Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Jackie Martling and Billy West Encore
Episode Date: April 24, 2023GGACP's celebration of National Humor Month rolls on with this ENCORE of an unforgettable 2019 interview with actor-voice artist Billy West and comedian Jackie Martling. In this episode, the boys disc...uss the cinema of George Pal, the versatility of Paul Frees, the uniqueness of Peter Sellers and the enduring legend of Joe Franklin. Also, Jonathan Winters disses Don Adams, Jack Carter guests on "Ren & Stimpy," Billy meets The Man from Uncle and Jackie weighs in on the Gilbert-Shecky Greene clash. PLUS: "Shock Theater"! "7 Faces of Dr. Lao"! The return of the Jackie puppet! Curly Howard takes a bullet! And George Jessel duets with...George Jessel? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried,
and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast.
And our two guests have been on this podcast 300 times between them.
And they need no introduction.
But we're gonna go.
Sorry.
We're gonna go ahead and
give them introductions anyway.
Hey, what's the worst thing about fucking a horse
in the ass? What?
When it's his turn.
Now we really need no introduction.
That's a dad joke.
That's what people say to me when I make a joke on Twitter.
I get all these young people go, nice dad joke.
Stop it.
Stop it, Billy.
I get that all the time.
Do you really?
That dad joke. I could be their grandfather.
I have every right to take a dad joke.
I could be a great grandfather joke.
They just want to push you around, but you guys are the two comedic minds that I just,
I feel so great being around.
Help me write a joke.
Two dad jokes
walk into a bar.
Jesus Christ.
You want to hear your intros?
Go ahead. Oh yeah, I'm sorry about that.
That's okay.
It's Jackie's fault.
Jackie Martling
is a writer, author, occasional actor.
He was in The Watcher with me.
Yes, classic.
Yes, that was ignored by the Academy.
Yeah.
Ironically.
And one of the most recognized and popular comedians of his generation is 2017 memoir, The Joke Man Bound to Stern is available on Amazon, Kindle, and everywhere books are sold.
everywhere books are sold and a new documentary
called Jokeman
will premiere in the fall
of 2019.
He's also a personal
friend of Willie Nelson's
I didn't put that in there, Frank.
And has been
known to take off his
pants in public.
That I might have forgotten.
Billy West is a musician, comedian, actor, award-winning voice artist who's provided
voices of hundreds of popular characters, including Ren and Stimpy, Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Elmer Fudd, Futurama's Professor Farnsworth, and Dr. Zoidberg, and other roles to numerous dimensions.
As a musician, he's played and toured with legends such as Brian Wilson and Roy Orbison.
His new animated Netflix series is the Matt Groening...
Or Groening.
Matt Groening...
Whatever.
...Disenchantment.
He also knows more about Larry Fine and Paul Freese
than anyone in their right mind should know.
Please welcome to the podcast two of the funniest sons of bitches
walking on the planet, Jackie Martlyn and Billy West.
Wow.
Thank you very much.
What a drum roll.
Thank you.
Hi, boys.
So Jesus is on the cross.
Jesus is on the cross.
One of the disciples
Jesus is on the cross
So Jesus is on the cross
And frees one of his hands
And Jesus' hand goes down
And he jacks off all over the other disciples
He jacked off all over the other disciples
I can't believe that you got your hand free
And the first thing you do is jack off
He says well to tell you the truth
I put my hand down there to cover myself
And I forgot about the fucking hole.
Are you going to do that for now, you little cocksucker?
You have my permission.
That might be one of the best things I ever did.
I'm sorry that it had to be from you.
How many different Jackie laughs did you have, Bill, in the repertoire?
I don't know.
I was imitating the ones they had at the ready.
Oh, do them all in a row.
Give us to Medley.
There's one where if you see a clown with blood on his costume,
and you look at him, and Jackie had this laugh that would say,
oh, my God, like.
It was so sinister.
Sin, sin for Sadie.
Was that what you were going to do?
Fred was responsible for all of it.
Fred Norris.
And I got the blame and I got the credit he recorded everyone took
isolated every laugh and he played at every horrible place and people say that's the funniest
thing you're doing i'm like i can't take credit for it but i can't take the blame either i was
never doing that this used to happen to me a lot still does where like they'll announce a tragic situation on the Stern Show, and they'll play my laugh.
And it'll be a show I wasn't even listening to.
And I'll look on my Twitter, and it's a million Twitters going, well, maybe you think a baby falling out of a window is funny.
But I assure you, I do not.
An ex-fan. Fucking Fred is great. out of window is funny, but I assure you, I do not. A,
an X fan.
Fucking Fred is great.
You know,
I used,
he used to go,
ooh,
ooh.
And one day I said,
what the hell's that?
And he says, that's you.
I said,
you're crazy.
Then one day I was listening back to his show
and I heard myself between jokes.
It was like a break
and I went,
I'm like,
wow.
And I came in like an idiot
and said,
Fred,
I can't believe you're right.
Here, listen to it. And he went through like an idiot and said, Fred, I can't believe you're right. Here, listen to this.
And he went through the thing and took every, and the next day, oh, a Cub Scout got hit by a bus.
Bill, didn't you say it was like a supervillain's laugh?
Let him go.
Like.
Oy, oy, oy. Let him go. Like. You guys remember meeting for the first time?
Bill, was it?
I know you did the loose hill ball thing over the phone.
Yes.
The first time.
That was like one of the first things I ever did.
Yeah.
Well, the day before I told Howard, I said, hey, Howard, I think that Lucy is not long for this world.
You know, and we all loved her.
I mean, but, you know, we were a little dark.
Yeah.
Enough to make Kay Gardella scream in her column the next day.
I never heard of such a thing.
She was all mad.
heard of such a thing.
She was all mad.
You see her in her teacher's dress or dowager's hump and yelling it just like,
Lucille Ball was a beautiful person.
And I'm sitting on the phone going, oh, why don't you get away from me?
What is wrong with the orderlies?
They're all, where are they?
Haiti.
They come from Haiti.
It really sounded, when he called, it really sounded on any phrase she could drop dead.
It really did.
We were going wild. My favorite bill was, here's a card from Tom Bosley.
Oh.
You know, these are the things that keep you going.
Stop them.
Who's that from?
George, what did I say?
The guy with the lonesome George.
George Goble.
Oh, George Goble.
Yeah.
Here's one from George Goble.
Hey, Lucy, you ever get in on with George Goble?
Oh, that crew cut.
Hey, Lucy, you ever get in on with George Gobel?
Oh, that crew cut.
That's all I saw was the top of it when I looked down.
Gilbert, you were in studio that day.
He was.
Yes.
I heard it on YouTube yesterday.
I was just like, Gilbert was really screaming, and I just thought, here's a man after my own heart.
This is so goddamn dark, you know, after everything she achieved.
Miss Grant takes Richmond, you know.
That's what gave me all my respect for her.
At one point you said, here I am with one foot in the Twilight Zone and one on a banana peel.
One more unfunny joke.
So good.
Gilbert, you asked if she'd had an affair with George Goebel.
You sounded very young on this recording.
Oh, that's scary.
You were lobbing shit in there.
What was it, 32 years ago?
33 years ago?
Yeah.
But who's count?
Wow. That's scary. It years ago? Yeah. But who's counting? Wow.
That's scary.
It is scary.
Yeah.
I just hope I go quietly in my sleep tonight.
I really do.
Do you know what I found out?
The reason I'm so messed up is because I have autism.
I just found that out. You did?
I had no idea.
You have autism?
Everybody has autism.
It's like having shoes.
This is why I care so much about the periphery that I do.
It's the only stuff that translated to me and made sense.
If you showed me how to tie my shoe, you could show me 100,000 times.
I still couldn't do it.
But if there was Joe Besser running around in his pajamas
and Moe trying to pull his tooth out, I'll never forget every scintilla of that.
And as soon as I was sick of all of that stuff,
I began just watching the corners of the picture on TV
so I could have like more wood from that forest, you know, stooge forest.
Jesus.
Ew, you pulling out my teeth. like more wood from that forest you know stooge forest Jesus Ew you
pulling out my teeth
Come on down
and we'll fix your tooth
Gil had you heard
that's why Gilbert
does that make sense
autism
Does autism make sense
he's saying
No I
No that's why
it's autism
Of course not
Yeah
There's stuff locked away
yeah no no i think all of us have it you know because it is like it's a sliding scale i'm also
you know if it's something i need to know about i don't know how to do it and i don't know how
the information on important things but you know if you ask me
like who was the assistant cameraman on the vernon dent story yes yes that i could tell you that he's
good or or uh how long was the original earl scheib commercial. Or Joe Franklin.
What was he selling?
Martin Paint. Martin Paint.
Yeah.
Yeah, he used to sell.
Hoffman's beverages.
Oh, and.
You know what?
Martin Paint, it ain't just paint.
And he used to sell new, new, new co-margarine.
Do you ever meet him, Jack?
Joe Franklin?
Are you kidding?
Yeah, you knew him?
I was sitting next to Joe Franklin when he went to a screening at the Director's Guild of the Aristocrats.
I was sitting next to him when Sarah Silverman came out and sat on the couch in the movie and said,
yeah, and I went over because I thought maybe Joe Franklin could help me.
And I walked in and I sat down and, you know, he sat down on the couch next to me and he raped me.
And the place went wild.
Joe freaked out.
We're all like, no, no, Joe, it's a comedy show.
Joe, it's good for you.
It's good for you.
Oh, my God.
He was so pissed off because she said it so sincerely.
Like it had just gone.
Joe Franklin.
Piece of work.
He was great fun.
I remember one time doing one of Joe Franklin's shows,
and he had this guy that worked with him who was, you know,
he had a few mentally unbalanced people.
They were always the same mentally unstable,
but it was always a different guy.
Yes, yes. He'd go back to the same mentally unstable, but it was always a different guy. Yes, yes.
He'd go back to the same group or something.
He'd check one out for the day or something.
So he had this mentally unbalanced guy who was talking to us, making no sense.
And when he walks off, Joe Franklin, with this evil smirk on his face, says,
Hey, that's an excuse for forced sterilization.
And he won the guy's working for 25 hours.
I have a really good friend who's a real show business brat.
His great-grandfather's Eddie Cantor
and his grandfather was Jimmy McHugh.
This guy, Lee Newman.
And Joe Franklin was such a huge fan of Eddie Cantor
and such a huge fan of Jimmy McHugh. And Lee went on his show, and his name is Lee Newman, and
Lee's sitting there, and he's kind of nervous, and Joe goes into this whole glorious introduction,
this, here's a kid, I just love this kid, I've known him since he was born, we go back
so far, he's such a wonderful kid, let's hear it for Lou Neiman.
We go back so far.
He's such a wonderful kid.
Let's hear it for Lou Nieman.
It was just so classic.
Remember we had him on the podcast?
Yes. He walked off.
Yes.
He made that dramatic entrance.
It was so, I mean.
Like he walked out mad?
No, no, no.
When he finished the show.
Because he was like a foot tall.
Yeah.
And he walked off and immediately turned into a silhouette.
He ambled down a long hallway and disappeared like Chaplin disappearing into the iris.
It was great.
I'd run into him on 8th Avenue and almost miss him because he's a full head.
He was a full head shorter.
Yes.
He's walking around by himself.
He had whoppers. He actually told me that he told a whole bunch of us at dinner that somebody on his show started choking.
And that you could check up on it.
And then a couple doors down, they were getting ready to do the Nixon-Kennedy debate.
And he said Kennedy ran out, ran down to his show and saved the guy's life and went back to do the detainee.
And everybody's like, Joe, how the fuck dare you?
He told a story on the podcast of one time on one show he had both James Dean and Al Pacino.
And we worked it out mathematically.
Al Pacino would have had to have been eight.
I think it was 14.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you ever meet him, Bill, Joe Franklin?
Joe Franklin, I didn't, but I do have a Joe Franklin story.
The Jay Giles Band from Boston,
Eddie Gordatsky, who you know,
was my pal in radio.
We were in the trenches together like 33 years ago in Boston.
And anyway, the Jay Giles Band is going on the Joe Franklin Show.
So they want to mess with him.
So they just grab Eddie and bring him in as a worm expert.
And he's got worm charts and everything.
And you hear him bullshitting his way through this professorial.
I know, I know.
The worm has ten hearts.
Well, you know that's not true.
Yeah, it's just so dry and so silly, and Joe Franklin was all into it.
And I love the Drew Friedman takes on Joe Friedman.
Oh, yeah, and then he got sued.
Drew is the coolest artist.
He's my favorite artist.
He is.
And he does like a pointillism
that if you back off from it,
it looks like realism.
And he had a picture
of Joe Franklin sleepwalking
through Times Square
singing,
She's the girlfriend
of the rolling dervish.
Joe Franklin is a dream walking.
Yeah.
One of the pieces he got sued for, I think.
You know, everybody thought he was a gazillion years old because when he was doing an oldies show in the 50s, everybody thought he was already 60.
But he was only like 25 years old when he was doing it.
He just looked old.
And there's this little hunk of a guy.
And then you go to his place.
That coat that he wore every day for 20 years was bright red.
But he was never on.
He never made it to college.
I'm so sick.
He offered Gilbert a sandwich from the drawer.
Yes.
What are you guys, hungry?
Oh, God.
And, Billy, I always ask you to say this one.
It's different from the Joe Franklin.
But you've come from a very bigoted background.
All of your relatives.
Come on, lay off of me. I wore my Boston t-shirt not to remind you of that.
Say the time when you were a little boy watching the Three Stooges and your mother walked in.
Oh, yeah.
I lived for that stuff, as you well know.
And I'm glued to the TV set and my mother comes in and she's like, how can you watch them?
Duh.
They're Jewish.
how can you watch them?
Duh.
They're Jewish.
How can you watch those horrible men?
I said, Ma, I stopped going to church because I found my saints.
How does that grab you?
St. Larry.
You love that, Gil.
Yes. You know what I learned?
I didn't know this, and I should have known it,
that Curly was accidentally shot in the foot by his uncle. He shot himself in the foot. Yeah, with a shotgun. Oh, he Gil. Yes. You know what I learned? I didn't know this, and I should have known it, that Curly was accidentally shot in the foot by his uncle.
He shot himself in the foot.
Yeah, with a shotgun.
Oh, he shot.
Yeah.
Was his uncle shot him or he shot himself?
I thought he shot himself.
They shot each other.
And they said, you know.
I'm not sure which is worse.
He always.
Jesus.
And so he always had like a limp.
Yeah.
Yes.
I had to coach Will Sasso who played Curly in the Three Stooges movie.
Oh, yeah.
He was good.
And I had him on Skype and I said, you know, here's a weird thing because I'm trying to tell these guys everything that I knew, every piece of periphery.
And that Curly had a limp and he would run down the street and he would pivot because he couldn't keep going.
It was just a little routine sort of to save his foot from more pain and then he'd have a second start.
But I said he got shot in the foot when he was like 13.
And I don't think they had doctors back in 1915.
I don't remember any.
Now, is that a true story?
Is that a true story?
Because that's the oldest thing of his career.
He shot himself in the foot.
It's an old expression.
I read his uncle Babe shot him in the foot.
Well, they called him Babe.
That was his nickname.
I got bad information.
Yeah, now I remember they called Curly Babe.
Yeah.
What's the matter, babe?
Do you have another stroke?
And he was the pussy hound out of the three, right?
That's what's crazy.
Yeah.
Do you know what they called that?
Curly said that was the chicken with its head cut off.
Jesus.
You know, going round and round
on the floor
with no head,
you know,
that's,
to him,
that's what it would sound like.
It doesn't make sense.
And now I gotta ask you
for another old favorite of mine.
One time,
I think you and your father
were watching
Lola Falana
on TV.
Oh, no. Find every painful memory you can on TV. Oh, no.
Find every painful memory you can dig up.
No.
I can't believe he retained us.
I can't even say that stuff,
because it's really truly not my part of town.
You couldn't say it back when you said it.
My dad wanted to set a particular house on fire when certain people moved in.
And he was sneaking around at night and the neighbor, one neighbor lady on the porch, you know, sitting there watching him while he was slashing tires.
He wasn't a happy guy.
You know, and, you know, I mean, he would say stupid shit and they all would, you know, and it was like that in Boston.
I'm sure every city was like, you know, you know, where'd they get that car?
I wonder where they got that car.
Over there, that box of fudgicles.
You know, and it's the most ignorant stuff, but it's so ignorant that it's laughable.
And I don't know.
It's like humor.
Talk about dad jokes and all that stuff.
You don't know where to go, where to tread.
Tell us the Lola Fulana story, please.
I can't, Gilbert.
Please.
No, don't do that to him.
It's hideous what he said.
Hey, you know, let's go back because he said something and I didn't get to throw this in.
Two Jews are on the Titanic, you know?
Two Jews are on the Titanic and it starts to sink and the first Jew starts to cry and the other guy says,
What are you crying for?
It's not your boat.
Oh, and I suppose you think Jewish jokes are funny.
Oh, I happen to be Jewish.
Do you know what?
I saw this woman.
She had a store like a coffee shop, and she doesn't understand today's kids.
And she was bitching and carping.
I own a small coffee shop, and I said good morning to a young lady,
and she used the fuck word at me.
The fuck word.
And said I triggered her.
What nonsense.
What is cisgender?
What is antifa?
I told her the world has always been the same,
and the newly empowered
are always the world's biggest fascists.
How am I supposed to understand them, act like them, spend all my time gaming and vaping and flash mobbing and sexting?
Cripes, when I was a teenager, we played Ring-A-Levio.
Yahtzee.
Mumbly Pig.
Mumbly Pig.
And we asked our parents for a nickel to buy a pickle.
Good old fangled fun.
I stuck her unhappy little head into the coffee grinder and turned it on.
That's a stooge move.
But I mean, trying to figure out what you can say and what you can't say is bedeviling.
Oh, it's tough times.
Yeah.
Yeah, but it came on so fast, it's not even like the rest of the culture caught up.
You know, when a wave hits, we all sort of get it at once.
But humor was always subjective, and now there's all these restraints and subjective things on it.
Nah, sex and poop.
I've been stuck in the same hole for 40 years.
Are you getting that resistance, Jack?
No, I don't listen to anybody.
The guy's 75 years old and lives with his mother.
Do you get more sex or more poop?
It's his mother's birthday, and he's got no money.
He says, listen, Mom, I got no money for your birthday,
so I figured I'd just fuck you.
And she says, all right.
So he starts fucking his mother, and all of a sudden,
you smell something.
And Jesus Christ.
And he gets off, and he looks, and there's diarrhea all over the bed
and all over the floor.
It's running everywhere.
He says, Jesus Christ, Mom, what's going on?
She says, well, I'm too old to have an orgasm,
and I wanted to show you how much I was enjoying it.
Oh, man.
You know, and the thing is, is they'll say dad jokes.
Nice one.
Nice one.
It must feel real good.
Your parents must be real proud of you for telling jokes like that.
Oh, my vaporizer just any resistance from political correctness. You know what?
The people that come to see me know what I'm doing.
Sure.
Or if five people come and they bring somebody
that doesn't know what's going to happen,
they're overwritten.
Like, who cares?
It's so fucking harmless.
What do you think of Seinfeld's decision
that he doesn't want to play colleges anymore
because of the political correctness?
I can't get those bookings either.
Well, he had a good line for it.
He just said,
oh, you know, it bothers me.
No, they don't want you.
You see, time keeps ticking into the future.
Hey, I was on Comedians in Cars getting coffee.
Oh, you were?
No.
But it's so funny
because I'm in the credits of Eddie Murphy and Jerry for that episode.
And everybody's going nuts on Twitter.
What the hell did you do?
And now everybody's, oh, Jackie's picture must have been in the background and he sued him to get money or blah, blah, blah.
But, you know, everybody's speculating.
Yeah.
Billy had an emcee list from 1979.
And I was the emcee, so I'm not on it.
But on the list is Eddie Murphy, Gilbert Gottfried.
Yep, misspelled.
And Jerry Seinfeld.
All three spelled wrong, which is classic.
I didn't see this on Twitter.
Someone pushed tell me.
I'll tell you how good I'm doing in my life.
I got an email.
Are you ready for this?
From Ron Jeremy's agent
who knew he had an agent
named Dante and Dante
emails me because I met him about six
months ago and he said Jackie I
promised this person I would forward this to you
and it was an email that said we came
across this list and
somebody told me it belongs
to Jackie Martling. Do you know
her?
I said game over.
I didn't tell you about this.
So the guy, I contacted the guy, and I said, what's the deal?
He said, well, we want to use that list that we found.
Is that yours?
And I said, yeah.
I save all kinds of crap.
It was a little list that Hal Ennis handed me in 1979
because I was hosting the show.
And my name's not on it, just MC, MC.
Bob Woods was on it.
And he never got to go on because he was so drunk.
Hawthorne didn't get to go on because they knew he wasn't going to do well.
The first guy on it was Rich Gagliardi, who is now Julia.
I always draw a blank.
Julia Scotti, who is now the first guy on the list is now a woman. always draw a blank, Julia Scotti,
who is now the first guy on the list is now a woman.
Oh, he changed his sex.
Such a great guy.
Wow.
So the guy calls up, and I said, make me an offer.
So he says $600.
So I emailed him back.
He'd be very proud of me, Gilbert.
I said, all right, let's review.
Let's review.
A billionaire comedian is being interviewed by another billionaire comedian on a billion-dollar network, and you want a priceless piece of comedy memorabilia in perpetuity worldwide forever and ever in every kind of media that we have now or may ever have, and you want to give me $600.
What would you say?
The guy wrote back, I just said what you just said.
Let me see what I can do.
And then he came back to me and said, well, they're going to go a little higher.
They're going to give you $1,000.
And my first thing was I was going to say, you know what?
Tell Jerry the good news.
He just saved $1,000.
And then I said, fuck it.
It's too much fun.
It's too much fun.
There's never any money in Hollywood.
No.
I don't understand.
It's like everyone I ever talked to said, well, we'd like to get you involved.
We'd like to get you on board and everything.
But, you know, it's like right now.
It's a little tight right now.
A little tight right now.
There's no money.
Everybody you talk to, there's no money.
Then what the hell are you hanging in Hollywood for?
You'd make more money in a sawmill town in Michigan.
Hey, hey.
You know?
It's like nobody makes any money.
I don't have any money.
We broke.
We didn't break even. There's so many stories like that and this is the worst one i think i've ever
heard that the guys the remaining members of of queen haven't seen a penny from bohemian rhapsody
which grossed a billion dollars is that possible of course is. Sure it is. Creative accounting. I remember a writer, I forget what movie, but it was one of these like trillion dollar.
No, it was the Eddie Murphy movie.
It was the writer from Washington, D.C.
Yeah, but this was some other movie, I remember.
And it was like bigger than Star Wars, all the Star Wars put together.
And this guy said, you know, they owe me money because they made this much money.
You could read about it.
And one of the studio guys said on the news, well, this just teaches the public that a lot of times we exaggerate how much a movie made to get more interest for people to see the movie.
And I thought, oh, okay.
So you're lying on both ends.
Yes, yes, yes.
Gilbert and Jackie, did you ever hear that story about Tom Hanks?
You know, he got a script and he got called into some office and
he said, I read the script. I really like it.
And they said, well, what do you think?
And he said, well,
for money? And they said,
well, yeah, ballpark.
You know, he just said,
I don't know.
You should take care of me, like on the back end.
And they were saying all kinds
of stuff.
And he said, how about this?
How about two weeks after
the picture comes out, I want
a good percentage of the figure
you guys print in the paper.
That's great.
Do you know what I mean?
There's a negotiation. He's got everybody
sitting there like ghosts.
What did he say?
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast.
But first, a word from our sponsor.
Bill, talk a little bit about escaping as a kid, because I just heard a podcast you did with Joe Dante.
Oh, right.
Which was very good.
Oh, is it?
Yeah, you were talking about.
I was mad at him.
Why?
Because I was going to do Bugs Bunny.
Imagine, this is a full-grown man sitting here saying this shit.
I was going to do Bugs Bunny back in action.
Okay.
And Joe, he just was not into me.
He didn't dig me.
I didn't care about that, but they kept calling me back,
and they were like kid-gloving me and everything.
I said, what am I, seven?
Just tell me what's going on and everything.
And so I mentioned it to him off the air and everything.
He said, I don't know what that's about.
I liked you.
Weird.
I know, but that's everything.
I heard you talking about your love of shock theater when you were a kid.
That was something you escaped into.
Shock theater.
Because we had Zachary Lee here.
Night on Bald Mountain.
Yeah.
That was a theme.
We didn't have a host.
It was a skull that would just come up on you as you watched.
And there was no announcer. It just said things on you as you watched. And there was no announcer.
It just said things on the chyron.
And they would go into a movie like The Curse of the Mummy
or one of those old universal beauties.
And I loved that stuff.
And I forced myself to wake up at one in the morning
because I knew everybody else would be asleep.
And this was like, I lived for this you know and plus you had that desperation I might have talked about this
when we were young there was no way you could hold on to anything sure yeah and have a record
of television right you know what I mean you get it when it's good that's it and the coolest thing
you ever saw in your life is going to be over in 35 seconds and you start going.
The angst engulfs you.
You know, I'll never see this again.
It just tripped my trigger.
When I was a kid, I kept reading about one episode of Route 66 called Owlet's Wing and Lizard's Tail
was the name of it.
And it had Peter
Laurie, Lon Chaney Jr.
and Boris Karloff.
And I would check
the TV guide every
fucking day.
And the one day,
the one fucking day
I don't check it, I find out they had shown it.
But you had no way of knowing.
No.
You never knew.
No advance anything.
I would have really liked to see old Boris Karloff, you know.
All right, so a guy comes home really drunk a guy comes home
a guy comes home
really drunk
and his wife is asleep
on the couch
under a blanket
and he's so loaded
so he
gets undressed
climbs under the blanket
and fucks her hard
and then he goes upstairs
he walks in the bathroom
and his wife
is sitting on the toilet
he said
what are you doing here
she said
what do you mean
what am I doing here? He says, I just
fucked you on the couch. And she goes,
mother! She goes, run
downstairs. Her mother's sitting there smoking a cigarette.
She says, ma!
Harry just fucked you!
She says, you know, I couldn't help but notice
that. Ma, why didn't you say
something? She says, I haven't
spoken to that piece of shit in 20 years.
I wouldn't have... I laugh at these.
I laugh. I let go. I have
cosmic abandon when you start telling that stuff.
You know what I wanted to ask you, Jackie
and maybe Gilbert?
Did you ever try to get under anybody's skin
at the Friars Club just for
the hell of it? Like guy's gonna tell a joke
you know
and be rude to them
you mean
you turret out
the punchline
oh yes
yes
so just
just a
tumbler
you know
to mess
mess things up
sometimes I just
get up and leave
just when they start the joke
just like
you know
well Gilbert has of course
the infamous Shecky night
at the Friars.
Oh, I like that.
But you didn't go into that night looking for trouble.
No.
You weren't trying to gaslight Shecky.
I was, yeah.
It was a Friars thing.
You know this story.
Yeah, and I still have my own theory about it.
Yeah.
Because they said he ran out because he was so appalled by what you said.
But what I heard was he was supposed to go on next.
Yes.
And he was getting the fuck out of there because he knew he couldn't follow you.
So he came up with a Donald Trumpian excuse to get the fuck out.
That's too much for me.
I'm out of here.
Interesting.
Nobody can follow you.
That's what a bunch of people told me.
And you didn't sense that?
Yeah.
No.
A bunch of people said that.
They said it was obviously he was scared.
He was scared to go on because he already has like stage fright.
Right, right.
And he was out for like years and years and years.
You know, Rodney always said he was the funniest.
He says, nobody funnier than fucking Shecky.
Nobody funnier than Shecky.
And what he said was, but Shecky didn't have an image.
Martin was drunk and Benny was cheap and I get no respect, but fucking Shecky didn't have an image. Martin was drunk, and Benny was cheap, and I get no respect,
but fucking Shecky, all he was is fucking funny.
So nobody could say anything.
All they'd say is, holy, this guy, he was funny, you know?
You know, it's that simple.
Because he never got as big as he should have gotten.
No, I followed that, you know, and even like Jan Murray was on that boat too.
Another funny guy.
I think he spent too much time being successful because he had a game show.
Golden handcuffs.
What's that?
Golden handcuffs.
He was making a lot of money.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And I think he just, he's another guy that was one of the funniest of his time,
but just kind of fell out of it.
Because when we're kids, if you see somebody who's a game show host,
you never can make the leap
that they're a comedian.
No, they're already locked
into what they are, you know.
He doesn't look seedy or needy,
and he's not like...
Yeah, he would just be
Jan Murray, the host
of Treasure Hunt
or something like that.
Yeah, Treasure Hunt.
Very neat.
That was the one
I was trying to think of.
Yeah.
Jackie.
You were talking about
Sandy Hackett.
Did we have this conversation?
Yeah. I think I played a round
of golf with Sandy Hackett and he told me the greatest
story and I hope it was him. But if it wasn't
him, it was somebody who was the son of some
comedian. But I'm pretty sure
it was Sandy Hackett that said
at his bar mitzvah
Milton Berle said, Sandy,
come over here, son. And he walked him into the
bathroom and he said, close your eyes and put out
your hand. You hear this story? And he thought he was going to hand him a lot of, and he walked him into the bathroom and he said, close your eyes and put out your hand. You hear this story?
And he thought he was going to hand him
a lot of cash and he put his
big fucking cock in his hand.
He almost
shit himself.
You never heard that story?
He's holding out on us.
Jackie, Jackie, listen to this,
Jackie. Jackie, I'm glad you sit at my table, Jackie. listen to this, Jackie.
Jackie, I'm glad you sit at my table, Jackie.
Listen to this.
Listen.
Did you ever hear the girl, about the girl that had this sweet, sweet ass?
Yeah, she got dire booties.
Oh, you, Jackie, you, you stepped on my line.
Oh, you putz, you schmedrick.
Jesus.
Do we dare bring up the Jackie puppet for a couple of minutes?
Sure.
For my documentary, we have a guy that created that.
Yeah.
It's cold in here. I think I'll throw myself in the fire
and get warm.
Who's got the puppet?
Do you have it?
You know,
I'm sure it's over there
in Sternland sometime.
Do you remember when it was missing?
It was so fucking funny
because they went to satellite.
Yeah.
And all of a sudden it was missing.
And somebody said,
wait a minute,
Jackie did a couple of shows
for Free FM
over at K- FM over at Sirius
and maybe he stole it
or maybe he brought,
so the word is out that I stole the puppet, right?
And of course I didn't
and I told him, all right,
I admitted I did it
and I showed him a picture of me holding the puppet
but it was a blown up picture.
It was on cardboard.
They were coming out
with the fucking Stern 100 news van
to get it
and I said,
you assholes,
of course they don't have it.
I came up with this idea.
I said,
it was missing for weeks
and they're blaming me.
I said,
I got the idea.
I told Steve.
Steve,
what's his name
from 100 News?
No.
Steve,
jeez,
I don't know.
Cheesy Steve.
I said,
you know what you do?
Get that fucking guy
that we have on once in a while, the lie detector guy. I said, you know what you do? Get that fucking guy that we have on once
in a while, the lie detector guy.
I said, I'll go first. Get everybody
who works here in a line and ask
him if you have the Jackie puppet
and we'll find it for sure
and it'll be fucking wonderful. And Steve goes,
that's a fantastic idea. What a great show
it'll be.
The next morning at six o'clock, Howard
walked in with the fucking puppet
and it was never heard
from again.
He had it the whole
fucking time at his house.
Wow.
Wow.
Is that some crazy shit?
And nobody's heard
any of that stuff
and I'm not disparaging
but it was good radio
but you know.
That's probably like
a Twilight Zone
after Howard took it home
one afternoon
and he puts it in the basement
you know at night.
And you can't put the toothpaste
back in the tube
while Jackie didn't steal it
he's an asshole anyway.
Why do you want beef and broccoli now?
Hey, wait a minute.
What's that?
What's that?
He's doing a Twilight Zone bit with Howard and the puppet.
Howard and the puppet.
Now, you told me, Jackie,
that they had an even more grotesquely frightening,
offensive Robin puppet.
It was, you know, I have no idea what happened with that,
but where that wound up.
But it was, I think Ralph made it because when we did the,
do you remember the Channel 9 show?
Remember Clarence Thomas, Billy?
Ralph made a Clarence Thomas doll or a face for somebody to wear.
And it had lips literally the size of like two small baseball, two wiffle ball bats on top of each other.
And his lips were immense.
And they also had his hair, his afro tied up to a piece of string.
So when somebody said something funny or offensive offensive they'd pull the string and his hair
would go up like buckwheat and then somebody somebody made a robin one but it was it was
so over the fucking top god knows where that is we you know what that show also there was a special
guest that day and he meant a lot to me because i didn't have a dad so he was like a father figure
I imagined my myself being like Robert Vaughn the man from Uncle oh yeah well you're a big man
wait to meet him and I was gonna play a character part in the sketch it might have got cut but I had
a dress on and I was running around backstage and I come up to Robert Vaughn I said you know
you were my idol.
And he just, he's recoiling looking at me in a dress.
My idol.
Don't ever meet your idol.
If only there was behind the scenes shit from that show because it was crazy.
You know, what's his name?
Bob Denver and one of the two girls from that show marianne either tina louise they had been in aa for like 20 years or something and they came on they were
so appalled by the show they were doing an appearance in atlantic city and they drank
do you remember we had we had the the bigfoot-three security guard play the skipper,
and we had him sitting in the sand underneath a palm tree,
and there was enough sand that we could hide the bottom half of his leg,
and we had a fake leg, and we were eating his leg.
It was fucking priceless.
And I was Mary Ann.
I had a big, huge belly.
All this stuff sounds like an acid trip when you run through it real quickly.
But if you spent four hours, it was like an avalanche of comedy going on in there.
And I don't care if it was Gilbert coming in and screaming at the top of his lungs for more than five minutes.
I'd go out of there with my ribs hurting me from just what?
Doubled over.
There was almost a world war.
Gary Busey was on the show, and he had been in a motorcycle accident.
And I think he got pretty seriously hurt and got really banged up.
So we created a sketch called Motorcycle Injuries for Men Club.
Like hair for men.
He famously wasn't wearing a helmet.
The Head Injury Club for Men. Head Injury Club for Men. You wrote it. You don't remember it? for men club like hair for men the head injury club for men
head injury club
for men
and so
you wrote it
you don't remember it
Howard's wearing
like some kind
of bandage
around his head
but he had a tube
going up
you know
so that when he
squeezed the tube
or Ralph squeezed the tube
the blood would come
oozing down his throat
and we're doing
dress rehearsal
and Busey's right there across from him,
and Ralph, of course,
didn't know what the fuck he was doing.
And when he squeezed it,
the little tube popped out
and shot fake blood all over Gary Busey.
And he thought it was on purpose.
I don't know if you remember,
he was, I thought fists were going to fly.
It was, of course, it was a rehearsal,
so the cameras weren't on.
All I tried to do was squeeze blood, and it just popped open, and it got all over his face, and he was angry at me.
But of all the people that do that to him, you know, like, that's fucking great.
We had him on this show.
Piece of work.
Gary?
Yeah, Gary Busey.
Yeah, well, of course, and he wasn't wearing a helmet in that accident.
He suffered serious damage. Of course, of course. and he wasn't wearing a helmet in that accident. He suffered serious damage.
Of course, of course.
Tell us about the doc since you brought it up.
It's a good time to bring it up, to plug it.
The guy that was my radio partner for eight years, Ian Carr from IKA Collective,
has been doing it and interviewing different people.
These two guys are in it?
Gilbert's in it.
Billy's in it.
Willie Nelson tells some jokes.
And we got a whole bunch of people.
And, you know, I don't.
Who knows?
You know, it's fun.
It'll be fun going to film festivals.
And you never know what's going to run up the flagpole and be enjoyed.
But you know these film festivals, you could sit there for days and never smile.
So if there's something the least bit funny, it's going to be a fucking home run.
I love the trailer.
And people are loving the trailer. We, in fact, we had to yank the trailer off because uh people were too interested and we
didn't want to come too soon you know what i mean because it's not out yet but uh i just want to do
the q and a's and answer the questions and set some you know some stories straight and everything
but uh it's you know it's wacky because what's it called joke man just joke man okay you know, it's wacky. What's it called? Joke Man. Just Joke Man. Okay.
Nice.
When you were talking before about seeing that people on game shows,
you couldn't imagine them doing anything.
One of the saddest things I remember, I was on Hollywood Squares,
and Dom DeLuise was on that.
And he was sitting next to me and he turned to me very seriously.
And he said, he said, can, do you think doing game shows can hurt your career? That's fucking great.
I'm so proud because I did that show twice, and I think I was edited like three times.
You know, I know one time.
Were you the Paul Lind that day?
I forget what I said, but what's his name?
Tom, what's his face?
Bergeron?
Tom Bergeron.
Tom Bergeron goes, TMI, Jackie.
I think I did a diarrhea joke
about Madonna
it's like you know
just trying to loosen it up
on Hollywood Squares
you did a diarrhea joke
well it was a little more
you know
it was a little obscure
but
but did I get some
Fletcher's Castoria
hey I went out there
to do it with Howard
and Princess Zsa Zsa
was on the show
and she'd be going up the stairs.
Her ass took up the entire staircase.
You couldn't pass, and we used to piss ourselves laughing.
Bill, what do you know about Paul Lynn?
Because Gilbert says he was a vicious anti-Semite.
Was he really?
Yeah.
When he had a drink or two.
I heard from one of the original producers.
Original producers, they said, like, during lunch, all the other acts would be, like, you know, having lunch and telling jokes and being nice and funny.
And Paul Lynn would be bombed out of his skull because he was this drunken old queen.
And a bitter drunken old queen and he'd go those fucking Jews
they're the reason
I don't have a career
those fucking Jews
held me back
at every point
somebody say
the Jewish guy
Paulin's an anti-Semite
and they go
that fag
oh my god hey he was right on the train and they go, that fag?
Oh, my God.
Hey, he was right on the train behind the Jews, you know?
The pink triangle.
Once that umbrella opened up. Oh, my God.
Tell Billy the Ronnie Shell story.
Sorry.
Tell him the Ronnie Shell story. I want their take on that. Oh, well. With the Ronnie Shell story. Sorry. Tell him the Ronnie Shell story.
I want their take on that.
Oh, well.
With the Alan Ladd.
Oh, okay.
I want to know if you think this is true, Bill.
Okay.
According to Ronnie Shell, what Alan Ladd was into, he'd gather up a bunch of women,
and they'd all, like, surround him, and he'd stand in the center naked holding a chicken.
And according to Ronnie Shell, all the women would start singing,
You simply got to fuck the chicken.
Wait a minute.
He wanted them to do that?
That's in the book.
It's in the book.
That's like Blue Velvet. In full service. Sing Blue Velvet. It's in the book. That's like Blue Velvet.
In full service.
Sing Blue Velvet.
It's in Bowen's, what's his name?
Scotty Bower's book.
Scotty Bower's book.
So then there is something to it.
But I'm not sure that's a song, and I'm not sure it was Alan Laird, but you know, they mix and match everything.
You know what I mean?
My favorite part of that book.
Was the whole thing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did you read that book, Bill?
Which one?
Full Service, the Scotty Bowers book.
No.
Oh, we'll send it to you.
The last book I read was One Fish, Two Fish.
He spends like three quarters of the book talking about all the dicks he sucked,
all the times he's gotten fucked in the ass,
and he goes, but, you know, I was really into women.
When did you sneak that in?
Yeah.
Yeah.
When he's talking about Lucy, I love the passage where he was a bartender at the Hollywood
parties, and Lucy reached across and grabbed him and said, if you get my husband laid one more time, I'm going to cut your balls off.
That's great.
Can you say it in Lucy's voice, please?
Oh, come here, you.
If you get my husband laid one more time, I'm going to cut your balls off.
Oh, Ethel.
Ethel, it's Bill Holden.
Remember in Musso and Franks?
Yep.
Ethel, it's Bill Holden.
He was looking at them.
You know, we're talking about stuff that nobody in the world could follow.
Not even me.
So guy's in a bad ballroom brawl.
And he gets his face all smashed up really bad.
So they have to wire his whole face together.
So he's in the hospital.
And for a couple of weeks, they got to force feed him with this machine that has a tube coming out of it that pushes the food up his ass.
So one day the nurse pushes in the machine and takes the tube and jams it up the guy's ass.
He says, nurse, nurse.
She says, what do you want?
Have you got another one of these machines?
What do you mean?
Here in the hospital, have you got another one of these machines?
She says, yeah, why?
I want you to have lunch with me tomorrow.
Oh, boy.
Jackie, you think of the anatomy an awful lot.
He does.
The digestive system.
That's the only safe place.
Guy pukes in a bowl.
The guy next to him eats his... I love it.
What about the Pat McCormick story?
What do you know about that, Jack?
The helicopter story.
I don't...
Bill, do you know this one?
No, I know the baby story at the lunch.
Yes.
Yeah, this was one that Pat McCormick, well, all of them, there was a group of them that would get together, and they'd all try to outdo each other.
Outgrow each other.
Don Adams was one of them.
Yeah, the Army's Army.
Yeah, this was just, they weren't even trying to outgrow us.
They would just have a big dinner.
Bill Dana.
Then when it was Pat McCormick's turn, he had them all meet at this place,
and he handed them all a paper bag with an apple and a sandwich in it,
a tuna sandwich.
And then they were saying, like, what the hell's this?
And then each
one was led onto a
helicopter, one after the other.
And they would have a
hooker on the helicopter
who would suck the guy's
dick as the helicopter
was circling his house.
So none of these guys knew enough to say no after being around the guy forever, you know?
Would buzz the house while they're waiting.
Pat McCormick wants you to come over.
Forget it.
Forget it.
Forget it.
I'm busy.
And I heard one of them, when they got home that night, the wife said, so, you know, how
was your night?
And he goes, you know ok and then he says
so how was your night
and she says it was alright
except that this helicopter
kept circling the house
oh that's great
we were sitting there
on the Stern Show one day
and boom.
Like, quarter after six, Kennison walked in with Pat McCormick.
Wow.
And Jack Riley.
Is that his name?
Yeah.
And Chuck McCann.
He was one of those.
The four of them.
Like, the Mount Rushmore.
We're all in that same group.
And we were like, holy motherfucker.
And I have no idea what happened.
I have no idea.
It was so crazy.
I'm sure it was a din the entire time. motherfucker. It was just, and I have no idea what happened. I have no idea. It was so crazy. You know,
I'm sure it was a din
the entire time.
McCormick was the size
of a fucking hog.
Six,
six,
six five,
yeah.
Wow.
Don Adams had a stand-up routine.
He did.
But I remember talking
to Jonathan Winters once.
He said,
what stand-up?
What,
what comedy clubs?
There wasn't any.
It was called
Interrupting Somebody's Dinner.
You know, and I think about it and it's like, that's about the size of it, What comedy clubs? There wasn't any. It was called Interrupting Somebody's Dinner.
And I think about it, and it's like, that's about the size of it.
But Don Adams was running around back in those days.
I think they played jazz clubs and stuff.
I think Bill Dana wrote for him.
Yeah, Bill Dana wrote his act.
He wrote his act, yeah.
And Don Adams, that voice that he always used for, like, the Get Smart voice.
And on the Bill Dana show, he played House Dana show he played house detective Byron Glick. What you need is a quart of Glick blood in you. You know just because
the guy was scared next to him talking about how brave he is. What I mean he goes uh your honor
for the past half hour the district attorney has been up here making a total ass of himself.
Now it's my turn.
I'm sorry.
It's not as scintillating as you may want it to be.
Oh, I saw him.
I saw him when he was like in the throes.
You did?
You know, he was at a recording studio and I think he was doing Inspector Gadget still.
No, he was doing,
he had a game show or a TV
show, sitcom called Check It Out.
Yeah, Check It Out. He played the manager of a grocery store.
That's right. Wow.
Oh, yeah, and I heard
he made more
from that
sitcom, which
no one ever saw, but I heard
he made more from that. Don't forget Don Adam's screen test in the 70s.
Oh, yes, yes.
Remember that, Bill?
Yes.
Yes, I do.
Don Adam's screen test.
Yeah, he wasn't a happy guy from what I understand.
Well, when I saw him, like when it was near the end, his eyebrows were boot black and, you know, the whole works that goes with it.
Royalties are so weird.
You know, the whole works that goes with it. Royalties are so weird.
Leslie West said that Mississippi Queen was a huge, huge show.
And whatever rapper that was one of the first really big rappers sampled like a little hunk of Mississippi Queen and put it on his rap record that was a huge seller.
And Leslie said the checks he gets for that were far surpassed the checks he got for Mississippi Queen.
That's fascinating.
It's crazy that.
For what?
It's musical vandalism.
Don Adams had that look of that real midlife crisis look.
Where he had that horrible 70s guy trying to be hip.
Not a hippie.
What do you mean, like a tan and a members-only jacket?
Yeah, yeah.
And the hair long.
Oh, and the porn star mustache.
Like Jack Carter with the love medallion.
It just bled away 30 years.
Yes, yes.
Like Bill said, like Jack Carter did that.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, with the love medallion and the...
I love everybody.
The love. Big piece. I love itallion and the... I love everybody. The love.
Big piece.
I love it.
You know the difference between men and women?
Did you ever meet him, Jack?
Did you ever meet Jack Carter?
No, but the greatest Jack Carter story was the first time I went to a fryer's roast,
Bob Goldthwait was there.
I know this one.
And Jack Carter, do you know that? No. And Jack Carter was sitting on the dais Bob Goldthwait was there. I know this one. And Jack Carter, do you know that?
No.
Jack Carter was sitting on the dais, and Goldthwait goes,
I was in Los Angeles, and I had to go meet my agent at a restaurant,
and I was waiting for this guy.
I'm sitting there in my car waiting for this guy to pull out of the parking space,
and I'm waiting and waiting, and finally the guy pulls out,
and the other guy zooms in in front of me when I'd been waiting for 10 fucking minutes. God, I just
stole the fucking guy's license plate.
And he holds it up and he goes,
Carter, you want this?
That was Jack Carter's license.
And nobody was even shocked.
It wasn't even funny.
We had Jack Carter.
No, we had Jack Carter on
Ren and Stimpy.
He played this character named Wilbur Cobb, this old guru of a cartoon animation guy.
They were sending up somebody.
I'm not sure who.
But Jack was perfect because he sounded like he was spitting up pieces of his breathing system.
And his wife came to pick him up, and I said, boy, Jack's got,
I mean, his voice is so rich with,
I don't know.
And I said, it's like snot or something, talking snot.
And she went,
nobody's got more snot in his
throat than my Jack.
We are number one.
This is demographic.
We missed out on him on this show.
We wanted him so desperately because he was so bitter.
And he had said yes.
That's the worst part.
He said yes to doing it.
And then he died like the next day.
He had a lot of snot in his throat.
Do you know what? He. A lot of snot in his throat. What a prick.
Do you know what?
He was very generous of spirit.
He was because when I was working with him, I was on a Tonight Show one night,
and I wanted to do a Jay Leno impression, and Jay shot me a look.
You know, I started doing it, and he shot me this look,
and it went right through my heart.
I was like crippled, stunned.
You know, I didn't know what I was going to do.
And so I started doing the usual nonsense.
And I came the next day and I said, you know,
Jack Carter was having lunch at this joint called Mirabella.
It was near where we recorded.
It was an Italian restaurant. And he held court there and I came in.
What's the matter?
You look like you lost your best friend.
And I said, I just felt terrible being on a Tonight Show
and trying to do something.
I have no business being there,
but Jay didn't want me to do impressions of him.
So he goes, you held your own.
You know, I mean, he saw it.
He watches all that stuff.
Bilko used to watch all that stuff.
You know, the newest comedy shows when they were so out of fashion, you know.
Why don't they call me?
Why don't they call me?
I'm a funny guy.
So a girl goes to the gynecologist.
See, that's all I can do.
A girl goes to the gynecologist.
She's like, Doc, I'm freaking out.
I'm freaking out.
There was no girl.
Admit it.
There was no girl that ever went to the gynecologist and started freaking out.
She says, Doc, I'm freaking out.
I keep finding postage stamps from Costa Rica in my vagina.
In the exam, she says, Lady, those aren't postage stamps.
Those are the stickers from bananas.
I love you.
I love you so much.
How much do I love you?
That's all I can do.
I just love you.
Wind-up toy.
Bill, we had David McCallum here.
We know you're a man from Uncle Guy.
Yes.
Yeah.
Good guest.
David McCallum.
Have you met him?
I think I did meet him once.
Yeah.
We had him here.
He was good.
How old is he? He was on the Stern Show, wasn't he?
They brought him in.
And he played Ilya Kuryakin.
Yeah, in his 80s.
Yeah, he's this Brit that was trying to be from Georgia, Russia, or something.
Yeah, yeah.
It was good.
It was really good.
He was good.
There was nothing else on TV.
Look, first of all, there was three channels, three and a half channels.
Yeah.
You could get channel 12 from Manchester, and it was like watching a snowstorm.
Manchester, New Hampshire.
Oh, and channel 10 from Providence, Rhode Island, and that was a snowstorm. Manchester, New Hampshire. Oh, and Channel 10
from Providence, Rhode Island.
And that was a snowstorm too.
But I would watch Pixels.
I didn't care. As long as I could hear it,
you know, I was fine with it.
Even old movies that, you know,
like, oh God, what was that?
Missile to the Moon.
You ever see that one, Gilbert?
It was like, there was another picture that sort of emulated that called Catwomen on the Moon.
I don't know if it was Roger Corman or not.
But Missile to the Moon was so crazy because these two criminals are hiding in a rocket ship, you know.
Nobody will ever find this in here.
I don't know, Gary.
I don't know.
Maybe we better get out of here.
And all of a sudden the door is shut and the rocket is getting ready to take off to the moon.
And they go to the moon, and they find all this.
They find the jewels are so prominent and everything.
And then they go to steal some jewels that were in the caves, and this giant, phony spider shows up and it was
I know sound and
I know it was some
some schmo
on a mic doing the spider noise like
who else listens to that and knows what it is
Billy West
I know it was some Billy West back in 1959.
You're a George Pal guy, aren't you, Bill?
I am.
You're a big George Pal guy.
Gilbert loves Seven Faces of Dr. Lau.
I love that, too.
Yeah.
Jesus.
He eats that shit up.
Oh, Mike, the world is so filled with wonderful things.
I know, Dr. Lau, but you're leaving.
How do you know
it's going to be good for me?
I don't.
Neither do I.
You know, he would switch,
he'd switch from like this
sanitarian,
this like, you know, orator,
because he did have a great voice.
Tony Randall.
You know, into everybody's
worst nightmare
of a Chinese impression.
He's the circus of Dr. Lo.
What are you things that you don't know?
I watched it one time about five years ago,
and I was going, oh, it's like a car crash.
But there was good stuff in the movie, though.
It's like going back and trying to watch a Peter Sellers movie,
and it's like, eee.
Yeah.
The Marx Brothers.
What about Lolita?
Crazy.
He was great in Lolita.
He played that creepy Quilty.
That holds up like crazy.
Yeah, yeah, Quilty.
He corners James Mason on the porch, you know,
because Quilty is banging Lolita.
He's like a guru to her, and James Mason is madly in love with her.
So this Quilty kept changing his identity, and he wanted to give –
what's his name?
Shit.
What's his name?
James Mason.
James Mason.
And he goes, well, I see you're out here hanging around.
That's good.
That's good.
I came out to hang around, too.
And, you know, a couple of guys like us, you know, sometimes they hang around.
And he was doing this whole, like, pickup rap.
And James Mason was, you know, he was homosexual.
And he's acting like this is really bothering him.
You know?
He was like, you know, oh, you know oh stop it you know like that
was a really creepy oh well it was i remember peter sellers keeps saying yeah you know because
we're we're two we're two normal guys we're two normal guys now and then a couple of normal guys
like us want to get together you know and there's nothing wrong with that i mean you're normal and
i'm normal but it was this beautiful i think he probably pulled it out of his ass to
tell you the truth and i just i i loved it it was playing ping pong at one point in in that movie
claire quilty yes yeah he's playing table but he um what was the weirdest part oh when um
when um james James Mason is looking
for a place to live, you know, because he's a teacher
in residency and he needs a little
spot to live at. So he answers
an ad and it's Shelly Winters.
And she shows him
her garden and
you know, the cherry
pies, you know, I bake my own
you know.
He eats them too. And he's going to.
He eats them too.
Yes, yes.
And he looks out the window.
He looks out the window and he sees like a 16-year-old Sue Lyon, the actress,
with heart-shaped glasses on sitting there as fine as you please reading Archie comics.
And she goes, he sees her and he goes, you know, I think I will take the room.
I like it.
I got a good feeling.
And she goes, so what was it?
My country garden?
My, you know, my location?
My cherry pies?
And he's looking right at Sue Lyon and he goes, I think it was my cherry pies. And he's looking right at Sue Lyon.
He goes,
I think it was your cherry pies.
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this.
Bill,
you want to try this with Gilbert?
Is this thing going anywhere with all this crap that I'm saying?
This thing in front of you, you guys want to try this for fun?
Oh, yeah.
A Jessel duet?
Yes.
Gil, why don't you let me?
Okay, but you got to call it.
You got to call it as we go.
You start, and you guys can do a verse each.
I separated them.
Oh, okay.
And then you can do the last one together.
So Bill will start.
Okay.
We're going to do an acapella.
Go ahead, Bill.
What does that mean? In the nude? So Bill will start. Okay. We're going to do an acapella. Go ahead, Bill.
What does that mean?
In the nude?
I think it means in the nude.
I don't know.
I can't.
Okay, I'll try something.
I'll try it.
You know, back in childhood days, I can remember loving caresses showered on me.
Mother's eyes would gaze at me so tender. What was their meaning now I can see
That was a song.
Okay, where am I at?
Rose, baby, tell her she told
that the road was paved in gold.
They used to hold their throats and do that thing.
Like, see the tree, how big it's grown.
Bobby Goldsboro.
And friends, it hasn't been too long.
It wasn't big.
He did crickets.
Wait, what did I say?
Okay.
Well, the road paved in gold and I found this in mother's eyes.
Now you, Gil.
Just like a wandering sparrow, one lonely soul,
I walk the straight and narrow till I reach my goal. God's gift sent from above.
A real
unselfish
love
I found in
my
mother's eyes.
This is the last verse,
Frank. You could do it together.
Coming up. I have an addendum. Go ahead.
Wait. One brazen guiding light an addendum. Go ahead. Wait.
One bright and guiding light
that taught me wrong from right
I found in my mother's eyes
those, sing,
those baby tails she told
that were all filled with gold
I found in my mother's eyes.
Now, hey, hold on before you applaud.
Oh, my God.
And like so, I bid Gilbert a big wet kiss.
Because I heard things about him.
And like so, I run like hell because Gilbert has a knife.
And like so, I kill him before he kills me.
And like so, I donate me and my tender ass to the Albion State Prison.
And like so, I change my name to Lillian so all the prisoners will like me.
Jesus.
You know that part of the speech.
Remember his Friars Club speech
where he was so eloquent.
I know we're just ripping him to pieces and making him
sound like a marble-mouthed idiot, but he was
more than that. No, he was
so astute and he was an orator.
And he really had
total command. He reminded me of
like a mush-mouth mouth Myron Cohen.
Uh-huh.
That's a good analogy.
Who had a beautiful voice.
Yes.
Myron Cohen.
It's not a question.
I heard that Georgie Jessel, like toward the end, late years of Groucho's life, Georgie Jessel would show up at his house because Georgie Jessel had no money. Out of his because George Jesse had no money.
Out of his career, he had no money.
And he used to ask Groucho if he could have some money.
He did eulogies to eat.
Yeah.
He did.
My God, I know this person.
Because he was so good, but that's all he had.
Why didn't you save your money, George?
Would you give him money, Jackie, if he came begging?
Oh, sure, if he rose from the dead.
You never met Jessel?
Do you know the story about Al Jolson and George Jessel?
Tell it.
Al Jolson decided he was going to give, Jessel was so broke and downed out, he's going to let him share the bill.
And Jessel, you know, before his egos, he's like, I want to be on the marquee.
And meanwhile, he was a tiny, tiny
star, and Jolson was huge.
And he really went to
the mat that he wanted to be on the
marquee. And Jolson had him
put on the marquee. Al
Jolson, but Georgie
Jessel.
Which is
just classic.
Fantastic.
What was he, was there a record, you don't have to be Jewish,
was somebody like Bob McFadden imitating like George Jessel or something?
Oh, yeah, that sounds familiar.
He's like, he comes running in the house.
I am thirsty.
I am thirsty.
I am thirsty.
And then he goes to the refrigerator and there's some ice water in there.
He takes a big glass of ice water and drinks it down.
I was ice thirsty.
Adam Lester, you know him?
He used to tell all those old jokes.
The guy goes to the doctor and he says, Doc, I swallowed a sponge. How you feeling?
Tasty.
It's so stupid.
But it makes you laugh, though.
Oh, God.
I was just thinking about all these guys the other day.
What's the name of a nice city in New Jersey
that starts with T?
T-Neck.
T-Neck.
That's stupid shit like that.
Just go through the tunnel and watch out for those girls?
They're not girls.
They're boys.
Those are the tunnel bunnies.
Did Paul Freese do one of the voices in the Beatle cartoon?
Yes.
Oh, which one? He did John Lennon.
Because Gilbert's sort of obsessed with those bad Beatle cartoons.
Oh, are you?
Yeah.
Because it's like none of them sounded like the Beatles.
No, the George was pretty close.
The Paul McCartney wasn't bad, but John Lennon.
You've got to remember, he was the ersatz, what do you call it, Orson Welles.
Yeah.
When they couldn't get Orson Welles, they got this guy Paul Freese.
Remember in the George Pal movie, Atlantis, they got this guy, Paul Freese.
Remember in the George Pal movie,
Atlantis,
the Lost Continent,
he would go,
Atlantis,
the Lost Continent.
And it was so cool that he had this big voice
and then he was doing,
John Lennon.
You know?
Yes.
I don't know what happened to Ringo.
Ringo,
don't do that.
You thought they all sounded like Ronald Coleman.
Yes.
Yes.
It's like,
that's a far, far thing.
Let's sing our song from our latest album.
Ronald Coleman.
Now, was he a kid star at one point?
Am I thinking of that?
Or Freddie Bartholomew?
Freddie Bartholomew was a kid's child one point? Am I thinking of that? Or Freddie Bartholomew? Freddie Bartholomew
was a kid's child star.
Yeah.
He's so prim and proper
and this evil
Alexis Smith
is standing next to him
while he's
orating?
What is that?
Orating.
Orating at his father's
funeral.
And Alexis Smith
wants the guy's money
and she shows up
in this glittering gown
and he's
trying to pretend like i'm not affected i apologize for the segue but tell us about this enchantment
tell us about the new series it's on netflix and we're doing um the second season and it's being
received really well by the audience that that found it you know it's not like futurama or the
simpsons it's something totally different which makes it You know, it's not like Futurama or The Simpsons. It's something totally different, which makes it beautiful to me.
It's not what you expect.
And I just play a couple of incidental characters, but I do a wizard named Sorcerio.
And he sounds like, he sounds like Jonathan Harris.
Oh, Sor Serio knows
things that you don't know.
You know,
and then there's
the Elf King
who sounds like
Percy Helton.
Love Percy Helton.
Yeah.
I'm the Elf King.
You know,
it's like,
oh,
yes,
you'll all pay,
you'll see,
you'll all see.
All frantic
Oh and I do the jester
But that's like a Phil Silvers
Like a Dawes Butler
Hokey Wolf kind of voice
And he tells a lousy joke
And they always drop him through a trap door
And he always acts like he didn't see it coming
How is that?
Oh no
I once worked with Jonathan Harris Yes acts like he didn't see it coming. How is that? Oh, no. Oh, no.
I once worked with Jonathan Harris.
Yes.
When they were doing this really zero-budget Problem Child cartoon series.
Oh, yeah.
And the guy playing Big, whatever that guy's name was,
Big Daddy or something that Jack Warden played in the movie.
They had Jonathan Harris.
And I said to Jonathan, because I remember on Stern, they used to talk about him all the time because you'd imitate him.
And I said, you know, Howard Stern would love to have you on this show.
And he goes, never.
Never.
I have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
You want to hear the greatest irony of all time is that my book got a spike in sales.
It didn't sell that well, you know, altogether.
And all of a sudden, I sold almost as many as i did out of the gate and i'm like i'm trying to figure out what show i did or what i said or how the fuck and
what happened was howard never mentioned my book on the show so nobody that listens to his show
by way of him had any idea that i had a book out but now he has a book out and if you buy a book
on amazon underneath it says people who bought this book.
Very good.
So people, and they've already got their credit card in.
They're already clicking, so they must be buying his.
Fuck it, and buying mine too.
Not everybody, but certainly it only takes a tiny blip to make a big difference.
Nice timing, buddy.
And I don't think he could stop that.
No, things can be done, Jackie.
No.
Things can be done.
So a guy's on the elevator with a big fat broad.
He says, can I smell your snatch?
She says, no.
He says, then it must be your feet.
We're going to get letters.
We're going to get letters. We're going to get letters.
We get a lot of letters.
We get a lot of letters.
Before we get out of here.
Jackie always launches in.
He goes, you know.
Reminds me of a story.
I live for Billy's Jackie.
Hey, I got one you can use at your next country club gig to open with.
That way you won't get thrown out until the second joke.
A guy gets an accident and both his legs are all broken, so he's in a wheelchair.
His friend comes over to visit him and he says, you know, the guy in the wheelchair says,
my feet are kind of cold, would you run upstairs and get my slippers?
He says, sure.
And he goes upstairs and there's the guy's 18-year-old twin daughters.
And he says, girls, your father just sent me up here to fuck you.
And they're like, you're crazy.
He says, I'll prove it to you.
And he yells down to his friend, both of them?
And he yells back, of course, both of them.
Oh, my God.
I got to laugh at them no matter what it leads to.
You know, it's like there was never any Johnny Fucker Fass.
There was no kid that ever lived named Johnny Fucker Fass.
He's deconstructing your jokes, Jack.
At seven years old, you're saying to yourself, there's no such thing as Johnny.
You know, we were talking about Andy's gang.
I am so fucking old.
You know, Andy was the new guy.
Did you know Andy was the new guy?
Andy Devine and Froggy.
But Andy was the new guy.
Yes.
There was Uncle Ed.
No, it was Smiling Ed's gang.
Right.
Smiling Ed, this big old fat fuck from Chicago with a military gray haircut.
Does this mean anything to you, Bill?
No.
He got chucked out and Andy came.
And Andy came and he was the new guy. People were like,
you're really fucking old. Billy,
do Andy Devine.
Plunk
your magic twanger.
Froggy
the gremlin.
He was the original Bobcat.
The original Bobcat.
You were a big Red Scout fan.
Plunk your magic twanger. Redkelton fan. I want to get a magic trigger.
Red Skelton was great.
I used to watch him watch himself.
I mean, my mother used to watch me watch Red Skelton because I would laugh so fucking hard.
It was really great.
Not harder than him.
Yeah.
It was great.
And then he did his 75th anniversary show or 50th anniversary show business or something.
And it was so long ago that there was still a fucking television in the comedy condo in
Fort Lauderdale.
That's how long ago.
And I'm sitting there with Bill McCarty and Adam and a bunch of guys.
And all of a sudden, there's Red Skelton standing at the mic and laughing and swinging his arms.
And they're like, Marlon, that's fucking you.
And I don't know whether it's so.
Oh, interesting.
But he's standing there moving around and giggling and just so
tickled with himself. I think I was already doing that.
Gil, didn't they tell us Red Skelton had an enormous
porn collection?
Yeah, I think. Well, I know. And Bud Abbott.
Bud Abbott had a tremendous
porn collection. Oh, here's
something that... When he was relegated to the
wheelchair, he couldn't reach the top shelf
where he kept the best porn.
Come on, Lou. Come on, Lou.
Come on, Lou. Get it right.
Get it right. Get it right. Get on all fours.
Get on all fours and help me up.
I can't put you
up there again. You're gonna
fall.
No, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.
Take this around
the corner and give it to Mel. It's for Mel to hide.
Stupid Take this around the corner and give it to Mel. It's for Mel to hide. Stupid plays on words.
One thing I've discussed with Drew Friedman for a long time
is that, according to legend,
Andy Devine and Clark Gable were having a gay affair.
Is that in Scotty's book?
No, it's in Drew Friedman's imagination.
It would make a great Drew strip.
You want Billy to do that.
Andy Devine and then there was...
Oh.
Cary Grant and Randolph Scott.
Oh, yeah.
I thought Cary liked girls.
When I saw those two big, beautiful boobs, I knew that I was in trouble.
And then Randy walked in.
Before we get out of here, who's got an Al Lewis story they want to tell?
The first time he came on the show, it was like 1986.
No hesitation.
And he came in, and me was like 1986 and he came in
and me and Fred were looking at each other
cross-eyed
because we are still
absolutely positive he shit his pants
and that's when
it was a small radio studio
and we were like holy
fucking lord and he wound up being
such a good friend and such a talent
such a wonderful guy, but
he smelled like he had shit in his pants
on the way in. On the way in.
Ask Fred. Oh, my God.
A million flies can't be wrong. Ask him.
He was
such a great character.
These flies are following me,
and I don't know why, Herman.
Jake the Joke Man.
You know, the further you and Fred get away from him, the worse this fucking show gets.
Bill, by popular demand, please tell the story of Grandpa's Restaurant with the two women.
Oh, okay.
Jackie knows where Grandpa's Restaurant was.
It was called Grandpa's Bellagente.
It was an Italian place.
It was one in the city.
Yeah, in the village. Yeah, the mafia
set me up.
I could run money through there.
And I got a young wife,
that young chippy, and I'm doing that
slow moan over the satin
sheets.
And then Jackie comes
over with his corn pone humor.
No, he never said that.
He never said that.
I don't know.
I just needed to say the word corn pwn.
Corn pwn.
So he's in that restaurant, and I said, geez, I've never formally met him,
and I was just, he must have seen me grinning like an ape at him, you know?
Is that guy a
fraggler?
Staring at him and
I was one of the last people
in there and there was a young couple
who had their little daughter
and the father says
to her, go over and ask
him where he lives.
And she goes,
okay.
And she goes, Okay. She comes running across
and she goes,
Where do you live?
1313 Mockingbird Lane.
And she's scared
and she runs away.
He's a monster.
And he looks at me
and he goes,
Women.
And then there's two biddies from the Midwest, like Minnesota or something,
and they're having their New York trip, and they're winding it up, and it's like,
oh, before we left, we had to come by your restaurant, and they, oh, it lived up to its promise,
and this pasta is so good, it's real al dente.
You know, and the other woman was like oh I agree totally
this is beautiful
and
and he goes
yeah
yeah
yeah
well
we'll be going now
yeah
yeah
yeah
yeah
you know
and he's just
he's being as cordial
as he can be
and then
they start out the door
and you know
when somebody decides
to ramp up again
with a whole new conversation,
they popped back in and went, oh, and we're going to tell all our friends.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then the door closes, and he goes, drop dead.
He was sardonic, but the guy, you know, he had a heart of gold.
You could just tell, you know.
I used to have dinners with him and stuff. Sardonic, but the guy, you know, he had a heart of gold. You could just tell, you know.
Dinners with him and stuff.
And he made everybody, there was like seven of us, and he made everybody give him the cash.
And he would put it on his card. Because I might be gone tomorrow, but I'll have cash.
You know, he'll owe on the credit card.
That's how I operate.
Yeah, yeah. the credit card. That's how I operate. Yeah, yeah.
I was thinking about the old-time guys, and I said, God bless every one of them.
I was watching shows, and all the stuff that Sid Caesar was able to do.
I know.
You know, he wasn't for everybody's taste, but for some reason, I just, I absolutely loved him.
I wanted to be able to run those dialects, you know.
And one time I got to sit with them and have lunch with them.
And these two guys I was with, they produced his little segments, you know, the Sid Caesar vids.
Videos where they would interview, you know, Lucille Callen or whoever, Bud Yorkin.
And, geez, Larry Gelbart
and
he sat there
and I said
Sid, I don't know what got into me
but I said
I just love you so much and I wanted to tell you
a hunting joke in Italian
taking all the risks
in the world
he was like
that's gonna go you know taking all the risks in the world. He was like, I'm going to go,
you know, shotgun, shotgun, boots,
and I said, what do you think?
And he was so generous of spirit.
He had a twinkle in his eye.
But he really was thinking, I created this?
I begat.
He was just
amazing. And Carl Reiner
is still alive. Yeah, we had him on.
Yes, he's great. Did you have Howie Morris on?
No, we started after Howie passed.
Oh, because I
worked on a cartoon with him once.
I heard he had it out for Joe Barbera, Howie Morris. Oh, because I worked on a cartoon with him once. I heard he had it out for Joe Barbera, Howie Morris.
Oh, I'm sure.
Yeah.
There's a Joe Barbera story at Hanna-Barbera, which used to be on Before Ventura.
Coanga?
Coanga.
Yeah.
And Joe Barbera took his secretary, and they got on the elevator, and he started to go up, and he had this thing where he would press the stop button on the elevator.
The emergency stop.
Yeah.
And all of a sudden, you know, he would begin bumping and crying. And then one of his best friends, also his security guard for a number of years,
sees him come out down the first floor with the woman.
And he goes, Joe, man.
Oh, Joe.
What?
I saw everything.
They had a closed circuit camera in the elevator.
That's great.
That's great.
Oh, Lord.
Anyway, we have to wrap up.
Who have we not maligned?
Oh, I don't know.
I don't know.
Bill, you're great.
Jack, I love you.
Thank you.
I have autism.
Thank you.
That's why I keep cutting everybody off because I have no attention span.
Oh, we covered the autism.
So don't kill me.
Oh, and I have low T.
If you could do a combo ID and sign off and say, oh, it's Larry Fine.
As Larry Fine?
He wants you to sign off as Larry.
Okay, I got gotta get my glasses
my reading glasses
these are fishbowl glasses
alright
hey Mo
you are listening to
Gilbert Gottfried's
colossal
terrific podcast
why don't you say
mammy?
Thank you, Bill.
What does that mean?
Only a couple people know.
Thank you, Jack.
I love it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Gilbert.
This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal Podcast.
I can't remember the name of his fucking show.
I appreciate it.
I always love seeing you.
You guys are great.
And our guests, of course, were Billy West and Jackie the Chokeman Martling.
Oh, yay.
One clean one to take us out?
Dirty.
So three guys are fishing in a lake, and one guy falls overboard,
so one of the other guys jumps off, and he wants to save him,
but he keeps going down and looking.
Finally, finally, he finds him and drags him back up and puts him in the boat
and starts giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
He turns to the other guy and says,
You know, I don't remember Fred having such bad breath.
The other guy says, Yeah, and come to think of it,
I don't remember him wearing a snowmobile outfit.
You know what?
All I have is premises, Jackie.
I don't have any punchlines.
But don't you ever get into somebody like, you know,
there's a guy on the Lower East Side, and he's got a power drill,
and he's drilling holes into his head
to find trepidation.
And then you're supposed
to finish it.
A guy goes to the library
and he's a librarian.
He says,
I need a book on suicide.
She says,
fuck you,
you won't bring it back.
Oh, that's so beautiful.
Thanks, Frank. Thank you. We love you guys. Thank you, Big Frank. Frank, Gilbert, Jackie, I love you guys. Love's so beautiful. Thanks, Frank.
We love you guys.
Thank you, big Frank.
Frank, Gilbert, Jackie, I love you guys.
I love you, Bill.
Billy, I love you, you know that.
Thank you so much.
This is a great one.
Thank you.
When are you coming out, Jack?
Soon.
Soon.
I can't breathe.
I owe you.
I can't breathe. Thank you. Produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre. With audio production by Frank Furtarosa.
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 Fodiatis, John Murray, and Paul Rayburn.