Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 271. Ted Wass

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

Actor-director Ted Wass ("Soap," "Oh God! You Devil," "Curse of the Pink Panther") regales Gilbert and Frank with stories about everyone from George Burns to James Coburn to Tony Randall, recalls the many controversies surrounding "Soap," and looks back on the impossible task of replacing the legendary Peter Sellers. Also, Raymond Burr narrates the Bible, Gilbert gushes over the "Sheena" movie, Frank reads the infamous "Soap" memo and Harvey Korman "owns" Ted's funny bone. PLUS: "Experiment in Terror"! Praising Robert Wagner! Remembering Janet Margolin! Martin Mull slays the room! The brilliance of Susan Harris! And Ted directs Phyllis Diller, Kathleen Freeman and William Shatner! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Imagine you're in Ottawa strolling through artistic landscapes at the National Gallery of Canada. Oh. Then cycling past Parliament Hill. Ah.

Before unwinding on an outdoor patio. Oh. Then spending an evening on a cruise along the historic Rideau Canal. Ah. Exploration awaits in Ottawa. From O to Ah. Plan your Ottawa itinerary at ottawatourism.ca. Hi, I am Griffin Dunn, and I have just opened my veins for the past two hours to Gilbert Gottfried for his amazing, colossal podcast.

I told him things I'm so ashamed of. You must listen. Bye. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and our engineer, Frank Ferdarosa. Our guest this week is a much sought-after director, occasional producer, and a popular and versatile actor of films and television. You know his work from movies like Oh God, You Devil, Sheena,

The Tim Conway Harvey Korman Vehicle, The Long Shot, and Blake Edwards' The Curse of the Pink Panther. But he made his most lasting impression on the small screen in hit shows like Blossom, a program he also directed, and, of course, as the slow-witted gangster Danny Dallas on one of the most memorable and controversial series in the history of the medium, Soap. In the early 1990s, he decided to move behind the camera and since, directed dozens of pilots and TV movies, as well as episodes of the most well-respected series on television, including Coach, Caroline in the City, Less Than Perfect,

Spin City, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Till Death, Scrubs, Everybody Hates Chris, Rules of, Carrie Fisher, Roger Moore, Jonathan Winters, John Cleese, and George Burns, as well as previous podcast guests, Andrew Bergman, Craig Bierico, Louis Black, John Beiner, Peter Riegert, Marion Ross, Robert Wagner, and last but never least, our mutual pal Richard Kind. mutual pal Richard Kind. Please welcome to the show a gifted actor and director and a man who

once co-starred in a TV pilot about the Bible, narrated by Raymond Burr. The very funny Ted Ross. Oh my God. Oh my God. the very funny Ted Walsh. Oh my God.

Oh my God. What an intro. Thank you so much. That's not only everyone I've ever worked with but everyone I think I've ever known in my life. Ted, what about this Bible pilot with Raymond Burr before we move past this?

Which I'm sure you're not asked about often. Wow, that's a deep dig, guys. Kudos to you. I knew you were deep diggers, but this one, this is... It's 50 years old. Yeah, this is called

The Story of Esther. Mm-hmm. And it was a biblical telling of the story of Esther, and I played Esther's boyfriend. Esther was played by by Olivia Hussey. Gilbert loves Olivia Hussey. Oh, she was exquisite.

She was so beautiful, still is so beautiful. And I think I got killed off about halfway through. But I think it was my first film for television. 79, 50 years ago. Gilbert, all your favorites were in it. Harris Ulan, Olivia Hussey, Tony Musante from The Incident. Wow. And here's the punchline, Nehemiah Persoff.

Excellent. Oh, Nehemiah Persoff, the cabbie from On the Waterfront. You bet. Oh, my God. Yes, yes. Isn't he still with us? I think Nehemiah Persoff's 101. Yeah.

I think he's still kicking, Ted. I think so. I'm glad to hear it. Yeah. I'm glad to hear it. And now, did each episode start off with the Bible was filmed

in front of a live audience? There's only one episode. That's funny. No, that was just one episode, and I think that was more than enough to tell that story. Well, wait a minute. I want to jump off this. You also made a pilot called Handle With Care,

which was a female version of MASH. Do you have any memory of this? Oh, my God. In 77. With Dick Yarmie, Don Adams' brother. Wow, Yarmie's army. And Didi Khan and Brian Dennehy. Yes, my God. In 77. With Dick Yarmie, Don Adams' brother. Wow, Yarmie's army. And Didi Khan and Brian Dennehy. Yes, Didi, oh, Brian Dennehy was in that.

Didi Khan, you light up my life, isn't it? Yeah, yes, and she was in Grease. She was in the movie Grease. Yes. That was probably the second thing I did out here in California in Los Angeles in 1977. And I was just a guest star. I played, I think it was the Korean War. I played a soldier. Corporal Tillingham. Corporal Tillingham. Oh my God. I showed up for work with my long hair and the producers

instantly said, oh no, this is a war thing. You have to cut all your hair off. And I said, gee, I just got to California. Can I keep it? And so they were kind enough to give me a head wound. So my whole role was two days of lying in a cot with a bloody bandage around my head going, oh, I'm not going to make it. Didi Khan, love me please. I like

doing these deep digs. Unsold TV pilots. Didi Khan mouthed the words to you light up my life. I don't know. She was Frenchy in Greece. That's all I know. Yeah. I'll probably cut this part out. Lovely too. I think she's married to

David Shire, the famous composer oh is she that's interesting stuff i may be incorrect about that so wait uh she's the one who used to be married he used to be married to uh talia to talia shire is that right yeah i think so yeah Yeah. Yeah. He did the music for the conversation with Gene Hackman. Very good. Yeah. He's a jazz pianist. See how we leap around, Ted? You know, Talia Shire was guest starred on Blossom, and we played opposite each other.

So how about that for a deep dig? Very cool. Very, very cool. Now, before we get to anything else about your fucking career, you had something to say about me. This was a very lovely thing that Ted said on the phone, and I didn't share it with him, Ted, so he's hearing it for the first time. Oh, my goodness.

All right, well, Gilbert. And his wife is listening, too. All right, I'm a fan of your work and always have been. But in early 1993, my wife of many years passed away after a long fight with cancer. I had two young children and our comfort viewing was Aladdin. And we watched Aladdin two, sometimes three times a day. And it gave us such relief and so much fun and took us away from what we'd been through. And to this day, when my children hear your voice, it gives them comfort. It makes them feel at ease. So I thought that was an interesting little piece about you that you might not have

ever heard about your speaking voice. What a nice thing. Oh, God. I hate when I can't say something snarky and obnoxious. That's a lovely thing to share, Ted. That's a beautiful story. That's beautiful. Thank you, Ted. Well, they hear you now doing one of your comedy bits, and my older daughter will go, Oh, my God, that's Iago. Oh, that's Iago. I love him so. And your late wife was the actress Janet Margolin, and we were talking about her before we came on, and Gilbert was a fan of David and Lisa.

Yeah. You're a little gray mouse in a little house. She was like someone who she could only speak in rhymes. That's exactly right. Yeah. Wonderful actress. She was Lisa and David and Lisa was the first considered, I guess, by some people, the first independent movie to really do well. And it was a classic

of independent films. So, yeah. She was versatile. She was very good in comedies. She's in two Woody Allen comedies. Very funny in Take the Money and Run. Very funny.

Yep. And she's in Annie Hall too. Plays his second wife and doesn't like the sirens going off in the city. Yes. Two more chairs and they've got a dining room set.

She's the ex-wife. And she was very pretty beautiful yeah and nevada smith with with steve mcqueen i mean really terrific career yeah and moratory with marlon brando brando yeah i mean just lots and lots of different things so yeah yeah great talent beautiful beautiful lady story well i hope that's meaningful. It certainly was to us, so it still is. It's very sweet. I'm not sure anyone has ever complimented him on his dulcet tones. Maybe I'll play the Bill Cosby bit for my daughter and say,

is this the same guy? No, they'll disillusion them. Play the aristocrats for them. Oh, that's great. Yes. I love that. Let's go back a little bit, and we'll jump around like crazy. By the way, I also wanted to point out that Ted is one of those polite guests that, when notified about the show, actually does his homework and starts listening to the show. Jeez.

We did a little pre-interview on the phone. He told me he—what was it, the Erwin Winkler episode you got into? Erwin Winkler and RJ? I loved them both. Oh, you listen to RJ because you work with RJ. Yes. Yeah. Twice. A couple of times now. A couple of times. So the guests do research on this show but I don't.

What else is new? Five minutes before we record, I'm leaning in with Frank going, so what does he do? He acts? Well, it seems to be working for you, Gilbert. I wouldn leaning in with Frank going, so what does he do, he acts? Well, it seems to be working for you, Gilbert. I wouldn't change your mode here. Oh, thank you.

We'll talk about you working with R.J. on the Panther movie and also directing him later in life. Yes. Now, you were in a film that I'm proud to say I jerked off to. Oh, God.

Not that one. This is Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. It's a beauty, isn't it? Yeah, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Yes. Well, I mean, Tanya Roberts, I will say, killer fucking body. Beautiful lady. And more importantly, a Jew.

Yes, true. And yes, absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. And in that loincloth, she just couldn't be beat. She was really exquisite. And there's one scene where she... You've seen Sheena. Yeah. She takes the loincloth off for us to go skinny dipping in front of you.

And it's like, oh, Jesus Christ. Yes, it was a show-stopping moment. The entire crew was very apt that day. And, of course, the innocent Sheena has no sense of taking off her clothes as anything that's improper. So she's just in a river rubbing it up, singing a little song. I'm having a wash. Oh, why aren't you taking off your clothes and jumping in?

And of course, my guy is a contemporary guy and just like his jaws drop down. But yeah, we had a lot of fun on that did you make that in kenya yeah we made it in kenya yeah we were there for four and a half almost five months jeez i was listening to an interview with you and you were talking about one of the things that disillusioned you over time or got made you disenchanted about acting was your first first your first picture you're in Europe for months. Your second picture, you're in Africa for months. You wound up being away from home a lot.

Yeah, but I will say this, is that for that period of time, my family came with me on both of those trips. Yeah, yeah. My son, who's 37 now and a successful composer and director and writer um uh was a little baby and he came to to england with me and janet and then uh and then we all went to uh kenya for for the duration of that so we had a lot of fun was there you told me on the phone there was a first of all first of all the director john gierman gillerman john gillerman i never knew how to say his name john gillerman directed the towering Inferno and King Kong.

Two mega hits back to back. Yeah, I mean, they both made money. King Kong is maligned, but it was a profitable film. Well, the story was that it was the first $200 million movies, the first director to make $100 million box office movies. He made a lot of other good movies too. Towering Inferno was still fun to watch and King Kong is fun too. Of course they've

remade it now a bunch of times. Absolutely. He was quite a character Mr. Gillum and he's no longer with us. He's quite a character. And Frank was telling me that he got into some fist fights on the set? Well, you know, there was something that occurred.

Tonya Roberts was married to a lovely man named Barry at the time. And something had happened at a New Year's Eve dinner. I wasn't there that night. And Gillerman and Barry were both upset about something. And I don't know what happened. But we're out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, the kind of place that you have to drive an hour to get to the airstrip and then fly another two hours and then drive another hour to get to this location.

It's in the middle of nowhere. And there's hundreds and hundreds of people working on the set carrying things. And we're sitting under a little tent. And I'm sitting there with Barry and he's trying to tell me the story about the New Year's Eve fiasco. And John Gillerman comes walking up, starts to enter the tent and Barry shifts the tone of his voice very drastically from being loud and telling me the story about how inappropriate John was to being very quiet. And John Gillerman knew exactly what was happening. He was being talked about.

So he said, go ahead, Barry. What were you talking about? And Barry said, about you, you asshole. And John tried to kick him in the ass through a director's chair. Barry jumped up and they started putting their fists up. And John tried to push past me. And he reached into a crate of Schweppes tonic water and grabbed two bottles out and tried to smash them on the rock. And they wouldn't break, and he hit them a second time and a third time.

And then finally they broke, but Barry was being taken away. And these two guys are arguing in the middle of nowhere about nothing, and Gillerman's got broken bottle stubs going, I'll rip your balls out, you punk. Or he was, I'll kick your ass, I'll kick your ass. Movie making. Everybody stopped working and watched these two guys, and they were still yelling at each other from hundreds of feet away.

Insanity on a movie set in the middle of nowhere in 102 degrees. A lot of talent associated with that movie. I mean, the great Lorenzo Semple Jr., who wrote Parallax View and Papillon

and Three Days at the Condor and David Newman, who wrote a Superman movie for Donner and Bonnie and Clyde. You turned it down initially? Well, yeah. I wasn't sure about the script. I wasn't sure about the role. I didn't understand what the tone of it was going to be. I'd already been in the Pink Panther movie and, you know, the Panther wasn't successful.

And I thought, oh, I don't know that I want to be in another big budget because it was a big budget movie, action movie. I don't know if I really want to be in something that I don't really understand and then I went in to see my my mega agent Marty Baum and I was going to say to him I I don't really understand this script and I'm not sure that this is the right project for me and the next thing I remember I was on a plane to Africa so somewhere along the line I got seduced into doing it. Was it Semple who changed your mind? I wish I could say it was Semple. I remember Semple and John Gillerman and the producer and Tanya and I had a meeting one night. And there were so many arguments happening before we even started shooting.

And at one point, I looked over at Lorenzo and he had the collar of his polo shirt in his mouth, and he was chewing on it because he was so stressed out about what was happening in our little script conference meeting. And we hadn't even begun shooting. So it was a rough road, that one. But still, we had a lot of laughs. Yeah, what an experience. Yeah, I almost got killed by a rhinoceros in that show. Excellent. How did this happen? I by a rhinoceros in that show. Excellent.

How did this happen? I was going to ask you about wild animals. Well, there was a scene where Sheena wants to run off by myself and doesn't want me to follow her, so she takes a stick and draws a circle around my Range Rover and says, this is a magic circle. Do not walk out of it. And she runs off.

And I go, well, what does that mean? So I start to run after her. And I hear something in the shrubs. And I look over. And it's a rhinoceros. And the rhinoceros walks up to the edge of the circle and gives me a look. And then he runs off and terrifies me

so I don't leave the circle. So for weeks and weeks, they had a rhinoceros that they'd flown over from Thousand Oaks, California. His air bill was $54,000 to get him over there. And they had a run for him. And the belief was as if they let him out of his crate and kind of goosed him along this very narrow run. of his crate and kind of goosed him along this very narrow run. By the time he got to the place where the clearing was, where my car, the Range Rover was and the Magic Circle was, that he would stop because he was winded. And I have this video at home because a friend of mine was shooting it.

You can see that the rhino comes out of the shrubs and I'm lying on the ground in front of this Range Rover and I can't hear, I can't see anything, but I can hear a first AD going, he's coming up the trail. He's coming up the trail. He's almost at the end of the trail. And literally from in front of my car, a rhinoceros, it was like he magically appeared. And instead of stopping and taking a breath, he charged at me. Wow. And I have this piece of video. I'll show it to you or send it to you sometime. We'd love to see it.

It's really amazing because just before the take, I decided I would unlock the door to the Range Rover and open the window. And when I saw him come after me, I just stuck my arm in the car and I dove in. And you can see his tusk going by the door as I dive into the Range Rover. It was really close. Wow. So those rhinoceroses can really move. They're surprisingly fast and more agile than you. You found out.

Yeah, with a brain the size of a walnut. So they're not trainable. They don't work well with others. I'm going to go back for a second. By the way, we found this interesting too as actresses who had turned it down, the part of Sheena before, Bo Derek, Raquel Welch, and this one

strikes me as odd. Jodie Foster? Do you know anything about this? No, but the other two had already been in loincloth. Why did they need to do it again? Exactly. Good point. And Raquel Welch is one of those people, you know, legendary

sex symbol who has never once showed a thing. She has never, it's always been, she's always been a cock tease for Kel Welch. Well, she sure is gorgeous. I directed her in an episode of Spin City and she was exquisite.

So, she is beautiful. Not in a loincloth, though. Ted was in a loincloth, though. Ted was in a loincloth. Like I said, we jump around, and I want to go back, Ted. When you came to New York, first of all, you're from the Midwest, from the Chicago area. You came to New York, and I'll come back later to this because I want to ask you about your rock bands, too, and about singing opera, which we also find interesting. Oh, my goodness but this jumped out at me one of your first gigs in new york uh was a show about christopher

columbus with you and drag do i have this right yes it was my first uh first role in new york there was a theater company there that uh was going to put on the Michael DeGelderode play Columbus, which is not a musical. Okay. But they had decided to make it a musical. And I auditioned for it, and I got the role of Queen Isabella. And I sang an aria in drag to Columbus. That's great.

I gave him the three ships, and he gave me a big kiss. That was my first experience, experience theatrical experience in new york it was so much fun but i remember my stepfather thinking saying to me you know i'm not so sure about this acting business you know there's a lot of strange people in it and uh and i remember thinking i don't think I'll invite him to New York for this first one to see me in drag getting kissed on the lips. But it was a lot of fun. We had an awful lot of fun. Now I'm going to have to put you on the spot,

as I do with all our guests. Can you sing just a little piece of an aria for us? Do you still do it, Ted? You know, it's something that you need to do about at least an hour a day to stay in shape

and I am not in shape so put me on the spot about something else and then you do it. Okay. It'll be most unpleasant and it'll live forever, Gilbert,

so please, no. You told me you worked with an opera lover. You worked with Tony Randall. And you told me that you guys, back in those days, I guess you were still working on your voice. You were still training it. Yes.

And he would ask you what Gilbert just asked you? He would ask you to... Yeah, he loved to sing opera, and I have a tenor voice, and he's a baritone, were he always wanted me to learn little pieces of great baritone tenor duets and you know we'd be in between takes or something and he'd say come on Ted come on let's

do it let's do it let's do it for everybody and Tony Randall was just not somebody you could say no to he was just irrepressible so we would sing for everybody and they would kind of feign like oh this is really wonderful. That's great. Opera in Calabasas.

This is what a thrill. I wish you had that like the Rhino video. I think I managed to burn every copy. You were a confident guy. I mean, I've read interviews with you, and you said you were fearless in those days. You had a lot of confidence. You would go into an audition and just believe that you were going to get the part.

Yes, that's true. I was well-trained. I spent three and a half years at what was then called the Goodman School of Drama. And I was a classically trained actor. And I felt like there wasn't anything I couldn't do as an actor. And so I went to New York full of confidence. And after a short time, after I did my Queen Isabella stint, I went down to Florida and did some dinner theater

and then came back and auditioned for Grease with about 699 other people. And I didn't even have an equity card at the time. And I got the part of Danny Zuko, replaced Danny Zuko. Amazing. You must have had a lot of confidence. And to beat out 500 actors. Well, you know what? We weren't thinking.

I wasn't thinking about them. I was just thinking about me. But yeah, it was a great time. And also, if you were a young actor in New York, there weren't a lot of opportunities, you know? I mean, you could be in Godspell, or you could be in Grease, or whatever the young people shows that were running.

But it was a great place to start. All your predecessors in that part, in the Danny Zuko part, too. Some names there. Some people, well, Barry Bostwick, I think was the original. Barry Bostwick created the part. Yeah, he's a great actor, and a great dancer, I think, was the original. Barry Bostwick created the part. Created the part.

Yeah, he's a great actor and a great dancer and a great singer. And Peter Gallagher and Treat Williams. Yes, I replaced Treat. Peter Gallagher replaced me. How about that? Yeah. What a murderer's row. Yeah, well, and the man who played the part second after Barry Bostwick was the late Jeff Conaway, who was also a tremendous singer-actor and so handsome.

Right. Oh, my goodness. And then became Kinnicky. And became Kinnicky and was on Taxi and, yeah. So you're full of confidence. You're getting these parts. I mean, it wasn't even that long after you decided to be an actor because you were a musician. Well, yeah, I was a musician in high school i had rock and roll bands from the time i was 11 until i at the end of

high school and then i was in the school musical and decided i liked it and found after as high school was ending i needed to get a high school diploma. I was a couple of credits short. I was a little bit of an underachiever. So I got my diploma from high school and then went to the Goodman School of Drama. And like I said, they trained me so well. All I wanted to do when I was graduating from Goodman was to be a young leading man in a repertory company. That's all I wanted. I like that.

It's funny. You remind me like I always thought the thing I always say about my early days is like I had stupidity on my side. You know, you go, oh, there's a few billion other people who want this part?

Alright. It didn't occur to either of you, right? The level of competition. We don't know what we don't know. Right. Right? And there's an awful lot of relief in that sometimes when you get the sense that something scary is out there, but you don't really know what it is. You can be intimidated by it or you can just play through. These were serious acting students, too, because I heard you say that maybe a couple of people in the company harbored movie star fantasies, but nobody thought, everybody thought getting a job in TV was selling out.

Yes, it was interesting because there weren't as many people crossing over from television into movies at that point, you know. It started to happen a little bit later. I think Travolta was one of the first who really crossed over from Welcome Back, Cotter, and then was a huge movie star. Most people kind of felt like if you get on a television series, that'll type you as a small screen person. So when I came out to California in 1977, to Los Angeles in 1977, I really didn't want to be on a television series. I wanted to try and find my way into the movies. And then I was sent the pilot script to soap. Everything changed.

Everything changed. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast right after this. That's what you say. Baseball is finally back. Get in on Major League action and swing for the fences with BetMGM, the king of sportsbooks. Log in or sign up to play along as BetMGM brings the real-time action.

Embrace a season's worth of swings with BetMGM, your one-stop shop for all things baseball. BetMGM.com for Ts and Cs. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. DQ presents the sound of a genius idea with the new Smarties cookie collision blizzard. It's the sound of your favorite Smarties blizzard.

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Happy tastes good. Gil and Frank went out to pee. Now they're back so they can be on their amazing colossal podcast. Kids, time to get back to Gilbert and Frank's amazing colossal podcast. So let's go!

Get back to Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal podcast. So let's go. You had a chance to work with great people, but I always found something in the later years of the Pink Panther movies, something very ghoulish about Blake Edwards. About trying to keep it alive? Yeah. Peter Sellers is dead. David Niven

I think had ALS so he couldn't speak and they had Rich Little doing what sounded like a Ronald Coleman. In Ted's movie. Yes. Yes. And they were using like previously shot footage with him going, doing what sounded like a Ronald Coleman. In Ted's movie. Yes, yes. And they were using previously shot footage with him going, I remember the time.

And you go, well, he wasn't in that movie. How does he remember the time? Yeah, well, there were, Blake made two movies at the same time. He made a wraparound movie that was an homage to Peter called Trail of the Pink Panther. That was about an investigative journalist trying

to find where he'd gone and she'd come in contact with somebody and would go, I remember the time he was squashing grapes at the thing and then they'd cut back to some outtake that they had done that I guess maybe hadn't been good enough to make it into a movie at that point okay he's using outtakes at this point outtakes and then he was making my movie curse of the pink panther uh and that was a first

run movie but it had all the same old characters in it the great characters in it um and there's you know there's the story that i heard about that movie was that a few years before Curse of the Pink Panther, Blake and Peter had decided that they just didn't want to work together anymore. They really didn't get along well. And so they both went to MGMUA and said, we want to make Pink Panther movies, but we don't want to work with each other anymore. And apparently MGMUA said, Peter, you can make a movie without Blake, but Blake, we don't want you to make one without Peter. And they paid

Blake a large sum of money. Peter had a script in development, was about three months away from going into principal photography. I think it was called The Romance of the Pink Panther. Yes, that's correct. And he died. And MGMUA had a Pink Panther movie on their schedule for the next summer.

And apparently they went to Blake at that point and said, Hey, Blake, would you like to make a Pink Panther movie for us now? And that was kind of the setting of how we went into that film. kind of the setting of how we went into that film. I think he had a little bit of mixed feelings, I guess, maybe, about making it in terms of what he'd been through with the studio guys. Yeah. What a creative force and what a genius.

Oh, he was. He absolutely was. And were you a fan up until that point? I mean, had you seen the Panther pictures, all the Panther pictures, and things like The Great Race? Oh mean, had you seen the Panther pictures, all the Panther pictures, and things like The Great Race? Oh, I'd seen all the Panther pictures. Breakfast at Tiffany's. I'd seen everything. It was just, you know, experiment and terror.

I love experiment and terror. Oh, my God. His range as a director was huge. It was huge. It was huge. And the fact that he could do the deft kind of comedy and that worked with Peter and made the, up to that point, was the most successful comedy series of movies ever. And then he could make something like Days of Wine and Roses. Days of Wine and Roses.

The versatility of them. Yes. And then they had, at one point, they had Roberto Benigni as Clouseau. Later, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Blake tried it again later on with Roberto Benigni. I guess it didn't work. I was recalling a story when I went to Pinewood Studios to make the Pink Panther movie that I was going to be in. I went into the makeup room of the great makeup artist Harry Frampton who had done all of Peter Sellers' great disguises.

who had done all of Peter Sellers' great disguises. And lining the shelves of this room, there must have been 40 wax, life-size heads, impressions of Peter Sellers. And it was for a scene that we were going to do later on where I go to Clouseau's apartment and Cato has turned it into the Clouseau Memorial Museum and is charging people to come in. But he's got life-size replicas of Peter

in all of his greatest disguises. And I break into the apartment and then walk around for a bit and then Cato attacks me. Yeah, it's one of the funnier scenes in the movie. Yeah. Yeah, we have a great fight. It was so much fun.

We were just watching it. I was getting to do a fight with Kato with Bert Kwa. Excuse me. We just watched it. It's a really funny sequence. Yeah, yeah. Is that where you turned to Blake and said, is this a good idea?

Yeah, when I first walked onto the set and there was me standing face-to-face with all of the genius of Peter Sellers, I said to him, are we sure this is a great idea? You really want to bring me face-to-face? And I remember him saying something like, kid, all you got to do is remember what color Mercedes you want. No, I'm sorry.

Kid, all you have to do is know what color Rolls Royce you want to have. That's it. That's what he said. Well, he had seen you. Let's take it back because he had seen you in Soap playing Danny in Soap. He said that he and Julie Andrews were fans

of yours, and that's how you got called into the meeting with him in the first place? Yeah, it's kind of a funny story in that my managers, I'd just gotten back from New York, playing our song on Broadway, and I was hoping to get a part in a movie. And my managers called me and said, don't ask us how we did it, but we got you

in to see Blake Edwards. He's doing a Pink Panther movie. Go in and make a good impression, and maybe he'll give you a part. So I went in to see Blake. And while I was in the waiting room, I could hear someone in the room just destroying that room with laughter. I could hear the muffled, and then I could hear three or four people just laughing and laughing and laughing. And it went on for 20 minutes and I was thinking, I can't go in there. I don't even know who this is. And the door finally opened and it was Martin Mull. And I've told him this story a couple of times now that I almost couldn't go in because whatever he was doing in there was so funny. And I went in and sat down and Blake said, hey, hi, it's really nice to meet you.

Julie and I are big fans of yours. I've got this idea for a Pink Panther movie. And so here's the idea. And he starts to tell me the whole story. This guy does this and he does that and he goes over here. Now he's like six, seven, eight minutes into telling me the idea. And he starts to tell me the whole story. This guy does this, and he does that, and he goes over here. Now he's like six, seven, eight minutes into telling me the story. And I really don't know where I'm going to fit in this movie. And he finishes telling me the story, and he goes, I think this would be a great part for you. Will you do it?

And I went, yeah, I would do it. I would do it. He said, I'm going to be honest with you. I wanted Dudley, but Dudley won't even return my phone calls now. I made him a big star with 10 and he's booked now for the next 10 years and I can't even get him on the phone. So I'm sure they'll give me who I want and I want you to do it. And I thought, okay. I went home, I called my agents. They said, how did it go? I said, he offered me the part. And my agent said, he did not offer you the part. Are you out of your mind?

Everybody wants that role. They didn't believe you. And the next day, I got another call to go back and see Blake again. So I went back, and I sat in his office for about an hour. And then finally, someone opened the door. I went into Blake's office. And he said, hey, thanks for coming back. Do you see that pair of glasses over there on that table?

I said, yeah. And he said, put them on. And I put on this pair of glasses. And he just burst into laughter. And he called for the producer, Tony Adams. Tony, Tony, come in here. Tony. Tony Adams came running in.

Blake said, look at Ted. And Tony started laughing. The two of them are laughing and laughing and laughing. And finally, Blake goes, OK, OK, take the glasses off and leave them. You'll be hearing from us. And I left. And I thought, what the hell was that? I had no idea what that could have been about.

My agents called and said, what happened? I said, he asked me to put on a pair of glasses and he thought it was funny and they went, all right, this is just crazy and literally a week later they offered me a six picture deal.

Six pictures, six Panther movies. Yeah, we only made one though. Amazing. Only made one. Clifton Slay. You know, it's not intimidating enough

that you're following in the footsteps ofay. You know, it's not intimidating enough that you're following in the footsteps of arguably one of the greatest comedians of our time. One of the greatest physical comedians of our time. But then he tells you, oh, I really wanted Dudley Moore. Well, you know what? Again, that didn't bother me. Didn't bother you? No, no.

It was like, fine, if you could get Dudley. And I also knew that I was going to get creamed. There was a big part of me that was going, you don't replace Peter Sellers. Not in this part. He's a titan in this part. You just don't. But 30, 40 years down the line, are you going to kick yourself if you don't do this? Like are you really going to pass up this opportunity? And I thought

again, you know, no I'm going to do this. You don't know what you don't know. Of course. I don't think you could have passed it up especially given the adventure and the people you got to work with. Oh God I spent months. The one you worked with who was equally good in comedy

as well as drama was, and I'm always a fan of his, was Herbert Lomb. Great Herbert Lomb. Oh, God. Herbert Lomb was so funny. Frank and I were talking about that great scene. And I think it's Revenge of the Pink Panther where Clouseau plays the dentist. And his nose starts to melt. And he gives Lomb a big shot of laughing gas, and the two of them are just laughing.

And it's one of the great scenes of all time. But he is so funny, and he was still doing the twitchy thing. But then he was also – it was so funny, though, because he's like a very educated, very erudite person. very educated, very erudite person, you know, so he'd do this face twitching in the scene and he'd go, have you decided where you're going to dine while you're here in the south of France? And you must book a reservation

and he would give me all these restaurants and it just, the incongruity of, you know, his willingness to be just a lowbrow comedian and still be a great Herbert Long. He was a cultured guy. I mean, first, he played Phantom of the Opera. Yes.

Which you know. Yeah. A very bright guy. I think that's, I think it's Pink Panther Strikes Again. Actually. Where he does

the dentist thing. The laughing gas. And Sellers has the disguise that's melting. Yes. He just pulls the wrong tooth. Yes, it's so funny. Great great together another actor i'm a fan

of uh who is just basically known as boss hogs from uh oh yeah boss hog yeah from uh deuce of hazard and that's sorrow book yeah sorrow book oh my god God. Yeah, he played the godfather. My godfather on Soap. Yep, yep. Big fan of his. Why do you remember about him? I just remember what a funny actor he was and what a kind gentleman he was. I remember there was a scene, a moment in a scene that we played together

where he's giving me instructions of somebody wants me to kill or something. And, and somebody, one of his henchmen walks in and gives him this little brown paper bag, a lunch bag. And he opens it up. He goes, what is that?

Is that a finger? And the henchman, yes. And he goes, you know, the next time loopy, you wax a guy, tell him I'll take his word for it. Don't bring me any more

figures. But those are Susan Harris's great words. She's brilliant. She wrote the whole first season all by herself and most of the second, so she's an incredible writer and a genius and a friend.

We'll come back to soap, but I got a couple more Panther She's an incredible writer and a genius and a friend. We'll come back to Soap, but I got a couple more Panther questions just before we move on. The people that you got to work with, and we were talking on the phone, and you said what you just said, I didn't want to miss this grand adventure. Looking back, I've heard you say that I wish the movie had been successful, obviously, but I don't regret spending time in the company of these people you know the first the first scene that i did in europe was a scene at a pier we were going to drive up to niven's yacht and Niven's character's yacht. And I was sitting in a red Ferrari next to R.J. Wagner. And my knee was just bouncing up and down because I was so nervous. And R.J. was so kind to me that morning.

You know, he was just so lovely. And we talked about sports and kids and all sorts of other things. And we were sitting in this car. It was right next to an old beat-up sailboat, a very large sailboat, that apparently had been the sailboat where Errol Flynn had been charged with having sex with an underage girl. Ooh. Wow. In the shower.

In the shower of this yacht. And the story is that the French judge came down to look at the shower. And when he saw how small it was, he said, impossible. And he threw the case out of court. And that yacht was sitting there. But that first morning, I sat in a red ferrari with rj wagner who was you know an idol of mine who i'd loved in his movies uh uh harper was one of my favorite we love what we've talked about harper yeah we talked about one of my one of my favorite movies great

william goldman yep and he's so great in paul newman such a great cast and then he was in it takes a thief the television series. It Takes a Thief. So I'm just a big fan of his. And there I am sitting in this Ferrari with him. And we pull up and we play scenes all day long with David Niven and Capucine. It was just like a dream come true. Yeah.

And Robert Loggia you got to work with, too. Oh, my God. Bob Loggia was so much fun. Herbert, Bert K Oh, my God. Bob Lozier was so much fun. Herbert, Bert Kauk, the whole cast, everyone was so much fun. This is the question I wanted to ask. But before I jump onto it, just also tell us about Corman, who played Professor Balls. And you got to work with him a second time on The Long Shot. Yes, Corman really had ownership of my funny bone.

I was a slave to him. We did a scene where I go to Balls, this guy's artist, to try and see if I could find Clouseau because that's the point of the movie is I'm looking for him. Although why I want to keep looking for him, I don't know. I guess that was the point. But he played Professor Balls. He had this thick German accent. So funny.

And he did this thing early on in the scene where he had the line, and he would come in here often browsing for disguises. And he did this really sticky thing. He would come in here often browsing for disguises. And he did this belt on the beat. And I couldn't stop laughing. It took about 30 minutes for me to stop laughing. And he did it great every time.

And then I got to work with him again on The Long Shot with Tim Conway and Harvey Korman and Jack Weston and Jonathan Winters. What a group. Literally, those guys broke one of my ribs from convulsive laughter. It was just more than I could take. Weirdest part of Curse of the Pink Panther, I think, and I rewatched it. And as I was saying to you on the phone, there were many good moments in it. Because even the first time you meet Dreyfus and knock him out the window nobody could direct physical comedy and and those kind

of set pieces like Blake Edwards yep so you're you're not necessarily missing sellers in those moments but it's very strange to have Roger Moore show up in the movie playing the actual Clouseau. Which really throws it into a surreal place. Apparently, while they were enjoying dinner at one of their chateaus in Stade one night, Blake and Roger Moore. Apparently, Roger Moore did his Clouseau impersonation. Okay. And Blake decided that he wanted Roger to do it in the movie.

And so Roger worked for one day. And, you know, Roger worked James Bond. We both had ice buckets stuck on our heads. And he was doing a pretty lame Clouseau. I'm sorry. It's very, very, not very a good Clouseau. No. And I remember at one point, somebody saying to Roger, well, you know, it looks like we've got two more setups. And he said, oh, really? I thought I'd be done by now. And I said, Roger, they haven't finished loading

the money into your car yet. You're going to have to stay a little bit longer because they paid him an exorbitant. I don't know what they paid him, but he was a lovely man, spoke so many languages, and was just as gracious as could be. And you went on Carson to promote the film, you were telling me? Oh, goodness, yes. They said, when's the premiere? Yeah, Johnny asked me, when's the premiere? No, he asked me if I was going to the premiere. asked me when's when's the premiere i know he asked me if i was going to the premiere and i said i don't think there is one because mgma had had had pulled out so so far away from the film

and i remember it made him laugh uh for a long time because every movie has a premiere somewhere even if it premieres on television as a premiere so that's where it got ugly with with edwards and mgm suing each other and and and just the whole thing coming undone at that part it was they were pretty unhappy with each other there was actually a couple days when we were in the south of france filming curse of the pink panther where everything shut down for a few days because lee katz and david beigelman and a couple of other mgm ua guys came over and had a heart-to-heart with Blake about, I guess, what was being spent or something. I don't know. Yeah.

Movie business. If you're an actor in the movie business, you find out really, really quickly that you're a small cog in the wheel. But I think every young actor, even knowing they were stepping into a treacherous situation and were going to get slammed, as you said, could not resist the opportunity to work with these giants, to play in that playground. No, there was just never a question of whether or not I would do it. Even when at one point, Blake sent me some pages from Stodd on the old fax machine paper, back in the early 80s. And it was really hard to read. And he'd sent me the wrong pages. He'd sent me the scenes from Trail of the Pink Panther. And I took them and I read them. And they were bits that Peter had already done and I got in a panic and I tried to call Blake in Stade and there was an 11 hour time difference and Julie Andrews mother was there and she often picked up the phone and she really didn't like me calling she would chastise me for

disturbing Blackie why are you calling stop calling. Leave Blackie alone. No, I'm going to be in this movie. I'm young. I'll click, and she'd hang up on me. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He wants me to do stuff that Peter had already done, and then I found out it was the script, the pages for the other film that got sent to me by mistake.

What a relief. So you didn't see RJ for all these years until Two and a Half Men? Until Two and a Half Men, yes. And suddenly I'm directing him on Two and a Half Men and it's so lovely to see him. He looks so great. He's so talented. And such a fun person to be with. Yeah, we had a great time. We were thrilled to get him on this show

obviously. I can imagine. Oh yeah, he had fun with Gilbert. Gilbert, well you heard it. He begged to call him RJ. Yes. Yeah. And what was it like working with George Burns? Oh, George Burns was amazing.

Oh, God, You Devil. Oh, God, You Devil, written by Andrew Berger. Our previous guest here. written by Andrew Berger, our previous guest here, who, when the first Oh God movie came out and was so successful, they ordered two different scripts, two more scripts, and they decided to make the one that they made second second. I don't know why, because I think Andrew's script was so much funnier.

But we had about three days of rehearsal, and the wonderful actor Ron Silver good actor played my I think he played my agent yes he played my agent and first day of rehearsal Ron Silver

opened up a case and he had some really beautiful Cuban cigars in there and he said hey George beautiful Cuban cigars in there. And he said, hey, George. Hey, George, can I give you a cigar? And George only smoked that cheap El Producto cigar that had a paper wrapper because it was a prop for him. Cheap shit, yeah.

Cheap shit. He only smoked that because he knew it was always burning. So no matter how long he left it in his fingers, no matter when he took the next puff, it would be lit and he didn't have to relight it. So I don't know that it was about the tobacco enjoyment as much as it was a proper George. George said, no, no, no, thanks. I don't want one. Second day, Ron Silver was like really tenacious. Come on, George, come on, try, try one of these cigars. They're so good. You know, this is a great cigar. You should try it. George was

like, no, no, no, no, no, no thanks. I don't want that cigar. Third day, Silver's still all over him about trying one of his cigars. And finally, George says to him, would you pay for that cigar? Ron Silver said, I don't know. I think $70, $80, something like that. And George said, if I paid that much for a cigar, I'd want to fuck it first. That's great.

Fantastic. Oh, my God, we fell out. We just laughed and laughed and laughed. Fantastic. He was so much fun to work with. I do remember the night that he rapped on the picture. We were in a courtyard at a restaurant on La Cienega. we were in a courtyard at a restaurant on La Cienega.

And at the entrance to the courtyard, there was a white Rolls Royce. And there was a driver in full driver uniform standing there waiting. And I looked over and the door to his motorhome opened and a puff of smoke came out, and this beautiful blonde-haired woman in a really short white dress with incredibly long legs and high heels came out, put her hand up. George's hand reached out, came down the steps with her. Two of them walked arm in arm through the courtyard.

The whole crew split apart like the Red Sea. And he was puffing that cigar. And over his shoulder, as he got to the Rolls Royce, he said, so long, suckers. And he got in the Rolls Royce. It's like the great, you could not. That's exactly how you want to picture George Burns. You could not choreograph that exit any better. Everything but the closing iris.

Yeah, I was like, George fucking Burns. Oh my God. Legend. He was amazing. Did he tell you vaudeville stories? Did he ever mention swains, rats, and cats? Do you know about that, Ted? No.

Okay. It sounds familiar. I think, you know, that ted no okay i it sounds familiar i think you know i do an animal act he worked with in vaudeville oh yeah i do remember sitting close to him and you know i just i would say tell me about jack benny and he would tell me stories about jack benny unfortunately i can't remember any of them but it was so much fun just being around him and listening to him talk about gracie and Burns and Benny and all of his friends. Did you find him a little bit demanding to work with? You know what?

Boy, you know everything, don't you? I don't know. How do you know these things? Extra work. He was, yes, he was very demanding. In fact, early on in the day, he was demanding all day long. And we'd have scenes, and I was often giving him the setup to a joke. And he sometimes wouldn't like how I was setting him up.

And he would go, come on, come on, come on. You know, you've got to feed that to me faster. You're crumbing this whole thing. You're crumbing this whole thing. Come on, you've got to. And I'd go, George, George, I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you great. It's going to be hanging out over the plate, and you're going to drive it deep.

But you can't tell me how to say it. And you go, come on, kid. Come on. I'm waiting for you. Don't hang me out there, kid. You're crumming this thing. I go, OK. You're crumming it.

Crumming it. I'll be crumming it. Oh, he was so funny. And he was so funny. And he was always right, too, you know, no matter what. No matter what he said. He's George Burns, for God's sakes. Yeah, he's George Burns.

Ultimately, I gave him everything he wanted. I didn't care. It was so much fun. Yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this. Introducing TD Insurance for Business with customized coverage options for your business. Because at TD Insurance, we understand that your business is unique,

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to a Vietnamese-inspired dish ready in minutes, PC makes any culinary adventure an on-budget breeze. Let me go back to soap just to talk about some of these great actors. We mentioned also the great Susan Harris

and Paul Witt and Tony Thomas who were early champions of yours and then remain so through your career. Talented people. But how did you get soap? Did you audition six times? Do I have this right?

Good Lord almighty. Yes, I did. They called me back. After my first audition, they called me back five more times until finally I was in the network reading with maybe 30 network executives in a very small office. Back then, they didn't have the big theatrical kind of casting rooms that they have now. It was just packed in there. But yeah, I auditioned six times to get the part of Danny Dallas. Even though you didn't want to do a TV series?

I didn't want to do a television series. And then I would have crawled through glass, broken glass for that part. I loved it so much. You were great on that show. Oh, thanks. I mean, so many people were great on that show. And Gilbert and I were talking about the actors. Not only the main cast, Robert Guillaume, who was wonderful, and Katherine Hellman, who was wonderful.

Jack Guilford. The guest stars, like Jack Guilford and Gregory Sierra. What was Guilford like to work with? He was just glorious. He was up in the spaceship with Richard Mulligan in season three. Yes. There's an

incredible outtake of those little Martians that had the big rubber heads and one of them is about to go through the automatic door and the door comes down too soon and hits him right at the top of the rubber head, and he can't get through. And it hits a hysterical piece of outtake. But Jack Guilford, I wish I had more to do with him.

That was when Richard Mulligan was on the spaceship up in the sky with him. So he was kind of off on his own, but he was lovely. Guilford was just a lovely man. You had that whole wonderful first season, too. I mean, they gave you a lot to do when you got there. They gave you a workload. You were working for Libertini, the godfather,

and you had to bump off. And by the way, Mulligan, a very, very funny guy, a very funny physical actor. Hilarious. Speaking of Blake Edwards, SOB. There's a connection. Richard was phenomenal in SOB. That's still one of my, that's a great showbiz movie.

It is. It is a great, great showbiz. Underrated. Robert Preston, Larry Hagman. Robert Weber. Robert Weber and Richard Mulligan. Those guys are so funny. Robert Vaughn Larry Hagman. Robert Weber. Robert Weber and Richard Mulligan. Those guys are so funny. Robert Vaughn is so funny in that movie.

Everybody. Everybody that's in that movie. Shelley Winters. Shelley Winters. They're all so funny. But yes, they... Stuart Margolin. Stuart Margolin. Yeah, the first season of Soap was just glorious.

The table reads, the laugh spread was so huge because no one could keep a straight face. Susan wrote such incredible scripts the whole way through, but the cast was amazing, and it was everybody who was supposed to play that part. everyone who was cast in that show was born to play the part. And, uh, you know, there weren't any of those ideas, casting ideas. Hey,

this guy's really popular. Why don't you use him? No, it was everybody. John Biner too. Oh, John Biner. Yeah.

Who we had here. Yeah. Harold Gould. Yeah. Another, another great character actor. They, I mean, they,

they, she really cast that show within an inch of its life. Yes. I mean, it was very, very well written. Talk to me a bit, Ted, about the controversy surrounding the show. You know, it's funny because the 70s, nobody would bat an eye now. So much has changed. Obviously, you didn't have pay cable then, but, you know, alien abductions exorcisms adultery mental illness demonic possession

sex changes all this stuff that she was attempting diana canova's uh character was trying to have an affair with the priest that right yes so you know that's right and and what happened was the storylines got leaked uh uh late in the spring after ABC had picked it up. There's that Newsweek article. Yeah, Network was taking 20,000, 30,000 letters a week in protest of the show. And they actually liked receiving the letters. They just thought, well, this is going to be like instant tune-in for us. We'll just play up the controversy.

And then shortly before the series premiered in the fall, the letters stopped coming to the network, and they started sending them more specifically to advertisers in New York. And that's when the show actually became a little bit in jeopardy about going on the air. And when it finally did go on the air, it was never really fully advertised. it was never really fully advertised. It always sold advertising time at a discounted rate because it just had that stigma of being too controversial for network television. Would you remember the controversy, Gilbert, about Soap at the time? I mean, the Council of Bishops, the Church of Christ, the National Council of Churches, the Methodist Church, the L.A. Archdiocese actually urged boycotts.

They urged families to boycott the show you can always count on the church to censor art even a board of rabbis Gilbert the board of rabbis of Southern California and as Ted says before the show even aired

there were letter writing campaigns there was pressure on sponsors what did the cast make of all this? how was it affecting you guys? before the show even aired. There were letter-writing campaigns. There was pressure on sponsors. What did the cast make of all this? How was it affecting you guys? We were frightened. We were back in Los Angeles. Most of us lived in New York at the time.

We were back in Los Angeles. We were making episodes, and we knew it was great. I mean, we all just had a sense that it was really different tonally than anything that we'd seen on television before. It was so smart and so funny. And we were, at a certain point, we all got really worried. We were frightened that maybe ABC would cave and not put the show on.

But we were all very, very happy and relieved that they did. She was brave. And also, to portray a gay character the way they did. I mean, that's one of the brilliant things about the show. Yeah, that was funny. Billy Crystal. Yeah, Jody. And it was like, now, it's almost like tiresome

that in every show, there has to be like, okay, let's edit it. We need the gay best friend. And back then, that was shocking. Ahead of its time. It really was. But, you know, sometimes somebody has to go through the door first, you know, and so we did. But wasn't Billy great in that part?

Wonderful. Yes. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. And a testament to Susan's talent that she could turn on a dime and write a sensitive scene for him

and not treat him as a cartoon. Yep. I remember Billy and I had a great scene. Billy, by the way, was another owner of my funny bone. He was always cracking me up. But Billy and I played a really wonderful scene that I'll always remember where

the mob is out to kill me now because I didn't kill Bert. And I'm going to leave home. And before I leave home, Billy's character wants me to finally accept the fact that he's gay. And my character didn't want to believe it. And it's really, really a lovely scene. Very, very powerful. I remember. You did such a great job in that scene. It was really, you know, it's one of those scenes that

you look back on and you go, that was good. Yeah, proud of it. You should be. I mean, it's really groundbreaking television. I just have a piece of paper here. Gil, you're going to enjoy this. This was the soap memo. I found this doing deep research. You know about this? No. This was the standards

and practices memo that was leaked to the press before the show premiered and printed in its entirety in the LA Times on June 27th, 1977. These were the notes from the network,

from standards and practices. You guys will appreciate this. Please delete the lines the slut, that Polish slut, get your clothes off, it didn't grow back, transsexual, oh my god, and did it hurt. Please substitute the words fruit, slut, and tinkerbell. In order to treat Jody as a gay character, his portrayal must at all times be handled without limp-wristed actions.

The conversation between Peter and Jessica, which relates to cunnilingus slash fellatio, is obviously unacceptable. Oh my God. The relationship between Jody and the football player, played by great Bob Segrin, should be handled in such a manner that explicit or intimate aspects of homosexuality are avoided entirely. Father Flotsky's stand on liberalizing the mass will have to be treated in a balanced and offensive manner. By way of example, the substitution of Oreos for the traditional wafer is unacceptable. And my favorite,

please change Burt Campbell's last name to avoid association with the Campbell Soup Company. Oh, we wouldn't want to offend them, would we? That's hysterical. You didn't know this existed? It's crazy. I didn't, and I will say that as fearful as we were, the cast was at a certain point when we heard how much controversy there was, I do want to say that Paul Witt, Tony Thomas, and Susan Harris really protected us from so much of that.

Jay Sandrich was the great director in that first season. Oh, yes. I learned so much from him. But Paul, who's passed away not too long ago, who I really loved, was an amazingly gifted man, such a lovely person. They all kept our heads up. They all kept us feeling like it's going to be okay. We're going to get on the air. We're going to be successful. And we were.

Yeah, it's a terrific show. But what's got me is like, they were like in old movies and old TV, they were blatantly gay people. Like Edward Everett Horton, those kind of gay character actors. Paul Lynn, Billy DeWolf. Sure. And it's like, as long as you didn't say they were, then they were eccentric.

Yes. Gail Gordon, Franklin Pangborn. And now it's like every romantic comedy, she has to have a gay best friend. Right. But back then, it was a shocking thing. Well, I also, again, I have to say that I thought Billy did such a great job. He did. He just played him like a great job. He did.

He just played him like a human being. He did. He was completely human in that part, and he did a great job. Let's talk about you becoming a director in the 90s. And before we turn the mics on, just for our listeners, Gilbert and Ted were trying to figure out where they knew each other from. Because they had met once. We can't put our finger on it. I think he must have auditioned for you somewhere along the line, maybe for Blossom or one of those shows you were directing back in the 90s.

But at some point, you became disenchanted with acting and said, I want to direct. I want to approach this from a different place. Yeah, sometime during the late 80s, I remember coming home from days working on a set acting and feeling like I'd had a good day, but it wasn't as thrilling. The feeling wasn't as strong. And right around that same time, I noticed that I was coaching a couple of actors. And there were some actors that would call me when they had auditions to come over and I would work with them on their auditions. There was a

couple of playwrights I was working with. And all of a sudden I just had one of those moments where I'd pursued an acting career for so long, I couldn't even let the light in of possibly being a director. And all of a sudden I had one of those moments where I thought, oh, my God, I really think I should be a director. I think like a director. And so in the late 80s, I started trying to get some directing opportunities, which didn't pan out. And then Paul Witt, Tony Thomas, and my friend Don Rio had a series called Blossom, and they offered me the part of the dad. And I turned them down through my agent, and they got really mad,

and they called me up, and Tony Thomas was like, what the fuck, man? You can't just say no to us. You have to come in. And I was like, okay, okay, I'll come in. I'll come in. So I went in to see them. Three of them were sitting there, and Tony was like, why don'll come in i'll come in so i went in to see them three of

them were sitting there and they were you know tony was like why why don't you want to play this part man we're just trying to give you a lot of money and a civilized way of life why why wouldn't you play this part and i said well i i i don't want to be an actor anymore i want to be a director and there was a beat and then the three of them just exploded in laughter like it was the funniest freaking thing you could ever say. And I remember sitting there just like going, oh, my God, what in the hell is going on here? And finally, they stopped laughing. And Tony Thomas said, you want to direct the show?

We'll let you direct the show. Play the part. We'll let you direct the show. And that's how I got the part on Blossom. That's how you became Nick Russo. That's how I became Nick Russo. Yep. And I started directing episodes of Blossom

early in the second season. Directed 18 of the 113 that we made. Yes. Was that character based on Dion? The singer Dion DiMucci? You know, Don Rio, my friend Don Rio and Dion DiMucci are good friends. And I don't know that I've ever heard Don say that

but it's very possible that he is how interesting now now what do you find different from about TV directing like as opposed to film directing I mean I always wondered, because every time I see an actor's name and directed by an actor in the series, I always wonder what they actually did. Well, I think the first required skill, required understanding for being a director is the understanding of the story. Because you're going to tell the story with performance and picture and all the other means that we have at our disposal. But working with actors and shaping performances, performance management, and working with the DP and the camera operators and making shots and blocking it, it's very exciting. It's a very, very exciting job.

You know, in the multiple camera business, you know, we have a live audience. And so our proscenium is set, which means that we're shooting most of our coverage while we're filming the entire scene, which is really challenging because you have to know how to block it. You have to know how to stage a scene so it can be filmed that way. And it doesn't afford us a lot of opportunities to tell a lot of the story with picture, which is a big difference when you're working in single camera or directing films. You get to tell a little bit more story with the camera rather than tell it with the dialogue.

The multiple camera world is all about the dialogue. Do you love working with the old pros? Was that one perk of the job, Ted? People like Barnard Hughes, for instance. These veteran actors with all of these chops. I noticed in doing deep research that you directed Kathleen Freeman in an episode of Carolina in the City,

who was the actress from Jerry Lewis' Stock Company, and Earl Holliman. Oh, my God. Some of these wonderful actors that we talk about on this show because we have a love affair with character actors. Is that just pure joy, these people walking on the set? It is pure joy. Is that just pure joy, these people walking on the set? It is pure joy. And to have grown up a student of entertainment.

Phyllis Diller is another one. Oh, Phyllis Diller. Oh, my God. And to have these people walk on to a set where I'm directing, and I love them. I love their work. They made me laugh. They made me cry.

I've loved their work for years and years and years, and finally to have the opportunity to work with them and help them shine. Will you go up and say that to them? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Be so forthcoming as to say somebody like Earl Holloman walks on the set or Shatner, who you got to direct in Shit My Dad Says? Oh, my God, Shatner. Well, we talked about that.

Judgment at Nuremberg. I mean, he's done so much in his career, and he's such an amazing actor, and he's so much fun to be around. But, yeah, it's the opportunity to walk up and shake their hand or say hello and say, I'm a great fan of your work. I've loved your work. And to be able to talk about it specifically in moments maybe that they've played, it's a big thrill for me. I enjoy that part of it. And what about directing Richard Kind? Is that the biggest thrill?

You know what, the biggest thrill is that. He's listening. He set this up, so we're going to have to throw him a bone. Richard, see, the challenge with Richard is to always get him to try and do it just a little bit bigger. You know Bjerko's line that he said to Richard? Do you know this line? No, which one? He said, the two things that are visible from space are the Great Wall of China and every acting choice that Richard Kind has ever made.

are the Great Wall of China and every acting choice that Richard Kind has ever made. Oh, Richard makes me laugh. I hope I got that right, Richard. You got that right. That's exactly right. What was James Coburn?

Oh, you played James Coburn's son. Oh, that's right. Sins of the Father. Oh, my God. Yeah, you know, it was, yeah, we were father and son,

and we were both having an affair with Glenis O'Connor, which kind of is a steamy subject matter for a television movie, what, in the 1980s, I think? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, directed by Peter Werner. That's right. Yeah, you know,ames coburn i magnificent seven magnificent seven like i can watch that movie anytime it comes on and each one of those great

stars in that movie has a flawless moment has many flawless moments he's spectacular he was so kind he was so generous. There was a scene that we did where I'm sitting in a restaurant with Glenys. We're having dinner. And James comes in. Jim comes in. And he sits down. And during the scene, he just kind of quietly reaches out and puts his hand on Glenys O'Connor's hand.

And I just jumped up. I jumped up from the table. Like, it was scripted that I leave. And director called cut, and we came back. He said, let's go again. And I remember Jim Coburn saying to me, wait. Don't go so fast this time. Just take your time and look at everything

and it was such a great note and it was so generous of another actor to give me that note you know I mean you hear about actors who maybe aren't so generous but he was incredibly generous did you ever meet him Gilbert

in your travels? no James Coburn? never met James Coburn great escape oh sure all of them. Oh, terrific. We love him in Charade,

the Stanley Donnan movie. And all his Flint movies. All the Flint pictures. Yeah, and like Flint, yeah. Okay, I have something here. Now, this may be it. Uh-oh. You did two in 1981, Ted,

if IMDB is not bullshitting me, you did two appearances on Thick of the Night. Oh, jeez. Could that be where you met Gilbert, who was a repertory player on that show? Oh, my God. In Canada. No, no.

You were on the really early Alan Thicke show. Oh, you were on the Alan Thicke show? Or were you on Thick of the Night? Wait a minute. Yeah, Thick of the Night was in LA. Maybe I got it wrong. That's when he moved here and he was going to be

he was going to knock Carson off the air and like I always say, Carson's not on the air anymore, so what? Mission accomplished, huh? My research is you did the Alan Thicke show with Michelle, one with Michelle Pfeiffer and one with Marjo

Gortner. Frank, you're amazing. That's exactly right. Okay. But my recollection is that we were in Vancouver. Then I'm giving you bad info. Then it was the Alan Thicke show, which may have preceded Thicke of the Night. Okay, I thought I had solved the mystery.

Before we get out of here. And you work with Charlie Sheen? Oh, yes. Anything about Charlie that you can say uh of course i love charlie sheen i directed all the episodes of spin city that uh that charlie sheen uh did after michael j fox retired from the show and um i think martin was on one of those too who's that i think? I think you directed The Old Man, too. I did, yes. There was an episode where Martin came on, and they had a scene where they played pool together. It was so much fun to have the two of them together. Charlie was a complete gentleman, and he was dedicated to the work, and he was very generous.

We had a lot of laughs together. Our kids used to play together. We had a lot of laughs together our kids used to play together we had a lot of fun and i'm glad to hear that he's doing well right now now that that is somebody gilbert knows yeah i worked with him once uh on on an episode of anger management and he was very nice very friendly what i remember though is taking being in a car being driven to the airport to go out to la to do that show and and they i get a call and then halfway to the airport they said uh oh we're uh postponing that at this episode because charlie broke his nose jumping into the swimming pool. Yikes.

And I thought, I wonder if he even has a swimming pool. Maybe he didn't notice there wasn't any water in it. I don't know. Okay, so you promised you'd tell him about Cosby and the models before we get out of here. Oh, okay. Okay. before we get out of here.

Oh, okay. Okay. According to what I heard from two of the writers of The Cosby Show, because I worked on... The original one, right? Oh, the Huxtable one. Yeah.

Yeah. And they said that in the schedule, Bill Cosby had a certain section of time set aside where he taught comedy to Asian models. Ted's head has slumped down onto the table. Oh, good lord. Oh, they were probably paying him for that, too, I'll bet.

Oh, good Lord. And you work with Carrie Fisher. Yes, on the Tony Randall project. Yeah. Yes, Carrie Fisher and I played opposite each other in a television film where Tony Randall and I get in each other's cars. That's the kind of buy on the thing. And I end up taking Tony Randall's car and he's got his niece and nephew are in the back seat

and Carrie's hitchhiking and I pick her up and we have all these adventures. We were stuck in that car for hours and hours and hours. And I remember her telling me that she was, she's just out of rehab. And I'm sorry that she's gone. She was really lovely. But she was just out of rehab. And she was getting a lot of calls from people who were, they were calling to find out how she was doing.

But they were basically, hey, how's it going? How's it going? Everything all right? Are you doing okay? And she would tell me during the day how many different calls and from who she got them from. And at one point I said, I went ring, ring, ring. And she looked at me and I said, it's for you. And we're ring, ring, ring.

And finally she said, hello. And I'm not a very good impressionist, but I said, Carrie, it's Darth. I'm just calling to see how you're feeling. Are you doing okay? And we had a lot of laughs, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. She's a loss. Oh, yeah, a big loss. I'm sad that she's gone. A big loss. And, you know, it's funny. We've had a run of guests

on the show. We had Beverly D'Angelo recently, who was a good friend with her, Griffin Dunn, who she keeps coming up on this show. She connected, she touched so many people she connected to so many people wonderful writer yeah really terrific actress great presence self-deprecating didn't take herself seriously yes and the books are so good she wrote so well so before we get you out of here yes sir uh, and this has been great, I just have a question, and this was a question actually from a listener.

We do this thing called Grill the Guest. David De La Fuente, this is also a question I'm wondering, were any of you guys told what the ending of Soap was? Absolutely not. In fact, we finished our fourth season. We always had cliffhangers. We didn't know really what was going to happen in the, in the next season. But when we finished that fourth season, I remember I'd been having an affair with Bob Mandon's wife and he had a gun on me.

I think four or five of us had guns on us, and we all could have been killed. And I think it was probably a negotiating ploy from the network. But we never found out what might have happened because it didn't get a fifth season. They just pulled the plug. By the way, a couple other actors we didn't mention. Howard Hesselman, wonderful. Oh, yes. The great Roscoe Lee Brown.

Oh. and somebody we talked about on the phone uh on the telephone eugene roach oh eugene roach was so funny another wonderful guy oh my god what a lovely man he was yeah and you had and we i was just going to say we lost in the last three years donnelly rhodes we lost katherine hellman just a couple of months ago robert mandan died last year, Robert Guillaume. But you got to have a reunion. Well, Jay Sandrich actually put this together. I think it's about five years ago now that he did this.

He invited everybody to come out to a dinner, and we all had an opportunity to say hello and catch up for a brief period of time. Most everyone was there, and you could see that Bob, Bob Guillaume was not in great health and you could also see Bob Mandan wasn't either, but it was so lovely to see them all, you know, and you create such a deep bond with a cast when you're with them so many hours a day and then the show finally ends and you stay in touch with a lot of people, and then the show finally ends and you stay in touch with a lot of people but slowly over the years

sometimes they just seem to slip away and I'm very grateful to Jay Sandrich for a lot of things I learned a lot from him watching him work but for getting us all together that last time what a body of work what a resume for Jay Sandrich by the way

yeah you know more Emmys and more successful shows than we can even imagine. He's a great director and a lovely man. It's staggering. Yeah. Gilbert?

Yeah. Anything else for Ted or are we going to let him go practice his... What did he say? I'm just joking. I said, wake up, Gilbert. He's so disappointed

that you wouldn't sing. Yes. Well, maybe't sing. Yes. Maybe next time. Next time we talk, you have to tell us about the Lewis Black Pilot. I'd love to tell you about the Lewis Black Pilot. I'd love to tell you about Sir John Gielgud next time. Or Gary David Goldberg. Another hero of mine.

A giant. What an amazing talent. We'll do it mine. A giant. What an amazing talent. Yeah. Yep. We'll do it again. All right. Okay, so this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And we have been talking to the wonderful Ted Walsh.

Who paid you a lovely compliment. A beautiful, beautiful compliment. Yes, that I don't think you quite deserve. No. I want to thank Krista Rose, who helped me with the research. It's not all me, Ted. Okay. And we want to thank Richard Kind, who wrote me.

Richard, we love you. Who wrote me and said, what about Ted Wass? And I said, damn, Skippy, we have to have Ted Wass. And you were great, man. And you know what? Give my love to your family. I will. Thank you so much.

I'm remarried to Nina Wass, who's an amazing producer and puts a lot of shows on the air with Ryan Seacrest Productions. And we have a beautiful 14-year-old daughter together named Stella. So life is wonderful.

Good. Ted, it's been a great ride, huh? Yeah. Was your stepfather proud of you? Yeah, ultimately, yes. Did he get over it? Yeah, he was very pleased. Okay, good.

As soon as I made some big money. As soon as I made some big money. That's what it was about. Yes. Thank you, Ted. Thank you, Richard Kahn. All right. Okay, buddy.

Thanks, guys. Pleasure to be with you. Thank you. Our pleasure. you ted thank you richard kind all right okay guys pleasure to be with you thank you our pleasure Thank you. I'm going to go. I love you. and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to John Fodiatis, John Murray, and Paul Rayburn.