Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Sitcom Writers Roundtable Encore with Dave Hackel, John Markus, Bernie Orenstein and Bill Persky

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

GGACP celebrates the birthday (February 5th) of legendary comedy writer Bernie Orenstein with an ENCORE of a roundtable discussion featuring an all-star panel of TV comedy writers, including Dave Hackel (“Wings,” “Becker”), John Markus (“The Cosby Show,” “The Larry Sanders Show”) and Bill Persky (“The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “That Girl”). In this episode, the boys discuss failed pilots, troublesome actors, bad network notes, the versatility of Danny Kaye and the volatility of Buddy Hackett. Also, John writes for Bob Hope, Bill disses Joey Bishop, Bernie shows Bing Crosby the ropes and Dave spends a memorable day with Truman Capote. PLUS: “The Cheap Show”! The Jewish Tom Sawyer! The genius of Sheldon Leonard! Garry Shandling breaks in! Redd Foxx holds out! And Bernie remember the late, great Saul Turteltaub! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Peloton has everything you need to help you get going. Get a head start on summer with Peloton and choose a flexible payment plan that works for you at onepeloton.ca. Hi, I'm Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, and I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. You know, Frank and I, as well as many of our listeners, grew up on classic TV comedy, and we talked for a long time about putting together an all-star panel of accomplished TV comedy writers, and we finally got around to doing it. Dave Hackle is a veteran producer and writer of popular shows such as Wings, Frasier and Dear John, and the creator and showrunner of a program that yours truly appeared in. And what was the best episode of that show? Let's face it, the Ted Danson series Becker.

He also worked with our podcast guests Marvin Kaplan, Brad Garrett, Stephen Weber, and he once spent a very strange day with Truman Capote. Truman Capote. John Marcus, also known as the Jewish Tom Sawyer, is an Emmy-winning producer and writer of programs like Taxi, Lateline, The Larry Sanders Show, and yet another series I improved just by showing up.

The Cosby Show, for which he won an Emmy, a Peabody Award, and a Humanitas Prize. He even wrote jokes for Bob Hope, when he was all of 19 years old. Bob Hope or Marcus? Yeah, when Bob Hope was 19. Oh. Yeah. Bernie. Now, Bernie Ornstein is an acclaimed producer and writer of shows to numerous dimension, but screw it.

Let's mention him anyway. The Hollywood Palace, The Monkees, Love American Style, The New Dick Van Dyke Show, What's Happening, Kate and Ali, Sanford and Son. He's worked with everyone from Roger Miller to Phyllis Diller. And he once gave a singing lesson to the legendary Bing Crosby. And our returning champion, five-time Emmy winner Bill Persky, Five-time Emmy winner Bill Persky is the co-creator of the groundbreaking show That Girl and one of the writers of arguably the best situation comedy ever produced, The Dick Van Dyke Show. He also directed hundreds of hours of television, including 22 pilots. He worked with everyone from Sid Caesar to Orson Welles. And six decades after writing for him, he still hates Joey Bishop.

Welcome to the show, every one of you. Hi, guys. Great to be here. Thank you. Hi. Were some of those things true? Yes, I hate Joey Bishop.

He was mean. You know that there was one Joey Bishop show where he played twins and Gary Marshall was on the show at that time. He was one of the writers. And all week long, Joey was getting nastier and nastier and meaner. And finally, Gary said, what's wrong? And he said, he's funnier than I am.

We've done almost, let's see, we've done almost 325 shows and not one person has said a kind word about Joey Bishop. Isn't that interesting? Bernie, you got an opinion on that? No, I don't. We actually did a show with Joey. He took over Les Crane's night abc show for a few weeks and uh i like them very much oh sure

i do have a great story about him when he was breaking in you and you know when comics were playing the worst places in the world that were really strip clubs and the comic was only there till the girl changed her clothes to take them off. So Joey was working in Steubenville, Ohio. And while he was on, two guys came in and robbed the place. They had and they took everything. And Joey froze and they said, keep talking, kid. You're funny. And so he kept talking and they were robbing and laughing and robbing and laughing.

And then there was nothing less to rob. So they just sat down and listened to him. And at the end, they threw him a watch that they had just stolen from someone else. Wow. Now, John, a story that I've told on this show a few times, and maybe you'd like to tell it. Oh, you're not wasting any time, Gil. No, no.

This is all I want to talk about. And that was, what was one of the things on Bill Cosby's schedule during the day. Are you saying every day or? I think it was every day. I really other than talk to the writers, I'm not sure what you're referring to. OK, this. According to what I was told, he had some time set aside in every day to, as it was titled, teach comedy to Asian models. Well, I can see where history has kind of confirmed that rumor. But I have to correct it.

It's a it's probably it's a myth because I think where that comes from is once we had a tour during one of the hiatus periods that Bill was there of people from Japan. And he took them on a tour of the show. And that's where that came from. Wow, John. That was that was some nice dodging. Yes. Excellent. I'm so sorry if I'm, you know, I hate to like pull any rider on that rumor.

He can't touch you. He's in jail. Tell us the truth. All three of you guys worked with Cosby. Bernie on the new Cosby show, the last one, the one Gilbert was actually on. And Billy, you worked with him way back in the day. Yeah. Yes.

I did a special with him, when he went back to Philadelphia and it was, it was, it was great. And he was, he was great. The only, I mean, when he had success, we flew to Vegas on three Lear jets for a meeting. It was like a Jewish Air Force coming in. And he had cases of Chateau Lafitte. And he would open one, have a drink, and then never come back to it again. He enjoyed his success early on like nobody I've ever seen. Part of the problem. And do you know anything about Asian models? No, I,

let me see. I don't think so. Bernie Gilbert was on that Cosby show. Not, not an episode that you wrote. No, I don't think so. I don't recall that.

What was your experience of the man? He would, uh, he was very difficult in deciding on what to do on this week's show. We had decided what the show would be, and we wrote it. And then he'd come in the night before and say, I think instead of being on a ship, it should be a whole show about me on a horse. You know, Bernie, when you told that story, I just had like some PTSD. Yeah. Well, John was there at the beginning.

Yeah. So we were on that second show. He was a strange guy. He was not easy to get along with. And I didn't enjoy the couple of years, to tell you the truth. Gilbert, do you remember your appearance on the show, on the Cosby show? Oh, yes. That was, say goodbye.

Oh, say hello to a goodbye. That's right. The title. You were really hilarious. And then I really wanted you to come back. And you remember that the I think you gave an interview where you said hilariously, you said, well, I'm going to have a career where there is a black cast and they need a Jew on the show. there's a black cast and they need a Jew on the show. And I think Bill saw the interview and was like,

I don't think he's going to come back. You know, I watched that episode yesterday, John, and I was telling Gilbert, his character's name is Mr. Babcock. And Bill walks over and shakes his hand and says, nice to meet you, Mr. Babbitt. And you guys never retook it. No. He got the character's name wrong. That was improv.

Oh, that was improv. I actually. And Bernie. Yeah. That other Cosby show that I, where he was Lucas. The airline. Hilton Lucas. Hilton Lucas. Yeah. Hilton Lucas.

Yeah. And I, what I noticed about that show, it seemed like every week it was a different type show. We were searching. Yeah. Hey, they say something has school.

Come on. I worked with Cosby one day. You did. Yes. one day. He came to the Becker set to do promos with Ted Danson. And we wrote all the promos and he came over and started talking. And it bore no resemblance at all to anything we'd written that he'd approved. So I went to his producer who came with him and i said i said i've got a little problem

he goes what's the problem i said he's not saying anything that we wrote he goes yeah and i i said i said do you think he will he goes no he's not going to say any so he walked in dancing's looking at me going and he memorized the script so none of the lines were right so the two of them improvised a little scene that i was supposed to cut into a show we'd already shot like three weeks earlier so if you ever watched that show and tried to keep track of the days it was like bill cosby walked in the doctor's office on a monday walked into ted's office on a friday and then walked out again two weeks earlier but i asked john about it he said that's a good day with bill cosby Well, it's like Twilight Zone. I, I, I, you know, he, uh, I'll say like,

listen, I, I got to hear, uh, I guess if we can separate the art from the artist, I got to hear what brilliance came at him and, and it was, it was constant, but, you know, he got bored with material. He wanted to change things. So if we had a really good joke in the script and it killed at the table, he would target that joke because he wanted to make it better for him. And if he was in front of the live audience and he did that joke, he'd come out and he would actually avoid doing the joke first. And if what he tried died, he'd come out and he would actually avoid doing the joke first and if what he tried died he'd go backstage he'd look at what was in the script and he'd come out and he'd do that joke and the audience it was a great trick because the audience thought he made that joke up too yeah it's a great trick i was told that that robin williams used to used to go backwards through the week. They put a joke in every day. And in front of the audience, he'd do six takes, and he'd do a different joke.

He'd just go Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday. He could remember them all. And the audience said, this is the most amazing person in the world. Now, he was, but he didn't write all those jokes on the spot. I wrote them all. I remember on the Van Dyke show when Sheldon Leonard first brought him in and introduced him to all of us and saying, this is going to be the star of my new show.

Cosby, I mean. Yeah, he was the sweetest, gentlest, easiest person in the world. He was thrilled with what had happened to him. And he didn't stick with that, I guess. Sheldon Leonard turned up in a Cosby episode, John. Yes, he did. And and I've never seen Bill treat somebody like royalty like that before because he owed his career to Sheldon. Wow. And when you look at the history of what Sheldon Leonard's done in television, I mean, Bill, you probably knew him, right? Oh, God, yes.

Very well. And he seemed like a great guy. He was a great guy. He was one of the original guys in Hollywood. And he played every gangster in the world, but he also played every Indian. Sheldon was Indians, and you know, Sheldon used to talk like this. And the only time that was different was there was a coffee around called Mocha Java. But when Sheldon said it, said i like that mocha java

he just came the only time i saw him talk from the front of his mouth he was incredible man very sweet very tough he used to sit in a director's chair behind me on in the readings of the Van Dyke show. And I would hear... And I said, oh, this is going to be very difficult. And at the end of the reading, he would say, this is a disaster. But if not for Sheldon, you know, pushing the coming up with the idea of not throwing away all those scripts that Carl had written after Head of the Family didn't work. Yeah. And saying we got it. We can't throw away these scripts. We got to find a new guy. You have 13 scripts. You don't throw them away.

Right. If Sheldon doesn't stand up for that, there's probably no Van Dyke show. And Bill Cosby in an interview said he thought of Sheldon Leonard as his other father. Absolutely. That makes sense.

Sheldon had a show with Jerry Van Dyke that didn't work out. It was called Everywhere a Chick Chick. We did like three or four episodes and got canceled. That accidental family? Was that what? No, I'm not sure.

It might have been called that too. Yeah, they could have had a couple of titles. We had a lot of titles. Dave, speaking of Dick Van Dyke, you told me on the phone that was a special day on the Becker set. It was the best. It wasn't like royalty was there. Royalty was there. And he played Ted's father in one episode.

And I never saw so many people come to the set as that day. Everybody just wanted to be around Dick Van Dyke. And between every scene, he would sit down at a table and the table would fill up and the stands would be filled up. No one ever came to our rehearsals. And everybody just wanted to be able to say they'd spent a day with Dick Van Dyke. It was wonderful. In fact, Ted told him that the first television show Ted Danson ever saw was the Dick Van Dyke show. His parents didn't have a television, didn't want a television.

So he got a television when he was in college and he turned it on and the first thing he ever saw was a Dick Van Dyke show. He was the most amazing. Bernie, you worked with him too. Yeah. You couldn't write stuff that he did. You would write a place that you knew he would do something.

And he would. And people would say, God, you wrote that great thing. I said, no, nobody could write that. Belhar just said he never made a wrong choice or a false choice. I mean, there was one show where Mary, they had a romantic weekend, and they went to a hotel, and Mary was taking a bath, and she got her toe caught in the faucet. And she was very upset with that because nobody ever saw her.

And Carl said to her, Mary, every man in America is there with you with your naked. But Dick trying to save her at one point, she had locked the door from the inside and he ran across the room and hit the door with his right shoulder and almost killed himself then he backed up and he started to run again with his right shoulder forward and in midair he remembered that that hurt and he shifted to his left shoulder i mean it was unbelievable the the instantaneous things that he did well he worked hard he worked harder than most of the actors yeah that i ever worked with because he would come in on the weekend uh just before a tuesday night taping everybody was gone and he would go over the script decide where to fall fall, where to trip, where to do his physical pieces. He was, uh, he worked harder than anyone that I ever worked with.

It's a good thing. Sheldon went to see bye-bye birdie, huh, Bill? Yes. We've done 300 of these, as I said, and I must say, Gilbert, you know, we've had everybody on here from Alan Arkin to, gosh, I mean, so many people. I think that Dick Van Dyke was the one time, Gilbert, that I saw you starstruck. Yeah, that was one of those where I did it. I was out in L.A., so I did it at his house. And it was one of those people where you go, wait a minute. He exists in real life.

John, take us back to I want you to explain something in the intro, because Gilbert is interested in this idea. And this is just slightly off the subject of TV, but you being the, we mentioned you as the, jokingly, as the Jewish Tom Sawyer, the only Jewish family in your town? Yeah, it was a town. It was also, we, my town had one of every stereotype. So, of course, my dad was the town doctor. And we had every other, we had an Italian cobbler. And there was a Chinese laundry in the town. All the stereotypes to keep it alive. And we had a synagogue 30 miles away. And my mom and dad used to fight about whether

or not we should be, you know, go to temple and be trained in Jewish culture and thinking. And my mom would win the argument and we'd be driven 30 miles. They had to bribe me with with a Bob's Big Boy hamburger and I would go and my brothers would go with me. And then I found out years later, the reason mom wanted us to be religious was that she had a crush on the rabbi. John, where did you go? Where were you? Springfield, Ohio. Springfield.

Yeah. Springfield, Ohio. Reform with my cousins. Really? We grew up really close to each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Springfield, Ohio. Reform Temple. My cousins. Really. We grew up really close to each other. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You're one of those people.

It comes up a lot on the show, doesn't it, Gil? When we talk to comedians and people who've gone into comedy, we have found out after doing 300 of these interviews, a lot of people went into comedy because of one parent or the other. We've had a lot of... Yeah, like Gene Wilder, his mother was very ill, and he'd try to make her laugh. I think Jackie Gleason, same thing.

And Jan Murray. Jan Murray's mother was very ill, and he would entertain her. And John, that comes back to you and your dad. It's the only real time I could connect with my father would be the times I could make him laugh. And he was totally opposed to he wanted me to be a doctor. My two brothers became doctors. And my favorite thing of my father's to say to me, which he said with total earnest,

was when he heard about my dreams, my career wish, he said, you know, you're going to cost me money the rest of your life. Was he around for much of your success? He was. And he I I was fired from The Cosby Show at the end of the sixth year. And I so I was thirty four then. And I called my parents up to tell him I'd been fired from the show. And my dad got on the phone first. And I said, you know, I'm fired from the show. And he said to me, it's not too late for you to consider pharmacy school. Now, why were you fired?

I was fired because six years is a long, I'm sure everyone can attest to this, six years is a long time to do a show. And it's going to start getting frayed at the edges. There's going to start to be, and I think Bill wanted a change and I'd been doing the show a long time. I'd been the head writer for five of those years. And

you know, I think I got in the way of his style of doing the show. For me, six episodes was a lot. Six was a lot to Bernie. So hard. There is no way to list all the shows that Bernie and his partner

Saul Turf Lab did. I mean everything. Red Fox. There is no way to list all the shows that Bernie and his partner, Salt Earth Lab. Oh, I mean, everything. Red Fox. Yeah. How many shows? We did,

uh, about 60. Of Sanford and Son. No. 60 different shows. 60 different shows. Yes. Yeah.

Now I got to ask a question of, uh, Sanford and Son. Anyone who worked with those two people. Which two? You mean Red Fox and DeMond? Yeah, DeMond Wilson. Well, Red was wonderful. DeMond was not.

He was worse than not. I directed his pilot. Baby, I'm back. Yeah, baby, I'm back. What's her name was the producer? Lila Garrett. Lila Garrett. Very good.

It turned out that Daman carried a gun. And so Lila said to me, Daman is carrying a gun. I said, yeah. And she said, well, tell him not to. I said, no, no, no, Lila said to me, come on, he's carrying a gun. I said, yeah. And she said, well, tell him not to. I said, no, no, no, Lila. The producer tells him not to. The director tells him how to hold it.

You said there'll be a Harry Crane story, right? Oh, yeah. The Harry Crane story. Yeah. It's worth it. Worth retelling. Harry Crane, one of the worst, funniest people in the world. And he used to be hanging out with Dean Martin and, and, and Frank Sinatra. He was their writer. And there was like a, a, uh, roast in Vegas. And, uh, all the guys came down. There were these suites and everything. And

DeMond, for some reason, was one of the guests. And after about an hour and a half, DeMond Wilson came to them and said, my room isn't good enough. I need something bigger. So Harry said to him, you are really a star. He said, do you have pictures of yourself with a lot of stars? And he says, yeah, I've got pictures with everybody. He says, hold on to them. You can hang them on the walls of your car wash. The legendary Harry Crane. Oh, my God. Can I tell a Red Fox story? Yes, please. Because I never met him.

I don't know anything about him. But, you know, at some point, when Cosby's show was doing well in the ratings, we would go and get stars that you couldn't get on TV. So we got Danny Kaye after Red Skelton's agent said to us, you don't want to work with this guy. So we went to we went to Danny Kaye and there was a little back and forth about how much he was get because there was a top of show limit that the that that the producers wanted to put on the show. And Danny Kaye agreed to do the show for $15,000 if it got donated to UNICEF. And we agreed to do that.

So he did the show and then maybe six months or a year later, he died. And then I had suggested to Bill, we go after Red Fox. So Red Fox demanded $75,000 and he wouldn't budge from $75,000. He was having IRS problems at the time. And so finally, I think Marcy Carsey or one of the producers wrote him a letter that basically said the top of the show has been set. It was with Danny Kaye, which he donated to UNICEF. And the letter came back from Red Fox and Red Fox had circled the fifteen thousand dollars for Danny Kaye in red and wrote next to it. That's what fucking killed Danny Kaye. Bernie, you got Red Fox up the wazoo. I mean, Bernie, you liked him.

Well, I loved him. He was two people, the guy we saw on the stage and off stage. He was very protective of Saul and me. The day we got there, he made an announcement to be no drugs on the show. Everybody had drugs at the reading table, but not with the two Jewish boys. We were accused by the NAACP branch of Beverly Hills of not really accused, but they questioned whether two Jews should write a black show. And Red went to them and insisted that they drop any case against us. And he liked the fact that these two guys were doing the show.

He had, I know he used to, he always had to get paid in cash before he'd go on. So he got, he was $25,000 he got a week. And after the dress rehearsal, Bud York and me would go to his dressing room give him the 25 000 and then he would go on and do the show and that was because of the days in the chitlin circle when they do a show and the guy who ran the club would never pay it stiff him yeah yeah so but i liked him very much he was was very good to Saul and me. And we were there many years. Yeah, how many did you do? We did four years.

And there's a popular story of Red Fox did fire everyone who worked for him at one point. Yes, he didn't fire him. He just refused to go on. And therefore, everybody lost their job. point. Yes. He didn't fire him. He just refused to go on. And therefore, everybody lost their job. Wow. Yeah. But, and that's what, we carried on without him for the first season we were there. We did the first four shows without him because he was trying to make his deal for $25,000 cash up front.

He was trying to make his deal for $25,000 cash up front. And Norman Lear and Norman hesitated in playing that. But they finally came around. Red was a great star. I heard he fired a bunch of people. And then the show was a mess. And the famous line is that Red Fox finally admitted he made a mistake and the show's a mess. And he said, OK, bring me my juice back. Is that right, Bill Burney?

Yeah, well, that's how we got there. Aaron Rubin, I think, was the producer originally. Aaron Rubin, yeah. And he fired him, or he asked Yorkin. It was Yorkin's show, not Norman's. And then he got Salome, two Jews. We're the perfect Jews. You didn't like Jamon much either, though, Bernie.

No, I hated Jam jamon don't hold back well he threatened saul with a gun we went to his house one day because we were he never showed up for three days rehearsal knocked on his door his wife came to the door. She was black and blue. He had apparently hit her. And in order to get rid of Saul, he pulled his gun and said, get out. I mean, it was terrible. And he wasn't very good at what he did. No, he was lucky.

Then now he's a minister or a preacher or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't open the car wash, Bill, after all. And you like LaWanda Page, too. Oh, yeah. You got to like all those. Everybody on the show, and Red gave jobs to all the people he worked with on the circle. LaWanda was a dancer, a stripper.

I forget the names of all the guys, but anybody who guested on the show. Well, Slappy was on a lot, yeah. Yeah, who worked with him in the circuit down south. Yeah. I liked Red. Red had an affinity for his old friends and Asian women. Now that gets us back to you, John. I thought I was out of it.

But go ahead, Gilbert. Tell us about the Asian models and Bill Cosby. And don't give us this bullshit about a tour. Gil, he's hedging his bets because Bill's got a retrial coming up. Or an appeal anyway. Yeah, he's got an appeal. Now, Bill Persky, I remember I said to you,

I don't know if you remember this, I said to you that DeMond Wilson was a preacher. And do you remember what you said then? No, I don't. I said to Bill Persky, you know, DeMond Wilson's a preacher, and Bill said, there's no God.

Dave, I'm going to assume you don't have a Red Fox story. I do not. But can you talk about one of the people on this screen appearing on Becker? Let's see. I tried to get john but we we had uh gilbert on the show and he first of all he was on wings i think he did two or three wings three three wings and that was i think just as i was leaving that show, I told Frank, I saw you at Paramount, I think your first day on the set, after your reading. I had never met you. I introduced myself. We walked to the parking lot together.

You said, I'm a little nervous about meeting Bill Hickey. I said, you're going to have the most amazing time. And I hope you did, because we had Bill on Wings the year before or two years before with Tony Shallob and the outtake reel. I'll try to find it and send it to you. Shallob couldn't get through a scene with Hickey at all. What was your experience? He was terrific. And he was one of those people that you always hear about in show business that you think some made up story. But when I worked with him, he was very ill and very weak. And he looked like he could just die at any second. Yet when they said action, he was hysterically funny and did a great job. But he always looked like he was just on his last legs.

Oh, yes, yes. playing on wings with Tony Shalhoub and he would take so long to get through every line that we started to we started to write to it and and Shalhoub never knew when he was going to finish the sentence so being a a lovely actor he would always try to lean in like he was going to help Bill. And then Bill would do another syllable and Tony would back up and then Bill would do another syllable. It was hysterical. I remember the way the script was written is like Shalhoub would say, like, you know that movie where this old woman has a driver and they go driving miss Stacy. And he goes, no, it took place in the South. One of my goals with this show is to get Bernie to say something unkind about someone, because

so far he liked Joey Bishop and he liked and he loved Red Fox. He didn't like DuMont. Well, who didn't like Red Fox? I mean, what's there not to like about him? He was a nice person. He was two people. Difficult to work for, though, we heard. No way.

No? He was a sweetheart. Bob Einstein has some good stories about him. Well, he made it up. And I heard horror stories about Danny Kaye. Yeah. I have to say, from my short experience, Gilbert, they're all true. Well, we had Jamie Farr and Bernie Coppell here,

and they had nothing nice to say about Danny Kaye. Yeah. Sam Denoff and I were going to write something for him, and he had us over to his house, and he made great Chinese food. We were there. He was a gourmet Chinese chef. Yeah, we were there. The four of us came to his house, and it was a meeting,

but he only wanted to show us how to cook Chinese food. Yeah, it was good. Well, the impressive thing about him, in addition to being a gourmet Chinese chef, because he had an apartment at the Pierre Hotel that was outfitted with four walks that could cook to like a thousand degrees. He also could pilot a 747. And this is what he told me. He was licensed to pilot a 747. And this is what he told me. He was licensed to pilot a 747.

And he also, like, he was not popular when he was at the end of his days. I don't think many, I don't think anyone came to visit him. I'm trying to imagine being on a flight and you hear, this is your pilot, Danny Kaye.

We will return to Gilbert Gottbert gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this what happens when 20 extremely athletic canadians who thrive on competition and won't settle for less than number one find themselves on a team taking on jaw dropping obstacles all across canada is one thing working together on a team, taking on jaw-dropping obstacles all across Canada is one thing. Working together on a team with some pretty big personalities is another. It's a new season of Canada's Ultimate Challenge, and sparks are gonna fly. New episode Sundays. Watch free on CBC Gem. Hear that, Cotopounder fans?

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Just sit back and listen to the music. This single malt scotch whiskey is guaranteed to impress dad this Father's Day. The Glenn Libet. Live original. Please enjoy our products responsibly. John, talk about writing for Bob Hope when you were still a teenager, for God's sake. I basically, I was told he was going to perform at the Ohio State Fair. And I had a summer job at a pharmacy because my dad kept

getting me jobs at pharmacies when I was in high school. And I called somebody who knew somebody who was at the, you know, basically at the at the college, the part of the state fair, the grandstands where Bob Hope performed. And because he was a Buckeye, he'd come back to Ohio occasionally. And I was brought back to a trailer behind the grandstand. And Bob Hope, I have a picture of this. I stood next to him. I was 19. And I had written jokes for him and put him in an envelope. And he looked at me. He was back there with Miss Ohio. That's all I remember is the lady with a banner across her, you know, Ohio's best. She was back there with him. And he looked at me and he said, you know, kid, I'm not going to read that now. Here, give it to me. And he took out a pen and he wrote his Toluca Lake address on the envelope.

And he said, stick it in the mail and I'll read it. And so for the next two weeks, I was going to work at the pharmacy and I would joke to my mother, listen, if Hope calls, tell him I'll get back to him. Just as a joke. And I came home one day from work and she said, Bob Hope called. And there was a number and I called him and he did that thing. He, well, you know, I'm doing a lot of personal appearances now and here are the subjects you should write jokes about. And I'd need them in two days. And I actually finished it on Sunday night and got on a plane and flew to New York and waited

for him at the Waldorf Astoria for six hours. And he showed up with Dolores, and I said, here's the jokes you wanted. And he said, come on up to the room. I can't believe you did this, and we'll go over them. And I got to chat with him. He used to do smiley faces and check marks by jokes. And then he said, I'll take some of these. I'll write you a check. And then he said, let's go for a walk. And we walked around the block, around the Waldorf Astoria, me and Hope. And we stood in front of the Hart Schaffner and Mark's clothing store. And he said, if there's one piece of advice I can give you, kid, never wear double-breasted. That's great.

And then a check came in the mail. So for the next year, I was sending him jokes. But you also were sending jokes at a really early age to Earl Wilson. Yeah, the columnist Earl Wilson. Sure. Yeah. For sure. He would publishist Earl Wilson. Sure. Yeah. For sure. He would publish under Earl's Pearls.

Right. Ernie, did you work with Hope on Hollywood Palace? Yeah, a number of times. Hope, Crosby. The Palace was a great show for me because every great star I ever knew was on that show. Well, tell the Crosby story because we set it up in the intro and it's a sweet story. The very first week I was on the palace, Bing was the host and I wrote a song for him and he knew it was my first show and knew I was very nervous about it. And at the orchestra rehearsal the night before the taping,

he started to sing the song and got in about three notes and said, Bernie, could you come up here and tell me how this thing goes? So I got up on the stage and I sang the song and he said, oh, good. That's now I can see how it goes. And he sang it perfectly with the orchestra. And I found out right after that he knew it all along, but wanted to make me feel good that Crosby had accepted his song. The guy was and there's another person that had a lot of raps against him. A lot of people thought he was cold and unfriendly and i got along very well with him hey bernie yeah maybe maybe you get along well with all these people because you're really nice oh that's true absolutely yeah i agree with that

i'm very nice i'm impressed, Bernie. You like everyone. Bernie, who didn't you like other than DeMond? Bill. Besides Persky. Not me. I meant Cosby. Cosby. Are you kidding? I hired those guys, brought, Cosby. Are you kidding? I hired those guys, brought them to Hollywood.

That's right. Listen, we started writing in 1964, and that's a long time. That's like hundreds of years ago. I met all these people. They were nice. Ethel Merman, Fred Astaire. I used to go to his house to teach him his song. And I came in one day and he was crying on the sofa without his rug on. It was very sad. And I said, Fred, what's the matter? And he showed me he got a letter from a fan that said,

don't sing, just dance. You don't sing well enough. Oh, man. It was terrible. It was sad. And I had to go and hug him. We go to Garland's house. She would only see us at 6 o'clock in the afternoon when she got up. She was tough. She was on the palace a number of times.

Wouldn't do the dress. Would only do the show. Locked herself in the dressing room those were bad years what about herl milton only wanted to be a songwriter that that's my experience with him and every week when he would come into the show he would show me another song that he wrote and asked me if it was okay in those days days, I was doing music, too. My days on The Palace. The Palace was a great experience. Oh, God, yes. Everybody.

Everybody. Everybody. Durante and Burl and Benny and Astaire. And the habit was, the host of the week would be at home and we would go and deliver the script to him at his home or her home and go over it and play the songs and uh all in his living room was like a afternoon recital with the greatest stars in the world and do you have oh i'm sorry go ahead go ahead do you have memories of jack benny no i don't everybody liked benny i was i was never i never did a show with him what about duranty duranty was oh yeah oh yeah duranty i like ethel merman durantoucho. Oh, tell us about Groucho.

He was grouchy, very grouchy. I used to have to go to his house to show him the script. And he was not very receptive to any of it. So he was not one of my favorite people. But in those days, I was intimidated by all these huge stars, just like I am tonight with all these great writers. Of course. All right, all right.

That was bullshit. Okay. Dave, we've talked about difficult people. Let's make a segue to somebody that you worked with for a long time that you told me on the phone was just a dream, and that's Ted Danson. Yeah. I mean, I can't tell you a horrible story that will make everybody laugh. He's the most professional, lovely guy I ever worked with.

He was a team player. He led the cast. He behaved in such a way that he taught the younger people how to behave. Jimmy Burroughs had the best line, as I think I told you, about Ted. He said, he doesn't get the credit he deserves because he makes it look too easy. Just a lovely guy. The other Ted that I love was Ted Bessel.

Oh, yes. Ted Bessel. That guy. Just a wonderful guy, actor. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. that guy just a wonderful guy actor yeah yeah and he he we were very close i did a pilot with him after uh that girl and uh i mean he just he was the funniest person not you wouldn't expect it you know because he was such a good actor but he he was we were very close and we were in i was in la they were doing a thing at the writers guild uh a tribute to that

girl and that was the day that he died you know and god we weren to do it, but somehow we did. But he was terrific. We've heard glowing things about the man. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Teddy was wonderful. Did you ever see the series he did, A Man's World? Do you remember that show? Very early on.

How about Me and the Chimp? Ernie, you don't hold it against him that Me and the Chimp knocked your show off the air? No, I don't hold it against him, but I hold it against the network. And Freddie Silverman screwed us. Freddie Silverman. What show was that? Me and the chimp.

We wrote Nempton. Coast to Coast, right? No, Nempton. Nempton. Oh, what a great show. This week in Nempton. Oh, what a show. It was a terrific show.

And we were waiting to hear from the network. They were waiting for Freddie to get back from his honeymoon. And I said, did you hear? Did we get the order? Don't worry, it's 9-10. 9-10. That's all I heard. Don't worry, it's 9-10.

And finally, the third week, has Freddie seen it? He said, please stop worrying. It's 7-30. I said, what happened to 90-10? He said, it slipped down to 70-30. We never got the show because Freddie wanted to do Me and the Chimp with Ted Bessel. Which Ted made them change the title of, right? Yeah, because it was The Chimp and Me.

Oh, yeah, yeah, because it was the chimp and me. It's either me and the chimp or I'm not doing it, so he did it. Wow. I love Teddy. Dave, you had a Truman Capote story. I do. I do. And I'm still shaking from it. It happened almost 30 years ago. I think you guys, I think Frank told me you guys were going to talk to Chris Beard at some point,

and then unfortunately Chris passed away. Yeah, the great Chris Beard, laugh and writer, just to bring our audience up to speed. Well, one of the first jobs I ever had in the business was to write a game show parody for Chris Beard. Now, Chris was a crazy man, and that's what made it fun, but that's also what made it a little on the edge. So the idea was that he developed a show called The Cheap Show. Everything about it was cheap. The set, the prizes. Our prize lady was an 85-year-old woman in a bikini.

The end of the show, the bonus round, was actually a mouse running around a wheel, and whatever hole he went down is the prize you got. It was cheap from beginning to end. Now, we were told that in England, it was recognized as a great parody. In the United States, it was recognized as just a bad game show. It lasted, we did, I think, 25 of them,

and they aired three before they canceled on CBS. The cheap show. Cheap show. Wow. Dick Martin was the host. Oh, yeah, Dick Martin, right. Right. And Chris's idea was, we're going to get people who never do game shows. They're going to do this one. So everybody had that idea in game shows. Oh, yeah, Dick Martin, right. comes into the office and says, you'll never guess who's going to be on the show. Truman Capote. Now, I had just read like two days before that Truman Capote had checked into Betty Ford.

So I mentioned that to Chris and he said, oh, no, no, no, he's out. He's fine. I talked to him. He's excited. He can't wait. And he's going to be paired with Jill St. John. Now, these are two names that didn't do game shows, so we were all excited. So it was a show like Hollywood Squares. One celebrity would have a joke and the other celebrity would do some jokes, but they'd eventually have the right answer. If you didn't have a right answer, it wasn't a legal game show. They had to have the contestants had to choose. So one of my jobs was to go to the dressing room of the celebrities, tell them how the game was played,

and show them the jokes we'd written, and get them ready for the show. And I was excited. I'd read everything that Capote ever wrote. I mean, I loved it. So I'm going to get to meet Truman Capote. So I go to his dressing room, I knock on the door, takes a beat, and his unmistakable voice,

which I will not try to do, tells me to come in. Now, this is the tableau when I walk into his dressing room. Truman Capote is laying on the couch, propped up on one elbow. He's wearing a silk multicolored kimono. On the table next to him is about a half a bottle of vodka and a vial of pills so i'm thinking right away maybe betty ford didn't do that good a job for him in the closet uh or at the other end of the room you know we do five shows a day so there's a guy in a chauffeur's hat hanging up clothes so okay so i. So I say, Mr. Capote, my name's Dave Hackle.

He says, oh, Dave, I said, how are you today? He says, I am so good, Dave. He said, my chauffeur has been giving me such a fucking. This is not the story that I expected to hear or had ever heard. No, I'm sure I said something like, that's nice. I didn't know what to say. So I look over at the chauffeur who looks at me and shrugs. And I don't know if the shrug means you do what you got to do,

or if the shrug means can you believe how crazy he is. So I didn't ask. I showed him the material. We went over a few things. I told him how the game was played. All's good. Now, I leave. We're in the middle of the first show, and things are going pretty well.

He's a little slow, but he comes up with pretty good stuff. And no matter what he says in that voice, it's Truman Capote. So at one point we hear this. And I look over on stage and Truman has passed out and done a face plant on the desk in front of him. So I look at Chris Beard. Now, this is a classic Chris Beard answer. I said, Truman's out cold. He goes, great. Keep a camera on him. I said, we can keep a camera on him, but he's got some right answers. And if he doesn't say the right answers, we don't have a game show and the lawyers are not going to be happy.

He said, I i said you got to take the right answers away from him he said good go do that so as i'm walking onto the set i realize now you know how this works i'm going to take all the jokes away from jill st john so basically she's going to spend her day being the straight man and tr Truman's going to say whatever the hell he wants to say if he's awake. I walk into the set. Jill St. John says, I totally get it. Don't worry.

Do whatever you have to do. God bless her. So I start to take the cards that have all the material on them and I'm shuffling them and giving some to her and taking away. And Truman raises his head

about, you know, six inches off the table and says, why are you taking all the right answers away from me? I said, because your ad libs are so fantastic. He said, yeah, right. And passed out again. So we proceed to do the show. We keep a camera on him as Chris wanted. Occasionally he would wake up and he'd say something funny or he'd say something bizarre. And we did another four shows with Truman sometimes awake and sometimes not.

But we had Truman Capote on our game show. So we got through the whole day. It's over. Everybody thought it was, you know, insane. Chris is happy as he could be because he had Truman Capote passed out on his show. Now, Flash, the only end to the story is about maybe six months to a year later. I really can't remember. I'm at a wedding in Westwood. The bride's next door neighbor is Jill St. John. in Westwood. The bride's next door neighbor is Jill St. John. So at the reception, which is in their backyard, I look across and I see Jill St. John. Now I'm not thinking she's ever going to

remember me, but I see her and think, wow, this is a reminder of the strangest day ever. She sees me, comes walking across the yard, puts her hands on my shoulders, comes walking across the yard, puts her hands on my shoulders, greets me like we'd served in Vietnam together, and says, are you okay? I said, yeah. I said, yes, are you okay? She says, I'm okay.

But that was the strangest day of my entire life. And I said, me too. Now, I don't know if she would. I think she would remember it today. I've never forgotten it. I'm pretty sure that Truman wouldn't even remember being there. But he's no longer with us, so we can't tell. So that's the Truman Capote story. Insanity.

Oh, my God. And she turned out to be such an angel. Oh, she was so sweet and so helpful because many people would have said, I don't want to sit here and play straight man to Truman Kapodich. But she she totally got it. She was delightful. How many years ago? Oh, my God. It was 30, 30 years. It was 1978. So that So that was my first foray into show business. That's a great story. Yeah. Can I ask you guys a couple of questions from our listeners?

You have listeners? We do. We got zinged by Bernie. I'm sorry. I'm going to throw this one at Dave. Can you guys enjoy TV comedy at this point, or do you become too analytical and pick everything apart, the jokes and the characters? Dave?

There is that tendency to look at things critically, but you know the real good ones, you sit and you laugh. When you hear yourself laughing, you realize that you haven't been critical at all. You've just been entertained. So I tune in all the new shows, hoping to find one that I can watch every week. And I usually do. He's much nicer than I am. Wait a minute. You want to tackle the same question, Bernie? No, I don't watch much of it. Honestly, God, the commercials drive me crazy. And so now that we have Netflix and all that other stuff, that's what I watch.

Oh, and here's something to all of you. What's the sign of bad writing on a show? Cancellation. That's honest. I've had a lot of those the louder the laugh track the the worse the writing yeah what do you think john uh i i would say when you're listening and watching and you actually get a sense of the writer it's not a good show when you feel the when you see the writer, it's not a good show. When you feel the, when you see the writer's hand, in other words, that's when I can, when it feels written, I don't like, I get bored.

I think that's right. I think that's good. Now, John, I heard you once had an Asian model. And she said, And she said, That's a real hard question to answer. I don't know what to do with that one. We're going to send the tape of this to Bill in C Block. You know, the amazing thing to me about what happened with Cosby, and there were women lined up like at a market with numbers waiting for him.

I mean, that he had to go through. I mean, that had to be a psychological issue because he had every woman in the world he ever wanted, right, Marcus? You know, my answer to that is the first week of the show, I was 28 years old and I walked up to Cosby and I said, you know, Bill, I found an apartment that's half a block from where you live. And he put his arm around me. He said, you and I are never going for beers, okay? And that meant we have a professional relationship.

You're going to be in your side of things. I'll be on my side of things. So I just don't really know that part of his life at all. No. I remember in the early days, I mean, they were just lined up. Well, like with Gilbert. Here's another question. I'm going to throw this one at Bernie. Who is the most humorless person you have written for?

Joey Bishop. What did I say? That's hard. That's hard. Most hard that's hard most humorous most least humorous yeah least humorous someone someone that just could not pull off the joke jackie mason oh jackie mason it was very hard for him to do the written material the written joke oh we're talking about chicken soup chicken soup we are soup. We are. I liked him, too, by the way. You don't have to apologize. You're starting to sound easy, Bernie. You know what it is? It's my upbringing. I got paid. I got money every week. We had food on the tables because of these people that we're all talking about.

I can't knock them. We should also point out that you're Canadian, Bernie. So you're naturally easygoing. You know, Bernie, I mean, sort of just to verify what you're saying about him, about Jackie. I was at a restaurant about eight years ago having dinner and he was two tables away and I literally saw him get up and give somebody the Heimlich maneuver. Now, the person may have not been choking or anything, but I watched him do that. It's like, and he was calm and it's sort of like, it made you think like,

this is somebody who's present and a nice person. Yeah, he was, he was nice. But he wouldn't do what you wrote for him, Bernie? No, he would do it, but not with the enthusiasm that we thought we would get from him. He would do his own stuff, but I liked him. But he would stop, I would, one day I was walking on Fifth Avenue and and there was a big crowd around somebody,

and the somebody was Jackie, and he was doing a routine with them, perfect strangers. And he saw me coming, and he did a whole piece on me. This is the guy that ruined my career, he kept saying. We had a – I forget how many episodes we did, but not enough. That was a Carsey-Werner show too, John. Yeah. Chicken Soup was, yeah.

Chicken Soup. Yeah, I remember. Poor Lynn Redgrave. I know. Well, that show was my fault anyway. How so? We were trying to make up the characters. I was married to a tall Irish beauty, Barbara Rhodes.

Is she still in the background there? Yes. The lovely and talented Barbara Rhodes had the good sense to leave the room. And there was me, the little Jew from Canada. And I thought that was Jackie Mason and Redgrave. But nobody bought that she could be in love with him. And that's why I've always been suspicious about my barber's intentions. Billy, here's one for you from Jonathan Sloman. I wish he'd leave me alone.

Yes. He's a listener in the UK. He would like to know, can Bill explain Adam and Eve take two? Yes, I can. It was a film that I wrote about the fact that the world in 2000, at the change of the century, the millennia. And it was about the fact that everybody on earth had screwed up so badly that they were going to just destroy the whole thing and not bother with us anymore. And there was one guy in heaven who really loved the idea of people. And so he said that it was unfair of us. We sent Adam and Eve down there

with no instructions, with no chance to get. And he said, let's give them a second chance. So it was about the fact that they sent Adam and Eve back down for a second chance, and it did not turn out well. Are you impressed at least that our fans are digging up unproduced scripts? My God, yeah. Oh, Jesus. I love that show. Well, you can't tell you. I love that movie.

Here's another one for Dave from Wayne Greenberg. Dave, do you recall a show where after it aired, you wished you had changed or said something different? Every single show I've ever done. Seriously. I mean, who among us doesn't watch a show and go, oh, I could have made that joke better. I could have cut that line.

I could have... Every single one. By the way, the episode that you sent me, A Man Plans, God Laughs, really good. Oh, thank you. Really good. As is Subway Story, which is very touching. I think we were the only half hour to deal with 9-11 at all.

And I was always very proud of that show. I will tell our listeners to find it. Very good. With Francis Sternhagen. Yes, that was sort of the name I was trying to remember. Really a beautiful moment. Actually, that's a real story that happened to my brother-in-law. Actually, that's a real story that happened to my brother-in-law.

He met an older woman on the subway, and she wanted to go visit the site of 9-11, and she couldn't get up the stairs. She just couldn't make herself go, so he sat in the subway with her for quite a while. It's very, very sweet. We'll urge our listeners to find Subway Story. I think it's the penultimate episode, isn't it? Close. Close.

Toward the end of the run. Absolutely. Here's somebody. I'm determined to find somebody that Bernie didn't like. Bernie, how about Mickey Rooney? You wrote for the boys. Yeah, crazy person. With Danny Carvey. And Nathan Lane.

And Nathan Lane. Mind you, Nathan was unknown to us. He was great in an audition. We hired him. Mickey Rooney immediately said he will be a star. He knew right away that Nathan was brilliant. Mickey Rooney was, he wouldn't come to rehearsal. He lived in New Jersey. He would call and say,

I'm going to the racetrack. I can't come. He was very difficult, except when he got on stage and he was very funny and did his work, but you wouldn't want to do more than one season with him. Right. Did I get close? That's as close as I'm going to get. John, talk a little bit about working with Gary, who was a man I had. Gilbert and I both had the pleasure to know a little bit. The late, great Gary Shandling. Oh, Gary Shandling.

Oh, my God. Gary. And you and I had. Oh, my God. Gary. You and I had a special night with him. Yeah. He was, he, I was helping him write stand-up when I first moved to L.A. He basically had just stopped being a sitcom writer, and he had had great credits as a sitcom writer. He decided he was going to give it all up and be and become a stand up. And he was prepared to sell everything he owned.

He was so devoted to the idea of like learning how to be a stand up of finding his point of view. And he spent about four years, I think, really honing it. And he he he liked the stuff I wrote for him and he became like a brother so that when I started to segue into script writing, he was there for me and helped me. And then on the on the when Larry Sanders went into the fifth year, I had been working on Cosby and I and I was about to go work with Al Franken on Lateline. Gary called me and asked if I'd come to work on Larry Sanders. And I said, of course. And then I asked him, why did you wait five seasons to ask me to work on the show, Gary? And he said, because I'd rather preserve our friendship.

Oh, that's lovely. And that's the kind of guy he was. He had a big heart and he was one of the greatest talents I think I'd ever been around. He could he could do it. Everything he could do at all. And yet he was down on his own abilities as an actor. He had two acting coaches on the Larry Sanders show. And and after he do a take of a scene, I'd walk with him to the next set. And the whole

time he'd be mumbling to himself, I'm no good as an, I'm just terrible as an actor. I don't belong on my own show. Oh God. And he just had no security of his, of his acting chops, but still huge talent and really a good guy. And a special show, by the way. One of the great television shows. I think as far as comedy writing, you know, it was very pioneering and, you know,

I think every, this is going to sound very strange to say, I think every single camera comedy owes a debt to Larry Sanders that's come after it. That's interesting. that's come after it. That's interesting. When you think about it. And yeah, you hired him. You and Saul hired him to write for Sanford and Son, didn't you, buddy?

A couple of scripts. You know, those were the days when writers would come in with an idea and you either hired them or not. We didn't have a big table with 50 writers like they do now. And yeah, we bought a couple of scripts from him. He was very nice. Another guy I like. John, can you talk about the Ellen episode and the responsibility that you had? Because I'll point out that that was 1996 when she sort of came out on the sanders show before she came out on the ellen show which was 97 that's right we but but when she agreed to do

larry sanders it was with the condition that she doesn't come out but everyone else is saying you know she's gay but she herself would not announce that she was. That was the condition of Dujon. Of course, that made it a great episode. That idea made it a great episode. So it happened very spontaneously. Gary invited me to one of these famous Hollywood parties, which was Penny Marshall and Carrie Fisher's birthday party. They shared a birthday, and they would celebrate it at one of their houses. And Gary and I went along as Gary's date. And everybody was there. I've never seen the wattage of people in one room as the stars at that place. And there was Ellen, and Gary and I were across the room, and Gary said, you're going to go over to her and ask her to be on the show.

And that scene is duplicated in the episode. Yes. You go over there and you say, please come on, Larry Sanders, and I'm going to be over here in this corner and you go do it. Introduce yourself. And I invited her to be on the Larry Sanders show. And she said, well, who are you? She had like she didn't know who I was. And I just pointed over to Gary who was waiting on the other side and said, I'm, I'm, I'm from Gary. And she said, let's talk about it. And that's how it happened.

Wonderful show. One of the most favorite things I ever was part of is that episode. And I wrote it with Judd Apatow, and it was really fun to do. And the first couple of scenes were basically dictated right out of Gary's mind, which is always an interesting phenomenon when there's a star who's also creatively involved in a show and has the ability, I'd like to hear from the others, someone who has the ability to dictate a scene scene and it's really, really good. That was an amazing ability that Gary had.

Cosby did that a little too, didn't he? Yes, he did. And when he was on his game, he was great. He would drive the writers crazy because it wasn't what had been decided upon. Sometimes, you know uh uh he very

much in the moment and and once i remember going back to bill and uh this doesn't involve asian models gilbert but he had given us he had given us an idea to execute as a show, and it was a real difficult idea, and it made no sense to us. But we went and wrote a script, and then at the table on Monday, when the actors sat around and read the script, he behaved like he had had nothing to do with it, because it died. It died, and it wasn't his fault. And he really gave us a lot of crap about it and gave us a whole new thing to go and chase. And when we left the room, I think it was Marcy Carsey leaned over to Bill and said, you know, you know, Bill, they were up till three in the morning working on that script. And Cosby looked at her and said, tell them they didn't have to be.

So some people, when they were on their game were fantastic at it and then some people were hit and miss yeah yeah billy what about george carlin speaking of great comics you gave him an early role yes i mean when you think of who george carlin became on that girl, George Carlin was the most uptight, straight-laced person in the world, and he played Marlowe's agent. He had a suit and a thin tie, and he just was the most rigid personality. You know, nice guy. Bernie, you would have liked him. I did a show for him.

You did? Which one? A Jackie Gleason summer replacement. Okay. It was Buddy Rich, Buddy Greco, and George Garland. How about that? Pretty good. But he, one day, didn't show up.

And no one knew where he was. And so he brought in Ronnie Shell. And no one knew where he was. And so he brought in Ronnie Shell. And then he showed up, George Carlin showed up about eight months later as George Carlin, as we all know him. He just disappeared. Brilliant. Still wanted to.

Oh, Jesus. He was brilliant. I got a question for any of you guys that want to tackle this from a gentleman named Lawrence Paoni. Would any of the writers consider writing a dramatic role for Gilbert? Would Gilbert do a dramatic role? I'd do anything. I would bet. I would bet that he'd be terrific.

So would I. I would, too. I. I would too. Yeah. I wouldn't. Hey, Gilbert, how would it feel? Like, how would it feel for you to sort of, if someone, the director is saying, now listen, this is a totally straight role.

So what would that feel like? That's what it would feel like. I would go. It would be, it would be odd because I'd be scared. It would be one of those things that comedians do to show their deep side. And it's sometimes really embarrassing. You know, like these comedians that'll play King Lear. And he'll go, oh, this is wrong. I wouldn't cast you as King Lear, okay?

But I think you could show up in a drama in any number of things, any number of roles and I think it would be interesting. Interesting is one of those words. Yeah, really interesting. Very interesting.

Okay, Bernie disagrees. Didn't red button. I don't like him. Here's a great question. What's the worst, if you can remember, and's a great question. What's the worst. If you could remember, what's the, where,

and maybe an obvious question, what's the worst network note you guys ever got Billy. God, I think there were so many of them. It's so many. Mighty. Uh, the worst network note I ever got was from Kim.

The master. Remember him? You guys. Yeah, sure. It was his first, it wasn't actually a note. He was in charge of comedy and he went to his first run through and after it was over, he said to me, what should I say? And I said, nothing if you don't feel it. and I said nothing if you don't feel it and he said no I have to say something and I said no you don't just say nice work everybody and he was the head of comedy he had no notes and I liked that wow it was good uh hey Dave I remember hearing a great network note story from you I did it come maybe from Ian Gervitz or you don't have to name the executive if it's putting you on the spot it had to do with uh uh cheers oh yeah it's a fairly famous story

on the paramount network or on the paramount lot uh friends of mine and i won't name them because it's their story. They did a pilot and the note was, if Cheers is the place where everybody knows your name, your show is. And the guy said, I don't know, we haven't written a theme song yet. I mean, that's his only note. Is that the story you remember? That's the story. And I think it's the perfect bad network note. Yeah. I had one once where I was doing a single camera show and the director said, ring for a phone. Right.

And they put the sound effect in later. So he said, ring. And the actress went and picked up the phone. And then the network executive came to me said i think we can do a little better than that he'd never been on a set before what about you bernie um well the the notes i remember are that scene is terrible rewrite Rewrite it. And that was after the dress rehearsal. And that was that was on one of the boys. I saw Wilson, who this was a mistake. You know, the truth is my Saul, Turtletop, handled the network because everybody liked him.

And I would not listen to them at all. So he was the good guy. When the star had a complaint, it would be to Saul. the star had a complaint, it would be to Saul. The network had a complaint, it would be to Saul. I would... That's it. I would write and he would referee. We just lost Saul in April.

Yes. Terrible. Right before that, we lost Bobrick. Sam Bobrick. One of the sweetest people on earth. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast after this. Take control of your phone plan with Chatter Mobile. Score big with nationwide prepaid plans from only $15 a month

on Canada's number one prepaid mobile provider, Chatter Mobile. Visit ChatterMobile.com for details. Now, Bernie, did you ever meet Jerry? Did you ever work with Jerry Lewis? No. I thought for sure. You were onto something good there. Yeah, yeah, I know.

I know what you were going for. I never met him. i never met him i never met him but i heard terrible stories on how's that do you feel better now oh okay i feel a lot better yeah here's another one i'm gonna throw this at dave uh this is from barney dunn obviously not his real name since that's the name of the ventriloquist in Broadway, Danny Rose. What sitcom or variety show, and you wrote both, Dave, from any era, would you have liked to have been a writer on? Comedy Tonight. Comedy Tonight was in the late 60s, and it was with... Robert Klein? Robert Klein.

Yeah. Wow, Gil. It was a lot of just sketches and improv. I just remember at that age, I wouldn't miss that show, and I always thought it was really brilliant. Do you remember that, Gilbert? Did you see it as well? Yes, and they used to.

The theme song was Comedy Tonight. Yeah. I'm going to give you your choice of two questions, John. You can tell the Mighty Mouse story, or you can tell us what the hell mystery roast was i don't i assume it doesn't have to do with meat i'll tell i'll tell the mighty mouse story that's all right because because it was about the worst note i ever got i got on a mighty mouse script so it was the very first so the great sam simon i don't know if you guys ever had him on the show. We never did, unfortunately.

Yeah. So Sam is one of the people that gave me a break as well. And when I got an assignment on Taxi, it was because of Sam. He had liked a spec script that I wrote. And Sam had my first job in TV was writing scripts for the Mighty Mouse revival, which was done by like a production house called Filmation, which was a cartoon studio. And I was working on I was working on things. And I'll tell you, there's one little sidetrack to that. But I was working on a script that was about Mighty Mouse basically coming and

meeting some oil can Harry was going to get the better of Mighty. And I got summoned to the president's office. His name was Lou Scheimer. He was also the owner. It was only Lou Scheimer. He was a legend. And I was sitting down and he said, get your script out and open it to page 23. And he didn't have a good tone. And I did that. And he said, see that line in the middle? Mighty would never say it. And I was fired a couple of weeks later.

Now, is that the same Lou Scheimer that worked on Candid Camera? It is. Another guy I worked for. I didn't like him very much. That was my first job in the United States. Wow. I got a job on Candid Camera

and six weeks. We only lasted, all the writers only lasted six weeks. Alan Funt would fire everybody after the six week and bring in another group. That's when you were writing with Joan Rivers. Yes, she was my partner on that show. She would pick me up. She was in Scarsdale or New Rochelle or somewhere. And I had an apartment up in Riverdale. And she picked me up every morning.

We'd drive down to the office and work on ideas for Candid Camera. And she was doing her club act at night and was a big hit on the Johnny Carson show, her first appearance. And that next morning, Alan fired her. He didn't want another star on the Johnny Carson show, her first appearance. And that next morning, Alan fired her. He didn't want another star on the show. It was sad. You must have disliked Funt on some level. I didn't like him at all. Hey, we got one.

Oh, terrific. Jesus, it took till midnight. We got one. He was not a nice person. Dave, I'm going to give you your choice. Three people who were on Becker, and if you have any anecdote about any of them, four people. Marvin Kaplan, who we mentioned, who Gilbert and I had on this show and we adored him. I like him.

Kenneth Mars or Tom Poston? Wow. Tom Poston. I mean, I love Marvin. uh tom poston i mean i love marvin i saw an episode the other day that i when i was looking for you or marvin was in the episode sweet sweet man the sweetest guy but tom posted did an episode for us where he had no dialogue uh at all he played a man with als um and it was written by russ woody whose father had als and there his father russ was able to get his father this little typewriter thing and you could type words into it and the thing would say them so we did an episode where becker got one for tom poston and his daughter brought him in, this sweet man. She said, my father can't speak.

So he got him this thing and all he did with it was used it to curse people out. He was just angry. And he was just a joy to have on the set. And he took this role knowing he would not have one line of dialogue and it's the sweetest show you can imagine he did a lot of his scenes with ted and they were they were great together that was becker yeah yeah it was a a funny man who we didn't let be fun but he got laughs he got laughs all in his own i'm'm going to just, as we wind out, I'm going to throw names at you guys, random names that I found of people that you've worked with.

Bill, you were fond of Burt Mustin. Oh, God. Goodbye, Bill. The sweetest. Where did I go? You're in the dark, Bill. There I am. Burt Mustin was, first of all, he,

I just can't tell you how sweet a man he was. As old as he was, we did a series called The Funny Side and it was all about just the cast did everything. I mean, everybody did the dance numbers, every, and Bert Mustin was up at when were shooting at midnight, doing kicks and turns and never complained about anything. His stories were incredible. He grew up and he went to the Citadel and he was married to his wife for like 60 years. And he just never stopped being married to her. And I had great fun with him.

He invited me to sing in his barbershop quartet. And it was just thrilling. You know, he was just a real gentleman and funny and a great actor, too. I mean, he played a lot of different dramatic roles. Sounds like somebody, he played a lot of different dramatic roles. Sounds like somebody I'd like a lot. Oh, yeah, you would. He would have been your kind of guy. Was Burt Mustin ever young? I saw a picture of him at his wedding in his uniform. He was very young. Bernie, here's a guy Gilbert and I would love to know about.

You wrote the show You Again for the late, great Jack Klugman. Jack Klugman, yes. And John Stamos. Yeah. Tell us about Jack. Jack and I had an interesting relationship. We were both horse people. We both liked to go to the track. And we were very friendly at the racetrack. On the show, he would rewrite every scene and bring it in to the readings. And he was not easy to work with, but very likable. And I think he was kind of a nice guy.

My relationship with him was about horse racing mostly. That's it. I have nothing more to say. Can you guys believe the odd couple is 50 years old this year? You did some. Barbara did some of those, didn't she? Yeah, Barbara's in some great ones. Yeah. Yeah.

Watched one the other day that Barbara was in. She was a flapper in the Blinky Madison episode. Oh, that was a great one. Yes. The flashback to old Chicago when Felix and Oscar's parents first meet. Do you remember that, Barbara?

The one they're talking about? Oh, you can't hear this. He can't hear. Oh, are you lucky? What are you guys, this is my last question and Gil, if you have something left in the chamber, shoot, but I want to ask real quick what work, one particular show, one particular

episode maybe, that you guys are most proud of? Something where you really hit the sweet spot. You're in the zone, as they say. Billy? I think it would have to be Coast to Coast Big Mouth on the Van Dyke show where Mary released the fact that Alan Brady still wore that he wore a toupee and the final scene. And it was one of the funniest things. I mean, her and and Carl with all of his toupees

out in front of him talking to them. I think I'm proudest of that. As you should be. Great television. John? Well, I mentioned the Ellen DeGeneres episode of Larry Sanders, but so I'll come up with one other, which is on Late Line that I did with Frank and we did an episode that was about Buddy Hackett's

death. That's one of my proudest... And Buddy Hackett, how was was he buddy hackett was hilarious and fascinating and a little scary another guy who famously carried a piece by the way headed on his ankle on his really yeah yeah he was did you know that he was a DEA agent? Yes. He also said he was he worked for the Santa Monica City Police. He used to stop people in their cars and say, you were speeding and he show a badge. He had a real badge, right? Oh, yeah. No, it was a fake real badge. He was he stopped my daughter once.

He's going to arrest her, Lisa. Wow. He was very scary. You're right. He was scary. So you're proud of that episode, John? That's a real, real achievement because of all the people that were involved in it. And the storytelling was very satisfying and, and it was really fun. And it was actually a single camera episode of late line,

which was a multi-camera comedy. So Mr. Hackle, I think the, the episode of Becker, you mentioned earlier, Frank, the subway story. Beautiful. Frances Sternhagen, by the way, still with us at 90. Wonderful. She was just wonderful. She also, on Cheers, she played Cliff Clavin's mother. Yes. Yeah. Wonderful actress. And I understand they had a Broadway career also. We have to get her. She's 90.

Geez. Oh, wow. Bernie, same question. Something that stands the test of time for you, that you wrote or that you and Saul wrote? I think the pilot of A Touch of Grace with Shirley Booth is one of the most memorable things that we did. The scene was at a graveyard where she met a gravedigger and a romance ensued. Working with Shirley Booth was very, very exciting. She was a big star at the time. And she agreed to do a show, which surprised us. And unfortunately, we were put up

against all in the family and only lasted one season. but she was spectacular and a true lady. I was very impressed with her. I remember the show. Yeah. It was old people falling in love. It was beautiful. Right, right, right. Gil, what do you think? I got one last question. Anybody in the room ever work with Pat McCormick? I did. I did, too. Okay. Quick. John? Well, I'm sure Bernie has a much richer story than my story,

because that other question you were going to have me address, I worked on a game show pilot that was a roast. It was, I think, called Mystery Roast. Mystery Roast. Yep. It was the audience basically was in on the joke. In other words, the contestants didn't know who the subject of the roast was, but the audience did. And the subject of the roast could be Lassie.

And that's the first show I worked on. Pat McCormick was one of the celebrity roasters. And so if the subject was Lassie, there'd be a lot of ass smelling jokes. And you had these people, but Pat McCormick was one of the people who did the roast and he was really funny. And I knew him to be really nice. That's all I knew about Pat. He was nice and funny and not aware of how strong he was. He was a very big man. So he would hit you on the shoulder.

How are you? Only did one or two shows with him back in New York when I first started. But he was memorable. No question about it. You know, there are some people who died of their own monologue and their own story. He'd always have something even crazier and crazier. And he got caught up, I think, in that. And that's what killed him in the long run.

Pat McCormick? Yeah. Just living up to being Pat McCormick and having new stuff all the time. That was weirder and weirder. Ronnie, Ronnie shell said he went to visit him, uh, in the actor's home and he was sharing a room with the great director, Stanley Kramer.

Oh, this story. No. And Jack Riley went with him and with Ronnie and Jack Riley looked and they saw Stanley Kramer in the room and they said, Pat, you finally got a meeting. That's funny. Well, let's plug Billy's book, which you can still get on Amazon.

My Life is a Situation Comedy. It's turned into an orthopedic nightmare. comedy. It's turned into an orthopedic nightmare. And the rest of you guys are going to have to write books. Okay. So we've been talking to Bill Persky,

Bernie Orenstein, John Marcus, who finally confirmed the Bill Cosby model story. And Dave Hackle. And this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre.

I have to thank you guys for doing this, and I think Gilbert and I collectively have to thank you for decades and decades of wonderful work and entertainment and we'll we'll do something else down the line and maybe we can squeeze something out of birdie about somebody that he actively disliked but we're gonna go with alan fun bernie oh i could do an hour on Alan. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys, so much.

I hope you had fun. Thank you all. It was fun. Yes, yes. Good to see you, Marcus. Good to see you, Persky. Thank you, John. Very nice seeing everybody.

Thank you, Bernie. Thank Barbara for us, please. I will. Something familiar, something peculiar, something for everybody, comedy tonight. Something that's gaudy, something that's gaudy, something for everybody gaudy. Something for everybody. Comedy tonight. Nothing that's grim.

Nothing that's Greek. She plays Medea later this week. Stunning surprises, cunning disguises. Hundreds of actors out of sight. Pantaloons and tunics. Cortisons and eunuchs Heroes and chases Maritones and basses

Tenderness, blanderers Cupidity, timidity Mistakes, fakes, rhymes, lines Tumblers, grumblers, fumblers, bumblers No royal curse No Trojan horse And a happy ending, of course. Goodness and badness, man in his madness, this time it all burns out alright.

Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight. Comedy Tonight! 1, 2, 3!