Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 211. Arnie and Jay Kogen

Episode Date: June 11, 2018

In celebration of Father's Day, Gilbert and Frank welcome Emmy-winning comedy writers Arnie and Jay Kogen ("The Carol Burnett Show," "Newhart," "The Simpsons," "Frasier") for a hilarious conversation about failed pilots, cheesy variety shows, the outrageousness of Pat McCormick and the "unwritten rules" of writing for television. Also, Soupy Sales takes flight, Jackie Mason takes offense, Garry Shandling gripes about the sunset and the Kogens party with the Jackson 5. PLUS: "Monkey World"! The genius of James L. Brooks! "The World's Oldest Fireman"! Jay reinterprets "The Aristocrats"! And Gilbert and Arnie remember "Thicke of the Night"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's the sound of unaged whiskey transforming into Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell.

To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. I'm Tim Matheson, and you are listening to the amazing, colossal Gilbert Gottfried's Clef fucking podcast. Hold on a second. That's the one. That's second. That's the one. That's it. That's the one. Now, I am Tim Matheson,

and you are listening to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal fucking podcast. I'll give you a straight one. Thank you, buddy. Hey, I'm Tim Matheson, and you are listening to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast.

Now say fuck. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Furtarosa. Our guests this week for our first ever Father's Day episode are two of the most prolific, versatile, and successful comedy writers of their respective generations. hit series like Frasier, Malcolm in the Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Tracy Ullman Show,

The George Lopez Show, News Radio, and School of Rock, and was one of the original writers on The Simpsons. He, along with former partner Wallace Wal...

Walidarski. Wolodarski. Also wrote what many viewers, including my co-hosts, consider to be the best episode in that show's 30-year history, Last Exit to Springfield. It is the best. Legendary producer and comedy writer Arnie Kogan has written for popular TV programs such as Candid Camera, The Mary Tyler Moore Show,

The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, The Dean Martin Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Empty Nest, The Love Boat, The Tim Conway Show, and of course, The Carol Burnett Show, for which he took home three Emmy Awards. usual gang of idiots at Mad Magazine since, get this, way back in 1959. Between them, they put jokes and dialogues in a mouth. Or dialogue. Yeah, I thought I would sneak that by. Between them, they put jokes and dialogue in the mouths of some of the most popular entertainers of the last half century,

including the aforementioned Carol Burnett, Johnny Carson, and Bob Newhart, but also Soupy Sales, Don Adams, Shelly Berman, Flip Wilson, Harvey Korman, Sammy Davis Jr., Kelsey Grammer, Brian Cranston, Phil Hartman, Ray Romano, Ray Romano, Jackie Mason, Mike Myers, and Eddie Murphy, just to name a few. Please welcome to this show two of the funniest people walking the earth and the most talented father and son since Wallace and Noah Beery. Arnie Kogan and Jay Kogan. I don't remember walking the earth, but if you say so, okay.

Was that intro long enough for you guys? Please. Thank you. Well, good night. Jay's credits are much better than mine. Screw you, Jay. That's okay, I don't know about that. All right. Now, Arnie, before anything else, we need affirmation on this story.

I've told it on the air a few times, but unfortunately, I was not there. Great comedy writer, Pat McCormick, used to meet all the other writers and pals to have lunch together. Going right for it. Like once a year. Now, do you know the story? I think I know the story you're talking about. I was not there, but I definitely heard about it.

Well, tell the story. It was not done over my house. He was not one of the people in the helicopter. Happily married man. I was the pilot of the helicopter. Would you like me to tell it? Yes, please. Well, the story goes,

Pat arranged, I forgot what the occasion was, I think he arranged for friends and writers of his, and he hired, get in a helicopter, I don't know how many there were. There were about six, seven of them. He hired some hookers. And I believe,

which is the beginning of every helicopter story. And as they flew over each home of the resident writers, each of the hookers performed a service for each of the writers. And exactly as they were flying over the house.

Did you know the story, Jay? I've heard the story. Now, I would have trouble maintaining an erection. In the helicopter and over my house. There's going to be trouble. In front of other writers. I mean, there's a lot of problems. I've had seven guys on my

roof doing the same thing. I think it was a lunch thing. It was a sandwich. He gave them all a bag with a tuna sandwich in it and an apple. I never heard the bag and apple thing, but I believe you. That was from Ronnie Shell.

Ronnie Shell, then you've got to believe it. We heard Buck Henry's version on this show. We had Ronnie Schell tell a version. I think Ed Weinberger told a version. And I think the ending of the story is that one of the writers got home and she said, so how was your lunch today? And he said, fine. And he goes, how was your evening?

And she goes, it was okay, but I couldn't sleep because a helicopter kept circling the house. And something fell on my roof. I don't know. It's got to be true I wasn't there but Paul Pat has done many stuff

many things like that and I'll tell you more about it later but yeah it's probably true yes especially since Ronnie Shell mentioned it

of course yeah well you know you hang out with those Yarmie Army guys I mean you're a member of that tribe I've been there

since the beginning yes and name the people who are a member of Yarmys Army. I don't know who those seven people were. They could have been around 19, I don't know, like when he was doing the Danny Kaye show at the time. I think it was. Name the people in Yarmys Army or in the helicopter?

No, in Yarmys Army. Oh, Yarmys Army. Or name the hookers who are in the helicopter. They're all, the hookers are presidents of Yarmie's Army. Don Adams' brother was Dick Yarmie. When he passed away, or when he was very ill with cancer, a lot of the comedy writers and friends got together with him and tried to cheer him up.

We had dinner with him every week. And after he passed, we said, you know, this has been fun. Let's continue the group. And it was, originally it was Ronnie Schell, Harvey Korman, Hank Bradford, Howie Storm, Tom Poston. There were about 40

comedy writers, actors, comedians. And we've kept it going all these years, since 1990, I believe. Wow. There was a meeting last night. I wasn't there, but there was a meeting of the Army's last night. Still going strong. Yep. The hard part is finding someone with cancer every time.

Every single time. Otherwise, it's no fun. Well, you wrote something nice about Pat when he passed, Arnie. I think it was in the Writer's Guild magazine. Yeah, I did a whole thing about Pat. It was sweet, and I was very great affection for Pat. And he did incredibly, you know, he was a bizarre, brilliantly funny guy. Tall man, very tall man.

And he did, well, I'm trying to think of all the amazing things he did. Well, I mean, I like that he wore a priest costume. Well, he did, well, I'm trying to think of all the amazing things he did. Well, I mean, I like that he wore a priest costume. Well, he did, yeah. Besides streaking the Tonight Show and dropping his pants a lot, he would, on social occasion, you never knew what he would do. He'd be in a restaurant like the Dome,

10 of us, or we all knew Pat, but this time it may have been Jack Raleigh had a date. She never met McCormick. We're all sitting there. McCormick came in dressed as a priest. So he walks in, and we're used to this. I've seen him in seafood restaurants dressed as a giant snail.

He's done many things like this before. So he sat down, and he immediately did 12 un-priest-like things. There was a little cup of either mayonnaise or tartar sauce. He held it up and he said, all that's left of the Errol Flynn estate. That's hilarious. Then he proceeded to do many more things. Then finally he turned to the young girl who was attractive

and he said to her, my dear, a blessing on your vagina. Oh, my gosh. She turned to her date and said, is he really a priest? And then, Pat proceeded to go leave the restaurant. He took a fancy restaurant. He took all

the fireplace equipment and put it in his pants, the poker and all the fireplace equipment. He started to walk out, the poker and all the fireplace equipment. He started to walk out. The manager said, excuse me, I'll have to come back and replace that. He did. Then he walked out on Sunset Boulevard and proceeded as the priest to bless a lot of automobiles.

I blessed this Ford Fairlane. I blessed this Toyota. He blessed about nine cars. And that was the evening with Pat. That was a typical evening with McCormick. You guys wrote together on, was it Carson?

No, no. We wrote together on Carson but we first met on a show called The Funny Side. Oh,

The Funny Side. Oh, Bill Persky's show. Bill Persky and Dunoff and Gene Kelly was the host. As a host, he would do everything

except sing and dance. That was... Trying to break out of that yeah that that seller of singing and dancing stereotypes so we had a premise was five couples an older couple a younger couple burt mustang burt mustang was the old couple uh the girl uh queenie smith queenie smith john john amos the black couple a blue collar couple, an urban couple, Dick Clare and Jenna McMahon performed and Roford Burnett.

Cindy Williams was part of the younger couple. Michael Lembeck, right? Michael Lembeck and Williams, yes. Five couples would just do the funny side of newspapers, the funny side of weather, the funny side of relatives. One week, we had a guest host, Jack Benny.

McCormick and I were, by the way, preceding that, Sandanoff said to me, you know, why don't you work with McCormick? We're going to put you in the room with McCormick. And he was like a rock star. He was like my idol. And it was like going, you know, he's like an apprentice electrician working with Thomas Edison. I said, okay, I'll work with him.

And it was great. And my first week there, we did some stuff for Jack Benny. So I worked with McCormick and Jack Benny in the same week. It was brilliant. And it was terrific. So we met there. And then we did, for about two years, worked together on comedy material and The Tonight Show again. We did a lot of projects together.

And I always like to hear, what was Jack Benny like to work with? I heard, just a minute, that one time, I heard he was delightful and terrific. I knew some Benny writers, and he was a very sweet guy. And I think the best Benny line ever on his radio show was not your money or your life. It was one episode when he was in a tour bus going through Beverly, not he, but there was a tour bus going through Beverly Hills. And the bus driver said, and here's the house of Gregory Peck. And over here is the house of Alice Faye. Here is the house of Clark Gable.

And over here is the house of Jack Benny. And you hear, getting off. Getting off. That was funny. What about the McCormick story? And Buck Henry told us this, but I've heard that we've heard another version of it

that it wasn't Pat McCormick, that it was actually Jonathan Winters. You know, and Jay, you know this story too. It's a famous showbiz story that a woman asked him

for directions and he takes out his junk and starts pointing and says, follow this. You see this vein? This is the 101. I heard that's true, yes. Frank, I was shielded from a lot of these stories

when I was a kid. So I don't know a lot of them. He was in a supermarket with Jack Riley and he's reeling his shop out. He gets to the checkout counter and he said to the lady, excuse me, do I have enough toilet paper for all this food? Also fantastic. But he'd drop his pants a lot.

He would do a lot of crazy. At his memorial when he passed away, in tribute to Pat, a lot of the guys got up on stage and we dropped our pants. We got up on stage and about 20 of us dropped our pants. I love that. Jay, this is a jump because I said we were going to jump around a lot. You wrote something nice. Your dad wrote something nice about Pat when he passed, and you wrote something nice about a friend of yours, somebody you knew a long time in the business, Gary Shandling. Oh, yeah.

I mean, you know, when people die, it brings back memories of that person and memories of that time in life. And Gary was a very influential guy to me. I worked on It's Gary Shandling Show as a PA. So I basically got him yogurt a lot. And if you've ever, there's something traumatizing about watching Gary Shandling eat yogurt. Because he had pretty big lips

and the yogurt didn't all go inside the mouth. It stayed on the outside. But he was an amazing, interesting, fascinating guy and always in search of egalitarian. Would ask everybody everything so being a pa didn't mean i was less than but his his whole mo was just trying to find the better script and make the joke funnier and make life better and you know all that stuff was

great except he lived in in a little bit of a torture because he saw the problems. And that's what caused him to want to find the better thing. And what I wrote was about being in Hawaii with Gary. And he looked out at the beautiful sunset. And Hawaii said, you know, it's good, but it's not great. I was like, Gary, it's Hawaii. It's a million-dollar sunset. And he said, no, it's not great. Gary, it's Hawaii. It's a million dollar sunset. No, it's not

great. And so I was, you know, I always wished for Gary to be happy with the sunset. We had the same therapist. He went more frequently than I. He went like four times a day. I went every springtime, one hour to a therapist. You really did have the same therapist? I love that. Yeah, we did. We did, yes. But I only

went there once a year. That should have gone more. How well did you know Shandling, Gilbert? You guys cross paths a bunch. He was one of those guys I would run into a lot. We'd talk. He was friendly. The only

real Shandling story I remember is after I had a burst appendix, I had to get another operation to sew my stomach back together. And I was talking to Gary about it, and he said, when hospital are you going to have it? And I said, New York Eye and Ear. And he said, well, that's kind of a strange hospital. Don't you think it should be New York Stomach and Ass? Oh, and now, Jay, before I forget. Gilbert.

Yeah. Fuck you. I was never asked to be on The Simpsons. That's on purpose, Gilbert. Your voice was pretty synonymous with other cartoons and other networks and stuff. You were time cast as the parrot. Okay. We had Mike here.

We had Mike Reese here. We gave him the same shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a, you know, there was a time at the very beginning of The Simpsons when we couldn't get anybody. And then immediately after it became a hit, we began to get anyone, which was amazing. I once tried to get Bruce Springsteen to come on the show. And no, I couldn't get him. John Landau, his manager, I get on the phone and, and, uh, no, I couldn't get him.

I, John Landau, his manager, I get on the phone and kept saying, well, maybe he'll do it. Maybe he'll do it. And then I saw Bruce Springsteen at a movie theater in Los Angeles.

And I ran up to him saying, Bruce, Bruce, I have to talk to you. Not realizing he's a rock star and people are haunting him all the time. So I'm a big guy. Uh, and he was, he was with his wife, Patty, haunting him all the time so i'm a big guy uh and he was he was with his wife patty her girlfriend at the time and basically he protected her from a crazy lunatic and i said we've been trying to get a hold of you for the simpsons we wanted you to do the show oh

i'm definitely going to do the show for sure and they walked away he would never he never did we got sting to do that instead but uh he may have it later, but we got Sting to do it. And also, at one point, when you were much younger, you wrote a Bob Newhart script that you showed to your father. Yes. Yes. I'll tell you about that. Big mistake.

He did not like it. To be fair, I was how old? 15 years old? 16 years old? Maybe younger. He was working on the Bob Newhart show. He wrote it every day of his life. I wrote a spec script, and I'm sure it was awful. I mean, every spec script I read is awful.

My comment was, Jay, page nine is shit. He told me, hey, you you know what you might think about being an agent or a lawyer so I really I thought Jay would be a very good agent I really did

well he's being a loving dad he wanted something more secure for you but to turn the tables years later when Jay was on Frasier I went up to pitch stories

to Frasier to Jay to my son there were some pretty good ones they turned, Jay said let me talk to the guys. I didn't sell a single one, but I loved

coming in the room, pitching to my son. That was a great feeling for me. Turnabout. It's fair. It's true. We've had, and my son is now a musician, he's 16 and he's very much interested in becoming a musician. And to me, I keep saying, you know, you could be a lawyer or an agent or something.

Yeah, same thing. I have that same thing because I have two kids. And now I think about it and I think in terms of like, I would rather they go through the trash in the street and find bottles and cans so that they could turn it for five cents because it makes sense to me.

Showbiz makes no sense. It makes no sense and the amount of time and effort to go and put yourself out there and risk everything and then chances are it's not going to work out. You know, the bottles and can things is a guarantee. He went to Bottle and Can Junior College.

Remember, I went to the same school. I got to say that Jay was, and he's heard the story many times, one of the funniest young men ever. When he was 11 years old, I was at a wedding or something, and Jay was at the same wedding. And to be kind of funny, I put a whipped cream mustache on my face, on my lips, and go to different tables and say, can I get serious for a moment?

There is 11-year-old Jay came up to me with whipped cream on his face and said to me, what tables haven't you worked? That's great. So I knew then something was going on. Which leads to the natural question, which you guys have been asked a million times, but we'll ask it again. Jake, what's the experience of growing up

with a comedy writer for a dad like? And at what point did the light go on, you know, hey, I could do this? Well, the experience is not what you would think. I i mean my dad was away a lot and was in in writers rooms a lot and writing in his office with the door closed a lot it did not look like fun i look like really hard work and the last thing i wanted to become was a writer i want to be an actor i did stand-up comedy i did uh growlings improvisation and all kinds of stuff, all to avoid locking myself in the room and being alone and having to sweat out writing

a draft. But apparently I was such a shitty actor and such a shitty comic and the only thing I was geared for was writing, so that wound up being my career. The training, though, was trying to make this guy laugh

my whole life. It's like growing up in a writer's room trying to make the head writer laugh. So I figured out how to make him laugh and that translated to make other writers laugh and so I kind of have that passed down to

me from dad. It's like if he was a blacksmith I would then know how to do that. Well, I'm proud of him. Anything you would would have done i would have been proud of it well maybe not maybe not a dry cleaner but almost anything you would have those people are scumbags of course and and arnie it's like this is getting back first saw stuff that Jay wrote, you were like, it must have really worried you. It didn't worry me. I guess I was critical. And then, you know, pretty soon I was incredibly proud of him.

You know, the shandling and then all the success. And once I was at a studio at 20th and he was coming back from a writers room after we write sort of reproduction and I see him walking back with Jim Brooks and all those writers as a Jesus my kid J is what is a writer I was thrilled Wow I really was thrilled when that happened we wrote stuff together we did a mad magazine take off on the Golden, and we called it the very funny title The Olden Girls, ladies and gentlemen. There you go.

We also tried pitching, getting some pilot ideas together. I remember doing things, and when I do shows and have pilots, my dad always does a punch-up or a rewrite, and he comes, and he's very funny. It's fantastic. And we did a roast for my mother. Jay's nana, Pauline, my mom, was about 73 years old, and he comes, and he's very funny. It's fantastic. And we did a roast for my mother.

Jay's Nana Pauline, my mom, was about 73 years old, and we surprised her with a comedy roast. The whole family flew to Massachusetts, and we did a monologue.

We did props. We did a Karnak. We did... She's an easy target. She was very small, and she was a horrible cook. Great lady, but a terrible cook.

So we had like four hours of stuff to do. It was great. We haven't found another way to reuse that material. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. Hey, Ontario. Got any plans? How about a trip to the sponsor. Hey, Ontario. Got any plans?

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Gambling problem? Call Connex Ontario. 1-866-531-2600. 19 and over and physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See casino.draftkings.com for details. Please play responsibly. Since you bring up pilots, and I've seen interviews with you,

and you talk about the heartbreak of trying to get pilots going and the part of your life that you invest into it. Do I have this memory? We met 20 years ago on the lot, on the Fox lot, when you and Wally were on the Simpsons. And you guys were working on a pilot called Monkey Jungle? Did I dream this? Monkey World.

Monkey World. It was Monkey World, yes. Okay, okay. And it was a great pilot, and it almost got made, except for the head of Fox. It got bought by Fox. The guy running Fox at the time was named Sandy Gruschau. And Sandy was notoriously not a great executive.

And he bought it and just couldn't figure out. It's a very weird show. Very funny. I thought very funny idea about a millionaire like Trump who loses everything except one asset, which is a shitty amusement park in the middle of Orlando called Monkey World. So he has to rebuild his empire from Monkey World. And it was like a bidding war for the pilot. Fox got it.

But then Sandy wanted us to get Robin Williams to star in it. Robin Williams at the time wasn't doing TV anymore. He was way into it. He kept saying, if you get me three movie stars, we'll make it. I was like, well, you bought it, and a good actor can play it, and we can make that person a star if you just let him be in the show. Of course. So he wound up killing the show based on that.

But we know Sandy Grishaw. We like Sandy Grishaw now. I always like him. I grew up kind of with Sandy Grishaw. I liked him as a person, still do, but I don't think he was a great executive. He admits to me, actually now, that he was not a great executive,

that those days were not his best days. And I admit I'm not a great father, so we get, you're a great father. No, I'm kidding. I like to kid.

No, I will not accept a joke about that. I think that was 92 when we met at the Simpsons and Monkey, I didn't get to remember the name,

but Monkey World stayed with me all these years. Yeah, I think it's great. And here's another thing I always wondered about. Whenever I would see those bits with Tim Conway and Harvey Korman, where Harvey Korman would inevitably crack up. Right. Were those real?

All real. It was not fake news. It was real. Harvey really could not control himself when Tim was around. He tried to, but sometimes he just burst out and it was real. And Tim would save the stuff for the air show. We did two shows, a dress and an air. And on the dress show, he'd kind of keep it quiet.

And they'd get it on tape and they'd get, and they'd have all the stuff they need. On the air show, he might go a little nuts, and Harvey was uncontrollable. Tim was a very, very funny guy. Very funny guy. So, yeah, that was real. The dental sketch was brilliant. You remember the dentist sketch? Of course.

Yes, yes. It was classic. One of the funniest, funniest things of all time. The Novocaine. Yeah. And were Tim and Harvey friends in real life? They were friendly, yeah. I'm not sure, you know, they'd see each other.

They were friendly. I don't know how often they would mingle socially, but yes, they were. Didn't you write that classic sketch, The World's Oldest Fireman, where Harvey's the... Thank you. That's a great one. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, the old man sketch, the old fireman. Now, let me get this straight. He's a great one. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, the old man sketch, the old fireman. Now, let me get this straight.

He's a fireman, but he's very, very old. The world's slow. Yes, very slow. I'll get it. I'll help you. I'll get mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I'll hold your horses up. It took him about, at the beginning of the sketch,

it took him about a minute and a half to get to break through the window. Harvey said, I'm a wealthy man. I live and I have paintings. Please send somebody. And you see a hand with a little axe at the window. And it would take about 23 seconds for the axe to hit the window. And then he'd slowly hit the window again. It took about 20 minutes to get into the window.

But he was careful to make every piece of glass in the window. Slowly chip away every piece of glass. And the whole sketch, it ended with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. And that was unscripted. They just wanted a kiss. The script was regular mouth-to-mouth. I think he turned Harvey around in the actual air show.

Okay. was the regular mouth-to-mouth. I think he turned Harvey around in the actual air show. Okay. It looks like you're going to be alright. You're starting to get some color in your cheeks. I can't breathe.

I'm choking. I need oxygen. I need oxygen. Hurry. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It's the only way. Where are you from? I hope you'll be gentle when you talk about that. Somebody we had on the show, was it Ronnie Shell or somebody who was friends with Harvey? By the way, why was Ronnie Shell on the show?

I'm just curious. That's a good question. Twice. Twice. Somebody was here with Harvey. Maybe it was Dick Van Dyke. Why was Ronnie Shell on the show? I'm just curious. That's a good question. Twice. Twice. Somebody was here. Twice. Ronnie Shell was on twice? Well, this show is show business history, you know, so we're in for the stories. But somebody told us Harvey was a bit of a hypochondriac.

He may have been. I didn't notice that. Yeah. Except when I banged his knee once and he said, well, no, okay, that's all right. I was once banned from the Carol Burnett show for asking Harvey Korman an inappropriate question from the audience. I said,

I used to go to every taping of the Carol Burnett show. We used to go. It was great. It was an amazing show to watch. They did it almost live. I mean, they would do a sketch. There would be music and they would change settings, and they would go. It took

something like an hour and 20 minutes to film an hour show. It was just so fast and so good. And there was a dress rehearsal and a regular show, and they both were fabulous. I used to go, and in between when they were changing sets, sometimes Carol would come out and sometimes Harvey would come out and take questions, and I asked a question, some version of, what's it

like to be a second banana? And I did, question, some version of what's it like to be a second banana? And I was asking that sincerely. I didn't think a second banana was an insulting term, but my parents did think it was an insulting term. So I had to apologize to Arvin. I was banned for a year. You also at one point said to them, I understand the first dress show didn't go that well. You said that. Yes, I used to say things like that too. I was kind of an asshole kid. Speaking of watching dad work,

when you were a kid, what were you now? Seven or eight or something when you were on the Dean Martin show? I was five years old. His sister was seven yeah there was a Christmas show and all the kids were on the

on the special Christmas show like the DeLuise boys and and I think Dennis Weaver was the yeah Dennis Weaver Dennis Weaver

it was fabulous we would go there and I would see people singing and dancing and and having fun and I thought this is work

it seemed like such not work and and it seemed so. And I thought, this is work? It seemed like such not work. And it seemed so fun. And I thought, well, I should do something like this, just not what my dad does, which is lock himself in a room, but something fun like what they're doing on stage. And it is fun. By the way, it turns out it's a really fun thing when you get to do it. It's a great job.

The Dean Martin Show, I worked on there one year, and I got to meet Dean Martin once. First day of taping, Greg Garrison, producer, director, brought the four new writers on stage, said, Dean, these are the new writers this year. This is Ed Weinberger. Hello, Ed. This is Treva Silverman. Hello, Treva. This is Stan Daniels.

Hello, Stan. This is Arnie Kogan. Hello, Marty.. This is Stan Daniels. Hello, Stan. This is Arnie Kogan. Hello, Marty. I shook his hands. Never spoke to him again. Never corrected him. Never spoke to him again in my life. You're in good company.

You called him Arnie and Dino called him Marty. But that night, was it mom? No, no. Three weeks later, my wife Sue was at Stefanino's restaurant on Sunset Boulevard with an associate of Steve Lawrence and Eddie Gourmet. Her name is Judy. It still is Judy. And she's sitting at a table, and Mort Viner and Dean Martin are three tables away. Mort recognizes Judy Tannen and said, oh, there's Judy Tannen.

And who was with her? Oh, one of the writer's wives. Come on over. Sue spent an evening with Dean Martin. I got Hello Marty. Wow. Two different lifestyles. Oh, wow.

She has a much better lifestyle than I have. And Jay, you worked with Tracy Ullman. Yes. And Arnie, you worked with Carol Burnett. And you said there's a difference. Between. There is. Yeah.

Both are very funny. The difference is Carol, you know, almost like Sid Caesar, could not relate really to an audience. Carol could. I'm not sure how well Tracy was at just relating to an audience. But Tracy's, what made Tracy a very interesting and great actress is her ability to mimic a person. I don't think, she doesn't come from loving a character necessarily. She comes from the idea of what's funny about that character. What are the flaws of the character and how to exploit it?

Carol is just a lovely woman and she's trying to have fun and she conveys her warmth from all the characters. Even when she was like Miss Hannigan and Annie and the evil villain, she's still great and she still exudes a life force that's worthwhile Tracy buries herself so deep in the character

that you don't necessarily see that same life force you don't see that more than that Carol the key to that show I think was the Q&A questions and answers

she got in front of an audience you'd be warm and funny and friendly and that opening three minute spot that was the key to the success to the Burnett show conversely Tracy Ullman would take questions at the end of her show you'd be warm and funny and friendly. And that opening three-minute spot, that was the key to the success of the Burnett Show.

Conversely, Tracy Ullman would take questions at the end of her show in a robe and alienate the whole body. What could have been said? Yeah, so very different. That's the difference. Well, yeah, when she was tugging on her ear, Carol, as what, a little sign to her grandmother? Exactly, yeah.

Yeah, so there was so much affection there. Yeah. As a little sign to my grandmother, as a little sign to her grandmother? Exactly, yeah. Yeah, so there was so much affection there. Yeah. As a little sign to my grandmother, I had eight guys in a helicopter going over my grandmother's house. No kidding. Yeah, so it's amazing how it ran full cycle. Appreciate the callback. How about that writer's room at Burnett with Patchett and Tarsus and Gail Parent and Barry Levinson and Rudy DeLuca? Great.

It was different years. Patchett and Tarsus were on the first year. I love them. I'd work with them again on a show we'll talk about later if you want. Sure. And then— We just asked Jay Tarsus to do this show, so hopefully he'll come on. He's great.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I haven't seen Jay in a while. And then Dick and Janet worked on Parrot. Gene Parrot is very funny. Oh, Gene Parrot. Great gag writer. And he worked with Bill Richman, who was the drummer for Jerry Lewis

and wrote screenplays for Jerry Lewis. And then Barry Levinson and Rudy DeLuca. And it was great stuff. And it was a great place to work. First of all, the Burnett show was like being hired by the New York Yankees I was a Dodger fan but it's like going to the Yankees it was terrific

and we get out at 6, 630 and I don't ever remember there may have been a rewrite if there was I do not remember a rewrite in four years so a beautiful place to work story was true story, I was driving back

from CBS Television City to Encino, took Laurel Canyon along the way, stopped by a cop. He said, excuse me,

license and registration, what was the problem? You're going a little fast, 35 miles an hour, you're going 40. Where are you coming? I said, I'm coming from work.

Where do you work? Carol Burnett Show. And as he's writing the ticket, he said, ought to be a lot of fun this year with Tim being a regular and all. I got the ticket, but he knew all about the show. How's Lyle doing? Okay. I still

got the ticket, but he knew the show. That's L.A. for you. Jay, what was your stand-up like since you brought up your attempting? My stand-up wasn't horrible. It's just I didn't have – I was a comic in search of a persona. Okay.

Like you have to have a persona to ultimately succeed. Gilbert, you've got a persona. He does. Very clear, wonderful persona. My first attempts at stand up were just plain jokes

just jokes another version of it was turned to be like weird like Andy Kaufman's kind of I brush my teeth to La Bamba

I just put on the record La Bamba and brush my teeth to it so it was a little performance art in there yeah I was trying to be funny I thought it was funny but I'm not sure it was

and my best version of it was putting on a tuxedo and doing jokes as if I was 65 about kids today. I was 15 years old in a tuxedo and I would rail against how I did not understand what's that, that's not music, that's just noise, you know, that kind of stuff. And so that was a character I could do and I got laughs, but I couldn't sustain it. So I also hated performing in comedy clubs because a lot of people are there on dates and they're not there to see a

show they're there to sort of get drunk and and giggle and have fun uh I went over to the groundlings of a theater and when people go to a theater they're actually more apt to have a show there are no hecklers right the groundlings. There are hecklers at the improv. So I found that just a much more better environment for a 16-year-old kid. No cigarettes, no booze, just people performing. There's a heckle Jay at home. I heckle him a lot at home. And when you first got The Simpsons, both your father and other people.

Yes. Yeah. How were they reacting? They said, Grant Tinker, one of the great show business wise men. Sure. I was in a meeting with Grant Tinker who said, do not do a cartoon. Don't do, you'll destroy your career. And I said to my dad, I said, I'm being offered this cartoon.

And he said, you just got into live action into the Tracy Ullman show. You're winning awards. Why would you ruin yourself by going into this cartoon? Which is completely understandable. Nobody had ever succeeded with a cartoon at all. It was sage advice from my father. However, my partner Wally and I thought, well, it's 13 episodes. It'll be fun.

It's for Fox. Who knows what will happen? And it just seems really good. Sam Simon and Matt Groening are really funny. It'll be interesting. So he couldn't have known what we knew at the time, which was, you know, the auspices of what they're trying to do is different. So maybe it'll work. It worked.

It seemed to work. It worked out okay. I left after five years thinking, how much longer could this go on? I was wrong. 25 years later. Yeah. Al Jean and Mike Reese have stuck it out from the, what, they've been there from year one?

Well, mainly Al. Al's there day to day. Mike comes in. Mike is a consultant. Mike lives in New York. Mike's here. And he consults and he goes in. But Al is the day to day top guy at the Simpsons. And yes, he's been doing it day in and day out for a really long time. Mike too, week to week.

It's not easy to be a consultant either, but Al seems to have shouldered the burden with Matt Selman to try and keep the show alive. And I must say a lot of people, like you Frank, you're very kind about some episodes we wrote. But and keep the show alive. And I must say a lot of people, you know, uh, like you,

Frank, you're very kind about some episodes we wrote, but I watched, I watched the show now and I think it's just as funny as it was then. Um, and I don't think it's lost a step. I think people have gotten used to it. I think it's sort of like a great,

a great restaurant. You know, there's a restaurant here in LA called the Ivy. It's really, it's wonderful food. Every time you go, you go, Oh my God, how great it is. But you're used toA. called The Ivy. It's wonderful food. Every time you go, you go, oh, my God, how great it is. But you're used to it.

It's there. It exists. And it's been there forever. New restaurants come along and people get excited about it. But The Simpsons is a great restaurant that serves a really great meal every time. And I don't know that the fans appreciate it. They live in a nostalgia for their childhoods about how exciting it was when it first came on. And now a question for both of you. It's like other than funny and not funny, when you're writing, are there any kind of rules where, no, I would never go in that direction or I would never try that?

Oh, sure. Yeah. He's got more rules than I do. I don't know. I never think that in comedy. Oh, sure. Yeah. He's got more rules than I do. I don't know. I never think about the rules. I just write what seems natural and stuff. Well, that's the rule. Does it seem like a character would say this?

Are you writing a joke that's maybe funny but ruins the character or ruins the reality or hurts the show or hurts the – it's not grounded? Are you writing something that is so alienating that it's going to take the audience out of it are you writing something that you know there's beyond funny it's about uh heart it's about what are you trying to say it's all the other stuff about writing that's the same for drama as it is for comedy what's if you can get emotion into a comedy half hour script or 25 minute script that's all best, all the better if you can get some emotion and some feeling. You need to. I think you need to be, in order to be carried away by the story

and invested in the story, there needs to be some emotion, no matter what it is. I have no emotion in my life, so I can't translate that into a script. That's true. When it happens, it's a lucky break for me. He has a good computer approximation of emotion that he uses. Well, I've heard you talk about, too, how freeing The Simpsons was because you're writing a half hour.

They're going to build one set. You're allowed three actors. And in animation, you really could go anywhere you want to go. Right. Budget is not a consideration in an animated show. So you can write, I always say you can write, interior volcano day and actually go inside a volcano they'll build it for one line

they'll write, no way on a real show will they build an interior volcano set for one line, but you can do it and they won't even do it for a movie but they can do it in an animated show the Czechoslovakian army comes over a hill, you're not going to get that in a three camera

and kind of the Simpsons was freeing in that you could do all that and the goal of it at the time was trying to stay somehow emotionally grounded or at least emotionally invested. So Homer, while being an idiot, still somehow cares about his kids.

His wife, although married to an idiot, still somehow managed to care about him and they want their children to succeed. Even when Homer's selfish, he realizes he owes his children some measure of happiness. Those things which are thrown out on other shows were kept on The Simpsons. And I think, actually, I think that made The Simpsons better. Although maybe now it makes them old hat. But I actually think it makes them better.

I don't think so. I think that's the thing you return to 30 years later is the core is the relationships the characters to care for each other I don't think it's as prevalent on a show like Family Guy or other shows that also try to do the same thing but they don't worry about being as grounded

especially with their cutaways to do anything there's no sense of reality and that's good for them and very successful for them and it's a very funny show, but it's just different for what we were trying to do with The Simpsons. And some of the characters like Kang and Kodos that

you are the father of. I am the father of Kang and Kodos. I love those aliens. My favorite thing, one of the favorite experiences I ever got to do was draw a character of The Simpsons. And I drew Kang and Kodal. Oh, that's cool. Because they couldn't understand the stage direction.

The stage direction said, it's an octopus with fangs and he has a trail of slime and he's in an old-fashioned sea diver's helmet. And the artist came to me and said, we don't understand what you're talking about. The artist came to me and said, we don't understand what you're talking about. And so I drew, you know, an octopus with one eye and fangs and a sea diver's helmet and like a bad trail of slime. And that's pretty close to what they did. You know there's two aliens on this show and Harry does one of the voices? Or maybe he does both. Didn't you base that on a Twilight Zone episode? Yes.

Yes. There was a Twilight Zone episode? Yes. Yes. There was a Twilight Zone episode. Absolutely. And we were parodying that for our Treehouse of Horror. I thought it was based on the life of Don DeFore. Wow. I don't know. I could be off here.

Are there any listeners alive who remember Don DeFore? Only on this show. Okay. Wow. Okay. Wow. They appreciate a Harry Von Zell reference, too. I was about to say Harry Von Zell. There you go. But then I thought nobody's going to know him either.

Don DeFore and Harry Von Zell walk into a bar. That's what we're here for. There was that Twilight Zone episode where there's lights in the sky or whatever, and the whole neighborhood turns on each other. They get paranoid. They all are fighting each other. And at the end, you see these two aliens going, It will be easy.

Look how they react to each other. I missed that one. They can destroy the world. That was their plot on how to take over the world. And they're all being paranoid and afraid something bad is happening. And they convince themselves nothing bad is happening. But in the end, aha, something bad was happening. What a great series that was.

Yes. Better than two broke girls. I think. How dare you, sir? I think. I found both equally chilling. How dare you, sir? I think.

I found both equally chilling. Jay, just a question about the voice actors on the show, because you and Wally wrote, was it Like Father, Like Clown with Jackie Mason? We wrote, yes. Yeah, and how was, I want to ask you another question about an infamous, I think you'll know where I'm going, a guest voice that you wound up not getting on the show. You know what I'm referring to? I don't, but I will in a second.

What do you want to know about Jackie? How was Jackie to deal with, to work with? Well, I had met Jackie Mason years before. He had been doing his one-man, before he was doing that one-man show that got him a lot of acclaim. I'd seen him perform at Dangerfields.

I was a comedy nerd when I was 10 years old and, and, and 12. And my mom took me to Dangerfields to see him. And we went backstage to go see Jackie Mason. I don't know how we got backstage or who we knew, but I wanted to meet him. And he answered the door in his underwear. Like he doesn't want to hurt his pants. And you take your pants off between shows because you don't want to get them creased or whatever. Old school show business.

Yeah, old school show business. And he was the most nicest guy and very sweet to me. And I never forgot him and Bob Hope and other people who were really nice to an idiot little boy, Jake Hogan. Yeah, Bob Hope. But then years later, we flew to New York to get his voice because we wrote this Father of the Light clown

and we needed a voice of a rabbi. And at that point, Jackie had been doing his one-man show and been pretty famous for being a super Jew. Not just a Jew,

but a super Jew. And he was great. He was fabulous, but he would not, A, he didn't remember many of the lines, and B, to ask him for a different read was a stupid question.

Like, could you do it differently? No. What do you mean, could I do it differently? It's only one time. I said it this way. So he only does his Jackie Mason reading, and there's no more emotional. I was very emotional. This is not emotional.

That's all. He just does one voice. It's his voice, but it's one voice. It's very recognizable. Rabbi, did not a great man say, and I quote, the Jews are a swinging bunch of people. I mean, I've heard of persecution, but what they went through is ridiculous. But the great thing is, after thousands of years of waiting and holding on and fighting, they finally made it. End quote. Oh, I never heard the plight of my people phrased

so elegantly. Who said that, Rabbi Hillel? Nope. It was Judy the Pious. Nope. My amenities. Nope. Oh, I got it. The Dead Sea Scrolls. I'm afraid not, Rabbi. It's from Yes, I Can by Sammy Davis Jr., rabbi it's from yes i can by sammy davis jr an entertainer like your son the candy man if a performer could think that way maybe i'm completely upside down on this whole problem give jay a little bit of your jackie let's just treat them treat the boys well i just remember my wife running into well we Well, we were walking in Florida or something, and my wife ran into him, and she said, Oh, I'm married to Gilbert Gottfried. And Jackie Mason goes, I don't like that Gilbert Gottfried. He lost me.

That Gilbert Gottfried lost me. And I still don't understand how I loused him. No, you loused him. Take his word for it. I don't know what that means. But he was really great. We had a flight to New York to get him, which was another great privilege. Just the fun to go get

interviews with people. But he was terrific. I would work with him anytime. Was there an attempt to get OJ Simpson back before the... Is that bullshit? I don't... Not while I was there. Okay.

For what role? For some role. I got bad information. I mean, it's probably... The show's been on for 30 years. I was only there for five, so... Only before the incident, obviously. It's possible.

Yeah. He's better, I guess, after the incident. They're better jokes. Once he's a murderer, it's actually better. And if you do ask him, you'll have to ask him very nicely. Yes. No, we didn't. We had other sports figures.

We had a lot of baseball players on. We eventually had some of the Beatles on. Oh, yeah. And the B-Sharps episode with George Harrison. Michael Jackson was on Uncredited. Really? Right, right, right. And another Uncredited, Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman didn't do it. I recorded

Dustin's performance for that show. I went to a trailer that he was doing a movie with an engineer and a tape recorder. We recorded maybe lines lines post production lines with and he was great and he was very insecure like was that you know was that good am i good was that fine like no you're dustin hoffman it's all good it's all great it was the opposite of jackie nason yes he took a screen credit sam edic semitic yes exactly that was the

time when i think people were afraid of being identified on this dumb cartoon show. It became, before it became a giant hit. And the same thing with Michael Jackson. He was uncredited. I remember one line in that episode where he gives her a very sentimental goodbye that he's leaving. And Lisa, and he goes, you do believe me, Lisa, don't you? And she goes, yes, I believe your voice,

your eyes, your Semitic good looks. That's a sweet episode. It is a sweet episode. He gives, the teacher gives Lisa a note, which is supposed to be the answer to everything, and it says, you are Lisa Simpson. You are Lisa Simpson, yes.

And that is very... James L. Brooks, who is one of my heroes, no one else can write something like Jim. Jim can tread on something that could be hokey, but make it new and fresh and unhokey. And he makes sure to make it interesting, but emotionally viable and real. He's one of the greatest writers I've ever met. And he's a gigantic hero of mine, along with my father.

That's an example of the depth of the show, because obviously the show was funny, but here you are with the Hoffman episode, what, maybe eight, nine, ten episodes in, and you have a moment like that, and you realize, and I remember watching it, and I remember this is going to be something different. This is special.

It works on another level. A room full of cynical writers in their 20s who all heard Jim Brooks say that go, God, this is going to be horrible. And then it comes out and it's, oh my God, it's beautiful. So you don't know anything when you're 22 and just looking to make people laugh.

Okay, just when the show was starting to get good, we're going to throw a monkey wrench into the works with this commercial word. Ranch into the works with this commercial word. Live from Nutmeg Post, we now return to Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Podcast. Now here's a segue. You guys ready for this? Yeah. Because we were talking about Kang and Kodos in space.

Yes. And I'm going to go from there to NASA and we're going to ask Arnie about the Soupy Sales movie. Oh, wow. Oh. Oh, boy. Birds do it.

Yes. He gave the whole plot away, Frank. The whole... There he goes. Well... Hey, everyone in the world has seen that movie, Dad.

Don't worry about it. We've seen it. It's like Star Wars. Those festivals going on. It's amazing. I had no idea I got that job. I was writing for about two years. I was doing the Les Crane Show, doing some talk shows.

And Ivan Torres, the producer, and Marty Ingalls was on the Les Crane Show. And somehow he recommended me, driving tours, to write a movie. And it was either Ingalls or Jerry Lewis or Soupy Sales were going to star in this movie. And they hired me. And I didn't ever show them a script. I never wrote a script. I had never written a feature movie at all.

And there I was down in Florida at Arvin's Tourist Studios rewriting a script called Birds Do It. Art author wrote the original screenplay, and I was kind of punching it up. And I had no idea what I was doing. And you could tell from the movie when you see it that it looks that way. I will say the movie's in color. That's the only positive thing about it.

Arthur O'Connell shows up. Yes, and Tab Hunter was in the only positive thing about it. Arthur O'Connell shows up. Yes, and Tab Hunter was in the film. Tab was quoted as saying, this is the worst film I've ever been in in my life. And he was in Operation Bikini with Jim Backus. But I think he's right. He was right.

So I had no idea what I was doing. We thought it would be like a Hard Day's Night, the Beatles film. We thought it would be like a hard day's night, the Beatles film. We thought it would be a hip, trendy, and the director was not a comedy director. He was a director of flounders and sea animals. He did Flipper, so it didn't quite work out. Doctari, all those Ivan Torres shows. Yeah, the chimp is in there.

Yeah. Judy the chimp, who was in Doctari, turns up in the movie. Oh, is that the same Chimp from Doctari? Yeah. I did not know that. So you have a whole new perspective. Well, she's on the poster. I should have been able to tell.

I know Jay shares our fondness for monkeys. I do. I love monkeys. But I got a screen credit when I was young in my career. So, you know, I'll take it, I think. Yeah. No, I've had monkeys in many, many shows. I do love monkeys.

It's true. And in Last Exit to Springfield, I'm going to go back to that, there's that wonderful gag where Burns goes into the lock room, and what is it? There's a thousand chimpanzees typing, a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters. Yes, he wanted to see if they would write Shakespeare. They come really close. They come really close. They come really close.

Arnie, I think Gilbert's fascinated by this. Talk about writing for some of the stand-ups early on. I mean, you wrote for, what, Morty Gunty? Morty was the first comic I ever wrote for. Right around the time I started writing for Mad Magazine. I wrote for Gunty, and I wrote for Toadie Fields and I wrote for

Jackie Vernon, who was very smart. Do you remember Jackie Vernon? Sure. Don Adams? Huh? Don? When I first started writing, I wanted to write for Don Adams. He never bought it. I wrote something He used to write those things with Bill Dana, the baseball umpire and the football guy, which were brilliant.

And I tried to duplicate that. I didn't sell anything at that point. I did write a thing about a school teacher in the same voice and did that routine at a New Year's Eve party once. And a pretty girl in red dress laughed very loud at it. Ended up marrying her. That's Jay's mom, Sue.

Oh, that's a lovely story. Yeah, she reacted well to the act. So I'm here because of a bit you couldn't sell? That's true. Fair enough. Whatever it takes. I could have been flying over the house with a bit in a helicopter. You wrote Phyllis Diller, some books with Phyllis Diller, but you didn't write her act?

I wrote a book for Phyllis Diller, a book for Toadie. Wow. I'm trying to think of the others. I wrote a lot of stand-ups for singers that were not very funny. Oh, Banter. Banter, yeah. Yeah. Jackie Deshannon and Nino Tempo and April Stevens.

Jackie Deshannon, put a little love in your heart. That's right. Yeah. Yes. Very good. And other singers. Steve Anidia wrote for him for many years. Steve Lawrence.

And Steve is funny. Steve Lawrence and Steveie Vermeer. So, you know, a lot of stand-ups and a lot of singers. Diana Ross, who I never met. I wrote some material for her also. And Sammy? Sammy, I wrote for, there were two Academy Award shows that I wrote, kind of. One was for Carol Burnett.

She was one of four hosts on some Academy Award. And Sammy was also one of four hosts. He was a host along with Alan King and Helen Hayes. And my goal was to make him funnier than Helen Hayes. The line I wrote for him that was kind of quoted was, he said,

this year they're honoring two films. They're featuring two films honoring my people, Shaft and Fiddler on the Roof. Perfect. That's a good one. Good joke. That was the zombie stuff. Now, I heard a story that Bob Newhart was one time watching TV and Don Adams did one of Newhart's bits word for word. Wow. Wow, I never heard of that.

I believe that. But they work so different. They're not the same rhythm. Interesting. Comedian that needs material needs material. Didn't Bill Dana write the whole Byron Glick thing for Don Adams and Maxwell Smart? and didn't Bill Dana write the whole Byron Glick thing for he wrote all those

he wrote all those he and Don Adams wrote those comedy pieces the lawyer you know the baseball umpire those legs of a homicidal maniac

I think Dana wrote a lot of those Dana ended up working on a show I was head writer and producer for Donny and Marie show

he was one of the writers. Oh, yes. You got to talk about that too. Yeah. So another writer that I was going to hire, there was a guy I said, we need one more monologue writer. I met a guy from the Midwest. He came out in his truck.

I said, I like the material. Do you think you could write for Donny and Marie? He said, I can. It was David Letterman. Letterman, and I went back. I said, I want to hire this guy. It turns out we did not have enough money. So Letterman never wrote the Donnie Murray show.

Wow. Good for him. But we were about to hire him. But you wound up working with him anyway on that Mary Tyler Moore. Mary Tyler Moore had a variety show. Yes. Remember that show? Sure.

It was called Mary. Yeah. But Patchett and Tarsus were running the show. And Letterman and Michael Keaton. Swoosie Kurtz. Swoosie Kurtz and Dick Shawn and Mary. Yeah. But Patchett and Tarsus were running the show and Letterman and Michael Keaton and Swoosie Kurtz and Dick Shawn and Mary Talamore. So Mary may have been

the least talented of the bunch, but the show we thought would be brilliant and run for 23 years, we shot 13 shows, only three aired and they canceled it.

It didn't quite work out. They wanted to see Mary doing Mary Richards. We had her singing Dead Skunk in the middle of the road. We had stuff that was inappropriate. Mary Tyler Moore covers Loudon Wainwright. We had six guys in shirts and ties. We had the Ed Asner

dancers doing a disco dance. So it was a lot of stuff that she was not comfortable with, and the show went off pretty quickly. That's too bad. Yeah. She was also famous for not being so nice. Could be a little. Yeah, that character in that movie with—

Ordinary People. Ordinary People was not quite that, but almost. She could be like that a little bit. Oh, my God. It's so funny you say that, because when I saw Ordinary People, I remember watching her going, you know, I never met her, but she seems a little too good at playing this character.

Interesting. Wow. Anthony Hopkins also eats people. Really? Between the two of them, yeah, sure. The line was, Mary Talamore had diabetes, I think, and she went to the doctor

and she went for a checkup and the doctor said, she said, how am I doing? He said, you're doing fine. You can play tennis, you can exercise,

you can dance, you can do anything you can. You can do everything except variety. Right. Oh, that's fantastic. Except variety. Right. Oh, that's fantastic. Gilbert, I was at a poker game Monday, and some people were quoting a joke of yours. There's other jokes, but Bill Prady, who runs, who helped create the Big Bang Theory,

did an imitation of you doing a joke about an alien spaceship coming over head, getting a car, pulling the car up. It's a long joke. I don't want to ruin it. I'm not Bill Prady. I can't tell you, but it was brilliant. You can do it. If you want to do the bit, he's setting you up for this.

Oh, God. Remember it? Talk about it. I'll do it. So the alien, the car, he sees lights in the sky. Suddenly the clouds clear and a big magnet starts shaking the car. The car is swooped up into this thing. It's clearly it's an alien spaceship.

He goes into the alien spaceship. These strange creatures come, surround the car. They roll down the window through telekinesis, and suddenly they say, Ben Gazzara's a good actor. Why doesn't he work more? Is that it, Gil? That's it.

That's it. The poker room laughed a lot. We owe you some money. Yep. That's the bit. That's a long way around the bend to get to a Ben Gazzara joke. Ben Gazzara in Roadhouse was great. And I remember somebody told me they met Ben Gazzara.

I never met him. And he was there with smoking a cigar, you know, and he goes, hey, do you know Gilbert Godfrey? He goes, oh, the one with the eyes? Yeah, yeah. And he tells him that bit. And he says, Ben Gazzara starts pounding the table and punching him in the shoulder and goes, that's funny. He did not feel that you loused him.

No. He did not louse him at all. Yeah, no. Ben Gazzara said, he loused me. He comes to me, he louses me. Do a little, since Jackie Vernon came up, I'd love to put you on the spot on the show. Oh, yes. Treat the gentleman to a little bit of...

Okay. It'll bring back flashbacks for Arnie. Here's some slides from my vacation. Here I am with Manuel, the tour guide.

Here's Manuel leading us around the quicksand. Here we are from the waist up. Here's a bunch of hats and ropes. He was a very funny guy. The line I liked best of his was he said he was a dull guy. That was his persona.

He said he was once arrested times square new year's eve for loitering yeah that's a good joke i'm funny i somebody told me who was friends with jackie vernon and he also had a thing where he would go into a supermarket or a department store wherever a woman would be by herself. And, you know, he had that big pot belly. So he'd walk up, act like he's looking at stuff, and then he'd suck his belly in so his pants would fall down. And that was his big thing of going up to women. Classy.

Me too. It's a me too now. And he can't do that. In his line, in his act, he does a pickup line saying, at the beach, he said, excuse me, I seem to have lost my Congressional Medal of Honor around here someplace. A pickup line for him. My introduction to Jackie Vernon was, there was a character on the cartoon Underdog that was basically Jackie Vernon was there was a character on the cartoon underdog that was basically Jackie Vernon really one of yeah one of the villains of underdog was Jackie Vernon and I

didn't realize who was because I was five but then I was going through my dad's comedy record collection and I pulled it out and I hear the voice is the same so some cartoon actor was doing Jackie Vernon and they drew it the the the to look like Jackie Vernon. That's hilarious. In the way that a lot of the Hanna-Barbera characters were named after. Oh, we've talked about that. Yeah, how they would be doing Art Carney. Dean Martin or Art

Carney. Yeah, exactly. Luckleberry Hound doing Andy Griffith. Yeah, all of them used to be well, like, yeah. Yeah, Yogi Bear was Yogi Bear was Art Carney. Right, right, right. And on the Dick Tracy cartoon, like, they would have, like, one who sounded like James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson. Well, Simon Bar Sinister on Underdog was Lionel Barrymore.

Okay. Basically, if you go back and you listen to it. Very popular one, Lionel Barrymore. Okay. Basically, if you go back and you listen to it. Very popular one, Lionel Barrymore in the cartoons. Also, to imitate Ed Wynn in the cartoons. Yeah, great voices. Now, Jay, we were both in the aristocrats. We were. We were.

You were better than me. You know what? You know, a fan wrote in, Jay. He set you up. But we take questions sometimes from our listeners. And a fan named Bobby Mago or Mago wrote, I need to ask Jay who did his favorite version of the aristocrats. Now you're really on the spot.

You know, I would say me. Me. I did my favorite version. You're asking somebody. You get to do your favorite version. You're asking somebody, you get to do your own version. That's the whole point of the joke is you get to do exactly the version you want to do. I do the version I want to do.

Yeah. For me. You call them the sophisticates, I think, right? Yeah, well, that's the other variation of it. A little bit. Yeah. You guys had never met? You and Jay have never crossed paths?

I don't think so. I have met Gilbert, but he wouldn't remember meeting me. He's a famous celebrity. Gilbert, do you remember meeting me about 35 years ago? Oh my god, no. Pick of the night.

Oh my god! That was one of 18 writers in the room there. Try to burn that out of your memory. Why would he remember that? Oh, fuck was on the script. I tried to block out Thick of the Night. Same here. Toughest show I've ever done in my life.

I've done like a zillion shows. Toughest, toughest gig I've ever had. Ever. But since you mentioned Thick of the Night, the theme song was written and performed by Alan Thicke. Yes. And it went as

follows. Mama don't leave the lady I'm in the room tonight Everyone needs a dream to hold on I want to make it on my own Run into the thick of the night Under the city lights

Run into the thick of the night Pretty good. Oh, wow. That's pretty good. That's great. That's pretty good. I was talking about that an hour ago in the car. I mean, it was Jay.

I said, I want to get a recording, like all the theme songs of shows I've worked on, the Jackson 5, the Donny Marie, New Heart, and Think of the Night. I want to get all these things. I'm going to handle that for him. I got it. I got it covered. That's a birthday mix. Yes.

Right there. Well, on the Donny and Marie, you were working with, maybe not with, but Sid and Marty Croft. Sid and Marty preceded me. Oh, okay. I came in, I don't know, they were there the first year. Yeah. And then I came in, myself and Ray Jessel, the partner I had at the time, were brought in.

Mike Ovitz was our agent. He just got us on the show. You guys are going to be head writers. I said, really? They have head writers. Well, you're going to go in. And we were head writers. And I enjoyed it a lot.

And Sid and Marty were there. And found me. It was very terrific. And I enjoyed doing that show for a year and a half. Did you hire Bruce Valanche for that show? I did. I hired Bruce, yes. I hired Bruce.

Good move. Same year. Yeah, very good move. And the same year, I hired Bill Dana and some other people. And yeah, Valanche is very interesting and funny guy. Yeah, we're going to have him on in a couple of weeks. Sid and Marty Kroff, to this day, have an office at the Radford CBS Studios. They're coming on with us next week.

A small office. Oh, they are? Yeah. I went into their office one time, and it was like going into Cheech and Chong's van. It was like the smoke and the smell of pot was crazy. So I know what H.R. Puffin stuff means. I get it now. And yet they deny that to this day.

Every time they're interviewed, they deny that there's any drug connection to any of their creations. Okay. Sid and Marty. They would know better than Okay. Sid and Marty. They would know better than me. Sid and Marty, somebody did an impression of, not impression, they described Sid and Marty.

They said, Sid and Marty, they'll have a production number and Sid will say, let's have 200 dancers in chandeliers and exquisite costumes coming down these gold staircases

and Marty would say, not 200, three dancers. He'd be the money guy. Sid would be the artistic guy. That was the difference. Sid did all those shows with Liberace and Judy Garland

back in the day. But like the Diary Show, for some reason, they always had a, each year, they had an ice skating production number, but like every opening, every opening was ice skating.

Always ice skating, yeah. But what the fuck was that about? I mean, that's not a production number. It's the same thing. I think it's a cost-saving measure. We have an ice skating rink. To amortize it, we'll do it over 22 episodes. My next production meeting note was going to be,

what the fuck is this all about? I never did that. Then they did one with a pool. Yeah. It's like, as a child, it annoyed me. I thought, you guys could do better. The Simpsons did a great send-up of one of those Sid and Marty shows, of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour,

where they did the Simpsons Family Smile Time. Oh, yeah. And it's so spot on. It's such a brilliant. It's such a brilliant... It's so easy to make fun of that shit. I know. To have a sitcom suddenly become a variety show is not easy and not pleasant.

Those poor kids. Arnie, I don't remember much about the Jackson variety show, but I was doing research on it. Joey Bishop was on it and Muhammad Ali. Well, no. Ray Jessel and I, again, it was a summer show that we did. We did four episodes, four half-hour episodes. It was a Jackson's without Jermaine.

There was a contract thing going on. Jermaine married the daughter of Motown. And only every Jackson except Jermaine did it. And Janet was around nine. There was another Jackson around nine or ten. Randy. Randy. Michael was 16.

It was a lot of fun. The guests were Joey Bishop, Ed McMahon. John Beiner. That was later. They later picked the show up, and as a regular season, I was doing Donny Marie. I see. I couldn't do it anymore, but it was fun to do Forrest Joes with the Jacksons.

They lived in Encino. We lived in Encino. Jay, you remember we had a party. Yeah, we had a premiere party at our house where the Jacksons came over. They came over. It was us and the Jacksons, and I think not a word was said.

Well, no. We spoke, and Buzz Cohen came over. He was a consultant. At one point in the evening, Sue's mother, Nana Chickie, was there. At one point, I see Nana Chickie, Sue's mom, talking to Marlon Jackson. What the hell

were they talking about? I have no idea. No idea what this 73-year-old lady and Marlon Jackson... I have no idea. I just remember them being incredibly shy. Janet Jackson, trying to talk to her, she was incredibly shy. Michael was also. Michael was at that time. There should be a Kogan flowchart too with all the different

people that you guys have worked with because you both worked with Michael Jackson. That's true. But I knew he grew up in the neighborhood so I kind of ran into him a couple different times. Like a local pizza place around the market and stuff like that. He was not as

you know, like he was not quite as sheltered when he was a young guy. Yeah. No oxygen tent. We got to ask Arnie about Mad. Uh-huh. Arnie,

we had Al Jaffe here. Oh, great. On the show, maybe about a year ago, going strong. What is he, 95? Yes, yeah,

94, 95. Did he have any snappy answers for you? You bet he did. Okay. You know, and when I was a kid, I was a credit reader. And I went watching the Carol Burnett Show, and I said, wait, Larry Siegel, Stan Hart, Arnie Kogan, these are the same guys that I'm reading in MAD.

Yeah, yeah. We all did the Carol Burnett Show. Larry was the first guy, not the first. Larry preceded me by a couple of years, and I came along, and Jaffe was there also before me. It was great to write for MAD. My first comedy sale ever was MAD Magazine. I had always wanted to write comedy in some form,

and I saw MAD. I said, this is great. And I wrote some spec MAD stories, and I brought them to MAD, and Feldstein and Jerry DeFusio at the time said, well, this is not right for us. If you want to bring them someplace else, you can. I went there. And that time, there were like 23 in person.

There was Panic. There was Nuts. There was Think. There was all kinds of crazy magazines. I brought all the stuff to Panic Magazine. Said, you know, this is good. You have anything more? I said, I can do some more.

I gave him 17 story ideas. He said, I want to buy all of them. I said, great. He said, but this is good you have anything more i said i can do some more i gave him 17 story ideas he said i want to buy all of them i said great he said but i cannot pay you until 12 months from now i said well i don't know if i want to do that he said well you can turn around go back to mad if you want went back to mad and i uh submitted three of the stories two weeks later i got a check in the mail from Mad Magazine one of the biggest thrills of my life ever ever ever aside from this podcast

of course so the first time I sold a piece to Mad I got the same thrill yeah it's very exciting it was

better than the honeymoon isn't it right yeah it was it was and you still go ahead Jay

no I still write for Deferred Payment Magazine. Do you? It's not yet. It takes a long time. Do you stay in touch with those guys, with Angelo and Mort's out on Long Island? Well, Mort I speak to once in a while.

Larry Siegel, he's in his 90s now. I saw him at a rehab center about six months ago. Physical rehab, not drug rehab, just to make it clear. I see Sergio every once in a while. He's the best. six months ago. Physical rehab, not drug rehab, just to make it clear. I see Sergio every once in a while. Sergio. He's the best. My God,

he is the genius. To me, he's the genius of Mad Magazine. He is a genius. Notwithstanding my father. Yes. But I mean,

just as growing up reading every episode of Mad, what's happening in the margins or when he seemed to me to be the funniest thing in the world.

The drawn out dramas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah out dramas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think Frank Jacobs is a genius. I think he's great. Your dad is a genius.

I agree. Jacobs is brilliant. Jeffy, a funny thing. I left Costco about a year ago, uh, carrying a pizza. And a guy said to me,

what did you, did you just buy a pizza? And I said, my snappy answer was yes. So I called out Jaffe a half hour later. I said, Jaffe, I needed your help a half hour

ago. I wish you were with me to give nothing for the guy. Gilbert, you're a mad reader from way back. And one of Arnie's specialties, along with Celebrity Wallets, which I always enjoy. Oh, thank you. But one of Arnie's specialties were the parodies, the movie and the TV parodies. Oh, yes. He did Botch Casually and the, what was it, and the Sum Dunce Kid.

Sum Dunce Kid, yes. And Least Horizon, the wonderful parody of that terrible Ross Hunter musical. I didn't know anyone read that. Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, yes. Yeah.

I remember the word or sound yich was always very popular. That was one of the sounds, yes. I don't know if I wrote that much. Blech a lot. Blech and yich. Potts, Reby. So, Titanic would be Titan yich. Yeah, yich and yich were in there quite a bit, yes. And one joke that seemed to have been in every single movie parody

was one person going, I can't take it any longer. And the other one would go, you mean the guns and the bloodshed? And the other would go, no, this dopey movie. So you read my stuff, huh? Barney, I go through those things today. The eight James Bond movies. Oh, thank you. That's great.

You took the classic stuff. Thank you. Now, that's all collapsed. The Mad Magazine has restarted. I know. They're out. They left and they went out west. Yeah, I stopped writing for them about a year ago.

I did 58 years with Mad Magazine from 1959 to last year. And I've written my... I've written my last... I've typed my last for Schlugner. For Schlugner.

Which is the bad name for a sad novel. My last for Schlugner. I typed my last for Schlugner. And I think the Godfather was something like

the Claudefather. It was the Oddfather. The Oddfather. Yeah. Siegel did that. The funniest story ever from that was written by a guy named Tom Cook, who wrote for Bob and Ray. He was a writer for Bob and Ray.

K-O-C-H. K-O-C-H. Right, right. Yes. And he had a thing called 43-Man Squamish. He created a game, a combination of rugby and soccer and football. It was brilliantly hysterical. I was pounding the table, spit soda through my nose.

Very, very funny stuff. Well, he wrote those great Bob and Ray bits, the Slow Talker of America and all that. That's the guy. I had no idea they had a writer. But then when I found out they did, I went, holy shit, that guy's a genius. I remember individual jokes

of yours from the magazine, Arnie. That's how sick I am. I remember a Bernadette Peters joke in your Longest Yard parody. Longest Yard? Which one? Longest Yard? Longest Yard.

Yes. Yeah. Wow. I did. Really? It was a joke about her hair exploding. I can't remember.

I liked Hoo Boy Columbus. I used to... I love that stuff. Having a dad write for Mad Magazine in elementary school was kind of a big deal. I can imagine. If an eight-year-old could get pussy, I could have worked my way into that.

Jay, I'm calling your mom. Unfortunately. I'm going to call. I'm getting on the iPhone and calling you. The best I got was an extra chocolate milk. That's the best I got. I got nothing. I remember I was a fan of Don Martin.

Oh, sure. Sure. And he looked, when we do went on the mad trips every year, almost every year, Bill Gaines would take the writers and artists on these mad trips. I was working a lot

so I couldn't go on them, but I went on a number of them. Don Martin was there. Don Martin looked nothing like what you'd expect him to look like. He looked like... He didn't have a giant head

with crazy ears. And feet that folded. Yeah. The TV series Adventures in Paradise. I forgot who this is. Good looking star. That's what Don Martin looked like. He looked a very handsome guy.

Very quiet. On the mad trips he said two words or four words. But he looked nothing like what you'd expect him to look like. But the mad trips were great. Gaines would take the writers and artists and production people someplace in the world, and we'd have a zillion laughs. Yeah, I know Dick DiBartolo, and I know Al.

So we've heard the legendary stories of the trips. Yeah. You didn't get to go on all of them because you were busy working. Well, the first one I didn't get to go on, they went to Haiti. And they said, okay, you're going to Haiti and Kogan will be going. And it turns out you needed to have written or

drew 20 pages to earn the trip to Haiti. And I had 18 pages in my first year or second year. So they said, you mean Kogan's not going to go for two pages? I said, no, no, Gaines is very strict that way. I love Bill Gaines, but he was very strict. He said, no, no.

So about three years later, Bill Gaines' mother died. They said, are you going to the funeral? I said, I don't have enough pages. I didn't go to the funeral. Before we get you guys out of here, Jay, talk a little bit about working on Frasier. And with those actors that I've heard you say could make any script better. It's true.

I mean, it's one of the three best experiences of show business I've ever had. Working on Frasier with that writing staff, which was enormous. Every writer there was fabulous and smart and interesting and run the room by a great, great writer named Chris Lloyd, who now runs – who helped create Modern Family and runs half of it, was just genius. I mean we wrote plays. They weren't really plays. They were three-act, four-act plays, and we'd sit and people would, it wouldn't be about going from scene to scene to scene. People would take our time, they'd build the story,

and they'd use the characters, and they'd make really smart, interesting choices. Now, we'd give those scripts, our best efforts to that cast, and they would always make it better, and usually make it better by just embodying those characters and taking their time, and really, you know, the best jokes, it's like your money or your life.

If you know what the character's thinking, if you, the audience is ahead of the joke and you, you ask, uh, Niles, you know, what's, who's your favorite pitcher? Uh, and you know, Niles knows nothing about sports and you see him thinking there's just a joy in seeing him think and how long he can hold out that beat. And they would always, in rehearsals, they would always blame themselves if something was going wrong. They would say, we did it wrong, we did it wrong, and we'll do it better next time.

And we would tell them, no, it's bad. We've written something bad for you. Let us write something better for you. And it was the only show I've ever worked on where the actors didn't hate the writers and the writers didn't seem to hate the actors. They were, they were, each one was in awe of the other in a way that made everything better. How refreshing.

Kelsey Grammer hates me. Yeah, Kelsey's not a fan of Gilbert's. Did you louse him? What happened to that? Why does Kelsey Grammer hate you? What happened to that? Why does Kelsey Grammer hate you? I mean, Frank was working on a show and Kelsey Grammer heard I was on it.

It was a roast and Kelsey came and Gilbert was booked on the same roast and as soon as Kelsey showed up and knew Gilbert was there, he split. Oh, wow. And it has to do with Gilbert, it has to do with you teasing him, making fun of his wife's disorder

on the Howard Stern show. I was on Howard Stern and we did like a couple of hours of her with irritable bouncing. The ex-wife. Even and to make matters worse, they animated it

and when he had his TV show, they animated her with us doing the voices and her irritable bouts. He might not hate you so much now after the divorce. They have bridged the gap.

But Kelsey, by the way, is and was genius, wonderful, and one of the greatest stars of any show I've ever worked with. He led people in a very positive way on the stage and made everybody's lives better and clearer. So on this side, Gilbert, I'm sorry. I have to take Kelsey's side. I have to leave now.

It's only right. He's leaving. He left the room. JT Bennett runs off and left the room. Did David Hyde Pierce pitch jokes? oh my god yes he pitched jokes all the time

but never for his character always for one of the other characters generous and when we were stuck on a joke he would he would sidle over to us and kind of whisper in one of the writer's ears

you know one of the characters could say X, Y, and Z and it would always be brilliant and it would always be funny and it would always be funny and never for him. He was a giving, smart actor.

He could have written any of our shows. He could have done it. He's a great writer, great director, great musician, great actor. He can do,

David I. Pierce can do anything and it was an honor to work with him. When I was doing Newhart, he would come over to me and whisper to my ear lines through Larry, Daryl, and Daryl.

So I had no idea. No. But you know actors all want more lines. They want more. Of course. He just was just giving to the show. He just wanted the show. He wasn't William Shatner, in other words.

Exactly. He was not. Yeah, yeah. I will also direct our listeners to your wonderful Emmy acceptance speech when you won for Frasier, which they can find online. And it's truly, it is a shining moment to watch you run through the audience

thanking each person in the theater. Yes, I tried to do it. Roberto Benigni had been on Academy Awards like that year. And I decided to try and do Roberto Benigni as best I could. And I also wanted very much to sort of hug and kiss celebrities who didn't know me.

I wanted to just run up and grab people who didn't know me and just say, we did it, we did it. But unfortunately, the only people in my eye were actually people I knew. So it was hurting my bit. So I ran up and then I did a bunch of jokes. Kelsey was there and Hank Azaria and Helen Hunt, who I'm friendly with. But what I tried to do, which is I don't believe awards really mean that you are the best of anything. Awards are just kind of bullshitty.

But what's fun is to be able to give a speech and make jokes in front of an audience is fabulous. You know, I was a 16-year-old kid trying to brush my teeth to La Bamba, so I'm willing to do anything for what I think will get a laugh. Well, it's great. You thank Sam Simon for taking a chance on a well-protected Rich White Kid. Yes, well-connected. Well-connected Rich White Kid. Yes, exactly right.

I had pages of jokes lined up, and I started to get joke after joke, and I started to get played off, and this will bring back to Bruce Valanche who was writing on the Emmys and sitting in the booth told the director

let the guy go. Let the guy go. So Bruce Valanche is responsible for me getting the full speech out. I didn't know that until now. That's wonderful.

A little payback for maybe that. Tell them a line about your mom about the real estate. I don't want to spoil it for the people going on the internet but I do a lot of jokes about my mom, about real estate. I don't want to spoil it for the people going on the internet,

but I do a lot of jokes about my mother being a real estate agent and all the people. It's fine. Well, tell us something about John Mahoney who just passed. The great John Mahoney. Rat bastard. Oh, my God. Thank God he's dead.

Thank God he's dead. I would have killed him myself if he hadn't already died. Fuck him. No. John was... I don't think... I worked there for a bunch of years. I think I said three words to each other. He came in, did his job. He was like, get a journeyman.

He came in, he did his job, he liked acting, he liked doing it, and then he went home. And that was his thing. He was there, he loved acting, and he liked acting, he liked doing it, and then he went home. And that was his thing. It was not, he was there, he loved acting, and he loved doing it, and he didn't make a big deal about it. And it was, he was really smart and special, and he sort of, he brought, he fully brought his humanity to the part. And that was a grounding force to that show. And the combination of his character and the other characters were what made that show good.

If it was just, you know, a bunch of feet guys, you know, without sort of a blue collar bent, it would not have been a good mix. So he, but he was, he was strong. He never missed a line. He always was funny and, but he never never he never played anything for a joke he played everything for a reality and that is a great lesson to all actors who want to be funny play the reality to committing to that reality as best you can that's what's funny we just had somebody

on saying that we just had we just had a comedic actor on saying, saying, play it like Strindberg. I think it was Ed Begley. Ed Begley Jr. We just had on. He said, play it like it's... He could be funnier. He could be funnier. It's like,

when they were first making Airplane, the studio wanted to fill it with comedians. Right. And they fought that. Oh, yes.

They said, no, dramatic actors. Yeah. But I mean, that's so silly. The dramatic actors sort of grounded it and sort of played it straight and allowed it to get back on tracks for more time for the jokes. But even in a show like, you know, whatever, any comedy that's worth its salt has actors who are trying to embody a reality. They're not winking at the camera. They're not

playing it for big gags. The second you do try to play it for big gags, you're ruined. You're done for. That's it. And I think George Burns liked to have actors on his show because he said they believe it, the lines they're saying. Yeah.

Actors and Fred Allen. Arnie, we're going to let you guys get on with your lives. But quickly, tell us either something about Tom Poston, who we love. Yeah. Or the great Richard Mulligan, who we also love. I knew Poston better and loved him and was kind of close to him. And, you know, big loss. And I love doing the Newhart Show, all the Newhart Shows I did.

And Tom was a big part of that. So, you know, Newhart for me was like Jack Benny. And he was a reactor as far as doing comedy. But Poston, i knew him from your army's army and i've known uh in fact when i moved into a building recently 10 years ago it took i bought his apartment in uh in los angeles but tom is a beautiful really the phrase beautiful guy is the as the wrong phrase but he was truly was poston was great very sweet he was sweet to me too and and uh we were friendly with his son.

And as you grow up, you meet people who are star-like and people who are just people. And Tom was just good people. And he was kind of edgy when he did a comedy bit. He had a lot of edge to him. The quiet Tom Poston character, the handyman, was not really what Tom was all about. But he was kind of slick and very funny. I liked him a lot. Yeah, he's the kind of guy that would have just been so perfect for this show.

We tried to get Bill Dana, and Bill was in failing health. Yes, right. You know, we try to tell the history through these guys. Yeah. It's so rich. There's so much of it. Yeah, all those guys, Bill, the Steve Allen guys, you got anybody else on from that show?

I think we lost them all. Well, Louis Nye's gone, and Pat Harrington's gone. That's true. We started this four years ago. I mean, we're thrilled with the people we have been able to get, including both of you. I remember talking briefly to Bill Dana on the phone shortly before he died. And I remember, boy, I was looking forward to it.

Because he was still funny. Yeah. Very funny guy. I spoke to him just after he died and he was still funny. Really? Still had it. What do you got coming up, Jay? I'm driving dad home.

Yep. He's driving me home. And then Pollo Loco. Pollo Loco tonight. You're directing these days. I try to direct. I can't. I seem to.

There's one person who will hire me, and that's me. Okay. I wind up hiring myself a lot because I'm very good. But I want other people to hire me as well. But, yeah, I've been doing a show that just got canceled, The School of Rock. I directed a bunch of them, and I directed the show before that, Wendell and Vinny,

and now I've got a few pilots going. You did a show with my friend Max Burnett. You did The Troop with my friend Max. The Troop, absolutely. And I got to direct there too. So I've been enjoying directing because, again, it gets me out of that locked room that I so dreaded as a boy and actually working with actors. And to me, that's so much more fun to work on the stage with actors.

I'm going to go home now and put Jay in a locked room. I'm going to lock him in a room. What do you think, Gil? Wow. That's a show. Well, it's like now I know you've never used me on The Simpsons, and now I've got some guy on the, what was that? The Big Bang Theory. Oh, the Big Bang Theory, Bill Prady.

Who has never used me on the Big Bang Theory. Well, wait a minute. They did guest voices on Frasier, and Jay never used you on that either. Oh, okay. That's good. And Arnie, it's so good working with you again. Every fucking 35 years we're going to do this. Say, would you rather me work with you or work on The Thick of the Night?

If those are the choices. No working is better than working on The Thick of the Night. I've got to say that Alan was very nice. My sister, my daughter, who passed away last year, but when she was 13 years old, she was a tremendous hockey fan. Went to the Kings games. Alan, who was big with the hockey group, he arranged for the auditorium to write,

Happy Birthday, Jill, and then invited her up to the forum club and had one of the Kings players Butch Goring who had never said five words his whole life. He sang happy birthday to her. So it was a huge huge thrill. Wow. We appreciated that very much. Worth a year of horror from the

thing of the night. We had Alan on the show. Alan Gilbert had history with him. Yeah. And I switched wives with him. Okay. He did wife swap. Did you and Belzer do a bit where he was ventriloquist and you were his dummy?

Yes. I seem to remember that a little bit. I seem to recall that. Yeah. Dick and stinky. Yes. Yeah. Dick and Stinky. I would sit on Belcher's lap. Yes.

Yeah. I sat on his lap last week. It was not received very well. Guys, we can't thank you enough for this. Thank you. Thank you. What an honor and a pleasure. Thank you. Oh, my God.

I've had more fun doing this one than any in 20 shows. Just pure laughter. Thank you. What do you think, Gil? Fight us back anytime. We will. Okay, well, we have been talking to Jay Kogan. Who's never used you.

Who's never used me. On The Simpsons. And Arnie Cogan, my old friend, from Thick of the Night. Arnie, did you ever write anything for him specifically either? I don't recall that. Okay, so Arnie.

I said I don't want to. I said, please, leave me out of this one. They stiffed you. Both stiffed you. That sounds like one of those answers you'd give at a trial. They stiffed you. Both stiffed you. That sounds like one of those answers you'd give at a trial. I don't recall. I got about 20 cards

here in my hand and I think we got through about 10 of them. So we'll have you guys back and we'll have more fun. Thank you. Because as we always say at the end of each show,

we haven't scraped the surface. Well, you know, they've met a lot of people and written for a lot of people, and there's only so much you can cover in 90 minutes. I thought you were going to say scrape the bottom of the barrel. I didn't know where you were going with that exactly. We had a great time, guys. Thanks so much. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. 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 McCadden, 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. Thank you.