Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 225. Alan Zweibel

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

Emmy-winning comedy writer and Thurber Prize-winning author Alan Zweibel returns to discuss (among other topics) the evolution of "SaturdayNight Live," the genius of Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon and the 2018 documentaries about his longtime friends and collaborators, Gilda Radnerand Garry Shandling. Also, Jay Leno offers sage advice, Buck Henry makes a bad investment, Gilbert makes like Willy Loman and LorneMichaels locks horns with Uncle Miltie. PLUS: Praising Kate McKinnon! Remembering Bruno Kirby (and Herb Sargent)! Mel Brooks comes to dinner! Desi Arnaz invents the sitcom! And Alan writes the Paul "Bridge Over Troubled Water" Simon Special! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit mila.ca to learn more. Hi, I'm Ros Burr. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing... I've already forgotten the name of the show. Yeah, I haven't done it for a couple of weeks. Forgot the name of the podcast. We've been off, you see. Yeah. I'm going to say it's Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre.

Our guest this week is back for a return engagement on this podcast. He's a screenwriter, producer, playwright, children's book author, Thurber Award-winning novelist, and Emmy Award-winning television writer. He's been honored with the Ian McKellen Hunter Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Writers Guild of America. He wrote the screenplay for the feature films's Dragnet, The Story of Us and North. On movie, film critic Roger Ebert is still panning five years after his death. He collaborated with both Billy Crystal and Martin Short on their one-person shows.

The Tony-winning 700 Sundays and Fame Becomes Me and also served as a writer and producer on two of the most admired and innovative TV series of the last 30 years, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Curb Your Enthusiasm, I Give Up. And it's Carrie Shandling's show, a program he also co-created. But he's perhaps best known as one of the staff writers of the original Saturday Night Live,

penning classic comedy skits such as John Belushi's Samurai sketches and weekend update segments featuring beloved characters Emily Lutella and Roseanne Roseanna

Dana. And that's not all. He's also one of the executive producers of the soon to be released documentary Love Gilda about the life and work

of his dear friend the late great Gilda Radner. Both Frank and I have seen the film, and it's terrific. Please welcome back to the podcast one of the funniest people in show business and the tallest Jew in America. Jew in America. And a man who saw Uncle Miltie's legendary

member up close and personal and lived to tell about it. Our pal Alan Schweibel. Well, thank you for having me. And those are very, very nice words. Can I take that home with me? You can.

Show my wife to show who she sleeps with. It's all yours, Alan. It's all mine. Welcome back, buddy. Let's get back to the last interview where you saw Milton Berle's dick. That's all I want to talk about. We talked about it last time, but I can repeat the story if you want. Hey, you can never talk about

Milton Berle's cock enough. Well, you know what, David? Was it David Brenner, who was at the Friars Club, walked into the steam room, saw Milton sitting there, stark naked, saw Milton's cock, and David said that he thought that Milton had brought his son with him. I think that's attributed to Brennan, but God knows.

But what were the actual circumstances under which you were so blessed? I was just... It's worth telling again. It. It's worth telling again. It was not only worth telling again. I will tell it whether or not you want to hear it. As a matter of fact, on my way home to Jersey, I'm going to stop by the toll and tell whoever wants to hear it in their cars. Milton Berle hosted SNL. I guess it was like the fourth year that we were doing the show. I guess it was like the fourth year that we were doing the show.

And Lorne sort of paired me with him because he told jokes. I used to write jokes. And also, I think that Lorne probably couldn't stand it. Oh, yeah. So he said, so, Alan, you go with him. I'm in Milton's dressing room. Okay, start there, okay? And I'm sitting on the couch, and there's a coffee table in front of me, and he's on the other side of the coffee table. So I'm sitting on the couch, coffee table.

He's looking at me. He's wearing one of those bathrobes that come like mid-thigh, okay? bathrobes that come like mid-thigh. And I say, Milton, it's really amazing that I'm meeting you finally. I said, because for years, which was true, before I got the job on SNL,

I used to write for those fryer's roasts, those stag roasts. And you always wrote about whatever the stereotype was about the guy. So for Milton, it was always about his cock, you know. He used to write these jokes. And he was circumcised. They used the foreskin to cover the infield at Yankee Stadium.

All these fucking big dick jokes. So I said, Milton, I said, it's so weird to meet you after I talked about your cock. Usually it's the other way around. So he says, so you haven't seen it. Now I'm getting scared, okay? Because he's wearing this little short little bathrobe. And I say, no. And he says, would you like to?

And I am somewhere between the N and the O in no, okay? Opens his robe, and he takes out this anaconda, okay? And he just about, like, lays it onto the coffee table. But it's staring me in the face, the way this microphone is right in front of my mouth. So he says, it's really something, isn't it? And I say something like,

yeah, it's really something right into the dick at which point the door to the dressing room opens. It's Gilda looking for me. And she walks in as I'm saying, yeah, it's really something. And she says, I'll see you later.

So that's my Milton Berle Cox story. That's rare company. Yeah. I mean, he didn't show it to everybody. No, what I understand, he showed it to anybody, whether they wanted to see it or not.

Oh. Yeah. I assumed it was a privilege. No, no. Well, he made it to a privilege. Nobody requested, hey, I'd like to be privileged. No, he shoved this fucking thing in your face. And, yeah, there were pictures at Friars Club like these paintings, okay?

And there was one that was hanging for years in the dining room. It was a watercolor. And if you looked at the bottom, the watercolor was in the shape of what looked like a penis. Incredible. Incredible. Yep. You did maybe show number 14. We were talking about this before we turned the mics on. 14, 15.

He was in, I think, the first 15 or 20 shows, for sure. The amount of times we've discussed Miltie's member since you've been here. Well, I'm happy to give you guys material. I'm happy to help out because it's legendary. It is. It's one of the stars of this show. It is. I see it sitting right there.

So, Lorne kind of immediately regretted booking Miltie, Mr. Television, to host? I can't speak for Lorne, but on paper, on paper, it made sense because when he was doing the Texaco Hour, that was like the Saturday Night Live of that day. Here's the next generation. I'm not sure it was the same studio.

It could have been. On that, I don't know. But it's sort of, there was something sort of symmetrical about it and whatever. But he did some weird things which were just antithetical to the spirit of the show. We were blocking his opening monologue. So that's usually done on a Thursday because the sets are being built for the more complicated sketches, which you block on Friday. He's standing on the runway. You know, it takes his mark where the hosts do when they're giving the monologue.

And he's reading the monologue, which is on cue cards. And he gets to a point and he says to Dave Wilson, who's the director. He says, Dave, he talks into the boom mic. Dave is in the control room. Dave, when I get to this line, I would like somebody to have put in a sound effect of a crowbar falling

and hitting the studio floor and sort of reverberating before it comes to a stop. Dave Wilson said, why? And Milton said, you should be taking this down. Milton said, because at that point I am going to ad lib. I repeat that line. I am going to ad lib. It looks like NBC dropped another one.

Well, fuck. You know, this was a live. Of course. You know, this was so opposite of everything. Later on in the same monologue, he got to a point where he told Dave Wilson once again to cut him off. The bottom of the frame should be, let's say, at the belly button, right? And it was at the point where Milton will say that he just turned 70. He says, make sure you're at my belly button or higher. Why?

Because his hands were going to be below frame and induce the audience to give him a standing ovation. Unbelievable. He just turned 70. Okay? Yeah. So, did I say more? So, he lost everybody pretty early in the week. Pretty early.

And he... Because it's year four. I mean, you guys were a unit now. So he lost everybody pretty early in the week. He lost everybody pretty early. Because it's year four. I mean, you guys were a unit now. You knew who you were. You knew how the show worked. Oh, God. You didn't put up with that kind of Hollywood shit. It's so funny because the cliche, like Jerry Lewis would do it as a joke. He'd come out.

They'd be applauding. And he'd give, the come on. And it was like a cliche comic thing. More, more, more. Yeah, like, more, more, but Burrow actually did it seriously. And if I'm not mistaken,

that show was never repeated. I think that's true. I think it's in the box set, though, for completeness. I think it's finally in the box set. I remember reading the Saturday Night Live book that came out in the 80s, the one by Hill and Weingrad, was it? Jeff Weingrad and Doug Hill.

Yeah, I remember them saying that Belushi was the one defending him, that Belushi kept saying, what's wrong with you people? This is a great man. This is Mr. Television. Do you have any memory of that? Now that you mentioned it, that could have happened. I don't remember it, but there's no way I'm going to say that no way that that happened. Yeah, I heard it was Belushi and Ackroyd in the beginning.

Yeah, this is a great man, and he invented television. Well, what John and Danny had, and I was just with Danny a couple of weeks ago up at the National Comedy Center that they opened in Jamestown, New York. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. They made it Jamestown because that's where Lucille Ball is from. Mm-hmm. Okay.

All right. So there's a good reason for your pilgrimage. Okay. He and Danny, and we had a little SNL reunion on stage. We were interviewed by Ron Bennington, interviewed me, Dan Aykroyd, and Lorraine Newman. And it was really a lot of fun, you know, just reminiscing. I'm sorry we missed that. And Ron is a really good interviewer.

But Dan, we had dinner with afterwards, and I haven't seen him a lot. haven't seen him a lot. What he and John had, so I don't doubt that at all, was an affection and a respect for what came before us. You know what I mean? And when you think about it, when you do parody, when you do any kind of satire, you've got to know who and what, what the straight line is, okay? But instead of making fun of the people that came before us, they embraced it. They found the artistry in, okay, that's what people were laughing at then, you know, and all of that. So I don't doubt that for a second that they looked upon Milton as a pioneer, which he was. You had two hosts, interestingly, in those days that were television pioneers. Desi Arnaz, too.

Well, Desi Arnaz was great. I mean, the fact that Ricky Ricardo came to host the show. I remember Schiller doing the I Love Lucy spoof. Well, Tom Schiller's father. Yeah, Bob Schiller. Bob Schiller used to write the Lucy show. That's right. Okay, and here's Lucy and all the other Lucy stuff that came after it.

And so he grew up on the set, Tom Schiller did. And he was friends, I think, with Desi Jr. So that was in his blood. So Tom would walk around the office sometimes just doing Desi Arnaz. That's great. He was great the way. sometimes just doing Desi Arnaz. That's great.

He was great the way, but Desi Arnaz came at first not knowing anything else about him other than he sang Babaloo and was married to Lucy, okay? I didn't know that he created the way we shoot situation comedies. I didn't know that Desi Lou was at the cutting edge

of what we now know as television. Also, they put Star Trek on the air. They put Star Trek on the air. And so he was an older man. I believe he came in. I saw at least one bimbo. I think that there were a couple of others. And then, boy, Lorne could tell you better than me,

but I seem to remember when he did Babaloo. He got into it so much, and he's such an older man at this point. Desi Jr. was there, too. He was on that episode. And he, I think that the direction to Dave Wilson, the director, was, if Desi's lips turn blue, go to commercials. And I heard that during the week of making that show, that Desi would walk around and go, see that thing over there?

I invented that. Well, yeah, he invented everything. Thomas Edison did the bulb, not you. He was inventing everything. But he was really personable, and he was real funny. And what I was really struck by, I can't remember if he did it in the show, if it was in a monologue or something, but when he spoke about Lucy, his face lit up.

Oh, no kidding. This was so many years later. She was long married to Gary Morton. He had the bimbos, right? Yeah. But when he mentioned her, it was like a kid with a crush. That's nice to hear.

It was really sweet. I remember talking to Robert Osborne. Uh-huh. And I asked about, because I said, you know, Desi always cheated on Lucy and they broke up. And he said, one thing about them is like, they might've had a horrible divorce and everything, but they never stopped being in love. That's see, that's the,

that's what I got. I didn't know her, but that's what I got from him. And up in Jamestown, the next time you're there, when you go to see the, you're in the National Comedy Museum. You're in there, Gil.

You're in there. We'll have to find a horse and carriage to go out. We were actually invited to take part. But we didn't make it. It's really fun. We had scheduled props. I had a great time. I was interviewed by Louis Black.

We had a bunch of people show up for that. Oh, Lily was there. Lily was there. Amy Schumer was there. It was great. But there's also the Lucy and Desi Museum thing. Okay. Because she's from Jamestown.

That's why they put it there. Oh, did you see the pictures of the original Lucy statue? Yes. Yeah. That was unfortunate. That was incredibly unfortunate. And now they said, look, they've got another statue. Then they said to me, but the old statue that you're talking about is still there.

It is? I didn't see it, but I asked if it was face down because it was horrifying. It's a monster. I know. It's something you run away from. Yes, it's like a Godzilla thing. It looks like the original idea before they perfected Planet of the Apes. That's exactly right.

There's a clip of you guys online. There's a couple of clips of you guys. The interview with Bennington. Oh, okay. You should, everyone out there, look up Lucille Ball original statue. Yeah. You owe it to you. You'll thank us.

The poor thing. It was like that fresco they tried to repair. Did you see that thing? No. Oh, I'll show you a picture of it. But you guys were talking about how Lorne's mandate, I thought this was interesting, that was at the very beginning. I thought I knew everything about the original show. I never read this.

That he said the only rule was that you guys had to make each other laugh. Yeah, I mean, I've said that often. I'm sure others have, too. That when we first started, what is this show? What are we going to do? You were 24? I was 24. Wow.

Let's make each other laugh. And if we make each other laugh, we'll put it on television. And weren't you originally offered like Hee Haw or something? Oh, no. Not Hee Haw. Let's clear this up right now. It's pretty damn close, but it wasn't Ego. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, it was me and Roy Clark. It was between the two of us. I would love to see that. Alan Zweibel and Junior Sample. Oh, no, no, no, no. It was Hollywood Squares. Oh, okay. I was given a job.

I was offered a job. I was offered a job to write the questions and bluff answers for Paul Lind on the Hollywood Squares. Now, for about 12 seconds, I'm going, all right, well, wait a second. Hollywood Squares is going into its ninth season. It's network, primetime, L.A. The whole business is there. All of those stars have nightclub acts in their own shows. This could be an entree into show business.

Whereas 1130 to 1 on Saturday night, who the fuck is John Belushi? Do you know what I mean? And all of that. That 12 seconds is way too long. It was probably a millisecond, okay? But, yeah, that was it. He was a better joke, there. Damn it, I wish I was off at HeHaw. God damn.

Gilbert likes to point out on this show that Paul Lynn may have been an anti-Semite. Have you heard this before? No, not about Paul Lynn, but I'm going to go along with it. When I was doing Hollywood Squares or HeHaw, one of the producers was the producer of the original,

and he'd say, like, during lunch, all these celebs would be like, you know, having lunch, telling funny stories. Everyone got along. Paul Lynn would be bombed. Lunch? Yeah, yeah. He'd start drinking early in the day

and he'd be wasted and real angry and he'd be going, Oh, those fucking Jews. They're the reason I don't have a career. The Jews stood my way every second. Fuck all those Jews. Jesus.

This was confirmed by Bruce Valench. Who did write those questions, those bluff answers for Paul. Well, he would know this. I just wonder what he was pulling. It was like a dinner. It was lunch. And he had time for two or three more bottles maybe. Yes.

Wow. You guys were talking about in the panel too about how the show gained momentum. Lily hosted the sixth show. The sixth show, yeah. Elliot Gould was the tenth show. And you were talking about just how quickly it took off. It was interesting because the first show was George Carlin. took off. It was interesting because the first show was George

Carlin, and if you look at that show, he did about three monologues. Yeah, it's odd because it's sort of a George Carlin special with sketches. Well, it was George Carlin, right? And also you had Andy Kaufman. Right. You also had

Valerie Bromfield. I remember. Now, Billy Crystal was supposed to be on it. He was on it in dress rehearsal, but between dress and air, they told him to cut from seven minutes down to two or something, and he ended up not being on the first show. But the original game plan was

you had a monologist doing three or four monologues in Carlin. You had Valerie Bromfield. You had, who's the other one that I said? Andy Kaufman. Yeah, he did it. Right, right. And you had Billy.

It was supposed to be there. Also had two musical guests. You had Janice Ian and Billy Preston. That's right. So by the time these guys, they performed, Weekend Update was three and a half minutes. People forget. People forget. Because Lorne re-ran that show

when George died. And so I'm sitting there watching with my wife, Rob, and I'm going, wow, this is, there's a lot of monologues here, you know? And Paul Simon did the next week.

Okay? And so it was a little bit, it was a reunion with he and Artie Garfunkel. Right. And it felt, it was starting to feel good. Rob Reiner did the third.

Candy Bergen did the fourth. I can do every show, okay? It's like sense memory. Remember them all fondly. Yeah. And by the time Lily did it, and then Richard Pryor, you know, and then Candy came back again.

And Buck in there somewhere. Well, Buck was the 11th show. Okay. And so by the time we did the 10th show, Elliot Gould, we really hit a stride, and then it just kept on going from there. Always used to love when Buck hosted the show because he was having a great writer among us,

and having written all but one of the samurais, he was the guy who came in and ordered the sandwich from Samurai Deli and wanted his pants shortened at the tailor. And took a sword to the head in one episode. Well, that was... What had happened was we did Samurai Stockbroker

and this was a studio in Brooklyn. The reason we were in Brooklyn was they had taken 8H, where the show was done, and converted it for the election returns of 1976. I never knew that. So we went to Brooklyn to one of the soap opera studios, and they made it look like 8-H with the sets and all of that. In that studio, we did Samurai's Stockbroker.

We did a Samurai stockbroker. Buck came in complaining and yelling at John, I believed what you said. I invested all my money in whatever the hell it was. Now I don't have a nickel left in my name. Okay. He says, if there was a window on that wall, I would jump out of it. So Belushi takes out his sword to start hacking a window

for Buck to jump out of. Oh, wow. And as he withdrew the sword, he hit right over here. Yeah. And if you look at it, you can see him flinching. And then during the course of the show,

everybody started wearing band-aids by the end of the show. Right. Everyone had band-aids on. He flinched. He's a pro, because you see him flinch when he gets hit. But then he has to jump out that window.

He has to jump out the window. And this wasn't exactly the best scored window you've ever seen. It looks like he could have hurt himself jumping out the window. You really had to make an F to go out this window. You know what? Go ahead, Gil.

You told a story in the last show. What was that? That I'd like to hear again. And that's when you were in college. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, this is the essay. Yeah.

This is the box. Well, you know something? I actually, this is what happened. One of my favorites, too. I was in college, and this was during the Vietnam War. And I took a poetry writing course that I was failing but miserably failing.

And if I failed this course I would have failed out of college and there was a war. So I'm going fuck okay this is no good. So I had to salvage a passing grade in this course, and I had a 92-year-old teacher,

and it was Dr. Nora Rent, I still remember. And as my last poem to hand in, given her age, I figured there's no way in hell that she was going to recognize that I handed in the lyrics to Paul Simon's song, The Boxer, as my poem. Okay? Hand it in. This was on a Friday. Come Monday, it was good news and not so great news. Good news was she didn't recognize it.

Okay. The not so great news is she was so impressed by my poem that she wanted me to come up and read it to the class. Now, you've got to understand. The class, who's in the class? These are all 20 and 21 year old kids like myself all have got record collection

and I'm about to go and read the liner notes of the biggest selling album of the fucking year it won like nine Grammys

so I'm begging her off and I'm going no no no I don't like talking in front of people and she just

prevails on me. So now I take my poem, and I start walking to the front of the class, and I check the time. I'm still like 45 minutes left in the period, so there's no way I'm running out the clock. And I get in front of the class, and I look over at my 92 year old teacher and was really very disappointed to see she was still alive. Okay. And I start reading. I am just a poor boy.

My story is told and told. I've squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises. All eyes and chest. The man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. I take a breather. I look over the paper. Your podcast audience can't see it, but all my friends are going, what the fuck? What's this?

They're like this. They're a gog. And I look over at my 92-year-old teacher. She's beaming at this Jew in Long Island who somehow captured the grittiness of New York streets. And she goes, continue. And I go, fuck me. When I left my home and my family, I was no more than a boy in the company of strangers in the quiet of the railway station running scared. Laying low, seeking out the poor quarters where the ragged people go. Looking for the places only they would know. And that's when it happened.

That's when all the pit in my stomach. But the weirdest reaction of all was the 92-year-old teacher who said to the class, It's inspiring, isn't it? What a great story. You worked with Paul so many times, you had to tell him that story. He saw me do it on Letterman. Yeah. He wrote me an email the next day about how record sales of the boxer has soared.

It was really funny. It was one of those emails you don't, you know, you keep, you don't delete. While I nudge Gilbert awake, listen to these words from our sponsor were you speaking baseball is finally back get in on major league action and swing for the fences with bet mgm the king of sportsbooks log in or sign up to play along as BetMGM brings the real-time action. Embrace a season's worth of swings with BetMGM, your one-stop shop for all things baseball.

BetMGM.com for T's and C's. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call ConX Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Introducing TD Insurance for Business with customized coverage options for your business.

Because at TD Insurance, we understand that your business is unique, so your business insurance should be too. Whether you're a shop owner, a pet groomer, a contractor, or a consultant, you can get customized coverage for your business. Contact a licensed TD Insurance advisor to learn more. I'm George Shapiro, and I love, I'm listening to,

and I'm dedicated to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. Don't miss it. Don't miss it. Perfect. I thought that was good. Good. Perfect. Did you feel my passion? I did. Yes.

Very much so. I got a tear in my eye. Okay. I'm going to go because they're going to tow my car away. Thank you. It's Gilbert and Frank's amazing colossal podcast and now sadly we return to gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast i mean he just passed away recently but but you were friends with Neil Simon.

Well, I knew him. We weren't pals, but he was an idol, and I sought him out. He lived in L.A. when I did, and we had the same masseuse. Oh. Yeah, and he wrote me. And then when I had written a book, I think it was Bunny Bunny, which was my tribute to Gilda, And he wrote me, and then when I had written a book, I think it was Bunny Bunny, which was my tribute to Gilda, I had sent him a copy of the book saying that, you know, I have so many of his books on my shelf,

it's about time that he made some room for me. And he wrote back a thank you note, cited the masseuse, and said, oh, well, one degree of separation. He was a very, very witty man. one degree of separation. He was a very, very witty man. You know who was also really smart was, when I think about that writing room. Oh, yeah, with Gelbart. Gelbart. Oh, insane.

Tolkien. It's Tolkien and Mel and Carl. Yeah. You go, wow. And wasn't Woody Allen in it? Woody Allen, yeah. There was... Selma Diamond.

I don't know if I mentioned this the last time I was on. Rob Reiner has a screening room at his house in L.A. And he shows on... He showed. Maybe he still does. I don't know. On Sunday nights, he would show movies. But they wouldn't be first-run movies.

They would be classic movies. And because he's Rob, he can get somebody connected with the movie to be there. Pretty cool. If he showed Raging Bull, maybe De Niro or Scorsese watched the movie, and we'd have dinner afterwards, and it would be like a classroom, okay? It was, you know, asking questions about it. questions about it. This one night, the night was,

the theme of the night was Caesar's Hour and Your Show is Shows. Okay? So the guest of honor was Carl Reiner and his wife Estelle. This is not a hard call for Rob to make at all.

Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. Wow. Larry Gelbart and his wife and Sid Caesar and I think his wife, but I know Sid was there. Now they're in the back row, the last row of Rob's screening room. I made sure that Robin and I were right in front of them because I wanted to hear their reaction to seeing what they were watching. Oh, yeah, the best seat. The best seat.

And the other people, the other ones at the kids' table were Larry David and his wife Lori. I think Hanks was there with Rita Wilson. I want to say Shandling and his then-girlfriend, and Lovitz, who I know is by himself. Okay. We're there. Oh, Billy Crystal and his wife, Janice. So like I said, I purposely am in the next to last row,

and we're watching Caesar's Hour, and your show is now, this is mid-'90s, okay? So it's 40 years since this was on television. And think about the bodies of work that they've produced since then. And this is what I'm hearing while we're watching and laughing. Larry Gelbart saying, doc wrote that uh that sketch and then mel saying yeah but uh but woody came in and gave him the joke about the the ice they were footnoting the sketches who wrote it who contributed and i know that when i see an old

show that we did snl i remember oh yeah franken and davis wrote that oh I see an old show that we did, SNL, I remember, oh, yeah, Franklin and Davis wrote that. Oh, Jim Downey wrote that. It's ingrained in your head. But I don't know why I thought that these guys, given so many years, so many movies, so many plays and whatever, wouldn't do that. But they did. It was fantastic. And afterwards, we all ate, and we sat sort of cross-legged under a table that was close to the floor,

and we had Wolfgang Puck food. And because Rob is Rob, Wolfgang Puck prepared it for us. And this was like this, but this was a beautiful thing. We asked all these questions of the guys, and no matter who we asked the question of, they made sure that they deflected it by way of Sid Caesar. It was like— They were still deferring to him all these years later. They were still deferring to Dad. How about that?

The one who gave them their break. And he arguably didn't have the same careers that these other guys had after his show. The respect that they showed for him was beautiful. They made sure. Sid, you remember the thing that Alan just asked about? It was amazing to the point where the next day, one of Rob Reiner's children had a birthday. So we pulled up for the birthday party. And behind us, Carl, the grandfather, Reiner pulled up.

And as we're walking into the birthday party, I said to him, I said, Carl, what was it like for you guys last night? Because for us, it's like we died and went to heaven. It's like being in the Yankee locker room. And he put his arm around me and he said, Alan, what you kids did for Sid, you gave him 10 more years on his life. I mean, the affection that they had for him, it was really, really a beautiful thing to say. It's interesting because he's been depicted, like in Laughter on the 23rd Floor, as such a difficult boss.

He may have been, but let's put it this way. Maybe he was. So let's say that this is a wonderful tribute that the guys he hired. How sweet. Maybe it's more of a reflection on them. It was just wonderful. And Larry Gelbart, one of my books, a book of short stories called Clothing Optional, I wanted, and I hardly knew Larry.

I met him that night, maybe two or three other times. I emailed him, and I asked him to pardon the intrusion, but I would love it. I said, I have a book of short stories. I was very, very shy about it. I'd love a blurb from you if you see fit. If not, I understand. He asked me to send him five or six of the short stories. I did. He gave me a blurb and then to pay him back the next time I went out toA., I said, I want to take you to lunch. And so we went to lunch, and he was sick at this point. He had glasses that were really thick. And I don't know, maybe a diabetes.

I honestly don't know what he had. But I just, it was one of those lunches that you don't forget and it was three hours long and you don't care. Great. It was great. What a perfect guest he would have been

for this show, huh? Larry Gelbart? Oh, yeah. Just the perfect guest. You mean, he was a poet in a way with the English language. He thought of things that, I'm not going to say who,

but a mutual friend was performing at Michael's pub. And we all went to see her. So it was me and Robin, Larry Gilbert, who I did not know at this point, and his wife. This was so long ago. It might have even been Gene Wilden Gilda, who I did not know at this point, and his wife. This is so long ago. It might have even been Jean Wilden Gilda, who died in 89. So she was either there or not. But it was, and this woman who was singing was the wife of somebody else at the table.

And she was dreadful. She was terrible. And we don't know, we're in the first table closest to the stage. And we don't know where to look. And her husband is sitting there like swooning. He's got like love in his eyes. And she was horrible. But he's just enchanted.

And Gelbart gives me a little nudge. And I lean over. And he indicates the husband and says, obviously, love is also death. I know who that singer was, but I'm not going to say. Since you brought up clothing optional, I just want to get our listeners to pick it up. It's on Amazon. Oh, thank you. And it's so much fun.

Thank you. And there's so much in there, Gilbert, that you would enjoy. Is it true that a young executive wanted you to cast Queen Latifah as Eleanor Roosevelt? Yeah. That's honest truth. This was for Fox. And I had a lot of problems with prior to that. I had created a show that was called Jerry's Kids.

No connection. No connection. I love the title. No, no, no, no, no. I said, okay, let me name the guy Jerry. He's got kids. But that's with a similarity. But this was a family that had four generations living in the same house.

Okay, so there's children, parents, children, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. They accepted the script, and now we're starting to cast for the pilot. And the head of Fox at the time, I get this memo, nobody in the show should be above 50. So I start doing the math. I've got great grandparents here. Now, unless these are the most Amish people who ever lived, how's that going to work, okay? Also at Fox was I had written something.

I can't even remember what it was, but Eleanor Roosevelt was in it, okay? And Queen Latifah was really hot. And so when they suggested it with the explanation that nobody knows Eleanor Roosevelt, everybody knows Queen Latifah, I'm going, wow, what a disconnect that we have. That's the guy's honest story.

It's one of the funniest things in the book, which I will recommend. As I said, it's on Amazon, as is your Thurber-winning book, The Other Shulman, which is also a lot of fun. But I want to ask you, since we're talking about Gilda

and we're talking about SNL, let's talk about the new movie a little bit, which both Gilbert and I have seen. Well, originally they were going to name it Love Gilbert, okay? Yes. Well, that's in Bunny Bunny. Right. Why you called her Gilbert?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Gilda and I were friends. We became friends the very first day of SNL, and we started hanging out together. We became friends the very first day of SNL, and we started hanging out together. And, yes, when she started becoming famous, it spooked her a little bit. Here she was, this adorable girl, and she was so funny. But she was scared of the big city. She was from Detroit, okay.

city. She was from Detroit. Okay. And I think part of the reason that she felt comfortable with me, in addition to me not being a sexual threat, was I knew the city. I'm from here, you know. So we hung out and we had lots of dinners and whatever. And I remember we went to a basketball game. We went to Madison Square Garden and we walk in and as we're making our way to the seats, people are yelling, hey, Gilda, and Gilda, you know, I also have an eating disorder. I also, they knew stuff all about her, all these strangers. And I remember afterwards, she said, listen, I'd rather you not call me Gilda anymore.

And I said, well, isn't that your name? She says, that's what everybody calls me. Can you do me a favor and call me something else so it's special? I said, would you like me to call you? And she said, Gilbert. Who knew? But this documentary is the brainchild of a woman named Lisa Diapolito. I

hope I'm pronouncing it right because there's an apostrophe there somewhere and God knows what to do with those things. I think that's right. Okay, dappolito. And she worked on it for many years. I don't know exactly how many. But we saw it. I saw a rough cut of it. My wife, Robin, and I became executive producers on it, which was basically, it was a very interesting thing.

My role on it was to get people to be interviewed that she couldn't get to. But also we gave her a lot of stuff. Gilda was the godmother of our three kids. So when the kids came to Love, Gilda, the documentary opened at Tribeca Film Festival, the kids are sitting there, and they're on the screen. They're going, oh, I remember that Seda.

Oh, yeah. That's great. Because it's our home movies are in it. Gilda and Gina singing happy birthday to our son Adam, his first birthday. Okay. And they were at the party. So there was a lot of that stuff. So I've seen the movie a few times,

and I think Lisa did a really terrific job. It's lovely. It's clearly a labor of love. Yeah, it is lovely. And not only from Lisa, but from all the people involved, yourself and Robin included. And what they have was,

aside from the people that Gilda worked with and knew her, what was really touching for me was Amy Poehler. And Maya. And Maya Rudolph. And Melissa McCarthy. Yeah. And was it Hayter? Bill Hayter.

Bill Hayter. They read from Gilda's diaries. And you can see, one of them even says this, I mean, she actually wrote these words. I'm touching the actual paper it was like the reverence like it was the Dead Sea Scrolls you know what I mean there was that kind of respect for it

they were in awe of what they were holding and what they were reading I have to urge when is it open by the way? September 21st so we're going to urge our listeners we'll time this so that it comes out just a bit before the movie.

Well, you can do it like September 25th and say, boy, you guys missed something really good. No, that way, I'll leave that up there. Gilbert, you and Dara went. Oh, yeah. You went to your screening? Yeah. Very sweet. I learned things I didn't know. I didn't know she was the first cast member hired. I never knew that.

Yeah, I remember even when I was still debating the big hee-haw question. I had heard that this girl named Gilda was hired. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many touching things. The other thing I didn't know, I never knew Emily Littella was based on her grandmother. It was actually a nanny. Oh, a nanny.

It was a nanny. Oh, I thought it was Nana. No, no. An actualanny. It was a nanny. Oh, I thought it was Nana. No, no. An actual Nana. It was a nanny, and she was hard of hearing. But that was a true collaborative effort. I think that Tom Davis gave her the name Emily Littella. Late great Tom Davis.

Yeah, Al Franken's part. Yeah, funny man. What a funny guy. Funny man. Great guy. So, Al Franken's part. Yeah, funny man. What a funny guy. Funny man. Great guy. Yeah. You know, so we all contributed to that. But, you know, it was this little old lady who couldn't,

was a little hard of hearing, so she would talk about saving Soviet jewelry, you know, or, you know, presidential erections. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Or, you know, presidential erections. And what was the marriage like between Gilda and Gene Wilder? Well, it was, I think it saved Gilda's life. Gilda had a world of demons, okay?

She was bulimic. And this was nothing out of school. It's all over the place. She drank a little bit, and she was really not healthy at all. And when she went to do a movie called Hanky Panky that she co-starred with Gene Wilder, here she met an older guy who basically took her under his wing, aside from falling in love and all of that stuff, sent her to a battery of doctors. And within time, the bulimia was over and the drinking was over. And it saved her to a great extent. But he was older. And so Gilda would treat him you know like an old man you know churchy to make a reference to something oh you wouldn't know blood sweat and tears because

you're so fucking old you know k kaiser maybe you know him you know but it was uh and then um rob and my wife and gilda became very very close. So that was a lot of fun. And the two of them would make fun of Gene also. But Gene was a great cook. He was a chef. He was also a Francophile. If you went over to his house. Yeah, that's in the movie.

It's fun. Oh, my God. You go over to his house. It's a fucking cheese course, okay? But five cheese courses? Because after each course, there's another thing of cheese? And one time I really pissed him off because he put out some camembert, kind of thing that was aged and whatever

that we're supposed to just do a palette with. And when he turned around, I got rid of that and I put a square of American cheese in my throat and got really pissed. By the way, how's Richard Fader, your brother in law?

For people that don't know. For those of you who don't know, when Gilda and I created this character called Roseanne, Roseanne and Dana, the first couple of them, if you look, we used people on the crew and on the staff. And about the third or fourth time, I wrote in Richard Fader from Fort Lee, New Jersey, who was married to my sister, and they lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Gilda just liked saying his name, so it became a running thing that this idiot would write a letter every week, ask the stupidest questions, okay, and she would answer to him. And he had to change his phone number. And he also, at one point, I remember my mother telling me,

this was when that character was very popular. She says, we're thinking of Richie, Fader. Fader is thinking of making t-shirts. I said, what will the t-shirt say? It will say, I'm Richard Fader from Fort Lee, New Jersey. He was going to capitalize. Yeah, but I said, unless he pays for his own T-shirt, who else is going to buy this? Unless your name is Richard Fader from Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Okay, if I'm Bob Watson from Freeport, Long Island, why am I wearing a T-shirt that says, I'm Richard Fader from Fortawlty, New Jersey. Okay, if I'm Bob Watson from Freeport, Long Island, why am I wearing a T-shirt that says, I'm Richard Fader from Fawlty, New Jersey? So there was a little miscalculation, but he's okay. Did she wind up in Toronto because she followed a guy there? I mean, that's just like Andrea Martin did. Remember Andrea Martin told us that, that she wound up in Canada because she was following a guy.

The guy was in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. And Gildo followed a guy up to Toronto. Now, I'm trying to remember who the guy was because I know when she was in Toronto for a while, and I don't know if she followed Marcus O'Hara, Catherine O'Hara's brother. Interesting. Or met him there and started going out with him there. So I don't know if he was the ticket to run. A lot of close connections here.

Very incestuous. It's great when Marty Short says the saddest thing he ever saw was her audition for Godspell where she just got up and sang Zippity-Doo-Dah. She said, for Godspell. And she got it. Imagine that.

It's great too, Doc, because you're tracking not only Gilda's life, but you're tracking that period of comedy. From Second City to Lemmings to the National Lampoon Show to how the SNL cast is put together. I think that those pictures where you see Harold Ramis and Brian DeMond and Bill Murray. You know, the genealogical chart that you could make. You think about Second City in total. Start with Mike Nichols and Elaine May and go through all the different generations who came out of there. But you're absolutely right.

That stuff is a little bit of a fun history lesson. Yeah, if you're a fan of comedy in the 20th century, you have to see the movie for that reason. I mean, you look at Paul Schaeffer with a full head of hair. From Godspell. From Godspell. Right. Who knew? Yeah. It's fun, too, to see the...

You guys are talking about how you were insulated from success, she talks about in the movie, how you guys were locked away up in the studio. And in a way, you didn't know what was happening until the Mardi Gras show. The Mardi Gras show, there was a live show from the Mardi Gras, and you talk about miscalculations.

There was Gilda as Emily Littella got attacked by a bunch of college kids, went after Emily Littella got attacked by a bunch of college kids. Went after Emily Littella. She was okay. She didn't get hurt and nothing horrible happened. But it was, I don't know if you've ever been in New Orleans or a Mardi Gras. Have you, Gil? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I haven't been. It's a vomit bath, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's scary. It's scary. And what happened was we had a reviewing stand. So it was Buck Henry and Jane Curtin doing weekend update live from the Mardi Gras on a reviewing stand. Okay. And every time they were to be on TV, the lights came on them, which was a signal for this throng of drunken kids.

You know those doubloons? Oh, yeah. To start hurling them at them. Okay. You know those doubloons? Oh, yeah. To start hurling them at them, okay? Now, at the start, what I had written with Buck and Herb Sargent,

we had gotten a rundown of what the Bacchus Day Parade, what the floats and all of the things would be as they would pass the reviewing stand. So I wrote jokes about all of those things. How are we supposed to know that at the beginning of the parade, something terrible happened? They stopped it. Somebody got killed. Something happened. So now the lights come up.

Not only are they getting pelted with doubloons, I'm under the weekend update desk writing jokes about what they would have seen before it's been by. And I remember the last joke I wrote was that Mardi Gras is French for no parade. There was no parade. But yeah, that was a zoo.

That was the moment for a lot of the cast members that they realized... We were outside of the confines of the studio where there was decorum. Now, we got a little hint of it because I, as a writer, would do college dates where I'd give speeches. And I'd go there and I'd go, wait a second, this auditorium is filled for a writer. And they would applaud if you said Roseanne, Roseanne, and Danny. And you go, wait a second, this auditorium is filled for a writer. And they would applaud if you said Roseanne, Roseanne, and Dan, and you go, wow. But you understand also, this was our first job.

I thought that this is what life was like. Oh, yeah, your writers go and they get this kind of recognition. I can't imagine you being in that kind of circus at 24, 25 years old. Well, yeah. You were so young. It was so young. But having just about everybody with the exception of Lorne,

I want to say Chevy, maybe Marilyn Miller, or maybe Rosie Schuster also. No one worked in TV before. So when Lorne says, okay, let's make each other laugh, we'll put it on television. And Herb, of course. Oh, Herb Sargent, of course. Herb was 54 when we started, and Marilyn Miller

coined his phrase, hey, kids, let's put on a show. So we just did this. And the impact, there were certain times like when Gilda at Madison Square Garden, at the Mardi Gras show, at the college dates. But when we left the show in 1980, then it really sunk in because we had spent all our Saturday nights in the studio. Now you're out there in the world. And so when people tell you where they were on Saturday nights, what they did, how it was part of their constitution and everything, it was really – and then I went back a few times to be a guest writer years later.

The host, if you liked somebody, I don't know if they still do what they may, I just don't know. So when Eddie Murphy hosted, he asked me to be his writer. When Shandling hosted because I created the Gary Shandling show.

So it was during the run of that. And also my good friend Jesse Jackson. Jesse Jackson? I shouldn't have come in. He didn't ask me. Dick Ebersole, who was the producer. I see. Maybe he wanted some protection.

I don't know. He said, Jesse Jackson is hosting. Can you come and write the show this week? I said, where do I come to, Jesse Jackson? He said, what if I said, please? I said, okay, fine. I'm coming. I told you downstairs I was there the night that Marty interviewed you at the Y.

And you were talking about it. I found it touching that you still watch the show, that it's your alma mater. So you and Robin still sit down on Saturday night. Or Sunday morning because we're all Jews now. Sunday morning. But you're still watching. Oh, yeah. Look, you root for your high school football team.

You're too old to play for it, but fuck, you still root for it. And I actually look at the show and I see, I think, Kay McKinnon's like a gift from God. She's great. She's great. So you get people that you go, wow, I like watching this. What did you learn from being that young and experience that kind of fame?

What were some of the things you learned about fame and dealing with it? Well, I think that not so much as a writer, but from what I witnessed, you know, from cast members or whatever, you know, from cast members or whatever. You know, it's all the cliches that it's fleeting.

There are people who are coming up right behind you. And I think not to take it too seriously. Do you know what I mean? It's not. And it's hard not to take it seriously because it is a mark of your success. How do we measure that kind of success? Well, you're famous. A lot of people know you and like you.

But I think having your own family, something to ground you, was very, very important. And I think a lot of people learned that because they realized that that was like a fistful of air in a way you know I watched the Shanling documentary and Leno has that interesting line where he says show business as a hooker, don't fall in love with a hooker yeah

which was really profound I thought Judd did a great job on that Shanling documentary and you know Gary was He did a great job. he died. We were moving in that direction. And in fact, I was in LA on a Saturday and a Sunday. We couldn't, for some reason, we couldn't get together. We said we'd speak that week and he died that week. Okay. But when I watched it or when I spoke at his memorial and I saw that everybody else had, did you know Gary? Did you know him well?

Not well. I mean, I'd run into him, we'd talk. Yeah, because I knew he was a fan. Yeah. I remember long ago, he was a big fan of yours. He, very complicated guy, you know, and very spiritual, you know. I had, at his memorial,

I told you last time how I met him, didn't I? The phone call? Yeah. Yeah, in the middle of the night? Yeah, well, he would call in the middle of the night or he'd call like 6 o'clock Sunday morning. So the phone rings in your house. This was the days before caller ID. So 6 o'clock in the morning, if the phone rings in your house. This was the days before caller ID. So 6 o'clock in the morning, if the phone rings in your house,

for us it was one of two things. Either someone's dead or it's Shandling. And me and Robin used to debate which was worse. So there's one morning. It's literally 6 or 7 o'clock Sunday morning. And I tell this story because I was talking about channeling spirituality. So it was my turn to talk at the memorial. And I'm talking about this one morning.

It's 6 in the morning. The phone rings. And Robin just picks up the phone and hands it over to me. Doesn't even talk into it. And I go, hello? Alan, it's Gary. Hey, man, what's doing? Alan, I had a date last night.

Oh, yeah, how did it go? Well, we were in bed, and the girl said, no fingers in the ass. And I said, look, it's my finger, and it's my ass. And if that's where I want to put it, you don't have a vote. So I tell this joke. Oh, that's cold.

It's a great joke. Everybody's laughing. And Judd comes out to introduce the next speaker, and it's a Buddhist monk with robes and a thing. I'm talking about fingers in the ass in front of a Buddhist monk. Yeah. Hilarious. So that was both sides of Gary, yeah. Before we talk more about Gary, Gilbert, you got on stage at 15, right?

Yeah. So you must have been somewhat famous by 24 or by 25. Yeah, I would start getting fame, fail miserably. How did you deal with it? Like, I was on Saturday Night Live and worst season. Yeah, was that the Gene Domanian season? Yeah. Those are the only ones Alan didn't watch.

Yeah. Who else was in the cast? Okay, Joe Piscopo. Eddie Murphy was originally a featured player. Then he became a regular. Oh, Charlie Rocket. Denny Dillon. Denny Dillon.

Ann Risley. Gail Mathias. Wow. And, I mean, people were attacking that show before it ever aired. Yeah. Because how dare you? Yeah. It was like if in the middle of Beatlemania,

you got rid of the Beatles and had four new guys. So I did that, and that was supposed to be my big break, and that was a horrible failure. And I followed that with another big success thick of the night oh geez yeah that was gonna be uh Alan Thicke knocking Carson off the air and Carson's off the air so it worked yeah it worked good going well don't forget norman's corner as your as your third act yes what was norman's corner yes norman's corner they were gonna it was called a backdoor pilot uh-huh which is like you make a special with the hopes that people will like it

and make it into a series. So that was terrible. Larry David wrote it. I starred in it. It was terrible. It was so bad that when they were discussing doing a show that Seinfeld would star in, they said, well, who's going to be writing this show? And they said, well, who's going to be writing this show? And they said, Larry David. And one of the execs at NBC said, isn't he the one that wrote that piece of shit for Gilbert Gottfried?

It was a Cinemax comedy experiment. Do you remember those? Of course I do, but I don't remember Norman's Corner. Norman's Corner. He was a newsstand owner, and Arnold Stang was in it. That's all you need to know. Oh, the chunky guy. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Oh, man. I remember hanging out at the improv. If I was 23, I don't know how much younger you are than I am. I was born in 50. Yeah. I was born in 50. Yeah, I was born in 55. 55. So if I was 23, you were 18, and you were doing...

Oh, still doing... You're still doing it. You folks at home. It was with the bar trays. They're still doing it. Yes, yes. It was the funniest thing. And the Mickey Mouse ears.

The Mickey Mouse ears and Ironside. Who is this? Louisa Franklin? Oh, was it a National Geographic joke? That's what it was. Okay, Jesus. She's not even cold yet. Look what I just did on the radio.

You're still doing it. How did you handle that kind of fame? You were in your 20s. Yeah. I didn't really get the good fame until I did MTV. Sure. And that's when I got the good fame. But it's weird.

It's like now, you know, you look back on it and you go, oh, I could see why it would drive a person nutty. Yes. Yeah. It's a very interesting thing because, and some of the very famous people that we've both met, some of them, they're still conflicted because they go to a restaurant with you and they go, oh, no, here they come, here they come, you know, the autograph seekers and the people who want selfies, okay? But God forbid nobody comes to the table for an autograph or a selfie.

They think they're out of the business, okay? And do you know what I'm saying? So where are you happy? What do you want to happen? Yeah, I know when I walk down the street and I'll see a group of people, I'll think, okay, well, now they all want their picture taken with me. And then no one will ask, and I'll go, oh, fuck. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. I mean, how funny is that? So it's like neither here nor there. What is it, you know? Yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Spring is here, and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats.

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I got to ask you a couple of things before we move off of Gilda. Just a couple of things about Bunny Bunny, which I went back and read. And Gilbert, you'll appreciate there's an Herve Villachaz reference in it. Did you, first of all, this is just total trivia. Did you rent Larry Fine's old house when you were?

Okay, there's a fib. Okay. There's a fib. Okay. You know, when I wrote Bunny Bunny, the first draft was pure therapy. To get over the loss of a friend who was at the urging of Robin. She said, your best friend died. You haven't even cried yet.

This was two, three years later. So my form of therapy was to try to relive everything that I can remember. Where did we meet? It was 14 years of conversations as I remembered them. I wasn't wired, so I knew that, but to capture the essence from when we first met to a eulogy I gave at her memorial. That was probably the most honest, heartfelt version of my feelings for Gilda and our history. The minute I decide to get it published,

okay, I'm going, all right, look, we need a better joke here. You take this scene and that scene and put it, so you lower the bar a little bit, you know. Well, you also have to turn it into drama. You have to make it into a play. You've got to give it into an arc and all of that. I had rented, do you remember there was a singer named Frida Payne?

Sure, Band of Gold. Band of Gold. I rented her house. Okay. Okay. Still good. And in the first draft of Bunny Bunny, it was still Frida Payne. And now I'm going, gee, I don't know if people know Frida Payne.

Who would be funnier? So I made it Larry Foy. It still works. It still works. Because when I do my speaking. He also recorded Band of Gold. You knew that about him. A few people know that. You knew that. But even when I do

my speaking engagements I say Larry Fine and people laugh. I go, he was my landlord. In the living room there was a dent in the wall and I figured,

oh, Mo must have done that. So it's my little Three Stooges little thing. And trying to pick up a girl at the Anne Frank house? Oh, that I did. Oh, okay. That was pathetic. That was pathetic. I went to Europe by myself, and I tried to pick up a girl at Anne Frank's house.

Oh, jeez. No, this was the lowest thing. Even Gilbert wouldn't do that. People are crying and they're looking and we're in the attic and I go into this American girl and I go, you know, I got an Emmy. You know.

I said something about an Emmy and I think I said something about it being in my hotel room like I went to Europe with the Emmy. Bunny, Bunny, that last line gets me. It's a beautiful thing. Why does God make people then take them back when they're just starting to have fun with the life that he gave them? It's a beautiful sentiment.

That I wrote for the eulogy. Thank you. And the other line that I'm real, really, which honestly really happened, we had this platonic relationship, okay? And like most platonic relationships, one person doesn't want it to be platonic. Okay, if these are the rules, fine, I'll live by it. But one of these days you'll wake up and see the glory that's in front of you. Well, this was 14 years, okay, of a platonic relationship. And God knows I tried my best to make it not platonic.

When she got cancer and she was at Cedars-Sinai, I went to give blood. And I'm on the gurney and the nurse hands me a pad and a pen. And I say, give blood. And I'm on the gurney. And the nurse hands me a pad and a pen. And I say, what's this? She says, well, Gilda likes to know whose blood she's getting. Write something nice. She's having a tough time. And I wrote, dear Gilbert, I know I get some fluid of mine into you one way or another.

Nice. Nice. Nice. Bunny Bunny's a beautiful piece of work, Alan. Thank you. And next year is the 30th anniversary of her death, so I had adapted it. It was an off-Broadway play, and now there's some people who are wanting to bring it to

Broadway, and I would love it. So stay tuned. Tell us one thing would love it, so stay tuned. Tell us one thing about Bruno Kirby, who played you. He's a great guy. He was so miscast. You know, I wrote this for my voice, a big, awkward, neurotic Jew. And so when we first started raising money

to form Gilda's Club, because it's written in dialogue form, the two people, James L. Brooks, staged these big readings at the Walter Kerr Theater here at the Geffen in L.A. And it was Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander. And they were great because they are great. And Jason, neurotic Jew. This wasn't a stretch. When we were out of town before New York, they cast Bruno Kirby and I'm going, well, Bruno's a great guy and I love him as an actor,

but this is not a neurotic Jew, you know. He got great reviews and they were able to raise money on his name, so he brought it to New York. Did you ever meet Bruno Kirby? No. Real gentleman. I met him once. He was a sweetheart. Yeah, I liked him immediately.

He had this morality to him. He was very honorable. And, you know, in his whole body of work, you know, Godfather II and Bats. Sure, of course. Levinson movies and all that. I'm working with Billy in City Slickers. In City Slickers, yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a sweet piece of work. Again, people can get that on Amazon too. And I hope there is another version of it. Oh, I would love it. I would love it. I gotta ask you a couple more things about Gary and about its Gary Shandling show.

And the doc is great, isn't it? It's four hours. Did you see the Shandling doc on HBO? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's four hours and it flies by. You know, when Judd first sent it to me, I thought it was a rough cut because it was four hours long. Who knew?

You know what I mean? But I told him, and I believe this sincerely, I told him that because he asked me what I thought, I called him. And I likened it to, do you remember that HBO had a special about George Harrison called Living in the Material World? No, it was the Scorsese thing. Yeah. And it was similar because the first episode was about the Beatles and stuff that we knew. But the second one was about him as a single performer and also his spirituality. And this was not dissimilar in terms of tone. And I just thought that Judd did an amazing job. He really did.

I think it's up for an Emmy. He really did. I mean, it's about so many things, but it's clearly a valentine from somebody who deeply loved him. Oh, God. Judd was, you know, he was a, Gary was a mentor to him. And, you know, Judd was like a mentee. I heard a story recently. I think I was talking to Jackie Martling.

And that originally Gary Shandling was saying that he thought his phone was tapped. And everyone back then thought, well, Gary Shanley's obviously nutty. He thinks his phone is tapped. When he had that big, huge falling out with Brad Gray. Yeah. Yeah, it's all in the movie. Yeah.

So that was an issue. Pelicano? Anthony Pelicano. Yeah. So it got real dirty and it got really underhanded about how they were gathering information to use against him and everything. So, yeah, that was a thing. So it wasn't – yeah, I can understand people thinking it's Gary's paranoia. Okay.

But I believe that was the case, right? Yeah. And one of the recurring themes in the movie or motifs is betrayal, is how deeply he was affected by that Brad Gray situation. Well, see, here was the thing with Gary. I mean, and if you, there are different degrees of betrayal in the sense that, and I talk about it in that documentary,

I was married with three kids, okay? So Gary didn't have anybody in his life, okay? So if on a Sunday, Robert and I took the kids to Disneyland and Gary wanted me to be in an editing room with him, that was betrayal. Okay? Gary's definition of betrayal, and it's in the movie, is stuff you do away from him when he wants you to be with him. Interesting.

So there was a, it was pretty severe. It was illogical. Now, with Brad, okay, or anybody else that, because he also had a financial advisor who screwed him too. I didn't know that. So there was that kind of betrayal I totally get. I didn't know that. We can edit tomorrow, you know, if all day off to edit. So that I thought was a little bit over the top. But the story with him and Brad, it was a very sad story because they all started out together. They slept on Brad's couch. They slept on Brad's couch.

And how Brad started to become Brad, he was in a doubles tennis game with, I want to say, I know Bernie Brillstein. I want to say Mike Govitz. And he was another, was a William Morris agent, nice guy named Jeff Witches. Okay. Might have been the fourth in that. Okay. And Brad went up to Bernie after one of the games and said, can I buy you lunch, breakfast tomorrow? Bernie meets him for breakfast.

And Brad, who's this little pisha at this time, says, listen, you've got these older clients. You've got Gilda Radner. You've got Lorne Michaels. You've got Jim Henson. Dan Aykroyd. Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi. I got these kids that no one knows of yet. Their names are like John Lovitz and Dennis Miller.

And Saget. And Bob Saget and Gary Shandling. There were a couple of others like that. If you mention them, I go, sure. Why don't we get together? I have the new wave and you've got the established now. And Bernie said, give me the weekend. And then on Monday he said, okay, let's do it.

Okay, so the roster of people that I mentioned. So Brillstein Gray formed just that simply. Well, Brad, I think, initially was an employee of Brillstein Gray. Then it became Brillstein Gray. I see. Shortly afterwards, mind you. But the roster of people that Brad handled that I just mentioned, Kevin Nealon was one of them too,

was they all started out together. They all slept on each other's couches. And I think Gary, of the names I just mentioned, was the first probably to break out. Gary, of the names I just mentioned, was the first probably to break out. Brad was there, and Gary trusted him left and right. I mean, it was like speaking about God. You know, he wouldn't make a move without Brad's consult and all of that. Now, when whatever happened between the two of them happened, okay,

between the two of them happened. Okay? Gary's devastation was profound. Okay? Because Gary was very romantic that way. You know, he had a deference for the fact that we all started out together. Hey, look, we're all getting a house. Well, there's pictures in the doc of them sleeping in the bed together. Oh, look, we're all getting a house. Well, there's pictures in the doc of them

sleeping in the bed together. Oh, God, yeah. They were real buds. They were real buds. So, yeah, I know that that was devastating. Yeah, there's a real journey in that movie. You watch the whole thing, Gilbert? You watch all four?

You know, there are moments where you're taken aback by his self-involvement. I mean, of course, he always laughed at that. You know, maybe the way he treated Linda wasn't ideal. He tries to make amends when he puts out the DVD. But over the course of watching this four-hour documentary, you start falling in love with the journey that he's on and the person that he's trying to become. Absolutely.

That's real smart because he was very self-aware and he was always trying to get out of his own way. I mean, when I first met him, God, I want to say it was 86. He would say things like, oh, let's go to that restaurant that's got a good energy. You know, he had crystals. He had a cabin up in Big Bear. So there was a certain amount of, I don't think he did TM, but if he did, I wouldn't be surprised.

I don't think he did. And so he was very spiritual. He would give me books about God, you know, for like my birthday or whatever. And he knew where he wanted to get. But he, you know, he'd come over the house. We got the kids, you know. I mean, I would see him kiss a dog on the mouth and slobber with the dog,

exchanging spit with a dog, and he'd approach my children like they had plutonium. He just didn't know. He was, you know, the expression, you're awkward in your own body. This was beyond anything. And towards the end, years before but leading up to

he found boxing which they talk about in the documentary and it became almost like a religion to him and a lot of the things he would say would have sort of like double entendre boxing references you know and I had dinner with him,

and he would be like this across the table. For you folks at home, I'm bobbing and weaving right now. He would be like that. And the Jew that I am, I'm going, why are you davening? But it was just, it looked sort of like that, you know. It's fascinating, the personal journey that he went on. And, of course, you get to read the diary entries on the screen, and he's constantly urging himself. Urging him.

Find the better place. Just be present. Your higher self. Be real to people. Be kind to people. And one thing about Gary and the people who were not disciples but devotees of Gary. I used to play in those basketball games that he had on Sunday. Did you ever play in any of those? No.

Whoever was in town played in that game. And it was on a Sunday. And so let's say the game started at one i'd get to let's say 12 30 and they were already judd apatow and all these other young writers who had been there already since 11 and when i left after the game they still stayed there um gary when when it came to writing and they do hit upon it in the documentary, he would talk about writing from the core. Yeah. He would talk about find the essence, the jokes come later.

And to this day when I'm writing, I do have Gary on my shoulder. I'm going, okay, what will he think it is? You know what I mean? He was, when he, after the memorial, I remember, I think it was to Saget, saying to him, if there's another place after this, you know, life, Gary was ready for it. He was done with being, he was never comfortable here. But in his

spirit, there was some other place, there was some other thing. That's fascinating. And if there is such a place, I think he's thriving there. So it's safe to say you guys had a fraternal relationship with all the things that come from big brothers?

Yeah, well, that's a great way to put it. I mean, have you ever written with the same person a lot? No. No? I don't think he's ever written with anybody. Have you ever written with another person? Do you know anybody? Do you know anybody? Do I know anyone who knows how to write?

I remember at Gilbert's 60th birthday, the dinner. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I remember we were going around the table offering toasts. And I don't know who it was who came before me. It might have been Leopold. I don't know. Or Drew.

Okay. Or Drew. Who said that Dara was the best thing that ever happened to you. And when I spoke, I corrected him. I said, no, no, no. Dara is the only thing that ever happened to him. You've never sat down and actually collaborated with a writer. I mean, you've used writers on shows.

Yeah, yeah. But not for your act. Yeah, no. Yeah, no. How could you write for him? How could you write that? I don't know how you could write for someone like Gilbert. How could you write a Ben Gazzara joke?

That's so specific. No, every time I'd see Gilbert, I'd go, wait a second. He took this and put it with this. Yeah. Those two are not supposed to live together. No. But he did. No.

He did. Combine Kurt Waldheim being suspected of being a Nazi with Norman Fell. Yeah, yeah. No writer could approach that. No, no, no. They would be committed, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you're writing with somebody and there's a synergy there, you know,

but there's also a strange alchemy that happens, that exists, which is two of you become something that you can't be by yourself. You're different than me. I'm different than you. I have a respect for what you do. You have respect for what I do. And together, we're going to make something that neither of us can make alone. So there's a dependence there. Yeah.

alone so there's a dependence there yeah and um you know and it's a very hard thing to do to sustain when one person is writing for the other writing with the other person for that person because the physics of it is simply one person's giving the person's just taking everything. I remember, oh, God, this was the fourth year of our show. We must have done 65 shows already. And we're in the editing room one night, okay, and we're not getting along. And I knew everything about him. I wrote his autobiography every week.

And at one point, I just look at him and go, what college did I go to? He didn't have a fucking clue. That's telling. Yeah. Yeah. But that being said, I love this man, and I miss him a lot. You said he had the biggest heart in the world.

The biggest heart in the world. Yeah. Tell us about Gilda doing the show, the Shandling show, and how important that was. Gilda wanted to do the show. She liked it. It made her laugh. And when she got sick, which was probably the first year we were doing it, Gary and I would send her a cassette every week, like a hallmark card. Because I had said to her when she told me she had cancer, I said, what

do I do? She says, I have cancer, Y-Bell, and I need you to help me get through this part of my life. And I said, what do I do? And she said, make me laugh. So that became my role. So Gary and I would send her a cassette every week and I'd call her and tell her jokes and this and that. And she only wanted to be thinking of positive things. If you went to her house, there's pictures of me and Robin and the kids on the refrigerator. Harold Ramis, his wife, and their kids. Marty Short, his wife, and their kids. Only the future, only positive things. And she wanted to do the Shandling Show, and Gary wanted her to do it.

And I was walking with her one night. I think we were on the beach in L.A., and she started getting cold feet. And she said, you know, I haven't been on TV in six years. I'm afraid that nobody's going to recognize me, the audience, when I come out. And I was just about ready to say, don't be silly. And she says, but you know something?

I do have to do it my humor is the only thing the only weapon i have against that fucker that's what she referred to the cancer as that fucker and she says why bell can you make me help me make cancer funny so she came and she did the show and the cast and the crew were you know this goddess was among them. And she was sick, but she had the best time that she had because she had not done a TV. She was not in front of a live audience in a very, very long time. But she was sick. I remember we shot the show on Tuesdays.

On this particular Monday, I was looking for her, I shot the show on Tuesdays. On this particular Monday, I was looking for her, and I found her in her dressing room, and she was on a couch just holding her belly. And what's up? The night before, she had gone to a Chinese restaurant with Gene and people. And you know the mince meat, the chicken that they put in a wrap, like a lettuce thing. Yeah, yeah.

She accidentally had some lettuce, and she wasn't able to digest it. Oh. Okay? So she was, the plumbing was fucked, you know. She went and she did this show, and she was unannounced. So there's 300 people, 250 people in the audience, and Gary's doing some monologue about sea monkeys or some shit, and all of a sudden there's a knock at the door,

and he goes, I wonder who that is. He opens the door, and she walks through and says, Oh, hi, Gilda. Hey, everybody, it's Gilda. Well, this audience exploded. You know, this was the people. Well, this audience exploded. This was the people she thought wouldn't recognize her. And then he said to her, I haven't seen you in a while. Anything wrong?

And she said, well, I've had cancer. What's your excuse? And he says, well, I'm stuck on this show, which is no cure for whatsoever. And that was a great shot of medicine for her. She got nominated for an Emmy Award for guest appearance and wanted to do TV again. As a matter of fact, I have it somewhere in some drawer, some folder. Me and Gary were talking with her, with Michael Fuchs,

who was running HBO at the time, creating a show for Gilda where she would play the star of a variety show, like a Carol Burnett. And so you'd see her at home, you'd see backstage, you'd see the writer's room. And we started talking about it. We, two or three meetings about it. And then she got sick again and eventually passed, you know. But yeah, that was a great shot in the arm for her though. And with Gilda, a few years ago, because, you know, Gilda's Club is all over the country.

Because, you know, Gilda's Club is all over the country. In some state, they wanted to change the name. Idiots. Yeah. Yeah, I remember they, and there's a lot of, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post saying how we, they're saying the people don't know who Gilda is. So I'm going, so why not change the name of the Lincoln Tunnel? I said, keep her name, and if a kid asks who she is,

show him tapes, show this little kid tapes of her being funny, and show her being courageous, and show her what her spirit was, and maybe that will embody these poor kids. This is ridiculous. She even advocated.

When she was six, she decided to write that book. She wrote the book. She was on the cover of Life magazine. I used to go to Laker games with her. She had a bald head, and Kareem would come over. He had a bald head, and he'd point to his own bald head. He goes, I'm fine. It'll be fine.

Okay? The most heartbreaking moment in the film is when she says, I really thought I was going to his own bald head. He goes, I'm fine. It'll be fine. The most heartbreaking moment in the film is when she says, I really thought I was going to get away with this. Yeah. Well, we should urge people to see it. It comes out in a couple of weeks. The Gilda, Love Gilda.

Before we get out of here, you want to tell us the Annie Youngman story again? Because it's so worth it. I'm sorry to shift tones like that. I got to. I joined the Friars Club. I was 33 or 32.

When I left SNL, I didn't have an office anymore at 30 Rock. And our son Adam was born in October of 81. We had an apartment and babies cry. I needed a place to, like an office. So I joined the Friars Club, and back then on the floor, in the room that now has the pool table, that was a lounge. There was a couch and a newspaper rack and a big screen TV, so I used that as an office.

So one day, I'm walking to the Friars Club, and this particular, I don't know if it was a Saturday or it was sometime in the afternoon, nobody was around. This is the key to this fucking story, okay? No one was around. So it's on 55th between Madison and Park. So I'm walking on Madison, and now I make the right turn onto 55th. There's no one around. Out of the doorway, across the street from the club, steps Henny Youngman, the king of the one-liners.

He doesn't know I'm there. Important part of the story, He thinks he's alone. There's no one around. I'm all the way back there in his blind spot. He walks across 55th Street to go into the Friars Club. He gets to the curb. He gets to the curb, and as he does, a pigeon flutters down, lands at his foot. Henny looks at him and goes, any mail for me?

I never get tired of hearing it. He thought he was alone. He was talking to a bird. I'm sorry to do such an abrupt shift on you like that. Yeah, I got a little whiplash from that one. We love, we just love that one. Oh, my God. Alan, so we could go on and on and on and on.

Oh, this is great. Are you kidding? I also discovered doing a little research. You know, I love to do the research. I also found the old Paul Simon special from 77 and rewatched it. Oh, wow. I haven't seen that since then. Grodin deserves an Emmy.

That's how funny he was. Well, we did get an Emmy for it. Yeah, I just meant his performance. But what Charles Grodin, Chuck Grodin, is he was so funny and so understated. And I remember him sitting down, Paul and Artie. That's great. Telling them the sound of U2 together. I would really consider patching things up. Yeah.

No, he was so funny and understated. He wants to change the title of the special to the Paul Bridge Over Troubled Water Simon Special. Great, great. Because we'd have the recognition factor. If people can find that, absolutely find it. Warren wrote most of that with Paul. Yeah. Yeah.

It's great. He added Franken and Davis and myself to the staff. But Lily has a writing credit, too. Oh, does she? I didn't even realize that. But it was Lorne and Paul. They did more than the lion's share of that. How is Grodin doing?

Talk to him. I saw Chuck about a year ago, maybe a little bit more than a year ago. We're going to bug you to help us get him here. Oh, he's great. You've got to grab him. I'll do everything I can to help you with that. We're going to bug you to get him, to help us get him here. Oh, he's great. You've got to grab him. I'll do everything I can to help you with that. We get a lot of requests for him. He's just funny.

You know, I don't know what else to say, but he's in his 80s now. So I'd get in the car now. All right. We'll send a crew to him. He's in Connecticut, isn't he? He's in Connecticut. We'll send a crew right to his door's in Connecticut, isn't he? We'll send a crew right to his door, if it'll get him, if it'll cinch the deal. We'll have to recommend your books

to the listeners. The other Shulman, Lunatics, which you wrote with the great Dave Barry, Clothing Optional, which we talked about, which Gilbert, I'm going to give you, because there's some stories in there that you absolutely have to read, including one about a Hitler tattoo. And a nice tribute to Herb, our mutual

friend Herb Sargent. In there. And it's Gary Shandling's show. Which is a wonderful show, ahead of its time. If people, there's a DVD. It's a little bit of, it's very frustrating. Because I'll tell people, it's Gary Shandling's a DVD. It's a collection? It's a little bit of, it's very frustrating,

because I'll tell people it's Gary Shandling's show, and they'll go, oh, I love Jeffrey Tambor. Right, right. They go right to Larry Sanders, and I go, no, no, no, there was like one before. You guys were doing all kinds of shit. A graduate episode, you did a musical episode. We drove a car from one set to another.

Yeah, remember. Yeah, it was, yeah, we put on the fourth grade play every week. Oh, brilliant. A brilliant show. If you guys, if our listeners don't know what shame on you, find it. And these two documentaries, I just want to mention the Shandling doc again that Judd made, which you're in. Yes. Which is beautiful.

I'm also in the Gilbert. And you're in the Gilbert doc. I wanted to thank you for that, too. Thank you for having me. It was an honor to be in. Gilbert's documentary, for me, and I've told this to you and Darren a number of times, I loved it.

Great job by Neil Berkley. It was, to watch, yeah, the tributes were great and you and the kids was all great, but and your sister there was so much heart in there and to see

the Willie Loman aspect of the comic, you know, with the shoe case. Yes. Washing the socks in the sink? Yeah. I'm going, wait a second. you know, with the shoe case. Washing the socks in the sink? Yeah. I'm going, wait a second. You know, and now it's become

part of my life. Robert and I will check into a hotel and you walk down the hall and you see the cart that the ladies who cleaned the room have. And I just... As a tribute? As you said, who are you, Gilbert? No, I just... As a tribute? Yeah.

As you said, who are you, Gilbert? No, I'm going to give it to Gilbert. I'm going to send Gilbert this shampoo. It was a real stroke of genius on Neil's part, too, to give out the soap at the premiere.

Neil did an amazing job. He did a wonderful job. That's one of my favorites and I've recommended it. Billy Crystal came up to you, and did he not? Ah, yes, yeah. I was raving about it to him,

and he saw it at my behest. I'm sure he would have seen it eventually, but Billy then called me before he ran into you and thanked me for being so enthusiastic about it. Yeah, he was very nice. It's great.

Gilbert was forced to sit there and squirm as he watched his own life on the big screen. It was so difficult for me. I didn't realize there were so many O's in the word so. Oh, yeah. Wow. I sat next to him where you and Robin were there that night at the SVA Theater, and I sat next to him, and he was just squirming for two hours. Yeah.

And it wasn't the first time you'd seen it with an audience either. No, no. And if I watch it now, I'll still be grabbing onto my seat. It's kind of like, you know, the first time you hear a recorder with your voice on it. Yeah. the first time you hear a recorder with your voice on it, and you go, it got everyone else's

voice correct, but mine. Boy, did they distort me. We'll also plug the Comedy Center, since you're a part of this. You're an unofficial ambassador here. Yeah, I'm an ambassador to the Comedy Center. National Comedy Center in Jamestown. Jamestown, they want

to make as a destination... It's a little far. Cooperstown became a place where people ended up seeking out. So the Comedy Center, the building there is not to be believed. They cover everything from

Vaudeville, even before, like Camino dell'arte, all the way through episodes. It's really a pretty terrific place. Gallagher in there? I said, look, it's either Gallagher in the eye. Or Gallagher 2. Gilbert, you're in the museum. You have to go.

Yeah. Yeah. I know, but it just seems like one of those places, like, you'd have to take a rowboat for the last part of it. No, it's easier than that. You fly to Buffalo. Already. And now you're only two hours away. By the way, speaking of George Carlin, that moment in the Shandling Dock where George was so good to him when he was a kid, when he was a college student and he made the schlep from Phoenix to Tucson.

Beautiful. Another beautiful story. Well, and we've become friends with Kelly Carlin. Yeah, we had Kelly on. Oh, she's, you know. We love her. And she was very close to Gary, too.

Yeah. And there's a thing, you know, there's spirituality there also. Yeah. She's a big shot at the Comedy Center as well. What else do you want to plug?

Well, let's see. What do I got? I got two books coming out next year. Last year, I wrote a book with Dave Barry and Adam Mansback. If you don't know Adam Mansback's name, he wrote a children's book about four

years ago that sold a gazillion copies called Go to Fuck to Sleep. So the three of us wrote a parody of the Haggadah last year, the Passover Haggadah. For this, we left Egypt, and it did so well that the publisher gave us another book deal. So the three of us, we just handed it in last Friday, as a matter of fact. It's a guide to Judaism from phe to oi. Okay, so got that. And also, I'm writing a memoir, a cultural memoir called Laugh Lines, 40 Years Trying to Make Funny People Funnier.

And it's me as a tour guide through my career, the Catskills and SNL. Oh, God. So taking you all through all the years and everything. From Gunty to Shanling. From Gunty to Shanling. There you go. Yeah, I think the writer of Go to Fuck to Sleep filmed me reading his book. Yes, he did.

Yes, yes. Yes, he did. I put you guys together. Yeah. That's right. There you go. Because he first had Samuel L. Jackson. Yeah.

And he says, who else can I have? I've already had Samuel L. Jackson. I'm going, well, when you say Samuel L. Jackson, next time the guy in my mind is Gilbert. Absolutely. Thanks for coming, man. Thanks for having me, you guys. I remember a Gary Shandling story that I had was around the time I had the burst appendix.

Yeah. And then I had to go get another operation to repair it, to put my stomach old. And I was talking to Gary Shandling. And I said, well, I already found a doctor and he's going to perform the surgery on my stomach. And he said, where is the

operation going to take place? And I said, at the New York Eye and Ear. And he said, well, Eye and Ear? Shouldn't it be the New York stomach and ass? There's nothing that... Shanley loved talking about asses and his ass.

I'll tell you this, if you can keep it or not. Are we still on? Yeah, go ahead. I sign off and then Gilbert continues in those 20 more minutes. He does another show. He does another mini episode. So I meet

Gary and now we figure, okay, we're going to create a show together. And I wanted to learn a little bit more about him on stage. I had seen him on Letterman, but those were like six minute things here and there. I wanted to see him on stage. I had seen him on Letterman, but those were like six-minute things here and there. I wanted to see him on stage. So, you ever perform at the Comedy

and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach? I think I did. South of... Yeah, yeah. Great place, okay. Nice guy named Mike Lacey owns it. So, I'm in LA and so Shanling and I are going.

We were driving on the 405 to get to the Comedy and Magic store. In the middle of the drive, he says to me, he says, now listen, when I'm on stage, at one point,

I'm just going to scratch my ear. When I do that, that's your signal to ask me about, to shout out, tell us about the chimp. I said, tell us about the chimp. He said, you'll see, you'll be about two-thirds, three-quarters of the way through. And he says, no matter what I said, tell us about the chimp. He said, you'll see. You'll be about two-thirds, three-quarters of the way through. And he says, no matter what I say, no matter how much I try to dismiss you,

no matter how much I refuse to do it, you insist that I talk about the chimp. All right. I have no idea what he's talking about. So I'm sitting in the back, and he's talking about dating and girls and trouble with relationships. And he says, you know, I've had some really horrible dates. And at which point he tugs his ear. I go, tell us about the chimp. And he makes believe he doesn't hear me.

So he starts saying, you know, I've had some horrible dates. And I go, the chimp. Tell us about the chimp. And he goes, mister, please, please don't. You know, I'm in the middle of my act. And I go, the chimp. Tell us about the chimp. And he goes, you know, it's a little embarrassing.

He says, please, don't embarrass me with this story. And he goes, you know, it's a little embarrassing. He says, please don't embarrass me with this story. Come on. We want to hear about the chimp. Now the rest of the audience starts asking to hear about the chimp. Nobody, including myself, has any idea. So finally he gets up and he says, all right. I have this pet chimpanzee. So I stopped it.

Who copies everything that I do. And the other night I brought home a date and I brought her into my bedroom. And the chimp took one look at me, jumped up on the dresser, stuck his fingers in a jar of Vaseline, rubbed the Vaseline on his ass, bent over, and started pointing to his ass. And Gary goes, and I kept on saying, bad chimp, naughty, naughty chimp. And then he said to his date, I swear he's never done this before. The audience went fucking crazy. That's great. But I always wondered, just like, you know, that other thing that I told last time.

You know, I told you when I had first met him, we went to dinner. I flew to L.A. We went to dinner. I checked into a hotel. Now it's like 1 o'clock in the morning, and it's 4 o'clock for my body, and the phone rings. Hello? Alan, it's Gary. Oh, hey, man, what's up?

Alan, my dog's penis tastes bitter. You think it's his diet or what? I call Robin and say, I think I found the writing partner. But I'm talking about as a writer to write that joke. Yeah. To write that joke about it's my finger and my ass. It's a great joke. To write that story about the chimp putting Vaseline on his ass and bending over

and pointing. Great writer. The Doc's full of great jokes like that. It was unbelievable. Dearly missed by a lot of people. I met him three times and each time was memorable. It's funny because those basketball games, a lot

of our connections, I know Sarah Sylvan because of those basketball games. I emailed her today. As a matter of fact, we exchanged emails. You know, Ben Stella. I've met him other places, but it started there.

So yeah, the people came to Gary's. He was a uniter, fair to say. Well, what do you think? Thank you, guys. This was a uniter, fair to say. Well? Well. What do you think? Thank you, guys. This was a blast. This was so much.

So if it's going to be an hour, and I see it says an hour 50, what are you going to do? We release an hour 50 minute episode, no problem. Yeah. All right. It looks like if I go down on 6th Avenue, somebody will be selling it now. On the D-Train. With a really big shot. On the D-Train platform.

What are those fucking guys? Our maiden episode at Earwolf Studios. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. Oh, and if you want to see Gilbert, it's on Hulu. Get that in. Get that in. And we've been talking to the man who saw Milton Berle's cock up close. Alan Swipe.

This was great, guys. Thanks, Alan. The rooster says good morning with a cock-a-doodle-doo. Good morning. A horse's neigh is just his way of saying, how are you? A lion growls, hello, and owls ask why, and where, and who. May I suggest you get undressed and show them your wazoo. Oh. The animals, the animals. Let's talk dirty to the animals. Fuck you, Mr. Bunny. Eat shit, Mr. Bear. If they don't love it, they can shove it. Frankly, I don't care't care of the animals, the animals. Let's talk dirty to the animals up yours, Mr. Hippo. Piss off, Mr. Fox. Go tell a chicken, suck my dick and give him chicken pox.

Oh, the animals, the animals, let's talk dirty to the animals. From birds in the treetops to snakes in the grass. But never tell an alligator, bite my, no, never tell an alligator, bite my, yes, never tell an alligator, bite my snitch. Amazing Colossal Podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre, with audio production by Frank Verderosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley-Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fodiatis, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance.