Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 256. J. Elvis Weinstein

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

Writer, comedian, filmmaker and original "Mystery Science Theater 3000" cast member J. Elvis Weinstein visits the podcast to talk about the early days of MST3K, the originality of "Freaks and Geeks," the perverse appeal of "Skidoo" (and "Robot Monster") and the long lost art of novelty records. Also, Gregory Peck taunts Nazis, Foster Brooks breaks character, "WKRP" inspires Tom Servo and Albert Brooks sends up Dickie "Mr. Jaws" Goodman. PLUS: "Ghost Dad"! "Manos: The Hands of Fate"! The eccentricities of Michael Des Barres! The abandoned Casey Kasem movie! Gilbert runs a Halloween scam! And J. Elvis reveals the Greg Kinnear donkey incident! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am future. I wait in the world of Echo. Discover Echo from Cirque du Soleil. Now playing under the big top at Toronto Lakeshore Boulevard West. Tickets at CirqueDuSoleil.com. Echo. Thanks for presenting Partners Sun Life. The world is yours to create. 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. Contact a licensed TD Insurance advisor to learn more. This is Robert Wagner, and you're listening to Gilbert Godfrey's amazing, colossal podcast. And these guys are great so Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and our engineer, Frank Verderosa. Our guest this week is a comedy writer, stand-up comedian, podcast host, documentary filmmaker,

occasional actor, and a founding member of the pop culture sensation known as Mystery Science Theater 3000. He's written popular TV shows such as Talk Soup Later with Greg Kinnear America's Funniest Home Videos And Freaks and Geeks But our obsessive listeners would most likely know him as the original voice Of the puppets Tom Servo and Gypsy. And... You bet.

And as mad scientist Dr. Lawrence Earhart on the beloved series MST 3000. In 2008, he reunited with his MST co-stars, including our former podcast guest, Frank Conniff, for Cinematic Titanic, and which toured the country as a live show and produced 12 DVDs, now available as a box set. He's also the director of two recent documentaries, I Need You to Kill and Michael DeBar. Who Do You Want Me to Be? His very funny podcast, Thought Spiral, which co-hosts with comedian Andy Kindler, is available everywhere. And we're going to have a drag-out fight over his review of the movie The Swimmer.

Uh-oh. Please welcome to the show an artist of numerous talents and a man who had his name changed so that his initials would spell out the word Jew. The pride of St. Louis, Fort Minnesota, J. Elvis Weinstein. Wow. Wow. I found myself just grinning hearing Gilbert just describe my career to me. It's a little like an obit.

It was kind of that. It was a dual glee of while someone did research and while Gilbert Gottfried is reading my career aloud. Yeah. Oh, the only part I left out found dead in his words. And the only part you left out was,

and I've never heard of him in my life. Yes. Basically like any priest or rabbi at a funeral. He was a wonderful man. Well, he was an MST watcher. He knows Tom Servo.

He knows Gypsy. He knows Dr. Earhart. We talked about that immediately when we booked you. But what really impressed him was the J-E-W. Well, that's good. Whatever it takes to get in. Are you jealous, Gilbert, that he figured out a way to spell out you? No.

As if Weinstein didn't tell the tale. Yeah, that could be anything. Which you did what? In part when you joined the WGA, but you did it in part to avoid confusion with another writer? Yeah, I went as Josh Weinstein in life and still basically do. But the Josh Weinstein who ended up being one of the showrunners on The Simpsons

and doing lots of great stuff beat me by about a year into the guild as Josh Weinstein. So when I was told I had to change my name, I was a young man, I felt like a little bit of a smartass. I thought I'd thrown in a house. It was more Costello than Presley based.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Gilbert gets very excited, as I say all the time, when we have a Jewish guest, Josh. Good. Yeah. It's hard in showbiz to find that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so rare in this business to find a Jew. But a Jew from Minnesota, it's a rarer breed. Are you from the same neck of the woods as the Coen brothers? Same suburb. Same suburb. Al Franken, too, and Thomas Friedman. Lots of Jews.

A little Jew pod, yeah. Jews aplenty. Which sounds like a science fiction film in itself. The Little Jew Pod. Now, before I jump, I'm going to jump into, I told Josh over email that we'd go all over the place, and he prefers our schizophrenic approach. But before we talk about his fun podcast and some of the movies that he's talked about, which we've talked about on this show, he also watched your documentary.

Yes, I did. Of course. And he was telling us before we turned the mics off that the part that may have impressed him the most was your... Tell us, Josh. My favorite moment was, and the one I guess I related to the most directly, was when you show up to the Children's Cancer Benefit and he's explaining to you and

you see your face both while he's telling you and right after where it looks as if you've been diagnosed with a deep stage cancer yourself having to perform there that night yeah yeah i thought i thought for sure this is gonna be the the day that ruins my career for sure this is the final man there've been so many yeah yeah and i thought this has to be it yeah as a comic there are those times you go i'm in the wrong place right now yeah i think my favorite i have many favorite moments but you are you trying to explain to that toddler who fritz felt was oh Oh, yes. Maybe one of them. This is the kind of shit we talk about on this show. That's good.

Josh. I think I was trying to explain to the toddler who John MacGyver was. Were you? Yes. Do you know John MacGyver? It was John MacGyver. I'm sorry. But there's a Fritz Feld thing, right?

That rolls over the closing credits. Yeah, in the closing credits. I got it wrong. They talk about Fritz Feld thing, right, that rolls over the closing credits. Yeah, in the closing credits, they talk about Fritz Feld. I got it wrong. See, so I like to appeal to the kids. The other thing I have to, just because I'm here talking to you, the other thing I've had in my head for 30 years is, Hi, Gavin. Hi, Tony.

Oh, yes. And I cannot hear either name without saying the other name in that voice. Do a little bit to bring people's memories back. Yeah. Tony Curtis talking to Gavin McLeod. Hi, Gavin. Hi, Tony. How are you?

I'm fine. Want some coffee? Okay. I think I'll have a donut. So you will have, I will have a donut too. So you will have two donuts? No, I will have a donut same as yourself. So you will have a donut that resembles me?

No, I meant although we are both eating two entirely different donuts, the very fact that they are both donuts puts them in the same food group. You mean like an apple and an orange are both in the fruit group? Are you still doing this, Ben? Yes.

Okay, so it's 40 years out of date, but fuck it. I am crying like the first time. It's one of the bits that made me fall in love with him. That and Ted Bessel in the George Jessel story. Oh, yes. But let's talk about... I'm trying to do some things where our podcasts...

What is the word I'm looking for? Bisect? Oh, yeah. Oh, I felt a word I'm looking for? Bisect? Oh, yeah. Oh, I felt a great kinship for you, Frank. Yes. Is this discussion of Skidoo that I heard you and Kindler. Yeah. You guys seem as obsessed with it as we are.

We had Austin Pendleton here a couple of weeks ago. It was like Hollywood showing how totally unhip they are. It was amazing. It was just jaw-dropping throughout. And you could feel Otto Preminger's just like the scraping of his claw of relevance. You could just see his talon marks as it slipped off the side of relevance. Well, you were talking about how, and I didn't know this, that you said that he dropped acid with Timothy Leary,

and that was sort of what got this thing rolling? And then with Groucho and Jackie Gleason, apparently. Yeah, that's disputed. I hope it's true. Oh, my. I hope to God it's true. God, I hope to God there's a film clip of that that pops up. Oh, that's a good tab of acid.

I'm having a really bad trip right now. I'm having a great trip, Groucho. He went with old Groucho. That's what I like. We had Austin here and Austin Pendleton. We've actually had two of the three survivors of that cast. I think the only three people living are Michael Constantine from Room 222 or My Fat Greek Wedding, if you want to work in temporary reference.

Is John Philip lost? I think he's gone. Oh, he's, yeah. I think it's down to Austin, Frankie Avalon, who we had. Yeah. And of course,

Gilbert asked him about Cesar Romero, who's in the movie. Yes. Yeah. Right. And Austin. Yeah. And somebody wrote me and said,

everything Austin Pendleton's done in his career, and you guys do, start the show with 20 minutes on Skidoo. I need you to do another five just to tell me what he said. I'll go back and listen. He loved it. He loved Otto. I mean, Premature had this reputation as being very difficult.

And he thought Groucho was funny every minute of the day, which was nice to hear. I mean, he was only up for about four of them. Yeah. I love you described it as a gangster comedy, a gangster comedy acid movie, which I kind of like.

I think that's, I think that sums it up. Yeah. It's as bad a movie with an all-star cast as you will find. And I heard that John Philip Law

was originally offered the part of Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy. Really? But he figured, hey, a movie with, directed by Otto Preminger. How could I go wrong? Yeah, a comedy

co-starring Groucho. And I get to see Carol Channing in a bra. Yeah. I love when Kindler says to you on the podcast, well, did you want to see Carol Channing half naked? And you go, well, yeah, kind of. Yeah.

I didn't know it until the time, but yeah, I did. It turned out. Yeah. There are some all-star bombs. There's a movie called Wanton Ton, the dog that saved Hollywood. Oh, I think one of our guests was in that. Bruce Stern, who we had here, was on it.

And there's another movie called The Finks, which I urge you to find. Okay, I will. P-H-Y-N-X. Scary. It's scary who's in it, but it's like this. It's like an all-star cast.

Every name you can imagine from that period. And it's worse than this. it's worse than skidoo it it's like a bad acid trip of the monkeys like imagine an episode of the monkeys stretched to two hours well isn't that head yeah exactly yeah only good answer has Yeah. Only this has an old star cast of like Leo Garcia, Hunts Hall, Johnny Weissmuller, Pat O'Brien. Wow. Everybody.

And they all look like they died 10 years ago. George Raft in there? Yes. And they're all talking like this, see? Pretty much. If you said that all of them were dug out of their graves and propped up for them, I would have said, yeah, yeah.

That makes sense. That's before Hollywood learned to put all their big dying stars onto crashing planes and flipping cruise ships and stuff. I mean, those Irwin Allen movies are high art compared to this stuff. Oh, my God.

I mean, something like Airport 75. But see, in the Irwin Allen, those old stars seemed like they were still alive. Right. Here, I don't think any of them know their own names.

Yeah, it's like Bella in Plan 9. Exactly. So one of the things you and Andy do, and we'll plug the podcast again it's fun thought spiral what what was the conceit was it there's just the two of you in a room and and obviously you don't plan it you don't prep much there's a little bit of structure to it but not much yeah there's not

much uh the real honest conceit is andy moved four blocks from me and And I went, well, that would be a waste to not do something. So that was the real core inspiration. Right. And then it was also Andy had just started therapy, and he calls himself the oldest Jew to ever start therapy because he was after his 60s. And you'd think Andy Kindler is a lifer, but it was all new to him. So he was filled with epiphanies about himself.

One of my favorite parts of the show is you guys do, what do you call it, a homework assignment? Homework, yeah. On a movie. It could be a classic movie like The Conversation, something good, or The Last Picture Show, or it could be some dreck like Skidoo. Right. It's filling in our gaps gaps our little gaps in our cultural knowledge that you know movies that we barely remember or we've never seen or the kind of movie you'd say you saw but didn't yeah we were doing that for a while here we were doing a

thursday a small uh shorter thursday episode where we would each come up with a movie and talk about it and gilbert ran out of movies in about week 20. Yeah. Yeah, we're going a little dry. It shows the amount of work I put in because at one point, Frank called me and he said, do you have any movies for this week to talk about? And I said, no, can't think of any. And he said, what are you watching? I hear the TV. And I said, oh, can't think of any. And he said, what are you watching? I hear the TV.

And I said, oh, it's a good movie. It's Earth versus the Flying Saucers. The special effects were by Ray Harryhausen. It came out in the 50s. And he goes, well, how about that one? You had some good choices. Two of your choices, in fact, were covered by Josh, which are The Swimmer, which we talked about in the intro.

You weren't wild about it. You admired some things about it, but you thought it was a stretch forced from the book or from the short story. Yeah, I did. I felt like it was i i liked that they took a big swing i certainly admired lancaster for taking that part yeah uh but uh it didn't it didn't uh hold together for me oh it started it started beating me with art film ideas

as we went see to me i i i presented that on Turner Classic Movies with Bob Osborne. Because I like that movie. I mean, it just, that grabs me each time. How do you feel about the Hamlisch score? I love that. See? Marvin Hamlisch. Yeah, no, I didn't buy it at all.

Oh, God. God, I don't want to talk to you, you fucking Jew. You insolent Jew. Wasn't that the other one you were talking about? Which one? The Boys from Brazil. The Boys from Brazil was another one he loves and recommended. You insolent Jew.

He does James Mason. We have to pull the plug on the operation. We are not pulling the plug on the operation. We are not pulling the plug on the operation. The operation will proceed. Yes. Mangler, you're a madman. Yes, your plan has been canceled. Canceled?

My plan has not been canceled. My plan will never be canceled. You're canceled. there's some serious overacting in that one we're bringing in the prop guys to take back their fake scientific machines and then uh at one point he uh gregory peck as mangala runs into the little boy and goes, hello, puppy. Oh, and when he says to Uta Hagen, who's like the lockdown. Is Uta Hagen in there? Yes.

Yes, in an asylum. She's the locked up prison guard. And he says, Olivier says, and he says, Olivier says, I may live here empty-handed, but you are not going anywhere.

Scary good, Gil. Oh, and Mira. And Mira's in the Boys from Brazil. I have to see it again. Steve Guttenberg as well, up top. Who? Steve Guttenberg. Steve Guttenberg. Wow, up top. Who? Steve Guttenberg. Steve Guttenberg. Wow.

And what's the name? I want to get that kid on this podcast. He never worked. I looked it up. He never worked again. He was a producer's son, and he never worked again. Wow. Yeah.

That's got to be a favorite Steve Guttenberg, Uta Hagen movie. Yes. For sure. Of all of them. When you're playing Six Degberg, Uta Hagen movie. Yes. For sure. Of all of them. When you're playing six degrees of Uta Hagen. Yeah. Yeah.

Did I hear you say too that Peck was defensive about criticisms of that performance? I think he was. That's what I read. Yeah. I didn't do a deep dive on it, but I heard that in later life, if people made fun of it, he took a little bit extra offense to it. Let's hear a little more of that good Mason, Josh josh we're pulling the plug on the operation mangler it's good lolita a bubble of poison in my loins see gregory peck said that see i like watching peck and that because he looks like he's having fun and and gregory peck said they changed, you know,

it's supposed to be Mengele versus Simon Wiesenthal. Right. And he says, we changed Simon Wiesenthal's name because we were afraid he might sue us. But we kept Mengele's name because we were hoping he'd sue us. Wouldn't that be great if Mengele just forgot that he

was in hiding and sued? Yeah, and gave his address and phoned over. Wait a minute! So both you guys, this is interesting too, both you guys started stand-up at the same age. At 15? Yeah, 15 for me.

In Minnesota, in Minneapolis. What the hell were you thinking? Yeah. You know, I didn't, I wasn't one of those kids who was like sitting there writing jokes in a notebook. I had always sort of assumed it would be something I would do, but I didn't have a plan for it. And then my friend Barry said, I'm doing an open stage tomorrow night. And I was like, I'll go with you. And I wrote my five minutes, like

two hours before the show. And by the end of that night, I just, I knew I found my thing forever. In one night? Yeah, pretty much. Wow. Gil, did that happen to you? Was it one night? I always say I was too stupid to know if i did well or bombed

right so i just kept doing it he's not quite sure what the first venue was mine was the ha ha club in minneapolis this is 1987 yeah mine was some club in manhattan when we all still lived in Brooklyn. And my sister Arlene had a friend who said, you know, your brother seems like he wants to be a comic. And there's some club in Manhattan. You just write your name down. But I used to think it was the bitter end. Then my sister said it wasn't. Was it the Village Gate or something?

Was it some other place it was doing an open mic night yeah what what did the first night consist of i it was i was really not that far from like you know frank gorshin rich little i'm just doing imitations that was it yeah yeah how much you remember about that first set josh um i remember i remember the feeling more than the jokes and what i also remember is that the next three weeks i came back and did like completely different acts like the next week i came back and did a character and then the third week i came i made a bunch of props because i thought you had to do something different each week and the club owner finally said you know just keep just keep the good jokes. And add to them.

That's what you do. Then I was on my way. It took a little detour, but then I was on my way. I'm always interested too. Both you guys, all of us, we're TV addicts. We were sitting there watching Carson and exposed to similar things.

Is there something, is there one thing that, I mean, I never really did stand up, but Robert Klein, when I, before I saw you on stage, I had those Robert Klein albums, Child of the Fifties,

and Mind Over Matter. I can remember, I can pinpoint that. I can remember listening to Bob and Ray and Robert Klein as something that, that specifically interested me in comedy. Was there,

was there something that kind of turned your head and made you think, shit, I can do this or I at least have to try? The two things I went over like the Zapruder film as a kid were Bill Cosby as a very funny fellow, right? Uh-huh. And Alan Sherman, my son, the folk singer.

There you go. There you go. Like Alan Sherman, you could learn about every kind of laugh on Alan Sherman records. Cause there'd be like anticipation, laugh, the recognition, laugh,

the pure, give it up, laugh. And I, I had started to hear those kinds of different things. I don't know how consciously at the time, but looking, looking back,

I know that I noticed, you know, listening to comedy albums. It always, and, and more so now, it always, there was something depressing and eerie about it. Really? Yeah, it bothered me. Which albums are we talking about? I mean, just any of them.

You like those Sherman records. We talked about those with Yazbek. Yeah, he was, well, he was terrific. Shake hands with your Uncle Max. I wasn't even Jewish when I was listening to those. Well, Alan Sherman was that people was like sort of a lesson on what a Jew looks and sounds like to Gentiles. Absolutely, yeah. And it gave everyone a chance to learn what a Jew laughs.

This is what a Jew laughs at. When he says, members of Hadassah. Remember that? to learn what the Jew laughs. This is what a Jew laughs at. When he says, members of Hadassah, remember that? Right. When he's playing... My Zelda. Yeah, he's playing

in different parts of the room in the Harry Belafonte parody. I didn't even know the original songs. I didn't even know what was being parodied. No, I didn't either. I had to ask my parents.

We just... We interviewed Harpo's son. Yeah, we had Bill Marks here. Yeah just, we interviewed Harpo's son. Yeah, we had Bill Marks here. Yeah. Wow. And Harpo worked with Alan Sherman. Yeah, Harpo's last time on stage in front of an audience was with Alan Sherman. Wow.

And I think it was Harpo that convinced him to do the album because he was just doing these things at parties. I think Harpo put up some of the money for the studio and they invited a bunch of friends and got them drunk for that first album. That may be true. That's cool. But it was that. It was that and the Cosby album? Those are the ones that my parents had in their collection, yeah.

And yet you found... Go ahead. But I had funny people in my house too, though. Talk about that a little bit. It was a big... I mean, I had, my dad was like, just in terms, performatively, he was a lawyer, but he loved telling jokes and he would collect them

and he would refine them and you could see him when he was being told a joke that he was intaking it and, you know, making his tweaks and do, you know, adding dialects where he could. So, you know, people would request certain jokes from him. So it was a currency in your house. And they were the classics that I've seen Gilbert tell before even.

And my mom was a great audience and super smart, but an easy laugh if it was a good joke. And so I grew up in this house where it was like everything was serious and funny simultaneously. And so a good joke was never inappropriate you know a bad joke could mess you up you know if they're you know if my mom was pissed off and you made her laugh it was over if you did the wrong joke you could inflame the situation greatly but but in general you know what when i heard my mom bragging about me on the phone it it was because of a joke I told.

So to me, I think there's an approval tie there for sure. It's funny to think that at one time, you'd proudly display your Bill Cosby album. It really is. And it's heartbreaking yeah to because you can't listen to it anymore without going this guy yeah i was watching i have a great i have a great story about my uh about bill cosby signing uh to warner brothers for that record in fact my wife was used to used to be a singer song she's still a singer songwriter but she does other things now

but she was other things now. But she was on this label that was owned by this guy named Artie Mogul, who was a great sort of music publisher, manager, record company head at various times. Just one of those classic music guys. And a pathological liar. So this is a story that he himself had told my wife. He was working for A&R for Warner Brothers. And he,

they said, I want you to go see this guy, Bill Cosby. He's performing tonight. And so Artie goes, okay, fine. And Artie doesn't go.

He goes to something else. The next morning, the guy from Warner Brothers goes, so how is the Cosby guy oh he was great amazing couldn't can't believe it so do you think

it's a problem that he's black and Artie was like didn't know he was trying to be tricked by the guy to find out if he actually went

he goes didn't even notice I was watching your doc last night which we'll get to in a bit, too, with I Need You to Kill. Cool. About where you sent a bunch of comedians. You went with them. I did, yes. You guys went to a road trip.

You guys all went to Singapore and Hong Kong to experience stand-up over there. And I was thinking, do you know about, I was thinking, I wonder if Josh knows about Bill Cosby and the Asian models. I do not. But I want to. Well, you're in luck. These writers who worked with Bill Cosby told me

that when he was doing one of his shows, in the schedule, he had it set aside that at one point, like 3.30 to 4.15, was the time when he taught comedy to Asian models. Wow.

Yeah. That's better than executive time. That's why you see so many funny Asian models around. He did a great work. How many of those Cosby shows did you do? I did two. Remember him on the Cosby show? I don't.

No. I appeared on his regular one where he was Dr. Huxtable. And then I appeared on that weird one that followed it where he was Lucas something. Oh, and he was like a landlord or something. There were so many. He was like a laid off airline worker. And he had the same wife. Right. Yes. I think he went to same wife. Right, yes.

I think he went to CBS for that one. You never went up on the Cosby Mysteries. Oh, no. No, I wish. Or in Ghost Dad. Oh, God. He was slated for Leonard Part 7, but it just didn't. He had those two movies, Leonard

Part 6 and Ghost Dad. Yeah. Ended his feature career. And yet it wasn't humbling in any way for him. Yeah. I mean, both of those films are frightening bad. Yeah, like, oh my

God, like Skidoo bad. Yes! Skidoo is more Yes! Skidoo is more of a conversation piece. Speaking of mawkish conversation pieces, I heard you guys plugging a thing that I haven't heard, but you were about to go after

Patches by Clarence Carter. Oh my god. Another fetish of mine. Yes! We did a mini episode called Death Songs of the 1970s. Okay. Patches isn't so much of a death song as We did a mini episode called Death Songs of the 1970s. Okay. Because, well, Patches isn't so much

of a death song as it's a sad song. Yes. But we were talking about Shannon, the one where the dog drowns. Sure, okay.

That was the one that infamously inspired Casey Kasem's rant. God damn dogs, dead dogs. Yes. Fucking ponderous. And Gilbert's, Gilbert's spontaneously, he surprised me by spontaneously breaking his patches.

I was born and raised down in Alabama in a shack way down in the woods. I was so ragged my papa used to call me Patches. But I knew he was hurt because he didn't know he could. My papa was a great old man. I can see him with a shovel in his hand. Education he never had. I still remember my dear old dad singing patches. We're depending on your son.

Take it, Josh. Two days later, daddy passed away. I became a man that day. Oh, but I think his... What? He does the spoken word part. And you keep expecting it

to even ask... It's like, and then an eagle came from the sky and took my sister's baby. Gosh, you know. I did not expect a Patch's duet. Now, I think his father dies. Does his father die?

Okay, so we can put that on the list. Yeah. We were talking about Seasons in the Sun. And Mom died by the end of the song, too. There was wall-to-wall pathos in Patches. See, so it fits in perfectly. I stand corrected. Yeah, because he was a great old man.

There's something about that period of pop music. Well, Gilbert and I lament not only those death songs like Seasons in the Sun, Billy Don't Be a Hero. There's Honey by Bobby Goldsboro, which is absolutely heartbreaking. Do you know Blind Man and the Bleachers? I don't know Blind Man and the Bleachers, but it sounds like

a mawkish joy. This one's a life changer. Leave this podcast now and go listen to Blind Man and the Bleachers. But we also miss story songs. Yes. Edmund, like... Oh, we talked about that one too. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

I called it... I remembered it wrong. I called it The Wreck of the Barry Fitzgerald. I called it, I remembered it wrong. I called it the wreck of the Barry Fitzgerald. The whole different story. You guys talk about pop music a lot on the show. I heard you guys talk, I heard you telling your Mrs.

Robinson story, which I enjoyed, which I also didn't know. I don't even remember my Mrs. Oh, yeah. About Nichols and Paul Simon. Yeah. So, yeah. About Nichols and Paul Simon. Yeah. So, yeah. So he brought Simon and Garfunkel up to the studio to do this big song for the movie. And he hated what Simon had come up with, apparently, for that spot.

And so they kind of go off into the corner and they had had this song. Here's to you, Mrs. Roosevelt. And they just slipped it into the movie, basically. Perfect timing. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And good taste by Nichols. That's what I like about your podcast. First of all, I didn't know there was another podcast that was out there discussing this stuff.

Yeah, it's an old Jew need. discussing this stuff. Yeah, it's an old Jew need. Have you heard Sinatra's cover of Mrs. Robinson, which is another thing we're very affectionate about on this show? If I have, it didn't stick with me. Oh, boy, it would stick with you. Okay, then no, I haven't. Because it's like, that's your homework.

Ring-a-ding-ding, Mrs. Robinson. You are a crazy cat. At one point, he says, Jilly. He throws in Jilly Rizzo, his bodyguard or his muscle guy. Oh, and he says. Jilly loves you more than you will know. How's your bird, Mrs. Robinson? Where have you gone, Mr. Marilyn Monroe?

I saw Paul Simon on a talk show, and he said he hated it at first and was going to stop them from doing it, somehow not give permission for this. I heard DiMaggio? No, Paul Simon hated. Paul Simon hated Sinatra's cover. Oh, okay. I also heard Paul Simon say that DiMaggio goes, hated it. Yeah, that's true, too. I'm right here.

Yeah, that's true, too. He didn't understand, what do you mean, where have I gone? I'm right here. Apparently, he said to him, I'm doing the Mr. Coffee commercial. Where have I gone? And I heard Mickey Mantle approach Paul Simon. Heard that too. Yeah.

And said, why didn't you use me in the song? Wow. Hello, this is the Deluxe Jazz. And we will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Collateral Podcast. Right after these. BetMove Activated. The ScoreBet app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking.

Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes. I want knee-jerk reactions. That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees? Or... The Scorebet. Trusted sports content. Seamless sports betting. Download today. 19 Plus.

Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexontario.ca. This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In season three, Carmi and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade, a Michelin star.

With Golden Globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White, Io Debrey, and Maddie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. Gilbert and Frank, what's your game now? Can anybody play? We now return to the Gilbert Gottfried Amazing Galactic Game Show!

God, please, that makes it. Go, let's get, get, get, get, get, get out. So tell us, because we have to touch on MST. The fans demand it. How did you go? You're doing stand-up. You're a teenager in clubs, in the Ha Ha Club. Well, I met Joel Hodgson right as i was starting stand-up he he was sort of coming back from his he had had the sort of self-imposed exile from stand-up where he had like come to los

angeles and he was kind of the it boy for a minute and it kind of overwhelmed him and scared him and so he went back to minnesota to be a bohemian for a couple years uh because he came out here very young and he you know came from a Christian college. And I think it was just a little too bright lights, big city for him at that moment. And so he was coming back, and this was after he had done Letterman a bunch of times. I remember seeing him on SNL. Yeah, doing his prop act. Yeah.

Agent J. I remember. And so I was a big fan of his as a kid and so when he came back i was very excited and then he decided he was going to teach this sort of creativity stand-up class which you know in hindsight he probably wasn't that that qualified to do at the time but but it was still a good chance to think about doing stand-up when I was just starting so um that's how I got to know him and then we became friends and uh we were part of a writing group that a bunch of local comics would have once a week where we just sort of dump our notebooks on each other and see if anyone had any tags and one day after the show he asked hey you know he was just like hey I'm doing

this thing tomorrow and uh with pupp and do you want to come help? It was kind of that simple. And Trace Bull, you and I each kind of grabbed a puppet, and it kind of grew from there. Initially, it was like, we're just going to do our version of a hosted movie like you'd see on any local TV station, except we're going to go into the movie with you, and we'll watch it and comment.

It wasn't really designed for wall-to-to-wall jokes but it was all improv so as we sort of started adding jokes you then started to feel the absence of jokes so we would add more jokes and then we just kind of kept building until it was critical mass you're you're what are you 17 18 at this point i was 17 at that time we did it it was at a local UHF station in Minneapolis and then we sold it to what was then Comedy Channel. I remember Comedy Channel, yeah. And who came up with the idea for

a talking gum machine? Well, it was actually a last-ditch change because he had initially given me this robot that had a fishbowl head and called it Beeper. And so for the first stuff we were doing, I was doing basically like R2-D2

beeps. I'm like, this is not going to be fun for me. Give me something with a mouth. And he found the gumball machine and then he goes, okay, come up with a character for this, essentially. And I came up with Tom Servo. And you thought of Servo as sort of a deep morning DJ.

Kind of morning DJ is kind of looking back. It's kind of, uh, we talked about, uh, WKRP. Yeah. It was,

it was sort of Herb Tarlick and it was sort of, uh, Howard Hessman's evil, uh, disco DJ riptide. It was sort of this womanizing version. I'm Tom Servo with a big Marty voice. And I talked like this and sort of you

know it was my you know 18 year old version of the smarmiest thing i could think of sort of and and on on the show you showed one of those movies i always like because i, but I love the monogram shit ones even more. Yeah. And you showed a movie I've been watching since I was little, The Mad Monster with George Zucco. Oh, that was one of our very first ones, yeah. Is that George Zucco? Yeah.

Yeah, and Lugosi? No, Lugosi's not in it. Oh, Lugosi's in the other one, The Corpse Vanishes. It's got Glenn Strange. Right, right. Yeah, and it's hard to watch bad, but still, you know, a great piece. And it's, you know, like so many of those things, you're glad you saw it, but it's hard to watch sometimes. And when I saw it, it's so funny.

watch sometimes and and when i saw it it's so funny that was a popular plot back then and they used it in one of the last jurassic park movies with vincent d'onofrio uh back in those movies to say, imagine an army of invincible monsters to fight all wars. And Vincent D'Onofrio does that in Jurassic Park. Not much has changed. Well, and Gregory Peck does it with the young Hitlers. Yes, he does.

A good callback. Doesn't Trace do a great Gregory Peck? Well, that was Dr. Forrester was based on his Gregory Peck impression. I knew that. When we came up with the mad scientist, you know, we each kind of had, you know, Trace's robot had a sort of high squeaky voice crow. So he went with the low Gregory Peck. Hello, Joel. And then I had that low voice for servo.

So I went with a voice like this. It's hello, Joel. And then I had that low voice for servo, so I went with a voice like this. It's funny, too, reading interviews with you guys, and you're saying that sometimes you would stop riffing because you would get sucked into the plot. Yes. How is that even possible? Well, I mean, on the original show, we didn't write it. When it was a local show, we just didn't write it.

The one in Minnesota. Yeah. We would pick the movie late on a Thursday afternoon and watch it for 10 minutes and go, that'll work. And then we'd come in Friday morning and we'd write the little host sketches in about an hour. And then we'd start shooting those. And then in the afternoon, we'd riff the movie improv and we'd online edit the show as we were shooting it. And so at 5 o'clock, a wrestling show came into the studio. We had to be out, and our show had to be wrapped and online simultaneously.

So it was a very quick turnaround. Did you do the Mad Scientist segments last, too? Were those rushed? They were always rushed. When we did it at the local show, everyone wanted to go to lunch. And when we did it on the national show, everyone wanted to go to lunch. And when we did it on the national show, everyone wanted to go home. It was always the last thing. On the comedy channel.

Anybody remember that? On the comedy channel. Higgins, Boys, and Gruber were on the comedy channel. Higgins, Boys, and Gruber and Tommy Sledge. I remember. Rachel Sweet. And which Lugosi movies did you show? I left the show early, so they probably

did, but Corpse Vanishes was one of them. I don't think they ever did get to Plan 9 on that show, but they all did it sort of after. Yeah. Crawling Eye was, I think, the first one that I remember on Comedy Central. I think that was

the first one. With Forrest Tucker. That was Forrest Tucker. Oh, yes, yes. I think that Ghost Vanishes. Corpse Vanishes. Corpse Vanishes is the one where you find out Lugosi keeps seeing his dead wife

walking around the grounds. And you find out and try to put some common sense into this, that the groundskeeper and his wife, to be nice, when Lugosi and his wife got in a car accident, they found out she was still alive. And out of sympathy to Lugosi, they kept her in the basement and didn't tell him anything about it. And you're going, oh, this is, you're being

sympathetic to a guy who just lost his wife by keeping a prisoner in the basement? Talk about fear of intimacy. Here's a couple others. I mean, I know you did this. What is this, 30 years ago now? It was 30 years ago. Black Scorpion, Planet of the. We love these. Here's a couple others. I mean, I know you did this. What is this? 30 years ago now. It was 30 years ago.

Black Scorpion, Planet of the Prehistoric Women. Any of these ring a bell? I've sort of, I think it was, I think Stuart Markkolin. You did Robot Monster too, I think.

We did do Robot Monster. That was the first of like the classic cheese, you know, golden turkey kind of movies that we did. Robot, Robot Monster. Yeah, which I have a fondness for.

It stars the actor George Nader. Yes. Now, George Nader. Oh, he's the one with the tab hunter thing? Yeah, with the Rock Hudson. The tabloids were threatening to

print a whole expose that Rock Hudson was gay, and they threatened the studio with it. And the studio said, if you keep quiet about that, we'll give you George Nader. Tragic. And yeah, they handed him George Nader, and that pretty much ended his career. Although Rock Hudson, when he died, most of his fortune went to George Nader. Probably felt guilty. I'm sure. They threw him under the float.

Yeah. That's why he's a riffer. You know, it's a fun, it's kind of a, we don't have to go over why you left the show. You left after one season, I guess. I did. If you want to, we can. Well, I think it's kind of sweet the way you guys circled back to each other all these years later.

You and Joel and Trace and Cinematic Titanic. I like the adultness of that a lot. Yeah, you got to go home again a little bit. I mean, I think I'll try to be as two-sided about it as I can. I think when we went to Comedy Central, they formed a company for the show and basically decided since I was a kid of, you know, I was probably 18 by the time they incorporated it or whatever, that they didn't need to make me a partner despite the fact that creatively i had very much been absolutely thought was you know and you can see it on tape because it was an all improv show you know you can see my contribution um so i so

they basically said yeah we don't need to make him a partner and then they sort of went this jim mallon who was in charge of, who was the production executive producer, basically decided that he thought I should even be more, I should be grateful for what I had. And he could treat me like an intern, despite the fact that I was like on camera for every moment of the show and a full-time writer. So they paid me less than everybody salary-wise too.

And that started, that mounted on me and I couldn't hide my hostility of that point. So by the end of the first season, it was a pretty mutual, like, time to go? Yep, time to go. Well, there's something admirable about that, that you're only 18, and yet you find a way to stand up for yourself, as opposed, a lot of people would have said, this is a ride, I'm not going to get off this. Yeah, and i think that's what they expected i would do but i you know but the weird thing was is i had been accepted so quickly as a peer in the stand-up community you know because i was a real joke writing working stand-up very quickly so that to me was much more you know i could go back to this and actually make more money as a stand-up than what they were paying they were paying me like

less than minimum wage ultimately to do mystery science theater you know i could go back to this and actually make more money as a standup than what they were paying. They were paying me like less than minimum wage ultimately to do mystery science theater. You know, um, I could go back to stand up, make more money, get way more respect and have a lot more fun and not have to go to an office every day,

which I felt like I sort of got tricked into doing. Right. Right. Anyway. So, um, you know, it worked out great ultimately.

And, you know, and traceable you was at that time was a very shut down guy, but since has grown a great deal and he and I have turned into really dear friends and Odson and I have made peace over the years. And then we all worked together again. Cause I thought it was, you know,

I thought it was clearly a rich creative partnership in that moment when we started this. Yeah. Well, that's what I mean as a nice ending. Yeah. I feel that's what I mean. It has a nice ending. Yeah. I feel good about the ending. You came back to do movies like oozing skull and Santa Claus conquers the

Martians. Yes. By the way, those cinematic Titanic's on DVD are fun. Thank you. Yeah. I'm, you know,

in some ways it's, you know, I'm proud of them, the mystery science theater, because they represent me as, as a fully grown comic person. Yeah, I mean, you could feel different chops all those years later, obviously. Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I just had a lot more control over what was going on within Cinematic Titanic because most of them wanted nothing to do with producing the shows and doing those things. And so I was sort of the default show runner of it. Yeah. Did you have any of my favorite Lon Chaney Jr. on mystery science fiction? Not when I was there, but I bet they did.

They must have at some point. There was like 200. We had conifon. We went through all those B movies in his book. Calling the B movies as being generous. Absolutely. Doomsday Machine with Casey Kasem. Yes.

To bring it back around again. Now, you worked with... That was an abandoned movie. That was a movie that got abandoned for years and they hired, I think, Corman to come in and tag on a really horrible ending just to make it. Yes. I know Wasp Woman, speaking of Corman,

we had Corman here by the way which was yeah if you if you haven't met him i met him uh oh you did i met him via cease and desist order once oh wow sorry i brought it up wow we were doing a show at the ford amphitheater in uh la one of our big shows in la. And we were going to do Wasp Woman. And this Ford Amphitheater is probably about 1,200 seater, like across the freeway from the Hollywood Bowl.

And it had been in the LA Times that these guys from MST are coming back and they're going to tear Wasp Woman a new asshole. You know, it was really that kind of an article. And Corman sent a cease and desist to the theater, to the county who owned the theater. No shit. I didn't know he was really that kind of an article and uh corman sent us cease and desist to the

theater to the county who owned the thing no shit i know he was litigious like that and uh so we just went okay well we'll do a different movie and so we just did a different movie and then when we called him up we were going to release wasp woman as a dvd and we called up and actually hodgson and i got on the phone with their lawyers for some reason because we were probably too cheap to hire our own. And they were like, well, you know,

Roger doesn't want to shut you down. He just wants his taste. And he was trying to explain since he had made Wasp Woman, Wasp Woman that we were using as public domain. But he, he was trying to explain how, because he had, he had remade Wasp Woman years later,

it was retroactively copywriting all those characters. And I'm like, so if I do Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's out of luck? And so we ended up settling for, we'll put a disclaimer on the front of our DVD, this isn't the 1985 Wasp Woman. So you're looking for a payday. Yes. Yeah.

We love to have those kind of characters on the show. We had Larry Cohen, too. Oh, really? He just passed. Another great character. He was hysterical. Larger than life. Yeah. Speaking of...

Corman doesn't seem hysterical. Corman? Yeah. Did he have a sense of humor? He was fun with us. I think he did. Yeah. Yeah.

You could tease him. He talked about lighting a movie scene. Oh, with the headlights. You could tease him. He talked about like lighting a movie scene. Oh, with the headlights. With the headlights, yeah. They said, well, you all have cars, don't you? Or that story about the terror. Is it the terror? The one that he only made because his tennis game got rained out?

Yes. He had the sets already built? And Boris Karloff owed him a day's work from a previous movie. So many things of his were just like, well, we got an extra day with this. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And then with those movies, they would see, like, if a studio had just finished an A Western or an A period piece, they'd go, oh, they still have the set there. Let's make something quick right that's why

uh demille buried his sets for the first sets for the ten commandments so no one would come along and make a new version oh yeah i think he did with intolerance too did he okay maybe i'm maybe that's what i'm thinking oh no i'm thinking no that's dw griffith but i think he did outside of outside of la he buried all his uh his first the first version of the LA, he buried all his first version of the Ten Commandments. He buried all his sets deep. And apparently, it was one of those nerd hunt things for a long time. This is from Conniff. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask this.

Because I emailed Frank to see if he had any good dirt on you. He said, ask him about celebrating, in quotes, with Goldie Hawn. You don't want to talk about it. I can cut it out. It sounds... I want it. I think it's... I mean, this was a night I did Ecstasy, but it wasn't with Goldie Hawn.

Oh. It was after Kurt and Goldie left, but I was working on a TV show up in, up in Vancouver with Michael DeBar as one of the cast members. And Goldie, Goldie's son, Oliver Hudson was in our cast. So Goldie and Kurt had brought their other son to Vancouver to talk to a hockey coach. So they were in town and we all had dinner at the showrunners,

a rented condo with Goldie and Kurt. And Kurt was everything you think Kurt would be. And Goldie was everything you'd hope Goldie would be. I have to say. She was a delight. She was engaging. And he was, you know, alpha dog. I would have peed on,

I would have slipped on my back and peed on myself if I had to. Goldie was such an alpha dog type dude. But it was fun. And then after they left another cast member gave me ecstasy and and uh i got super high but i think frank was conflating i see all right we'll take it we'll take him to task you know i remembered another story about someone destroying a set it may it was on this show it It may have been James Caron who told it that on Little House on the Prairie. Oh, well, that was Landon blowing up the set.

Yeah, he blew up the entire village. He wrote it into the last episode that the entire village is blown up. Right. Because there's a lot of big explosions on the prairie. Yeah. Blown up. Right.

Because there's a lot of big explosions on the prairie. Yeah. I want to ask you more random stuff from the podcast. Okay. But quickly, just tell us about the experience of working on Freaks and Geeks. Because we had Judd and Paul both here. Freaks and Geeks was great. And I think the reason I got there, my in to that was Paul Feig,

who was like the first person I met in Los Angeles when I moved here when I was 20. And I met him like literally on the first day. And I was like, and he was a big Mystery Science Theater fan. And I was like, oh, this LA is going to be great. Everyone's super nice. And they know who Mystery Science Theater is. And he was like the last guy in either category for a while. But he and I hung out together and we played in bands together. Both good Midwesterners, Michigan and Minnesota.

Yes, absolutely. And we'd go shoot pool and people would think he was Andy Dick at the time. And in fact, I hired him as a writer before he hired me as a writer. We did a pilot together called Fast Food Films. So it was Paul who brought me in for the Freaks and Geeks meeting, and then the other sort of rare thing was that I had just come off of America's Funniest Home Videos, where I had sort of been brought in to desagatize the show.

Desagatize the show desagatize and uh and so the only person in show business who ever watched it at any time was judd apatow who happened to be home on saturday nights because he had just had a baby so the only person who ever noticed my work on america's funniest home videos was judd who was sitting there going yeah it's amazing you aren't you know you aren't forcing anything, you're actually making real premises now. So he noticed. I love it.

And that got me under Freaks and Geeks, which was a great experience. The thing that stands out about the experience to me is just the vast amount of talent in the cast that you could feel even when they were very young. And just the good feeling throughout the entire production of everyone sort of trying to do their best work and being proud of it.

You don't always feel that in TV. No, certainly not. But everybody was trying to raise their game. Everyone was raising their game. And I think Judd's a tough boss too. He's a tough-to-please boss, so he keeps everyone's games high. But everyone was proud of the work they were doing.

And that was palpable in the air. It holds up so well. Gilbert and I both watched the show. We had Paul here, and we were talking about it. And it's a strange animal. People forget no cable shows at the time. Right. I mean, I guess there was HBO.

But there were still four networks at the time. And it's a strange show. It's not sentimentalized like The Wonder Years and it's not a soap like 90210. Much the chagrin of the network, it wasn't any of those things. An uncompromising look at high school

with a sadistic gym coach, your pal Gruber as the hippie guidance counselor. Yeah, a great cast that would later go on to big things. Yeah. And you could feel, I mean, Linda Cardellini is still probably my favorite actress to ever write for, just because she could always find things that even if you wrote it, you didn't know were there, you know. Yeah, and all hail Joe Flaherty.

Oh, God, to write a drunk scene for Joe Flaherty was one of the great thrills of my life. Yeah, and you were an SCTV guy. Oh, for sure. Coming into it. Yeah. And you worked with SCTV guy. Oh, for sure. Coming into it. Yeah. And you worked with Foster Brooks? No, he just loves Foster Brooks.

You just worked? I was hoping you worked He has a strange obsession with Foster Brooks. I just have a strange, bad, recurring impression that I do on the podcast. Well, my wife is from

just outside of Rochester. I don't think I ever heard anybody do Foster Brooks. See, that's why I chimed to it. I also love that you were talking about how he would sit down and do panel after he would do his set. He would sit down and do panel with Johnny and then be completely pretentious. He would be absolutely well John. The drunk character. People often think I'm intoxicated.

And he was another one of those people. I love talking about these people. Like we had on Oh, geez. Al You can call me Ray. We had Billy Saluga. Ray J. Johnson.

We had Billy Saluga on the show. So we had on Billy Saluga. This is obscure stuff, Josh. We had Al Martino. We had Al Martino? Oh, wait. That's the guy from The Godfather. Was he here?

I missed him. Who did we have? From The Godfather? No. Oh, Art Matrano. Art Matrano. Remember him? Art Matrano.

I sort of remember he had some weird, horrible accident where he fell off a roof. He did. He fell off a roof. Horrible. Yeah. And it's like, Foster Brook fits in with that category. Absolutely. Hey, I could do that.

Absolutely. For sure, you're right. You mean like one bit? Yeah. One bit that's that's that's last about three minutes,

but built an entire career on it. You say that about Nipsey, too. Oh, yeah. Although, I guess it was a new poem every time. Yes. But sort of one-hit wonder comics, if you will. Yes, absolutely. We called Saluga.

He was just thrilled that we knew who he was and that we, you know, these guys... He stopped at, you can call me? There you go. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this. That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history. Thornton Prince was a ladies' man. To get revenge, his girlfriend hid spices in his fried chicken.

He loved it so much, he opened Prince's Hot Chicken. Hot chicken in the window. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Spring is here, and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered. Sounds perfect. Wow. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details.

Here's another thing, and we'll get to the docs, but here's another thing that I loved hearing you guys talk about on Thought Spiral. Out of the blue, Mr. Jaws and Dickie Goodman comes up. Oh, man. Dickie, he somehow just followed me on twitter dickie goodman um it must be somebody using his name i think dickie's gone then yeah it must be the official dickie goodman yeah but no but there was they had done a new like a new trump current version of the ufo dickie goodman uh track recently so someone's used someone has either dickie's still alive or uh or someone is uh is using the brand

dickie goodman impersonator i remember that that mr jaws song oh god great when i was a little kid was i just i loved it and uh i used to try to like come up with my own you know i would try to come up with my own using current hits of the day and then uh dave gruber and alan and i would occasionally perform a live version of mr jaws where we'd do a fake interview and i would sing the snippets of the songs and it would have made me happy to see that live I would play the speaker essentially yeah novelty records I mean we're talking about

story songs being gone you know there's no such thing really as a novelty record anymore or Alan Sherman who produced those records that it used to be like oh the Flying Saucer

that's what he's talking about yes yeah that's it exactly yeah dickie goodman dickie goodman so he's the one who put those out the late dickie goodman that and mr jaws mr jaws was the one that really penetrated me but there was the flying ufo one yeah and uh what's albert brooks on a star is bought oh yeah did a parody of that kind of record where he would make up uh you know hey will you come back i'll be right back in a second just i'm gonna get a drink it was like it was like

these incredibly specific answers that he had produced himself i've been saying aside from weird al i mean does does novelty novelty records even exist as a thing? No. I can't I can't think of anybody doing that kind of thing. There's like Weezer

doing sort of pseudo-ironic covers. That's about all you can get to now. Yeah, I mean just Like they did Africa. That's sort of a novelty. Right.

And yet, you know. Well, comedy's changed so much. Well, I they did one that was It's quaint now to do something like that. Senator Dirksen. Sure, that was big. much. Well, they did one that was- It's quaint now to do something like that. Senator Dirksen. Sure, that was big.

Yeah. Yeah. And then I think of something like Ray Stevens and The Streak. Oh, yes. Sure. In the 70s. Well, Alan Sherman, when his came out, it was one of the biggest LPs of all time when it came out. My Son, the Folk Singer.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got to go back and listen to those. That was also the same era as von meter and and uh some huge comedy records yeah it's it's it's a bygone era i'm making my first comedy album next week tell us about it uh it's my stand-up act i've never this is i've made all these things and i've been a stand-up since i was 15, but I've never made any stand-up product that was me before.

So it's time. Congratulations. It's literally that. It's just like, I'm sick of this material and it's good. It's time to write some new stuff. So let's make an album. Gilbert's writing new stuff every week. I'm working on my Robert Mitchum bit.

Insolent Jew. Oh, no, that's fine Jew tell us about the docs and I asked some of our listeners to throw out questions for you and a guy named Jason Presley said please ask Josh seriously when will the Michael DeBar documentary get some kind of release

we are now literally months away now it has been I mean albatross is maybe too negative a word fantastic it has been it has been i mean albatross is maybe too negative a word but it has been this this long journey with this movie and uh most of it has been related to gathering up music rights for everything yeah because michael has such a long and varied career with lots and lots of record deals and publishing deals that had to be found and negotiated. And these people don't return calls.

So most of it's that. Some of it's I had to make other movies and other money and do other things. But most of the time, I've been waiting for some answer. And do you have a list of diseases that Pamela Tavares? Oh, my God. She seems like such a nice lady. She is. She comes off so well.

I'm not going down that road with you, Gilbert. I'm not doing it. She seems lovely. She is lovely. I'd like to get her for this show, actually, Gilbert. I think she's probably a great storyteller i'm sure and by the way what a great subject for a documentary he is he was great and he and it really was like because i had remembered him from krp as a kid and then i was the age where i cared that he was replacing robert palmer in the power station at Live Aid. So when I finally met him, I already had a curiosity about him.

And then I was working with him on a couple of shows, actually. In consecutive years, he guest starred one year, and then he was in the cast the second year replacing Johnny Rotten, which is true to his pattern in life of replacing rock stars. But I would see him. He'd be with the actors, and he'd be with like the acting the actors and he'd be telling them sydney poitier stories all right because he didn't just start with love as a as a teen right and then he'd be like with the crew guys telling him zeppelin

stories and you know and he was like so into moments with people and the thing that really sort of surprised me about him and sort of charmed me about him was then he would then go what about you and he would listen intently to people other people's stories so it wasn't just him holding court you know and I started to get interested in just like what is this brand of narcissism that he has you know because it's a very generous form of it you know um and he was really generous. Initially, we started to write a book together. And then, so I did a lot of interviews to kind of get the story. And then we kind of ran out of steam of wanting to write a book.

And so it kind of died for several years. And then we ran into each other as we were both guests on a radio show together. And I was like, why didn't we do a doc and he was like we should have and then within three weeks i was shooting good for you it's very well made thank you very much and he is just he's fun he's a fun guy to take that ride that journey with he sounds he was fun he sounds relatively normal he does he is you know it took but it took the whole journey for him to get there you know i think well he's a hedonist he's a hedonist and he's you know, it took, but it took the whole journey for him to get there. You know, I think. Well, he's a hedonist.

He's a hedonist and he's, you know, and, and he is a narcissist. Yes. You know, and he did have to get through, you know, the crippling parts of that in order to become, you know, a real boy, if you will. Yeah. He says it took him that long to be an adult. Right. yeah he says it took him that long to be an adult right to have to be I'm trying to remember the term he uses a good man a good boy or a man of

I can't even remember myself but it's I mean he's at points you're thinking he's like a spinal tap character come to life yeah no and I just I have a lot of respect for him for a lot of reasons you know his ability to tell the truth in this movie was one of the things I of respect for him for a lot of reasons. You know, his ability to tell the truth in this movie was one of the things I grew respect for him.

But it also, as you know, the thing I learned from it just for my own personal journey was just like, careers are long. You know, if you're lucky, careers are long and things ebb and flow and come and go. And, you know, if you're just, just you know if you're ready for the next thing that's the best thing you can do i just co-started a movie for the first time in my life um and it was just because it came to me you know because the the director was a fan of our podcast essentially great so so i feel like that it was so life-affirming just that I live a life that something like that can happen you know

yeah it is it is a strange thing about careers I mean and he's a guy it's almost like a rags to riches to rags story I mean

you know he's he's a rock star and then he's a gigolo to pay the bills yeah right

absolutely for a while right and I think he and I think he attacked both with the exact same energy And then he's a gigolo to pay the bills. Right. Absolutely. For a while. Right. And I think he attacked both with the exact same energy. Yeah. You also have to admire him. You get the impression he's a guy that just through force of will gave himself a career.

Absolutely. He forced celebrity to happen. Yeah, absolutely. But you get in a room with him and you feel the... There's certain people that make people feel like they're stars and he's one of those people. Yeah, and that's a talent. It is. I love when he says... I certainly don't have it. I live my

life in a frame. He's talking about himself inside, how he perceives himself inside of a screen. Inside of a movie screen. And the thing that was amazing about that is he he's sort of he's staring into the camera and he sort of points to each corner of the screen but he did not have a monitor for that shot so he nailed where the corners of the frame were amazing tell i didn't tell him what the shot was amazing that a guy who's born to an aristocratic family. Yes. The son of

a junkie aristocrat and a schizophrenic stripper. It's fascinating. I love what he was talking about opening bands as fluffers. Opening acts that you don't get to come. I have to recommend it. I hope you... It will be a 2019 release.

Fantastic. Because it really is worth seeing. And he's one of those guys where I wasn't sure. You know, because you might not know the name. Right. But then as soon as you see him, oh, it's the guy from MacGyver. Yeah.

And Melrose Place and Roseanne. I remember that episode of... I never used to watch WKRP in Cincinnati. Really? But that one still... I remember that episode of, I never used to watch WKRP in Cincinnati. Really? But that one still. I remember that episode. And he's a good actor. He's a good, versatile actor.

Absolutely. He's totally convincing in comedy parts and bad guys. That is the one thing, the niche that he found was, and I've've auditioned real and i don't mean to demean him by saying real rock stars but uh i've i've auditioned non-acting rock stars before and they don't know what's funny about them you know michael totally knows what's ridiculous about rock stars and has the ego to both play it fully and wink at it simultaneously. Yeah. Yeah.

He's almost like a Malcolm McDowell type in some of those roles that he takes. Yeah, for sure. He can play tough. Camp villain. Yeah. Yeah. Here's another random thing from the podcast, and I didn't get to listen to this episode,

but Gilbert will like this. What's Old Jew medical corner? I think it's not an official segment. It's just when I feel like that's where we're headed. It's where our podcast degenerates into occasionally. And why do you hate Halloween?

Because costume play, adults in costumes make me very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Gilbert, how do you feel about that? Well, I like it because you get to see so many girls practically naked. Right. But when it's Sheila from accounting, it's uncomfortable for everybody. It's like, I didn't know you worked here and now you're dressed up as Poison Ivy.

What are you? It's like such a scream for attention. And it's really uncomfortable. And then there's the obvious, I don't like kids coming to my house asking me for food. Oh, exactly. exactly yeah that one of course i love i was a fat kid so i absolutely loved it it's the only time i remember having a work ethic as a child is on halloween but uh as i grew out of it speaking of childhood and i just wrote these random things down i remember on halloween to show what a snorer I was, my parents got me this cheap pirate mask.

And I went trick-or-treating all through the neighborhood. Every building, you went through each apartment. Got loads of candy, brought it home. And at home, I found I had a Zorro mask. So I put that on and hit the same apartments. Very nice. I think you've admitted that on the show before, but it's...

You don't have the guts to say it a second time. I was... Having watched your doc, I wonder why you don't give out soap and shampoo. Oh, I should. Oh, yeah, he can't part with it. Well, but he'd have to buy candy if it saves him candy money. Yes.

Yeah. But the doc is called Gilbert. Never. You're trained. Yeah. Never miss an opportunity for a plug. Was Bob Dylan's mom at your bar mitzvah? Yes.

Holy fuck. She and my grandma grew up together. I love it. Iron Range of Minnesota. My father tutored Bob Dylan. They were fraternity pledge brothers. Oh, I missed that one. At Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity in Minnesota.

The one year he went to University of Minnesota. His friends have told me that he tutored him in English. I love that. Now, there's a rumor that he tutored him in English. I love that. Now, there's a rumor that Bob Dylan has a big dick. I can neither confirm nor deny. How about Guy Marks, the comedian? Same thing. We'll jump around here.

I want to talk about, too, too the other doc which i watched last night and i referenced before i need you to kill uh about stand-up comedy in asia yeah that was an interesting uh trip and it was funny because i had gone to japan with for the day bar thing because his uh what i thought was going to be the third act of my movie this reunion of his his glam band uh silverhead yeah didn't turn out to be. It turned out to be passive-aggressive old British guys who were still a little mad at each other. I see. It didn't seem quite with the learning

experience detour that I wanted to take. But it did make me feel like, hey, I know how to take a crew to Japan and shoot a doc. When Louis Lee, who owns Acme Comedy Club in Minneapolis, said, hey, I'm doing this tour. I know you make docs.

I'm thinking of doing a doc about it. I said, well, okay, cool. And he was thinking of getting some investors for it. And so I said, you know, I just made a doc. You should watch it before you offer me this opportunity. And so he watched it. He loved the Debar Doc so much that he said, you know what? I'm not going to get investors.

I'm going to pay for this because investors will tell you what movie to make. Sure. I don't want anyone telling you what movie to make. You do whatever you want. He's a real hero. I mean, you know, comedy club owners have a certain reputation, and Lewis comes off so well. He really cares about the art and cares about his customers

and cares about the performers. He really, really does. I have a great deal. I mean, he's a friend of mine, and obviously I portrayed him lovingly, but I wasn't hiding anything. Do you know this club, Gil? The Acme Comedy Club in Minnesota. Where is it? In Minneapolis?

Minneapolis, yeah. Have you played this club? I don't know. I lose track of all of them. Nice room. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great room.

How is Hong Kong? I mean, how did you feel about it personally i mean singapore comes off a little scary too it's a little scary but it's also like sort of um disappointingly unexotic singapore yeah yeah it sort of feels like san diego uh in a lot of ways interesting yeah in the movies singapore is like you know it the weirdest sex and murderers and everything right no it's it's like it's very clean and uh it's it's it's incredibly unseedy now wow they run a tight ship but hong kong now we're talking a city. Hong Kong is a great city. Hong Kong is like a Fifth Avenue and Chinatown are all one thing. It's this mix of money and enough Western influence so that you don't totally feel like an outsider

like you do in Tokyo, but it's still clearly a Chinese city and the food is great and the people are nice and it's still clearly a Chinese city and the food is great and the people are nice and it's a great city. Gilbert, I'd like to see you do stand-up in China. Oh, yeah. I really would.

They would love my John MacGyver imitation. You know John MacGyver, the actor John MacGyver? I don't. No, I know the name but I couldn't go. That's John MacGyver. Did you see Larry Charles' Netflix series, by the way? You guys are...

I have not seen it yet, no. It's interesting because from that and from watching your doc, I start to get the impression that stand-up is kind of the same all over the world. Yeah, well, especially now because everyone's learning from YouTube, you know. He goes to Liberia and Iraq and crazy places. Yeah, he was going to these dangerous Middle Eastern places, and they'd have the brick wall that they do stand on. Right.

Right. That's the universal. I got the sense, too. Who was the comic? Was it Chad? The guy that was a little edgy for the room in Singapore? Yeah. That was interesting.

Yeah. I mean, he's doing suicide jokes and jokes about not saving his child from a falling piano. Yeah, no, he was dark. And they aren't dark people in Singapore. They're very cheerful people. So it was a little more of a standoff there for him. But that was, you know, there's a lot of audiences for whom Chad's a standoff, but he's incredibly funny.

Very funny guys you chose. Yeah, Lewis actually chose them. I just filmed them. But he chose a good variety. Can I fire some questions from fans at you, Josh, before we let you out of here? Please. I assume they're fans of Gilbert, not mine.

No, yours too. Kyle Grubbs, a friend of our podcast, says, will Josh ever put any episodes of drive-thru cinema on YouTube? He mentioned to me in an email, see, you know him, that he had them all on a tape in a closet.

It was Fast Food Films is the name of that show. Fast Food Films. He's not a big enough fan to know the name of the show. And I only worked on the pilot. I only did, I created the show. I got Paul Feig and Trace Ballew, and we sat in a room with an avid machine at the time

and made the pilot. But I didn't participate in the series. I just had it created by executive producer. Okay. Here's a it created by executive producer. Okay. Here's a good one. Mark Arnold. Please ask Josh about the later with Greg Kinnear donkey incident. All right.

Now we're talking. I just woke up. The Greg Kinnear donkey incident. I had written this cold open for the show. Just a very quick joke. You see Greg Kinnear in the hall outside his dressing room with the director going, Morris, they're back again. Please, can we just call the exterminator and get rid of them?

And then he walks into the room and there's two miniature donkeys walking around in his dressing room. So, you know, it's a small joke. I feel. That's good. You could have given me something. But so we did one take of that. And if he take, we do a second take.

Greg walks into the room and one of the donkeys is spraying diarrhea around the room like a fire hose and rotating as he does it. So it's going, it's like a sprinkler, you know. And you see Greg's face as he recognizes what's happening and the terror that hits his face and his escape from the room just right past camera beautifully. That's fantastic. And we ended up showing it on the show. We ended up, he was like, we showed the cold open that we got. And he goes, well, here's what happened the second take.

And the guys at NBC got sort of mad at me, but Leno had been watching it on his set all day. Show me the donkey again. You know. That kind of got me out of trouble for putting it on the air. But it's one of those things where if I think of it,

I can break down crying. I laughed for three days solid. Oh, yeah, that's a great one. Because there were hazmat suits when they were cleaning it up. It was just such a perfect fire hose of diarrhea, frankly. Here's another one. Joe Keaton says, I think he's pandering to Gilbert here, was Tom Servo anything like

Herve Villachez off camera? I think he fancied himself Herve Villachez off camera. Absolutely. Because Gilbert is kind of taken with the fact that Herve Villachez was jealous of all the pussy

that Tom Selleck was getting. Really? That was the object of his jealousy? Why that Tom Selleck was getting. Really? That was the object of his jealousy? Apparently. Why does Tom Selleck get so much pussy and I don't? Oh, my God. He gets more money and more pussy than I do. By the way,

by the way, Kindler on the show, especially when he's tired, he sounds a little bit like Larry Fine. Have you noticed that? Yes, I have. Yes.

I just want to throw that out there. Here's one. I just, Stephen Craig, I just want to, or Croggy, I just want to hear Gilbert and Josh talk about the creeping terror. Oh, boy.

That's that one that looked like a giant carpet. That's the one of the students under the carpet? You know, it's 30 years, and I did not go back. I did not go back. How about Art Wheeler? He says, will Josh come to my house and watch Manos, the Hand of Fate with me? No, because I've sworn to, I've never seen it. I will never watch it.

It is the ultimate here, smell this to me, is that movie. I know it's horrible. I know there's no redeeming quality aside from the fact that it exists, and I'm never watching it. Okay. You did Desert Island Discs on the show with Andy. So quickly, I'm going to put you two on the spot. Three Desert Island movies for each of you.

Josh, you go first. Harold and Maude, The Graduate, and Stop Making Sense. Wow. No, no, wait. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Broadcast News has to go in. I love Broadcast News. You've seen. I'm sorry. Broadcast news has to go in. I love broadcast news.

You've seen the Criterion? Broadcast news. The Criterion. I did not, no. Huh? I didn't. I will. It's great.

It's the movie that, if I could take any movie in history and say I made that, it would be that movie. It's a wonderful movie and why don't people talk about it more? I don't know. And timelier than ever.

Yeah, it still holds up. Style over substance. Guilt, pick three. Just to fuck over Mr. Weinstein, I would have the swimmer showing 24 hours a day every

part of the island I was on. But not boys from Brazil? Well, I'd have a special weekend for boys from Brazil. You also, you and Andy... Why is that man walking around in a swimsuit? Why is he

circling the island constantly in a swimsuit? Put something on. I love how Kindler dozes off in the middle of every movie that you make him watch. Absolutely. He only has partial wreck.

Yeah. I didn't really get through this one. I fell asleep four times. You're also not a big fan of The Nutty Professor. You know what? I really am not at all. No.

Fuck you! I know. Fuck you, you Jew piece of shit. As he said that, I knew this is not going to be popular. See, this is why the world hates the Jews. This is not going to be a popular opinion here on the Gilbert Garden Radio. Gilbert just likes him because he was always nice to Gilbert personally. Good.

I hope that's good. nice to Gilbert personally. Good. I hope that's good. You're the one. Yes. Let's get some plugs in here. The documentary is coming out. It's coming out. Michael Debar, I Need You to Kill will come out this year.

Michael Debar, Who Do You Want Me to Be, rather, is coming out this year. Yep, yep, yep. I Need You to Kill is on Amazon Prime. Yes, I Need You to Kill, also very funny. Should we plug the Cinematic Titanic on Shout Factory, since you work so hard on them? Sure, Cinematic Titanic DVDs are, there's like 12 movies, and it's like really cheap. It's worth getting.

There's a shit ton of jokes there. Right. Thought Spiral Podcast, of course. Yes, Thought Spiral, very funny. And for people who like the kind of crazy shit that we talk about, it's the only podcast I've ever listened to where they're talking about Foster Brooks and Mr. Jaws.

Well, as a fellow comics comic wrangler like yourself, I can relate. I knew we had something in common. And what's the horse movie? The horse movie is called The Fiddling Horse, and it should be out, it looks like, at the end of the summer. And you'll be teaching comedy to Asian models in Cosby's place? Absolutely.

Someone needs to pick up the good work that he's doing. Hey, Wing Chang, you want to say the same? You pull up your pants before you tell the dick joke. All right, we're going to end on a little experiment, Josh. Okay. You don't know this actor by name, but you're going to know him and recognize him as soon as you hear Gilbert's impression.

So close your eyes. Okay. This is John MacGyver. See if you can place him. Everything must be run according to schedule. We will have no slackers in this organization. Yes, I can picture a face. I hope it a face.

I hope it's right. Let's just say it is. Chubby bald guy? Midnight cowboy? Okay, yes. Yeah. You got a strong back, Don't make me do it. Don't make me do it.

You're going to need it. Look him up. He's in everything. Okay, but please one more time. Hey, Herve, I hear Tom Selleck is like cleaning up with the pussy. I don't know why Tom Selleck gets all the pussy and I don't.

I can't believe it's just because he's the most handsome man in the world and he's six foot five and I'm an inch tall and look like a troll, that I don't get the pussy that Tom Selleck gets. Josh, have you heard Hervé Villach's incentive a woman? No, I'd like to hear it. Hey-oh! Hey-oh! Your name is Daphne.

I could tell because I hear the southern accent. And I smell the perfume. Thanks for doing this, man. Thank you so much for having me. We got to thank our mutual friend Fanny Cohen for doing this, man. Thank you so much for having me. We got to thank our mutual friend, Fanny Cohen, for suggesting this and setting us up. I think we were a good marriage. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Thank you.

Thanks, Josh. So this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. co-host Frank Santopadre. And our guests tonight didn't like the nutty professor of the swimmer, so to him, J. Elvis

Weinstein, go fuck yourself. That's my new ringtone. Thanks, Josh. Thank you. It was awesome. Thanks. Pleasure.

There was a guy named Joe. Not too different from you or me. He worked at Gizmonic Institute. Just another face in a red jumpsuit. He did a good job cleaning up the place But his boss didn't like him so they shot him into space We'll send the cheesy movies The worst we can find

He'll have to sit and watch them all And the monitor is mine Now keep in mind, Joe can't control Where the movies begin or end Because he used those special parts To make his robot friends Robot rules called Cabot Chipsy

Tom Servo K Krook! If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts Then repeat to yourself, it's just a show I should read Just relax, for Mystery Science Theater 3000 That's the Earthy Thousand. and social medias handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to John Fodiatis, John Murray, and Paul Rayburn.