Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 262. Ron Friedman Returns

Episode Date: June 3, 2019

By popular demand, legendary television writer Ron Friedman ("The Odd Couple," "The Andy Griffith Show," "All in the Family," "Barney Miller") returns to discuss the structure of storytelling, the importance of escapism and the inspirations for Captain Marvel and the Sub-Mariner and to regale Gilbert and Frank with all-new stories about Lucille Ball, Lenny Bruce, Tony Randall, Danny Thomas and (of course) Pat McCormick. Also, Jack Benny takes a stand, Carol Wayne dodges a bullet, John Huston tangles with Errol Flynn and Ron remembers his friend, the late, great Stan Lee. PLUS: Stump and Stumpy! Herve Villechaize's doppelgänger! Marilyn Monroe converts! Buster Crabbe teams with Chuck McCann! And Ron kills off a beloved fictional character!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Sunday, Monday, happy days. Tuesday, Monday, happy days. Tuesday, Wednesday, happy days. Thursday, Friday, happy days. If you want to have a happy day, and you want to have a good time, tune in to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. This is Charles Fox.

I just had a great time with these guys. hi this is gilbert godfrey and this is gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast This is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and our engineer Frank Furtarosa. Our guest this week is back for a return visit by popular demand. He's a screenwriter and one of the most prolific television writers in the history of the medium, scripting over 700 hours of television. His list of credits, which he insists is only a partial list, is staggering. My Favorite Martian, Get Smart, Bewitched, Gilligan's Island, The Andy Griffith Show, The Odd Couple, All in the Family, Barney Miller, Happy Days, Love American Style, Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman, Fantasy Island, and Starsky and Hutch, just to name a handful. He's also written specials for stars like Dick Van Dyke, Lucille Ball, and Danny Thomas.

He's also written specials for the big and small screen, including Marathon, starring Bob Newhart, Record City, starring former podcast guests Ed Begley Jr. and Larry Storch. And, of course, Murder Can Hurt You, featuring former guests John Beiner and Jamie Farr, who played Starsky and Hutch. Correct. In addition, he's written and produced dozens of hours of TV animation, including Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, and G.I. Joe. He penned the very first Transformers feature film back in 1986. In a six-decade career he's written for, worked alongside, and palled around with some of

the most memorable showbiz personalities. Where'd she get prolific? Well, you'd be surprised the stuff that Jonathan Winters, the books he's written. It's true. The novels. Who are those names? The collection of contemporary fiction by Jonathan Winters and Danny K. Oh, where was I? Danny K,

Bob Hope, Fred Astaire, Sammy Davis Jr., Zero Mostel, Jonathan Winters, Orson Welles, and of course, the guy even met Marilyn Monroe, Walt Disney, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Marilyn Monroe was a converted Jew.

Well, we'll hear about that in a minute. His new memoir is called I Killed Optimus Prime. called I Killed Optimus Prime. How one man single-handedly destroyed the world's most iconic Transformer and lived to tell a tale. Please welcome back a master storyteller and the world's funniest former architect and a man who could finally tell the Pat McCormick Carol Wayne

story that we didn't get to the last time he was here. Our friend Ron Friedman. I don't know what to say except Gingatch Cook is going to be pissed off you didn't include him. Who?

You didn't read The Last of? Gingachgook. You didn't read The Last of the Mohicans? We were very close. I helped the British fuck him out of California and Nevada. Welcome back, Ron. I'm thrilled to be here, particularly when I realized that the only other person asked back twice was Eleanor Roosevelt. That's right.

We had Sacco and Van Zandt. Yes, favorites of mine. Absolutely. Now, because this will be picking away at my head the whole time, tell us about always ready for a Pat McCormick story. Yeah, we ran short of time last time. You were going to tell the Sheik story, yes? Yes, yes.

We'll open with that. It's a good icebreaker. As I heard it, and Pat was reluctant to reveal the story. He always changed it when he told it. But he took a round-the-world tour with Carol Wayne, whom Johnny Carson used to feature as the weather lady on many of his episodes. Sure. And Pat is traveling with her, and they're in one of the Emirate states.

I think it was Saudi Arabia, ever popular if you're into beheadings. And he's in one of the lounges with Carol, and a distinguished guy who had just gotten off his camel came over and said i represent and he named the particular amir who i think used to play third base for cincinnati and he said he loves her he wants her what's the price so pat is ever eager to make a deal and make a friend in an unusual nation. And he gave a price, something like 400,000 camels, you know, 12 racehorses, a speedo plane. You know, it just went on and on.

And the guy's nodding and making notes. And I said, didn't that disturb you, Pat? He says, no. He said, I thought he had trouble with English. So he was just checking a dictionary. Anyway, Pat has a big laugh. And the guy comes back. And he comes back and he says, my master has agreed to the terms.

To buy Carol Wayne. Yes, to buy Carol Wayne. But he can't get the livestock here this afternoon. That's going to take some time. So would you be willing to take money in lieu of the camels and the thoroughbreds? And Pat said, of course. I mean, why make an enemy? Anyway, the guy said, good, we have a deal.

Hand her over. And Carol Wayne at this point said something in the nature of, what the fuck are you talking about? I'm not going away with this guy. You can shove your animals up your ass. I'm not leaving. The guy meant it, and he said, but we have a deal. I've spoken to your handler or your trainer, whatever he thought Pat was.

We have a deal. They had to call the American ambassador to come over, and they send over somebody to argue the case. Unreal. Oh, geez. They missed their flight. Wow. Love Pat McCormick stories.

We can't get enough. Nope. He was wonderful to work with, but he's a guy that could embarrass a toilet seat. Yes. By the way, did anybody ever mention his hobby of drop-kicking old ladies? No, you didn't mention that. You mentioned that he used to keep rolls of coins in his pocket.

Oh, yeah, so he could drop his pants immediately. Yeah. But he had a hobby of like running up to a short woman and pretending to kick her in the head. And this guy... My God.

I mean, everybody needs a hobby. Yeah. So we're standing in London at Marble Arch and there's a charwoman there with two leather bags and Pat runs up to her and then lifts that right leg like he's going to kick her in the head and holds the leg up in the air,

the foot in the air right near her face. And she says, Harold, help me. And a guy that looked like a Coke machine in a leather jacket comes out of a doorway and says, what are you doing to me, Mom? Pat said, I'm an ugly American, and here's 200 pounds. That was it. He bought the guy off.

Yes. Fantastic. He did this frequently, though, which again was embarrassing. Yeah. That was when you were in London doing the Lucy special? Exactly right. Wow. Now, how old was Lucy when you were doing this special?

141. Gilbert's obsessed with her last attempt at primetime, Ron, which was Life with Lucy, where she pulled Dale Gordon out of mothballs. Do you remember this? In the 90s? A nightmare. It's in the Smithsonian. But she liked you.

Yes, you got on with Lucy. I liked her. I thought she was great. I don't know if I told you about the time I'm sitting in her house and the doorbell rings and she says Cleo, see who that is? That was, she called her sister. She was really her cousin or something. Cleo

comes back and she says, you're not going to believe this. Lucy said, what is it? She said, it's a tour group. A woman knows this is your house and asked if she could use the toilet. Lucy said, tell her to go fuck herself. This isn't a union station.

You regaled us with the wonderful Desi Arnaz-Orson Welles story last time. Oh, yeah. Orson, go ahead. No, no, it just, every time I think about it, I think Orson was lucky that Desi didn't shoot him.

Yeah, to refresh everybody's memory, Ron did a show with us back in October, and that was the story about Desi pulling a piece on Orson because he hadn't delivered material that he'd been compensated for. Yeah, that was it. Yeah, but he finally turned it in, which I read in the new book. Yes. He actually, he finally delivered. Absolutely. He sent a script in by limo from the desert, which is where Lucy and Desi put him.

They put him up in her house in Palm Springs. And he sent the script back, I think it was in four or six days, by limo. And it was brilliant. Absolutely. And they shot it. It was sensational, of course. And then Desi said, what's next, Orson? Orson says, oh, I need to get some relaxation.

I don't have anything. And Lucy had to wrestle Desi for the gun. Wow. Wow. But you liked him, too. You liked Orson Welles. Yeah, I did. How do you not like a legend?

How do you not like a mountain? I mean, you know, the cheeks of his ass had two different zip codes. You had to admire him. Did you write his last role? Yes. Unicron, that was the character.

Now, did Johnny Carson fuck Carol Wayne? I believe you need to go to Yeshiva and talk to the rabbi in charge of star-stuffing. How are his segues, Ron? Give him some credit for a smooth segue, at the very least. It was. It was. Speaking of Boulder Dam,

just keep moving. That's the answer. Now, Frank and I were talking about, well, surprise to both of us that you're a Jew. Because you don't find comedy writers who are Jews. We know they're all Norwegian.

It's those vast spaces and the temperature that brings out the humor. What are we having for dinner, Lars? We're having you. The moose died. So you were being bullied as a kid. One of the touching things in the book is the story of you and your brother growing up in what West Virginia

yeah Wharton West Virginia West Virginia and kind of escaping into the character comic books of the day

the radio absolutely characters of the day and we needed to escape and of course this Wharton West Virginia was described as

if you give Pennsylvania an enema you put the bone in Wharton because West Virginia was described as if you give Pennsylvania an enema, you put the bone in Wharton. It's in the panhandle of the state. And if you look at a map, you'll say this is apt. This is correct. Anyway, all the steel workers were, of course, Eastern Europeans. And they had these fine traditions of killing Jews.

And they didn't want to leave them at the dock when they came to America, so they were alive and well in Wharton. The big Catholic church was Our Lady of the Spanish Inquisition, which might have given you a clue as to the way things worked. Anyway, the elementary school there did not open in a timely fashion because they were remodeling it and there was a fire. did not open in a timely fashion because they were remodeling it and there was a fire. So the Catholic school offered to take those from the public school in. So we had to talk to the rabbi first. And he says, you will observe as they observe.

You will do what they do, except when it comes time to speak the name of their God, you will instead insert the word mha. So when Jesus mentioned it was mha. And it was okay until we're singing Christmas carols and we're singing Christ is born in Bethlehem. No, no, it's mha is born in Bethlehem. And the nun who was walking up and down the aisles

with sodality sticks taped together with bicycle tape and would hit you on the knuckles. So I'm singing and I go, I was born in Bethlehem. She whacks me on the knuckles and I said, Jesus Christ. She said, sing it, Jew boy. It affected

my life. I would imagine. Absolutely. That was an escape. All these fantasy characters oh you bet your ass it was and it was welcome it was wonderful and when i saw who wrote superman schuster and i forget the other guys seagull seagull seagull i thought they understand you need a superman and it's very gilbert and i were making that that comparison because reading about it in your book you you got you disappeared in a similar way i mean you feared the same things absolutely you you needed a hero i did desperately and it's odd uh i was doing a convention for transformers

because i wrote the movie the transformers the movie And so many people came up to me and told this kind of story. A guy with tears in his eyes who was a grandfather, because there are three generations of people there that love Transformers, said, when I was seven years old, my father was a drunk and he abandoned the family. I needed a father and I picked Optimus Prime in the Transformers. And that's how I got through my childhood. Wow. And oddly enough, my father died when I was 11, and I was looking for a father figure.

And somebody told me I looked like an Army football player named Doc Blanchard. So schmuck that I was, I cut a picture of Doc Blanchard out of the newspaper, and I put it in my wallet. And I would consult Doc when I needed father. But he was no good at Purim, he didn't know from Shabbos he was, you know. I had to finally ditch him. There's something sweet about that, Ron. And like the ones that wrote Superman and what I noticed, in Jewish names, there's El at the end. El?

El. Oh, you mean, he's saying like Superman is Kal-El and Jor-El was the father. As in Bissell and Schlissell. Yeah, yes. As in Temple Beth-El? Is that where you're going with it? Yeah, yeah. There's names like in the Talmud. It's interesting.

I bet that's right. Yeah, that end in L. Yeah, I know the mohel who had to circumcise Superman could never make it. Yeah. The blades kept, you know, give me a diamond tip, let me try that. Because I think L might be God or something.

Not that I know of, Gilbert. But good luck with that. I'm sure they'll build a temple for you. Did Johnny Carson fuck Caroline? Is this a runner? The research is unclear. But I heard there were skid marks on the sheet. Tell us about those characters.

We're talking about early days of comic books. Oh, yeah, absolutely. First Captain Marvel. First Captain Marvel. Who you thought looked like Fred McMurray, which I found was interesting. No, it was absolutely intentional that Captain Marvel was made to look... Is that true? Absolutely.

Wow. Sure. Because people love movie stars, and of course, you're not going to hire Fred McMurray to show up and be painted in various colors. But if you use Fred McMurray's face, everybody looks and says, you know, I like Captain Marvel. I don't know why, you know, but he... And Fred Astaire... I never knew that. And Fred Astaire, of course, was Prince Namor, the Submariner. Was that intentional on Bill Everett's part to make him look like Fred Astaire? Yeah.

You know, Fred McMurray had this great deal when he did My Three Sons. You bet. Yeah. He didn't want to be there all the time because he was a movie star so they would film all of his scenes separately like they film like a year's worth in a day i heard he was the cheapest man in hollywood fred mcmurray no there's a big list there are many ahead of him you Until Gilbert came along. You told Fred Astaire when you worked with him

that you thought he resembled the Submariner and this was news to him? No, I told him you were the Submariner and he says, what the hell is that? And I gave him the comic book and he looked at it and he got a big kick out of that. Wow.

And he said, don't show mom. I said, why not? Because she thinks comic books are cheap. So I never showed his mother. Now, Ron, who are the most famous anti-Semites in Hollywood? You want it alphabetically or by heart? Yes. Start with Eugene Paulette and work your Ward Bond.

Ward Bond was famously so, as was Adolph Monju. Adolph Monju. And I heard that, let me think, John Wayne was supposedly anti-Semitic. He was certainly not fond of black people. But he sort of reformed at the end. And that's when I met him, when he was toward the end of his life. and that's when I met him when he was toward the end of his life and he seemed far different

from the right wing zealot that he had been during the blacklist years. But you never know. I mean, there were a lot of secret antisemites when they would use code words for Jews like motherfuckers and... Yeah. Gilbert, who's on your list?

I love New Yorkers. Was always a famous code for Jews. It was, exactly. But yeah, Eugene Paulette hated both blacks and Jews. That's what they say. What about Walter Brennan? Walter Brennan, too, yes. Another famous.

Yes. And, oh, Errol Flynn. Yes, but John Huston beat the crap out of him because John Huston didn't like people who were anti-Semitic or anti-black. John Huston was like a liberal bastion. Oh. And had a famous Hollywood party when Flynn was drunk and going on and on about the Jews. Huston took him outside and Flynn was prepared to beat the crap out of him and Houston beat the

crap out of Flynn. Wow. That's good stuff. That's a great story. I was thrilled when I heard that. So all this stuff, Ron, that you're exposed to as a kid and your book sort of tells Did John Houston fuck Carol Wayne? Now cut that out!

Wait a minute. Let's go back a bit in history. Benjamin Franklin. They dated, but it never went anywhere. Because he was always out in the yard with that fucking kite. By the way, what you told me on the phone about Astaire was interesting, that you asked him who he thought the best dancer was apart from himself, and he gave you a surprise answer. Well, his set answer was, you know, you can't pick who's the champion dancer,

like who's the greatest baseball player, because there are a lot of great dancers. And, you know, Bobby Vann was a great dancer, and Gene Kelly. But finally one day he said, fuck Gene Kelly. I love that. Yeah, because he knew me well enough so he didn't have to go through the ritual of being accepting of everybody. That's fantastic. Remind me, Zero Mostel used to do something about opera singers

when he was Senior Mostelli and he had a guy Phil Leeds who was an actor a blacklisted friend I remember Phil Leeds oh yeah

he'd say interview me I'm Senior Mostelli so he would say please Senior Mostelli what do you think about the following opera singers

Ferruccio Tagliavini a pig he says Yossi Mer, a pig. He says, Yossi Berling, a pig. He said, Robert Merrill, baritone. Yeah. Phil Leeds.

A little opera background. And his last day was Days Wars on Ally McBeal. Who was? Phil Leeds. Oh, Phil Leeds. Yeah, we know Phil Leeds. I think he played Hank Kingsley's agent on the Larry Sanders show.

He did, that's right. And he was famous during the blacklist. He's being interviewed in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Senator McCarran said, all right, Mr. Leeds, you keep denying your affiliation with fellow travelers, but if it walks like a duck and it quacks like. But if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and it looks like a duck and Phil says, I'll stop you right there.

I'm not a duck. I'm a swan. That's fantastic. They held him in contempt for that. Damn. I'm going to keep trying to talk about the book, Ron. Please do. As Gilbert interrupts me to ask you about Carol Wayne and who your favorite anti-Semites are.

Did anti-Semites fuck Carol Wayne? Certainly. What about David Wayne? Did the American Nazi Party ever fuck Carol? It's going to be one of those shows. I'm sure they tried. But you weren't just reading comic books. You were reading pulps.

You were reading comic strips. Absolutely. I'm trying to figure out if this is sort of your first step toward becoming a writer and a storyteller. It really was because I was so thrilled to be able to escape the confines of Wharton, West Virginia and the prospect of being bombarded in the winter with snowballs that had been turned to ice and inside of each snowball was a piece of jagged mill slag. Oh, Jesus. So that when the snowball hit you, it exploded and the piece of sharp slag would cut whatever you had on if it didn't cut you.

Oh, geez. This was one of the Christmas specials that my brother and I always ran from. But I should tell you this. My mother was a fanatic about medicine. She loved doctors, and so she always schlepped my brother and me to doctors and she invented problems that we didn't have so she okay so i remember never forget this when i'm like six and my brother no it was five and my brother's three and she takes us to a gland specialist and he strips us and stands us on his desk. And he looks very solemn and he says to my mother, their testicles have not descended.

And then I realized, you're five, you're six, you're supposed to stand up and bang, a testicle hits the stem and bang, the other testicle hits. And then you know you're okay. Gilbert, on the subject of this, how did you avoid beatings and bullying growing up? Because I'm so cool.

I thought it was the wardrobe that got them. The plaid shirts, that's it. He grew up in Coney Island. I mean, it was a different mix. It was. Yeah, Coney Island. I mean, it was a different mix. It was. Yeah, Coney Island, Crown Heights. Yeah.

It's, hey, antisemites show up everywhere. I've always had the feeling that if I were an explorer of the galaxy, wherever I'd land, I'd see a sign, no Jews or dogs. That's funny. Yes. You didn't understand. This was fun to me or interesting to me. You said you didn't understand

why Nazis were depicted as evil in the comic books but not Germans. Yes, I didn't. Can you elaborate on that? Yeah, it was one of those things that made me think how easy it is

to learn to hate. In fact, it's one of the simplest lessons to pick up. So in comic books, the Nazis were bad but the Germans were okay. And yet, the Japanese were all bad there were no good japanese and i thought just the law of numbers you know a couple million

japanese there have to be at least two good guys shecky and dwight you know so and it began to make me aware of how readily hatred can be passed on to inquiring young minds that are just looking to escape in a four-color universe of fun and games. And the example I use in my book is the book Little Black Sambo, which every little kid had that book or somebody read it to him. And it was about a little black boy who's caught up in a palm tree while tigers are running around because they want to eat him. And the more they run around, they finally turn into melted butter and syrup for his pancakes. But the idea that Little Black Sambo was okay, so I ask in my book, and I ask myself, what if a book was Little Jew Shecky? How would I feel about that? And I don't know what would be running was Little Jew Shecky? How would I feel about that?

And I don't know what would be running around under the tree, I guess process servers or personal injury lawyers. And they keep going until you pledge to Israel. But whatever it was, it just made me aware of, I could have been turned into an anti-something or other very quickly if I didn't question it. Yeah. And this is something that bothers you your whole life because we were talking on the phone about when you got to meet Timmy Rogers. Yes. And Scatman Crothers, another guy you befriended. And this obviously was something you fought against your whole life, something that made

you sick, the way these people were treated. It did. By the business as well. Absolutely. As the general population. You bet. Well, show business is not an exemplar of human conduct, as the question, who fucked Carol Wayne, will tell you. Nice callback. You don't get questions like that in nuclear science. You don't get questions like that in Egyptology. Or in physics and mathematics. I wonder who Einstein is fucking.

Nobody gave a shit. That's not what it's about. But show business, that's the first order. First order. We'll talk later about Timmy Rogers. I heard there were black performers who would have really beautiful, expensive cars because they were successes, but no place to park the car. I've heard that, too. I've heard that, too. Doormen wouldn't take it.

Yeah. Yeah. What breaks your heart, too, is that story about Hattie McDaniel winning the Oscar. Yes. In 1939 and having to wait out in the kitchen when she couldn't sit in the main room. It's sickening, isn't it? It is sickening. Well, I was happy to hear that Jack Benny would not play anywhere where Rochester couldn't stay in the same hotel. Yes, I'd heard that.

Yeah, and also Sinatra with Sammy would not appear if there was any of that crap. And also Sinatra with Sammy would not appear if there was any of that crap. But it took people of courage who had some stature and a willingness to stick their neck out. And that remains to be true. And today, of course, there's such ferocity and immediate response on the negative side that it's really like somebody's trying to unwind history and go back to those good old days, which, you know, where the German-American Bund was all over New York City. And the slogan of the German-American Bund was, if George Washington had been here now, he would have been a Bund member. So...

Yep. It could always come again. I believe that. Me too. So how does a kid who escapes into all this stuff, who's reading comic books and pulps, here he goes again. If this is about Claude Rains, he never touched her.

Did Carol Wayne have firm round buns? Oh, God. Well, I'm glad she's getting the attention she deserved. Poor thing. She had a short life, you know?

She died tragically. Yes. Oh, that's right. She drowned. Oh, my God. Yeah, there's another bit for your act, Gilbert. So,

did Buster Crab fuck her while she was driving? Buster Crab. He was Flash Gordon. He was my idol. There you go. Yes. Lovely guy. Chuck McCann

made a movie starring Buster Crab. Sure. And I don't know if you've ever seen the movie, but... The Projectionist. No, this was another one. Oh, the other one. It's like a variation of the producers where these two schlubs are going to make a movie with an old action star. The

Comeback Trail. That's it. And they have ensured his life. So what they do is they figure he's so weak and ill that they'll put all of these stunts in front of him and he'll die performing them. And Buster Crabb plays this character and in the course of the movie, of course, he gets really buff and strong and they can't kill him.

But the movie kept running out of money. So there are plenty of scenes when Chuck McCann gets in a cab and he's 38 and he gets out and he's 59. You just have to be willing to go with that. Was that Harry Hurwitz, the same guy that made The Projectionist? I think it was. I think it was.

And you got to know Chuck a little bit. I know he played Ben Grimm in the Fantastic Four series. Oh, yeah, I know Chuck very well. Sweet guy. We had him on here. Yeah, terrific guy. Lovely guy. Yeah.

I love how Ron knows so many people that he's able to take every one of your perverse requests and turn it into a winning anecdote. Buster Crabb. I got a Buster Crabb story. And he did so much for Israel. I don't know what exactly, but I'll find out. Buster Crabb, I heard, made a fortune selling those rubber T-shirts. Really?

That would hold your stomach in. I know what you mean. Well, obviously that's why he couldn't fuck Carol Wayne. She had a rubber allergy. I'm going to get back to the book if it kills me, Ron. Please do. I got a list get back to the book if it kills me, Ron, but I got to listen. Please do. I got to listen to your funny stories here. We can keep Gilbert entertained for

a moment. You got to tell him the Jackie Vernon, Lenny Bruce story. I was working for Jackie Vernon, and he told me a story, which he later told on Joe Franklin or some other one of these shows that nobody sees unless they have insomnia, and they're right before the last rights are performed.

Anyway, he said, I'm rooming with Lenny Bruce. He said, neither one of us has a gig. He says, we're starving. And Lenny says, listen, I got an idea. How much money you got, Jackie? He said, like $1.70. He says, I have about the same. That's $3.40, $1.70. He says, I have about the same. That's $3.40, $3.50. He says, here's what we do. We go to the butcher store and we get a big knock worst.

He says, you put it in your pants. We go to a Chinese restaurant. We have the 10 course feast. He said, the Chinese, they hate gay guys. They hate fags. So the minute we finished the dinner, you get under the table and I'll put the knockwurst between my knees and you go down and suck the knockwurst. They'll see it. They'll throw us out. We won't have to pay a dime. So he said, we did this. And then I got a gig. And I said, okay, Lenny, now we don't have to do this anymore.

And he said, oh, I ate the knockware six weeks ago. Gilbert, do a little of your Jackie Vernon for Ron, because I promised him. Here are some slides from my vacation. Here's Manuel leading us around the quicksand. Here we are from the waist up. Here's just a bunch of hats and ropes and things. Pretty good, right? That's very good.

Not bad. What about the death of his uncle, who was a weird guy? Oh, how did that one go? Buying a cherry pie at the automat, the little door came down on the back of his neck. Love Jackie Vernon. Yeah. So how does a kid, as I was starting to say, who grew up on all this stuff. I heard Jackie Vernon used to love to drop his pants in public.

I never knew that. Yeah. Someone who worked with him said he'd walk around like a supermarket and go to a woman who's standing in the aisle somewhere and he'd suck his stomach in. And that would make his pants fall down. It's no putting rolls of coins in your pockets. And then he'd go, oh, sorry. That's surprising. That's an element of his character I was unaware of.

Interesting. I thought it was just McCormick and Neville Chamberlain. Interesting. I thought it was just McCormick and Neville Chamberlain. And I met Jackie Vernon, and he said, I fucked Carl Wayne. Somebody had to. He's not going to let it go, Ron. No, I know.

Gilbert commits. That's good. And should be. And should be. So how did you decide to become an architect? This is what throws me about your life story. Because you're obviously a storyteller from a very young age. You're obviously fascinated by this world.

Yeah, and telling stories as an architect used to get me in trouble. Yeah, I can imagine. Example, a very nervous guy asked, did the steel arrive for the building? I said, yeah, but it's all bent out of shape.

It's all sort of curlicues. He grabbed his heart and had a heart attack right there. Holy shit. Yep. And I'm trying to explain. It was a joke.

I'm kidding. It's okay. Oh, my God. I will tell you how I knew I had to stop being an architect. Yeah. I get a call, and the woman says, is this Friedman, the fantastic architect? I said, no.

No, you have the wrong number. She says, not so fast. I'm giving you carte blanche. You should do the last word in modern. I'm not going to interfere. I'm not going to interfere. I'm not going to make a fuss. I want you to do something that is absolutely within what you feel is your best aesthetic, artistic. And she says, I have a half acre on Shenley Park.

It's beautiful. You come and we'll talk. So I go there. There's a woman with blue hair and pedal pushers. And she says, Jake, it's the architect. Jake is reading their forwards. And he goes, no, no, no. She says, pay him no mind.

He's old fashioned. He doesn't know. She takes me into a room. She says, I'm not going to dictate, but I would like an occasional piece in the living room. And I have these clippings from Home and Garden Theater and Stream. You should look. I said, no, no, I'm not interested. I'm not Home and Garden, Theater and Stream, you should look. I said, no, no, I'm not interested. She says, alright, I'm backing off.

You're going to do what you wish. I just have one definite you have to give me. I said, what's that? She said, should be a ranch-style house. I said, you mean one story? She says, yes, with a circular staircase. I said,

a one-story house with a circular staircase. I said, one story house with a circular staircase? Do you want to go up to the roof? She says, no, I'm afraid of heights. I said, then where does the circular staircase go? She says, no place. But when we have parties, I'll get a girl in a white dress, stand at the bottom. It'll look terrific. That was it for you. That was it. I didn't take the commission. I should have taken it. It was a lot of money. A sign from the gods that it was time to go.

Now, I got to ask you, and I spoke to you the last time, to you the last time but my favorite episode of charlie's angels is where they kidnap sammy davis jr yes i wrote that sammy that's ron's episode yes of course and it's sammy davis as sammy davis yes and but in a dual role because he's also Herbert the grocery store owner. Oh yes. I forget what he had. A car dealership or something. But he said they have the wrong man. I'm tired of being confused with that no talent skinny idiot. So I

checked it over with him first to see if he would do it. And Aaron Spelling put us together. So I was very happy to write that for Sammy. Very. And that had a double. Every show back then, every cop show had a joke ending.

They did. Absolutely. And this one had two jokes. That's what stands out. Like they're all together in the room when they solved and they captured the kidnappers. Yes. And Sammy, as Herbert, goes, I'm the coolest guy in this room. And Sammy, in a non-threatening black fist, does the fist and goes, right on, Sammy.

Right on, Herbert. And you figure that's enough. And then they come back and the angels are in their office and Herbert shows up and goes, hey, we're going to an opening. And they go, what? Oh, they're all excited. And he goes, an opening of my new grocery store. And I thought

this is an embarrassment of riches. Two jokes. And the wonderful Patty Duke double screen. I've had not Let this be my epitaph, Gilbert. He remembers your Charlie's Angels

episode so vividly, Ron. He remembers your Charlie's Angels episode so vividly, Ron. He remembers it better than I do. Wow. But your pal Aaron Spelling, what did you like to say about Aaron Spelling? I loved Aaron Spelling because Aaron loved me. And Aaron was not a guy who needed to fool around with material. If it was right and it worked, he says, we're shooting this baby, and we did. And he bought your house, you like to say he did absolutely and once i'm over there he calls me 11 o'clock at

night he says the script just fell apart i need a two hour star skater hutch we're going to be reading tuesday can you come over so i went over and he has a police car always parked there, which was A-S-P, police, P-D. That was Aaron Spelling Productions, P-D, because he was always nervous about a home invasion. So I said to him, you know, Aaron, my mother's coming to visit, but my house is shabby compared to yours. Would you mind if I pretended that this was my house? He said, I better check with Candy first. That's his wife. So he checks and he says, it'll be all right. When is she coming?

But I killed the deal. You couldn't do it. No, because he was going to fuck Carol Wayne and I didn't want to do it. All right, good callback. While Gilbert tries to remember who our guest is. And what's your name? A few words from our sponsor.

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are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. They're killing Frank They're happy They're killing Frank They're kooky, wacky Just run around and have it fun Fun, fun

Just watch me. Now, you wrote an Artie Johnson special. I did. Oh, yes. Now, if I'm not mistaken, is this the special where he sings Secret Man? I don't remember. This is disturbing.

This, this. How many Artie Johnson specials were there? He sings this song called Secret Man, and at the end of it, he goes, I'm a secret man, even to myself. Any bells, Ron? No, but that's the most profound philosophy I've heard since closed cover before striking. Verterosa, but that's the most profound philosophy I've heard since close cover before striking.

Vernerosa, find that. He's not going to find that. Arnie Johnson singing Secret Man. Not a chance. How did your family react, Ron? How did your mom react when you said you were going to leave architecture to write stories for a living? She said. It was a bold stroke.

You had no rich relations. You had no nest egg. You had no connections in the business. Zero. Well, my mother took it the way my mother would took it. She says,

congratulations, good luck with your new life. And before you go, stop in the kitchen and get me a knife. I'm going to put it in my heart because I'll never hear from you again.

Did she stick around long enough? She obviously did because you were telling the Aaron Spelling story. So she saw your success. She did. Good. But my mother never quite accepted it because we had her to the house and we're having some caviar and she says, from cans you're eating. Wow. I mean, you were making a nice living as an architect in Pittsburgh, from cans you're eating. Wow. I mean, you were making a nice living as an architect in Pittsburgh, so it was a risk. It was a big risk. To throw all this aside, and at what, 29?

29. At the time, it felt logical. But I'm sure that's what every serial killer says, too. Pretty ballsy. It just seemed like the thing to do and i it just felt right and i found through the years that when i go with that feeling i'm going to do okay what happened first when you got to the when you i know you took the place in brooklyn yep and was it was was shelly berman a turning point were you writing for people right away

no shelly shelly was the turning point in Pittsburgh because I was working seven days a week as the chief designer and field supervisor of a medium-sized Pittsburgh architectural firm. I had my own practice and I couldn't clear 10 grand a year. And I thought, I'm never going to get my kids educated if I can't clear that much. So I thought, why don't I just get into writing? Because that'll be a cornucopia of money. Ridiculous, but that just seemed like it. I'll give it a shot. Pittsburgh was a classy nightclub, classy. There were toilets for ladies. And, you know, it was a reasonable experience. So anyway, I'd met him in Summerstock, and I called him and reminded him to make him believe he remembered me. And I said, I can write for you. He says, schmuck, nobody can write for me.

You can't write for me. I write for me. I'm me. I said, well, why don't you just look? Will you look? He says, all right, here's my me. I'm me. I said, well, why don't you just look? Will you look? He says, all right, here's my address. Send me something. So I wrote some stuff and sent it to him. But four weeks later, he calls up and he says, Schmuck, you can do this shit. Come to New York. I'm doing the Perry Como show. I'll get you an agent. I'll see you at the Como show.

So I made arrangements. I go to New York. I go to the Como Show and there's Shelly. I said, Shelly, Ron Friedman from Pittsburgh. He says, I'm having a nervous breakdown. I'm going to Jamaica. I can't speak to you. I said,

I came in from Pittsburgh. He said, it will be there when you return. I said, Shelly, come on, I'm changing my life.

He says, I'm going to Jamaica. So anyway, my fraternity brother, Gary Smith, was the scene designer for the Como show. Gary Smith. And he said, did you bring any material with you? I says, yeah, I wrote about five pounds of stuff. He said, let me give it to Goodman Ace, who was the head writer of the Como show. So I gave it to Goodman Ace, who was a legendary radio writer and a damn good writer, period. And I

sat around with Gary. I think he took me to lunch and I came back and Goodman Ace says, I read your stuff. Come with me. And he takes me to the writer's room and he said, if any of these Jews die, I'll hire you. He said, I don't have any money in the budget. He said, I'm calling Larry

R. back at the William Morris office. I'll tell him he has to sign you right away, and then he'll sign you. So I go over to see Larry R. back, and he says, good. He says, you're great. He says, you must be terrific. He says, but you have to come to New York. You can't write from Pittsburgh. Nobody writes from Pittsburgh.

So it took me about a year, sold my practice for $11, went to New York, and wanted to write plays and movies. And they said, no, you're funny. You're going to write for stand-up. And that's how it began. Yeah. I mean, it happened pretty fast for you, all things considered. It really did.

In the first three, four months, it was very difficult. Nothing happened. And then I finished that year making 10 times what I'd ever made my best year as an architect. Nice. And I didn't know this until I read the book. You dabbled in stand-up yourself. I had to because many of the comics would read what I gave them, and they said, it's not funny. I said, it's funny.

They said, you do it. So I'd do it. I'd get laughs, and they'd have to pay me. So you were just doing one-liner material? I was doing the act I wrote for them. The act that you wrote for them. So Timmy Rogers was one of the first guys? One of the first.

Okay, and can you perform the line he would say after every one of his punchlines? Timmy? Yeah. Hmm. I know it wasn't my Yiddish mama. That was Sammy. Yeah, that wasn't him.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Mr. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Mr. Oh, yeah. Mr. No. Oh, no. Yes.

After every joke, he would go, oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. Absolutely right. And he said, they say that money can't buy happiness. Now, people like Bob Hope, the Vanderbilts, Bing Crosby, and Ella Fitzgerald, do you think they're happy? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

And he also said, in my neighborhood, in my neighborhood, there was no heat. There were no windows, no glass in the window panes. He said, the plumbing did not work, and there was nothing to eat. And then the depression came. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. His name has come up a bunch of times on this show. He was just a lovely guy.

And he'd open and close with, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. That was it. Yes. That was one of his big songs. The other one was Flagellapa. Oh! Yeah, call myla-Jalapa. Oh.

Yeah, call my baby Fla-Jalapa. Fla-Jalapa is her name. Met her in flaw, wet her in laws, with jaw flaw, whatever the hell it was. So you would do the material to prove to these people that the material would work. Yes. And was Timmy one of them or did he buy in? No. No, Timmy was a big fan of mine and I never did an act for him

until he really had some money and that was to do an album, If I Were President, when he would be the first black president. And it was a great cast. It was Ruby Dee, Aussie Davis, Hal Cromer. Stump from Stumpin' Stumpy. That's it, Stumpin' Stumpy.

He was the first black act to do white carbons. And Sammy stole that from Hal. Wow. He was just fantastic. So now you're just- Yeah, Stumpin' Stumpy were like the black Martin and Lewis. Yeah. But they were really funny, wild and Lewis. Yeah. They were really funny, wild and funny.

Yeah. So you're doing stand-up now to prove to some of these clients that the material works. Yes. In other cases, they're buying in, they're buying material outright. I was desperate. I had to do it. I put everything on the line, so I was normally a kind of reserved guy. I was an architect.

Architects don't go up and say, hey, did you hear about this? Doorbell rings at a whorehouse. Madam opens the door. There's a guy in a basket, no arms and no legs. She says, what are we going to do with you? He said, I rang the bell, didn't I? Frank Lloyd Wright never bothered with that shit. I heard I.M. Paye used that one.

Yes. Parties. I.M. Paye, very good. Yes heard I.M.Pay used that one. Yes. Parties. I.M.Pay, very good. Yes, always. Perfect. So how do you make... Who are some of the other comics, some of the other performers

that you're writing for at this period? Oh, God, I have to think. Corbett Monica. Corbett Monica, Gilbert. Oh, my God. Jackie Kahane. Jackie Kahane. We know these names.

Yes. I'm trying to think hard now. Oh, God. Jackie Kahane. Jackie Kahane. We know these names. Yes. I'm trying to think hard now. Oh, God. Jimmy Casanova. Jimmy Casanova. Bill Persky wrote for Jimmy Casanova when he was starting out. Persky and Denhoff. Yep.

Yeah. One of the most interesting one was an heiress named Nell Webster. She was a lovely girl, and she inherited an unbelievable fortune, but her dream was to be a standup comic. Uh-oh. So when I met her, I said, get over this dream. You're insane.

You do not need to go to these toilets and show them you're funny. And she says, no, and I want to be funny and I want to be clever and you're clever and you'll make me funny and clever. So anyway, I wrote an act for her and she says, I'm in Erie, Pennsylvania. Would you come down and watch the act?

So I had to do it because she was nice. The opening act was Doc Searcy. Anybody remember Doc Searcy? Doc Searcy, Gil? No. Well, he was a large guy in a tuxedo and he had a padlock on his fly. Sounds good.

And he came out singing, what is the number? A calypso number. What is the number? And people would yell, 69. He'd ignore it until he heard like 40 other numbers. And then 69 was the number. He'd open his padlock and take out his dick. That was his act.

his padlock and take out his dick. That was his act. So I'm thinking I've written supper club material for my client and she's going to follow this. Doc Searcy and his padlock. Yeah.

Right up there with B.S. Pulley and H.S. Gump. B.S. Pulley. So whatever happened to this girl? I don't know. She was a lovely person. I hope she found another calling. I'm sure she must have.

How did you make the transition from writing for these performers in toilets, as you like to describe them, into television? Well, the first television job I got was writing for Car 54, Where Are You? Yeah, Gilbert will appreciate this. I love that show. I did too, and I particularly liked Fred. Fred Gwynn. Fred Gwynn. Just a lovely guy, very good artist as well.

And Joey Ross was his co-star. So I'm in there with George Foster, who was a very good writer, who was doing a script with me. He liked me, and he says, come on, we're going to do a script for this show. So I'm in there with Nat Hyken, and Hyken's secretary comes in, and she says, Nat, Joey's here. I guess his divorce is final. So Nat says, I'm going to call him in, but I want to give you a little heads up on him. He says, you know, Joey always marries hookers. So then he divorces them, and this will probably be number five or six.

So be ready. So Joey comes in, and he's, you know, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo. You know, that was his act. Sure. I got a dog, a Mexican spit, senor. So. Anyway, Nat said,

you got a divorce, I hear. Your divorce is fine. He says, yeah, but I figured out. He says, first, being married to a hooker is like being married to a doctor. She would get calls in the middle of the night. She had to go. I mean, this is her profession. Hilarious.

He says, but I figured out. He he said it was a bargain that says what do you mean a bargain he says well i figured out how many times i fucked her and i was fucking her for 15 she charges 50 he was ahead of the game yes now you know there's that famous story where i think i don't know if it was Johnson & Johnson who were their, they were the sponsor. Oh, yeah. And they were the sponsors. And the sponsors stopped by the set of Car 54.

I think Hank Garrett told us that story. Yeah. Who was on Car 54. He was on it. I've heard it a few times. Yeah. And it's like, they were walking, they said hello to all the cast. The whole cast shook their hands and posed for pictures.

And they passed by Joey Ross's dressing room. He was there with the door open, jerking off. Well, self-expression is what it's called. that car 54 episode never aired and never the show was canceled the show was canceled and i heard nat hyken said he doesn't know if he's doing another show or not but if he does it's not gonna have joey ross in it yes i think yeah well the other great thing he said about joey r Ross is he came in eating a sandwich, and it was horrible to watch. And when he left, Hyken said, he's great with dry food.

Okay, so the Car 54 episode doesn't air because the show gets canceled. So what's sort of the breakthrough credit? I wish I knew. The breakthrough moment in television. I mean, your IMDb page, and you and I were talking about this on the phone, and you said a lot of it is not here. Yes. That it's only a partial list

of credits. Well, one of them was the Jerry Lester show called Weekend. The first thing they have you here for is the Jerry Lester show and the Victor Borges show, both in 63. Yeah. Does that sound right? Probably.

I can't remember. But Victor was a great guy. We really got along terrifically well. And some of the great moments with Victor, he'd call from any place in the world. I need a joke for Stuttgart. And, of course, German jokes. I mean, what could be simpler? But I got to know him pretty well.

And I asked him, Victor, when you were brought here, because, you know, like all the Jewish Danes, they were evacuated. They were taken to safety. I said, did you speak English? He said, no. He said, I only spoke Russian, French, Dutch, German, Yiddish. And they went on with like 15 other languages. He said, but I didn't talk English. I said, well, how did you learn English? He says, well, one of the first places I stayed was like the

Danish Seaman's Rest. It was a hotel for Danish and Norwegian seamen. And it was near 42nd Street. He said, I could go in and see movies, watch movies all day for 10 cents. He said, so I was learning English by watching movies until a friend of mine says, Victor, you can't watch the movies anymore. And I said, why not? He says, you sound like a gangster.

He was doing George Raft. Fantastic. Fantastic. So how did you get to the Danny Kaye show? Was that the Vaughn Meter thing that you were writing? That was it, yeah. The live Vaughn Meter show? The Vaughn Meter, after Kennedy was assassinated,

said, what am I going to do now? I said, you'll wait six months, I'll write you a new act. So that's what happened. It was at the Blue Angel, and of course, because Kennedy was beloved and von meter was equally so as kennedy surrogate the place was mobbed with all media i mean magazines even the reader's digest was there i mean it was unbelievable and jammed and shelly berman shows up in a tuxedo to introduce me because I'm his discovery. Then introduced Vaughn and then Vaughn did the act.

And all of the reviews were the same, that the act was brilliant, that the material was brilliant, but Vaughn was an indifferent performer. And Danny Kaye was at that show with Perry Lafferty. About that. And said, you're coming to California. I said, under no circumstances, I hate California. But he made me an offer, I had to California. I said, under no circumstances. I hate California. But he made me an offer.

I had to go. And then it sort of all comes from that. It all stems from getting that Danny Kaye show. I guess. And I heard, we've heard from a couple of guests that Danny Kaye was a prick. He could be, absolutely.

But he liked me. I still don't know why. I think it was because Perry Lafferty says, tell him about Frank Lloyd Wright. The first time I'm sitting in a meeting with Danny and I had to tell my Frank Lloyd Wright story. And that impressed Danny because he took me aside afterward and he said, that little prick was an antisemite. I said, yeah, he was. So it was kind of a half-assed bond. But we're playing word associations with Danny one day.

Stops in to annoy the writers and playing word associations. Salt, pepper, black, white. Somebody said, mother. Danny said, gas chamber. He said, all mothers should be gassed. Wow. Dark guy, Danny Kaye. He could be.

As I said to you on the phone, we've had 200 of these shows and we've had people who dislike Danny tremendously like Jamie Farr and Bernie Coppell and then we had Joyce in here, Joyce Van Patten who liked him very much, like you did. He loved Joyce.

And he liked me again, who knows why. But I was grateful that he did. Yeah, the two people we've got nothing but bad reviews. Well, Danny Kaye. And Joey Bishop. Yes. Oh, yeah. Joey was difficult, let's put it that way. That. Oh, yeah. Joey was difficult.

Let's put it that way. That's the word now. So did you work with Joey Bishop? He was a guest on a Chevrolet special that I wrote and had no problem with him. He did all the material. He was happy with it. Never did. About that.

Yeah. So how that happens, I don't know. I'm looking at these credits. The Danny Kaye Show in 64. Love on a Rooftop we talked about. Gilligan's Island. Yep. You got to know Bob Denver pretty well.

I did. Yeah. I knew him pretty well because he had been on Max Shulman's The Secret Loves of Dolby Gillis. Oh, yes. And Max Shulman was a good friend. The Secret Loves of Dolby Gillis. Oh, yes. And Max Shulman was a good friend.

So the fact that I'd known Max when Bob Denver played Maynard G. Krebs. Sure. The beatnik. Yes. So he was immediately responsive because of the Max connection. So what was he like?

Bob? Yeah. Very sweet guy. Usually stoned. Yeah, he liked his cannabis. Yeah. But Very sweet guy. Usually stoned. Yeah, he liked his cannabis. Yeah. Lovely guy. Yeah.

Now, I heard that Marianne used to deliver cannabis to, I mean, real life. It's entirely possible. I don't know about the dark side of show business, Gilbert. I'm not sure. What about the dark side of show business, Gilbert. What about the Danny Thomas block party in 1967? Did you like working with Danny? I only barely worked with him. Barely worked with him.

Just enough for him to show me his gun. Perfect. I've heard about this. He said, this is Roscoe and if you mess with me, you're going to meet Roscoe. Wow. I heard some director was working with Danny Kaye. Not Danny Kaye, Danny Thomas.

Some director was working with Danny Thomas. Danny Thomas would chew tobacco and spit. And the spit would go past this director. And he said, would you stop that? And Danny Thomas took out his gun and placed it on the table. And he said, this is so I don't have to move or do anything. Well, once things are explained, it's a lot easier to go yeah yeah we'd heard that from several people no i yeah luckily i know nothing about about now now what else have you heard

about danny thomas don't take the bait ron no it's just him and carol wayne i know We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. 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.

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please go to connexontario.ca. That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history. Thornton Prince was a ladies' man. TNVacation.ca 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. Let me try to get back to the book, even though Gilbert will fight me at every turn. The book is called I Killed Optimus Prime, and famously... So sue me.

So sue me. Oh, so sue me. And you did kill Optimus Prime in the Transformers movie because Hasbro so demanded it. Yes, they did. Yeah. And I told them they'd have to replace him within 90 days, and they said absolutely not. But they did. You don't just kill Big Daddy.

You know, you don't kill Odin if you're doing Norse mythology. You don't kill Zeus if you're doing Greek mythology. You don't kill Optimus Prime if you're doing Norse mythology, you don't kill Zeus. If you're doing Greek mythology, you don't kill Optimus Prime if you're doing Transformers mythology. So you put up a fight, but it's a fight you lost. Well, they were paying me. I'm happy to lose those fights. Yes. So it followed you around a bit.

People, some fans didn't care for the decision. For years, people would stop me on the street and they would say, you son of a bitch. I was six years old. I went in to see Transformers, the movie, and you killed Optimus Prime. Would you please sign my underwear? For years. It makes a good hook for a book, though, Ron. It was, absolutely. Yeah. A book that needed to be written. Absolutely. And I should say that the book is also filled with stories, anecdotes, some of the anecdotes that we're referring to.

Also, there's some writing tutorials. Yes. There's some good stuff about how to write a script and how to tell stories. I think it could be helpful. Which is valuable. And some comedy pieces, some original comedy. What do you think are some of the biggest mistakes in writing movies and TV that writers make?

Yeah, one of them is trying to write for the ages. When I first began writing, I figured, would Shakespeare approve of this sentence? And he wouldn't have. So I'm stuck trying to be great. And the answer is, don't get stuck trying to be great. Just try to express yourself as clearly as you possibly can. And try to be as honest and familiar with what you're doing so that people can relate to it immediately. I've had a lot of students over the years because I taught screenwriting at USC for almost 18 years and been teaching it 15 years at Chapman University Film School. And many writers will say, I'm going to write something that is so unique, so different, so groundbreaking.

And I would say, great. Who the fuck is going to know what it is? The touchstone of storytelling is the family because everybody understands what a family is. Yeah, you stress that in the book. Yeah, because it's true. That's how we relate to the world. The idea of family and story go together.

Everybody understands a crazy uncle who moons the school bus. Everybody understands the old aunt who thinks that she still looks terrific and is always trying to show the tits. Everybody understands the mean stepfather or the nasty uncle or the crazy nephew who will never straighten out. He's always going to be 12 years old, even if he's 88. Everyone understands this. And when we understand and recognize the humanity, the familiarity, the family-ness of characters, we're home. We'll watch anything. It doesn't matter if it's on Mars or under the water or in 12 feet of meatloaf. If we recognize the humans, we get it. We go with it.

We're home free. Well, you use classic examples, classic storytelling like The Wizard of Oz. Yeah. As an example. Or Star Wars. Yes, exactly. People playing familial roles. And when you recognize that, you can deal with surrogate families.

I mean, every cop show is a surrogate family. As is every medical show. As is every law show. As is every space opera. It's about the family members. Chewbacca. We get it. That's Uncle Schmool.

Uncle Schmool. Uncle Schmoolbacher. Now, another thing that I think writers have to fight is, you know, all of us grow up on movies and TV. So there are certain ways that people talk and act that is just the way they talk and act in movies and TV. You're absolutely right. Absolutely right. And that's often stilted and feels phony. And what it is is the audience sort of recognizes that these aren't human beings talking to each other. These are people lecturing me on plot points, which now that you know this i'm going to show you

that so when this comes back in the next scene you'll recognize that it came right out of my ass and it's not really a relic from the smithsonian and this is a this is something that plagues beginning writers where what they do is they write about things rather than write the things and they write dialogue that is about the plot points and the things that they're trying to plant and it doesn't feel like real people talking well one of my old-time favorites i always talk about this is in beyond the sea with kevin spacey oh the bobby darren oh boy and bob Bobby Darin says to his manager, John Goodman, you know, I'm nowhere. My career is nowhere.

And John Goodman, I feel bad for him. Because he goes, what are you kidding me, Bobby? In 1964, you won, you know, Performer of the Year in Vegas. That's it. You've got seven platinum albums. You were nominated for an Academy Award for Dr. Newman. And he reels off a list. Exactly.

And on the next page, I will tell you how much you weighed at your last birthday. You know, it's exactly bad writing. And they had a TV movie with a guy playing Robin Williams. We're supposed to be there with Robert Evans. And he goes, and he goes, so how you doing, Robin? And he goes, well, I'm doing great. I'm doing the movie Popeye with the esteemed director, Robert Aldrin. And here I am sitting in Malta with you, the producer of The Godfather.

Available for bar mitzvahs and various social engagements. My God, yes. You talk about a lot of that stuff in the book, but also your own journey from making the transition from writing for performers to writing for television and then having to try to get away

from the typecasting of being a comedy guy. Yep. Trying to make the transition into hour longs. Well, they always talk about the glass ceiling for women. It was a cast iron ceiling in show business where you're typecast. So if you play a corpse who's from outer space,

that's what you do. You cannot do anything else. And if you wrote for standup, that's what you do. You write material. If you wrote sketch comedy in a variety, that's what you do. You can't write half. If you write half hour, you can't write drama.

If you write drama, hour drama, you can't write a movie. It's ridiculous. So you were always battling that. Always. Yeah. And yet you managed to break through in every genre. Well, my next one... Or every format. I hope so.

And the next one is Broadway. I have a play now that hopefully will do that. Oh, good. And tell us about working for Chico and the Man. Where did that come from? I mean, what was Jack Alfred to you? I love Freddie Prinze. I really love Freddie Prinze.

And Freddie really loved my work. And in fact, he told Jimmy Comack, I want Ron to write all the scripts from now on. And Comack was furious. although Jimmy was generally a friend. But Freddie really liked what I did. And so the story editor, Mike Morris, used to come in with challenges for me to see if I could screw up. So he said, this one I want Jack Albertson to do act one and Freddie to do act two. That's it.

to do act one and Freddie to do act two. That's it. The other actor, they have no scenes. They have scenes together, but it's a monologue for each one of them. So I did that and it worked great. Worked great. And Jimmy was pissed off that it worked,

but Freddie was just a wonderful guy. I really liked Freddie a lot. He was a brilliant dancer, by the way, and a wonderful musician. And I watched him kill himself with cocaine. And I called an executive at NBC and I said, you're going to have to shut down Chico for a while and get Freddie clean because he's going to kill himself. I just see he's shoving cocaine up his nose. They said, that's not your concern. That's the producer's concern. And the producer

has things well in hand and stay out of it. Wow. And I just, I watched him kill himself and it was horrible to watch. Just horrible because he was really funny, really brilliant, and a nice kid. They probably had a really big career ahead of them. He did. Yeah. Where'd you pull that one out, Gilbert? Yeah. Chico and the Man.

Oh, and tell us about Jack Albertson. He was a great actor. Jack was great because Jack was a real pro. And real pros, as you know, really know what it is they do. And they know how to do what they do. And they know when you know what you're doing or not. And so to be accepted by Jack as somebody who knew what he was doing was always great for me. And when I got that kind of response from a lot of outstanding professionals, it made me feel really good because I know it's not automatic.

You really have to learn it. You have to feel it. You have to understand it. And that's when the artistry comes. When you're stuck, something isn't working, what do you do? Where do you go? How do you fix it? If you're a pro, you'll find a way.

And you don't leave anybody on the beach when you do it. You bring them along with you. And that was great with Jack because Jack really, really knew where it was happening, how to make it happen. And I saw him do, the subject was roses on Broadway. He was terrific in that. So it didn't matter what the job was.

He understood, he knew. And you know, Gilbert, you know exactly what you do and how you do it. You know when to do it and to what extent. And I said before when we first met that you really commit to the material, which a lot of people can't and don't. And to me, they're not professional if they don't commit to the material. How about that, Gil? Oh, wow. Although his problem is trying to be too good, Ron.

Like those writers you were talking about. Herman Gehring had the same problem. It holds him back. Talking about a performer, Jack Albertson, who was fun and easy and a professional and going in the opposite direction. Tell us about Shelly Winters.

You did a punch up on Minnie's Boys. Yeah, I did. On the Broadway stage. My dear friend, the director, Stanley Prager, Starsh Prager. Great guy. He did the Danny Kaye show, directed it briefly, and Danny decided he wanted to go with a choreographer, not Stanley. Briefly, and Danny decided he wanted to go with a choreographer, not Stanley. Anyway, Stan got the job of picking up, replacing a director on Minnie's Boys,

which was the story of the Marx Brothers starring Shelley Winters as Minnie Marx. You bet. So I get a call from Sash, and he says, get here immediately. The show is not making it. It's terrible. We're having all kind of problems. Come in right away. See the show. I got your tickets down front and you'll see what we're up against.

Anyway, he also said, by the way, Shelley comes out in a rabbit suit because they do a number when Minnie Marks and the Marks brothers are younger. And the Marks brothers are dressed in bunny suits and she's wearing a rabbit suit. But she's a nervous eater. And this has been in preview so many times, she's put on 80 pounds. So she's got like nine rabbit suits. He said, the problem is she has a weak singing voice, so the suits are miked.

So be prepared. So I'm sitting in row three in the orchestra behind two rows of young Talmud of Woodmere, Long Island. That's the theater party that's there. Guys wearing shremels with long sideburns, and they're sitting there, the ideal theater crowd. So as she comes out and she's singing in the rabbit suit, Mama Rainbow, she's farting. Mama Rainbow. And a woman in front says to her husband, was ist das?

And he says, feedback. Feedback. Hilarious. and he says feedback feedback hilarious anyway Lou Stadlin Jr. was playing Groucho and I thought he was fabulous so I did a rewrite

featuring him as the star of the show narrating and it was a hell of a good rewrite and Stan Prager says this is great he says but the producer thinks narrating. And it was a hell of a good rewrite. And Stan Prager says, this is great.

He says, but the producer thinks it's Shelley's show. He'll never accept this. But we're going to use the changes you made. And he says, but there's going to be an actor's equity meeting on stage. You might as well stay for that. The equity meeting was the cast was up in arms because Shelley was unprofessional. She was showing

up late. She didn't know her line. She was drifting away. And they wanted to go out, walk out in protest. And Roland Winters was the equity deputy. And he said, please, please, there's nothing wrong with Shelly that can't be fixed by taxidermy.

That's a great line. And the result was everybody laughed like hell and they kept showing up. That's a great story. Now, was Roland Winters? I think he was one of the Charlie Chans. Yeah. That's what Frank said.

He probably was, but at that point he was Flo Ziegfeld, so I didn't know. I believe he was. Can you tell Gilbert and our listeners what you told me about your friend Tony Randall? Oh yeah, Tony. I love Tony and I love Jack.

They were difficult guys but they were really great individuals, unique characters. And one of the things that Tony loved to do was go to the Climax Theater which was a porn movie theater. This was a sexual revolution was just coming to the fore where they had these porn movie

theaters. So the climax was near Paramount. And I said to Tony, Tony, aren't you worried that somebody's going to say, I saw Tony Randall in the climate. He says, oh, no, there are so many more important people than I are here. They wouldn't dare. I love that. You wrote some great Odd Couple episodes too, Ron.

I love doing the Odd Couple because I like Jack and Tony a lot. They were very responsive. Yeah. We could go up and down this list like we did last time. I'm trying to pick out some goodies here. Tell us again, just as I'm curious, what are the— and I don't want to upset your wife who's sitting there next to you, but what exactly—and I won't put this question on my resume—

what are the circumstances, the exact circumstances, surrounding Pat McCormick defiling Jonathan Winters' swimming pool? Oh, God. I wasn't there. I'm okay. I just heard about it. I'm all ears on this one. So I don't want to talk about it because I wasn't there.

And there are people who were there that take this very seriously, that it is their story. Okay. You know? So it's unusual when people are fighting over a turd in a pool, but these things happen. Well, tell us, since the last time we spoke, you lost a very good friend, and that was the great Stan Lee.

Oh, yeah. So tell us something about Stan. Well, Stan was a wonderful friend and a great guy. And we became good friends almost immediately. Lee Mendelson, who produced Peanuts and The Garfield, introduced us. And we just started talking right away. And it was easy and comfortable. And Stan, of course, I admired what he had done

with Spider-Man and all of his characters were superior because he recognized that like the pantheon of gods in mythology, if the gods have feet of clay or various other human frailties,

they become more important, more significant. You know, it took a while for Superman to invent Krypton because otherwise it's just, who's all going to beat a shit out of this week? You know, it doesn't matter.

Here it comes. It's okay. I got it. Well, that was his genius, wasn't it, among other things, realizing they had to have vulnerabilities? It really was. And he was a genius

and he was always ashamed of himself for not having written the great American novel. And a lot of people didn't understand this about Stan. Stan was a child of the Depression, and he was always afraid he was going to lose his job. He really was in fear of that with all of his success, with the fact that he was an indelible icon himself and couldn't be replaced. He was still fearful about losing his job. And I watched some people that he worked for, that I worked for as well, treat him shabbily. Really, as much as saying, well, you know, you do comic strips, we do movies. We do movies.

And I hated that because there was a kind of send-off for Stan at the Chinese theater when a lot of these—it looked like a Comic-Con convention, really. But a lot of those people that he had worked for that went out of their way to say how much they revered him and adored him, they treated him like shit. So standard Hollywood hypocrisy. But he was a wonderful guy. And when he was in the army, he got an unusual assignment, which was his commanding officer said, the accountants, the accountants are going crazy because the families of the soldiers are not getting their checks in time. And I have depressed accountants, and I want you to find a way to cheer them up. So Stan wrote a marching song, an army marching song for the accountants. Wow. And it improved morality to such an extent that he got a medal.

I never knew that. Yes. So the next time you see accountants marching and singing, you'll know where the song came from. I know the Merry Marvel Marching Society. I wonder if it had its roots in that. It could have. You refer to him as the Jewish Walt Disney. I agree. That's what he is. That's what he was, really. A creator who understood what it was that he was doing that was unique and what was unique about it. There are a lot of people that kind of luck into celebrity or luck into skills, and they're heralded for having those skills.

But many of them don't recognize exactly what is unique about their skill. They can't duplicate it. So if they lose the job or something, somebody turns away from them, they're lost. They can't reconstruct. They can't adapt, which again is the mark of a professional, the ability to be able to adapt to the circumstances. So Stan was adaptable in the extreme, as was Disney. And when I was introduced to Disney, he said, call me Walt. I said, call me Your Excellency.

It did not go over. He didn't laugh. Now, I heard with getting back to the odd couple that they really were those characters in real life. Is that true? To an extent, that's true. Yeah, but Felix didn't go to the Climax Theater. Yeah, oh yeah. No, Felix would not because the seats would be dirty.

He wouldn't do it if he could put paper on the seats. Yes. They were. Jack was a guy who loved the track. He loved horses. He had a very good horse. I forget the name of that. He got it in a claiming race, and it was a gelding.

If it hadn't been a gelding, Klugman would not have died. He'd have stayed alive just to see the horse reproduce. And Tony, of course, was an opera lover and an esthete. He was well aware of history and furniture and the history of costume and a lot of other things, and certainly the theater. He knew the theater brilliantly. And he put together an American stock company in New York. Sure did.

Yeah, he sure did. And did some terrific productions, but of course the audience wasn't there for it. Which is a shame. Yeah. Let's plug the book. Oh, yes. I Killed Optimus Prime.

So sue me. So sue me. Sue me. I'm going to read, because we had a mistake, yes. I killed Optimus Prime. So sue me. So sue me. I'm going to read, because we had a mistake, Ron. I gave Gilbert my copy by mistake, and I got his. So we're going to switch. But it allowed me to read what you wrote for him. Okay.

As much as it pains me, I'm going to pay him another compliment through you. To Gilbert, a daring comedic force of nature, impervious to the indifference of all those lost souls, devoid of a sense of humor, and doomed to dine on Gentile food through eternity. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me. It's the least I could do, Gilbert. The least. Ron, because it's Hervve Villachez's birthday. Oh, really?

It's also Shakespeare's birthday today. And your pal Alan Oppenheimer. And my pal Alan Oppenheimer. Do you have one Herve story? Last time you told us about him carrying a piece into the men's room. Yes. To ward off, to frighten off looky-loos. Exactly.

People who like to look at midget tics. Do you have anything else on Irv in his honor? In his honor? Let me think. Well, I wrote an episode of Fantasy Island

in which the attempt was to create a children's version of Fantasy Island that could run concurrently with the adult version. So in it, I created like the bizarro half of the company. So Mr. Rourke and Tattoo were one half, and the other half was... Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Yes. Is this the one with red buttons? No. I don't think so, but I knew red and he was going to do a play of mine and then he died. Aaron Schwartz.

Go back to what you were saying. Back to Fantasy Island. So it was, God, he was married to Esther Williams and Fernando Llamas and Billy Barty. So they were like the bizarro half, and they were these competing characters. I'm laughing already. And Hervé took me aside, and he said, he's not really a dwarf. That's Billy Barty.

I said, what do you mean he's not really a dwarf? He said, he doesn't have it here. He touches his heart. He doesn't have it here, inside. Chris, I still... Oh, go ahead. What? Well, the whole idea that you're a dwarf on the inside,

and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter if you're three feet tall. You're not a real dwarf. Right. He was a purist. I saw an episode of Fantasy Island that was Red Buttons and Billy Barty also playing the evil. Well, look this up. And Billy Barty's name was Hubba Hubba. No, that wasn't mine.

No, I don't think so. I have to say, I did 54 Fantasy Islands. There's sort of like a curtain of nothing in front of my eyes. I'm really, really not sure. In 54 Fantasy Islands, every actor you thought was dead was in one of the episodes at least. You have that line in your book about the love boat. You say these are actors you only thought were dead, but once you saw them in the love boat. They were on the love boat.

That was Ernie Anderson. Ernie Anderson. The voice of ABC and Budweiser. Goularty. That's it. Yeah. You want to take us out with one of your wonderful Jewish Christmas carols? Okay, I don't know if I can remember it.

It's been a while, but I'll just go through a few of them, which is Jingle Bells, Minsky Cells, Plumbing Fixtures, Hey, This Christmas Get Your Wife a toilet and a nice bidet. Hey! I forget the rest. And then there was, we three girls from Shaker Heights are cooking up

a Hadassah bazaar. Sadie Mintz is a Jewish princess. She sits on her tush like the czar. And then it gets into making cookies, and they make a cookie of Moishe Dayan. You only need one raisin for his eyes. And then there was a little, oh, oh, Tannenbaum, oh, Tannenbaum, what are you doing in a Christmas song?

Where can people get their hands on these, Ron? Can they buy them through your website or email you? You have to email me, and it's $25 plus postage. Let me think what the other numbers might be in there. I'm thinking, thinking, thinking. The other numbers might be in there. I'm thinking, thinking, thinking. Oh, little town of Bethlehem, Altoona, Scranton too.

I should not have opened a kosher store in any town like you. And it goes on from there. Next time we have you, and again, there's much more to cover, we'll make sure Gilbert does a duet with you of one of those Christmas songs. I'll send the album, and in between time, I'm going to get on Google and Google Carol Wayne and Who Stopped Her. I'm sure it'll be a compendium of bangs. Gilbert, what would Irvay say about having Billy Barty play his doppelganger?

He doesn't have it here. Well, Irvay Villachez used to get angry, we heard, at Tom Selick. Because Tom Selick, he had the hit show. That's right, Magnum P.I. And he was jealous and he used to go, how come he gets so much money and pussy?

I should be getting the money and the pussy. Oh, yes. One day I'm standing there when he's bitching about the fact that he's limited to playing this one role. I can play a king.

I can play anything. I can play a doctor. I can play a professional man. I can play somebody. I can do Shakespeare. And Ricardo says, we're holding you back. Let us release you now. Be free. Take these other jobs.

Oh, Ron. That silenced him. God bless you. Hey, my pleasure to be with you again, and when I get to New York, I'll take you out to dinner. Are you coming? I hope so. I hope so, too.

I'll let you know. One day, what we're going to do is just go through your IMDb credits show by show and just see if you have an anecdote about each one of these. Because Gilbert and I were talking before we got John. It's just, it takes your breath away. By the way, I just thought of something that is, to me, very interesting. I bought an album which was called Yiddish Radio. And in Yiddish Radio from New York, there was this story. During the early days of aviation, a guy named Charlie Levine decides, we need gas stations for planes.

They don't have them. He did it. He put on a series of gas stations with little airports and also some mechanics to provide, you know, treatment for planes like they were cars. And he decides that he's going to compete with Lindbergh to be the first one to fly the Atlantic solo. He doesn't fly. Levines don't fly. But he has a pilot that's going to help him and the pilot used to be a pilot along with another famous aerial acrobatic pilot

named Chamberlain. So Charlie Levine is ready to take off at the same time that Lindbergh's taking off. But he's such a pain in the ass, the pilot walks away. So Levine has to get him and drag him back on the plane. And finally, the truth is, they do land, they cross the Atlantic

after Lindbergh lands in Paris. They land in Berlin. But it's like an hour later, so it doesn't count. But Yiddish radio decided they had to celebrate this, so this was the song. You've got to celebrate it. A Jew is a fly. You've got to do it. The song was, Levine, Levine, you're the hero of your race.

Levine, Levine, you're the greatest Jewish ace. We had a thrill when Chamberlain flew, but you were up there too. We're proud of you. Levine, Levine, just an ordinary name which you've given everlasting fame. We welcome you home

over the phone. Levine, mit dein flying machine. Ron, when you're in New York, we'll take you up on that lunch you're on you're on Gil would read the book one more time

this has been okay this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we've had on

for a return visit Ron Friedman and get his new book I Killed Optimus Prime So Sue Me Thank you. It's a fun read guys Absolutely great. Thank you guys

Thank you. Ron we love you See you soon. Same. Bye We know that love is the only way to have a See you soon. Same. Bye. It's all as matter after all We're happy every time we make a friend And we're happy dream and dream that never end Terima kasih telah menonton! Of all we get along Why let your life go by so fast? Take time to love and make it last We may not know the things you do

But we have things And we love you Why let your life Go by so fast Take time to love And make it last We may not know The things you do But we are clean and we love you is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre, with audio production by Frank Furtarosa.

Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley-Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to John Fotiadis, John Murray, and Paul Rayburn.