mean they're still getting recognized all the time you bet you bet yeah yeah thanks for bringing the yes yes yeah nice i always do j a couple of quick ones. We'll let you get out of here. Steven Antonuccio said, you just turned 60, Jason. What would a 60-year-old George Costanza be doing if the series were still on? Would he be married?

Would he be employed by the Yankees? Would he have ever matured and evolved? Well, I can't believe he would mature and evolve. And that's one of the reasons why I think there's no Seinfeld reboot, because we'd be the same assholes we were 30 years ago, much less charming on a 60-year-old. There were two, I mean, the two suggested ideas were kind of great. One was that George is the only one who continually screwed up in jail

and he's still in there for, you know, offenses that were added to his sentence upon being jailed. And then i'm i'm you know somebody's bitch no doubt and running cigarettes back and forth um the other one that that larry suggested was that uh george got out and created an app called the eye toilet which would tell you where the best and cleanest men's room was anywhere around you and that he had made millions but invested it all with bernie madoff and so was destitute again uh that sounds like the right the right road heard jerry and larry both said with the show they wanted no lessons ever learned no hugging right yeah no hugging no learning no learning that No learning. That was the motto over the writer room door.

No hugging, no learning. Oh, and tell us your real name. My real name? Jay. J-A-Y. Scott. Greenspan. And you said the other kids would pick on you with your name.

Well, they picked on me for many things, but Greenspan was easy fodder. It was just green fill in the blank. You know, green puke, green, you know,der it was just green fill in the blank you know green puke green you know whatever it was and i i joined my first union when i was 14 my first actor's union and i so my name is jay but my mother would always call me jason for some reason so i thought if i ever took a stage name it would be jason scott my first name and my the name my mother calls me and and my middle name and i went to after and they said would you like a stage name and I said yes please Jason Scott and they went nope we got 15 of them in every imaginable spelling and you cannot have it and I had never thought of anything else so literally in that moment going well I don't

want Greenspan as my stage name and I I kind of thought, well, gee, I wonder if my dad feels bad that I keep saying that. And his first name was Alex. So I went, how about Jason Alexander? And they went, yep. And that was how quick it was. It was in the spur of that moment, not getting Jason Scott. Love that. And you say there is an actor named Jason Alexander.

There are several, but the one that is most notable is Jane Alexander's son, who, because I had gotten the name, worked under the name Jace, J-A-C-E Alexander. Right. And was an actor and director for a while. Didn't Britney Spears marry Jason Alexander? That was another Jason Alexander.

Oh, I remember! That's right! That's right. For like 48 hours. Yeah. That's right! I came home, yeah, I who do not follow pop culture

came home one day you know and my phone machine had a hundred messages about congratulations britney spears i went as i'm being what how is everybody in on this punk thing that i'm doing yeah so that was a shock quick quickly we had marcia mason here a couple of weeks ago jason we talked all about neil simon who you who you worked with and worked for and you did the odd couple do I have this right you did the odd couple you did a reading with Marty

Short in LA but did you do it as a kid? I did do it as a kid did you play Oscar Madison in high school? I did we absolutely love that I was Oscar Madison David Barron my. David Barron. My friend David Barron was Felix.

Yeah. Never imagining that one day you would grow up and work with the director of the Odd Couple movie, The Great Gene Sacks. Absolutely. It was remarkable. And then Marty and I did do a benefit performance of that. I had a great time with Neil on Broadway Bound. Loved him.

And then I had such a bittersweet moment with him just about a year before he passed away, where I was directing a production of Broadway Bound in Los Angeles. And I thought it was really quite good. I really thought we did a nice production. And so I called his wife, Elaine, and I said, you know, I I don't know I know Neil is having you know dementia issues he's in and out of that but he might enjoy this production and she brought him down and he did remember me he said I know you I know you and I said yes Neil I played your brother in one of your plays and he would go in in and out of knowing where he was. Like when we sat him early in the theater and the audience was coming in and he said, are these the actors? And I said,

you know, I said, no, this is the audience. But at the end of the play, he wanted to meet the cast, but he didn't quite understand that it was a show. And he went back up on the stage with them to take a photograph. And he was holding the woman that played his mother clearly as if it was his mother. And he was crying because he knew that these people were important to him but also I think there was some awareness that he couldn't make sense of it and he was weeping for that. It was a very bitter, bittersweet thing.

But I was delighted to have shared. I think there was some joy in it for him. Wow, what a lovely story. How was doing the reading with Marty? Oh, it was... You were Oscar, he was Felix. Yeah, of course. Not that you guys couldn't turn it around

and do the other parts. Some of my happiest moments on stage are with Marty Short short who i i love to death marty you know marty is always either over prepared or under prepared for the reading under prepared um you know didn't know the lines holding the book playing the whole time we we the audience loves marty when he just diverts from what he's supposed to be doing to what he, you know, is planning to do. And we did the producers in L.A. for just shy of a year. Marty made it his business to break me every night on that stage.

And five out of eight a week, he would succeed. And it was such a joy. he would succeed. And it was such a joy. He's another guy that's kind of inspiring to me in that Marty has had a lot of tragedy in his life, a lot of pain. And yet he always finds his way to happiness. He finds a way to make things better than they should be and to make events. He told me a story one time about how whenever he he's scheduled for a colonoscopy he makes sure that steve martin and i think he said a couple other comedian friends um they all they all schedule their colonoscopies for the same day so they're all doing the prep and he and he said what they do is they all go i think they said to steve martin's house because he has the most bathrooms, and they play poker all night long.

They never go to bed. They play poker. They fast. They drink. They crap. They bet. They laugh. Then they all go at the same time, get their colonoscopies done within two hours of each other, and then they would all go to like Nate and Al's deli and break the fast.

Unbelievable. I go, you made a colonoscopy a fucking party. How do you do that? How do you do it? Unbelievable. Yeah. Will you tour with Gilbert and the Odd Couple or the Sunshine Boys, Jason? Oh, the Sunshine Boys.

That's waiting to happen, Gil. That is the finger. The finger. Gil, give him a little of your Walter. Yes. It's not enter. It's knock, knock, knock. If I come in, do you say enter or do you say knock, knock, knock?

If you say enter, I don't come in. If you say knock, knock, knock, I come in. It's not the Belasco Theater. It was the Morosco Theater. You're crazy. The Morosco Theater was... We could do it. We could go on tonight.

I would love to see that. Last question. Patrick Izzo says, I've heard a story that as a birthday surprise, Jason's friends took him out to celebrate and surprised him by having none other than William Shatner appear. Correct. They bought me William Shatner appear. Correct. They bought me William Shatner for my 35th birthday.

Oh. Gilbert, as we were talking about this. Because he can be bought. He can be bought. But then and now. Gilbert just spent an afternoon with William Shatner. Yeah. In Virginia.

And I never once brought up doing the podcast. Of course not. Which would be the first thing. Of course not. Which would be the first thing. Of course. We'll have Jason do it for us. I will tell you, you want to hear a nice story about Shatner? Yeah, we love the man. I will truncate it.

It's really a great story. So they bought him for my 35th birthday. I was a huge Star Trek nut. I loved him. We had a great lunch, and sort of towards the end of the lunch, he got really serious, and he said, I just want to share something with you. I don't know you well, but I want to share this with you. He goes, when I did Star Trek, I was a pretty young man and it wasn't a success initially. It had diminishing returns. We were off the air in three years,

but I had been defined as Captain Kirk and it kept me from doing other things. And even when I got other things, it was always Captain Kirk is now playing or Captain Kirk this. And it kept me from doing other things. And even when I got other things, it was always Captain Kirk is now playing or Captain Kirk this. And he said, I resented it. And I resented the people who loved it. People would come up, fans would come up, and they would want to approach me and want to share their experience with me. And he said, I was terrible to them. I rejected them. I was mean to them. I was cruel to them. And he said, he admitted that he was wrong and that he was a fool and an ass to do it. And what he was saying to me, and he said it this specifically, he said, I know you're a young guy, you're 35 years old, your whole career is ahead of you, but this may be the biggest thing that ever happens in your life. You are out there,

you're playing to an audience of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people, and you're having an effect on them that is more than just as an actor. It's more than anything you could hope to ever achieve just as an actor. You know, we touch, as actors, we touch an audience for the time we spend together and that's it. We walk away. Maybe we live well in their memory, but you're doing more than that. You may never get another one. Most of us never get one. When they come up to you and share their experience with you, love them. Take it in. Be grateful. Never make it something for them that's sorry that they did. And it was beautiful advice, and it was great advice. And much like Chita Rivera,

it sort of set the bar for me about how you deal with the never-ending Seinfeld fans. And it's because of that that I get experiences like the 50 Marines. I never know who I'm talking to or why they've been so moved by this thing. But when they come up and share it and they go, oh, you probably hate talking about it, I go, if you love talking about it, I'm here for you. How nice.

Nice man. How nice. Again, Gilbert, the opposite of your lack of professionalism. People come up to me and they say I love Aladdin and I go, fuck you. Oh, wait, I got to tell you my favorite new joke. We're going to go out on a joke. My favorite new joke. Guy goes for a job interview.

It's going very well. 20 minutes in, the interviewer says, you know, this is terrific. You're absolutely qualified for this job, and you've done a wonderful job of articulating all your attributes about why you'd be so good in this job. Hey, before I let you go, let's just do something. Talk to me about maybe something that's kind of a negative attribute, one of the negatives about you. And the guy thinks he goes well i'm too honest i just uh i'm relentlessly

honest and i guess that would be it and the interviewer says yeah i don't i don't really think that's a negative attribute and the guy says i don't really give a fuck what you think i like it right it takes a second it takes a second i like it i like it what Right? It takes a second. It takes a second. I like it. I like it. What's coming up, Jason? You have so many one-man shows I can't keep up. There's the Broadway Boy.

There's the Master of the Domain tour that you did. You were just in Australia. We did that in Australia. I'm on a speaking tour across the East Coast in April. And then I am directing this summer a show that looks like it is well positioned to be going to Broadway next year. It is an adaptation of War of the Roses, the Michael Douglas and

Kathleen Turnbull. We'll be doing that in Algonquit, Maine this summer. That's our first pre-Broadway stop. Warren Adler! Look at you! Gotta give the writers credit. Yes, indeed. So you're super busy. Look at you. Gotta give the writers credit. Yes, indeed. Yeah. So you're super busy.

Life is good. Life is full. Will you ever play Tevye? Because we know how important that was to your mom. Boy, I hope so. I hope so. Please, Jason, sing a little of If I Were a Rich Man. Uh-huh.

If I were a rich man. Uh-huh. If I were a rich man, all day long, if I were a wealthy man, and the rest you have to pay for. Let this man get back to his life. Jason, this was a kick. Thank you, my friends. Lovely to spend time with you. You feel like you were on inside the actor's studio?

I feel like you did more research than anything I've done merits. That's my bottom line. Oh, that's not at all true. We had plenty of things we didn't get to. Oh, my God. What do you think, Gil? Sunshine Boys, you and Jason. Oh, my God. What do you think, Gil? Sunshine Boys, you and Jason. Oh, yes.

Let me tell you something. If Sarah, Jessica, and Matthew score in Plaza Suite, we do it next season. It's a shoe-in. I think me and Jason should do Driving Miss Daisy. Or the gin game. Or Night Mother. You know, one of those. or the gin game or night mother something light this episode had everything

thanks Jason my pleasure guys even after I say goodnight we have to keep you around for one more thing sure but this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre

and the terrific Jason Alexander a very entertaining man thank you Jason this was fun thank you my pleasure man. Thank you, Jason. This was fun. Thank you. My pleasure. I sell a line of plastics and I travel on the road and

I have a case of samples which, believe me, is a load. Every night, a strange cafe, a strange hotel. And then, early in the morning, I am on the road again When the season's over And my lonesome

journey ends That's the only time I see My family And my friends. I drive up Ocean Parkway and before I stop the car, my ma leans out the window and she hollers, Yivey-ah-shake! That's what your uncle Max, my boy And here is your sister, Shoy

And here is your cousin, Isabel That's how you've been, sold this girl And you'll remember the Tishman, Vince, Gerald and Jerome We all came out to greet you and to wish you welcome home. Meek, Merowitz, Berowitz, Handelman, Schindelman, Sperber and Gerber and Steiner and Stone.

Boscovitz, Lubowitz, Aaronson, Behrenson, Kleinman and Feynman and Friedman and Kohn. Smolovitz, Volovitz, Teitelbaum, Mendelbaum, Levin, Levinsky, Levine and Levi. Brumburger, Schlumberger,

Meekus and Pinkus and Stein with an E-I and Stein mit a Y. Shake, head, your uncle's soul, my boy. And here is your brother Sid. And here is your cousin Jedda, who expects another kid. Whenever you're on the road, my boy, wherever you may roam. We'll all be here when you come back

To wish you welcome home You look thin