Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 156. Carl Reiner

Episode Date: May 22, 2017

Gilbert and Frank welcome one of their personal heroes to the show, iconic writer-actor-director Carl Reiner, who recalls his earliest years in the business, shares his admiration for Steve Allen, Sid Caesar and Dick Van Dyke and looks back on his feature film collaborations ("The Jerk," "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid") with Steve Martin. Also, Gilbert and Carl roast Joan Rivers, Ruth Gordon bites George Segal's tush, Queen Elizabeth praises "The 2000 Year Old Man," and Sheldon Leonard rescues "Head of the Family." PLUS: Iron Balls McGinty! Monty the Talking Dog! The late, great Edith Head! Mickey Rooney sends up Ben Turpin! And the legend of Le Petomane! This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter (www.ziprecruiter.com/GILBERT). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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As usual. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here once again with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're recording once again at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Verderosa. Three years ago, we started this podcast in the hopes that we would talk and reminisce with people like this week's guest. To say he needs no introduction is an understatement, but we're going to do our best. He's a writer, actor, director, producer, and one of the most prolific and successful talents to ever step onto a stage or in front of a camera. He's won a Director's Guild Award, an American Comedy Award, a Grammy Award,

and nine Emmys for writing, acting, and producing. He's also the recipient of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor, and a member of the Television Hall of Fame, among other honors. As an actor, he's appeared in feature films such as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming. And the end. And most recently, the Ocean's Eleven trilogy in the role of the lovable con man, Saul Bloom. Memorable TV appearances include Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, The Carol Burnett Show, Frasier, Mad About You,

over 45 appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and of course as a key cast member on the landmark sketch comedy shows Caesar's Hour and Your Show of Shows, where he worked alongside comedy icon Sid Caesar and longtime friend Mel Brooks. As a director, he's responsible for some of the most popular comedy films of the last five decades, including The Jerk, The Man with Two Brains, All of Me, Oh God, and two favorites of this podcast, The One and Only and Where's Papa. And if all that wasn't enough to cement his place in entertainment history, back in 1961, he created, wrote, and produced what is arguably the best and most beloved situation comedy in the history of the medium When the Dick Van Dyke Show Was Born. We're thrilled to welcome to the show a genuine living legend and a man who, fortunately for never realized his childhood dream of becoming an Irish tenor.

The great Carl Reiner. Am I on? Okay. I stopped listening to everything you said when you said I won nine Emmys. And I said, I've got to correct that. I have 12 Emmys. 12 Emmys! That's my fault. We'll edit that out.

It was tiring. I got tired listening to it because I said, that was a lot of work. Yes. Anyway, Gilbert, it's so nice to chat with you. I remember, hey, were we on the, we did the Joan Rivers show together, didn't we? Oh, we did the Joan Rivers roast.

Yes, you were hysterical on that roast. Oh, thank you. As you always are. Oh. By the way, by the way, are your eyes open yet? open yet? Anyway, you're a gem. You're a treasure, as I call you.

Oh, thank you. That's nice. Didn't you guys meet on a plane? Yes. I think the first time we met was on a plane. I think so. Where were we going? Probably either to L.A. or from L.A. to New York. Okay, I'll have to check my old, what do you call it, calendars. We'll find it. And I remember you telling me then, you said,

oh, my son's a big fan of yours. He is. He was and is. And now I became a big fan of his. I just saw a movie he produced and directed and wrote and helped. It's called Shock and Awe. I just saw it a couple days ago. It is something. It is something. And I got to boast on him because Rob was the producer of it and the director. The last minute, Alec Baldwin was supposed to play the lead of the editor of the Knight Rider newspaper.

And he conked out. Rob took over and did one of the greatest performances I've ever seen him do. That kid can do anything. Wow, wonderful. What a body of work he has. You know, as a matter of fact, I tweet a lot. What a body of work he has. You know, as a matter of fact, I tweet a lot. And last night I got a tweet that said Rob Reiner would be a very good president.

And you know, a long, long time ago, they were asking him to run for governor way back. He's one of the brightest humans I know. We follow you on Twitter, Carl. You do. We do. One of the brightest humans I know. We follow you on Twitter, Carl. You do.

We do. If I can get totally out of any form we had, can I talk about Rob Reiner's greatest accomplishment? When he was a little boy. I know where you're going. He grabbed Mary Tyler Moore's ass. No, no. Here's what happened.

He used to come to watch the, he and Albert Brooks came to watch the rehearsals. He was like 14, 13, 14, I guess, 14 or 15. Anyway, and Albert must have said he dared him or something. I don't know what it was. But she was up in the stands where he was there. For some reason, she was up there. And as she passed by, he patted her on the behind.

And Mary came over to me and said, you know, I wasn't upset, but I think you should know your son patted my behind. And I called him in the office. I said, Rob, did you pat Mary's behind? He said, yeah, Dad.

I says, don't do it anymore. That's all I said. Everybody wanted to do that. By the way, 15 years later, we had a revisited, a big show, and Rob was now 25 years, 23 years old. They met, and she reminded him of that. She said, remember Rob, when you did that, he was so embarrassed, he apologized again.

She said, no, no, no. I want you to give it a good grab. And she put her posterior out and he gave her a good grab. She said, isn't that better? You reenacted it. That's great. And as we talk about that, I'm

so sad and I see that smiling face in front of me. The girl who turned the world on with her smile is no longer with us. Well, I'm barely with you. Tell us about we just had your friend Bill Persky

on the show. And you guys go way back Oh, I love Bill. And you guys go way back. A word about Bill. Yeah. For the first three years, I wrote the show called Head of the Family, 13 episodes all written. And when I, it didn't work, I did it as an actor. It didn't work, and Sheldon Leonard read the scripts and said, this will make a wonderful.

I love these scripts. And I said, I don't want to fail with the same material twice. And he says, you won't fail. We'll get a better actor to play you. And that's the great Sheldon Leonard. And he suggested Dick Van Dyke. And Mary, I looked at 23 people before I saw Mary and when she came in the office,

she didn't want to audition that day. She had like three failures that week and she was reluctant. But when she walked in and I saw that smile that lit up the room, that hair and those gams, which are called legs these days, I said, this is it. And I remember Sheldon, when I said to Sheldon,

you know, I've seen 23 girls. I don't know what I'm looking for. You'll know when you see it. And I made my hand into a claw that you see at the arcade that picks candy out of a machine. I walked across the room, grabbed the top of her head with my claw, walked her down to Sheldon's office and said, I found her. She's here. That was my Mary Tyler Moore memory. And now she's gone and it's, it just doesn't seem right. 80 years old is not enough. No, no. There's a good line in one of

your books where you say you've always were, you were always good at picking wives that you picked a good one for yourself and you picked, you picked a good one for Rob Petrie. I did say that, didn't I? Yeah. Well, I sure picked a good one for myself. 65 years with the right woman. And your wife is famous for, like, a line. Oh, sure. Rob Reiner did a picture called When Harry Met Sally,

and he had this one line in it. Oh, look at this. And he called his mother. He said, Ma, you've got to fly out here. when Harry met Sally, and he had this one line in the delicatessen, and he called his mother. He said, Ma, you've got to fly out here. She said, he was in New York at this time. She says, there are a million women in New York who could do that line. He says, nobody can do it like you, Ma.

And I tell this story because Estelle did have a way with one-liners that popped out of her very once in a while. She was the comedian. She was everything else but humorous. This is a line I love repeating. When my daughter Annie was now, I call inarguably, the world's greatest singing psychoanalyst because she's a psychoanalyst, but she has a voice like a mother and sings in clubs when she can. But I said, what do you want for your 16th birthday?

We were talking about. And her brother, three years older, said, why don't you get a nose job like your friends do? And I said, wait a minute, Annie. Her mother has a bigger nose than Annie's. And look at the handsome guy she got. And then my wife said, yes, it's not the size of your nose that counts. It's what's in it.

That's a great line. And I was doing one of the Steve Martin movies and I told him about it at the time. 10 years later, he calls Estelle. He says, Estelle, can I use one of your lines? She says, what are you talking about? He says, your husband once told me you said this line. And she said, oh yes, of course you can use

it. And there's Cyrano de Bergerac saying, it's not the size of your nose that counts, it's what's in it. Oh, and Roxanne. Roxanne, right. You know, as long as we're talking about Estelle and the Van Dyck show, I don't know that people know that she was the inspiration and that she read a pilot that was written for you.

You gave it to her to read, and she said, I think you can write a better sitcom than this. Oh, yes. Estelle, everything I've ever done, including when I first wrote short stories, I was a teletypist in the army. And when I came home, I wanted to see if I could still type. So I typed out a short story, four pages. I gave it to Estelle. She said, where'd you get this? I said, I wrote it.

And she said, you wrote this? And I wrote a dozen of them. And then they were good enough for somebody to send to somebody to read. And I had a party. Somebody said, these are wonderful. I know it was at a party of a friend of mine, Julian Rochelle, who was a textile manufacturer, and there was a guy there who said he read the book, the short stories. And I said, why did you give the guy the book? He said he wants to have lunch with me. He said, do I have to have lunch with everybody who read these short stories?

He says, what is he? He's in pocketbooks, he said. What, does he buy linings for his pocketbooks? He's not those kind of pocketbooks. Simon and Schuster pocketbooks. And I said to my wife, gee, I don't know how to write a novel. I don't have enough words. I only went to Georgetown University.

The Army sent me there for a year. She says, you have something more than words. You have feeling. And that's when I wrote my first novel, Enter Laughing. She's always told me, you can do it. And I did it. Absolutely. I love the fact that you're not good enough to play the part of

carl reiner oh and head of the family laura i've had a hard day why is he in the closet again he spent half of his six years in closets you know he's beginning to smell like a camper bowl. Trouble by mom. Oh, honey, I get paid to write bad jokes. That's why the show smells. What was that? You said a wrong thing.

What wrong thing? Look, honey, it's almost six o'clock. He should be watching television. I should be eating dinner. Why is he locked in a closet? Because he's upset. If he got out of the closet, he wouldn't be so upset. That's what's upsetting him, being in a dark closet.

You know why he's in there? Yes. Well, are you going to tell me? Robert, your son dislikes you. What are you saying? How can he dislike me? I'm his father. Some children are known to hate their fathers. He's only six years old. He doesn't know me long enough to hate me. That was a breakthrough. My God, when the Dick Van Dyke show was the situation comedy at the time. And then came Norman Lear with breaking it open and making Biggest sound like Biggest. He had everything.

It was really broken open for the truth, the total truth. We found it difficult to get an African-American in the show. I was always trying to get an African-American in this white neighborhood. He broke it open for everybody. He did. And how was Dick Van Dyke chosen to be Carl Reiner? Oh, Shelton mentioned him. I went to New York, saw him in Bye Bye Birdie with Chita Rivera, and it was hands down.

I said, that's the guy. Dick is the most single talented man I know. He can do everything, everything. You know, it's funny, Steve Martin, who I consider a true genius, he's not only an actor, he knows everything about everything, about art, about collections. He just knows everything. He's one of the brightest men I know. As a matter of fact, his biography, Born Standing Up, you can't put it down. It's just thrilling.

And so he said, you know, Dick Van Dyke is the single most talented man that ever was in our business. He can do anything. And he's 90 now, and he's still jumping and dancing and tap dancing. Yeah, we had him on here. It was a thrill. Gilbert got to sing with him. Oh, yes.

We sang Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. And put on a happy face. I did two duets with Dick Van Dyke. Oh, my God. Isn't it amazing, 90, how he still can jump around? And he dances every day. Hey, how old are you, Gilbert? Oh, my God. Isn't it amazing, 90, how he still can jump around? And he dances every day. Hey, how old are you, Gilbert? Oh, God.

Physically, I'm older than Dick Van Dyke. No, you're not. I know you're not as tall as him. You're about a few inches shorter. Oh, my God, yes. Oh, by the way, I didn't finish about billy persky yeah well those first three years when i did the show uh i was the i was a producer i was a story editor and i i wrote the first 15 or 30 of the first 60 episodes i was all alone. And until Berski and Denhoff, Bill Berski came in and he wrote a show.

And I used this phrase, Billy saved my life, because he came and took the burden off me. He wrote some of the best shows we've ever done. Sure did. And I say that all the time. And every time we speak on the phone, I call him the man who saved my life. And Marshall and Belson and Jerry Paris. So many people involved.

Yeah, Marshall and Belson. I'm so sad about that. Gary just left and Belson who is just the darlingest person in the world. You surrounded yourself with wonderful people on that show. I lucked out. When you have a product that people want to work on,

it was lovely to attract these people. While we wait for Gilbert to find the men's room, we promise we'll come back to the show after a word from our sponsor. Don't go away. Live from Nutmeg Post, we now return to Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I gotta ask you just a quick synopsis of your childhood. Yes.

Yeah, so just where were you born? I was 179th Street and Belmont Avenue in the bronx on the first floor in a bedroom that's where i was born people were born at home then um and i went back years later i was doing new york magazine was doing about our early days i went to see my five-story building. It's not there. It's gone. Raised. There was an empty lot with bricks in it, lying around, a few bricks. I took two bricks, brought one for my brother who lived there with me, and I have a brick of that house yet. But that's my early days in the Bronx. And what did your parents do? My father was a watchmaker and an inventor. He invented things. He had patents and he invented a clock battery, 5,000 amps and one milliamp. And it ran a clock. He said it would run a

clock, a pendulum clock for a hundred years. And it ran for 60. Wow. It would have run for 100, but it shorted out when my mother passed away. He put the clock in his bag to come to California with me. And the two posts were shorting, you know, it shorted out. So it lost 40 years of its life. And you know something, this is like the most synchronistic crazy thing my nephew was living with my father was living with my nephew at the time and the day my father passed away is the day the clock stopped nobody we nobody would believe that but that was true and your parents were like like immigrants yeah my father came in 1900 my mother came at about the same time, and she was, no, a few years later. And he came over when he was a 20-year-old.

She came over as a one-year-old. And she was like a Romanian Jew? Yes, she was from Bucharest. She was a very bright woman who was illiterate. Nobody ever taught her to read and write. Someplace in this room here, I found, this is the most incredible thing, I found a diploma. My mother had graduated from school.

You know what she graduated? And the diploma has got all kind of signatures, doctor so-and-so, professor so-and-so. It's a big diploma. It says Bessie Reiner is a graduated student of this and is fit to go out to the world, whatever it is. All this flowery talk. She was kindergarten. She graduated kindergarten.

She graduated kindergarten. And she had this graduation paper so she can work in the child labor laws. She was working in a flag factory as a finisher, cutting off little strips of flag. When they saw the flag, there was always a little thread hanging. That's what she was doing and when the geary society came to see if there were uh child labor working there they put her in a bin and threw hundreds of flags on and said don't move and my mother remembers not moving for an hour sometime just under all these flags wow this is this is my mother's background and she never learned to read or write and every time there's something in the paper she

would say i haven't got my glasses read it to me but she was so bright she uh my father said you know she handled all the money in the house he was a watchmaker working the house she handled everything without knowing how to read or write we never knew that my brother and i were 12 or 15 when we said i don't't think mom can read. And it was true. You know, when I wrote my first book, Enter Laughing, I sent it to my parents. And my mother called and said, oh, we love the book. And I said, I know she couldn't read. And I said, you did?

She said, yeah, well, Papa read it. And she said, but I think we got the wrong book and I said why she said well at the beginning I think we got Estelle's book and she didn't know that I dedicated the book to Estelle and she figured that

the book that was signed to her she figured it was signed by you know she didn't understand. I was so sad to know that she didn't know about a dedication. You talk in one of the books, Carl, about your parents introducing you to comedy by way of the Marx Brothers. Yes. Oh, my father and mother always loved comedy.

And the radio was always on in our house. My father built the first radio that we ever owned he had a storage battery from the from the garage that powered the powered the radio and we wish to listen to Amos and Andy was the only show on and Lowell Thomas in the news but they when radio did hit its stride with Eddie Cantor and Jack Benny and Fred Allen and Joe Penner and Fibber McGee and Molly, we listened to radio all the time, and my folks always took us to see movies, comedies,

and the Marx Brothers and the Ritz Brothers were our Bible. Joe Penner. Want to buy a duck? Sure. Now, did you ever work with Groucho? Yes, a Bible. Joe Penner. Want to buy a duck? Sure. Now, did you ever work with Groucho? Yes, I did. I wrote and performed on the Dinah Shore show. I had a wonderful, I love this.

I worked on the show as a writer with Charlie Isaacs. And every other week I'd be on as an actor. And when there was a star on, they'd say, and our guest star this week is Yves Montand. And when I was on, I was called the, and our not-so-special guest star this week is again, I love that. So that's where I met Groucho.

He came on the show and he lived near me. And we went over in his house often. We just chatted at a wonderful time. There's a story, too, about Groucho. It was your one of your plays where Groucho gave one of the plays that starred Gabe Dell. Something different. Yes, something different. That's true story.

That was maybe the best thing I've ever written. I wrote a play when it basically was interesting too. I was in between projects and my secretary said, we have nothing to type. I used to type it out. She retyped it, retyped the page. And she said, nothing to type. And I said, and one day I typed out something

and I gave it to her. I said, retype it. It was just nothing. She started to laugh. I wrote just nothing. She started to laugh. I wrote another page. She started to laugh. And I wrote a thing called Something Different. It's sort of a Pirandello-ish thing.

And it was maybe the best thing that I've ever written. I sent it to New York. The very first producer who saw it said, we'll do it. And from the time I wrote it to the time I was on stage, it was like, what, two or three months. And I had a wonderful cast. And in Boston, absolutely, you couldn't get a seat. We sold out for a month or two.

We got to New York. The sad thing happened. The critic for The Times, Walter Kerr, had left. And the dance critic, Clive Barnes, took over, and he didn't get it. He didn't get the show. All he reported was, the audience seemed to be having a great time, but I'm not sure why, or something like that. And so instead of having a real big run, we ran for about 100 performances, one of the saddest things and uh one day uh near the end of the run um when the audience is applauding um a guy stands up and runs to this one of the audience runs towards the stage

turns to the audience and tries to stop them from applauding he holds up his hands gabe dell was about to jump off the stage he's a crazy man and he heard the voice he didn't recognize it because it was Groucho without his mustache and it was Groucho saying don't applaud your job is to go back to your neighborhoods

tell every friend you know that the greatest piece of comedy entertainment is at the theater it's called something different at the Court Theater. Come down here, buy tickets, and keep the show running. That was Groucho. And I never forgot. I thanked him profusely, of course.

It's a great story. What an honor that is. Oh, yes. Oh, it was. It's a funny thing, Carl, that you're a kid listening to the Marx Brothers or watching the Marx Brothers, and then years later, he's jumping up and down in the audience about your play. I know. I met the other brother, Chico, in New York many years ago when I was—we did a show together. He had a show, the Chico Marx Show, and he was so taken with the way we worked together they called his brother and he said

you know we did a thing called fly flywheel and revelli said to me two shyster lawyers he's i'm going to ask my brother if i can have the rights to we can make a television show out of it and i wasn't interested in really but and i was happy that that uh he couldn't sell it because of course groucho said sure go go please do it and uh he couldn't sell it because, of course, Groucho said, sure, go, go, please do it. And he couldn't peddle it, thank goodness. But I knew all of them. And I said to Groucho was, you know, you never talk about your brother, Harpo. He's, what's there to say about a nice guy?

He's just a dear man. He's quiet and he's sweet. There's nothing to say about him. He's just, he's sweet. He has nothing to say about him. He's too good. And you started performing I think during World War II. Before World War II. Oh, yeah. I started performing when I was working as a machinist helper.

And I always thank Franklin Roosevelt and the government. We have governments now. This guy who works, I don't know what his name, Trump something. He wants to take their Obamacare away. He wants to lower the minimum wage. We had a government during the depression the wpa free acting classes for my brother found a little article free acting classes at 100 center street your brother charlie charlie yeah and so uh i went there and mrs whitmore And Mrs. Whitmore, an old English teacher, English professor of drama, taught us.

I worked there for almost a half a year. And at that time, I started auditioning, and I got into a play called the Gilmore Theater, where I worked six days a week doing The Bishop Misbehaves. And I got no money for six days a week doing the Bishop Misbehaves, and I got no money for six nights a week. It cost me 35 cents to eat dinner. I couldn't afford it. I was getting $8 for a machinist helper. And so I came to him after a year, and I said,

I can't work anymore for no money. I don't have money for dinner. He said, okay. And he shut the door and he said, I will give you a dollar. I said, a dollar? A performance? No, a dollar a week. He says, if you tell anyone, I will rescind it.

And so I got a dollar a week. So the first job, kind of showbiz job, was summer theater? I know you were emceeing in the hotels too. No, no. The first job was that one. That one. Okay. I bought a

tuxedo for $10 and Bishop misbehaves. Somebody saw me when I went to the bathroom and supposed to go backstage. The backstage was closed when I was going home. I ran to the bathroom. You're supposed to go backstage. The backstage was closed when I was going home. I ran to the front, and I'm at a urinal, and a guy looks over at me, and he says,

saw you on the show. You were very good. You wanted to do summer theater. And that's where I got my first summer theater job, in the toilet. And I went to the Rochester Summer Theater, and I worked there for two seasons. There were 24 shows.

Part of your act was doing impressions? You did Ronald Coleman and Akeem Tamaroff? No, that was later on. That was later on, okay. When I went to the Army, you know, and when I was in the Army, I started going to rec halls and doing impressions of actors. And I worked up an act. And I finally, when I went overseas

I was a teletype operator on my way to didn't know it at the time, Iwo Jima and Maurice Evans had an entertainment section at the time and he was doing Hamlet in

when GI closed I went to see it and it was extraordinary, I went to see it, and it was extraordinary. I went at the University of Hawaii, and Howie Morris, an old friend from the NYA radio workshop, another one of those things that Roosevelt did. We got $23 a week to do three radio shows a week. And Howie said, I said, Howie how are you well ladies you were wonderful he says you have an act and i said yeah but he says come on audition for it was alan ludden was the captain yes that's great yeah and uh george and um what's the name maury sevens maury sevens was the you

know the commander and my friend saul pomeran, says, go find out if you're any good. So I went down there. I did my act. I did impressions. And they wanted me. And I said, fellas, I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm going someplace. I don't know, Detachment 18.

And the next day, I hear my voice, a voice on the loudspeaker in my barracks, report to the office. And they had traded me like a ball player. They called General Richardson of the Pacific Command. And they said, we need this guy. And there I was. So for the next year and a half, I entertained the troops. The act I want to describe, because I did it all over the Pacific for one year. This is like a bad Dan Daly movie. My outfit actually invaded Iwo Jima, which I didn't know I was going there.

But what happened is when I entertained, did all the islands in the Pacific, Saipan, Guam, Magma, Kanawitag, Johnson Island, Palau. And one year, I'm entertaining troops all over. VJ Day, we land in Iwo Jima. And there were 17 different installations. The first installation we hit in Iwo was my old buddies. So there I am, starring in a show I had written with all my buddies that I hadn't seen for a year. And thank God every one of them lived. None of them got killed on the invasion.

Wow. What were you going to say, Gil? Oh, I was going to say a number of years ago, Frank took me to an autograph signing convention. Yep. And I was walking around the room and somebody screamed out when they saw me it's that loud mouth fucking Jew

and I turned around and it was Howard Morris Uncle Goofy. Yeah, Howie and I had a long time together. We were, as I said, an NYA radio workshop together. And the day he went to the Army, when he was being called up, I said, I won't take you, Howie. You're only 112 pounds. You had to be 115 or something. And the next day he came in as they took me.

He says, what happened? He says, I was thirsty in the morning. I drank three glasses of water. That's how we got in. Years after, when I was touring in Call Me Mister, there was a very tiny part of a two-line part of a general, a young general, supposed to look

like 12 years old. And I got Howie at our job, and so we toured for a year with Howie and playing that general, which is a tiny part. We had a long history together. What was Monty the Talking Dog, Carl? Do you have any recollection of that? That was the thing that got me in.

I came out on stage with a leash and a little dog jacket, and I put it on like a cage, and I said, I was very sad. I said, gentlemen, sorry, but the act that was going to be here today is no longer possible. I said, this is a sleaze. And this is, it's Monty the talking dog. He did impressions, the greatest impressions ever. Nobody's ever heard impressions like that.

And I said, you know, I said, I can do them for you. But they won't be anywhere near as good as what Monty used to do. And remember, this is a dog. That's what made it interesting. I'm a guy. So many people do impressions. And I did my impressions, got a lot of laughs. And then I said, and there's one impression Monty did that I won't even attempt.

He did Roy Rogers' horse, Trigger. He used to do Trigger. He used to put on a lot of fur. Oh, you got to see it to believe it. So that was the act I did all over the Pacific. And you did impressions. You did Akeem Tamaroff and Charles Boyer. Charles Boyer, yes.

Jimmy Stewart. Do I have this right? Jimmy Stewart, yeah. And Durante and Tamiroff. I remember one line. I don't provoke. He said that. And what was the name of that movie?

A very famous movie. Hemingway. I forget. Don't go away. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to Gilbert and Frank. And a lot of a lot of talk. But you can't talk about it enough.

And that's the when you were on your show of shows with Sid Caesar. Yes. And Howie. Yes. And yeah, that's right, Howie. Of course. Tell, it was an insane group of writers. Well, we had the best,

I considered it my college. That's where I really learned to write, sitting in the writer's room with them. And it was, of course, Mel Brooks. When I came, Mel wasn't even a writer on the show. He was a friend of Sid's, getting $35 a week. And the first time I saw him, he was doing his Jewish pirate. I walked into the room, and this little guy standing there said,

you know how hard it is to set sail these days? Is what they're charging for sail? $3. cents a yard i can't afford to pillage and rape anymore that's the first time i heard mel the following monday i came in and i i remembered him doing that and i saw we the people speak a thing on television where they do the news and i went up and i said here's a man who was actually at the scene of the crucifixion 2 000 years ago that's when he became the 2 000 year old man and the next 10 years we did it at parties private affairs and it was 10 years before

steve allen convinced us that it was not anti-seemitic. We thought it was only for Jews and non-anti-Semitic Christians. But he made us put it on record, and then it became, you know, a staple of comedy. Now, I heard that among the people who are fans of the 2,000-year-old man was Cary Grant. He was. I gave him one. we were both at university we had a little bungalows near each other and one day he came by he was passing by and i i waved at him and i said i'd like to offer you this and i gave him an album And he came back the next day. He says, can I have a dozen? I said, why? He said, I'm going to England.

And I said, you're going to take it to England? He said, yes, they speak English there. And when he came back, and this is true, he came back and she loved it. I said, who? He said, Queen Mother. He took her to Buckingham Palace. And I said, at that moment, I said, the biggest shicks in the world loved it. We're home free for everybody.

What was the thing about Edward G. Robinson? There was something at a party. I know George Burns said, if you guys don't record this, I'm going to swipe it. Yeah, no. At one of those parties where the people used to make parties so Mel and I can get up and do this, it was Steve Allen. And one by one, the first one was George Burns said, is there an album on this?

And I said, no. He says, you put it on an album, I'm going to swipe it. I'll swipe it. And then Edward G. Robinson said, is there an album, we're going to swipe it. Swipe it. And then Edward G. Robinson said, is there an album? And I said, no. He says, I'd like to do it on Broadway. I'd like to do

That Thousand Year Man on Broadway. I said, it's 2000. He said, I can do any age. And it was Steve Allen who said, fellas, you've got to to get in I have World Pacific Jazz Studio it's a you take to take your microphone and just wail and Mel and I went there and he said I don't want to be part of it you saw as you want to burn it score it whatever you want to do with it and so we worked for two hours and cut it down to 47 and the rest is thanks to

thanks to that wonderful man you you've lived so long did you ever have an accident in all this time an accident always an accident Yes. Yes. In the year 61, I was hit. I was run over by seven men fleeing a lion. They ran me over. That's the extent of all the... But they didn't have insurance. I didn't have insurance. There was no such thing then. So you laid there till you got better. I'm amazed. In the 2,000 years you've lived you've seen a lot of I certainly what is the biggest change you've seen in 2,000 years the greatest

thing mankind ever devised that I think in my humble opinion is saran wrap you can put a sandwich in it you can look through it you can touch it and put it over your face and pull around and everything. It's so good and cute, you can wrap it up. You equate this with... I love it. You can put three olives in it and put a little one. You can put ten sandwiches in it and make a big serving. Whatever you want, it clings and it sticks.

You equate this with... You can look right through it. You equate this with man's discovery of space. That was good. Millions of books and CDs sold later. Yeah. No, Steve Allen was just a dear, dear, dear man. I heard stories about maybe it was Jackie Mason who said it.

But like when Jews were afraid of anything too Jewish. When Jews were afraid of anything too Jewish. And so like Steve Allen would have like Jewish performers on his shows. Oh, yes. By the way, James Mason was he was the best. I had him in the movie The Jerk. Oh, he's in The Jerk. Sure.

Oh, yes. The gas station owner. Yeah. I just loved him. He was he was one of the funniest men in the world. He could really ad-lib funny. And Maurice Evans is also in The Jerk. You gave him a job. Your old...

Yes. You know something? And I didn't want to because I was looking for an English actor to play a butler. And they said, we have a Maurice. I can't ask Maurice Evans. He's my major in the army. And they said, but Maurice asked to do do it he wanted to get his his card his uh actor screen actor guild card and i had him but the day he came in i stopped everything and i told every grip and everybody so this is major maurice evans i say one of the greatest Shakespearean actors. I said, the only actor who ever did a complete version, a full-out version of Hamlet, a five-hour version of Hamlet on Broadway.

That was brilliant. Anyway, they gave him a big hand. But I felt so bad. It's like we did it on the show of shows where Sid Caesar was a big star and he had bad times and he ended up doing radio in Australia because he couldn't remember a line. That was the sketch, and all I could think of was that sketch. But he's great in the movie. Oh, he's wonderful. Yeah, he's a good comedian.

Oh, he's wonderful. And tell us about Sid Caesar. Sid Caesar was the greatest comic that ever worked on television there was no doubt about it everybody, whoever watched television knew that he was the king and Caesar is the right name for him all that double talk he did

when I came on the show I knew I'd never I did double talk in the army and I did in my act but not anywhere near what he did as a matter of fact I knew I'd never do it again and as a matter of fact that's how I got in the writers room one day I got

an idea for something and how I might be able to use my double talk I said why don't we do foreign movies and somebody said what are you talking about? And I picked up a pack of cigarettes and I went over to Sid and I started to sell it to him in Double Talk. And he huddled with me, he bargained with me.

He didn't want too much to pay. And so that became a staple of ours. We went every week, we'd go to a French movie, a Italian movie, italian movie a spanish a japanese movie and we do takeoffs of of silo movies french movies farm movies but the double talk was uh something i could do but not anywhere near what he did my god he was a the master of it. And he was, I mean, brilliantly talented and funny. Was he? But he was also, but he had like demons, of course.

You know, he was. Yeah, he had a drinking problem at one point. And he had another demon. He couldn't be himself. He never could come out and say, good evening, I'm Sid Caesar. Welcome to your show of shows. He fumpered his, if he, give him a character, make him the professor, Jim Richardson, whatever. He could wail for an hour.

He could, he did more ad-libbing on the show and got more laughs than were written just by finding things on the show. Once I had actually bit my lip and was bleeding because I was laughing so hard at something he had found and was continuing to mine. And we had someone on the podcast who told the story. Was it about him accepting the award? He couldn't accept the award as himself yes he he was he was falling all over himself you know stammering yeah he couldn't speak and someone yelled out in the audience say it in german it might have been mel who said do it do it in german that's that's right that's right you did that's right absolutely

right so mel brooks yelled that yeah i remember i remember one thing one particular sketch we played two barristers in england father and son uh who were going to be opposite each other in a courtroom i was the. He was the defense attorney. And he says, even though you're my father, I'll fight you tooth and nail or something. I don't know who it was. He was my father. I'll fight you tooth and nail,

even though I haven't many of my teeth left or my nails. Anyway, we did this thing where we played pool together. And we had the pool table scored so that every time he hit a shot, I would take my pool cue and hit the wire above and say, good shot. And we'll move a little thing over. And we'll move a little thing over. And we had the felt scored so that at one point he hits a pool cue into the felt. He puts it under the felt.

He rips it, and then he pulls it up and rips the table. And there's a big felt rip in the table. And I say, good shot. And now he goes to the other side. We don't know there's a warp and a woof to a table. There was a little scoring there so he can get his pool cue in it. When he got it in and pulled it, it didn't rip. What happens, the pool cue broke in half

and that almost sent me out. He grabbed the whole of that cue and I knew he was going to do something. He walked around the table looking for his next shot. He had a shillelagh in his hand. And he was looking and I knew I'm going to bust. And what he did is wind up like it was a polo mallet and he whacked at one of the balls and knocked the ball off the table,

hit a wall, and I had to say, good shot. And I really bit my lip. I was bleeding. I remember the two of you, and it was a later day that you reenacted it, where Sid Caesar's a great magician, and you're interviewing him. Yes, and I put my finger under a handkerchief and pulled it away, and the finger is gone. Yes. And then I put it in, and it's there again. How did you do that? Yeah, yeah. He was always the great magician Jim Richardson. He was always

Jim Richardson, yeah. And I remember Sid Caesar. I want to tell you one that made me, that again made me laugh so hard. We were watching a horse race. I was in a foreign country and he was the shah of something. And he had all this turban on and he had a sword on his side. And, no, he had a gun on his side and he had a gun on his side strapped to his side and we're watching the mutters are going by and mutters come

flying out from the horse's hooves and we're getting full of mud but before that we're watching and hearing you know the sounds from the audience and he says before we have that ceremony, we drink of the

Gucha Yucha juice. And there's a ram's horn. He's got a ram's horn in his hand with Gucha Yucha juice. Now, Sid was always worried that the property master was going to give him dirty water. So he always hated to drink anything on stage.

He always faked drinking from a glass. And I knew this was going to be. He's going to have to drink. We're going to drink from the Gocha Yucca juice. And so he says, wait, I drink first. And he looked into it a long time

and I know it was going through his head. He was saying, oh shit, I hope it's clean. And for some reason, this wasn't rehearsed, he took the gun out from his holster and he shot into the ram's horn. There was a squib in the thing, you know, a real squib and bang, it made a loud noise. And then he looked and it killed whatever's in there,

and he drank the Gucha Yucca juice. Well, I couldn't, I had to turn away. I had to turn away. And he named it Gucha Yucca juice. Also a gifted physical comedian, said Caesar. I mean, people talk about the dialects. I'm thinking about the This Is Your Story, which I mentioned before, with Howard Morris

as Uncle Goopy. And him and Howard physically peeling themselves off of each other. It's maybe the funniest sketch ever put on television. And by the way, that ran twice as long as it was meant to because it was all ad lib.

Howie hung onto his leg and he walked around with him, even getting him out of the audience, and he said, this is your life. He was supposed to react like, I don't want to go, and he was supposed to pull away. But what he did was take his overcoat and hit the guy and knock him down. And he ran up and down the center theater, which is a tremendous theater.

It was a good five minutes of trying to catch him. They finally caught him and carried him on stage. That wasn't rehearsed. That was Sid not going on stage. Just magnificent. And can you name the writers who worked on that show? Oh, absolutely. Well, the head writer was a guy named Mel Tolkien, a Canadian writer,

and Lucille Callan, also a Canadian. They were the two original writers. Mel Brooks came on a little later. It was a friend of his. Oh, here. Somebody handed me a picture of all the writers. At one time or another, Aaron Rubin was a writer. Aaron Rubin, yeah. Yeah, and Joe Stein, who adapted Into Laughing into a book,

into a play on Broadway, who wrote fiddler on the roof and then there was danny danny and doc simon neil simon who wrote 37 of the great comedy plays of all time uh there was uh uh oh i said aaron oh who's this guy here well this is Aaron Mel Brooks as I said. Larry Gelbart did we forget? Oh Larry Gelbart, yeah Larry Gelbart and then years later when I left the show and Sid was doing a couple specials this was a

we did 50 to 54 and then we did two years of Caesar's Hour and then he came back and did a few specials and he said we got a new young red-headed writer, we got a new young redheaded writer. We always had a redheaded writer. It just happened to have three. And it was Woody Allen.

Woody Allen was 16 or 17 at the time. They said he wrote on the show. It shows he couldn't. He was a baby then. Murder is Roe. And with Sid Caesar, with the drinking and his general craziness, I heard he was, what kind of weird things would happen with him off camera? Well, he was very quiet and very, you know, he and Imogene were very friendly,

but they couldn't say a word to each other. He thought she was wonderful. She thought he was. They were like, you know, when they did their pantomimes and things, that's the only time they contacted each other and the sketches. But, no, Sid was, I remember one thing about Sid I'll never forget. He was one of the first millionaire, you know, salaries in the business. And at the very top of his game, he bought a house in Sands Point, and he invited us all to come out.

His kid was very young, my daughter, Robbie and his little son. Anyway, and we're out in the pool. We're lying in the pool on a raft, I think. We're floating on our backs, and Sid is paddling, and he's looking around at the pool. He's got a three-hole golf course, which you can see, and the line that came out of him was so brilliant. He looked and said, said huh isn't this better

i mean that is one of the the most understated lines of isn't this better let let we jump around here carl as gilbert warns you let's talk a little bit about the jerk We jump around here, Carl, as Gilbert warned you. Let's talk a little bit about The Jerk. Okay. Which, again, Maurice Evans, we talked about. We talked about Jackie Mason. Two other wonderful actors, M. Emmett Walsh. Oh, Emmett Walsh was wonderful.

And Strother Martin. Yeah. Two wonderful actors. They were both in The Jerk, yes. Yeah. You know, you mentioned The Jerk. I were going to have a screening of the jerk in about two or three weeks and that's when i get my hands in the grommets chinese and the jerk was one of these happy things that fell into my lap um it was started and uh they needed a director.

Steve Martin had not done any acting. He was maybe the biggest stand-up comedian in the country. He did a stand-up with no jokes. He made people laugh, but never told a joke. He was doing venues of 46,000 people in the ballpark. And now he's going to do his first movie, and he had never talked to anybody. He always talked to an audience.

But boy, the first day we knew he had it. He just had it. Steve was, you know, genius category. And he made everything funny. And a good director doesn't have to do anything. All he has to do is either hire or have somebody hire a great comedian to front the show. And all just say, okay, start going. And then after they finish, say, is that all you got?

I remember there's that part. You show up, of course, as Carl Reiner, the director. And Steve Martin had invented these glasses. Yeah, the Opti-Grab. Opti-Grab, yeah. And it caused people to be cross-eyed. To turn into Ben Turpin. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

What happened is that you had a little hook in the front so instead of pulling on the temple of your grasses and sometimes getting out a skew you know get them askew if you pull them from the front with a little a little it was called opti-grab a little ring you just pull them right off your face and And so the OptiGrab became very successful. But there was a problem. A lot of people looked at the OptiGrab and they went cockeyed. And so there it was. They had a picture of me wearing OptiGrab.

And with my eyes crossed, they didn't even have the sense to try it out on prisoners. It seems that an irate group of citizens, led by the celebrity Mr. Carl Reiner, has filed a class action suit against Mr. Johnson and his OptiGrab. Here's what Mr. Reiner had to say at a press conference. When OptiGrab came out, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. And I bought a pair. And this is the result.

This little handle is like a magnet. Your eyes are constantly drawn to it, and you end up cockeyed. Now, as a director, I am constantly using my eyes, and this Opti-Grab device has caused irreparable harm to my career. Let me show you a clip from my latest film where my faulty depth perception kept me from yelling cut at the proper time. Cut!

If I had yelled cut on time, those actors would be alive today. That's why I'm spearheading the $10 million class action suit against Mr. Johnson and his irresponsible selling of a product he didn't even test on prisoners. Thank you. The party's over. Well, Gilbert loves the gag. Yeah, there's a part. You're saying that a tragedy occurred on your last move? Oh, yeah, yeah. Because of the optic grab and the tragedy, it could have been avoided. And we got a stock shot of a car going over a hill and crashing. And you hear him say, and as it crashes, he says, cut.

He should have said it before he went over the hill. Anyway, so that was, yeah, that was the joke. Do you remember where you guys turned Carl Gottlieb into Iron Ball's McGinty? Do you know where that came from? Right, right. Yeah, where he... He kicks him in the groin.

Steve learns karate and all of these guys come at him and one afternoon he hits him with a karate chop, knocks him and then McGinty comes at him and he kicks him in the balls. And you hear clang. Dick breaks his foot. He didn't know.

He forgot all about Iron Balls McGinty. Just great. Oh, and I remember that the way Steve Martin gets the idea for that attachment is because the actor Bill Macy. Oh, Bill Macy, right. His glasses keep sliding. Still with us. Yeah, yeah. He invented the, yeah, Steve invented the optogram.

Yeah, anyway, it was quite a good movie. Tell us a little bit about Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Carl, which I watched again this week, and just fascinating. That's my favorite thing of doing, a labor of love, labor of love. Myself and Steve and, what's his name? George Guy. Yeah, George Guy. A guy, a writer came with a script that I wasn't going to use,

but I told him it wasn't quite right for us. But we went to lunch one day, and I got the idea of using old movies and incorporating a live dick in it. I mean, Steve, what am I saying, Dick? That's another movie, that's the comic. Right. And so for six, Steve was doing a musical at the time, and we had six months working, myself and George Guy,

looking at old movies, black and white movies, and we're going to interstice Stephen. And I remember looking for little lines, like a line. Oh, that could be a line of dialogue. I remember getting his name when Charles Lawton called a character. He says, hey, Rigby. I said, hey. He's calling.

And we had a, Steve was going to play opposite all of these dead actors, most of them dead, and intercut with them. We'd have a story. And we did work out a story, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. By the way, it was Steve's title. And we never knew what the title was. And at the very end, he says, Dead Men don't wear plaid dead men don't wear plaid never knew what that meant even steven so anyway edith had's last film by the way it was yeah it

was edith had's last film and she she came to the set a lot she brought a uh a hat that had been used by ever gardener and there was no second, you know, usually have a replacement hat and she wanted to make sure nobody damaged it. So she'd be on. I remember her being very old at the time. And she was, I remember saying, why don't you lie down on the couch? And I covered her, let her sleep. She was very old, but what a great, great woman. And credit goes to michael chapman and your old uh your old collaborator bud molan oh yeah bud moland who did all of the van dyke shows and did a sensational job of editing the editing on this show is so much fun

we went spent days and days and days editing and it's seamless it looks like we as steve martin had to play everybody he had we had all these dark-haired actors from raymond land who were talking to the other actors the back of his head had to be black so oh it was a real labor of love it's my favorite work project i just love working on it you watch it and you're trying to figure out how did they do this? I've heard you say it was like solving a crossword puzzle. It was exactly that. Exactly that. And you got to play your Von Stroheim.

Yeah, I gave myself a good job. The first of many times that you played Eric Von Stroheim, that you sent up Eric Von Stroheim. No, that's the best version of Stroheim I ever did. I love Rachel Ward in it. Yeah, she's great. She's listening to the two of us explain how we did it. She listens

to her lover's explanation with a smile, and when I explain, she's grimacing at me. we said i have the right to tell how it is done no it's the right of the uh anyway that was one of the funniest endings you mentioned the comic too before and passing which is yes which is also and speaking of aaron rubin and another one of your labors of love. Well, the comic, I think, and I've said this before, if people take a really good look at it,

they'll see that Dick Van Dyke, they owe him either a nomination or a winning of Academy Award. That was one of the great performances. He played a sourpussed man. And by the way, a clear-cut version of many comics of the day who were drunkard and, as a matter of fact, Keaton, there was a guy named Neil Hamilton. They were all sad, sad people.

There's a scene in it where the character goes to a bar, gets drunk with a woman he doesn't know, and they're slobbering on the table. Next thing you know, they wake up in a bed. They're married. And actually Buster Keaton, somebody actually married somebody he didn't know he'd married the night before. Wow.

And that was in there. What about the scene of driving the car up the staircase through the front door? Oh, yes. You remember that? I remember. He thrashes the car through the door and Mickey Rooney has to tell him it's the wrong house.

Yeah, he says, they're in the wrong house. He wants to get rid of his wife. He's throwing all the furniture out of the window and all the clothes, and then he gets in the car and drives up the wrong driveway. And by the way, we had to build that interior of our house. It really looked wonderful. And I remember there's a scene where he's watching it like, it's a memory of his that he's watching like a movie.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's the yeah. Forget me not. At the very end of the movie, it's like it's like the baker's chocolate where you see the picture of the chocolate on the box. And there's another picture of the chocolate in the box. And he's watching an old movie. another picture of the chocolate in the box and he's watching an old movie i say that because one day i'm watching the movie on the screen here in my house uh and i'm sitting there and i'm

watching the end of the movie where he's watching himself watching a movie dick van dyke is watching his own movie and i'm watching the movie i made of a guy watching. And my son Lucas comes in the front door watching me watching the movie. Watching the laws of parody. Surreal. And I remember there's a scene at the end where he's old and forgotten about and ruined. And he has the alarm set. And he wakes up in the middle of the night to watch one of his old movies. Very touching.

Forget me not. That's what he's watching. And I love the end of the picture where she's blind and he goes off down the road and his wife, his blind wife, touches his face. Her hands are full of mud. She puts mud on his, she doesn't know it. And she waves goodbye, and her mother turns her... She's waving the wrong way. She's going down a different

road, and she turns the blind girl so she's waving correctly. Yeah, that was a lovely moment. So it was a composite character, Carl. It was a little bit of Stan Laurel, a little bit of Harold Lloyd, a little bit of Keaton. Yeah, right. Yeah. Laurel was not an unhappy man.

But Keaton and Lloyd Hamilton and a few others like that. And his best friend there is also a composite. Yeah. Mickey Rooney. Cock-eye. Mickey Rooney was playing. That was the strangest thing ever. Mickey Rooney was playing.

That was the strangest thing ever. I said, there's nobody going to play Chester Conklin character, who was a cross-eyed comic in those days. They laughed at cross-eyed people. And so I said, there's nobody. And I remember the first day I said to Mickey, Mickey, you don't have to keep your eyes crossed. You keep your head down. And I said, only when we do close-ups you know

well so i said you so don't he said i can't cross my eyes and i thought he was joking he can play every instrument in the band he can do every accent in the world he can do every he's the single most talented human ever at that time and and and he said no, I can't. I said, I could teach it to you. Just put your finger by your nose and look at your finger. He couldn't do it. We had to get a prosthesis made for his eye. And the prosthesis had to be put in by a doctor because he couldn't stay more than a few seconds.

His eye would tear up and get red. So I remember having to say, roll camera, put in the eye, action. The doctor would put in the eye, cut, take the camera, and he'd sit there. It was the most amazing thing.

A man who could do anything couldn't wear a glass eye. I remember an interview someone did with Sammy Davis Jr. And they said, you're the greatest performer in the world. And Sammy Davis said, no, Mickey Rooney is the greatest performer in the world. Yeah, I think he might be close to something. Of course, Sammy could say that because he probably was the greatest performer in the world. Certainly was the

most talented tap dancer, singer. He took into everything. We got to ask you about Where's Papa, Carl. If you'll indulge us, it's a favorite of Gil's and mine. Okay. And it's just, I've heard it described as ahead of its time.

I guess it was. I guess it was in ahead of its time. I guess it was. I guess it was in one of your books. You said as of the printing of that book, it still hadn't made its money back. No, no. Which I find unbelievable. Robert Klain wrote the book, and they said they want to adapt it. I read it, and I said, this can't be done. And they said, but he did it.

I said, well, then, if he did it, he wrote it. I read it and I said, this can't be done. And they said, but he did it. I said, well, then if he did, he wrote a screen. I'll do it. I knew it was going uphill all the way, but it was fun doing it. The people in it were wonderful. They don't make truly black comedies like that anymore. I know.

I know. It didn't do as well as they had hoped. And we had Ron Liebman on our podcast. No kidding. We had Ron here, yeah. Yeah. And there's a story about you shooting him running naked in the park? Yes.

Under the watch of the police? Yeah, and the police came. We did it early in the morning, like 2, 3, 4 in the morning. And we were crossing the street to go to the building, and the policeman showed up, and I said, where the hell is his underwear? Put his underwear. What is he doing?

And he ran into the building. We got the shot. I said, I don't know what happened. The policeman let us go. I think he knew we had been fighting the law. We did a short episode of this podcast where we just talked about Where's Papa? And I'll say it again to our listeners. You've got to see this movie.

Find it. Yeah. Ruth Gordon, George Segal, Ron Liebman, Trish Vanderveer. If you like to see Ruth Gordon kissing George Segal's ass. Biting it, I think. Biting him. Terrific film. Really terrific.

And Frank and I were talking about your singing. Yes. He's known to sing a song or two. I always wanted to be an opera singer when I was a kid. Actually, when I was very young, I wanted to be an Irish tenor because my father had a friend called Max Kalfas, who was his friend in Austria. But he had a brother called John Calvin who used to have a radio program every Sunday morning,

and he would sing Irish songs, and he said, my name is John Calvin, and I'd like to sing a song my mother sang to me when I was a wee lad, and I thought I could be an Irish tenor, and I remember the song I heard. I'm a wee lad, and I thought I could be an Irish tenor. And I remember the song I heard. I'm a long way from home, and it's there that I roam,

to old Heron far over the sea. Oh, me heart, it is there where the skies are so fair, and old Ireland is calling me. Oh, I want to go back to that tumble down shack where the bright roses bloom round the door just to feel on my head whether anyway that's the song i still remember it but i but i really want to be an opera singer and the only problem I had is I sing off-key and out of rhythm. Otherwise, I did have a good voice, and I haven't done this in a long time, and I'm going to try it. From Leon Cavalli's

Pagliacci, I will now sing for you, Vesti la Giuba. I'll go as far as I can. Okay. And you can cut me off any time you want. No, no, no. This is a gift to us. Borsati, ba, seto forsonom, tu se pagliacci. Vesti la juba e la faccia in farina. La gente paga e ride vuole qua. I'm getting dizzy. That's enough.

Phenomenal. I, you know, hearing your speaking voice, it is so amazing to hear you sing. He's got pipes. Yeah. Yes. No, I'm not in good shape these days. I'm approaching 95 and you don't. I had a bad day yesterday and today is not much better.

This is a good part of the day. bad day yesterday and today is not much better this is a good part of the day and right now i'm about to say goodbye and lie down in my bed and watch the news and see if trump has trumped himself out of out of office do we can we get to ask you billy billy persky's question yes yes yes i asked bill i said we have carl on tomorrow Do you have one question? And he said, ask him about the Royal Air Force exercise scissor kicks. Oh, yeah. Yes. There was a thing called the Royal Force exercise, and I used to do them. I'd get out of bed and do them every morning.

And after a number, you work from 10 to 20 to 30. I was up to like 400 or 300 runs in places. And at one point, they do these scissor kicks. And I did them on some show. I was showing, oh, it's Marty Landau. I said, how the hell do you do these these the hundred of these scissor kicks i said i'm not the scissor kick was a run in place it just you know to relax i was doing them up in the air one way and then the other way i did a hundred i almost had a heart attack and that was

that was the scissor kick yeah can we just throw out names to you before we... Well, one, of course, Jerry Lewis. Maybe the most talented comedian ever. No question about it. Also, so gifted in many areas, invented the three-camera technique, watching yourself filming a thing. You know, he was the biggest star that ever lived.

When he and Lewis Martin were together, I first met him when he came to see Call Me Mr. in Boston, and he introduced himself. He's wearing the Latin cord. I'd like your cast. Bring your cast. You're getting $1,500 a week,

and I saw the funniest human being I've ever seen in my life. He was a monkey, but hilarious. The audience was roaring. And from then on, he developed and developed and developed. And at one point, he was the biggest star in the world. There's a documentary on him. People were dying to see him. He turned into, he knew everything about everything.

He was, he just was a genius category. That thing he did when he did that, in Florida, that one man movie where he. Oh, the bell boy? Bell boy, yeah. Yeah.

That was an incredible piece of work. Carl, we got to plug your, we could go on for hours. We're going to plug your books. Okay. We could go on. We didn't get to a lot of stuff. And if you're up for it, we'll do another one down the road. I'll tell you about these two books that I have with me.

Can you see this one? Yes, we can. He's holding it up. Carl Reiner, Now You're 94, A Graphic Diary. A Graphic Diary. I love this book. Reiner, now you're 94, A Graphic Diary. A Graphic Diary.

I love this book. And this one I love because it's about the favorite episodes that I did that were based on my wife and I's experiences. But I have two more books coming out. That one. Oh, that's called The Why and When of the Dick Van Dyke Show. Then there's one called Too Busy to Die. How many books do you have coming out, Carl? That's one coming out.

Amazing. Just been sent to the printers. But one coming out next week is a title that I love. It's called You Say God Bless You for Sneezing and Farting. God bless you for sneezing and farting. And here's the book. Hold it up so we can see it. So I love the cover. Yeah.

That's great. Carl Reiner, Too Busy to Die. And it's a picture of Carl primping his bow tie. Yes. It's great. I want to plug the other books, too. The ones I bought were I Remember Me, which is great. My Anecdotal Life, which you wrote a bunch of years ago.

We have to send you those others. We have two other books. There's a trilogy that's called I Remember Me, I Just Remember, and What I Forgot to Remember. Full of great stories. And let me plug the children's books, too. Oh, the children's book is called... Well, there's Tell Me a Silly Story and Tell Me a Scary Story. Oh, Tell Me a Silly Story, Tell Me a Scary Story.

But I wrote another children's book called The Treasure of Takapaka, which is illustrated. A beautiful book. But the fart book is going to be... You know, I didn't write the first fart book. And many books on farting have been written. You know, I didn't write the first fart book, and many books on farting have been written. The first one written in 1760 by Benjamin Franklin called Fart Proudly. Look it up.

I have a copy of it at home. You do? Yeah. I always get a kick that Mel named the governor in Blazing Saddles. Right. What's the connection there? You tell us. Petermaine. Yeah, Petermaine. Yeah, Le Petermaine.

Yeah, well, he was the famous guy who farted songs with his... That's right. That's comedy history. Years ago from Canada, there was a thing called a crepitation contest. That was a radio broadcast. Maybe the funniest thing of all, where they had a crepitation contest who could fart the loudest and best, and there was a farting post, and they named them theirs. It's a three, another three, and a flutter blast.

And the last thing was, I never forgot the ending of that. It was, and he's going to scorn the use of the farting post. Here he goes. A three, a three, another three, two flutter blasts, another flutter blast, and oh, he's shit. Oh, and I got to ask you something I forgot to ask before when you mentioned him. We're not letting you go, Carl. That's Max Liebman. Yes.

That became Max Bialystock and Mel Brooks' The Producers, didn't he? I don't know that. No, no, not really, because Max Liebman was a really bon fide producer. Max Bialystock was a guy who was, no, he invented that, a guy who got, yeah, no.

Max Lieben found all these wonderful people we're talking about. He was the only man who could do a weekly show because he worked at Tammerment and he did a new show every week for three weeks. When he finally got on television, he said, my God, we got a new show every week for 13 to 32 weeks, and he did it. And he had Sid, who did a monologue every week there. Monologue, after three weeks, you repeat your monologue. Carl, we could go on with you forever.

We want to thank Sal Maniaci, who set this up. We want to thank Bess, your assistant. Yes, thank you. I'll tell him. And we want to thank Larry. He's right here. Thanks for doing this. And you talk about being 94 and having bad days,

and yet you're busier than ever. You're booked. Yeah. Yeah, I know. You're writing books. You're appearing on TV. Yeah. Oh, yes.

And the thing I'm looking forward to in March, they're doing Oceans with Sandra Bullock. Oh, yeah. They're doing Oceans 8. Right. Oceans 8. Yeah, Oceans 8. And they asked me to be in it, so I'm going to have a little bit part in it. Look forward to that.

Wonderful. Well, this is Gilbert Gottfried. And this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And once again, we've been recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Verderosa. nutmeg with our engineer Frank Verderosa. We have been talking all this time to the great, the legendary Carl Reiner.

Goodbye, darling. Carl, thanks for taking the time, buddy. Thank you.