Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 191. Mark Evanier

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

Writer, producer and showbiz historian Mark Evanier joins Gilbert and Frank for a loose and lively conversation about the lasciviousness of Herve Villechaize, the eccentricities of Paul Winchell, the multiple talents of Howard Morris (and Allan Melvin!) and the artistry of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Also, Red Skelton works blue, Vincent Price disses Danny Kaye, Billy Barty meets the Bay City Rollers and Groucho visits the set of "Welcome Back, Kotter." PLUS: Sergio Aragones! "Who's Minding the Mint?"! Jack Benny goes to the movies! Gilbert breaks bread with Rob Petrie! And Frank sings the "Banana Splits" theme with Joe Barbera! This episode is brought to you by SeatGeek and Leesa (www.leesa.com/GILBERT). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Okay. Hey, I'm Dave Thomas. You're listening to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal cod... Cod pass? Cod piece. His amazing, colossal codpiece. All right, let me try that again. Hi, I'm Dave Thomas.

You're listening to Gilbert Gottfried's Colossal Amazing Podcast. Is it? It's Amazing Colossal Podcast. One more time. Hi, I'm Dave Thomas. You're listening to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. One more time. Hi, I'm Dave Thomas. You're listening to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast.

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Hey you, the kid who missed last week's show, you better have a good excuse. Hi, this is Gilbert Godfrey, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. We're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frankfurt Rosa. Our guest this week is an Emmy-nominated television writer, comic book author, animation voice director, and comic book and show business historian. He's written live-action shows like Welcome Back, Carter, The Love Boat, Superboy, and That's Incredible. Superboy and That's Incredible cult 70s variety shows such as

the Bay City Rollers show and Pink Lady and dozens of animated series and specials including Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo

Thundar the Barbarian, Mother Goose and Grim, and of course, Garfield and Friends, where he wrote for and directed dozens of our favorite performers, including Howard Morris, Jonathan Winters, Harvey Korman,

June Ferre, Don Knotts, and previous podcast guests Chuck McCann, Larry Storch, and John Beiner. He is the writer of the popular comic books, D.N. comic books, DN Agents, and Crew the Wanderer, as well as the author of several books, including comic books and

other necessities of life, Mad Art, a visual celebration of the art of Mad Magazine, and Kirby, King of Comics, an Eisner Award-winning biography of his friend and former mentor, Jack King Kirby.

His essential and popular blog, News From Me, is an invaluable archive of entertainment history. And we would say even more about him, except he turns out he's a fan of this podcast. Now we've lost all respect for him. Please welcome an artist of numerous talents and a man who ate breakfast with Natalie Wood, lunched with Frank Capra, and dined with Jimmy Stewart, Mark Evanair. Yeah, Mark Evanair. I do all that, and I stumble on your name. We can take that again at the end.

Hi, Mark. Hello. How are you? I'm here. I'm here. I made it. Did we get any of that right? Some of it.

Okay. I don't actually write Grew the Wanderer. I co-write Grew the Wanderer. You co-write with Sergio, with the great Sergio Aragonese. Yes. Yes. Yes, we want to correct that. I had too much respectrew the Wanderer. I co-write Grew the Wanderer. You co-write with Sergio, with the great Sergio Aragonese. Yes. Yes. We want to correct that. I had too much respect for you to correct you.

I had the honor of being drawn by Sergio Aragonese, which is one of the thrills of my life. I have the honor of occasionally not being drawn by Sergio. Now, before we discuss anything else, you saw my documentary, Gilbert. Yes, it's a wonderful documentary. I'm so sorry they're editing you out and putting Christopher Plummer in your bed. Touché. Wow. I love it.

I was the person. I came up to you afterwards, Gilbert. You had introduced in the audience, you had two former podcast guests. Oh, yes. Bill Macy and Hank Garrett. Right. Yes. And I'm the only person there who put together that these two men had something in common. They each had one line in the original producers.

Oh, my god. That was very good. Yeah. original producers. Oh, my God. That's very good. Yeah. And this is one of the frustrating things listening to this show sometimes is I want to add additional information.

I hear something and I wish I could, like, jump in and tell you guys. Oh, wow. There are these little trivia points that matter only to us. What if we gave you a hotline number and you could just call in? Fine. I'll be glad to. Okay. When we have a guest.

You could phone a friend. Yeah, and add things. And now, most important, and it's the only thing I want to discuss, and then I'm going home. You worked with Irvay Villages. Irvay Villages, yes. Please tell us in

detail. Oh, I did a special for CBS. It was one of these primetime preview specials for Saturday morning. And they – I co-produced this with a fellow named Bob Bowker and with Cindy Lauper. Wow. One of our co-producers. And she had promised Hervé a role in the show.

So we had Hervé in and this was long after he got dumped from Fantasy Island. I don't know what he was doing for a living at that point, other than that. But we had a problem with him that he, because of something relating to his physical condition, he couldn't grip anything, so he couldn't zip his fly. And would he would come out and we had several wardrobe changes for him in the show and he would come out after the dressing room after each one with his zipper down and run around looking for a makeup lady to zip his fly and none of them they all came the makeup women came to me and said we will not touch this man you have to do this so i i called over the one one of these, I think the stage

managers. And I said, uh, what is your title on this show? And he said, I'm the stage manager. And I said, well, you're promoting you. You're a stage manager and you're the vice president in charge of dwarf trouser adjustment. And, and he, he reluctantly did that job. And that was the, the biggest problem we had with Hervé was that nobody could understand a word he said. And his fly. Yeah. And you said whenever – after that, whenever someone asks you what a producer did. Yeah, that's it.

That's it. That's what it is. Yeah. Years ago, I did a show with Billy Barty. I did a lot of shows for Sid and Marty Croft, and Billy Barty was on there. I love him too. And one of the days, Billy was furious. He was walking around the set very angry, and I went over and asked him what was wrong,

and he said there was a TV Guide cover story on Herve at that point. It was the first TV Guide where the subject was actual size on the cover. Actual size. He says to me, what's wrong? where the subject was actual size on the cover. Actual size. And he says to me, what's wrong? He said, well, we're trying to de-stigmatize the term dwarf because some people don't like it. Billy had a whole foundation that was trying to help people of his height. And he didn't like the fact that Herve claimed to be a midget

when Herve was in fact a dwarf. And I said, so you're upset because he said to me, yeah, Herve is passing for a midget. He's passing. And because I was talking to Billy, I was squatting as I talked to him, and I fell over backwards laughing. That's just great. Give him a little Herve, Gil. Give him a flashback. Ah, hello.

It's Herve. That's him. And what was that song he used to sing? Oh, my God. The one on the Dinah Shore show? Yeah. Like, everybody love each other. I'm in the prime of my life, something like that.

Oh, yes. I have a clip. Yeah. I have a video I'll send you. You said that being at his angle there, he used to reach up and grab women inappropriately. I think any time he touched them at all, it was inappropriate. I did a show one time with Ricardo Montalban. I love all these people you work with.

And I had to ask him about Herve. That's the guy I worked with. And I had to ask him about Herve. And he just said, well, we got rid of him because we felt the role was holding him back. I love what you said on your blog that he thought he was a movie star. He thought he was Tom Selleck. He thought he deserved the same. He thought he was Tom Selleck playing a short guy. Right, right.

And it was sad. I mean, you know, there's a certain look you get with people. I'm friends with Lorraine Newman. Oh, we know Lorraine. And she has this term she uses that people walk around Hollywood with the, where did my series go look on their face all the time? And Herve had that look. That defined it. and i heard when

they first hired him i think for fantasy island they sent someone there to drive he didn't have a phone and they drove to tell him and the guy drove to the neighborhood that Herve used to live in, the only place he could afford, and this driver would refuse to get out of his car in that area. Unbelievable. We did one kind of

cruel thing to Herve in the show we did. We had a couple places where in his scenes, we would we would, we're going to dub in the sound of an airplane airplane and he would suddenly stop, yell, the plane, the plane, and then go back to the dialogue. And in the post-production, we decided to leave out the sound of the airplane. So every so often he would just start yelling the plane, the plane for no visible reason in the show. Love that too. reason in the show.

Love that too. And I do remember in one fantasy island, he's very depressed at the end. And he says, I have to go by myself to relax. And then all these girls in bikinis, of course, surround him and they go off together. And he looks at Ricardo and goes, you relax your way, I relax my way. We've done 185 of these. No one has known more about her reviews Than Mark Evanier And he comes up all the time

I worked with this man one day But he comes up all the time On this show It's a runner Hello This is And we will return to Gilbert Scott's Amazing Collateral Podcast right after this. Hey, Ontario, got any plans? How about a trip to the casino right here, right now? With DraftKings Casino, all your favorite games are in the palm of your hand.

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Yeah, don't. The building will be condemned. Gilbert, you don't even need to ask. It kicks in a minute. The Statue of Liberty head will be in the beach as Paul. They blew it up! Gilbert rides by on a horse looking for the research. That, you know, I mean, Frank Gorshin used to imitate.

The best. And, you know, he looked like Richard Widmark. And I think in a movie, Richard Widmark and Frank Gorshin were brothers. Paul, hit it. You got another one. Richard Widmark. Richard Widmark and Frank Gorshin. If any of you want to learn the violin or anything before he comes in with the episode,

if you'd like to do a collection of harpsichord music... That would be a good time. Yes. We're going to take up rare stamp collection. Richard Widmark and who was... And Frank Gorshin. Oh, we're off to a good start. It's Gil and Frank's awesome obsession.

It's Gil and Frank's hypnotic possession. It's Gil and Frank's deepest confessions. To Gil and Frank. They now confessions to Gil and Frank. They now control you. So give up. Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. Every Thursday, only on Stitcher Premium. Live from Nutmeg Post.

We now return to Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Podcast. We now return to Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Podcast. Now, do you know if Michael Dunn was a nice guy? Michael Dunn, Miguelito Loveless. Oh, no, I don't know about him. Yeah. I don't know. Here's a good story. You're out of my area of dwarf expertise here.

Now, what about Peter Dinklage? No, I don't know. How about Mishu? I know Doc and Bashful were very good off camera. Now, here's another connection. One of the things that influenced Mark and made him want to become a writer like a lot of comedy writers was the Dick Van Dyke show. Oh. You just had dinner with Dick Van Dyke.

Yes. The other night. Yeah. With your wife. I've had dinner with Dick Van Dyke. Yes. The other night. Yeah. With your wife. I've had dinner with Dick Van Dyke. What a charming man. Isn't he? He realized, you know, people make fun of his accent in Mary Poppins all the time.

Oh, yeah. And he asked me one time why people were always doing that. And I said, it's because it's the only thing they've got on you. Oh, interesting. Oh, wow. Interesting. If you had to do a roast of Dick Van Dyke, what else would you talk about? Wow.

He's not homely. He's not fat. He doesn't seem old. He's 92. We went to see him a couple of months ago. He did an evening upstairs at the Vitello's in the Robert Blake room. And he was performing, and he was just hysterical. He sang old songs from his childhood for 90 minutes.

Yeah, he's sharp. After dinner, when we were leaving the restaurant, he did a little dance step out in front of the—I mean, amazing. Yeah. Did you listen to the episode we did with him, Mark? No, I didn't. Or if I did, I don't remember it. Check it out. I'll get to it.

I mean, I think he's still a tad insecure. I won't say insecure, but the thing about the Cockney accent, I think, still bugs him a little bit. I think he doesn't understand why people make such a big deal. Because, you know, what happened was he kind of gets a bum rap on that. There was a character actor named J. Pat O'Malley who did a couple of the voices of the cartoons in Mary Poppins and who also played Dick Van Dyke's father on the Dick Van Dyke Show. Very good. Without his accent. And what Dick was doing was he was doing J. Pat O'Malley, who was Irish.

So that was his coach. And he did a really good impression of J. Pat O'Malley, who was Irish. So that was his coach. And he did a really good impression of J. Pat O'Malley. It just didn't seem to fit the character. Right, right, right. But you got to go to a taping when you were a kid. I got to go to a filming of the show. This was in 1965, so I was 13. And we ran into Maury Amsterdam in the airport

love this I love this my aunt was going to Las Vegas and Maury Amsterdam was flying to Vegas on short notice to fill in for

Corbett Monica at some hotel and he was the plane was running late and Maury was like working the gate this is back when you could go to the gate

in an airport and I went up to him and I said, the Dick Van Dyke show is my favorite show. And he pulls out a business card, writes a number on it, and invites me to a filming. That's great. And he said, you come to the filming, I'll introduce you to Dick and Mary and Rose and everyone.

So we went, we waited a week, called up, went over to the studio, and of course it was an episode that Maury wasn't in. Oh, great. But didn't they waive the age limit for you? Yeah, they waived the age limit for me, and we went in, and Carl Reiner did the warm-up.

Usually Rose and Maury did the warm-up. So Carl Reiner did the warm-up, and the show almost couldn't follow the warm-up. It was so good. Oh, God. And I got to sit in the front row, and the most memorable moment was I got to see Mary Tyler Moore, not only in person for the first time, but in color for the first time.

Oh, yes, right. And she was breathtakingly beautiful, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen on this planet. And I just said to myself that night, I want to be part of this world. And it was one of those life-changing experiences. And years later, when I went to work on Welcome Back, Cotter, the first night we had a taping, which you want to talk about because that was when I Groucho came to the set. Oh, yeah.

We wanted to ask you about that. But I suddenly realized I'm to the set. Oh, yeah. We wanted to ask you about that. But I suddenly realized I'm on the set. I'm, you know, in the role that Bill Persky or Sam Denhoff were doing at the tape, the filming that night. And I kind of made it. I got, I at least achieved that. Did you know Bill? Just casually. Yeah, he's a great fella.

We've had him here a bunch of times. And how come Groucho didn't do? We've had him here a bunch of times. And how come Groucho didn't do? Well, what happened was the fastest way I can tell this story is Gabe Kaplan used to always imitate Groucho on the show. One day, Gabe got a call from Groucho saying, stop imitating me or I'll sue you. And Gabe said, okay, fine, sue me, but why don't you come and do a guest spot on the show? So he happened to pick the day of my first taping to come,

and we wrote a bit for him in the show, and then they called up later in the day and said, Groucho doesn't feel up to talking. Can he do a silent walk-on? We went, okay, and we rewrote the bit for silent. And then when he got there, he was just too sick. He was just too out. And it was – so they had vacated a dressing room right off the set for him. It was somebody else's dressing room when they moved them.

So he'd have the star dressing room with the shortest commute. And he came in and we went in and met him. And he didn't know where he was. He didn't know who he was meeting. We walked him out to the set. The comedian doing the warmup that night was a friend of mine. Mike Preminger was doing the warmup that night and nobody had told him Groucho was coming. And they sent every, all the cast, since they hadn't been seen by the audience yet, snuck around the back to get to the set, and they had Groucho walk out in front of the audience. And Mike Preminger is standing there,

and there's this old guy shuffling out wearing a beret, and nobody recognized him at first. Wow. And suddenly Mike realized who it was, and he says, ladies and gentlemen, this is Groucho Marx. And the audience just exploded cheering him, and Groucho didn't even hear it. He just finally found his way through the curtain, went to the set.

They took his picture with the cast. And afterwards the photographer told me they were going to destroy the photos, but miraculously they turned up on the internet recently. Yeah. You put one on your blog. Yeah. And if that photo had been slightly to the right, they would have seen, I would have been included in it.

Oh, damn. Well, this is toward the – very much toward the end, right, Mark? This is 76 or – This is 76. It was the second – I met Groucho before that when he was still Groucho. Yeah, tell us about that. Around 69 or so, we, my family was not wealthy, but we had a couple of rich friends and one of them was,

two of them were a couple of the Zuckers, Betty and Ben Zucker, the Zuckers owned a chain of small department stores in Southern California. And now the house they live in is, was, I think it's Jay Leno's. So they had a lot of money. And they gave me the tickets to see

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World for the first time. They sent me to my first great Broadway show I ever saw, which I'll tell you about later if you want. And they took us to Hillcrest Country Club one time. And I walked in and I was a big Groucho. I was a big fan of all these guys.

And there was the Comedians' Roundtable. And there were Jack Benny, George Burns, Jan Murray. I think Larry Gelbart was there. Danny Kaye was there. It was a pretty good crop of people. But Groucho wasn't there on that table. And I was kind of disappointed. I was kind of home just to see him

in person. And about half an hour later or so, I go up at the breakfast buffet and I'm waiting for them to bring out some more food. And the man next to me turns to me and says, try the whitefish. And I look over and it's Groucho Marx. Now, I would never have approached him. I would never have gone up to him and said anything. I just hope he doesn't see him. And I froze. It was maybe the most frightening moment of my life. And I stammered, you know, excuse me? I just was trying to buy time to think of something to say.

And he said, try the white fish. And I said, I thought the password was swordfish. And he looked at me and he says, are you one of those kids who's seen every one of my movies a hundred times? I said, a thousand times. And he said, what's your favorite? And I said, oh, either horse feathers or duck soup, whichever one I've seen most recently. And he said, which one have you seen most recently?

And I said, A Night in Casablanca. And he said, oh, that was a piece of shit. And I actually thought to myself, I just heard that was a piece of shit. He wasn't wrong. And I actually thought to myself, I just heard Groucho Marx say shit. Oh, that's great. That was unique in 1969. Now you hear anybody say shit. But in 69, it was amazing to hear that come out of him.

And we stood there talking for 10 minutes. Wow. 10 minutes. Wow. And, uh, I was just, I,

it was, I just, at that moment I lost all stage, all fright of meeting celebrities because after groucho, who was, who was going to be afraid to meet. And we talked for about 10 minutes and I told him at that point, a lot of theaters in Los Angeles were showing Marx brothers movies and repertory because there was no home video and they,

they, they, they didn't work on TV very well. And I was taking dates to them. And I told Groucho this and he said, I took a date a couple of weeks ago to see Go West and the big store. And he said to me, did you get laid? And I hadn't, but I thought he would enjoy thinking that I did.

So I told him I had. And he said, oh, that's great. Imagine kids getting laid because of my movies. I couldn't get but I thought he would enjoy thinking that I did. So I told him I had. And he goes, oh, that's great. Imagine kids getting laid because of my movies. I couldn't get laid because of them. And it was very pleasant. And I almost wish that had been my last encounter with him because on the set of Cotter, he wasn't Groucho. He was very sad. And then I went up to Groucho's house a little while later where I somehow passed Steve Stolyar in the halls and didn't meet him.

Oh, that's funny. And Gilbert, I think Groucho was doing your impression of him then. It was very sad. I worked in Vodafone. Yeah. That was kind of it. And they shoved me over to him, the people there, like, oh, here's a young person who knows your movies well. And I couldn't ask him a question, really.

There was no response. I said, oh, I really, did you enjoy making Horse Feathers? And he told me it was fun to make. I mean, the questions didn't get any deeper than that. And then I saw Erin Fleming in Full Bloom. It was fun to make. I mean, the questions didn't get any deeper than that. And then I saw Erin Fleming in Full Bloom. She was on the set of him with Cotter, and she was pitching the producer that she should be on an episode.

Groucho would like it if you gave me a part in the show, which explained to me why he was there. Yes, Steve, we had Steve on the show here, as you know and we got a we got a uh an interesting uh selection of erin stories yeah they're all true based on my observations i'm sure as long as go ahead gil and she wound up uh yeah she took her own life homeless and then shooting herself yeah that's a sad end it's a sad end as long as we're talking marks and we got a we got a fellow a fanatic here uh with us uh please tell us that you prefer the Paramount movies to the Falberg era. I prefer the Paramount movies, yes.

Don't they gain something from Zeppo's presence? Yes. You don't have to sit through Alan Jones. Right. For one thing – You love it when you get that great audience. And I found out later that's the theater where they previewed Day at the Races – no, Night at the Opera, and the audience didn't laugh at it. And they thought it was a flop. Wow.

And so I can tolerate the MGM films. They're okay. Yeah. They're just – if that's all that existed, I'd still love the Marx Brothers. Oh, sure. The Paramounts are so much more wonderful. Yeah. And Steve Stolier said that we should ask you about Don Knotts and his taste in women.

Oh, shit. Well, of course, this is the field I know the most about. I'm part of a group called Yarmie's Army. Oh, sure. You've had other members of Yarmie's Army. And we've had Ronnie Shell here. Yes. Don Anum's brother.

Dick Yarmie. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, Dick Yarmie. And I was at one point the youngest member of the group. And I go there, and it's not the same anymore. And when I went to the meetings, I'd be sitting there, and I would always be seated between Howie Morris and Don Knotts. I felt like Goober.

And across the table would be Shelley Berman, Pat McCormick, Pat Harrington, maybe Bill Dana if he was in town. All the guys from the Steve Allen Show, Louis Nye. Poston. Yeah, Tom Poston. Right. Ron Carey, sometimes Harvey Korman, sometimes Tim Conway, Howard Storm, Gary Owens, Chuck McCann. It was a wonderful crop of people there. Sounds magic.

Murderers row. Yeah. And everybody would be yelling and talking over each other and interrupting except for Don Knotts. Don Knotts would sit there quietly with his arms folded being an audience for everybody. And at some point during the meeting, Don would raise his index finger like, excuse me, I want to say something. And everybody would shut up. He was the only person they all shut up for. And the first time I witnessed this, Pat Harrington had just mentioned something about residuals.

And Don raised a finger and said, excuse me, everybody shut up. Don wants to say something. And Don Knott said, this is verbatim. It was his entire participation in that meeting. He said, quote, I don't want to hear anything about residuals. And that was it. And everybody laughed. And then the next time I went, Shelley Berman was telling a story about a club he played when he was a comedian touring. And he liked this one club to go to this one club,

because there was a really beautiful waitress there who would sleep with the headliner, whoever it was, she would service him. And he loved doing this until he found out that the act before him was Red Fox. And then he didn't want to touch her. Oh, God. And so suddenly Don raises a finger. Everybody stops and shuts up. And Don Knotts says, and I quote, I like a girl with a red bush.

That was it. And then I drove Don home. Don didn't see too well his last few years. So I drove him home afterwards. And in the car, he was telling me stories about orgies and women and women with red bushes or not and such. And I realized that people thought he was Barney Fife. He wasn't. He was Furley on the Three's Company show. That was the real Don Knotts. Wow.

And he was hysterical. So he went to Orgy's? He was talking about group sex to me. Oh my God. He kept one condom in his pocket, like a bullet. I kept imagining him standing at the orgy,

and I can't do an impression of him, but he's saying, there are three rules you must follow. With the highway patrol music that you were always told. Ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba. The serious Barney Fife. Yeah. That is gold, Mark.

And Frank and I were talking before, and Frank said, you told a story about... Is this the Mel Blanc story? Yeah. That Jack Benny... Oh, this is a story that's on your blog about Benny going to see Deep Throat? Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is – it's funny.

Years ago, I had – now, you'll be very envious of this. I got to sit with George Burns for a couple of hours and just hear him tell stories about, you know, this guy was a prick. This guy was a prick. It was a very – he didn't like too many people he worked with. He did 20 minutes about Al Jolson being a horrendous human being. We heard that. Yeah. And so he started telling me how Jack – and he – Jack wanted to drag him to strip clubs from time to time.

And Jack wanted to drag him to strip clubs from time to time. And how Jack said he was afraid – Jack was afraid of being recognized but insulted when he wasn't recognized. And of course none of the dancers knew who either of them were. But they were afraid that the other patrons would recognize them and things like that. And Jack actually said to him, it was much better when I was on radio. Why didn't they have you? I was on radio and nobody recognized me. But the story is that Jack wanted to see Deep Throat.

It was playing on Santa Monica Boulevard at the Pussycat Theater and everybody was going to see it. It was very chic and it was very trendy and people were going to see it. And Benny went to his manager, Irving Fine, and said, can you get me in, but I don't want anybody to see me. So they worked at this whole elaborate thing where Benny had a trench coat, and they drove him down the back alley, and the manager opened the back door and slipped him in after the lights went down. And as Benny is making it to his seat, as he's almost to his seat,

some people are walking out, and one of them is Mel Blanc. And he says, hi, Jack. You'll love it. It's great. I love that. Yeah. That's gold. And I was always thinking like Jack would turn to Mel and say, you know, does she really do that?

And he'd say, see. You like that, huh? Oh, that's great. You like Benny going to see Deep Throat. All these guys, it was so strange because I got to meet all these guys who would go on TV and say, you know, comedians shouldn't work blue. And if you have talent, you don't need four-letter words. And you've got to work clean and you should work for families and represent American values. And then when the camera was turned off,

they would tell me stories that would make Gilbert blush. I can imagine. Well, I bring up the Marty Allen example. We had Marty Allen on one of our first shows, and Gilbert kept trying to egg him on, tell the dirtiest jokes. He wouldn't tell them because he's old school and he works clean. And I would talk to marty allen off mike and he'd tell me filthy jokes the filthiest but he would not say darn

doesn't want don't want to hurt the brand when i was going to college i went to ucla and i had one semester i had a gap during on tuesdays and Thursdays, I had to kill four hours between classes. So I'd go to Westwood Village, which is right outside UCLA, and I'd go to my favorite hamburger place. And then I would either go to Bel Air Camera, which is still there, which is the upscale, expensive camera place. And if there was about a one in three chance or one in four chance if I walked in, Red Skelton would be there. And he'd be telling jokes to the employees there. And they'd give me a look like, here, you take them off our hands. They were sick of them.

And so I'd say hello to Red. And Red would start telling me not only dirty jokes but the same dirty jokes he told me last time I saw him. And I'd just stand there. And every so often I'd say, you know, say, what was it like working with Buster Keaton at MGM? Red would go, oh, very sad man. Okay, so these two Jews are walking down the street at Pastor Horhouse. And then if I didn't go there, I'd go to the United Nations Gift Center they had there, which was a volunteer charity thing where my aunt worked. My Aunt Dot worked there two days a week selling things for UNICEF, I guess.

And one of the other employees there was Carlotta Monti, who was W.C. Field's mistress. Wow. And I would take her out for coffee or something and I'd sit there and she would tell me, I'm sitting there thinking, I'm talking to someone who had sex with W.C. Fields. It's kind of mind-blowing, isn't it? The only person I'm ever going to meet who had sex with W.C. Fields

and she would tell all these stories about Fields and I was just entranced by that. So that's what I did. That's what I remember from college. I don't remember a thing I learned on campus, but I remember Red Skelton telling me jokes. Well, that's the important stuff anyway, Mark. Yeah, somebody told us Skelton. Who was it?

Jamie Farr we had here and just told us that Skelton was just the dirtiest. He would do these rehearsals. Do you know about his dirty hours? Yeah, I heard. I went to one of those. I got into one of those. He would just tell – it had nothing to do with the taping. I went to a taping – I went to an actual taping of the Skelton show as a real taping, and the guest was Marcel Marceau.

They did these concerts in Panama. And Skelton, they did all these Panamime scenes. And at the end of it, Skelton came out at the very end and he did a monologue. And there was no camera on him. And it wasn't a warm-up because the taping was over. He just did a 10-minute monologue for the live audience there.

And we left. And I could never figure out they weren't taping it or anything. So I asked a friend of mine who knew somebody at CBS about that, and he said, oh, we can get you to a rehearsal while we're at it. I said, okay. So we went to the rehearsal, and I asked the – the guy was a unit manager there. I asked him about this, and he said, Red didn't want to do the Panamime Hour because he couldn't do a monologue. The only way we talked him into doing the hour in Panamime was if we told him he could do a monologue for the studio audience.

I went, okay. And then we went to the dress rehearsal. Phyllis Diller was the guest. And Red just told dirty jokes over an hour to people who worked at CBS. It had nothing to do with the crew couldn't rehearse their camera moves. It had nothing to do with the other actors couldn't rehearse their lines because Red wasn't giving them their cues. But it was hysterically funny. I'll bet.

And I heard in rehearsal he would throw in like filthy stuff. And then when they were filming, he would do it clean. And then when they were filming, he would do it clean. But the other actors would be so used to hearing those words pop up, they'd start laughing in the middle of the bits. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't understand that man at all. I don't know if this is bullshit or a Hollywood urban myth. He supposedly had one of the great porn collections, Red Skelton.

I never heard that. It wouldn't surprise me. This is what I heard. I think these days it wouldn't surprise me if anybody had one of the big porn collections. Well, maybe they were stag reels or the order of the day. Bud Abbott, I heard, had a tremendous— Yes, I've heard that too. Bud Abbott, I heard, had a tremendous... Yes, I've heard that too.

By the way, Mark, speaking of Bud Abbott, Mark shares your feeling that Bud Abbott is underappreciated. Oh, yeah. I think he's the funnier of the two. Absolutely. Yeah. And had the harder job. Yeah. Yeah.

No question on that. There's one of your blog posts that's about re-watching who's on first and realizing that this guy is – he's doing everything. He's doing the heavy lifting. There's – I love good straight men. I'm fascinated by that. I got to meet and spend some time with a man named Dexter Maitland who was the last Minsky's burlesque straight man. who was the last Minsky's burlesque straight man. The last 10 or so years of his life, he and Irv Benson were in Vegas doing the Minsky's burlesque review.

And Dexter Maitland was in the movie The Night They Read of Minsky's. He's the guy who sang Take Ten Terrific Girls But Only Nine Costumes. And he was authentic. He spent most of his career after Minsky's closed doing burlesque recreations around the country. And the guy was just amazing because you saw how difficult it was to do, to reign the sketch in and bring it on time. And in Vegas, you had to be exactly on time. And Benson, who was – who just died like at the age of 103 or something. Yeah. He died recently.

Benson would just wander off the script and start babbling on and, and Dexter would keep pulling him back and getting him into the script and getting off on time and everything. Um, I just love fascinated by that, that, that art because it looks so easy and that's what Bud Abbott had to do. That's what Steve Rossi had to do. That's what, uh, you know, all these's what all these guys had to learn how to do. And anyway. Well, Dean with Jerry, too.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny with who's on first. It works because it makes sense to you that those are their names. Who's on first and how could castello not realize this and it's funny because you know the it's like they do it do it and tell the audience okay we're gonna do who's on first now they would like announce yes we're gonna we're gonna do the bit where lou doesn't understand the baseball players

we have this there's so many places we could go with these cards, Mark. This is, as I said to you online, a treasure trove. But Gil wants to ask about working for Sid and Marty Croft. I did not work for Sid and Marty Croft. I was adopted into the family. That's how it worked for them. You either worked for Sid and Marty Kroff once or forever. I got hired for the Bay City Rollers show. Right. And I did a bunch of shows for them over the years, mostly starring people who didn't speak English very well.

We'll get to the next one. Yeah, but... Wasn't Billy Barty on the Bay City Rollers show? Billy Barty was on the Bay City Rollers show. Can you imagine that, Gilbert't Billy Barty on the Bay City Rollers show? Billy Barty was on the Bay City Rollers show. Can you imagine that, Gilbert? Billy Barty on the Bay City Rollers. We had...

Yeah, oh, we had... And Lenny Weinrib. Lenny Weinrib and Walker Edmiston. And we had... Oh, Patty Maloney, who was the midget lady. She was actually a midget

who was always paired with Billy Barty. Anytime Billy was in anything where he needed a date, it would be Patty Maloney. We all worked together. Do you remember her? And Sharon Baird, who was a former Mouseketeer, was in the show. And some of these people you didn't see because they were in these weird costumes. And we had Jay Robinson, who played Dr. Shrinker on an earlier Croft show. We had him back. Now he's playing Dr. who played Dr.

Shrinker on an earlier Krofft show we had him back now he's playing Dr. Death Ray okay and

yeah we just we did 13 episodes with the Bay City Rollers and I never understood half of what they said

but they were great guys yeah yeah and then we then we did oh I did a Bobby Vinton special for them

oh that's the one is that the one where Gail Gordon showed up and told you all the Desi Arnaz stories yeah Gail Gordon And then we did – oh, I did a Bobby Vinton special for them. Oh, that's the one – is that the one where Gail Gordon showed up and told you all the Desi Arnaz stories? Yeah, Gail Gordon was on – we did a variety show, the premise of which was to kind of ape the milieu of Grease, which was hot at the time. And this was a 50s-themed variety show, and they wanted everybody they could get who was on in the movie Grease. It was a 50s-themed variety show, and they wanted everybody they could get who was in the movie Grease. So they booked Eve Arden and Sid Caesar, and then Sid canceled at the last minute, and they grabbed Gail Gordon, even though he wasn't in Grease, but he should have been. And so I spent my time having Eve Arden tell me about working with the Marx Brothers. Oh, yeah. And Gail Gordon had all these great stories about Desi Arnaz, a few of which did not involve hookers. And we had Fabian on the show and Bobby, of course, and we had Stockard Channing and Erica Strada and a whole bunch of everybody they could find.

Love to go back and watch that. So Desi Arnaz was really into hookers. Apparently so. If Mr. Gordon is to be believed. According to Mr. Mooney. And I hear, I've always heard this story that Hanna-Barbera, creators of Flintstones and Jetsons and millions of others. He worked there too.

Yeah. That Hanna and Barbera, they were, you know, their names were always said together. And they worked in the same building but on different floors and would not speak to each other. They didn't speak to each other a lot. But that was just they had kind of divided up the job and Joe Barbera was god of the first floor and Bill Hanna was god of the second floor. And they weren't hostile to each other in a way that they just didn't work together much. Joe was in charge of selling the shows and Bill was in charge of the animation and film and production end of the things. And actually that's how almost every animation studio I ever worked in was set

up. There'd be two guys and one would be the guy who sold the shows and one would be the guy who handled the, the animation end of it. I worked for a studio called Ruby Spears and Joe Ruby sold the show and Ken Spears handled the animation. I worked for Filmation and Lou Scheimer handled selling the shows and Norm Prescott handled the animation. I worked for Filmation, and Lou Scheimer handled selling the shows, and Norm Prescott handled the animation,

and Patty Freeling was the same way, and all those places. And you were telling me. Well, toward the end, I worked a couple of weeks at the old building, the old Hanna-Barbera building on Coanga, which I guess is gone now. I think it's a gymnasium. Oh, that's depressing. But this was in the 90s. It's a gymnasium, but the people there have very limited animation.

They don't move too well. I had a poster that I wanted Bill and Joe to sign, and I was told that they wouldn't sign it at the same time, that I had to come back on different days because things had deteriorated. This is in the mid-90s, early 90s. I left by then. I did get to sing the Banana Splits theme with Joe, which was one of the highlights of my life. That was a great song, and the Banana Splits costumes were built by the Crofts. That's right, that's right,

another connection. And you were telling me a story about Joe Hanna. Oh, this story is on Mark's blog, which we'll plug again, the essential news for me. But, Mark, it's the story where Howie Morris told Joe off and then had left the company for a long time and came back? Well, Howie did voices there for a long time. Howie was like my surrogate uncle. We were very close, and I worked with him a lot, and I loved him. But he had a great temper. He would get very angry. The story is that he had done this primetime special called Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This, which was written by Bill Dana.

Wow. Jose Jimenez was one of the characters. I know that special. It was written by Bill Dana. Wow. Jose Jimenez was one of the characters. I know that special. And Sammy Davis played the Cheshire Cat and Howie was the voice of the White Rabbit.

And Janet Waldo, a.k.a. Judy Jetson, was Alice. So they did this primetime special. It's a pretty good special, actually. One of the best things Hanna-Barbera ever did. And they needed to do a – they had a company called Hanna-Barbera Records at the time. And they wanted to put out a record, but they couldn't put Sammy on it because he was under contract to another company. So for some reason, they decided to rerecord the entire show with a slightly different cast. But how – Scatman Crothers ended up playing Sammy's part. And Howie was going to play the White Rabbit again, but Howie was at the time directing Hogan's Heroes because he had turned director for

the most part and he couldn't – the week they were going to do it, he couldn't get away from Hogan's Heroes. So they said – told him they'd postpone it so he could be on the record. He said fine and then they – for some reason, they changed their mind and they went ahead and recorded it and had Don Messick play the white rabbit. So a week later, Howie was in recording something else for Hanna-Barbera. And he said to Joe Barbera, when are you doing that record? And he said, oh, we did it last week. We couldn't wait for you. And Howie lost his temper and told Joe Barbera to go fuck himself and stormed out. And as Howie told me the story,

it was like, I got to the parking lot and I said, why did I do that? And he didn't work for Hanna-Barbera again for 25 years, something like that. He went over. He was the voice of a lot of characters at filmmation shows. He was Jughead on the Archie shows. And one day Hanna-Barbera booked him.

He was very surprised and he went in very cautious, afraid he was going to run to Joe. And he did the job without seeing Joe. And he started to sneak out of the building hoping he wouldn't run to Joe. And suddenly he sees Joe Barbera coming down the hallway yelling, Howie, Howie. And Joe comes up to him and hugs him and says, Howie, I missed you so much. We should have had you around here. It's been terrible without you. And Howie says, Joe, why don't you not throw me out of the building?

And Joe says, why would I throw you out of the building? And Howie says, well, last time I was here, I told you to go fuck yourself. And Joe said, I took your advice. I love that one. I took your advice. I love that one. Did you ever meet Joe Berger? While we're talking about Howie. Yeah, go ahead.

So I listened to your Buck Henry podcast. Oh, yeah. Which was wonderful. We love Buck Henry. There's a treasure. And you were talking, and this is one of those moments when I wanted to punch in and interject something. And you were talking, and this is one of those moments when I wanted to punch in and interject something. You were talking about the Cone of Silence scene in the pilot of Get Smart, the famous scene which sold the show.

They did that scene as a standalone. It sold the show. And then they cast the rest of the show. Oh, I didn't know that. And did that, yeah. That's cool. And so the chief, Ed Platt, is sitting there, he says, Maxwell Smart says, we must have the cone of silence, chief. And Ed Platt gets this pained look and he pushes the button to the intercom and he says, Hodgkins, lower the cone of silence. And you hear the voice on the intercom say, the cone of silence, chief.

That was Howie Morris on the intercom. No kidding. Because Howie directed that episode. He directed that scene. I didn't know that. And Howie had directed – was directing a lot of sitcoms at that point. He had directed an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, which people may remember, where Dick was accidentally using marked cards in a friendly poker game. Do you remember that episode at all?

Yes, yes, yes. And the guy – one of the other guys was an assistant DA and he got all pissed off at him. And that was Ed Platt. And that's how Ed Platt got cast for the chief. They needed someone to do the cone of silence scene as a standalone to try to sell the show. Wonderful. So Howie said, oh, I know this guy. I worked with him on the Van Dyke show. And they brought

Ed Platt in, and they did that scene, figuring if they sold the show, then they'd get, see about really casting the chief for real. He was a fill-in. Great information. And the network loved that scene enough to pick up

the series based on it. And they said, oh, and keep that guy playing the chief. He's perfect. So that's how Ed Platt became the chief. That's good stuff. That's good trivia. And he was a great straight man, Ed Platt. Yeah.

Yeah. I didn't think of him. Yeah. You know, I think of Howie and those Hanna-Barbera voices and McGilligurilla. What was he, Mr. Peebles? He was Mr. Peebles for the first season. And then the second season, it was Don Messick because Howie had told Joe Barbera to go fuck himself. The other Barbera story. It's the same way Adam Ant was Howie for the first season and Don Messick for the second season.

I remember Howie being either Mushmouse or Pumpkin Puss. I think it was Pumpkin Puss, I think. Or maybe Mushm mush mouse or pumpkin puss. I think it was pumpkin puss, I think. Or maybe mush mouse. I don't remember. Howie was teamed all the time with Alan Melvin. Oh, yeah. Because these guys came in pairs. Back then.

Remember Alan Melvin, Gil? Barney Hefner on All in the Family. Oh, my God. It was Sam the Butcher on the Brady Bunch. Yes, yes. He did everything. Alan Melvin was in maybe the three best sitcoms ever done. Bill Coe, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and All in the Family.

Oh, look at that. Oh, wow. And the Brady Bunch. Yes, he was Sam. Yeah. Yeah. And he – back before 1968, if you did cartoon voices, you got paid by the session no matter how many different characters you played. did cartoon voices, you got paid by the session no matter how many different characters you played.

And that's why most of the TV, at least the daytime cartoons, are one or two guys and nobody else. All the Adam Ant cartoons the first season were Alan Melvin, Howie Morris, and nobody else. All the quick-draw McGraws were Dawes Butler and then either Hal Smith, Doug Young, or Don Messick and nobody else. What about Ricochet Rabbit and Drupalong? Ricochet Rabbit was Messick and I think Alan Melvin was Drupalong.

That's good stuff. Ricochet Rabbit was Messick. But that's why they have very few female roles in those shows because they didn't want to pay for a woman to come in for the recording session. And sometimes when they did have a woman's part, Howie would play it or Messick would play it. Wow. And you're a big fan of a movie that it's like, I recommend people to see it and I enjoy watching it, but it's a mess.

And that's, it's a mad, mad, mad, mad. Not only is he a fan, he's an expert. He's on the Blu-ray.

Yes. Yes. I'm in the commentary track on the commentary Blu-ray. Yes. Yes, I'm in the commentary track on the Criterion Blu-ray. Yeah. No, I saw that movie. I remember I mentioned earlier these folks, the Zuckers we had. I saw that movie on the day between the time Lee Harvey Oswald shot John Kennedy and Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Oh, it was a two day, two day window. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kennedy was killed on, on Friday. Ruby was killed on Sunday. I saw mad world on set that Saturday night in between. Wow.

Because these friends of ours, these wealthy friends, the Zuckers had tickets for a benefit where they were selling the, they sold out the house for, you know, 25 bucks above the usual ticket price with the balance going to charity. And they didn't feel like going out because they were so depressed about watching the Kennedy assassination coverage on TV, which was the reason my father wanted to get out of the house. So he took the tickets, and we went to see Mad World.

And this was before Mad World was cut down. It was 20 minutes longer than or something like that uh so I saw that film that night and it I was just entranced all those wonderful character actors people you couldn't do that movie today you don't we don't have people like Phil Silvers and Jonathan Winters and Milton Berle you couldn't pay the salaries of stars of that stature today yes Spencer Tracy had was the biggest star in the movie probably in terms of who's in the whole film. And he got like $80,000 for doing the movie. That's what you pay an extra today.

I always wondered with Mad, Mad World, was there like ghost directors working on it like – or was it all – No. Just Stanley Kramer. Yeah. Yeah. Throughout the filming, Mickey Rooney kept complaining that they should get rid of Stanley Kramer because he doesn't know how to direct comedy. And he – I've tried to work with everybody I could who was in that movie over the years. I tried to work with everybody I could who was in that movie over the years.

And Sid Caesar told me that every day of the set, Mickey would say, this guy can't direct a movie. He doesn't know how to direct comedy. We've got to get somebody else. And they'd say, no, no, he's the producer and the director, Mickey. You're not going to vote him out. It doesn't work like that. And Kramer did an amazing job with that film. It was technically one of the most difficult movies ever made. amazing job with that film. It was technically one of the most difficult movies ever made.

It has in it all these exteriors, and there's no dub sound. They didn't loop any scenes later. They were shooting with these big Cinerama-type cameras, these big 70mm cameras, and it's moving all over the place,

and they're doing panning, and the camera work is amazing, and they never had to go back and redo the audio anyplace. It's technically so well done. The stunt work is amazing. Yeah. The flying stunts. Interestingly enough, if you look at this, yeah, well, the physical stunts,

you know, we have almost nobody left from that movie. Marvin Kaplan passed away. Yeah, we had Marvin here. And wonderful man. We're down now, I think, Carl Reiner, Barry Chase, Nick Giorgiotti, and maybe one other. And

if you look at this, these stunt people had lived much longer than the people they were doubling. Yeah. And I always wish with Mad Mad World, they had had a whole separate crew just filming the actors off screen.

Yeah. Yeah. Everybody said we wish somebody was filming Jonathan Winters and Dick Shawn because they spent the whole shoot entertaining the cast. because they spent the whole shoot entertaining the cast. Everybody I've ever met who worked on that movie talked about how Jonathan Winters would just do an hour in between takes and entertain people, and sometimes Dick Shawn would come in and try to compete with him, and they got a kind of a rivalry going,

and there's one scene where Winters' character gets mad at Sean's character on camera, and it's kind of like there's where the hostility from off-camera came out. Wow. Did Burl really not get along with Ethel Merman? I think he got along okay with her. I never heard that. Burl, to the extent he got along with anybody, he had this tendency to always be the last person out in any scene.

If everybody's exiting, Burl was always the last one out, so he got that extra moment of screen time. And he actually taught his stunt double how to do that. So there's scenes where his stunt double is the last one out of the scene. And were there actors who didn't get along in Mad, Mad World? Well, you had your core actors who were in most of it, but a lot of those guys didn't have many scenes together. Yeah. I read Silvers didn't care for Dick Shawn. Is that not true?

I never heard that. I had lunch with Phil Silvers. I had actually a brunch with Phil Silvers at Nate and Al's Delicatessen in Beverly Hills one day that ran like five hours. Wow. And we're sitting there talking. I wanted to talk to him about Mad World. I wanted to talk to him about Boko, of course, and about Funny Thing Happened with the Forum,

which is my favorite musical. And I saw him do it. And another thing that Zuckers gave us tickets to. And he was talking about doing Forum, and he was the original person who was going to play it. And then he pulled out of it, and they got Milton Berle, who was going to do it on Broadway. He was going to replace – be the star who opened it. And just as Silvers told me that, the door to Nate Niles opens, and Milton Berle walks in.

And he sees that Silvers is apparently giving giving an interview and he runs over to join us to get into it and we and i started hearing these these two guys talking about um wife's burl pulled out a forum and then i segued the conversation over to mad world and they just kept talking about how much they loved doing it they had a great time it was it was the high points of their life. They were both just thrilled to be in a movie with Spencer Tracy. Yeah. You saw the, when you saw it originally, you saw the 197

minute version? Do I have that right? I've forgotten the numbers. I get confused. Yeah, they kept cutting it back and there was a 192 minute version. And then you saw... One of the scenes they cut was a scene, a split screen phone conversation between Spencer Tracy and Buster Keaton. Buster Keaton had a fairly decent part in the movie at that point, but he got cut down to basically one line and 30 seconds on the screen.

So somebody actually threw away the only scene ever done of America's greatest dramatic actor, America's greatest comic actor together. Spencer Tracy and Buster Keaton. Doesn't get better than either of those guys. Wow. I wish you could find that scene. There's a restored version with just some stills on the Blu-ray? Is that the case, Mark? Yeah, I'm narrating it on the Blu-ray.

Yeah, the audio was found, but the scene, the video does not exist apparently. It does exist in such terrible quality that it was not restorable. And getting back to Groucho, did they ever ask him to be in Mad, Mad World? Yeah. In fact, at one point, Groucho was going to have the last line of the movie. And if you remember, the movie ends, spoiler alert, with all the principals in the hospital, the male principals. And Groucho was going to play the doctor in that scene. And apparently they decided, no, no, the last line should belong to Spencer Tracy or someone. We shouldn't bring a stranger in for the last joke.

So Groucho was not in it. In one of his letters, in the Groucho letters book, he says that he was offered the Ethel Merman role in the film. And I think that was a joke. It became – I don't think – there's no evidence that actually happened. I'm trying to remember if Marvin told us this when he was here. But Marvin and Stang were not originally the gas station attendants. Is that accurate? Yeah. Jackie Mason and Joe Besser.

Wow. Yeah. Wow. Can you imagine? Jackie Mason could not get out of his hotel in Vegas engagements, so he was not in the film. And Joe Besser was doing the Joey Bishop show at the time. Right. And Joey Bishop wouldn't let him out for a couple days to do Mad World.

And Mr. Besser was not happy about that. I can't. Of course, it's now a scene you can't imagine anybody else in. I can't picture Jonathan Winters beating the crap out of Jackie Mason. Yeah. Well, yeah. And it's a neat scene because the stuntmen are really good. And they actually had to pad Marvin to look more like his stuntman.

They couldn't do it the other way around. And Stang was doing it with a broken arm, right? With a broken arm. Yeah, he slipped on a pool next to a swimming pool and he broke his arm. And the guy who was stunt doubling Arnold Stang in the scene is a man named Janos Prohaska. Oh, sure. Who did all the – he was like half the monsters in the original Star Trek. And he was the cookie-eating bear on the Andy Williams show.

And he also – and then later in the movie, he stunt doubled Peter Falk also. I think we talked about Prohaska with Bob Burns. He was one of those guys who would occasionally play a gorilla. Yeah. Now, the name Joey Bishop came up. Yes, it has. But it's come up several times. Now, what can you tell us about Joey Bishop off camera?

I only met Joey Bishop once and it was strange. There was a guy who was going around Hollywood for a while, going up to Jewish actors and trying to get them to autograph their real names and write Jew under them. He'd go up to

someone. Was that Drew Friedman? I don't think it was Drew, no. This guy would go up to Jack Benny and say, would you sign Benjamin Kubelski Jew for me? And so I just happened to be around. It's the only time I was ever in the same room with Joey Bishop. happened to be around it's the only time I was ever in the same room with Joey Bishop

when this guy got into a taping of Celebrity Sweepstakes, a game show that Bishop was on. I happened to be poaching on the set and this guy comes up to Joey Bishop with a little autograph book and he says, would you sign an autograph for me? And Bishop says, certainly.

And he says, would you write Joseph Gottlieb Jew? And Bishop handled him certainly. And he says, would you write Joseph Gottlieb Jew? And Bishop handled him with great deference and politeness and just turned to a guard and said, would you show this man off the lot, please? Wow. But no, my path did not cross Joy Bishop's. And I think based on the stories I've heard, I'm a fortunate person for that. You know, in the Joy Bishops, there's an episode

of the Dick Van Dyke show where Rob and Sally and Buddy have to sneak into Alan Brady's office to try to reclaim a script that they've written, which is full of insults, saying, you know, Alan Brady is a fat idiot. And that was based on a true story of what happened to people on the Joey Bishop show.

The writers on the Joey Bishop show accidentally did that. That's cool. And they did it after. The great story out of that was that they did an episode of the Bishop show where Joey played a dual role. He played his cousin, I think, or something like that. And he called the writers together to complain that the cousin had all the good lines. Wow.

What have we done over almost 200 of these? And as you would expect, everyone has very nice things to say about Jack Benny. Like Bernie Coppell and Jamie Farr and everybody that worked with Jack Benny. They loved him. No one had a kind word to say about Joey Bishop. Out of maybe 12 guests, 13 guests that worked with Jack Benny. They loved him. No one had a kind word to say about Joey Bishop.

Out of maybe 12 guests, 13 guests that worked with Bishop, most recently Art Metrano. Oh, and the other one is Danny Kaye. Although Joyce Van Patten defended Danny Kaye. Well, you know, it's funny. We were talking about Howie Morris. Howie Morris was a semi-regular on the Danny Kaye show for one season. He alternated weeks with Harvey Korman, and he hated Danny Kaye. He just loathed him.

Howie hated a lot of people. And one of them was Joey Bishop, who he directed in the film Who's Minding the Mint. Yes. Oh, very funny. He was hired. Good movie. He was hired. Bishop was cast.

There was a case where the casting was taken away from Howie. He wanted Bill Cosby to play the role that Jim Hutton played. He wanted to have the lead be black. And he wanted Phil Silvers to play the part Milton Berle played. And the studio just took the casting away from him, and they stuck him with Joey Bishop, whom he hated. casting away from him and they stuck him with Joey Bishop, whom he hated. And so the story that Howie used to tell was he was

doing the Danny Kaye show and the guest that week was Vincent Price. And Vincent Price took him aside at one point and said, Howie, could I ask you a question? And Howie said, sure. And Vincent Price said, is Danny Kaye an asshole?

Howie said, yes. And Vincent Price said, is Danny Kaye an asshole? Howie said, yes. And Vincent Price said, oh, thank God. I thought it was me. But I have this friend who I just had lunch with a couple weeks ago named Ron Friedman, a great comedy writer who was on that show. And he said Danny was terrific. You ought to have Ron on.

He'll tell you the good side of Danny Kaye. And I just love the guy watching him. Joyce Van Patten was a regular with Corman on that Danny Kaye show. And she had nothing but nice things to say about it. But then again, we couldn't get her to say anything disparaging about anybody. Oh, yeah. Bless her heart. Since you brought up Corman, is there a story about Harvey Corman and Howie Morris' wedding? Oh, yeah.

Oh, okay. Is that one worth telling? Yeah, maybe. It's a little – okay, I'll try to tell it as much as I – this is a little bit too long, but I'll try to squeeze it in here. Howie Morris got married for I think the seventh time. He called me up and he said, would you come to my wedding? And I said, I'll try to make it.

If I can't, I'll come to the next one. And so I took a friend of mine to the wedding, which was at Howie's home. And we walked in and there's Sid Caesar. And we walked two more steps and there's Don Adams. We walked two more steps and there's Tom Post. And we walked two more steps and there's Louis Nye. It was like walking into Nick at night. night. And we're sitting at a table with Harvey Korman and Pat Harrington. And we start telling stories about bad agents. So I told my favorite bad agent story. When I was doing Welcome Back Cotter, we had an episode that called for a drill sergeant type gym coach who has a drill sergeant type mentality, like in the Army. And I had nothing to do with casting, but for some reason I get a call from an agent

who says, I've got the perfect guy for you. I saw the breakdowns. I've got the perfect guy for your show. I represent Frank Sutton. You remember Frank Sutton? Of course. Oh, yeah. Sergeant Carter.

And I said, Frank Sutton would be great on this show except for one thing. And the agent said, what's that? And I said, he's dead. He died a couple years ago. And the agent gets mad at me. He says, what do you mean my client's dead? I said, yeah, your client died. Frank Sutton died a couple years ago.

And he starts arguing. I said, cut him off. I said, look, it's very simple. You get him here. He's got the job. So about five minutes later, the guy calls me back and says, have you seen Simon Oakland lately? So I tell this story and everybody laughs. And Harvey Korman, I realized why Tim Conway kept making this man break up.

It was such a joy to say something and have Harvey Korman laugh at it. Fifteen minutes later, Ronnie Shell is coming by working the party, another one of your guests. Yes, we love Ronnie. And somebody, Pat Harrington says, Ronnie, oh, this is Mark Ivener. He directs and produces the Garfield cartoon show, and he's got a great story you should hear.

I said, wait a minute. Everybody's already heard that. No, please tell the story again. So I start telling the story and I get to the point where I said the agent says I represent Frank Sutton and Ronnie interrupts me and says, wait a minute. What year was this? Because Frank died in

73, I think, and Cotter went on in 70. I said, no, excuse me. Let's listen for a second. So the agent says I represent Frank Sutton and Ronnie goes, was this the guy at Contemporary Cormorant, the guy with the red beard? I said, no, no, just wait a second, please. So the agent says I represent Frank Sutton and Ronnie interrupts was this the guy at Contemporary Corman, the guy with the red beard? I said, no, no, just wait a second, please. So the agent says they represent Frank Sutton and Ronnie interrupts and goes, no, no.

No, I was one of Frank's pallbearers. I was at the funeral. I remember what it was. Cotter wasn't on the air. Just listen to the story. And I'm telling this after about the 14th interruption, Harvey Corman is hysterical because Ronnie Schell does not know how to listen to an anecdote. And I'm trying to get the story out.

Everybody is hysterical over the fact that I can't finish my story. I can't get past. I represent Frank Sutton. And finally, Pat Harrington leaps up, grabs Ronnie by the collar and screams, shut the hell up. Listen to the story or I'll punch your fucking lights out. And how Ronnie turns to me with a glazed look and goes, go on.

I tell the story and I get to the point and the agent says, have you seen Simon Oakland lately? And there's no response from Ronnie. And I said, that's the story. He goes, it's over? Okay. Now, Cotter went on the air in 75

and I think Frank died in 74. And Harvey Korman is so sick from laughing over this that I asked him to be a guest star on Garfield for Scale, and he said yes. I love it. Another guy, I don't know, is it fair to call Harvey Korman a straight man? Because he's, I mean, really funny in his own right, and in my mind, steals Blazing Saddles outright. Yeah.

I know that's a controversial position to take. No, he's wonderful in that film. I saw Blazing Saddles, the first performance, I got to the point of I'd go to movies before anybody had done the talk shows. I didn't want to see the previews. I didn't want to see the clips on the Carson show. I wanted to see them cold. So I went to the Avco Cinema Theater in Westwood Village,

the very first performance for the public of Blazing Saddles. And we're sitting there, my friends and I, and the movie hasn't started yet, and the ad is on the screen for the LA Times to subscribe to the LA Times that they did all the time. And we hear in the middle of – from the back of the house, we hear the unmistakable voice of Mel Brooks yelling, take this shit off the screen and show our movie. Wow.

And the audience started howling with laughter, and we laughed all the way through the movie. There was no cessation. We laughed. We were laughing at the movie before the movie started. And at some point, Harvey Korman just started stealing the movie, and he was so wonderful. And as we were walking out of the theater, he was there, and everybody jumped him. I think he got actually afraid and started running out from us because everybody just wanted to hug him and tell him how great he was in that film. Yeah.

Great. Yeah. You watch the film, and everybody's great in it, but he's almost on another level. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they originally were going to stick Gene Wilder in that role. I know.

And Gig Young in the other one. Yeah. That's right. And before that, Dan Daly was the first guy. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah. And I see you have a sad Sid Caesar story. Oh, okay. Yes see you have a sad Sid Caesar story.

Oh, okay. Yes, I have a sad Sid Caesar story. I went to the funeral, the memorial service for Larry Gelbart, and Sid was wheeled. First of all, I should tell you that one of the amazing things was how long Sid Caesar lasted. For a good 10, 15 years, I kept hearing, Sid Caesar lasted for a good 10-15 years I kept hearing Sid Caesar will die any day now at Howie Morris' funeral

I was sitting with Andy Griffith was there and Aaron Rubin who produced Andy Griffith's show on Gomer Pyle came over to Andy Griffith and he said you know we're going to be doing this for Sid any day now. He can't last another week.

He's in terrible shape. And Sid outlived both Aaron Rubin and Andy Griffith. Wow. Yeah. Well, he was an athlete in his day. I mean, he was a strapping guy. Yeah, he's a very strong man. So now this is now like 10 years later and Sid is still around and they wheeled him in to Larry Gelbart's memorial service and put him in the front row. And, you know, Mel spoke

and Richard Kine spoke and Kirk Douglas got up and spoke, but Sid couldn't get up the stairs. So his caregiver, he stood up in the wheelchair, and his caregiver was standing behind him holding him up physically. And they gave Sid a wireless mic, and he started talking about Larry Gelbart. And he would start talking about him and saying something about him, and he would lose the end of the sentences. He would just drift off. He'd start subject, verb, and then he'd forget where he was. And it was very sad. And everybody's heart is breaking because Sid Caesar is embarrassing himself. He's, and he's so sad. And after about five or six attempts to finish a sentence, someone in the audience yells out,

Sid, try it in Italian. And he goes immediately into the Italian double talk, and it's perfect. And then he did it in French, and then he did it in German. And we're all sitting there looking like the Springtime for Hitler audience, I think, amazed that Sid Caesar still has that.

He can't talk in English in complete sentences, but he can talk in double-talk German. That's great. And he made the most eloquent speech about Larry Gelbart that you never understood, but it was still loving and wonderful. And you got the gist of what he was saying. He had that to the end. Wow.

I want to plug your wonderful blog again, Mark. And I know our listeners are going to have a great time going there. And one of the things I learned, not only is it wonderfully entertaining, but it's educational. And I learned that fake Shemp was in the Odd Couple movie. Did you know this? No. Did you know there was a fake Shemp? Yeah, was it Joe Palma?

Joe Palma. Yep. Joe Palma, the last 15 years of his life was Jack Lemmon's personal assistant. There you go. He's in every Jack Lemmon movie. In fact, in Good Neighbor Sam, he plays a character named Mr. Palma. He's in there too. Wow.

But in The Odd Couple, he's the butcher. When Felix goes to buy the ground meat to make his meatloaf in the Bohack's Market, that's Joe Palhack's market that's joe palma that's the kind of thing you learn on that on that blog and i heard that sam ramey when he's directing a movie and he's putting in a trick scene he says let's do our fake shimp in this. Really? Wow, that's cool. Where'd you hear that? Yeah, I had heard that. He just uses that. Like, they'll go, okay, we're going to have to do a fake shimp on this. It's so funny because the only way to describe it is it's like when they used to have, like,

George Steinbrenner pop up. Oh, Larry David like George Steinbrenner pop up like Larry David playing George Steinbrenner in Seinfeld and it would be he'd be jumping from side to side you'd never turn his you know because you didn't want to see it wasn't George Steinbrenner and in these Stooges movies, they'll have Shemp, the fake Shemp, with his back to the camera running sideways. He could have said do a fake Lugosi from Plan 9. Oh, my God, yes. Was it Dr. Mason, the chiropractor? Yeah. That's good. I mean, your blog is not only filled with great trivia for people like us, but, you know, there's artifacts on there.

I mean, you put you publish tapings, tickets from tapings from from from long lost shows and programs and things like that. And it's just it's it's a warehouse of information. I'm really good. I'm really good at stuff that doesn't pay any money. of information and goodies. I'm really good at stuff that doesn't pay any money. And there are obituaries on your blog for people that aren't going to get them anywhere else. I mean, animators,

forgotten comic book artists and illustrators and people like that. I mean, it's sweet. I'm fast becoming the Georgie Jessel of the comic book business. It's rough. I got one question from one of our listeners for you, Mark. This is Grill the Guest, and it's from Mitch Miller.

Oh, okay. The next one will be from Skitch Henderson. Do you have a favorite episode of Garfield and Friends, and why? I don't know. Well, my favorite was we did a musical called The Man Who Hated Cats because George Hearn was available. George Hearn. Wow. Yeah, the guy who played Sweeney Todd and all these great Broadway roles.

Yeah, I saw him on Broadway. His agent calls me up one time and says, George is doing Sunset Boulevard at the Schubert. And he's available for a cartoon. And if you want him, I said, I got to. So I wrote, the musical director, Ed Bogus, and I wrote a musical together for George Hearn. That's probably my, and then after the recording session, George invited me to go see Sunset Boulevard as his guest,

and I'd been up all night, so I kept falling asleep during the, we were in the second row, so he could see me from the stage. Wow. I'm nodding off. Great stage actor. Yeah. Yeah, legendary actor.

Mark, and this is Christmas time, so Mark, I thought that we would wrap up with the wonderful Mel Torme story. Oh, okay. This took place about 20 years ago, I'm guessing. I don't know. Mel Torme was my favorite singer. And I loved him

singing tremendously. I never met him. The Velvet Fog. This is partly the story of how I didn't meet him. You've been probably to Farmers Market in Los Angeles. Everybody's been to Farmers Market in Los Angeles. And it's a wonderful little place where there's tables and you can sit around all day and drink coffee or you can go get a Danish or whatever it is. And I'm over there about three

o'clock in the afternoon when most of the people sitting there are of an average age of deceased. It's a very old crowd. And Mel Torme is sitting there reading a newspaper. And I see him sitting there. I recognize him. and I can't think of a clever way to approach him, but it doesn't look like he's going anywhere. So I go get some lunch and this is a week before Christmas, a couple of days before Christmas. And of course, it's, you know, 80 degrees in Los Angeles. Of course. So I'm sitting there eating, trying to think of a way to approach Mel Torme. And they have four young people, early twenties in Victorian garb who are walking around singing acapella Christmas carols. And they finish singing, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow in the 80 degree

weather right near me. And I got an idea. So I signaled them to come over to me. The leader comes over and I said, see that man down there? That's Mel Torme. Do you know who that is? And the guy said, no. And I said, he wrote the Christmas song. Do you know who that is? And the guy said, no. And I said, he wrote the Christmas song. Do you know what that is? And he says, no. And I said, that's the one that starts chestnuts roasting out at open fire. And they go, oh, that one, is that called the Christmas song? I said, yes, he wrote it. Why don't you go sing it to him? So the four young people walk down to Mel Torme, stand next to him and start singing chestnuts roasting on an open fire. And Mr. Torme could not have been happier. He had this huge grin that he was being recognized for this song that he co-wrote.

And all over the patio where all these older people are sitting, I hear people saying, that's Mel Torme. He wrote that. That's Mel Torme. He wrote that. And I'm sneaking up because I figure, oh, somehow I'm going to get to meet Mel Torme for having engineered this. And about halfway through the song, he stands up and he signals to the choir, let me take a verse. And you can see the look on the face of these younger people

that were in their early 20s thinking, oh, the little fat guy's going to sing. Oh, this is going to ruin everything. And he starts singing, and out of his mouth comes the most perfect male singing voice of our generation. And he was absolutely perfect on pitch. It was the greatest performance Mel Torme ever gave for 30 seconds or whatever. And everybody is just oohing and aahing and any signals for the, for the four people to join in and they finish the end of the song together. And the people, this is the most popular thing I ever wrote.

Everybody just bursts into applause and cheering and people are standing, cheering this, this moment that happened spontaneously there. And I sneak up on the post-performance conversation, and I hear the leader of the choir say to Mel Torme, hey, you sing pretty good. Did you ever thought of recording? And Mel says, well, I've made a few records. And one of the girls says, oh, really?

How many? And he said, 90. And then he turned and walked away and I didn't get to meet him. It was my favorite Christmassy moment. It's a great story. It's the most linked story

on my blog. Yes, other people have told that story at the holidays, but I thought we should go to the source. It has now become somebody else's experience. Yeah. You did a mitzvah, Mark, for a hero. That's a great story. There are cards here,

man. I mean, we're going to have to have you back at some point. You're one of those guys who will just have to have sitting in the room with us when we're interviewing other kids so you can throw stuff in. I told you we're going to give him a hotline and we're going to patch him in. I mean, there's Paul Winchell stuff.

We didn't get to Jonathan Winters. We didn't get to Stan Freeberg. So Rod Holland is emu. Now, Paul Winchell. Can you give us a Paul Winchell story? Well, Paul Winchell was available for – I grew up on Paul Winchell. I loved him. I have – in my living room, I have exact replicas of Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smith.

I wanted to be Paul Winchell at some point, maybe when I was four or so. And I got to be a friend of his, which meant I got to go over to his house when he was, you know, a few years before he left us. And he would pick up, he'd get a bunch of guys together and he would pick up Jerry Mahoney and do an act that would make Red Skelton blush.

Fantastic. It was the filthiest act. It was Knucklehead telling about his gay experiences and coming out of the closet. He hadn't come out of the closet. He said, I didn't come out of the closet. I came out of the suitcase. And it was about the problems he had with going down on Effie Klinker. And I thought nobody should grow up this way.

So I had Paul in to do Garfield voices a few times and at one point we had a scene where he was playing two characters in the episode and the two characters had a page of dialogue together interacting back and forth. And I actually, this is maybe one of the five stupidest things I've ever said in my life and there's a lot of competition for that title.

I said to him, I'm sorry, Paul. I've got you speaking to yourself here for a couple lines here. Do you think you can handle it? And I suddenly realized, look who I'm talking to. This is a man who spent his career talking to himself. But he was just a strange man. His autobiography is out of print. It's called Winch, and it's a very frightening book about a very troubled man.

I've been fortunate enough to meet a lot of my heroes. I got along wonderful with Stan Freeberg and with Dawes Butler and Mel Blanc and all those guys. And June, of course. And June Foray, yeah, and people like that. But there's a handful of them you just wish you hadn't met. And Paul ended up getting into that category. Oh, too bad. He was so.

Too bad. He was so odd. He was. And so. I feel that way about Gilbert. Oh. I heard he was like, like he was a brilliant man. Because he invented an artificial heart.

He had a great voice. He also had patents on disposable razors before anybody else did. And he patented, and this is one of those things he could never figure out how to monetize, the idea of hanging a tennis ball in your garage so when you pull in, it tells you how far to pull into your garage. He invented that. That was a genius. And I heard his parents were, particularly his mother, was very sadistic. That's what his autobiography is about.

It's essentially how he was a failure in life because he didn't cure cancer. Wow. He was one of the number one television stars in the world. He got an honorary doctor's degree for his artificial heart. Wow. And at one point, I got to go to Senior Wences' 100th birthday party. I was there. Oh. That's right, with John Beiner. Yeah.

And Paul introduced me. He introduced me to Senior Wences saying, Mark, I'd like you to meet a ventriloquist older than me. And I stood there as Paul started discussing how he had aged Jerry and Knucklehead because it looked silly for them to be the same age when he was that old. And Senior Wences explained his character Johnny, the little thing he did with his hand, had gotten older because his hand had gotten wrinkled. Fantastic. We have to have this man back. I'm going to say my cliche, my standard cliche. We haven't scratched the surface.

I've got like 10 cards here of stories. There's some kind of Howie Morris, Kim Novak thing that I'm going to get to the bottom of. There's you almost meeting Stan Laurel. There's Larry Fine. It's just a treasure trove, Mark, and we're thrilled to talk to you and get these stories. I just want to be on one more time than Stolier. Well, Stolier's been on twice, so I think that's not going to be difficult to top. not going to be difficult to top.

So, this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And let's see if I can say the guest's name now without fucking it up. Mark Hevenir. Hey, that's right. Good. Mark, any plugs? We plugged the blog, which again, I'm going to tell our listeners, news from me, you will lose days there. Oh, yeah.

I'll tell you the thing. I would love people to buy it. I don't make a nickel off it. I have become the editor of the series of books that reprint the Pogo newspaper strip. Oh, the great Walt Kelly. We're reprinting by the greatest cartoonist, I think, who ever lived, Walt Kelly. We have Volume 4 coming out for Christmas from Fantagraphics Books and volume five following

by Comic-Con next year. And I am so proud to be part of this book and I have zero credit for why they're wonderful. Well, that's very modest. I'm going to tell people to also buy your Jack Kirby book. Okay. King Kirby. I make money off that. That's good.

It's fantastic. And next time we'll get to Freeburg and Jack Kirby and Sergio and Pink Lady and Jeff we didn't even get to and everything else. We'll just have to come with a list of every name in show business and spit it out to you. We'll just come to your house.

Okay, sure. I'll order in pizza. It's fine. Mark Evanier. Thank you, Mark. This was a thrill. Thank you. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world. In France, the girls wear scanties. But at lamb chops, they put panties. I'm telling you, it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

The Japanese name Louie says the Chinese name Shanshui. We thought and thought it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world. The only thing you are sure of is that nothing is sure. Have a bone! Live it up! Only fools give it up To journey of war but to joy So be a happy gaffer Be a screamer

Be a laugher Have fun, be gay and say what's the day. It's the Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre, with audio production by Frank Verderosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley-Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach.

Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fodiatis, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance.