Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 10. Penn Jillette

Episode Date: August 3, 2014

Gilbert and Frank return to the famed New York Friars Club to sit down with Gilbert's old pal, magician-illusionist-comedian-provocateur Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller fame. In an amusing (and highly informative) hour, Penn shares some fond memories of Johnny Carson, George Carlin and Jerry Lewis, explains how his love of jazz inspired the hit 2005 documentary "The Aristocrats" (a movie he co-conceived and co-produced) and reveals the real, no-"Bullshit" story behind the death of legendary showman Harry Houdini. Also -- the story behind the near-death of Gilbert Gottfried! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In Season 3, Carmi and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade, a Michelin star. With Golden Globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White, Io Debrey, and Maddie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. Hi, I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. Tonight, my co-host Frank Santopadre and I speak to the legendary Penn Jillette of the legendary magic team of Penn & Teller. We'll be discussing several fascinating stories like the true story of how the great magician Harry Houdini died, the first time Penn met Jerry Lewis, how the movie The Aristocrats came about,

his years and having to tell his parents he was going to clown school, and a true story about the time he brought me a porn star on my deathbed. Ladies and gentlemen, Penn Jillette. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried. Waterfella, say it. I'm going to start talking obnoxiously to the microphone really loud while you're wearing headphones. You say to a fella, hey, I'm about to start. I'm about to scream in your fucking ear.

Why don't you start with that? Let's start again, okay? Let a fella get ready. I can at least slide my headphones back a little bit. All of a sudden, Jesus Christ, what the fuck was that? Okay, now we're ready to start. I'm about to scream in your fucking ear. Okay, good. Yes. Hi.

Hi. Oh, you weren't talking to me, were you? I thought you were just addressing me. No, it's an echo. Oh, echo, echo. Hi. Hi. Was that again you weren't talking to me?

Yes. But I'm sitting right here. It seems rude to ignore me. Hi. Hi. I'm Gilbert Gottfried. Hi, and I'm Penn Jillette. And this is Where Are They Now?

Yes. Starring Gilbert Gottfried. My guest today is Penn Jillette. Yes. Oh, boy, they're bringing it. Look at that. It's a bottle of perfume. Oh.

Look at the size of thatette. Yes. Oh, boy. Look at that. It's a bottle of perfume. Oh. Look at the size of that thing. Okay. Now, this is what they do in this show. You put a cheeseburger in front of the fat guy. As soon as you say three funny things, you can leave. Yes. We want you to eat the cheeseburger, have a stroke, and die. We can do that. Where are they now? Dead in the Unz, have a stroke, and die. We should do that.

Where are they now? Dead in the Ed Sullivan house? I don't know if I remember to say hi. Hi. I'm Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre. Oh, boy, this is such a multi-ethnic show. I'm a token higher, Ben. Yeah.

We just have all, all municipalities are represented here. And we're here with Ben Gillette. Gillette. Not, not an Italian name, not a Jewish name. Yeah, just a wasp. I suppose so, yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, that's our interview for today.

Very nice talking to you. So you went to clown college. Yes, I did. Talk about good news, bad news for your parents. Hi, I'm going to college, but it's clown college. It broke my parents' hearts. What can I say funnier than that? Neither my mom nor my dad finished high school.

Just like my children. And just like your children, they were on crack. Exactly. And they were very excited that I would be the first in the family to go to college. And then my reason I didn't go to college was pretty much being anti-drug. In 1973, if you didn't want to be around drugs, you really couldn't go to college. So I found out that the hardest college to get into was Clown College. They had the largest ratio of applications to people that, at least that's the way they spun it. That can't possibly be true.

And I was the youngest to go to Clown College. And they let me in. I was the last one accepted. I've always been the bottom of my class in everything I've done. And they let me in because I was a really, really good juggler. I think the plan was, the business plan was, bring him in at clown pay and have him juggle. Now, this may not seem like high finance to you.

But I'll tell you, in the circus world, that's the thinking of Bill Gates. That is the level of high finance that these clowns operate at. And I went to clown college. It was a three-month program. It was the first time. So you were from a big city. You don't need to mention the name. I am from a little tiny town.

I am from, in your mind, Hooterville. Yes. Mayberry. tiny town. I am from, in your mind, Hooterville. Yes. Mayberry. And I had never met a person that thought even for a moment about being funny, thought that that might be important. Now, the people at Cloud College thought about it and then didn't do it. But at least they thought about it. And that was a really big deal for me. I was 17 years old. I was away from home. I was down at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth Clown College, which is what you're supposed to say

every time. See, if we were actually working on the payroll, every time that you said Clown College, you would have been docked in your pay. They had a media class for us, and we were docked every time we did not say Ringling brothers barnum and bailey greatest show on earth clown college so if you were doing a sentence you were not allowed to use pronouns or abbreviate so if they said to you if they were interviewing a clown a clown like outside madison square garden and he said yeah well i've been with the show for four years he got docked like half a week's pay i've been with ring Ringley Brothers, Barnum, Bailey, greatest show on earth for four years.

Fascinating. So did you ever come home to your parents and go, Mom, Dad, I got an A in wearing big floppy shoes? Well, actually, I was in remedial makeup. I really was. I was appalling at makeup.

So I had to go in when everybody else had the time off to run around Florida in hedonistic clown ways. And I had to go back into practice putting shit on my face. Literally. Well, perhaps not literally, but yes. Now, tell the story about how we met. You and me? Yes. I don't know.

Is there a story? Okay. How did you meet? I think people are curious. I think the first time we spoke is when I almost dropped dead from a burst appendix. Yes. Well, that was that. I know I'd met you before that, and I know that I first saw you.

Like, the first day I came to New York City, I went to the improv and saw this guy on stage with a piano player doing like all these punchlines to people's jokes, like two in the morning to an empty club was the first time I saw you. I thought it was just the greatest thing I'd ever seen. It was New York City to me. I'd left a small town and come here and seen this kind of really different stuff that you wouldn't see anywhere. And I love that. But Howard Stern called me and this is why I want to say to the children that may be listening, stay away from slang. Slang is a really dangerous, awful thing. Howard Stern called me and, uh, uh, said, uh, Hey, uh, Penn, uh, you, you know, Gilbert. I said, hey, Penn, you know Gilbert? I said, yeah.

And he said, Gilbert's really sick. I said, yeah, he's great, man. He said, no, no, he's really, really sick. And I said, I think he's the best. Absolutely true. And he said, no, no, he's like sick. His appendix is fucked up or something. And I went, oh, he's like sick. His appendix is fucked up or something. And I went, oh, he's sick?

And he said that you were knocking on heaven's door in a hospital. Me and Bob Dylan. Yeah, and that I should go visit you. And, of course, I do whatever Howard Stern says. So I showed up, and you looked terrible. I don't think I've ever seen someone who was supposedly in my peer group looking that close to death. You looked 110 and like you were just out of Auschwitz. I mean, it was just – and I was about to take a selfie in front of you, smiling. You looked horrible.

I mean, horrible. And you hadn't paid for your TV. That shocks me. The TV was 50 cents a day. 50 cents a day. And he hadn't paid. And as I recall, you were going to be in like another 30 days. And you weren't going to have any TV because it's 50 cents a day.

So I paid the $15 and said, let him have TV forever. And for that, you were so indebted. And I remember during the time you were in, everybody went and visited you the first week. Everybody. Robin was there. Howard. Everybody.

Second week, nobody but me. Third week, it was me, but my mind was wandering. And I brought you all sorts of shit. I brought you, I remember I brought you a porn star. I stuck a porn star in you, and you didn't care. Ginger Lynn. You didn't care. That's how bad shape

I was in. No, no, that's how little sex drive you were. Well, I do. You're being sick. Yes. But I brought Ginger Lynn in to blow you. Yes. But I had a long rubber tube in my dick. Yeah, so it would have been a little difficult.

I was so amazed when the word long came into the description of your dick. I'm saying the tube. And then followed by rubber tube, of course. Yes. I understood it. But you can imagine my dismay when first mentioned. No, I had negotiated with Ginger Lynn. I had something on her, actually.

I really did. I had a piece of information she didn't want out. And I said, why don't you go blow Gilbert? And I won't say. And that's the way show business works. So I thought, how could you be more of a buddy than delivering a porn star to your friend in the hospital? And an A-list porn star.

I would think so. Not any porn star. No, no, not any porn star. Really right there. And Ginger was very happy and you were just uncomfortable. So then the next time I wanted to bring someone up, I brought a magician

because I figured if you don't like porn stars, if you have no interest whatsoever in sex, you must be loving magic. I'd love a magician to suck my dick. The long rubber tube, as you call it. I always jerk off to Doug Henning. Yeah, yeah. Dead, you know. Yes.

Dead, you know, before he got to be on the show. That's what gives me a hard-on. Fill in. Oh, okay. As Penn takes a bite of his burger at the Friars Club. This is like one of those shows for the blind. Penn takes a bite of his burger. I actually know the guy.

I shouldn't have. I really shouldn't have eaten this. I actually know personally and consider a friend of mine the guy who went to the Supreme Court against the blind. He went and argued in the Supreme Court that they should not have the verbal descriptions on TV for the blind mandated by the federal government. Oh, closed captioning. Well, it's not closed captioning. Oh, I see. Right, what am I saying?

That's for the deaf. Yeah, the closed captioning wouldn't really help the blind. It's so hard to not confuse the blind and the deaf. There's a little nomadic device. If you bump into them, they're blind. If you yell, look out, and they bump into you, they're deaf.

That's the easy way you can tell. It's whether they bump into you blind, you yell, and they still don't get out of the way, deaf. They used to have closed captions for the blind. And Helen Keller just kicked her the shit out of her. She covers it all.

And they would go over and try to feel a television set. Well, there was a federal law, may still be, there had to be an audio track with people describing everything going on in TV. And he felt that should be voluntary and not mandatory, and there was a federal law. But I know the guy, he also is the same guy that argued in favor of telemarketers being able to call you at home. So these are the kind of – Which is the worst crime.

Exactly. But, you know, that's a job that it would be great for you to have. I mean, I would love to see an episode of Two Broke Girls where you were describing what was going on as it went. And it's actually pretty interesting. Have you ever listened to that channel? Oh, yeah. Describing what's going on is fascinating. He walks into the room and finds an envelope.

Yeah. It's a nice envelope. Yes. You have to give a little bit more to it than that. Yes. Yes. You have to give a little bit more to it than that. Yes.

And I always wonder if they break that job up, if there's like one guy who writes the script and the guy who reads it, or the guy just goes, fuck it, I'll wing it. I'll just watch TV. They're at the beach. There's a wicked big shark. It's come up there. It's bitten their fucking ass off.

She's screaming. I guess you can hear the screaming. Never mind that. They're saying shark, shark, shark. You would be good at that, Gilbert. It'd be a good gig for you. He did this international symbol there.

He tipped up his index cards and he leaned into the microphone. Thus signaling, thus signaling, Gilbert, you should do the introduction to the show now. Hi, I'm Gilbert Godfrey. Gee, you could take over for me. I have, sir.

Yes, when you walked in to the hospital room, the first thing you said to me was, you survived what killed Houdini. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Is that what Houdini died from? Well, cheapness, yes. Houdini was an incredibly cheap fucking Jew. And he would not call 911. Actually, you know, we jest, but there's some truth here in the Ed Sullivan room.

Houdini would not stop working when he got appendicitis. Of course, appendicitis in the modern world is not a big deal. What Gilbert had was peritonitis, which means all the shit around his appendix was going into his abdominal cavity and eating himself from the inside. Yes. That's what was really going on.

And Houdini had a ruptured appendix. Now, many people say that he was punched in the stomach by a college student. And the college student is still alive and in Canada, which is where all people who kill people should go, to Canada. Also, the guy who killed James Dean is alive. I always wondered if those two guys were pen pals. So the Tony Curtis death in the movie version is bullshit. Absolutely. Lee Harvey Oswald is still living in Canada. Tony Curtis' wife has enormous breasts.

That's how you tune a ukulele. Tony Curtis' wife has enormous breasts. No, it's a mandolin. I'm sorry. Too many strings. Anyway, so Houdini, many people say that this college student, we used to have a rider in our contract that we took out because no one got the joke. We used to have in the writer no college students allowed to interview Penn and Teller backstage while they're reading their mail.

Because Houdini was backstage. He used to do this like Norman Mailer goofball macho thing. He would say to people, punch me in the stomach as hard as you can. So the college student was backstage, and he said to Houdini, Houdini was reading his mail while doing an interview, because he cared a lot about the college students. And he had his hands up behind his head.

And the college student said to him, they say you're really tough, and people can punch you in the stomach as hard as they want. And Houdini said, yeah, yeah. And he said, can I give that a try? And Houdini went, sure. Meaning, sure, I'll stand up when I'm done reading my mail. I'll tighten my stomach muscles.

Then punch away, college boy. I'm not sure he said that exactly. That's what he meant. And the college student just put both hands together and came down as hard as he could on Houdini's stomach without Houdini tensing up or standing up or anything. Just really knocked the wind out of him. And people say that that ruptured his appendix and killed him, except there is no evidence of any boxers having a ruptured appendix or being hit in the stomach. And they get hit harder than a college student in Canada. I don't know much about sports, but I'm thinking that Iron Mike Tyson

can punch harder than a college student in Canada. And anybody in Canada who thinks different, I'll get Iron Mike on the phone any time, any place, you Canuck bastards. Come on up. We're going to get my stomach. I'll have you hit me. No, no, no, no. That bad idea.

Back myself into a corner there. No, I don't want any college students in Canada to hit me. Some people believe that he was poisoned because a lot of your psychics at the time that he was busting were very, very bad people and had poisoned people. And Beth, his wife, also got sick at the same time. So some think he was poisoned. And Beth, his wife, also got sick at the same time. So some think he was poisoned. But at any rate, he did not like doctors very much.

And he did not go for emergency treatment, but instead kept doing shows. And then the peritonitis. That was the official cause of death, peritonitis? Peritonitis, yeah. And we went to the room. We went and visited the autopsy room where his entrails were poured down the sink. Because that's the kind of classy guys Penn and Taylor were. But you looked horrible.

You looked worse than Houdini did after he was dead. That's what the doctor said. Yeah. It was terrible. Yes, he survived what killed Houdini. And a friendship was born. Yeah, out of that. Out of that.

No, not really. A friendship was born from me paying for his TV. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Now. He just did a breath and then tipped up his index card. Oh, okay. I do that a lot. I just want to go back a little bit. Sure.ipped up his index card. Oh, okay. Yeah, I do that a lot. I just want to go back a little bit to Clown College.

Sure, hi. Yes, hi. He doesn't have to do the intro. I'm Gilbert Gottfried. We'll do the intro later. Why did you leave Clown College? I heard because you weren't. Why did I leave where? Didn't you leave Clown College?

Leave where? Clown College. Oh, I'm sorry. Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey, Clown College. I got it wrong. Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, greatest show on earth. Clown College? Leave where? Clown College. Oh, I'm sorry. Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey, Clown College. I got it wrong. Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, greatest show on earth, Clown College. Forgive me. It is a three-month program, and at the end they offer contracts to X number of people.

So you sit there like you're on a bad reality show, which incidentally should be a bad reality show. Clowns! They're like you're on a bad reality show, which incidentally should be a bad reality show. Clowns! And you sit there in the arena, and they call you up and offer you a contract. So some of the people are offered contracts. Essentially what Ringling Brothers Barnabale, the greatest show on Earth, Clown College was, it was a three-month program.

They then could bring people in to the circus to work very, very cheap. The money you made on the Ringley Brothers' Barnabell, the greatest show on earth show, was not high wages. And you lived on a train with little people. Gilbert's favorite. And so I was, after they had given X number of people contracts with the circus and given Y number of people thank you notes and diplomas and sent them on the way, I was sitting there alone in the arena. Just one lone clown in the arena. And then finally Irvin Feld, because Irvin Feld, the man who pretty much invented payola, moved rock and roll into stadiums and so on.

He was left to have the conversation. He brought me into the room. You were supposed to. The whole hype they gave was that we were there to decide if we were right for the circus or if the circus wanted us, both of those things. So the whole thing during the interview process was, you're going to find out if you fit in. So I went in and he said, you know, we're having a little trouble with you, Ben. And I said, well, that's not a problem because I don't want to go with the circus.

I spent this three months and I don't think I will fit in. I don't want to go. And he said, what do you mean? And I said, well, you know, what you said at the beginning was we were just trying to decide. He said, nobody decides not to go with the circus. I said, well, I have. I've decided that although it was a wonderful experience and everything, I just don't think I fit in. The regiments you were talking about in the clown train don't seem right. And also also I don't think I'm a good physical comedian. And he said, well,

you're a great juggler. I said, yes, I am a great juggler, but I'm not a good physical comedian. I thought maybe I said, you know, I'm 17 years old. I thought maybe clown was the right thing for me. I don't think it is. And then it turned into, he had brought me in to give me an ultimatum. You have to change your attitude on this this this and this and you'll be doing mostly juggling and here's your contract his it the thing was he was supposed to be telling me what hoops i had to jump through and i came in and led with i don't i don't want to go so that it turned into you ungrateful uh you we brought you here he puts you in this program if we want you in the show you're going to be in the show, which is very funny

because just moments ago it was we don't want you in the show unless you do this, this and this but you know to powerful people if you say no it sometimes turns into a whole different thing and I said no, no I just kind of don't want to go and he kind of got a little mad at me but he didn't really have any muscle, he didn't really care what's one fucking juggler to Ringling Brothers

Martin Bailey greatest show on earth so he just kind of left and then it was just this weird thing i'd gone through three months and all my friends from that time had all either celebrated getting a contract or were despondent for not getting a contract but they'd gone off to to bars or home or something. And the officials that were there kind of didn't like me. They just kind of left. So there I was, one lone failed clown, kind of sweeping up the spotlight. Oh, yeah, like Carol Burnett, yeah. Walking out into the Florida sun as a failure.

I can't say that was my first failure, but it was one of them. Now, one Houdini story I have to get back to is... a failure. I can't say that was my first failure, but it was one of them. Now, one Houdini story I have to get back to is... Just so you know, I didn't know Houdini. Yeah. No, I know. But you spent years trying to contact him. Yeah, I did. He, for a while, became friends with the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle.

And one of the heartbreakers of my life is I know that if they do a serious Houdini's life story, that my best hope is to play Arthur Conan Doyle. Arthur Conan Doyle was a big, big fat guy. And tall, enormous, big, huge guy. And Houdini looked precisely like Kevin Pollack. I mean, if you want a picture of Houdini, Houdini is Kevin Pollack. So, yes, they became friends. And Arthur Conan Doyle believed everything.

I mean, there was not – he'd lost a child in the war. He'd also lost his daughter. He was in a great deal of mental anguish and sorrow. And his wife especially believed in automatic writing. She believed that spirits contacted them. They were in touch with all this. And Houdini, of course, didn't believe any of that. Although I try to claim Houdini's an atheist, that's disingenuous. He really wasn't. He was an observant Jew. His father was a rabbi. Eric Weiss was his name, and born in Budapest. Claimed Appleton, Wisconsin,

but born in Budapest, which is a good move for you. I think maybe you should claim you were born in Wisconsin. It would take a little bit of that Jew edge off. The Brooklyn thing, that's pretty much, to the rest of America, you may not know this, the rest of America, when you say you're from Brooklyn,

we hear Budapest. That's what we hear. He's from Budapest. He's a Jew. Gilbert and the Gabor sisters. But Houdini, he very much wanted to be in with the intellectuals. He was the superstar of the time. He was Beyonce.

He really wanted to be considered to be an intellectual. He was a black woman with a big head. He was very happy that this very well celebrated author, Arthur Conan Doyle, was hanging out with him. But they argued constantly.

And one of the arguments they had, which I love, is Arthur Conan Doyle would sit with Houdini and say, I know you have to pretend to be a magician, but I know that you really have these powers. And Houdini would go, no, I don't. He talked like me. Well, Budapest. That's my point, Budapest. That's my point, Budapest.

But what I love about it is that so they brought Houdini right after his mom died. And when his mom died, Houdini, like other people in this room, reacted very strongly to the death of his mother. As a matter of fact, all his stationery went to black. He wore nothing but black. He mourned for a year. All his letters would mention this horrible year that my mother died. He was very, very attached to his mother. And the death of his mother was a real turning point in his life. And Arthur Conan Doyle's wife decided she would bring in a medium to communicate with Houdini's dead mother, which is a really good move.

When you're trying to win someone over to your side, bring their dead mother into it. For me, nothing works like that, just like that. All of a sudden, especially if you do something that I believe kind of desecrates her memory in my mind, you're in like Flynn. We're friends forever. Make a dead mother into a magic

tree. So she, the medium did the letter, and the letter was given to Houdini, this is from your mother. And what I love about it is, at the top of the page was a cross. That was the first message.

And Houdini said, you know, my mother was the wife of a rabbi and a very, very observant Jew. And they said, well, she converted to Christianity. And then the letter started with, dear Harry, which Houdini pointed out that his mother spoke no English whatsoever. So the word dear was a little off. And she never once called him Harry. Which Houdini pointed out that his mother spoke no English whatsoever. So the word dear was a little off. And she never once called him Harry. His name was Eric. Eric, right.

Right. So in the top of the letter, and the first two, and they said, well, she learned English in heaven. And she wants to show you that she completely respects your career. So that's why she's finally called you Harry after that. And you can just see Houdini going, oh! That was Houdini's kind of catchphrase. The stuff that, you know, you can imagine how awkward it was for Houdini, who looked up to Arthur Conan Doyle tremendously and wanted to be in his good graces.

And then Arthur Conan Doyle would say to him, I know that you're able to take your body apart and move it back together. Yeah, wasn't there like that Houdini did some really like amateurish joke with the thumb? The thumb, sliding the thumb along. Sliding the thumb. And this is from a couple sources. And Arthur Conan Doyle said, you know, other people would do that with a trick, but you're really doing it. And Houdini's in an awkward position because to explain the trick,

you know, the answer you would give is, why didn't he just tell Arthur Conan Doyle how he did the tricks and then the whole thing? Well, the thing was that the secrets on Houdini's tricks, like all magic tricks, but especially with Houdini would be like, well, how did you do that escape from prison? How did you get

locked in in the handcuffs and get out? His answer would have been, well, I bribed everybody. You know, it was three police officers and a police chief, and I bribed him, gave him tickets to the show, gave him a lot of good press, and we just told him to say what happened. I mean, in most cases,, but when he arrived in a town, he would get the local whatever the big business was, if they made like casks or something, he would say to them, why don't you challenge me to escape from a giant cask that you will nail shut at my show?

Why don't you challenge me to that? And the person would, of course, write back and say, we don't know how to build a big cask for you to get out of. We don't want to challenge you. What the fuck do we? And Houdini would write back and go, here's the letter you said to challenge me. And here is exactly how you build the cask.

He would send directions for how to build the cask. And this is the amount of press you will get, and we'll give you this many tickets to the show, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And then the guy who owned the local cask makers, I guess those would be called coopers, you know, the local cooperage would

explain, would send out this big challenge to Houdini. And they would send it to the papers and send it to Houdini. Then they would send it to the papers and send it to Houdini. Then they would build the big cast in their shop or whatever they would. They would build it themselves. And then Houdini would say, well, you want to transport it to the theater? And they would say, we don't really have the staff or the truck. And he'd go, okay, my guys are bringing it over to the theater.

the staff or the truck and you go okay my guys are bringing over to theater so his guys would take the raw prop that the company had built to his specifications put it in the back of a truck go in the back there work on it for three hours get it all set for the show and move it in and the guy would stand up there and go we challenged houdini to escape from the cast that we built. We don't think he can get out of it. And we brought it over here, and we don't think he can get out of it. Thank you. And then Houdini would do this. Because the question, when you're a child reading this,

you get the feeling that every town Houdini went to, that every business went, Okay, fucker! We got something you won't be able to do! Listen, fucker! We got something you won't be able to do! Hey, hey there! You think you're so smart? We got something you won't be able to do! He was twisting arms. Every time. Every time. That's great.

Now, you had some Jerry Lewis stories. From Houdini to Jerry Lewis. Houdini to Jerry Lewis. Born in Budapest. We don't do anything sequentially here. Claimed to be from Wisconsin, which would have also been a good move for Jerry Lewis. As a matter of fact, I think that all press releases on people are brothers and sisters of a Jewish heritage. All their press releases are going to say, born in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Billy Crystal, born in Appleton, Wisconsin. This is an embarrassing story. It's really embarrassing. We were up at the Montreal Comedy Festival just for laughs, and there's a French word for that too. Oh, just pourrire or something like that. Exactly. Yes.

Nicely done. And I was up there with, I don't remember all the comics, but certainly Paul Provenza, certainly Stephen Wright, and certainly Belzer. Those three were there. And another couple of comics. We were backstage at the big theater where we were going to perform, and we were doing a sound check. And then Jerry Lewis was coming in that night to do one of his

imaginary lozenge. Oh, yes, yes. Very serious. You know, Dean was actually more talented than people thought. You know, that kind of thing. What we had was a love affair. And the imaginary lozenge. And he was about to go there

and do that. And the backstage was a long hallway. And the stage door was at one end of the hallway. And this whole backstage, back behind the rails and so on. And the other end just naturally congregated Belzer, Stephen Wright, Provenza, me, and maybe another couple of comics. And Belzer was talking about how Jerry Lewis was going to be there that night. And the other comics were moderately excited that Jerry was about to come back. And I was going, I just don't understand what the big deal about fucking Jerry Lewis is.

what the big deal about fucking Jerry Lewis is. I mean, yes, back in the 50s with another guy, he did really, really funny stuff. And then he became a Percodan addict who's just embarrassing and stupid, and we still spend all our time blowing him because he was good when? 40 years ago? I mean, this is just insane.

I don't know why we give respect to this washed-up fuck who's never been nice to anybody, a drug addict, and really hasn't. I mean, what are you going to say? That hardly working is a masterpiece? And I'm holding court, and I'm carrying on, carrying on about how Jerry Lewis should be taken down a peg or two, and that these guys excited about seeing Jerry should just shut the fuck up about that. At that moment, the other end of the hall,

the door opens, and in walks Jerry Lewis, as I am talking about him. And Jerry looks around and sees Teller and then sees me. We've never met him before. And Jerry goes, Penn and Teller, and I'm dangerously near you. And he walks across and comes over and says, Penn, I've wanted to meet you, puts his hand out. An awkward position to be in, very awkward.

puts his hand out. An awkward position to be in. Very awkward. So what, and I hope that my children hear this podcast. I did what any real man would do. I cried and I said, Jerry, you're the greatest comedian

who ever lived. I mean, when I was growing up, no one's ever been, no one's ever been better than you. I remember when I was growing up, no one's ever been better than you. I remember when I was growing up in Greenfield, I went and saw like the errand boy. It was the greatest thing. To be in comedy is just to be like, trying to be like Jerry Lewis.

It's the greatest thing ever. And then I hugged him. And then Jerry went, thank you so much. And I went, I just can't. I never would have thought I would meet you if my mom and dad knew I was meeting you now, it would be the greatest thing in the world, Mr. Lewis. I just love you. And Jerry went, well, very nice to meet you.

And then Jerry called Teller's parents to do a little thing. I'm here with your idiot fucking son. And Teller said, oh, you know, wonderful, Mr. Lewis. That's great. And Jerry kind of waves at Stephen Wright and Belzer and Provenza and then goes out to do a sound check. So now I have tears in my eyes, and for the first moment since Jerry walked in the room, it kind of floods over me what I've just been saying and who is behind me.

And the way that the geography works is I cannot see Belzer, Provenza, or Stephen Wright. They're behind me. I've turned to address Jerry, and it's a hallway. So I now have my back to them. So I now have to turn around. back to them. So I now have to turn around. And I turn around and I see these faces

who have just, for the first time in their life, witnessed Satan. I mean, they have never seen such pure, unadulterated hypocrisy and evil as I have just dealt them. They have never seen

anything like that. And my hypocrisy has actually trumped comedy great Jerry Lewis coming in the room. And they are just appalled. I mean, the kind of look you would save for Charlie Manson. I mean, really, in your life, you have not experienced that kind of pure hypocrisy from another human being. Have you ever? Never. Not close. So I turn around and see their faces.

And I go, you know, I was kind of surprised at my reaction. I said I really didn't expect to feel all that. I, I guess, you know, seeing him when I was young, I guess kind of, but it was kind of felt like a, kind of a big deal to meet him. I mean, I, I, I guess all, guess all all that other stuff is uh i kind of kind of got i just remember the looks of their faces just like you fucking piece of shit i i remember another time talking to you about fortune tellers and I couldn't remember the woman's name. And I said to you, I said, you know that

woman, that really ugly woman who sees into the future? And you remember? You guessed it. There was this very unattractive woman. I don't know what you're getting at. Yeah. No, this was one time I remember talking to you. There was like this unattractive woman. I don't know what you're getting at. Yeah. No, this was one time I remember talking to you.

There was like this unattractive woman. How many attractive women are there? Usually they look like Pam Anderson. And you said like Helen. That's pretty good. That is the most recent reference

that he's ever done. It's unusual. Pam Anderson is pretty good. She's only been dead three years. Usually I say Theda Barra. Barra's a piece of ass. That's how we warm up. There was that one Helen something. What are you trying to do?

The one that could see into the future. No one could see into the future. She was the one who actually turned into who's on first. Who? Who was her name? The one who could see in the future. Who? I'm talking if there's someone who could see in the future. Who?

That's what I want to know. Who is the name of the person that sees in the future? What's the name of the person? What's the name of the person who can bend spoons with her mind? I don't know the person who can... Psychokinesis. I don't know the psychokinesis. What bends spoons with her mind and who can see in the future?

When he bends spoons with his mind, who gets the money? Every penny of it. Sometimes his wife comes in and collects the check. Whose wife? Exactly. So exactly takes the money. Exactly takes the money. Pays off, I don't know.

Do a bribe. Do what? Triple play. The mark goes down. The graph squad comes in. That's great. So we don't know the name of the psychic. We don't know who this woman was.

Helen something or other. She was like, she used to be in the papers on TV all the time. Helen something? Was it Helen Brown? Oh, Sylvia Brown. Sylvia Brown. Good. Because I remember I had said to you, I said, that woman who sees into the future, she's

really ugly. And just went down and went, Sylvia Brown. Yeah, yes. Well, Sylvia Brown fits in perfectly with this show because she's fucking dead. She is as dead as Graham Chapman's parrot. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

You just mentioned Paul Provenza. So speaking of Provenza, we have to ask you about the aristocrats and where the idea came from. And it was not inspired by Gilbert's famous night at the U.S. Air Roast? No, there's a chronology problem with that, in that we already had shot what Gilbert did in the movie before he did the 9-11 roast. That movie, there's kind of contradictory things to say.

First, I couldn't be more proud of it. And second of all, it's all Provenza. So those two are kind of, Penn and Teller, and I'm Dangerously Near You. Provenza made that movie – the movie was a pretty good idea. Provenza made it into something that's just unbelievably good. And the amount of time Provenza put in and the amount of talent and the amount of genius is just beyond anything I've worked on. What, four years?

Give or take? Five years. Yeah, five years. And what Provenza did, and I don't mean to diminish the creative genius of Provenza and pass it off as just work, but of course that's a lot of what I do with Tim Vermeer and so on. I think work is the most important part. of what I do with Tim Smear and so on. I think work is the most important part.

He took everything that we recorded and transcribed it himself. He did not send it to a transcription service. He transcribed it. He sat in hotel rooms with headphones and he typed in every word of every take of every comic we did. So Prevens had at his fingertips all the information. You could ask him, you know, when does someone mention a cat? And he could pull up what comic and where it was.

He had it all memorized. So he memorized whatever that would be, 125 hours of information, and then was able to use that vocabulary in a collage, which was what The Aristocrats was. But it first started was Provenza and I went to the pepper mill. And Provenza just finished a show in Vegas, and I went to see it. It was wonderful. And we went afterwards to the pepper mill. We got there about 11 in the evening, and we left at 8 the next morning. We were there nine hours at a booth, and we left at 8 the next morning.

We were there nine hours at a booth at this little diner in Vegas talking. And my mom had died recently before that, and she sent me a message from beyond with a Jewish bar at the top that was written in Hungarian. That's called that. Claiming she was born in Brooklyn. She was born in Brooklyn. And I had, for some reason that we don't understand why we do things, I had started to play upright bass, bebop jazz.

And I wanted to learn something new after my mom died. So I was playing upright bass. Maybe I wanted to learn something that my mom couldn't possibly enjoy. And I was studying improvisation a lot. I was listening to a huge amount of Charles Mingus and Miles Davis. And I was talking a lot to jazz cats about improvisation. And I was fascinated by what improvisation is, that improvisation is not a creation of a musical idea that you've never thought before,

but it's a combination of the rules of the art form you're working within. You want to know the key you're in, what notes are used in that key, what kind of rhythmic phrases are used in that key. You also want to have the vocabulary that is historic and the vocabulary that is contemporary. And then you have your own little signature stuff that you do, that you pull in. And you're kind of taking all those preexisting forms and you're putting them together in real time. And then you have that very small percentage, that little tiny piece of the pie, that is real improvisation that's happening in real time right then, once all those other things are done. So if you've got a 10-minute improvisation, you might have out of that 30 seconds that

actually hasn't happened before if you were to break it down. The guy, you know, the cats at Berklee School of Music who transcribe every moment of every Bird solo and every Miles Davis solo, every Charlie Parker solo, and Coltrane. And I was talking about how I was really interested in how that improvisation was the same as comedic improvisation. And about 3 in the morning, and I will add that I don't drink, so it's not three in the drunken morning, this is three in the tired morning, I said, you know, well, you want to take a solo of Miles Davis,

you know, Bye Bye Blackbird, and you want to say, well, here he's doing a chromatic run that is right out of the rules of the chord, and here he's doing a little something that Coltrane might have done. And here he's doing something that, you know, was back to Bird. And here is something that he did on another solo in another place. And then here is a little moment that connects these that I don't think exists anywhere else. And then he's going back into these things. And I said I would love to just map that directly onto Gilbert Gottbert godfrey and say here's gilbert doing a joke he's done before here's what

he needs to get to the punchline here's what he needs to do that here is the reference to the comics that have gone before him here's a here's a bob hope cadence you know here's here's here's something that's a little bit more george carlin it off. Here's a section that Gilbert always goes to. Here's his go-to sentences when he needs a laugh. And here is the moment where he's surprising himself, and then we're back into all that. And I said I would just love to just take a moment and diagram an improvisation by Miles Davis and diagram an improvisation by Gilbert Gottfried. And the whole conversation was comparing, which I've done many times, and had done before that, comparing Miles Davis to Gilbert Gottfried

as two of the true American improvisers and true originals, which you get one in a generation in each form if you're lucky. And I said, and the problem with talking about comedy that way is you get to hear jazz musicians blow over the same changes. You have gotten to hear hundreds of jazz musicians play a solo during Bye Bye Blackbird. You know, same chord changes, same tempo, same key in many cases. They're able to go through and you're able to listen to that.

So people at Berklee School of Music are able to say, here's what Coltrane did with these changes. Here's what Miles did with these changes. And you hear them also in the same song. You know, if they're playing together, you take, you know, you take four choruses, then I take four choruses. We hear how that goes. And I said, there's an intellectual content there that's fascinating. And I said, you never, ever hear comics do that. Because you don't hear comics do the same joke unless they're stealing.

And if they're stealing, it's not interesting. And before that, we had had a thing happen that right in that same time, we were doing a show called Sin City Spectacular, Penn & Teller Sin City Spectacular. We had a bunch of comics backstage, and discussion happened happened that that right in that same time we're doing a show called sin city spectacular pen and teller sin city spectacular we had a bunch of comics backstage and discussion happened with um with uh asking johnny thompson who's a who's the mentor for pen and teller and comedy genius magic genius i'd asked him about uh uh jokes that had a totally visual punchline. Jokes where the setup was verbal, but the actual punchline, the laugh, had no words.

It was just a gesture. And he said his favorite of those was the banjo sandwich. And Kevin Meaney was there. Mack King was there. Gilbert Godfrey was there. And it laid out just like a situation comedy. Johnny told me the banjo sandwich joke. And just as I was laughing at it, Mack King walked up.

And Mack King said, what are you laughing at? I said, well, Johnny just told this great joke, the banjo sandwich joke. And Mack said, well, what is it? Johnny said, oh, Penn, you tell him. And Mac said, well, what is it? Johnny said, oh, Penn, you tell him. So I had just heard the joke from Johnny, and I turned to Mac King and did my version of the joke, which I was very aware was different than Johnny's version, but got us to the same place. And at that point, I'm making this up now.

I don't remember exactly whether it was Kevin Meaney or Gilbert or somebody. But Gilbert walks up and says to Mac King, you know, what are you guys laughing at? And Mac King said, well, Pat just told this banjo sandwich joke. And I go, Mac, why don't you tell it? And Mac turns to Gilbert and tells him the banjo sandwich joke. And Kevin Meaney comes up. It was just perfect. And I said, Gilbert, why don't you tell it? And, of course, now the joke has gone from a diner in the Midwest, you know, to now we're at a diner in Brooklyn.

Or in Budapest. And the guy, you know, it's a whole different thing, and there's a whole different character. The guy that goes in and asks for the banjo sandwich is a little bit more belligerent, and the waitress is a little bit more. And then he tells it to Kevin Meaney, and someone else comes out, you know. I think it was Provenza. And then he tells it to Kevin Meaney, and someone else comes out. I think it was Provenza. And all of a sudden, when Kevin Meaney tells it, we're in the Midwest.

And it's a whole family that goes in. And there's children there. And Meaney tells it. And we just stood there knowing that we had witnessed something that was kind of beautiful. So we're back there, and Provenza's going, it's the banjo sandwich thing. People have never seen that banjo sandwich thing. People have never seen that banjo sandwich event. A bunch of comedians telling the same joke. It'd be wonderful to get them to do that. And then, you know, this is hours later, we're still talking about the banjo sandwich event, the Gilbert and Miles Davis comparison with improvisation and telling the same joke. And then Prevens and I had had conversations about the aristocrats, which was the joke that people would tell backstage to one another.

And there were all sorts of folklore about it. It was in the Leghorn book. That's not the right name. It's Foghorn Leghorn. Yes. The Legman book. And then I think it was Provenza that said, I think maybe I said we should get 100 comedians to tell the same joke.

And then Provenza said, and the aristocrats. Because then it's something they can all riff on and all go different places and see where it's going to go. And then the first call I made was Stephen Wright because he wanted to get tent poles in place. Because you had to start with people that would go, oh, Stephen Wright is doing it. And I also knew that I could probably convince Gilbert to do it. And I also knew that I could probably convince Gilbert to do it. And then the big moment was after I got four or five comics in place, I called George Carlin. And he was everything.

And I said to George Carlin, I explained, you know, jazz musicians and Gilbert and improvisation. You know, we want to get out. And there was a long pause. And George Carlin said, this is a really, really good idea. This is a great idea. And I wish someone else had gotten it. It's too good an idea for you to do.

I'm afraid you're going to fuck it up. He said there should have been someone else doing this. But it's your idea, and you and Provenza are doing it. And don't fuck it up. He said there should have been someone else doing this, but it's your idea and you and Prevenza are doing it. And don't fuck it up, man. Don't fuck it up. He said here's a few of the rules. You're not allowed to sell it until it's finished. And once it's finished, you're not allowed to recut it no matter who you sell it to.

He said HBO is going to hear about this. They're going to come to you and they're going to offer you a bunch of money to own it in advance then they're going to put a little stuff in like put a little more robin williams in a little less gilbert they're going to do all this you should sell it but wait till the movie is completely done i want that promise from you that you will not edit it after it's sold i said okay and he said and just please don't fuck it up. And it was great because it gave us this really weird positioning point because when we were selling it, people would come to us and say, yeah, we're interested in buying this, and we might want to do a little bit of changing and some adjusting. And I would just go, I'm sorry, we are contractually obligated to the comics in this

to not change from the way we actually cut it. If you if you cut it even a minute we lose george carlin you have to cut him out of it that's the deal we made with him so we had this huge thing if you want more robin williams you lose george carlin it's as easy as that and uh so that gave us a huge amount of power and i remember i mean speaking of me uh breaking down and crying, and when George Carlin came to Vegas, and we saw he saw the aristocrats, and he finished the whole

thing, cut him in the head and said, well, Penn, you didn't fuck it up. Didn't he call it a snapshot of the art of stand-up at the turn of the century? Yeah, he also called it that. It really sums it up. Yeah, it really is. But I was so interested in – I wasn't as interested in the chronology of it as I was in the idea of improvisation and what that means.

And the other part of the story that is so kind of nutty is I was in Newfoundland, which is where my people are from. It's kind of my Budapest. You people kill Christ, didn't you? Yes. We froze them to death. We clubbed them like a baby seal and then froze them to death. I hope Betty White's now listening to this show.

She gets very upset. I was up in Newfoundland in a honeymoon with my wife before we got married, as the kids say. And I had said that nobody was to get in touch with me. I wanted to just have some time off. And I got up to St. John's, Newfoundland, and the phone rang. that nobody was to get in touch with me. I wanted to just have some time off. And I got up to St. John's, Newfoundland, and the phone rang. And I was a little bit annoyed, and I answered the phone, and the voice on the other end of the phone was Johnny Carson. And Johnny Carson said,

Sorry, Mr. Gillette, I got your phone number from Amazing Randy, and I wanted to talk to you. And he wanted to talk to me about Bullshit, which was a show that he used tremendous superlatives about. He'd watched the whole series a couple times and was very taken with it. And also wanted to kind of do this weird kind of confession saying that he felt that he should have been more an out-of-closet atheist. He felt he should have been more forthcoming with that. And he felt that he should have done a show like bullshit. And we had a long talk. And then I talked to him and said that I was making this movie called The Aristocrats. Now, I had never met Johnny Carson. I only talked to him on the phone.

You met him. No, I never met him. But we did an incredibly stupid thing, which was we were booked to do Carson. We had an ending where Teller was going to die in the water tank. Johnny didn't want it. So we said, okay, we won't change. So they ended up putting us on with Jay Leno as a guest host. We were on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, but with Jay Leno. So I never met him. And I knew from doing The Aristocrats, The Aristocrats was Johnny Carson's favorite joke. And Prevens and I actually had words about this because I started talking to Johnny about The Aristocrats

and told him all about the movie. And Prevens kept saying, you need to ask him to be in it. I said, no, no, he told me he's retired. He's doing nothing more ever publicly. And I said, I'm respecting that. I'm not asking him. So by emails and phone calls, we went back and forth with Johnny Carson. He gave us a huge amount of advice on how to get in touch with certain people and how to do it and how to do that. And for whatever sort of weird kind of personal rules thing, even though I was talking to Johnny about the aristocrats all the time, he was telling me it was his favorite joke.

He was giving me little parts of how he told it. I never said to him, Johnny, would you be in the movie? Which would have been like a huge coup, but I just would not do it because he had told me. I'm not performing publicly anymore. And then to get him in as kind of a friend and then turn that around on him seemed unfair. So I kept telling him, here's the edit we got. And Provenza gave me the edit. And maybe it should be 90 minutes and don't go longer and all this talk. And then Johnny said, listen, we've never met. And I really want to meet you. And I really want to see this

movie. So you're going to Sundance. You're going to debut the movie. Can you carve some time out in your schedule and come down to Malibu and you and Provenza come to my home. We'll put the DVD in. I'll watch the aristocrats with you and we can have a wonderful evening together. And I went, yes, this would be fabulous. I told Provenza. We were over the moon. So now our goal was no longer Sundance. Our goal was the Johnny Carson screening after Sundance. And we brought the movie up to Sundance and we screened it

and it went over very, very well. Very well. People really enjoyed it. And the next morning, after we had done business the night before, the next morning Prevenza and I met at a Starbucks at Sundance or some coffee shop. We were sitting there, and we were just kind of, we each had a hot chocolate for breakfast,

and we were just as happy artistically as I've ever been. Prevenza had turned in an amazingly perfect movie. And on top of that, the world had kind of agreed that it was a good movie. It was a wonderful moment. We were just kind of breaking our arms, patting each other on the back and feeling great. And the phone rang.

And I looked at the phone, and it was Amazing Randy. And Randy calls me, but he usually calls me at a time we know we're going to talk about something it's very odd for him to call me at 10 in the morning you know on a saturday it's not the time you would call so i said i better get this and i picked up hit the phone and um randy was crying and you can imagine how uh how disconcerting that was and i waited for him to calm down for a moment and he said that johnny carson had died and it was it was the biggest roller coaster drop

i could have ever experienced from this oh boy we're gonna show the movie to Johnny Carson, to Johnny Carson died. And I turned to Provenza and said, Johnny just died. And Provenza immediately, of course, just flowed out crying. And before I even got off the phone, before I even finished getting off the phone, Provenza pulled out his phone.

And he was talking to our editor and said, add a card at the end that says, for Johnny Carson. And that's all he said into the phone and just hung up. And we never discussed it. He just did that, and it was added to it. So that's kind of the story of the aristocrats from my point of view. Well, I'd throw it down the room. I know.

Yeah. That's the aristocrats. from my point of view. Well, I brought down the room. I know. That's your aristocrats. I was hoping to upset you enough that I could eat a little bit of the French fries. Yes. Okay. Okay, well. You just said okay like it wasn't on the mic. You said it like it was like a secret,

like a secret thing. We're doing an audio thing. You can nod. You can point. You can't go, okay, and pretend we didn't hear it. Yes. I figure if I whisper into the mic, they won't know. I'll wrap it up now.

They won't know. This is between you and me. Very shortly, we'll wrap it up. I'll talk very quietly so no one can hear us. Hi, Gilbert. Okay, I'll try this again. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottlieb. This has been the amazing, colossal podcast.

I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and my friend and performer. Holy Father. Oh, yeah. Saint Dad. Which is why I like your Vatican episode. Saint Dad. I guess Holy Father is much better, but Saint Dad. That's a sitcom. Saint Dad. Yeah, I was

in that. Major Dad. Goes to the Vatican. It was Arnie Johnson's Major Dad. Goes to the Vatican. It was Artie Johnson. I think that. So I've been here with Pendulet. Hamburger. Yeah. That's his nickname. Hamburger.

Yes. Pendulet of Penn and Teller. Well, I played Hamburger in St. Dad. Oh! I hope you get cast as Conan Doyle in the Houdini movie, Penn. That's all I can say. I should. And Jamie Lee Curtis as Houdini.

And I guess that's the end. Thanks, Penn. Thanks for doing it. I'm waving for the blind.