Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 138. Ira Glass

Episode Date: January 16, 2017

Radio and podcast personality (and lifelong Gilbert fan) Ira Glass drops by the studio to share his love of, among other things, old-school entertainment, classic comedy albums, the Frank Sinatra songbook and the grand spectacle of "The Poseidon Adventure." Also, Sammy Davis Jr. finds religion, Davy Jones finds inspiration, Ruth Buzzi hangs (or doesn't) with Orson Welles and Ira crashes the set of a legendary sitcom. PLUS: "The Komodo Dragon Expert"! Red Buttons' sister! The mercurial Zero Mostel! Yoko Ono improvises! And "The Incredible Mr. Limpet!" This episode is brought to you Harold Ramis Film School. 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+. That's the sound of unaged whiskey transforming into Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com.

Tennessee sounds perfect. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Fertorosa. Our guest this week is a radio personality, podcaster, and creator and host of the award-winning public radio show, This American Life, which is broadcast on over 500 stations and heard by more than 2 million listeners. He is also the host and producer of the wildly popular This American Life podcast and the editorial advisor of the celebrated podcast, Serial. He's received several awards for his work, including the Edward R. Murrow Award. I've heard of him.

The Polk Award in radio reporting and the Academy of Arts and Letters Medal for spoken language. And in 2014, he was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. He's also a film producer with projects that include Unaccompanied Minors, featuring former guest Louis Black's Sleepwalk With Me, which he also co-wrote in a recently released Don't Think Twice. TV appearances include everything from The Late Show with David Letterman to Veronica Mars to The Simpsons to 30 Rock to American Mars, to The Simpsons, to 30 Rock, to American Dad, as well as his own This American Life series on Showtime.

But his many accomplishments pale compared to the single most impressive thing about him. The fact that he's seen me perform so many times, he can recite my act. Please welcome to the show a man way too respected and in demand to be spending time with us. Ira Glass. Wow. Well, that was quite an introduction. Very happy to be here. Welcome, Ira. Okay, let's get to the important stuff. Yes. You've been watching me for years?

Yes. Yeah, yeah. When we moved to New York from Chicago years ago, one of the things that my wife wanted to do is she would hear comedians on the Howard Stern show, and they would always say, like, I'm going to be playing at Caroline's. She's like, what is this place? Caroline's, which is a comedy club in New York. She's like, as soon as we move to New York, that's where we're going.

And basically she and I have seen you, I don't know, easily four times, probably more. And just over the years. Like I've noticed your act change. Like you just changed it up in the last year. Before that, like you'd almost always open with the like, so you've seen me. So now you've seen me. And then you'd imitate the people driving home, what they say to each other. Like, yeah, no, I saw him. Did you see him?

I saw him. And then my very favorite, I can tell you my very favorite joke that you do, or you did then. In your new act, you don't do a lot of the stuff that I know. My very favorite joke is about why, I mean, I feel weird saying this to you, but like, I don't know why this one just kills me.

I just feel like there's something about it that just like diabolically just gets to me, which is about how butter, why does butter get its own apartment in the refrigerator? Remember that bit? And I feel like, yeah, and you imitate all the other like foods in the refrigerator. Like, whoa, out of the way, here comes butter. Like, oh, its own special place. You know, like, yeah. Are you still doing that butter bit?

Do I ever throw away a bit? No, I was going to say. I'm doing my whole bonanza bit next time I'm there. I was telling Ira on the phone, too, that the one that I fell in love with in the old days was the turtle with the plastic palm tree. Oh, yes. You bring that back? Yeah, I could bring it back next time. Okay.

I'm reminding you of things. Yes. If you go to see him at Caroline's at the end of this month, Ira, all this stuff will be added that he forgot. Yeah. And then there's a thing that you do at the end of every show, you still do, that I feel like I've tried. It's funny. I go around and I talk at public radio stations. So, you know, they'll do a fundraiser and people come out.

I'll do a theater and I'll give a presentation. I'll play clips from our show and this and that. And they're like, you've got to write a new speech. You've got to write a new speech. So just this summer I wrote a whole new speech. I was like, I just want there to be a section like at the end of Gilbert's Act where you just slam through one joke after another after another. A man walks into a bar. A man goes to his doctor.

A man goes. We just slam through. I was like, because I just want to do one story after another. Every 45 seconds, just knock through a complete story, pause, and then just go into the next one. Honestly, I keep trying it, and all the stories are too long. I'm not getting it right like Gilbert does. So I'm still

working on ripping you off with that one little bit. It's just like masterful. It's like, I don't know, when you do that, it's like machine gun fire pointed at the audience. It's so great. So one day I hope to see you

on stage going, so this midget's fucking a hooker. You ever see him do the plankton bit with the squid where he takes the napkins? You still doing that? Oh, yes. Okay. I used to do that at the seaport. Yeah. The old seaport. Caroline's.

So nothing is retired. No. Okay. No. Also, you do so many different kinds of comedy in the course of a show. Like, I feel like

it's very, like, old-fashioned entertainment. It's like a variety show in itself where, like, there aren't many comedians who tell a little story and then you'll do

an old-fashioned joke and then you'll do an imitation. Like, I just feel like anything is fair game and it's different kinds of funny. Like, some of it's really silly and some of it's, like, something else. I don't imitation. I just feel like anything is fair game and it's different kinds of funny. Some of it's really silly and some of it's like something

else. I don't know. I enjoy it at exactly what it is. It's just a really fun show. Oh, thank you. How about that? A guest that came in here and flattered you. That so rarely happens. Usually they get annoyed.

I interrupted. and also the fact that like you don't like i feel like i've seen so many shows where you'll just put your arm i mean people over the radio put your arm over your face and not look at the audience like you can't face the caroline's crowd and then recite the act which i feel like i feel like there's something so personal being expressed like i don't know there's something so personal being expressed. Like, I don't know. There's something very real about it. I don't know.

I don't know how to explain it. Like, I feel like we're seeing inside your heart in those moments in some way, and yet you're still out there to entertain the people. I don't know. It's just like I really just appreciate it. Do you ever close your eyes, Gil, in the middle of one of those bits and forget which club you're in or city you're in? Oh, my God, yeah. See, this is the thing.

Like I watch on TV where they'll show a politician, a rock star, and he'll go, hey, I love you, Oklahoma. And he's not in Oklahoma. love you Oklahoma and it's the he's not in right right and I don't find that funny because you know 99% of the time I don't know what club I'm in what state I don't know any of this because like you go in you're there to do a job and like and then you're just trying to like get do the act you know yeah and all the insides of the clubs I bet look the same more or less. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. But the whole idea of like not looking at the audience, like what's the like what's happening?

I don't know. I figure it. Yeah. You should do the thing where you just kind of clutch the mic. You'd fight. You'd close your eyes and you'd fight with the mic. I still do that. You're still doing that, too?

So, Ira, you're a comedy fan, obviously. Yes. And we're talking on the phone, and you grew up in Baltimore. Hey, fuck him. Let's talk about me some more. Well, you've got to get to him eventually. You listen to Class Clown, George Carlin's classic album.

You listen to Steve Martin albums. Yeah, like when I was a kid, those are the big comedy records for me was Class Clown was like, yeah, yeah. You grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore? Yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore. Yeah, the very Jewish suburbs, super Jewish suburbs. Like there's street signs on some streets saying no parking on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. And like just tons and tons of Jews. Like Fiddler on the Roof would come through every summer and my mom would take us.

Oh, yeah. Ira and I were on the phone. He told me that he saw Topol in Fiddler on the Roof. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. Did you see Fiddler on the Roof when you were a kid? I saw it.

I think I saw it with this actor, Harry Gauze. I don't know who that is. Yeah. He saw it with Herschel Bernardi. Wow. And Topol. I think so saw it with this actor, Harry Gauze. I don't know who that is. Yeah. He saw it with Herschel Bernardi. Wow. And Topol. I think so. Like, basically, there were so many Jews in Baltimore.

A touring company would come through. No, I saw it at, like, the Mechanic Theater and the Painters' Home Music Theater. Like, every year we would be taken to see Fiddler on the Roof. I realized this because it's playing on Broadway, and I went to see it. I hadn't seen it since I was a teenager. I haven't seen it in 40 years. And I'm sitting in the theater, and I realize, like, oh, I don't just know the songs from the record and I just don't know the punchlines, but I know like the setups to the punchlines

and the ancillary dialogue. Like we went and saw that show so many times. Like I had the whole show memorized. I didn't realize it. I wish somebody had filmed an extra fiddler with Zero Mostel in it. I know. I know. I know. He's amazing. He's really, really amazing.

And it's written for him. And you can tell the way the writing works. It's so made for like huge shtick. And what's interesting about the production that's happening now in New York is Danny Bernstein. Bernstein, I think, is his last name. He plays it with no shtick. He plays it as an utterly real guy. So it's a totally different thing in a way

because the guy is so normal sized, which was really fun to watch too. We had Josh Mostel here. We had Zero Mostel's son on the show. And also recently Ron Liebman who worked with Zero in the Hot Rock. Wow. So we love to get the Zero Mostel anecdotes.

That's one of the fun things about this show is that we're talking to people who worked with these people, who worked with these guys. I just listened to recently the Zero Mostel, this hour-long interview that Zero Mostel did with Studs Terkel back in the 1960s. And Studs Terkel is a Chicago broadcaster. And one of the things that Zero Mostel does is he basically puts down the idea of a realistic play. He just talked about how he hates them. He had a name for them that he called the Mishpachov plays,

where it's just like somebody's family, your family, and stuff happens, and it's just like in your family, he just hated it. And he was like, I want larger than life. You know, it's just like, it's so, I really, you never hear that kind of defense of that and also such a put down of realistic capturing of everyday life, which is exactly what my job is.

I was like, oh, this guy would hate me. He would hate what I do for a living. Didn't we ask Josh why Zero wasn't in the film, why Topol was in the film? I think he said something like, well, you know, my father was an asshole. He was famously difficult to deal with. Yeah. Yeah. Too bad.

Apparently, he would do all sorts of stuff on stage that would annoy the writers. Oh, I've heard that. Yeah, yeah. That some days he would get very, very Yiddish-y about it and throw in all sorts of Yiddish phrases, which the writers and the director, they're like, no, no, no, no, no. We're talking about mainstream America. Like, we want everybody to be able to get the jokes. And, like, yeah.

And he would kind of tone down when he felt like it. A real eccentric and blacklisted, famously. Yeah. Yeah. He would do schtick on stage a lot. Yeah, he would do schtick. Yeah. Yeah, he was out to entertain.

What else did you watch? You know what's interesting? Yeah. I didn't even have to jump in with the Jew stuff. Right, usually. Usually, I'm the one that jumps in with any Jew stuff. Like, do you know that Olivia Newton-John is Jewish? How can that?

That's the most un-Jewish-looking girl. And both of her hyphenated names are not Jewish sounding. No. Like, did you know a Jew named Newton or John? Yeah, she had the grandfather, I guess. I think her, yeah, we had this on a previous show. Her grandfather was an award-winning scientist. Yeah, brilliant scientist.

Brilliant scientist. Yeah. But so Jewish on her father's side. Yeah. On the grandfather's side. Yeah. But you've pointed out other people who were Jewish. Yeah. So Jewish on her father's side. Yeah. On the grandfather's side. Yeah. But you've pointed out other people who were Jewish that were at least that surprising. Cary Grant.

Did you know that? Really? No. Yeah. Yeah. Cary Grant's a Jew. I heard Fred Astaire might even be a Jew. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, his real name was Frederick Austerlitz. Ah. So he might have been a German Jew. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Oh, his real name was Frederick Austerlitz. Ah. So he might have been a German Jew. Yes, yes. Oh, but does he look Jewish? Do you think Fred Astaire looks Jewish? No, unless you put pay us on him.

I was going to say, unless you gain some weight. You put a little weight on that guy. I'm trying to picture him at a normal weight. I take pictures of him, and I draw pay us in a beard. And then he looks Jewish. And he looks very cute. Tanya Roberts. Oh, you know Tanya Roberts?

She's an obscure actress from Charlie's Angels. He just picks these. Is she one of the angels? She was one of the replacement angels. Really hot girl. One of the second tier. This is what he does on the show. Names come up, and he takes pride.

The funny thing is you take so much pride in it and you're not really that pious. I don't see the connection. Is it your way of worshiping? It's your way of like still staying in touch with your people? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, because I don't go to synagogue or anything like that. So you have this. And I was in bar mitzvahed.

Yeah. Now, here's something, a segue from the Judaism to you're a big fan of the Poseidon Adventure. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now. I can't wait for this segue. Could someone look this up? Could someone look this up? I heard a rumor.

I don't believe it. I heard a rumor that Ernest Borgnine is Jewish. Could this be possible? Oh, Dara, you want to look that up for us? Is there somebody in the control room with the internet? I'm going to Google right now. Yeah, I would totally believe

he's a Jew. Oh, okay. Wouldn't you? Yeah. Ernest Borgnine? He always struck me as Italian, but I think he was Italian. He was considered for the Vito Corleone role. Oh, yeah. So was Rod Steiger. And Anthony Quinn.

Oh, that's right. And Frank Sinatra. Correct. Glad none of them happened. Don't know about Borgnine. Well, Red Buttons, of course. Yeah. In the Poseidon adventure.

Wait, Red Buttons was a Jew? Yes, he is. Oh, my. He hit it very well. All right, Gilbert. Yes. I have? Yes, he is. Oh, my. He hit it very well. All right, Gilbert. Yes. I have bad news from in here. Oh.

Ernest Board 9 comes up under commonly mistaken for Jewish who are not. Actually, Italian-American star of McHale's Navy. There you go. One of mine. Well, then I'm glad he's dead. Explain your- But he was good friends with Red Buttons. There you go. He would bring

Red Buttons to his exclusive club. Oh, yeah. Golf around, but then you gotta go. You can't eat at the restaurant. Red Buttons' sister held my hand on a plane once. Really? That's apropos of nothing, but. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How did you establish she was Red Button's sister? And was she holding your hand because she was nervous? No,

because I was nervous, Ira. I'm ashamed to admit I'm a bad flyer. And I was in my 20s, late 20s. And she said, oh, it's nothing. And it was kind of a rough, bumpy landing. And she said, talk to me, talk to me. Just occupy your mind. What do you do? And I said, I'm a comedy writer. and she said oh it's nothing and it was kind of a rough bumpy landing and she said talk to me talk to me just occupy your mind what do you do and i said i'm a comedy writer and she said oh my brother's a comedian maybe you've heard of him red buttons oh god yeah rose schwatt oh was her name he was she passed away he was aaron schwatt yeah yeah wow That's all I got. Do you know, I remember, it stays with me to this day because it's one of those things where I think, this is why I want to be in show business.

I was reading about the making of this Irwin Allen movie. I think it was something like the last day... Oh, when time ran out. When time ran out. That's it. That's the last one. And, when time ran out. When time ran out. Yeah, that's the last one. And it had old as usual people there.

And they did a whole description talking about how Red Buttons was at the, I'm already forgetting the name of the table with the food. Oh, Craft Services. Craft Services. name of the table with the food that oh what craft services craft services he was at craft services picking out food and uh Jacqueline Bissett came in and he said hi you gorgeous and she said hi red and then Ernest Bognine screamed out hey red leave some of that food for the rest of us and I thought this is why I want to be in shows. Because it seemed like, oh, it's like people,

and they know each other, and they tease each other, and it's a community, and they're all famous, and they have a thing. Yeah. They're all friends. And I mean, I remember Siskel and Ebert used to say about some movies, this movie, a movie about these actors sitting together having lunch would have been a much better movie than the one what they were reviewing. Oh, that's interesting. But that whole idea of like people in show business are like chums with each other.

I feel like that was like a part of of like you just see that more like even the old tonight show like the really old like johnny carson tonight show don't you feel like so much of the environment of that show was they would bring out one guest and then the other guests would stay there and they would interact with each other yes and it had this feeling of like oh people in show business are all like they're buddies sort of and they know each other and there's like a thing. There was like a club to it. And always on the Benny show, Rochester would go, you know, he'd go, you know, who's at the door, Rochester? And it would be like, well, what do you know?

It's Jimmy Stewart. I know what you mean with the Carson show. The old Dean Martin roast, you always got that sense, too, that everybody knew each other. Yeah. But it was not the case. I don't think Ruth Buzzy was hanging out with Orson Welles. I was just going to say Ruth Buzzy. But I know what you're talking about.

Yeah. So where did the obsession with the Poseidon Adventure begin? Well, the Poseidon Adventure was a movie. Like when I was 12 or 13, we took one of our first vacations as a family. We went to Florida and we stayed in a hotel where there was a cable TV in the hotel, which was new then in the early 70s. And so there would be just movies playing all day long. But it was such an early version of cable. They would just play the same movie over and over on like the hotel channel.

And the movie that played was The Poseidon Adventure, which is like a perfect movie to see over and over as a kid. Because like there's the before and there's the after and it's super dramatique you know what I mean it's like so many like crazy scenes and like Gene Hackman like sacrificing himself at the end when he's hanging on the like the steam turn valve and making a speech

to God like oh you killed Mrs. Rosen but wasn't good enough for you was it you killed. Rosen, but wasn't good enough for you, was it? And you killed this one and it wasn't good enough for you. Well, why don't you take me? Huh? Why don't you take me? And then he drops and he falls to his fiery death.

It was like, it's like one scene after another like that. We didn't ask you to fight for us, but damn it, don't fight against us. Leave us alone. How many more sacrifices? How much more blood? How many more lives? And there's the classic Shelley Winter swimming. Why is that so memorable?

I don't know. I feel like that's the first place my mind goes when I think of that movie. And then like in the other place, like, yeah, there's something about, like, her. Because it's so weird to see somebody swim who's her. Yeah. Mike, the first thing that pops into my head is what Stella Stevens in the white underwear. Yeah. You remember that. Yes. And she's climbing.. Yeah. You remember that.

Yes. And she's climbing. I don't even remember that. I was too young. I was too young. That made no impression at all. Yeah, she's in a man's shirt. Oh, yes.

Yes. Now that you say this, I remember it. Yeah, a man's shirt and little white underwear. Now that you say it, I totally remember. Oh, my God. You know why I think the Shelley Winters thing is like it sticks in your head? It's because she's a really good

swimmer in that scene. Yes. She's amazing. She gets underwater and she's just like moving. She's a big lady. She trained with an Olympic swimming coach.

Is that true? Yeah. How do you know something like that? Like already you've named people who didn't get the part for the Godfather movie and then you know

it's like that's off-screen knowledge. It's my job, Ira. What can I say? So, yeah, no, she gets underwater, and she really moves down there, and she's pretty graceful. And you're just like, oh. And there is a scene where Ernest Borgnine yells at red buttons, like, why don't you shut up? Yeah, there is.

It totally is. It's great. Yeah. I'll tell you the truth. I think Poseidon Adventure is a better movie than Titanic. I'm with you. Yeah.

It is. It's more fun to watch. Yeah. Yeah, Titanic is kind of slow. Oh, it is. And you know the ending from the watch. Yeah. Yeah, Titanic is kind of slow. Oh, it is. And you know the ending from the beginning. Yeah. No surprise there.

Yeah, like I feel like Poseidon Adventure has the will to entertain in a way that the Titanic is so impressed with itself. Oh, yes. I'm with you 100%. Are you with us on this? I'm with you. I'm fantasizing. I'm imagining that Irwin Allen had that Titanic's budget

and wasn't doing things on the cheap like he had to in 1972 oh really was that a cheap movie? to me I thought they turned a boat upside down there'll be sometimes I'll be in a room and I'll picture what it looks like upside down still to this day

like you'll be in like yeah especially like a room and I'll picture what it looks like upside down still to this day. Like you'll be in like, yeah, especially like a fancy picture. Like, oh, if you turn the whole thing upside down, like from that scene in that movie. Do you remember the poster? Hell upside down. And those old movie posters where they used to have all the stars' faces in boxes on the poster. In those days when movies had those all-star casts and you had to put everybody's face on the poster. And in the poster for this, what did they to put everybody's face oh yeah and in the poster for this what did they do well it's just hackman and borg 9 and they're it's all of them

along yeah they're all along the bottom yeah with the big hell upside down tagline yeah it's great i saw it in the days when you could see the same movie every day in a theater yes they would just show the same thing over and over again all day. Wait, wait, wait. That happens in theaters today. No, no. Have you been to a movie theater? Okay, let me just walk you through this. Gilbert, help me here.

When you go to the 2 o'clock show, Frank, they show the movie again at 4 o'clock. No, no. No, you see, you go in. I know. No, you see, you go in. I know. At 1 o'clock, you see Titanic. 4 o'clock, Abbott and Costello meet the mummy.

I was thinking of something else. What were you thinking of? I was talking about in the Cross Bay Theater in Queens, you used to be able to see the Planet of the Apes movies. You would see all of them in one day. That's what I was talking about. But it didn't make any sense in this context. We'll cut it. Oh, yeah.

Wait, you're going to cut that? Wait, we... You missed Star Wars, but now we're having kooks in a castle with the three stooges. Were you also a fan of the Poseidon Adventure sequel, the Beyond the Poseidon Adventure with Michael Caine and Sally Field? I don't think I saw it. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you guys see it? Terrible. Yeah. I think I've seen bits and pieces. It was pretty bad. And then there was Poseidon with Kurt Russell a couple of years ago.

Oh my God, that's right. And Richard Dreyfuss. Yes. Yeah. So they went to the well a couple of times. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. And now back to the show.

In the towering inferno, there's, who's the football player? Simpson. But is he the one? No, there's another guy. A really big guy, and he pulls up an elevator by himself. Wait, you mean he holds onto the cable? He holds the cord and pulls off the elevator with people in it. He pulls the elevator off. I don't remember that.

It's great. I don't remember that. Well, O.J. is in that film. That's one of O.J.'s movies. He is. I don't remember that. I don't remember that. Well, O.J. is in that film. That's one of O.J.'s movies. He is. I don't remember that scene. Richard Chamberlain, I remember, and William Holden. Oh, yeah.

And, of course, Newman and McQueen. Faye Dunaway. Faye Dunaway, yeah. Robert Vaughn in that one? Oh, he could be. Maybe. He popped up in a lot of those. Maybe, yeah.

Are you into those things? Those Irwin Allen disaster movies or just the Poseidon Adventure? Just the Poseidon Adventure. Like I definitely saw the Towering Inferno but then I didn't do the whole I didn't stay for the whole genre. In fact I don't even know what the other ones are. What? Oh I saw Airport was the first one right? Right but that one's not an Irwin Allen.

Oh it's not? No that was probably the first big disaster flick. Right. He made the Towering Inferno, the Poseidon Adventure, The Swarm, the one about the killer bees. Oh, my God. Did that have Henry Fonda? Yes. And Olivia de Havilland.

Wow. Henry Fonda was in one of those things? Yes. And Michael Caine again. Wow. Yeah. And then he made, what's the other one? The one you're referring to is called When Time Ran Out.

Oh, When Time Ran Out. That's right. With Jacqueline Bissette. Yes. And Paul Newman again. Oh, yeah. Collecting a check. And Burgess Meredith.

Ah. Always good. Yeah. Always good. Anything Burgess Meredith in, he brings the A game. Always good. I'm a big fan of Mice and Men, the original one. I've never seen the original one.

Wow. And he's in that? Yeah. You should see it in a theater because afterwards they show The Matrix. Now no one's going to know what that means. Well, no, you've got to leave in the earlier bit. You've got to leave it. We have to leave that in.

That's too good. A theater that shows the same movie more than once a day. I was thinking of something else entirely.

You gotta leave that in. Or else I'll be doing callback. Does he play Lenny? Does he play the return?

He plays George. Lon Chaney Jr. is Lenny. Right. play the retired? He plays George. Lon Chaney Jr. is Lenny. Right. Oh, it's worth seeing. Okay. Go ahead, Gil. Go to your notes. Lon Chaney Jr.'s not Jewish.

No. Al Jolson Jewish. How did you find that out? He's a cousin. Oh, is it obvious? Oh, right. He was. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the jazz singer. Right. That's the cousin. Oh, is it obvious? Oh, right. He was. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the jazz singer. Right. That's the plot of the jazz singer. Yes. Now, this is the secret information I'm giving you, Garrett. He's a distant cousin, so I can totally vouch for it. You've heard that it's true. Yes.

He's a distant cousin, Al Jilts? Yeah. Is he really? Wow. Yeah. It's been explained to me. Yeah. Can you do an Al Jolson invitation for us?

That's very cool. No, I cannot. Thank you for the invitation. Can you do that whistling part when he does su-su-su-si? There may be a question coming here, Ira. Okay. Oh, oh, here, here. Since we're on to the Jews.

Yeah. Okay, oh, oh, here, here, since we're on to the Jews. Yeah. Your Jewish parents. Yeah. Shockingly didn't want you to go into radio. They wanted you to become a doctor. Yes, and they held on to that for a really long time.

Like I was in my 40s before they finally said, like, okay, you don't have to become a doctor. Like, you win. Now, but didn't they realize at your 40s you hadn't had any medical training? Well, it was a sense of, like, you could still do it. You could still go back to school. Like, there really was, like, up through my 30s. Yeah, yeah. So, like, when you were 70, you would become a doctor.

Yeah, exactly. I finally got my MD. No, no, they really, I mean, they were just like, I don't know. Like, I was broke for a long time working in public radio. And they're just like, you're never going to be able to afford a house. You're never going to be able to have kids. You're never going to be, like, I don't know. I was broke for a long time working on public radio and they're just like, you're never going to be able to afford a house. You're never going to be able to have kids. You're never going to be... And they were people who came in... They were broke when they were kids. They both

came from families where there was no money and they kind of made it into the middle class, made it to the suburbs and they just felt like I was throwing it away. And yeah, no, they really wanted me to be a doctor. And it's funny like the thing that made them give up on that was the very

it was the very first time I was on television it was I was 41 and I was a guest on Letterman I had never been on television before and you know just like did like a thing promoting the radio show on the Letterman show. And at the end of that, I talked to my mom.

She's like, OK, forget it. All right, you win. You're legit now. Yeah. It was finally like, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, they were not. I've said this before. My parents are the only Jews in America who hate public broadcasting.

So, yeah. Yeah. broadcasting so yeah yeah see i i understand your parents point of view now as you get older you do think that way because like when i started out doing comedy i thought i i was a fucking idiot you know thinking i could make it in show business and now rationally i think oh my god what what the fuck were you doing in show business and did your parents want you to do something else oh yeah they that well i think they thought that was like another one of my idiotic ideas in my head but he was only 15 yeah when he started doing it oh wow yeah so it was it was weird and were were they Jewy Jews? Because my parents didn't have any, like— That's a new—our sponsor this week is Jewy Jews.

They come in all fruit flavors. Get yourself a pack of Jewy Jews. Do you know what I mean? Like, did they go to synagogue and stuff? Because my parents, they didn't go to synagogue. They weren't raised Jewish. And then they're just like, you guys, to my sisters and I, we want you to have the Jewish education we never had and sent us to Hebrew school. And, you know, we would go three days a week to Hebrew school.

See, I had no Jewish education. I wasn't bar mitzvahed. Yeah. None of that stuff. But did your parents, did they keep a kosher house or anything like that? No. Nothing. No, we ate bacon.

Yeah, we did too. And I remember, like I always think, I don't know when the holidays are. I don't follow them. But I know I'm a Jew because if the Nazisis came back and rounded us up i'd be there with everybody else yeah that's true so this comedian stewie stone from oh yeah yeah stewie from the friars club yeah from the friars club he's about 108 and he said oh so you're a boxcar Jew. That's it. And I thought, that's it. I'm a boxcar Jew.

I like that. I like it. There's like the Orthodox conservative reform than boxcar. One level down. Yeah. Are your folks still around?

I mean, have they gotten to see all of this success? Yeah. My mom passed, but she passed recently enough that she saw that,

like, yeah, that it all worked out. The Simpsons and all that cool stuff Some of it Some of it She saw some of it

Yeah yeah yeah And you achieved amazing success Surprising for me Yeah Yes Yeah Like yeah yeah yeah

Because just talking to you I think how could he make it in anything Thank you How does a schlub like this? I know. What's his talent?

He can't do the imitations. He couldn't do the whistling. I'm setting him up here. I'm giving him prime material. He doesn't take it. I give you gold. You give me gold. I'm just like, no, I can't do that.

Were you into radio? Were you a fan of old radio? The only radio that honestly that I loved, there were two things that were on the radio when I was a kid that I loved. Well, three things. And one was Chicken Man. Do you remember Chicken Man? Chicken Man. Oh, my God. Chicken Man was this phenomenon all across radio in the 60s. Starting in 1966, there were these little two-minute Batman parodies, and they were really funny. They were really, really funny.

And then there was a thing called CBS Mystery Theater that was on – it was, I think, the last network radio drama with E.G. Marshall hosted. And they were doing these creepy stories. And every time I would hear it, I would think, like, I don't really like this. And I'd be like, well, that one was pretty good. And then the third radio thing that I was into was there was a disc jockey when I was growing up in Baltimore on WFBR on an AM station. And he was kind of like an early pre-Howard Stern shock jock. And he was like this incredibly well-known, super popular figure. Like he got married downtown and the mayor married him and his wife like, this huge ceremony that tens of thousands of people came to.

And I wrote jokes for him. My first job in radio, actually, I wrote jokes. I was not good at it. For Johnny Walker, I would drive down to WFBR in the morning and drop off 20 jokes and watch him do a show for a little while and then leave. And, yeah, like, but no. But most people, like, I wasn't into radio. It was the 60s. I was into TV.

Like, I watched people, like I wasn't into radio. It was the 60s. I was into TV. Like I watched TV, you know? And you have a story about crashing the set of a famous television show. Oh, yeah. I talked in my early days as a radio producer. I talked my way under the set of MASH. How'd you do that? I just said like I was like I basically was like a low level production assistant. Let me think for a second.

I mean, I was was 21 maybe 20 um and uh mash had been on the air for a long time and i was working as like a production assistant at all things considered the network news show that npr does in the afternoons and um you know i wrote them a letter saying like you know i wanted to do a story about this thing and uh and they're like great they were i mean they were public radio fans I think that's why they like they liked public radio and so then I was on the set of MASH just in way over my head and just just totally and everybody there was like super gracious and I had never been on a tv set like I didn't you know like I and I was too broke to even rent a car so I'm like in Los Angeles staying at like a friend of a friend's apartment and I would just have to like walk to the bus from the Fox lot.

And I would like, this is sad. And, and, and yeah, and I, I just was doing the worst interviews ever with these incredibly gracious, very kind people who are just like,

they, who just didn't, you know, realize that like, Oh, they were going to get like a kid who didn't know what he was doing. Yeah. It was really like a lesson, people being nice to somebody who they had no reason to be nice to now what did you learn as far as interviewing goes over the years oh my god so much i mean i mean the interviews that i do now are so much about about like getting a person

to tell me a story and then getting them to like just say some thought about the story some of the interesting thought about like what happened and so and so so it's basically getting them to lay out the plot of the thing and tell the story well and hit all the beats of it and and and a lot of it is just actually just being like expressing like actual curiosity like i'm actually interested in other people i'm actually interested to hear what happened to them i'm nosy and uh and and a lot of it is just channeling that and then just understanding kind of like when to let people talk and when to cut them off and just kind of come in and nudge them this way and that way and when to joke around with them. There's a lot of that. I've noticed with interviewers, my favorite thing is when

they're interviewing someone and the interviewee goes, oh, well, you know, I was born in Paris. I lived there most of my life. And then the next question is, so you filmed a movie in Paris. Have you ever been there before? And it's like the Komodo – the Bob and Ray sketch with the Komodo dragon. Wait, wait, wait. How does that go? I don't know that sketch.

Well, Bob's – yeah, yeah, Ray is interviewing Bob. And he keeps, he's a Komodo dragon expert. And he's telling him the Komodo dragon is native to Sumatra. And it was a donation from the premier. And he says, so where are these animals from? And he says, oh, I was saying they're native. In fact, you can see one at the Columbus Zoo. And he says, now, if we wanted to take the kitties to see the Komodo dragon, where would we?

It's a brilliant bit. You know that bit. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. And I'm sure you get interviewed by a lot of people who are not the greatest interviewers, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And it's like I also love when someone's being interviewed and they'll talk and they'll say, you know, I once took a gun and killed a man. And then the interviewer goes, so what are you working on now? It's like, wait, wait, wait. I want to hear this. You also hate that Leno thing, you know, where the talk show with the canned question. Yeah, well, those like Leno always used to ask these. And a lot of the interviewers do this.

And Leno used to go, don't I heard somewhere that you were stuck in an elevator with a gorilla? And I go, where did he hear this? Was this in the papers? Did he overhear people talking on the subway? Where? Well, Carson was good at it. Oh, yes.

Carson could do it sort of subtly. Yeah. Somebody told it. Oh, yes. Carson could do it sort of subtly. Yeah. Somebody told me. Yes, yes. He would say, and just work it in. But Jay was not so deaf. He would really say, somebody told me. He wouldn't just say, like, no, when you talk to our producer on the phone yesterday.

Somebody told me that you have a fetish for. Yeah, Carson could toss it away. Yeah. Someone told me. He had a gift for it... Yeah, Carson could toss it away. Yeah. Someone told me... He had a gift for it. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of this American life...

Is that the show you do? Yeah, yeah. It's on the radio. And, yeah. There's so many great episodes. This one really caught my attention, and it's the... When we talked about it,

it's the Sullivan, the fateful Sullivan show. Yeah. The Beatles, February 9th, 1964. Yeah, yeah. We interviewed this couple, Mitzi and, oh, my God. Mitzi and Charlie. Mitzi and Charlie. Yeah.

And they were a comedy act. They were like an up-and-coming comedy act in a kind of like, I don't know. Well, they were a married couple who did sketches, like Stiller and Mirrorer and mirror that's what i was thinking of yeah and um they're still around and anyway they get booked on the on the on uh they get booked on the ed sullivan show and they're like this is the most amazing thing that could happen to us it's it's a career making moment for them and uh and they're like who the other guests and they're like frank gorshin is going to be on like oh my god frank gorshin is going to be on. They're like, oh, my God, Frank Gorshin. We're going to be on with Frank Gorshin. It's incredible.

And they go and they work out a whole thing and they just describe the whole day. And Ed Sullivan sees them during the rehearsal and hates the thing that they prepared and makes them do a whole different thing. So they're totally stressing out about that. And they're in the dressing room. they're totally stressing out about that. And they're in the dressing room. And, and,

and, and they say that like when they came to the theater to, to, to tape the show, that there was a huge crowds in the street and they're like, and they're like, God, people really are into Frank Gorshaw. And yeah.

And like, and, and then basically like it's the, it's the night the Beatles are on the Ed Sullivan show. They had no idea. And then till it, like until it happened, then like the Beatles are on the Ed Sullivan show. They had no idea until it happened. And like the Beatles go on and like brings down the house record ratings and then everyone in America sees them bomb. They bomb.

And yeah, and are completely forgotten. And yeah, and that's their day. Yeah, and then the radio piece, like one of the lovely things about it is like we totally withhold the fact that it's going to be the night the beatles are on like we you find out when they do it was like they just tell the whole story of like the plot of it is just like we're going to make our careers and like it's not going so great and sullivan doesn't like us and what's going to happen and then like basically then the beatles show up and the theme of that show was the big break. The Big Break, yeah. And we had Marty Allen on the podcast. And Allen and Rossi were also on Sullivan with the Beatles.

Really? Yeah. Probably not that first one. The second one. The second one, yeah. One of the weird things that they said is that Davy Jones, who was in The Monkees later, he was on that episode of Ed Sullivan. He was in a Broadway play.

Oh, was it Oliver? It was Oliver. And so he was one of the stars of the play Oliver on Broadway, the musical Oliver. So he sang one of those songs from Oliver, and then he stood in the wings and watched kids going crazy for the Beatles. And he said later, he's like, I'm switching. What they're doing, that's what I got to do. And then, like, basically was one of the guys who was in the Monkees.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah. Sullivan really threw them. I mean, he said that, well, you know, the house is full of 14-year-old girls, and your bit is too sophisticated, and they're not going to understand it.

And, I mean, you know. Yeah. And the saddest part is that you're interviewing Charlie and Mitzi and Charlie says, I swear I heard somebody in the audience say, get them off. Oh, yeah. In the middle of the, and then their agent doesn't call them for six months because it was just so, the bomb was just so. Wow.

Yeah. It was kind of career ending for a long period of time. Yeah. They recovered. I mean, she became a sitcom writer of note, and he was a working actor. I worked with him. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, on an episode of Silk Stalkings.

Yep. Wow. Yeah. And was he a regular on that show? He was. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they came.

They were super nice. They came back. They, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Huh. I mean, they came. They were super nice. They came back. They came back. Yeah, you should have them on. I feel like they're going to know a lot more about old showbiz than I do. We actually should have them on. They're on Facebook, Charlie and Mitzi. So he could be like the second guy I worked with on Silk Stalkings.

The other was John Beiner. That's right. Yeah. Huh. All right, let's take a moment, a quick moment, just to talk about a new sponsor, Gil. No, we're right in the middle of a conversation. We can't do that.

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film school dot com. Now back to the show. Another great episode was the Sinatra episode. Oh, yeah. There were two, right? There was the 100th

birth. I mean, basically, we went back for Sinatra's 100th birthday, and we remade the episode we had made while he was still alive. Right. And, yeah, yeah. Like, I grew up listening to Frank Sinatra. My dad would play him around the house all the time. That was probably, like, next to, like, music, Broadway show tunes, albums.

Like, the music that my parents were playing the most was Frank Sinatra, playing it a lot. Like, I know that stuff backwards and forwards and um and he's such an interesting he's such an interesting figure we played a lot of of the recordings of like the rat pack on stage and what their old nightclub act was like there are these really wonderful recordings you can get where it is just like a night of their act in like 1962 and like a club in chicago or a club in vegas and just hearing like like the shtick that they're doing, and obviously we're doing every night with each other, is fascinating.

Like it's so, it's a machine. The Villa Venice, I mean, is the one that's on, that you guys did. Yeah, so good. From 62. And they're being so unkind to Sammy. Well, it's Shuffle. They're roughing him up.

They're roughing him up and they're roughing him up. The race stuff that they do is you would never see white and black performers do today. And the fact that the number that Sammy and Frank would do is unimaginable for a white and black performer to do today. They sing Me and My Shadow.

Oh my God. You've heard some of these clips. Oh yes, yes. And they would always pick Sammy up and go, I'd like to thank the NAACP for this award. Oh, yeah. Wow. I didn't know that. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And there's a whole bit where Dean Martin is going, I'll drink with you. I'll play around with you. I'll play golf with you. I'll go to bar mitzvahs with you, but don't touch me. And it's like a lot of like, stay away from me,

black man. There's a lot of like jokes just about the fact that a black man is on the stage with white guys. Like, it's so new.

Like, that that is the thing they keep talking about. And it reminds me of this thing. If you said, my sister and I, well, my whole family,

but my little sister and I especially wanted to do this. We saw Rickles perform in Vegas like three or four years ago. Oh, what was that like? Very recently. The black guy in the third row. That's exactly what he does. He's still doing it.

Like, he's still doing it. And, like, it was weird. Like, it was really, like, it was uncomfortable. Like, he would pick out a guy that was, like, a super well-dressed obviously very rich black guy like who they seated right down stage and and rickles starts going into this whole thing about like what's your name tyrone is your name tyrone and like the audience is like crickets and rickles is like he's like he's like and rickles starts saying like well you know just come in here to pick people's pockets like these are the jokes that he's doing and like it's just total crickets and and just like, like he just, no one in the room was having the like anxieties,

the feelings that he was having of like, oh my God, there's a black man here in the room with us. It was really fascinating. Rickles was at some event where he made a joke about President Obama and he goes, but I don't want to insult President Obama. He's a good friend of mine. He was over my house yesterday. Then his mop broke. Oh, my God. Amazing. Oh, my God. Amazing that he's still getting away with that. Well, I mean, there was a point in the thing where like, like, you know, he wasn't getting last on some of this stuff, like for some of it, like some of the audience sort of like laughing partly out of nervousness and just like, what is happening?

But there was a lady who was sitting down very close. And I remember he pointed to her because we say this to each other sometimes on the radio show. He pointed to her and he's like, lady, look, this is the act. If you don't like this, like this is the act. This is the show. If you don't like the show, you don't have to stay for the show. And he did an imitation of her sitting there with her arms crossed. He's like, this is the show, lady.

I don't know what you're going to get. I was like, yeah. So sometimes like my senior producer and I, like when we're talking about something, or you have to deliver the bad news, like, I'm sorry, this isn't going to be on. This is the show. You got to deal with it. This is the show we're going to do. You make a great point in that show because you're talking about how someone, how such beauty can be coupled with

such vulgarity that he was, that he was both. That's the thing about it. That's so mesmerizing. Yeah. That Frank Sinatra was like, was like so many guys wrapped up in one guy, you know, like he would punch out a photographer and yet like he would croon these like incredibly vulnerable songs. Like I'm reading up on it. Like I read like people – like one of the things about him was people would think like he had to be a tough guy because he was like – because he was being so vulnerable on stage. He felt like he had to prove like I'm a real guy. That's interesting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, like and so like sort of vicious to the calmness at the time. Oh, Dorothy in that recording. He had a whole set of bits. Oh, yeah. Dorothy Kilgallen. Yeah, I think he called her that chinless time. Oh, Dorothy, in that recording. He had a whole set of bits on Dorothy Kilgallen. I think he called her that chinless wonder. Yeah,

but it's, and it's all, it's nasty and personal. Well, it's not just like how ugly she is. And again, you can't imagine a comedian just like going on about how ugly a person is. Like,

it's just not, I don't know. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really something. Yeah.

Like, and, and, but that is what's so fascinating about him is that he's not somebody who you feel like you can predict what he would be at any given moment. I love the Sarah Val thing too where she's basically lobbying before he passes away for the networks. There's a humorous Sarah Val who's frequently on an show, and she's begging the local news, when you do Frank Sinatra's obit, don't lead with my way. Anything but my way.

She's like, it's his worst song. He hated it himself. Don't do it. Of course they did. They did it. They totally did it. But then another thing everyone admired about Sinatra was that fascination with the mob. Yeah.

You know, everyone loved that. Like, ooh, he's in with all these big killers and gangsters. Well, it's true. It just made him seem like, it just made him mythic. You know what I mean? Like, all those things just made him so mythic. And, like, in his, like, really, like, I didn't know this when I was a kid, but, like, by the 60s, like, his star was kind of going down.

Oh, yes. Yeah, like and he totally had to like bring it back and reinvent himself like over and over. Well, he – this is one we'll have to play on the show one of these days. What's that? It's when all those guys who are trying to be relevant. Oh, when he was doing Bad, Bad Leroy Brown and that kind of stuff. Yeah, he also did Mrs. Robinson. Oh, yes.

I'm familiar with it. You cuckoo bird, Mrs. Robinson. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. Well, I always wondered if you're Paul Simon, you must be on some level flattered. Oh, my God, of course. Because it's Sinatra.

Of course. But at the same time. Yeah. Better get him drunk. Get Paul Simon on here and get him drunk and ask him. And the funny thing is, when Sammy Davis Jr. died, he was back to being like the king of show business. And we love him. Everything he did was.

But he had fallen into that thing where everyone made fun of him going, you know, with the. Yeah, I guess that's true. Nehru jacket and the peace sign. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. And giving the fist in the air and trying to be still hip with the kids. Yeah, yeah, when he was way too old for that. Yeah, that's really true.

That's right, I never thought about that. I don't know, I have such a soft spot for Sammy Davis Jr. I feel like he was always like, I don't know, he's super fun to watch. Oh, he was a great performer. But people would make fun of that, like, hey, right on, baby.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he became a little self-parodying. Oh, yeah. Toward the end. Yeah. And, okay, here's the story of Sammy Davis. What was it? Oh, you were trying to think if it was Jeff Chandler or Jeffrey Hunter.

I think it was Jeff Chandler was the Jew. Right, he was. Okay. Wait, who plays the Jew? Jeff Chandler was the Jew. Right, he was. Okay. Wait, who plays the Jew? Jeff Chandler was a Jew in person. And when Sammy Davis Jr. got into the really bad car accident where he lost his eye and he was in a coma for God knows how long, the story has it that Jeff Chandler went to him. He was unconscious and he was making a fist. So he pushed a little Star of David in his hand. And when he finally woke up out of the coma, he had like the imprint of the Star of David on the palm of his hand.

And that's what made him convert to Judaism. Is that a true story? That's the story I heard. As far as we're concerned. Yeah. It's too good a story not to be. Where did you find that? Someone told you.

Yeah, probably the same guy who told me about Cesar Romero. Okay, I haven't told this story a lot. Cesar Romero. Ira's a fan of the old Batman series, so he'll appreciate this. You'll never watch it the same way ever again. Okay. Cesar Romero. Oh, no.

Where is this going? Not to a good place. He had a very ugly place. He, you know, he's always the romantic Latin lover. Yes. But in real life, he was gay. And, you know, no, who cares? Right.

But it couldn't just be ordinary gay. This was old Hollywood. But it couldn't just be ordinary gay. This was old Hollywood. So what I heard he was into was he'd gather up these boy toys and he'd stand there in the middle of them. They'd form a circle. He'd stand in the middle of them. Some people say he stood ankle deep in warm water. Oh, my God.

I'm covering my face because I don't even want to know where this goes. I just heard this recently. Okay. That he stood ankle deep in warm water to add... First of all, whatever... Can we just pause for a second? Whatever is about to happen,

how much setup is this sexual act taking? Yes. Oh, well, it's horrible. You need a bunch of guys. You need like something to hold the warm water in. Somebody has to warm up the water and put it into the... Like, who's the person who does it? Do you do that yourself? Do you make one of the guys do that?

He was a job creator. He was a job creator. Okay. All right. So he's standing there naked? Yes. Naked. And...

Or he just pulls down his pants and underwear either way. It's naked. Okay. And the boy toy's job is to throw orange wedges at his ass. Some people have said tangerine wedges. That's the only argument. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Orange wedges.

Wait, orange wedges. Like you the only argument. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Orange wedges. Wait, orange wedges. Like you take an orange. Yeah. And you just throw the orange wedge at his ass? Yeah. See, I want to know. Why do we believe that? What is that even?

I want to know. Wait, and does he get off that way? Is he touching himself? Other people touching him? I don't know. But see, what I want to know is when did Cesar Romero wake up and go, ooh, you know, it would feel great? Orange wedges, full force on my ass.

Yeah. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a coffee table book, and it's going to be nothing but photos of our guests reacting. Just stills. Reacting. Oh, my God. book and it's going to be nothing but photos of our guests reacting just still reacting oh my god iris fans could see the look on his face oh my god and you know about wait wait don't go there that doesn't even make any sense wait and then the orange wedges fall into the water like maybe yeah it depends with what force they bounce off.

Yeah. They bounce off the joker's ass. Well, that's a really good point. I think that the dude, you want it with some force, right? Yes, of course. You don't want it with just a pat. You don't lob him underhand. I would think.

And is it an orange wedge because it's just going to smell nice at the end? Yeah. You feel sort of gross, but you're just like, I smell pretty fresh. And you get vitamin C. Obviously. I'm sure a few times Caesar would yell out, hey, you threw that way too wimpy. Yeah.

I want a bruise. You'll never see Batman the same way again. No. The original series. Another, speaking of, we were talking about the Poseidon Adventure and speaking of aquatic films. Yes. How's that for a clumsy segue?

Well, Cesar Romero stood in... We talked about this before. Well, you and I talked about this before. He stood in warm water. That's an aquatic. Ira is a fan

of The Incredible Mr. Limpet. Well, you were asking me, Frank, before we came on, what are movies that I remember from when I was a kid? And I remember being completely terrified by that movie. Well, you were asking me, Frank, before we came on, like, what are movies that I remember from when I was a kid?

And I remember being completely terrified by that movie. Like, nightmarishly terrified by The Incredible Mr. Limpet. And it only occurred to me years later is it's not supposed to be scary. When I was a little boy, I went with my parents to see The Incredible Mr. Limpet. Don Knotts and Jack Weston. And did they show it all day long in the same theater? No, they changed the movie. Okay.

Right after it. Okay. They showed Julia. Julia, really? And the turning point. And the sorrow and the pity and then then the Incredible Mr. Limpid. Just back up. They showed the Incredible Mr. Limpid, and then an hour later, they would show Children of a Lesser God.

It's great that you have those jokes at your fingertips. It's great that you have those jokes at your fingertips. And were you, like, I remember being terrified by it. Like, Don Knotts, nobody has seen it. Like, this is such an obscure movie. It's not that obscure. They're going to remake it a couple years ago with Jim Carrey. He'd be good.

Yeah. But, like, it's a guy who basically becomes a fish. Yeah. And wears his glasses as a fish. When he's a fish, he's a cartoon. Oh, yes. And looks a lot like Don Knotts. And I just remember being terrified.

It seems so real that you could become a fish. I wish I were a fish. Fish have a better life than people. I wish, I wish, I wish I were a fish. Cause fishes have a better life than people. They don't have all the care and strife of people. A fish can swim, that's all they ask of him. A fish is free to roam around the sea and look for love wherever he can find it.

He flirts with every lady fish as she goes swimming by and if she gives her tail a swish and winks a fishy eye, a minnow all at once can be a whale of a guy. I wish, I wish I were a fish. Henry, the water! What a mess. I think I'm a few years younger than you. Maybe not.

I bet we might be exactly the same age. Yipes. See, I, you know what scared me when I was a kid on the Abbott and Costello TV show when, when, oh, oh, Jesus. Who, Boccia Gallup? Bessa. Oh, Stinky. Stinky.

Yeah, when Joe Bessa would show up as Stinky and he'd be this grown man in a little kid's outfit. Oh, wow. He used to scare me. Wait a minute. And what was it? Do you know what it was? I don't know.

It just seemed wrong. It just seemed wrong. That is the most profound thing you can say. That's so deep. It just seemed wrong. You know about Danny Kaye and Laurence Olivier, right? No. This is going to have to be a whole other show.

All right. See, one time, Laurence Olivier was coming into some country. Danny Kaye was already there. So Danny Kaye put on a whole outfit like he's some French guard. And he goes, you, monsieur, go into this room. And he takes him in there and he makes Laurence Olivier undress. And then he examines him by sticking his finger in Laurence Olivier's asshole. And then his mustache falls off.

And he and Danny have a big laugh about this. Now, this story was told by Malcolm McDowell. Yeah, see? Okay. Who had worked with Olivier, so this one could be true. Oh, wow. See, so when he— Wait, they're at the airport or something?

Yes, yes. And the plane has come in, and Danny Kaye is so famous that he says— He's allowed to go into security. To do security. He's at customs. They've given him a customs agent uniform to harass. When you see either Laurence Olivier or Danny Kaye, you know they had their fingers in each other's asses. Well, that's really good to know.

That is the definition of a showstopper. Are these men, are they gay? No, no, they were real he-men. And as macho he-men often do, they stick their finger in another guy's ass. There were rumors. These are showbiz stories. These are old saws. Who knows how much truth.

But Malcolm McDowell, a reputable actor, did tell this on television. Okay. The Cesar Romero story has no merit whatsoever. This one may have some validity to it.

This is so like, I don't know why this is coming to mind, but it just reminds me of how like, you can't libel a dead man. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So that's good for all of us.

We do our best. Which is why, which is why I bring up the Danny Thomas. Allegedly. He's got to know that one. No, I don't know what we're talking about yet. You don't know that. How are you in show business? I'm in public broadcasting.

I'm in a tiny little island on the side of show. Like, show business is like a huge continent. And then off, there's a little island off the South Carolina coast where, like, you know, the Gullah people used to live. And that's where public radio is. Danny Thomas used to hire hookers. Danny Thomas used to hire hookers. And depending on who you hear the story from, some people say he wore a priest outfit when this took place. And he would lie under a glass coffee table.

Allegedly. And these hookers would shit on the table. Wait, and that would be exciting? And then, like, okay, so many questions. So from the hooker's point of view, is he always going to the same service so they know they tell the lady, like, listen, have a big meal beforehand. No, seriously, have a big meal.

Yes, have the Have a big meal. Yes. Have the triple Whopper. Like, how do you organize? I'm starting to produce all these things in my head. So how do you, like, organize that for the man? The Mac definitely with cheese. Oh, Lord. It's a glass table.

Yes. So it's got to be pretty heavy glass. I love that he approaches this as a problem solver. So she's standing on the table that she's pooping on, right? Yes. Right. So she's standing on it, so it's got to support her weight. And it has to be a table that can't wobble or she'd break her neck.

Right? But it also has to be tall enough that he can be underneath it. Yes. And then is she in sort of like, I guess she's squatting. Yeah. Yeah. I would think so. Yeah.

I'm just trying to think it through. Yes. Of course. As one would. I got nothing. I'll try to clean up the show and take us out, Ira. You want to tell us quickly about your experience working with Yoko? Oh, that was a very random thing to have happened. I've been doing this show,

which when I describe it, it's going to sound awful. I swear it was good, where we've toured all over the country. We performed at the Sydney Opera House, we performed in London, and it's me and two dancers, and I tell stories, and they dance, and then sometimes I dance with them. And we did a little bit of it at Carnegie Hall like we did a little like 12 minute excerpt of it for somebody's benefit um and uh and one of Yoko Onna's producers was at the benefit and Yoko was looking for bad dancers to be in a video for her song Bad Dancer which is from her latest album and they're like I think we have a bad dancer you could hire and I'm'm like, I got the call. And then there was a really weird gig.

Like it's like one of those really weird gigs where like you show up. You must have this – I feel like your world of show business is – I feel like you must get into such weird random situations. So this is the most random one I've ever had where they're like, okay, you're going to go to this place. Like, okay, you're going to go to this place. And I think it was like one of the Beastie Boys was producing it. And like literally sitting next to me in the makeup chairs was Roberta Flack. And then you just think like I didn't even know you were still – you don't say it. I didn't know you were still alive. But like Roberta Flack.

You know what I mean? And then just like – and it was sort of like one person after another. after another. And then I met Yoko Ono, who was incredibly gracious and said to me, she said, she said, thank you for your work, which I thought either meant that she knows my work or she doesn't know my work. Those are the two possibilities. And I think probably the latter. And then there was a part of it where you dance alone. There's a part of it where you improv dance with Yoko Ono. And then Yoko Ono is sort of game to do whatever. So we just improv. She was sort of yes and anything I would try.

She's a very slight, short, older lady. Like she's an older lady for sure. I mean she might be 80. Yeah, probably. Yeah. She was always older than him. And she never knew who John Lennon was. She said that in interviews.

Oh, when they met. When they met. She had no idea. I mean, there was nobody more famous on the planet than John Lennon. Well, it's so interesting you say that because my cousin is Philip Glass, the composer. And I was telling him this story about- Oh, wait. Before I forget.

When I was told Ira Glass is going to be on the show next week, I, with my knowledge, I go, oh, he's the composer, isn't he? Aw. Gilbert, you've been to the studio where I work. Yes, yes, I know. And then I thought you were character acting Ned Gilles. I don't expect him to put two and two together, do you, Ira? No, no, no. But anyway, so Philip was part of the like new york art scene in

the 60s and 70s and he was he was composing back then and and uh and so he knew yoko as a performance artist and for him yoko ono is famous because of that and then he also has the same perspective and like he knows who john lennon is he knows who the beatles are but he also when he thinks of yoko he thinks of her as like as her as Japanese performance artist who apparently was kind of amazing at that. And yeah, his whole take on her is like the upside down world version where she's the famous one and John Lennon is the sort of secondary character. Fascinating. Yeah, yeah. Just like hers. And I remember when I saw Let It Be in the theater,

two hours later, they showed Gone With the Wind. Perfect rap. Okay. Bravo. I don't mind being a stooge for the closer. But did you have to be Curly Joe Dorita? At least I wasn't scared of Joe Besser. Yes.

Very funny. So, are we wrapping up? We should. Yeah. This man has a very busy life. And what is it that you do again? Exactly. Yes.

His podcast is more successful than this one will ever be. Believe me. That's all you need to know. A two-year-old girl in her basement has a more successful podcast than this will ever be. Tell us what's coming up or what you want to plug. I have a podcast, It's American Life, and the film that I worked on that I produced, Don't Think Twice, is still in theaters everywhere. With the very funny Mike Birbiglia. Yeah, very, very funny.

What do they show right after Don't Think Twice, is still in theaters everywhere. With the very funny Mike Birbiglia. Yeah, very, very funny. What do they show right after Don't Think Twice? I heard it. Don't Think Twice and then the Bowery Boys in a haunted house. They could show five Planet of the Apes movies

in one day. That's the part that I left out. That was the essential part. Very funny. Okay. So this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Once again, recording at Thunbeck with our engineer, Frank Ferdarosa.

Thank you, Frank. And we have been talking to Ira Glass. Oh, it's been a pleasure being here. And you've learned more stuff about show business. I have learned so much about show business, yeah. Feel free to talk about it on your show. I will, thank you. But it's NPR, so you'll go.

We'll try to fact check it. Yeah, yeah. And since it's NPR, you'll have to say, the hookers would shit on the last coffee table. Thanks for putting up with us, Ira. It was fun. Good. Thank you.

Okay. And thanks again to today's sponsor The Harold Ramis Film School Which is part of the Second City in Chicago The first film school in the world Dedicated entirely to comedic storytelling They're accepting applications now For their year-long program So whatever your experience level or background may be

If you love comedy and content creation The Harold Ramis Film School is for you For more information Visit their website, r-a-m-i-s-film-school.com or call 312-664-3959.