Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Jackie Martling Encore
Episode Date: February 12, 2024GGACP celebrates the birthday (b. February 14) of friend, comedian and former “Howard Stern Show” writer Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling with this ENCORE of a sprawling, no-holds-barred conver...sation about Hollywood urban myths, Joe E. Ross’ hooker habit, the eccentricities of Tiny Tim and the vindictiveness of Ed Sullivan and Arthur Godfrey. Also, Jackie tells a joke to Sir Paul, Gilbert riffs on Jackie Mason, George Jessel turns down “The Jazz Singer” and Johnny Roselli scams the Friars Club. PLUS: Otto & George! Gilbert “Dice” Gottfried! The legend of Joe Ancis! And the origin of the “Jackie puppet”! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
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Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast.
I'm here.
He's laughing already.
I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre.
I would love to hear the words you ruled out for the name.
words you ruled out for the name.
Under freaking leaveable.
Now that's a little strong.
That's great.
We're once again recording at Nutmeg Post with the lovely Frank Furtarosa.
Our guest this week is a comedian, comedy writer, musician, radio personality.
From 1983 to 2001, he was the head writer of the Howard Stern Show.
Who?
Which I think, yeah, yeah.
I kind of think I was wrong, but I can't swear to it at this point.
There's a memory back there hiding behind a little piece of fog somewhere, but yeah.
The best guess.
You were the best guess.
I feel like the original Marilyn talking about the monsters at this point.
Talking about how- It's nothing more exciting than once in a while I would write a line I thought was so good,
because I wouldn't give anything to Gilbert unless I was really crazy about it.
And he was on his Dracula.
And I ran over with a piece of paper and handed it to him and he read it.
He says, the black man, scarier than the werewolf.
This might be the worst Dracula, but funniest joke anyway.
So thanks for having me, man.
Well, let him finish introducing you.
Oh, yeah.
Well, that sounded more like Legosi's Igor.
You can break Igor's neck.
Now, he's also released numerous CDs, videos, and DVDs, along with five books, including the best-selling Disgustingly Dirty Joke book.
You may have seen him in the TV show Leverage or the documentary The Aristocrats, which I think I've seen.
You've seen. You've seen. Please welcome an old playmate of mine, the demure, tasteful, and always dignified Jackie Markling.
Yes.
Thank you, Gilbert.
It is Jackie.
Thanks, Jackie.
So a guy goes to the library and says to the librarian, I need a book on suicide.
She says, fuck you.
You won't bring it back.
it back.
The best married joke I ever heard is the wife says,
get out, get out, get the fuck out.
And as the husband's walking out the door,
she says, I hope you die a slow, painful
death. He says, now you want me to stay?
All right, let's
get serious.
You know, I know how much you guys love old show business,
so I was thinking of some great stuff.
There was a great story about Al Jolson,
who was just a ridiculous egomaniac, among us egomaniacs.
He was crazy.
And George Jessel was on a bill with him,
who was a way, way smaller star.
And he insisted to Al Jolson that he wanted to be on the marquee.
He wanted to be on the marquee.
So Al Jolson had them put on the marquee.
Al Jolson, but Georgie Jessel.
That's great.
I love that.
Nobody's ever heard that story.
I think that's one of the great.
What was the gin rummy story, Jack?
We talked on the phone yesterday.
Georgie Jessel was supposed to be the original jazz singer.
And he didn't get the, was it because he couldn't sing?
He might have turned it down.
I think he may have turned it down.
So one of those insane things for the rest of your life.
Right, like he didn't think sound movies were going to make it.
I didn't know he turned that down.
That's good trivia.
I know Danny Thomas played the jazz singer.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
And there was a Jerry Lewis version.
Seriously?
Yes, a Jerry where I think he's more like instead of black makeup, of course, he's in clown makeup.
Yeah, at Auschwitz.
Different movie.
Different movie. Jeez, at Auschwitz. Different movie. Different movie.
Jeez, what are people thinking?
So I have, I love, you love jokes.
I love jokes.
There's certain people that don't like jokes.
I bet who cares, right?
H. Allen Smith said we should take all the people
that don't like dirty jokes and put them in a canyon
so the rest of us can stand on the rim of the canyon
and piss all over them.
So, but it turns out Neil deGrasse Tyson, the quantum mechanic guy, the genius, you know, the stars and all that.
And Noam Chomsky, you know, because smart people like jokes.
Those are little stupid problems like given and find in geometry, you know, like you want to race to the end.
A guy came up to me at a film festival and said, Jackie, you're going to love this.
I have a very good friend whose grandfather was one of the great cantors, a world-renowned cantor.
So he was friends with all the glitter eye at the turn of the century.
And one of his best friends was Albert Einstein.
And it turns out Albert Einstein was a huge fan of filthy jokes.
And Albert Einstein's favorite joke was, my dick isn't that big, but I love every foot of it.
Albert Einstein!
Is that great?
Is that great?
You know who didn't like dirty jokes?
This I saw in a documentary on the History Channel.
Hitler.
Really?
Yeah.
I knew there was a reason I didn't like Hitler.
But Hitler, they said, liked jokes but didn't like dirty jokes.
Oh.
He doesn't want to offend anybody.
He didn't like dirty jokes.
Oh, he doesn't want to offend anybody.
You can't even go near that.
What was the gin rummy story, speaking of old showbiz stories?
It's way too long, but in a nutshell, I answered everything that ever came into me at the Stern Show. I didn't get, you know, if I got a mail or an email or whatever.
And some guy sent me a handwritten letter and his name was Milt Rosen. And it turned out he was the guy that wrote a lot of those
joke books. And he was, Milton Berle, he wrote
like three or four joke books for Milton Berle. And every time
he had to sue Milton Berle to get paid.
And I said, well then why would you write the next one?
I needed the money.
But you didn't get it.
So this guy was great.
He wrote for TV.
Now, you know, in the early days of TV, there was one sponsor.
You know, there weren't multiple sponsors.
It was like Birdseye Presents.
Right, right, right.
Yeah.
And he wrote, I think it was the Roy Rogers, Dale Evans show.
And the sponsor was Birdseye.
And he got paid like half in cash and half in frozen peas, which is just so beautiful, right?
So this guy's a real character.
And, you know, I got his unpublished autobiography, which is wonderful.
But I went out to the Friars Club in Los Angeles, and he was really interesting.
And, you know, a little full of crap, but he's one of those guys who was so interesting that it really didn't matter.
And you never knew where it started and stopped.
And he goes, I'll show you something great.
And he takes me to the front.
There was a major dean named Johnny Francis.
And this guy must have been pretty shaky because I Googled him
and there is no Johnny Francis to be found.
And he said, Johnny, show Jackie the article.
And he went in the back and he had a copy
of the Los Angeles Times.
What had happened was
there were gin rummy games at the
Friars Club in Los Angeles, but
big money, like crazy money.
Phil Silvers, Tony
Martin, a guy named Harry Carl
that was Debbie Reynolds' second
husband who took all her money, and
Harpo Marks. There were various players that came and went,
but those guys, it was like on the second or third floor
of the Los Angeles Friars, and it's tens of thousands of dollars,
and the mob got wind of this.
So Johnny Roselli, who was a mobster slash singer or whatever,
got himself into the Friars Club.
This sounds like malarkey, but this is,
he sat in and he's playing gin
rummy, okay?
Gypsy Goldfinger.
Sure.
Oh, yeah.
The opening scene of Goldfinger, Goldfinger is playing cards with somebody, right?
And Pussy Galore is up in the hotel with glasses looking at the other guy's cards and signaling
Goldfinger what to bet, okay?
That's what they did.
But there weren't cameras.
There was a guy, a guy in the fake ceiling, like literally lying supine above them, looking
at the cards and telling Roselli what to bet.
And they took these guys for tens, it was something like $1.3 million in 1963.
Okay.
And then the FBI caught on.
So this article they showed me, it was actually on the picture.
For Los Angeles Times, there's a picture of the table and the guy in the ceiling with a dotted line showing that his line of sight.
Incredible.
It was a whole big deal.
But there's a whole huge court case
and Johnny Roselli
came up in front of them
and he was involved
in the Kennedy assassination.
I mean, this is crazy.
And you can't find information
hardly about it
because the friars
swept it under.
Everybody thinks
it'd be the greatest.
Isn't that interesting?
That's like a Scorsese movie, right?
Good trivia.
But it went on.
It wasn't one time.
It went on for years.
Interesting.
They even changed
the roofline of the friars and they had to redo. It's just crazy. Interesting. They even changed the roofline of the Friars, and they had to redo.
It's just crazy, man.
They finally shut that L.A. Friars down, I think.
Gil, did you ever go out there to the one in Beverly Hills?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It wasn't like the one in New York.
It seemed like it lasted about a week or something.
It was in financial trouble.
It was there and not there.
It was like an airport dining room type thing.
Yeah, I think they were doing, like, less comics standing there for a little while.
Just go ahead.
We were in a terrible TV show together.
You know, when I knew I was going to come here, I was thinking, Frank, you had to see it because me and Gilbert were in a show, and I think it lasted two days.
No, I don't mean the show.
I mean the shoot lasted two days. No, I don't mean the show. I mean the shoot lasted two days.
And we were together day and night for two days.
And we must have told 10,000 stories.
And as they took the last shot of the last thing, we were both out of stories.
And we were like, see ya.
And then we're walking around the casino.
I see Gilbert.
I got nothing left.
What was the show?
We left and left.
It was called The Watcher.
And we played two slimy Las Vegas guys, not to be redundant.
And they would hit ladies on top of the head and take their money.
And then we thought we were stealing from each other.
It was so bad.
The Watcher.
Yeah, it was when...
UPN.
Yeah, UPN was just starting.
Superstation.
And they wanted their own program.
And you guys played hoodlums?
Well, what it was was it was like an hour show.
And each show was like 23, 20-minute shows or 310, whatever it was.
What I remember, there's a big fight scene between me and Jackie.
A violent fight scene. Because he thinks I'm cheating him out of his money, whatever.
And they get these two stuntmen who are like seven feet tall, barrel chest.
Fuck yeah.
So me and Gilbert go to fight and the next scene is from far away.
Two gorillas fighting and then we're
lying in the pool.
Both of them
look like the Incredible Hulk.
And then
to try to put in a bad
insert, they'd have
me and Jackie like grabbing
each other's collars
and then the next scene,
one throwing the other one
10 feet in the air.
You know who
the stuntman on that
was Danny Aiello III.
Oh, yes.
He's not with us anymore
but he was a great,
great guy
but I think the budget
was like 14 cents.
Oh, yeah.
This was a pilot?
No, it was a TV show
called The Watcher.
The Watcher.
And there was some
like black guy
he was like a rapper. Sir, Sir Lunt, Sir Mix-a-Lot. Sir Watcher. And there was some like black guy. He was like a rapper.
Sir Mix-a-Lot.
Sir Mix-a-Lot was like supposedly like in a tower looking over Las Vegas.
Yeah, and he'd be telling you what was going on.
I'm trying to wrap my mind around Gilbert, Jackie, and Sir Mix-a-Lot.
Yeah.
And I remember being in, I don't know, I think we were somewhere.
We were talking and there was some woman there, like a makeup woman or something.
And me and Jackie are talking about like joking back and forth about cum and shit and fucking a dog in the ass.
And breathing and elephant farts and whatever and blowing a kangaroo.
A routine one.
Yes.
And then in the midst of it, we were going over to the lunch wagon.
And Jackie turned to this woman and said, can I get you anything?
What I remember the most,
I'm sure that's true,
Las Vegas
blows hot and cold. It can be
98 degrees and then
it can be 20 degrees.
It was an evening and it was
freezing. Freezing. And this one, it was an evening, and it was freezing.
Freezing.
And the entire crew eats outside at, you know, folded up tables, you know, like cafeteria tables with chairs. And, of course, me and Gilbert are going to eat in the actor's trailer, you know, in the warmth of the trailer.
And they're making steaks for everybody.
And we're in line, and everybody's dying of hunger.
Of course, we get to walk right to the front.
So you feel like a jerk anyway.
Walk right to the front, and these guys are working like hell to make steaks for like 150 people.
And Gilbert puts out his plate, and the guy puts a steak on it, and Gilbert goes,
Can I have another one?
What do you want to get us killed?
And I'm sure he took it home.
He probably still has it, Frank.
Yeah, I'm sure.
I took it back on the plane.
It's like the Lucy episode where she's got the giant cheese.
She pretends it's a baby.
I love it.
And I remember, and that.
We did have a great time.
Yeah, but that night when it was freezing cold, that was when we had to jump in the pool.
In the pool.
And there were girls working as, they were supposed to be cocktail waitresses at the pool.
And they were standing there wrapped in fur until they said, you know, time to shoot.
And you could see their breath.
What a nightmare. But what great fun. You know, time to shoot. You can see their breath.
What a nightmare.
But what great fun.
But I remember from the wardrobe, I should have worn it today.
From the wardrobe department, I said, can I borrow a jacket for this week?
Because it's freezing.
And they let me borrow it, and I still have it today.
I'm sure you do.
I remember hearing a story. I think it was with still have it today. I'm sure you do. I remember hearing a story.
I think it was with Son of the Beach where they wanted, they had Robert Goulet.
They asked him to be on a show as a villain.
That was the Baywatch spoof.
Oh, yeah. Just to tell our listeners.
Oh, yeah.
I was on two of those.
But I remember they were talking to Robert Goulet on the phone, and they sent him the script, and they said, well, what do you think?
And do you have any questions?
And he goes, yes.
On page 73, it says he enters wearing a cocktail jacket.
And they said yes. And he goes, can I keep that?
It's a man after your own heart.
I love it.
And everybody's the same.
to your own heart.
I love it.
And everybody's the same.
Rodney Dangerfield,
his favorite story was,
you ever hear the story of two thespians?
He loved Joey Ross
from Carp Fifty Four.
Oh, we just talked about him
last week on the show.
Rodney,
Joey Ross walked in
out of the city.
He says,
Joey Ross and another guy,
two thespians,
they're working on a show
in Chicago,
you know,
two thespians.
And it was an admiral.
And he said, oh, you guys were so great.
You were so great.
You must come back to my house and have a drink.
So Joey Rusty, the other guy, went back to the admiral's house.
He says, they went back to the house.
The admiral kept pouring drinks, you know, and they kept pouring the drinks under the table until the admiral passed out.
He says, one of the thespians fucked his wife and the other one stole his OphiCode.
And probably the guy who fucked his wife was jealous.
What other show could you do, Jack, where they say, we just talked about Joey Ross last week?
You know, I had to let that go because, you know.
I heard a story that when Car 54 was on the air, I think it was sponsored by Procter & Gamble.
So the heads of Procter & Gamble visited the set.
Jackie obviously knows this.
I think I might have told him.
So Procter & Gamble, the big heads of the company and their wives visit the set and they're introducing them to Fred Gwynn and Al Lewis.
And, you know, they're being very polite, you know, saying how shaking their hands and having their picture taken with it.
And they pass by Joey Ross's dressing room.
The doors open and he's on the couch jerking off.
That's not the story.
It's a different one.
It's a different
Joey Ross story.
And the execs
and the wife,
the wife started screaming
and Joey Ross is there
with a stick
still in his hands going
what what what is
it
the one Rodney told me was
the show became got
renewed so they had a huge party
with the Procter and Gamble guys and their
wives it's a huge party and Fred Gwynn's
there with his wife and Al Lewis is there with his wife
Joey Ross is there
with a whore. And they come over
and say hello. Fred Gwynn says yes, this is my
wife, Al Murda, you know.
And this is Joey. He goes,
hi, hi. And they say, this is Mrs.
Smith, this is Mrs. Johnson. And who's that?
What's your name, honey?
I was going to ask you about that. He famously had
a thing for hookers, Joey Ross.
Oh, God.
He walked in out of the sea, Joey Ross. Oh, God, God. You know, it just went on and on.
He walked in out of the sea, you know?
Oh, God.
That's a great Rodney.
Not really.
My favorite new joke, a guy says to a girl, give me a blowjob.
And she says, be more romantic.
He says, give me a blowjob in the rain.
See, we got to let the people listening go home with a joke.
That's nice.
It's generous of you.
Oh, this is so fun.
You know what?
You're such a great, you too, but you're such a great audience.
You know, whenever we do something together and I see you, I just gravitate right to you because I know you're going to scream because you love the, you know.
Does you guys, you remember meeting for the first time, the two of you?
It wasn't on Howard.
It had to be in stand-up.
I think we crossed paths a few times here and there, but mainly on the Stern show because he was trapped.
So I got a chance to hit him head on with some jokes.
That's where I had to talk to Jack.
Yeah, he was forced to talk to me.
And then once he knew I was going to tell him a funny joke, he started gravitating to me. I remember on Howard, you used to wear these like finger condoms.
What it was is my, do you ever have your fingers crack in the winter?
Yeah, sure.
It's nothing more painful.
Meanwhile, I'm writing and using paper.
So it was so painful.
So I thought it was the drying agent from the paper.
It was the funniest thing.
The funniest thing.
It turns out it was because I was so full of alcohol.
The tips of my fingers were dry, but who knew?
But we're sitting there, and I'm trying lotion on my fingers,
and it was the greatest.
I hope it must be on tape.
Gary's sitting there, Robin and Howard and Fred.
Because Fred knows more shit that you'd never need in your entire life.
And Gary says, hey, why don't you get some of those little rubber things to put on your fingers?
And Howard goes, yeah, why don't you get some of those little rubber things for your fingers?
And Robin's like, yes, get some rubber things for your fingers.
And Fred goes, yeah, finger cots.
And everybody's like what
how the fuck
do you know
what they're called
I just
finger cuts
and I wore them for a while
and they didn't do anything
I love that your Robin
sounds like Margaret Dumont
oh yes
I just saw something
I was
watching Animal Crackers
the other night
you know
oh my god
it's so horrible
and so wonderful
it's stage bound
it was a play and it looks it.
It's weird.
There are like great moments in Animal Crackers.
And then you wait.
Oh, my God.
It's slow.
What's 1931?
I mean, it's two years after sound.
Right.
Five, four, five years after sound.
It's like, yeah, then there's some plot exposition and a musical number and more plot.
And then you forget what the movie is.
Right, right.
And then when it gets hard to hear, sometimes it's hard to hear, which makes, you know.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
It compounds the whole thing.
But fun.
But while doing some research on the two of you guys, and I put in Jackie and Gilbert Gottfried and the first thing that came up is
something called
Jackie and Gilbert laugh
at a college professor
being brutally beaten.
Was that on the
Star Show?
The first thing
that came up
was on YouTube.
You know,
it's so funny
because
the way that
the genesis
of my stupid laugh
on that show is you know, we'd be there on the air.
And once in a while, Fred would go, yeah.
And I'd say, why do you keep making that yelp?
He says, that's you.
I said, what do you mean?
Is that your joyful yelp that you do?
And I'm like, you're crazy.
So one night I'm listening back to a show I did at Jimmy's Comedy Alley.
And it wasn't even after a joke.
I told a joke and I must have been pacing the stage to get to the other side.
And I said, holy Jesus, that's Fred's noise.
So I said, Fred, I heard the noise.
I made the noise.
I'm like an idiot.
I gave him the tape.
So he pulled out the hee-hee, and he started using it.
And then he realized it was funny, so he started pulling out all kinds of different laughs of mine. So if somebody got hit by a truck, Fred would play my laugh,
which Gilbert obviously thinks is hysterical.
A Cub Scout today was run over by a steamroller, and Fred plays it.
So Gilbert's screaming, and I'm screaming.
And what's so great is I got the credit, and I got the blame.
When in reality, the credit and the blame goes to Fred because he's the one that pulled it out.
Except Gilbert was laughing for real.
But he really laughed.
There was also one called Gilbert and Jackie laugh at other people's misfortune.
That used to be pretty good.
I was just going to say, how many notations are there for that?
And I remember, but the same thing happened with me where they had tapes of my laugh and they would be a show I wasn't even on.
Right, right. And then I'd go to the Internet and I'd see a million emails, angry people going, you know, maybe you think a child being tossed out of a window is funny.
But I assure you, I do not.
And so they would play my life whenever.
And, of course, Howard would always be, come on, Jack.
Come on, Gilbert.
Gilbert, that's not funny. You know, to cement the whole thing, which is, you know,
which is funny and brilliant and horrible at the same time, you know.
I think the first time that Fred did it, it was like a guy pulled off on the side of the road.
I think he was having sex with a deer.
And that was when Fred played to laugh.
And everybody's like, it was like the world came to an end for five seconds.
Like, whoa.
The shot heard around.
It's so funny.
So funny.
So you guys don't actually remember meeting.
You don't remember a particular point in time.
No, I probably crossed paths with you.
I saw a picture of us.
It had to be at the Stern Show, but you look like you're 12 years old and i looked
really young but it had to be the early stern show days you know oh yeah but uh because you know i
never did the clubs in the city i was out in long island bumpkin boy you know doing my albums you
know telling my stupid jokes as long as we're talking about that i do remember yeah there were
a couple of times on this show where it was in the tape and we'd both
be together and they'd talk about
you know, like a two-year-old
child being raped and killed
and somehow
Yeah, because, you know,
you know,
I know he's going to laugh so I might as well laugh.
I think Robin would pick those stories
just to get you guys going. Well, I'm
sure, you know.
So I don't know that how many... Don't give her credit for this, Frank.
I don't know how many people know that you did not start out to be a stand-up,
that you told me you didn't have any aspirations to even be a stand-up.
No, not even a little, you know.
You're a stand-up now?
Oh, sorry.
That's not nice.
Not even a little.
You're a stand-up now?
I'm sorry.
That's not nice.
See, you know, I heard a joke when I was a little kid and just knew every joke on the planet.
But I thought that if you grew up in America, you were a guy who grew up in America, you knew all the jokes.
Like, of course, you grew up in America.
That's one of the things you know.
Like, you know how to play baseball, ride a bicycle, and you know the jokes.
So I never thought about it. And I always, always told jokes.
And we had a band in high school.
I told jokes sometimes between songs, which was so inappropriate.
It isn't even a good enough word.
Like, what are you doing?
You know, I see the people out there.
And then we had a band in the 70s, and we played original music and told jokes in between.
Off-hour rockers.
Yeah, but they weren't good.
You know, and I had little scraps of paper to remind me.
And nobody ever told us that comedians worked at different audiences every night.
So here we are playing to the same people week after week.
So we're changing our act every week, you know, telling bad joke at bad joke.
But I just stored up so many.
And when the band broke up, I had all these pieces of paper.
And I had nothing to do.
And I wasn't going to get a job.
So I said, let me try telling these jokes as just telling jokes on stage.
And I won the stage with a guitar and a ponytail, but I told the jokes.
And I was off to the races.
Six months after I started, I had an album because I'd worked at a recording studio.
I knew how to make a record.
And I said to my girlfriend, I said, they laughed at every joke I said last night.
I should make a record.
She said, make a record.
So I recorded on a cassette player. The left channel was me and
the right channel was the audience. And I mixed it to a two-track tape, you know, and then edited
it with a razor blade and borrowed $100 from 15 different people and got my class picture where
I'm giving the finger and sent the whole thing to Nashville. And they sent back a thousand albums.
and sent the whole thing to Nashville, and they sent back 1,000 albums.
And in 1979, I'm standing at the door of the Fort Lauderdale Comedy Club selling people albums for $5 on the way out with the other comics breaking my balls.
Like, look at you.
You're an idiot.
And all of a sudden, one day, somebody goes, wait a minute.
We all made 50 bucks.
He made an extra 75.
Maybe he's not that stupid, you know?
You were really like the first of the comics to get into the whole merch thing.
Well, yeah, you know, because I told you my whole theory was just not – I wasn't a comedian.
I was in the era with Robert Klein and where I thought if you were going to be a comedian,
somebody touched you on your head and anointed you, that it wasn't a learned thing.
I remember being in college, and I said to the drummer in my band, what's your major?
And he said radio and TV.
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
You can't choose that.
Somebody picks you out and says, you get to be in television.
You get to be in radio.
You can't take it as a major.
Interesting.
You know, because I never thought of that.
You studied what, mechanical engineering?
Yeah, mechanical engineering, and played in a band and told jokes.
It was so stupid.
But it just, you know, it's just ingrained in your head and you start
doing it. And making the album just made so much sense. But I had no idea what I was doing.
You know, I made the album. I had my class picture given a finger. I said, you know what,
that's going to cover my album. And my idea was not to be a comedian. I thought if I fill up an
album with dirty jokes, just like Red Fox's,
people are going to love it.
Got nothing to do with me.
I'm just a conduit to get these dirty jokes to people.
Like Red Fox used to look at people in the audience and go, don't look at me, lady.
Somebody got to tell them.
You know what I mean?
So I thought I was just passing them on and passing them on.
So that was, you know, but it worked.
You know, it was fun.
Now, tell a joke about the gorilla and the lion.
I didn't know whether you just – are you saying that's – there really is one.
Yes. I didn't know whether you just –
There is.
So there's a gorilla walking along in the jungle and there's a lion getting a drink of water from – I got a story about this. There's a lion getting a drink of water from a – I got a story about this.
The lion getting a drink of water from a mud puddle.
The lion's tail's up.
And the gorilla's like, yeah, you know.
And the gorilla goes up behind the lion and slips him a Liberace.
And the gorilla takes off and the lion takes off.
And the gorilla goes running to a horse camp.
And he jumps inside a tent and grabs a pith helmet and sits down in a chair, puts on a pith helmet, grabs like the Johannesburg Times and starts to read
and the lion comes running into the camp
ROAR! He sticks his head in the tent
ROAR! He says
Did a gorilla come through here?
And the gorilla says
You mean the one that fucked the lion in the ass?
And the lion says, my god, you mean it's in the
paper already?
Now, Drew Carey.
People have always screamed about stealing jokes or stealing material.
Hey, it was my idea to do Star Trek.
Give me a break, right?
But I've always told them.
But I maintain that if I tell a joke a specific way, if you go up and mimic the way I do it, that's as much stealing as anything.
That's stealing a personality, you know, because you take the jokes and you make them your own.
I was reading Drew Carey's book called Dirty Jokes and Beer.
I mean, I love the guy.
It's got nothing to do with anything because the way it's fun to get taken into the lexicon.
And either before each chapter or after each chapter, he'd have a joke.
And I'm looking at it, and that joke was in it.
And it said, and when you tell a joke,
you don't want to include anything in the joke.
That's in the punchline.
So instead of the line picks up the paper,
I say Johannesburg Times,
and I don't want to say he fucks the line in the ass because that's in the punchline.
So I said, slipped him a Liberace.
And in Drew Carey's book, you know, the gorilla walks up and slips them the old Liberace.
I'm like, look at me.
I'm national.
I'm national news.
So funny.
That is just the greatest joke.
Yeah, because it's so fucking stupid.
I love it.
Talking.
You know, you think about the movie. They're talking? It's been so stupid. I love it. Talking. You know, you think about them.
Wait a minute.
They're talking?
It's been so outrageous up to then.
Like, fuck it.
Let them talk.
You guys recently did stand-up together at Gotham.
You did a show together a couple of weeks ago.
That was so funny.
It was so funny.
That was a great night.
Oh, God.
And you told it.
I killed.
It was a great night.
You were great.
You told that wonderful joke about the couple's counselor.
You know what I mean?
The couple goes to marriage counseling.
Yeah.
The marriage counselor says, I think we should begin with something you have in common.
And the husband says, neither of us likes to suck cock.
The perfect joke.
That really is.
I love that one.
You know, I was with Gene Cornish from the Rascals the other night,
and he's one of those guys that stands there and tries not to laugh.
Like, you know, I'm killing him.
I know he's remembering the joke and he's trying not to laugh.
But I told him this, and I finally cracked him,
and it wasn't even that great a joke
but so stupid the guy's on a plane and oh shoot i'm sorry this was probably in the set the other
night but but the guy's on a plane and he looks over and the lady's breastfeeding her baby as
they're taking off and a few hours later they're coming in for landing and she's breastfeeding the
kid again he says excuse me lady i couldn't help but notice that you breastfeed the baby on takeoff
and now you're breastfeeding him again on landing.
Is there a reason?
She says, yes, I breastfeed my child on takeoff and landing so his ears won't pop.
And the guy says, fuck, in all these years I've been chewing gum.
Which is just cherry.
And speaking of planes, is there one about the pilot, the woman running up and down the aisle?
That one take too long to tell?
No, but he does.
That's a good one.
The pilot comes on.
He says, thank you for flying West Eastern.
We appreciate your business.
And we're going to touch down Los Angeles in approximately six hours.
And he doesn't turn off the intercom.
He turns to the copilot.
He says, I think I'm going to go take a shit
and then get a blowjob from the hot new stewardess.
And she's in the back of the plane and realizes the intercom's still on.
So she goes running up the aisle to tell him the intercom's on.
And the little old lady says, take your time, honey.
He said he was going to take a shit first.
That's the one.
And that's one of those jokes.
That's been around since.
Yeah, it's been around forever.
And I don't, I've lost track of how many times people have said, well, I was on a plane and I swear this happened.
Yeah.
People repurposing jokes as actual anecdotes.
Yes. Actual stories. People repurposing jokes as actual anecdotes? Yes.
Actual stories?
You know what story?
Whoever you tell it to,
they have a different actor.
But a guy told me this
a million years ago.
They had just built
a big, huge CBS film space.
And Schwarzenegger
was making a movie
and I guess he was being a dick.
And everybody was, you know, he's bullying people around or whatever.
Who knows if any of this is true?
But he went to his trailer, and he was wearing a lavalier microphone, and it was still on.
And he was in the trailer, and the sound guy didn't like him.
And he had a girl come into the trailer so that the sound guy pumped the sound throughout
the set.
And all of a sudden they said, you could hear Schwarzenegger saying, cradle de balls.
Cradle de balls.
Cradle de balls.
Who cares if that's true?
See, I heard the same story with Sylvester Stallone.
I thought you were going to say Lionel Atwell.
I'm going, you know, lick my dick.
Lick my dick.
And then I heard, allegedly, that then the entire crew would say everything twice.
Like, action, action.
Cut, cut.
See, it just gets better and better. Oh, I love that. Cut, cut. That scene just gets better and better and better.
Oh, I love that.
I love that.
I mean, I remember there was also this story like, just fill in any black actor you want.
Right.
And this supposedly happened.
Oh, yeah. And that a white couple's in an elevator and we'll say, you know, Sidney Poitier.
God.
And Sidney Poitier says to the white couple, hit four.
And they think he said hit the floor.
And they jump.
And they think he said, hit the floor.
And there he jumped.
And the funny thing is I've even heard it with O.J. Simpson years ago.
Like, see, because it's funny because O.J. would never hurt anybody.
His old farmer's walking along with his big, fat, disgusting wife.
And it starts to rain.
And he's walking along and Jesus Christ,
he gets a hard-on. He can't believe he's got a hard-on. This big, fat, sloppy
pig. And he
throws her down in the mud
puddle. And he gets on top of her
and he starts in.
And he says,
Elsie,
is it in you?
Or is it in the mud?
She says, it's in the mud.
So he reaches down and fiddles around.
He says, now Elsie, is it in you or is it in the mud?
She says, it's in me.
He says, put it back in the mud.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this.
I finally got to tell a joke to McCartney.
Do you know?
Did you guys know about this?
No.
Yeah.
For years, I've been screaming that because Noel Redding from the...
Marvin McCartney. Noel Redding from the Marvin McCartney.
Noel Redding from the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the bass player, used to come on the show.
And he was always fun because he'd tell the stories of how many drugs they did and everything.
And after the show, he'd say, oh, we had such a marvelous time.
You know, last night, me and the wife and Paul and Linda were out.
We went out to dinner and he told dirty jokes for hours.
I'm like, invite me, man,
because I tell him jokes I could tell you, you know.
And I said, I know McCartney would love me
because, not for me,
but he'd love me because he'd know
I'm a source of good jokes.
So I argued with Howard for years.
No, McCartney would think you're a jerk.
You're out of your mind.
I'm like, you don't understand.
There's a bond between joke tells,
like hockey players, you know.
It's a symbiotic thing.
And so they'd always make fun of me.
And then I'd leave the show, and two months later, McCartney comes on the show.
So the whole world knows that I've always wanted to do this.
So we went to a screening of The Big Short, which is an incredible movie.
And it was pretty hoity-toity, like I shouldn't have been there type thing.
You know, like Tina Fey, Lorne Michaels, that kind of gang, you know, and it was really nice.
And I'm standing with my new girlfriend and she says, look at that.
And it's at MoMA.
And down the stairs, here comes McCartney and Nancy Chevelle, Chevelle, his wife.
And she goes, you should tell him a joke. And I said, listen, there's not a person in this cocktail party who doesn't think they got a perfectly good reason to go up to a Beatle and say, I got to tell you, this is so important because I was in fifth grade.
But, you know, that's why he can go out in New York because nobody's going to do that to him.
Right.
So what am I going to do?
He circles around and he comes walking like almost bangs noses with me so close.
He just comes walking right. His wife goes past me and then he just comes walking right his wife goes past me
and then he's right in front and i'm you know god strike me i just stopped him so gently i said can
i tell you a joke and he goes sure and i told him a joke and he laughed out loud and went on and you
know he didn't say well let me tell you one mate but i'm sure you heard this joke but the guy the
guy goes for a job interview and the interview says, what do you think is your biggest fault?
And the guy says, I think my biggest fault is my honesty.
And the interviewer says, I don't think honesty is a fault.
The guy says, I don't give a fuck what you think.
I love that joke.
That's great.
Which is a great joke.
And he laughed.
And I said to Barbara, I said, I bet you walked away.
You know, somebody tells you a new joke, you tell it to yourself real quick or you go tell it to somebody to put it in your head, you know.
Is there a Jackie Mason story too?
You said you had a Jackie Mason story.
Have you seen him?
I saw him the other day and I almost didn't know it was him because his lips are so big from collagen.
And his hair is now that Pat Cooper color.
Well, that orange.
Or worse.
Bright orange.
And he's teeny.
He's shrinking like crazy.
And he's still so angry and so nuts.
But he's so great.
But a million years ago, I had put out a couple albums.
And he knew I made albums.
And you make albums?
I want to make an album.
We're at the Eastside.
He was drummed out of show business for like 20 years.
Oh, yeah. Because the Ed Sullivan thing.
And Richie Minervini ran into him in Florida and said, I'm opening a club.
Will you come up and do the opening week?
And he came up and did the opening week.
And each of us got to take turns, you know, doing two minutes and introducing him.
It was pretty exciting because he couldn't, you know, Ed Sullivan had such tentacles.
Oh, my.
That like if you hire Gilbert and I don't like Gilbert, that poisons everybody.
You know, it was like fruit of the poison tree.
It's like the story for people who don't know it.
It's like someone gave, like, a finger move to Mason to wrap up.
Like one more minute or something like that.
And then Mason started making fun, like, oh, he gives me the finger finger here and then he points this way and he's pointing that.
And he never gave them anything.
Why would he do anything so crazy?
That's how he reacts.
It's like, yeah, you point to there.
Right.
And yeah.
And Ed Sullivan, who owned show business then, got mad and nobody would hire Mason after that.
Forever.
Forever.
So Richie runs into the guy and, you know, so he comes up and he says, we got this bright
idea that Carter was running, you know, it was, so we're going to do an album called
Election 80.
And we're going to tape, I'm going to tape his album, him like I tape my albums at the Eastside Comedy Club.
And just like his Broadway shows, he's going to do his act.
You're throwing a Carter joke, throw it, you know, a little politics here and an Admiral joke here.
But it's going to be his act, which is what he does.
So we're going to record it.
So we're going to get together and see if we can come up with some some ideas for this album.
And like I'm brand new.
I mean, I'm around for a year.
You know, so we're at Jackie Mason's apartment on Park Avenue.
This is, whoa, look at us.
This is me and Barry Mitchell.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, I remember Barry.
Barry Mitchell and me and Minervini.
It might have been one other person.
And we go to Mason's apartment, and he's sitting in the chair,
and we're kind of sitting on the floor, and we're pitching ideas, you know.
And it was so cool. It was, you know, we're on the second floor of whatever Park Avenue.
And so I had an idea and I said it and he said, you just thought of that? I said, yeah,
that just come out of your head. I said, yeah, I just thought that's a great idea. That's an
unbelief. You, you, my friend, are a genius.
What a great idea.
Did you hear this idea?
Such an idea.
You're a genius.
And I'm sitting there like, Jackie Mason's an icon.
He's calling me a genius.
Like, maybe I have a place in this business.
You know, whatever goes through your head.
Like, it felt really good.
I'm like, well, look at me.
What do you say, you guys?
Let's go to the deli.
We're going to sandwich.
We'll sit down and have a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
We get in the elevator.
It's an old elevator with the lattice.
He opens up and the elevator operator opens it.
And we get in and the elevator operator closes the lattice.
We go down to the first floor and he opens up the lattice and Mason turns to the elevator operator and says,
You?
You just brought us down here from up there.
You, my friend, are a genius.
That's a great story.
And my dick went limp and now it's...
I love that.
Boy, Sullivan was a vindictive guy, wasn't he?
Oh, yeah. Who was the bigger prick, him or, wasn't he? Oh, yeah.
Who was the bigger prick, him or Arthur Godfrey?
Oh, well, that's a pretty tough call.
Yeah.
Arthur Godfrey, I know, it's famous for being, like, the most vicious anti-Semite in the world.
And he was also a lech, which nobody could believe because he looked so – he looked like, you know –
Yeah, because he was – I hate those Jews.
Oh, Hitler had the right idea.
What about some of the other people that came through, Jack?
You know what?
I got to tell you something.
Go ahead.
And you would not believe this.
Go ahead.
I have a friend.
Like I said, I answer every letter I ever got.
And I got a nice letter from a guy.
I think he was 75 at the time.
He's like 80.
No, he just hit 90.
His name's Frankie Pirelli.
And he's a Runyon-esque.
You would love this.
He was partners with Shecky Green in a nightclub in New Orleans
called the Wits End until they found
a dead body in the green room.
He managed Hunt's Hall.
He managed the Midget Orchestra.
He managed a woman's orchestra.
He was in a two-man group called
Aldo and Ray
or
something.
And his best friend growing up was Lenny Bruce.
You know, he was part of that gang.
He's got pictures of Lenny Bruce.
And I mean, and he's a character.
And he still sent him these ideas for scripts.
He's 90.
You know, he's just wonderful.
He was in the Wedding Crashers.
And he called me up one day.
Oh, I just spent 200 bucks on color pictures.
They're going to put me in this movie, Wedding Crashers.
And at the time, that didn't mean anything.
I think I was somebody who's making a $2 movie.
And what he was when they were going to the different weddings,
one of the weddings they went to was an Italian wedding.
And he was one of the guys sitting at the table at the Italian wedding.
So he's such a character.
And now I have absolutely
no idea what we're talking about.
He wrote you and
you answer all your mail.
What's his name again?ie pirelli frankie
pirelli it'll come to you no but what we what we were on a subject i was going to ask you about
some of the other people that came through oh we were talking about jackie mason sullivan and then
arthur godfrey this is like it's so funny because you were just talking about going into a room and
not no you know this guy i like where you were going he wrote a room and not knowing what. This guy wrote a story, and I'll email you the story.
He wrote a story called, I Saw Milton Berle's Cock.
You don't know how many times we've mentioned Milton Berle's cock.
This guy, he was friends with the guy Wim Westerstein or Wes Westerman,
whatever the guy was that managed Jackie Gleason and a lot of guys in the late
forties.
And I guess Milton Berle's wife had just taken off with that band leader,
Artie Shaw.
And so Milton was all depressed and he says,
I got to go see Milton Berle.
You want to go see Milton Berle?
And he goes,
I'd love to.
So they go up to Milton Berle's hotel room and he said,
he's a kid.
And Milton,
he said, Milton Berle was sitting there on the bed with an open bathrobe,
with his glasses on, reading the race form with a huge heart on,
and choking the heart on.
And as he walks in, it's like, Jesus Christ.
And he said that his father loved Milton Berle so much.
He used to say, I love it.
I love Milton Berle.
He's so funny.
He walks out.
He's just a walker funny.
He don't want to say nothing on my left.
He walks a funny, walks a funny.
So Frankie goes over and says, hey, I met Milton Berle, Dad.
You wouldn't believe.
He's got a dick two feet long.
And his father said, hey, no wonder he's a walker funny.
feet long and his father said, hey, in the wonder he's a walk of funny.
But Frankie, what was the story?
It was a great story about Frankie.
It'll come to you.
Oh, shit.
But tell us about some of the other people that came through at Howard, like Tiny Tim and your buddy Pat Cooper.
You know, I did something for a couple weeks, maybe more than a couple weeks with Steve
Grillo, who was an intern. I just had lunch with him today. Such a great guy. And I got this bright
idea and I would write lines about whoever's sitting there. And what I would do is I'd take
the best line that I had given to Howard to say about whatever the guest was and have Grillo take
it and say, here, Jackie would like you to sign this form and feel free to write something funny, which went on for a couple of weeks
until when Howard got wind of it, he went nuts.
Now, meanwhile, if somebody walks in that room, it walks in that building, there's a
just like this.
There's a camera right up his nose every second.
And all of a sudden he's on me like, how could you be so imposing on the guest says to make
them sign that, you know, and ask them to write
something.
But I have an eclectic group of like 100 or 120.
You couldn't make up this eclectic group if you tried.
You know, Barbra Streisand's sister, Adam West, Geraldo Rivera, Joey, not Joey, but
the guy whose dick got cut off.
Oh, Bobbitt.
Bobbitt, Tiny Tim, you know, Roger Daltrey.
And they all wrote funny stuff, but I got a couple signed by Tiny Tim.
And I remember one of the lines was, in honor of the last time Tiny was here, he's wearing the exact same thing today.
Meanwhile, he had had it on for two years.
And you ever meet him? He was the real deal. I never two years. You ever meet him?
He was the real deal.
I never met him.
Did you meet him, Gil?
Yeah.
That was the guy.
That was not like, well, the mics are off.
How are you doing, Gilbert?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, no.
That was him.
Thank you, Mr. Jackie.
Thank you, Mr. Jackie.
You know, I talk to you.
I remember him singing Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS this year on the Howard show with a uke.
You know what? Some of the things
that happened was so great
and
you never knew and we were on the air one day
and Sam Kinison
came bursting through the door
at 6 o'clock in the morning
with Pat McCormick,
Chuck McCann, and Jack Riley
from the New Heart Show.
They had just been out the night before in Los Angeles.
He said, come on, you guys, let's get my plan.
Let's go do the Stern Show.
Drunk and stoned and coke, whatever they were doing.
And the four of them just, it was like fucking Mount Rushmore.
I'm looking at this and me and Fred like, hama, hama.
And they're worthless, drunk, stupid.
But, you know, I think it was lost on Howard and them.
But, you know, that's Chuck McCann.
You know, that's Channel 5 or whatever.
We had him on this show.
Yeah.
We had Chuck.
He was great.
Yeah.
McCormick, I mean, they were all so.
But that kind of stuff, you couldn't invent that, you know.
Really fun stuff.
And I remember Jack Riley started getting work again.
He's still around.
Yeah.
Is that right?
Oh, he's around, yeah.
Now, that guy's got to be nice.
We got to get him on.
Well, what's the rush?
That's what you said about Jack Carter.
Oh, that's so great. Push it back another week. He turned up in Boogie Nights. Carter.
Push it back another week.
He turned up in Boogie Nights, Jack Riley and Magnolia. Jack Riley started getting work on The Tonight Show and sketches.
Yes.
Because he looked like that guy who was the head of the Hale-Bopp Comet cult.
Yeah. Like, what was that? What Hale-Bopp Comet cult.
Yeah.
Like, what was that?
What a reference.
The Doomsday Cult.
Yeah, the Doomsday Cult.
The guy who was the head of it, the Charles Manson of that group, looked just like Jack Riley.
You know, some people get lucky, you know.
Jack Riley.
We've told Pat McCormick stories on this show, too.
I think Paul Reiser looked like one of the Menendez brothers, but he never kissed.
Did you know a guy named Mark Senter?
Oh, yes.
Yes.
Mark Senter.
He committed suicide, you know, decades ago.
But he was funny and all the comics loved him, but he never made the audience laugh.
But we loved him because he just was smart and way off beat like crazy.
And I would like book him at Governor's or something.
And they'd say, don't bring that guy back here.
So I'd have to wait until they'd forgotten who he was and then book him.
And then they go, wait a minute.
Is that that guy?
You know, because I love the guy and I try and help him.
And nobody would hire him.
I was the only guy.
I put him at the brokerage or if I had to show out in Long Island because I wasn't the same owner.
So I tried to help him, but he just was not making it. And one day I walked into the comic strip, and I said, how are you doing, Mark?
He said, I just got a job as a department store Santa Claus.
He said, it's nice to have something steady.
Tony, you mentioned the brokerage, and I think of Otto and George, who I loved.
I was just talking to somebody about him last night.
What a great act.
He had a talk show.
Otto and George? Otto He had a talk show. Otto and Jordan.
Otto Peterson had a talk show.
And, you know, I was talking to a guy.
I was talking to Al Dukes on his podcast.
And he said how much he loved it when Conan came in and the Jackie Puppet attacked him.
And I said, yeah, because you can't win against a puppet.
And I said, check the timeline. I think the Jackie Puppet begat the insult dog. Oh, possible. Because Conan or Smigel, somebody said, wait a puppet. And I said, check the timeline. I think the Jackie puppet begat the insult dog.
Oh, possible.
Because Conan or Smigel, somebody said, wait a minute, because if it's a puppet insulting you, because Conan was fighting with the puppet and you look like a moron.
And his Otto's being Johnny Carson and he's interviewing you.
But the dummy's interviewing you.
So if you talk to Otto Otto you look like an idiot
but then you're talking to a dummy
there was a story about a heckler
supposedly getting up and punching the puppet
stabbing him
stabbing the puppet
and cutting Otto's hand
I never found out if that was true
now I heard with Otto and George
well that was George who was the ventriloquist
no Otto was the ventriloquist
George was the dummy
that Otto he had a major drug problem That was George who was the ventriloquist. No, Otto was the ventriloquist. George was the dummy.
That Otto, he had a major drug problem.
And one time in someone's backyard, this other guy had drugs,
and Otto desperately wanted it.
So the guy was saying, and they had like a barbecue going,
and he goes, all right, you want some?
First, throw your shirt in there.
And then now take your pants off and put them in the fire.
And he was sitting there totally naked.
Because this guy, his shoes, underwear that's a terrible story but it absolutely could
be true funniest he used to get so high and he'd screw up his act and he'd be so high and the dummy
he was so fucking brilliant unbelievably dummy would yell at him. You fucking idiot.
Look how fucking high you are.
You can't even do this act.
You can't even remember.
The dummy would say, every time you talk, the show sucks.
And for years, the dummy's mouth got stuck.
But he was a drug addict.
And he was so high, he couldn't get it together.
So he'd be using the dummy.
And the dummy's mouth would get stuck open, and he'd have to reach over.
It was part of his act. You remember the JFK bit where he rigged the dummy's head to come apart and the hair to come off?
It was a flap.
It was a flap.
So here's my impression of 1963 Dallas, Texas.
Boom.
And he'd go like that.
And the flap would flap back and it was bright red.
It was the funniest act I ever saw in my life.
Oh, my God.
People like they couldn't believe it.
Yeah.
You know, like I still can't believe it.
Yeah.
I mean, thank God you said that because I never could find it.
He was an absolute genius.
Yeah.
I mean, thank God you said that because I never could find him and I couldn't remember that. Rest his soul.
He was an absolute genius.
And I remember with Mark Senter, I think, he just parked himself in a garage one day.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And that was that.
All I remember about him is him standing on stage and he'd pull on the mic cable and he'd go,
when I yank on this cable, a comedian in China falls down.
It's just so stupid. like yeah can we ask you about the jackie puppet since you brought it up because we had
billy on the show and i've heard billy say and it's interesting how it was surreal to stand over
you and mock you with lines that you yourself had written it was it was so much fun and the great i
there's got to be footage of what
actually was going on because howard was there and me and fred are here and billy was behind me
so there was no way to get a line to howard and okay you're like when we had the guy on that you
see the engineer that was oh yeah yeah he's standing and i passed the lines to howard because
he wanted to touch everything i handed to how to Howard and then he handed it to Steve.
The guy was so slow that it slowed it up
even more, which worked.
Billy's behind us.
Billy, he's an actor.
He's a voiceover guy. What it says
on the page, he's going to read.
You had to be careful what the hell you wrote
because he's going to say it. If you wrote
cunt, he's saying cunt.
You know what I mean?
We would just line up the papers behind me,
and there'd be like eight or ten,
and he'd just boom, boom, boom, boom.
And it was just brutal and crazy.
He's a funny man.
I would just say it was beyond crazy.
Now, you said that they also once made a Robin puppet.
I don't know. Well, there was a Robin puppet. I don't
know.
Well, there was a Gary puppet. Oh, yeah.
Well, you know, it's pretty interesting.
The Jackie puppet story is pretty good.
It seems to me maybe there was
a Robin puppet, but I think it was
over, over, over the top
racist or something. I don't know if you know
when Ralph made
a dummy of Clarence Thomas
for the Channel 9
show and
Clarence Thomas was smoking pot
and when he took, we had it rigged up
with a wire so when he took it to sip a pot
his afro went like
three feet in the air.
But he had lips that were literally the size
of two Coca-Cola cans.
And it was just way over the top.
But the Jackie puppet, I pulled into my driveway one day.
And my friend Billy Bourne was sitting there and another guy.
And between them was this little Jackie with a joint in his mouth and a little tiny Budweiser can.
And I said, what the hell is that?
He said, well, you know, Tom figured there's a Gary puppet.
There should be a Jackie puppet. And I'm like, that is that? He said, well, you know, Tom figured there's a Gary puppet. There should be a Jackie puppet.
And I'm like, that's crazy.
He goes, yeah, it's a doll.
It works.
And he pulls the thing and the mouth worked.
I'm like, that's great.
And he said, you think you could take it in?
And I said, you know what?
Truth be told, if I take that in and say, look at this, Howard's going to go,
here's Jackie promoting Jackie again.
Here you go.
Look at me.
And it would have been thrown in the garbage.
That would have been it.
I said, what you got to do is you guys take it in on the premise that it's to break my balls.
Right?
I said, you got a nice girlfriend?
And Tom says, I have a wife.
You know, my wife Amy is really beautiful.
And I'm like, what you guys got to do is come into the show with the puppet and say, look what we got.
A couple of days later, it's like I wrote the script.
I'm sitting there and Gary comes in and says, hey, how's the guy in the lobby got a puppet?
Looks a lot like Jackie.
And he's got a pretty hot wife with him.
And I was to bring him in.
And the guy brings it in and starts operating it. And now it's when the girl and everybody's taking a turn with the thing, and I'm like,
oh man, get rid of that thing, you know, don't throw me in the
briar patch, you know what I'm talking about?
And that was,
from there on, it went crazy.
And then once Billy got a hold of it, it was
crazy, you know, so.
That was so fun, and I still say
to this day, if I had taken it in, it wouldn't have
seen the light of day. It was great.
It's truly funny.
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Speaking of the WOR show, you remember the Channel 9 show?
Oh, yeah.
I was on there.
I remember I was on there as, you know, Gilbert Dice Gottfried.
Oh, yeah.
Let's hear a little of Gilbert Dice
Godfrey, now that you brought it up.
I was
talking to this girl
and I didn't know
what to do.
Hey, what are you, pal?
A homo?
You ever liked to get
I got through doing this brood.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a big...
A homo and Jill go up the hill.
The homo turns to Jill.
He goes,
Jill go,
I remember it well.
So great.
Not a dirty word.
Oh, God, that's brilliant.
We had so much fun on that show.
It was insane.
And we're doing that show in addition to the radio show.
I gave up on the idea for the E! show because we were so fried from doing the radio show.
And then we had to have an hour TV show by Friday night recorded.
And it was like my favorite year, that movie my favorite year.
We were crazed.
And one day I said, you know, what are we doing?
Why are we going over there?
We got Howard's there.
Fred's there.
I'm here.
Robin's over there.
There's more than – Gary's in and out.
We got guests.
There's more than enough show here for anything.
And they all made fun of me.
Oh, Jackie's lazy.
He didn't want to go to Secaucus.
And then a month later, Howard got this great idea.
Why don't we put cameras in the studio?
The WOR show had some funny shit on it.
And I remember
to do that
dice bit
Howard brought in
one of his old leather jackets.
Nice. So that fit
me like wearing an apartment.
I can kind of see it.
I love that.
I can almost see it.
You're all dressed.
All that stuff's on the internet.
Did you write a lot of the Stuttering John interview questions?
I mean, they were gold.
Me and Fred wrote all the Stuttering John.
It's like Lennon-McCartney.
Me and Fred went together and we wrote all the song parodies and all the questions. of questions, but there's some, you know, I wrote when he, poor stuff, when he interviewed
the Dalai Lama and he said, people come up and say, say hello, Dali.
Do you remember the Ted Williams one?
He was at the autograph show.
And that was my finest hour because Ted Williams, do you remember?
He made him repeat it.
Because he couldn't hear.
He couldn't hear.
It was hard of hearing.
He said, did you ever accidentally fart in the catcher's face?
What was that?
What was that?
Did you ever accidentally fart in the catcher's face?
Who the hell are you?
Get out of here.
I can see it.
But first he asked him who got hit in the chin with more balls,
Yogi Berra or Rock Hudson.
You know, my finest hour was the Ringo thing.
Do you know the Ringo thing?
I don't remember the Ringo thing.
Ringo was the first Beatle to go on the road.
He's doing the all-star tour.
So this was a big deal.
And he had like Leslie West and Todd Ray, whoever he had.
He had the greatest players in the world.
And he was doing a press conference to announce it.
And there were literally – it was a worldwide live press conference.
There were a billion – literally a billion people listening.
And we sent Stuttering John and John got off a question.
And it was so goofy, the oldest joke in the book.
And Ringo said the perfect straight line.
Yeah.
You know, they pick on John.
We're listening live.
And we're like, oh, so they say, you stutter.
You know, John Melendez and me and Frederick were like cringing.
He's live with a beetle, you know, like, you know, child of the 60.
Right. like cringing. He's live with a Beatle, you know, like, you know, child of the 60, right?
And he goes, Ringo, what'd you do with the money?
And Ringo said, what money?
He said, the money your mom gave you for singing lessons.
Live, a billion people. And I'm like, oh, my God.
That was classic. Live, a billion people. I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, you.
That was classic.
That was classic.
Wowee.
Before we wrap up, Gil, do you want to ask Jackie about the legendary Joe Ansis?
You know that name?
Did you know that guy?
Yeah, yeah.
And he used to hang out.
Well, he was like the guy who was like a non-comic who all the comics back there looked up to.
Well, that guy, Frank Iparelli, I was talking about.
He was friends with Lenny Bruce and Rodney and Buddy Hackett.
And Joe Ansys was the funny guy in the group that didn't have the balls to get up. But he was the guy that sat in the back of Dangerfield.
And when I was on the road with Dangerfield for a couple of weeks, I got to do the Joe Ansis line.
You know, the Joe Ansis line where Rodney at some point in his act, you know, Joe Ansis has yelled,
So what do you do for a living?
And Rodney said, I get guys for your sister.
And we were in Las Vegas.
I'd yell it out and everybody would look at me like because they think you're a heckler, you know.
But Joe Ansis was so funny.
He was so nice.
And he really liked me because we hung out a few times and I really laughed.
And Rodney and Joe Ansis used to stand outside Rodney's apartment with the door cracked and watch Rodney's Jamaican housekeeper watch the game shows.
Because she didn't know anybody's there.
And she used to scream and yell and dance.
And that was their form of entertainment.
I mean, those are freaks.
So I'm putting out my third album.
And somebody tells me this quote,
normal people are people you don't know that well, which is just astute.
It's brilliant because you start talking to anybody, everybody's a fucking idiot.
You know, the greatest family in the world and they're beating each other behind closed doors.
So I'm going to name my album that.
And all of a sudden there's a People magazine article and it's Rodney in the blue bathrobe.
The whole thing is really nice and quotes from Robert Klein.
And the last paragraph, it says, well, it's like Joe Ancest always said, you know, the only normal people are people you don't know that well.
I'm like, oh, motherfucker.
I thought this was just a line floating around.
So I wrote Joe Ansis a postcard and said, Joe, it's Jackie.
I'm just about to put out my third album.
And I named it Normal People, People You Don't Know That Well.
And then I saw on the People magazine, that's your quote.
It's the original quote.
And if it is, is it okay with you if I use it?
Or else you can just tell me to go fuck myself.
And Joe, I still have the postcard.
He wrote back, yes, it's the original quote.
Yes, you can use it.
And go fuck yourself anyway.
Is he gone gone Jack?
I think he died long before Rodney he was a very tall
you know he was
talk about Damon Runyon-esque
I was with Rodney
two weeks and he still
there's still things that come to me
you know it's so funny
it happened at the Friars Club.
He, uh, he called me up one day.
He says, you got to tell me, I need a, I need a call.
You know, I need a judgment call.
He says, tell me if this is too strong.
He says, I got, I got no respect.
You know, I got a parrot calls me Jew bastard.
I said, I don't know if it's too strong.
It's the funniest thing I ever heard.
So I'm telling that story in the Friars Club to somebody and Dick Capri. Yeah. And I said, I don't know if it's too strong. It's the funniest thing I ever heard.
So I'm telling that story in the Friars Club to somebody.
And Dick Capri stands up, leans over and says,
Marlon, because I said, to tell you the truth,
and then we lost track, so I don't even know if it made it into his act.
He goes, Capri goes, that not only made it into his act,
that was the signal joke.
If Rodney was on stage doing his act, when he decided he was getting off stage,
if he did that joke, that meant he only had a few jokes to go.
So if you were in his dressing room getting a blowjob,
it was time to get out of the dressing room.
And I'm like, whoa.
And the people I'm with, I said, look, he just walked over.
You can't make this up.
You can't make this up.
Oh, God.
You knew Joe Ansis, Gil?
You'd met him?
I had never spoken to Joe.
I just remember Rodney, he would stop into catch with Joe Ansis, Gil? You'd met him? I had never spoken to Joe. I just remember Rodney, he would stop into catch with Joe Ansis.
Right, right, right.
Yeah.
And Joe would tell him how the jokes went.
Yeah.
He's kind of a legend.
I mean, this guy that inspired Will Jordan and Buddy Hackett and all these people, but he never got on stage himself.
You unlocked the key!
I mean, that was the key.
You just did it.
What was that? Before we get out of here, you reminded me of that was the key. You just did it. What was that?
Before we get out of here, you reminded me of what was going on.
Ah, good.
Frankie was friends with Rodney and Lenny Bruce and all those guys,
and they all loved Joe, you know,
and they all tried to get him to go on stage.
And this, I wasn't obviously part of this.
You heard from people.
But Frankie was best friends with Will Jordan.
It turns out Will Jordan
comes from a lot of money.
So he did show business because he loved it.
He lives above a dally on 45th Street.
Will Jordan, we got to get him.
Have you guys ever had Woody Woodbury?
No, we got to get him too.
He's so funny and I'm still
in touch with him. We used to steal jokes
from each other in 1979. I can't
believe he's still alive. He had
Who Do You Trust before Carson.
Oh, wow. I mean, he
whoa, way back. And you better
get him tomorrow.
I remember seeing
a movie late at
night on some cable station.
A beach movie. Yeah.
Woody Woodbury and Ellen
Burstyn. Right. And all the kids and all the kids are running around like spring break or something. So at any rate, these guys are all friends. And Frankie says, you got to look up. You got to look up Will Jordan. He's great. Now I'm friends with Frankie. And at the time, I'm making a real lot of money or a real lot of money for me. And I love this guy, Frankie. He said, and he was hanging out with Jackie Gale.
or a real lot of money for me.
And I love this guy, Frankie.
And he was hanging out with Jackie Gale.
And I sent Frankie a couple hundred bucks and said,
go out to dinner with Jackie Gale and tell him I'm his biggest fan,
that fucking Bonanza thing in Tin Man.
That's enough.
And he was so thrilled because he had no money.
They're going out and they're toasting me.
And I never met Jackie Gale, but I'm buying him dinner.
So I look up Will Jordan and me and my friend David Friedman,
who owns Magno Sound,
and Will Jordan, we go to the Friars Club.
And you have him on,
you're going to be freaked out.
He ordered just shrimp cocktail and me and David got a full dinner.
And in the course of an hour and a half,
Will ate probably two of the shrimps
most of them were on his front where it fell out of his mouth and he went it was like one sentence
but he'd start a story and leave it off and start this story and then start this story but he'd
circle back and get this one and he talked about the mechanics of what he did now he was the first
guy to do ed sullivan oh yeah yeah and when anybody else did ed sullivan ed sullivan didn't do any of the shit
that will did they were doing an impression of him yeah but he went on but every story he started he
circled around and finished it and it was it was and you know what i never saw him i thought it
would like once in a while i'd call him on the phone and i never wound up seeing him again he's
still alive, though.
And we've threatened to get together a few times.
But he calls me up one day.
He says, they put it out.
They put out the Ed Sullivan biography.
And, you know, and I'm on a couple of pages, you know.
And Will's my friend.
So I'm going to buy this horrible Ed Sullivan biography.
You got to read it.
I'm reading this going, I can't believe how it's it's fucking
fascinating the guy wanted to be a famous actor everything you it's completely flip-flopped
anything you anything you ever thought of that guy he just had to give up but he wanted to be
show business guy and everything like that and so and he'll tell you the story we'll we'll he'll tell you the story. He'll flabbergast you. We got to get him.
I know, like, everybody who imitated, because for a while, everyone did an Ed Sullivan.
And they were all imitating Will Jordan.
And he never, you know what he did? Really big shoes.
When I met him, what he was doing, he was working corporate gigs.
You know how the people have speakers like...
Oh, he would do General Patton.
General Patton.
Motivational speeches as General Patton.
That's right.
Yeah, George C. Scott.
I can't make that shit up, you know?
He did a great James Mason, too.
Oh, yeah.
He'll talk to you about the mechanics of doing James...
The mechanics of it.
Doesn't in Broadway, Danny Rose.
And he was... it's so funny, like with imitations, that's another form of stealing.
Because everyone who ever did Carson was doing Rich Little's Carson.
Everyone who did Nixon did David Fry's Nixon.
Because they pulled out the essences.
Yeah.
You know, talk about impressions.
Like Fred always did impressions.
And when Fred got an impression down really well, you know, Howard would make it his own.
But he'd be so funny.
One of the funniest things Howard ever said, you know, we had so many moles everywhere.
And a guy called up and he said, I'm driving Sammy Davis Jr.
And I got his hotel room number.
So we're like, what are we going to do? And so'm driving Sammy Davis Jr. and I got his hotel room number. So we're like, what are we going to do?
So Howard calls Sammy Davis Jr.
The only guy who has the number
is the limo guy. And Sammy gets
out of the bathtub
and answers the phone. I'm sure they replay it on the show
all the time. Sammy,
this is Howard Stern. He goes,
what? No preamble, man?
I mean, he didn't know he was
calling or anything like that.
And in a stroke of brilliance, you could almost see the light bulb going on over his head.
And I wish I had a thought or a friend.
He goes, Sammy, have you heard?
He's doing a Sammy Davidson impression. He says, Billy Crystal's been doing us.
That was fucking brilliant.
That's great.
Just brilliant. And the other thing, Ted Kennedy was always in the news. and it was fucking brilliant just brilliant
and the other thing
Ted Kennedy was always in the news
and Joan was in the news
because she was drunk all the time and getting in actions
and all of a sudden Robin would do something about Joan
and Howard started doing Ted
and he'd go era, era
and the timing was
because he would go on, era
and people were like wow, his timing.
It was nothing to do with timing.
He's going, era, until me and Fred think of something to write down to give him to say.
And then we put it up, and he's, era, era, era, era.
You know, just hysterical.
I know I went too long here.
Good stuff.
Now, here's something I guess everyone wants to know.
What caused you leaving Howard?
I wanted more money.
Yeah.
I wanted more money.
They were making so much money.
And, well, you're a comic.
Yeah.
If I call you up and say, do you want to work in Alaska?
You don't say no.
You say, for $200,000.
Yeah.
And then they say, what are you, out of your mind?
And you didn't say no to the gig.
If they said $200,000, you're going to go.
Yeah. So I said, you know, I couldn't walk away If they said $200,000, you're going to go. Yeah.
So I said, you know, I couldn't walk away from that job that was so great.
But I was so fried.
I knew I had to get divorced.
There was no – there was so many links in the chain.
And I drew a line in the sand in my head that I wanted.
And they just wouldn't negotiate with me.
And after two months of not – you know, they went back and forth twice.
They moved the
needle a teeny bit and then you know we weren't even that far apart but they just wouldn't play
ball and then two months later i just i was there 18 years jack three years for free yeah one day a
week for free for three years and then you know the worst thing about the whole thing is after a
couple months i felt really shitty because i used to brag that, you know, this morning I went to work and it was me and Fred and Howard and Robin.
That's who was there the day I walked in.
And that's who was there this morning because – and no show lasts like that, you know.
And then I screwed it up and I'm like – and it wasn't like I miss being famous or I miss the money.
It was only two months later.
I'm still flying.
I said, call him up and tell him if the job is still available.
I'll come back.
So my lawyer called Tom Chisano and said,
Jack, he said, I'll take the offer that's on the table.
This is two months later.
And I called Howard and said, listen, my lawyer called Tom.
He told him if the offer is still there, you know, I'll come back. And Howard said, that's good to know.
We'll get back to you.
And Tom told Larry, my lawyer, we'll get back to you either way.
Still waiting for the call.
Wow.
Not a call back.
I guess I deserved it on some level, but it's American as apple pie.
I'm making $10 an hour.
Boss, I want $13 an hour.
We don't want to pay that.
All right, i'm leaving it's that and it's one of these things like you know people are
saying you know god what an idiot jackie is because he uh said and i i was always thinking like well
if they had said yes would you have been an idiot know, that you would have gotten more money.
Right.
That you wanted.
And I was so, I really was.
You get up at 4.30 in the morning for 15 years.
I mean, you did the show enough times.
You know, it's just, it's your life.
And I couldn't go to sleep.
You know, I couldn't get in bed at 7.30 and go to sleep.
You know, lawn order's on at 10 o'clock and we're watching it.
And then all of a sudden they tease the news.
Like, you know, there wasn't a night
that I didn't go, one, two, three,
all right, I'm going to get four and a half hours.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Because I was the idiot.
You know, I couldn't come home and take a nap.
You know what the greatest thing is?
If I had got it together
to come home from work and take a nap,
I'd still be there
because I would have been plenty rested up,
but I couldn't make myself take a nap.
And now I'm 67 years old, and all I want to do is take a nap.
I wake up in the morning, and the first thing I think is,
when can I lie down?
So they came back and got me, Frankie.
I love it, Jack. They came back and got me, Frankie. I love it, Jack.
He came back and got me.
I always touched when I heard you say you missed the laughter, that you laughed every day.
It's an unnatural thing for four or five people to sit in a room and roar for five hours, and that's what you miss.
Not money, not fame, not nothing, but that, you know, it's like if I go into a bar and I'm telling jokes.
You know, you do a show for 500 people and you kill them.
That's great.
But if I'm telling jokes to five guys at the bar and I bury them, that's as big a high as working to 800.
You know, when you get a laugh, it's just fucking.
When I make you laugh, you know, that's everything to me.
Like the other night, I was in such a good mood when we did the show because I told him a horrible Hitler joke and he just loved it.
So fun.
Good stuff.
Because it's funny.
I remember those days of Howard Stern where it seems like so long ago.
But it was like I come in in the morning and I'd be like half asleep and I didn't feel like talking.
And then when, you know, like two minutes into it, you were out of your mind.
You didn't know what you were saying and you were just laughing.
But then you walk out.
Oh, yeah.
And you crash.
Yeah.
Okay.
I just want to tell people I have a Twitter.
Yeah.
Yes.
Every day at 4.20 p.m.
Marijuana time, I tweet a joke at Jackie Martling.
Some jokes are better than others, obviously, but it's 140 characters.
It's fun.
And I'm doing Vegas Laughs 2016 on April 23rd with Dane Cook
and Dave Attell
and Bobby Slayton, who I love,
and Sutter and John. So that's
the only plugs I got.
And you're working on a book, aren't you?
Yeah, you know, I got a literary
agent. She just wrote me
I have an agent, but the
girl who's putting together the proposal just wrote me this
note, like, you know, hang on to your hats.
You're sitting on a bestseller, you know.
But it's not crummy.
I know they're going to say, now you go home and write some dirt.
There isn't dirt.
Everybody knows everything about Howard.
You know, it's about man.
It's about life.
It's about comedians.
And the funny stories.
The funny stories, you know, everybody doesn't like show business stories, but we do.
Yeah.
The funny story, you know, everybody doesn't like show business stories, but we do.
Yeah.
Now, before I wrap up, tell us the most disgusting joke.
My niece and nephew love this joke.
I was so, I almost told you this before.
I'm sure you know it, but I don't care. There's a little old lady standing at the bar,
and a little old guy comes walking in and he sees her.
He goes, can I buy you a drink?
She says, I like that.
He buys her a drink and he drinks her a drink.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Can I buy you another drink?
I like that.
They have a few drinks.
All of a sudden, he's got his arm around her.
He's kind of nuzzling her.
Got his nose in her ear, you know.
Another drink?
Yeah, I like that.
Have a few drinks.
They're getting close.
And, you know, snuggling a little bit.
He says, you want to come back to my place?
She says, I like that.
So they leave, and they're walking along the sidewalk.
And she says, you know, I think I should tell you something.
He says, what's that?
She says, I have arthritis.
He says, well, I care.
We're old.
He says, arthritis doesn't bother me.
He says, yeah, arthritis.
He has arthritis.
He has arthritis.
They get to the guy's house.
They sit on the couch.
They start making out like teenagers.
French kissing, hickeys.
He's got his hand up her back.
He unhooks her bra with one hand like an eighth grader.
Her tits, boom, fall down like that.
Right next thing you know, he's unzipping.
She's feeling his crotch.
She's fingering.
Next thing you know, these two old-timers are on the floor, and they're naked.
And he goes down on her.
And it's horrible.
And he's like,
what the hell's going on down here?
It smells terrible.
She says,
I told you I have arthritis.
He says,
he says, that's what arthritis smells like down arthritis. He says, He says,
Is that what arthritis smells like down here?
She says,
No, I got it in my shoulder.
I can't wipe my ass. Okay.
You got your wish there, Gil.
Yes.
This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast
with my co-host Frank Santopadre here at Nutmeg Post
with Frank Furtarosa helping us out.
Thank you.
And we've had on Jackie the Joke Man Martling.
Thank you, Jackie.
Jack, you're the greatest.
It's as much fun as I've ever had for an hour.
And Gilbert, you're an icon, and I've always loved you to death.
And I'm so flattered to be here.
Thank you.
Thank you, buddy.
And fuck you, Frank.
All right.
We'll do another one.
We'll come back and talk about Parky Karkas.
I got a million.
I never told my midget story. We'll have you back. We'll come back and talk about Park Your Carcass. We got, I got a million. I never told my midget story.
We'll have you back.
We know where to find you.
You know where I am.
I come, somebody cancels, I'm going to get you Woody Woodbury and whoever else.
Yeah, Will Jordan.
Oh, yeah.
And Will Jordan.
Thank you, Jack.
Thanks, guys.
Also, no rice.