Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 30. Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

Episode Date: December 22, 2014

Screenwriter/Producers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have written some of the most offbeat and imaginative movies of the last three decades, including Ed Wood, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon and the new Big Eyes (opening this week). Gilbert and Frank dropped by Scott and Larry's hotel as the boys prepped for their MOMA premiere to talk about everything from the success of their critically reviled debut film, Problem Child (featuring a certain shrill-voiced comedian) to their attempts at a Marx Brothers biopic and an It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World sequel. PLUS: Margaret Keane's existential crisis! Kelton the Cop demands a cameo! Gallagher vs. Gallagher II! "Ed Wood & Bela Lugosi: A Love Story"! And Scott and Larry meet the King of Pop! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. Today's show is brought to you by GoDaddy.com. Visit GoDaddy.com. Visit GoDaddy.com and enter promo code Gilbert149 to get your $1.49.com today. Go Daddy! It's go time! time. Their new movie, Big Eyes, directed by Tim Burton and starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz, opens on Christmas Day. They're also our only guests to own a Willie, Tyler, and Lester dummy. Welcome Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.

Thank you. Good to see you, Gilbert. Well, I don't What have you been doing for 20 years? Since we last saw you on Problem Child 2. No, we saw you on Problem Child 3. Oh, that's correct. And the cartoon show.

But you never worked on 3. We supervised it. You did? We watched it from a distance. No one ever saw that movie. It was the lowest rated TV movie for NBC that entire season. They actually had a free rerun in their contract and they chose not to use it. Yep.

They, that starred Greatest American Hero. William Catt. Yes. William Catt. What was it like working with him? He was happy. And a different junior. Yes.

I don't know whatever happened to him. That's a great question. Which, which. To the replacement Junior. Now, here's something I really want to talk about. I don't, you know, fuck your new movie. What I want to talk about is... Let's talk about Junior for now.

Okay, yes. I emailed Junior, the problem child from the problem child pictures. I know, I gave you his email, yes. Yes, and he never emailed me back, which is the lowest insult you could get in this business. When Junior won't return your call. Yes! Wow, that's a...

This is Gilbert again. I'm like, maybe you didn't get the message. Yeah, I'm not sure you you didn't get the message. Yeah, I'm not sure you're answering the machine that's working. I'm in town just for a little bit.

Maybe we can get together. That'd be fun. A little fun. Didn't you ask him to do the podcast, too? Yes. Or was that your intention? Yes,

that was my intention. And I don't know why he never answered. It can't be because he's busy. Maybe you weren't know why he never answered. It can't be because he's busy. Maybe you weren't paying him enough. Yes. Bad memories.

How about that? Now, what I remember about Problem Child, what got you to write? Well, you originally wrote Problem Child as like a really dark comedy. That's correct. Yes. Very good. Yeah, we read a newspaper article. Believe it or not, Very good. Yeah, we read a newspaper article. Believe it or not,

Problem Child is kind of based on a newspaper article. We read a newspaper article about a couple that were suing an adoption agency. This is in Orange County, California. Yeah, they basically adopted this kid and they took him home and he started writing his name and shit on the walls. And he tried to burn down their house.

And it really turned their life horrible. And then they found out the kid had been adopted like 15 times. And every time, he was like a crazy person. And the adoption agency knew it. And that was basically your character. And then the parents actually had to go on the run and have their names changed because the kid was trying to find them.

That's terrible. It was an insane story. A lot of people, the story was in the LA Times, and a lot of bottom feeder writers and producers like us saw this story. Everybody in town

started to pitch it as a horror film. We were the only guys in town trying to pitch it as a horror film. We were the only guys in town trying to pitch it as a comedy. Right. So we kind of broke through the clutter.

So we sold it as a comedy pitch. Yeah, everyone thought it was like a bad seed kind of movie. And we were like, yeah, it's a bad seed kind of movie,

but it'd be funny. Didn't I read you guys were trying to do something, get away from movies like Baby Boom and Three Days of Baby? Correct. Yeah, exactly. Wow, very good. Oh, wow.

You've done your homework. There was a bit of a genre at the time, kind of like, you know, how babies can change a yuppie's life. She's had a baby. We just care about money and work and the eight ladies. Kindergarten cop can change a tough cop.

All these movies were about how cute little kids are. And it was this very profitable genre, so we thought it could sort of be a counter-answer to that. Saying, well, what if kids aren't all great? It was. Now I can brag that Problem Child was based on a true story. It would be funnier if it had that credit in the beginning of the movie.

And I remember, too, Universal, at the time, I remember two quotes. One executive said, if this movie even breaks even, we'll be dancing in the streets. And another Universal exec said, we're going to treat this movie like a wounded soldier on the battlefield. And we're all going to run and save our own asses. I remember a few quotes. Everyone was very embarrassed by it because it was a pretty shameful

production. We reshot that movie about 11 times just so the shots were cut together. After the movie came out, Tom Pollock, chairman of Universal to his credit, said it was their most profitable film of 1990,

which we felt very good about. It was so profitable, yet they were still so embarrassed that when we went to make Problem Child 2, the head of physical production, I won't name her, but she tried to budget the film to shoot in 16mm

she didn't even manage to shoot in 35mm because what's the difference the audience isn't going to know I remember one box office analysis at the end of the year because it came out the same year as Home Alone and they said Problem Child was more influential than Home Alone because Problem Child

proved that it didn't have to be good. I remember when it was my last day of shooting there, I was saying goodbye to John Ritter and he was basically there with that look on his face like

and he was saying, well, you know the way it is in the business, you do something and that's all you can do. I mean, you go on to the next thing. When he died, the Academy Awards, the in memorandum

thing, it was him falling down from probably... Do I have this right? Was it Scott that cried at one of the screenings? I cried at the cast and crew screening. It was our first movie, and it was so terrible. And I was so sad. Sorry to bring up the short point.

What's really weird now, though, is because... But now people, they call it a classic, which is really misusing the word. Oh, yes. But it's been so long. I mean, maybe God bless Ted Turnerer and tbs that movie has been run into the ground and so many kids now for 20 years have grown up watching that movie it is beloved right and so i guess my opinion of it has come around that it's still a mess but it's out of

its mind and there are very few kids movies that are just that black and that crazy. And so it gets points for that. And it's funny. It's actually funny. For a long time, I would say we left it off our resume, but we wouldn't like to talk about it. We wouldn't lead with Problem Child. And nowadays, we go to meetings with executives and they were 10 years old

when it came out. So for them, they're like, oh my God, Problems? You guys are the guys who wrote Problem Child. See, every day I have people come over to me that say they love the Problem Child movies. And it is kind of a sick, deranged movie when you really look at it, and that John Ritter's wife starts fucking an escaped convict.

It's a serial killer. A serial killer. Is that Michael Ritter's wife starts fucking an escaped convict. A serial killer. A serial killer. Michael Ritter's character. Yes. She's having sex with a serial killer while her husband is catatonic.

And he takes a pillow and he goes to smother this pillow. Yes. And wants to kill his own child. This is a PG family film. So it was pretty dark.

Yes. Well, actually, the sequel, when we first submitted it To the ratings board This was a Closely held secret Yeah Actually this might be

The first place We ever told this story It got rated R And the studio Went crazy What the hell did you do We had destroyed Their family franchise

How can Problem Child 2 Be rated R We had jumped From PG Right past PG-13 to R. We had to take out, I think Junior one time was yelling at Dad, like, Dad, you're pussy whipped. And taking out pussy whipped got it moved to PG-13. But they were still so nervous that parents wouldn't take their kids that they slapped Woody Woodpecker.

The world's shittiest Woody Woodpecker cartoon. Smoked hands. They literally grabbed anything and threw it at them so it would look kind of cute. I remember. It was like draping tinsel over a crappy tree. One of my favorite censor jobs

is when Problem Child 2 was on TV. There's one part where the women in the neighborhood are delivering pies. Martha Quinn of MTV. Yes, yes. And at one point, one of the women, John Rooter, wants to take out,

and Junior says, oh, her pie gave us the runs. So they don't want a diarrhea reference, so they cut it out and make it, Herp Pie gave us the rash. So they clean it. Wow, that's filthier. Yes.

That's filthier. They changed it from diarrhea to syphilis. Wow. That's amazing. So how did you get from Problem Child? You guys did not want to be known as the Problem Child. I mean, just to blame ourselves a bit, because we got so beat up on the first Problem Child,

and we got fired repeatedly, when they brought us back for part two, they sort of had no choice because they had to do it really fast because michael the our the junior kid was growing and so they gave a script like just like like in eight weeks and so we said fine you want bad taste we're going to give you bad taste and and we had a little a little note up in our office which no one ever saw which was, we are making

a Pasolini movie for children. Yeah. Hilarious. Kids love Pasolini. Or a John Waters movie. It really was one of these weird things

where I think because we just embraced it. So that second movie is insane with the vomit scene and the cockroach. Oh, on the right. So it really does

give you that gigantic shit the dog takes. Oh, yes, and the dog is paralyzed at one point. We had a test screening with my beloved anecdote person, Tom Pollock, sitting in front of us in Pasadena at the test screening. And during the vomit... Vomit's all over the screen. And the audience is just howling.

The audience is having a great time and Tom Pollock, I remember, covered up his head and crawled under his chair. He was so mortified, sort of like, what have I wrought? I remember the big discussion after the test screening was were they laughing or were they moaning?

We knew they were making noise, but we weren't sure whether it was pleasure. Oh, and there's a quick reference that the ASPCA guys that help the dog are gay. Yes. And then I was an adoption agency worker in the first movie, and I become principal of a school. So I just assumed there was a part missing where there's a help wanted for principal, no experience necessary.

I will defend that one. Because we at least acknowledge it as a joke, which is in your opening, this is all we're going to talk about. In your opening scene, you're saying, It doesn't say guys open Christmas Day. I think it does.

Thank God I got away from that bad town I lived in. Thank God I got out of that adoption agency racket. I fast-talked my way into a good new job in this new town. Everything's going to be fine. And then the door opens and there's Junior. So at least it has the form of a joke. In part three, which we did not write, Junior's just like,

I was a dentist. He has a toothache, and he walks in your office, and now you're a dentist. That doesn't make sense. How did Mr. Peabody go to medical school in between two and three? That's a sloppy. I'll even defend that.

That what Gilbert was in that movie was the utility player. He was the funny guy like a 1930s... But he's the same character. He's the same character, but it was great. Whatever you needed that character to be. Like Mr. P. Exactly. Just roll him out. Mr. P. Buddy shows up. Gilbert, do you remember

on one and two, you used to describe yourself as the cover set? Yes. The cover set? The cover set? The cover set. Because all of your scenes were indoors. Oh yes! You were the thankless cover set. We shot this movie

in this strange, empty futuristic city called Las Colinas, Texas. They had built a monorail with only one person on the monorail, which was Gilbert Gottfried, riding around lonely for hours a day waiting for someone to pull him up because he was the cover set.

He had nothing else to do. That's how we became friends with you. And for people who are listening to this, a cover set is basically when you're making a movie, there's usually one actor you hire that stays there the entire time. Because he's not in the important scenes.

He's not in the important scenes. So if it rains, you can go, we'll go shoot their scenes. That's why it's called a cover set. Gilbert was just hanging out in Texas with no purpose. He had three scenes to shoot. So every night he'd be like, oh, Gilbert wants to go to dinner. All right, let's go to dinner with Gilbert. Gilbert wants to know if it's going to rain tomorrow.

No, it's not. I remember looking at the sheets at the beginning of the day that give you the rundown. And it actually, it goes. The rashdown. Yes, yes. And it goes, you know, John Ritter has seen 5, 6, and 7. Amy Yazbeg, 7, 8, 9. And it says, actually, it's true.

It said, Gilbert Gottfried in case of rain. I think that's the title of your autobiography. Yes! I can't be second to that. And I'll praise Gilbert. For all the reshooting that movie did, I don't think we ever had to reshoot one of your scenes because they were perfect the first time.

Ah, see? Let's keep talking about me. Let's jump to Ed Wood. Since we're short on time. Oh, wow. You didn't want to be known as the problem Child writers, so you decided to do something personal. Well, yeah. We had written these Problem Child movies.

They were hits. But the problem was we would go into the executive's office and pitch our new idea. And they'd be like, well, that's a great idea for a movie. But you guys wrote Problem Child. So they wouldn't buy it from us. And so we felt really kind of crappy because we weren't... People get typecast pretty fast.

Exactly. And so we decided that even though the movies were hits, maybe we started our career the wrong way. We should have written Problem Child movies. We should have just done the whole Sundance Film Festival. So we were going to write a small indie movie. You know, this reminds me of a story too. That Larry David

once wrote some special I was in. A terrible special called Norman's Corner. And when he was pitching Seinfeld, they were saying didn't he write that piece of shit with Gilbert John Green? No.

You were responsible for a lot of people changing their careers. that piece of shit with Gilbert John Green. Oh, no. Except that you were the new stand-over. Yes. You were responsible for a lot of people changing their careers. Yes. Fuck. I could have stopped Seinfeld from getting on the air.

Wow. So, Ed Wood, you wrote it on spec. So, yeah, we wrote it on spec and it managed to land on Tim Burton's desk and Tim Burton decided

to make it his movie and it really sort of changed our lives in a big way. He shot your first draft. And if I can get pretentious for a second or read into it, I kind of think there's a weird

link between the Problem Child movies and the stuff you did afterwards. Of course there is. Because it was like, you know, disrespected but a big hit. Yes. And you guys were disrespected for

creating it. No, Gilbert, that is all true. Because the Problem Child movies were so reviled, yet popular. Yes. I mean, it's like when you read enough of these bad reviews, you feel really sad. We had reviews saying, oh, this screenplay was finger-painted.

It wasn't written. And we hadn't set out to make bad movies. It just happened. It's just tragedy. That should be the name of my own. He didn't set out to make bad movies. I remember we were being in Problem Child 2 in Orlando

and we ran to a security guard and he looked at you and you were hosting those bad movie nights. Oh, oh, yeah. He's like, I know you. You host that show, Sorry Movies That Suck. Which would have been a much better title. But yeah, it's like, because I think like, you go from Problem Child where you become like Ed Wood. Like a disrespected.

And Problem Child is kind of like those big eye paintings. Yeah, sure, sure. The critics hated those. Everybody thought it was garbage, but it was incredibly popular. Yeah, it was funny. It wasn't even, if it had not been a hit, we could have always dissonanced ourselves or whatever. But because it was a hit and it was terrible, it sort of just stuck on us. But I think what Scott was about to say was...

Fuck him. Your old show, Bad Movies That Suck. Ed Wood was sort of famous as the crappy guy. And the Medved brothers had written the Golden Turkey Awards and they had this traveling road show where they would go around to revival houses, they would show the Ed Wood triple feature, and then they would come out in between the movies and make fun of him.

And I went to one of these shows when I was in high school. And so everybody was laughing at Ed. And so we started talking about Ed Wood and sort of saying, well, nobody feels sorry for him. Everyone is just making fun of him. And with the problem

child experience we had gone through for a couple years we said what if you made a movie about ed but you were totally sympathetic and you're not going to make fun of him at all because he came out to hollywood and he wanted to be director and he directed six feature films and that's more than most guys who come to hollywood right yeah what if we just celebrate that? And we just say hooray for Ed. And he gave hope and purpose to all his buddies. And he made his movies. And he put his vision on film. And yay.

Because, well, with both of your films, it's like what I've noticed. With Ed Wood in particular. You know, you show the silliness and the amateurishness and the jokes, but you have a total sympathy for these people. Right, and in the new one too, I mean, I think what we learned from that was to take a very non-judgmental

attitude towards the work, whether it's, you know, Planet 9 from Outer Space, or Hustler Magazine, or the King paintings. It's like we've... You're interested in characters on the fringe. Yeah, characters on the fringe, but also it's like the world

has so judged these people and so looks down on these people that that becomes kind of the plot of the movie. And so if we just stand back and just look at the art for what it is, you know, and let people make up their own minds. I remember there was like, back when they had record

stores, they had some dingy little opera record store that had a sign in the window that said, we don't carry Pavarotti check tower records. Wow. And everyone loved Pavarotti, but you know, he's garbage.

He's popular. He's a hack. Yeah. Also, the other thing, though, I'll say about a lot of these characters is that once you know their personal story, you look at the art a little differently. Like Glen or Glenda, in terms of Ed Wood, that was a real easy movie to laugh at. Oh, he's wearing, he's a transvestite. Ha, ha, ha. He's doing all this.

But once you know that that was Ed playing that part, and once you know that Ed was ed playing that part and once you know that ed was actually like putting his personal story on film it becomes much more of like a weird uh experimental movie and the same thing with margaret keane's paintings if you just if you just look at those big-eyed children and they're they're done by walter keane who's this masculine guy that's a kind of robert mitchum guy why is he painting a picture of a crying child holding a cat it makes no sense or if it's just in woolworths why is he painting a picture of a crying child holding a cat? It makes no sense. Or if it's just in Woolworths, and it's just a piece of anonymous art, it's kitsch.

But once you know that the eyes are crying because the woman is locked up in the attic, and they're coming from a sincere place, I think you're able to look at the art just a little bit differently. And Ed Wood, it's such a personal story. I mean, it's such a far cry from something like Problem Child.

You're sitting down and you're thinking at any point, is a director going to be interested in this material? Is this only something that we care about? Did you have Tim Burton in mind at all? No. I mean, we really were just sort of trying to get back to course correcting. Like Larry said, I mean, while going to college, I had crewed on a bunch of low-budget horror movies,

so I had lived in that world of horror movie. And you guys met at USC. That's right, we were roommates. Yeah, and so this idea of, I had sort of seen how people put together limited partnerships and they make little indie movies. And then we had our buddy Michael Lehman, whose first movie

was Heathers. Sure. His second movie was Meet the Applegates and then his third movie was Hudson Hawk. Oh. And Hudson Hawk

was a big debacle for everyone and Michael has a very good sense of humor and we were talking about this Ed Wood project and then we started joking about it

with Michael saying maybe we should all do it together. If you get the writers of Problem Child and the director of Hudson Hawk making a movie

about the worst filmmaker of all time now you've got something right what you know right what you know and you know and Michael had

done Heathers you know on a very small budget and we all said you know maybe this is the way to do this movie do it small

and then like Larry was saying and then we sort of got our outline to Tim and we were really just hoping for Tim to say Tim Tim Burton Presents.

Uh-huh. Which would help us. Because Michael Lehman was going to direct. Yes. And Tim Burton Presents, and then we could go raise some money to go make an indie movie. But instead, Tim said, wow, is there a script? I think I'd love to direct this myself. And then we said to Michael, oh, Michael, you know, Tim Burton.

Michael was great about it, though. He was fantastic, and he stepped aside, and so Michael's terms, which were great, because they were sort of terms to kind of force Tim's hand, were if it's Tim's next movie, he gets the script. If it's not Tim's next movie, then the script

would revert to Michael. And then Tim was like, okay, it's my next movie. And the ticking clock on us. Tim was about to direct a movie called Mary Riley. So it was our job to blow up Mary Riley. And he had been prepping this movie for a year with the costumes and the castles and all that and the casting. And he had six weeks before the studio was going to force him to sign a pay-or-play deal.

And he had six weeks before the studio was going to force him to sign a pay-or-play deal. And so we had six weeks to give him a script that would be so cool that he would throw away this other movie he'd been working on for a year. And so we wrote it. We couldn't go over that deadline. So we had six weeks. We turned it on a Friday, and he called us Sunday night, and he said, I read it. It's my next movie, and I have no notes.

It was crazy. I think he was worried that it would be filtered through the development system and all of a sudden people would be asking can Ed make a better movie

at the end or learn a lesson or something and he just liked it for what it was and he wanted to just make it Ed Woodstock.

Was Landau in mind from the beginning? He was not in mind from us when we were writing it. A lot of times people ask that kind of question

about the biopics and we tend to think of the real people. But I think Tim latched on to Landau really quickly because he

liked the way Landau had that kind of crazy career where he worked with Albert Hitchcock but then he also was in the

Harlem Globetrotters on Gillian's Island. So he was like this guy kind of has wild highs and wild lows until he could identify with them. He knows what it's like.

He knows what it's like. And at that point, Orlando was on a total roll. That was coming right off of Crimes of Misdemeanors and Tucker. And so, like, he was firing on cylinders.

Although we interviewed Beto Lugosi Jr. You did? Yes. He took exception to the fact that you had his father using profanity. Yes.

He said my father did not use profanity. But other than that, was he okay with the movie? Yes, I think he liked it. I think he did, and he did like it when Martin Landau accepted the Academy Award

and he said in an interview that he was getting the award for Beto Lugosi. Well, here's the thing. It's like we've heard a bunch of times that Bela Jr. wasn't really that happy with it. When you're making a movie about someone's father, they have different memories of their dad.

And maybe Bela didn't swear. We were trying to make a loving tribute to Bella. I think Bella comes off great in that movie. You know, of course,

there's a reason why Landau won the Oscar for it. It's, it's, it's, it's a, we would describe the movie as Ed and Bella,

a love story. But I think Bella Jr. always said like, why isn't someone making a movie about the good things about my father's life? Why, you know, why it wouldn't be a movie.

Right, exactly. Why aren't they making a movie about the Dracula day? When we were living in the big house. Yeah. Why are we making it about when he's destitute and he's hitting up kids to drive him to the supermarket? He doesn't have a car.

Because all of Bella Jr.'s life, this Ed Wood guy, some creepy guy came in at the end and was a drunk. He told us halfway through the interview, listen, I didn't know my dad all that well. I mean, his father died when he was young. 16 or 17. He's a lawyer. Called the undead. I brought it up because, I mean,

he would make a great movie because it's the idea of a guy with the name Bela Lugosi Jr. And on top of it, That's a good name. And on top of it, he's a lawyer. For dead people.

Yes. Yes. We always joke that. I represent the dead. Yeah. We always say it would be great to be in court. It's like, who's your lawyer? I am Bela Lugosi Jr.

Yes. Your Honor. May I approach the bench? Our mutual friend, Drew Friedman. I represent a corpse. Is here in the room, and he gave me a question about the making of Ed Wood. Okay. Which members of the Ed Wood stock company did you guys have to deal with?

Oh. In what sense? No, no. Who were in the movie. Yeah. The real life people. We dealt with the real Conrad Brooks and the real Paul Marko. Oh, Paul Marko was a kick.

Yeah. Paul Marko. Did you ever get to meet him? No. I rode a train cross country with Paul Marko. Why is that? Oh, Paul Marco was a kick. Yeah. Paul Marco. Did you ever get to meet him? No. I rode a train cross country with Paul Marco. Why is that? Oh, wow. You were flying for a while.

You hopped a freight with Paul Marco? It's a sad story. Covered with coal. Emperor's Mill pole kind of thing? A little bit like an all-terrain. Wow. To be traveling. Smokey, jump with me.

Oh, dear. A scary character. He was a lunatic. He was very enthusiastic. to be traveling jump with me a scary character he was he was a lunatic he was very enthusiastic Paul Marco was the founder and president

of the Paul Marco fan club yes Kelton the cop Kelton the cop and if you ever see anything memorabilia

I'm sure you can buy it on eBay for a nickel he would always identify himself as Kelton then quotation marks the cop close quotation marks

which i couldn't figure out he just insisted but that drew backing on that one but that that was that was the way to frame it and so so paul marco uh once the ed wood movie started like showing up again in revival houses he would go around hollywood in his cop uniform and sort of try to crash events and then kind of just wait for the crowds to circle him my favorite paul paul memory of the uh the shoot was um uh that you know actors have trailers and uh um uh paul was paul was brought in to just be like an extra in the scene. To be a big cameo. Big cameo. He had one little line. But he got there and he's looking around and he saw a trailer

that had the name Paul Marco on it but it was for the actor who was playing Paul Marco in the film. The actor who was playing So Paul thought

that was his trailer. So Paul basically gets in there and takes off his shoes and starts eating all the food. He starts throwing all the clothes out of his closet then Max comes up

and like oh wait what can you do just let him have it for today I prefer the story when they start fighting over it I'm Paul Marko no I'm Paul Marko and then Conrad Brooks was sort of the other old-timer who we gave a cameo.

And for the sake of screenwriting shorthand, we teamed them up in the movie. Right. It sounded like they were really good pals. Yeah. They became sort of like the Bowery Boys sidekicks. Like, hey, we need someone to go carry the wood over there. Oh, sheep. Oh, sheep!

So they were those guys, and it kind of made them both crazy that we were turning them into a team, because they weren't. So they got very competitive. It'd be like we're making a bio of us and all of a sudden you and Michael Richards are hanging out on property. Oh, yes! Two guys that just hang out. Yeah, so

Conrad was much more low-maintenance than Paul. so Conrad was much more low maintenance than Paul so Conrad was an easy cameo

Paul heard about this Paul wanted a cameo too and I went to Tim and the producer saying we

gotta put Paul on screen and they were all scared of him because Paul

was a nuisance but I just said you gotta find him a line so we found him a line andul was a nuisance but i just said you just just gotta find him a line so we we found him a line and he was a security guard in the scene where they're stealing the octopus and he's like hey what are you what are you kids doing in there he's that guy and when you edit a movie you have a long cut and then you cut stuff out and shorten it

paul's line got cut out so then he was really unhappy because Conrad's line got left in. Yeah, so we were always hearing about that. And what memories do you have of Jeffrey Jones? Very pleasant. Yeah. I'm not even going to take the bait there. That is bait. Be careful.

A fine gentleman. He was quite Be careful. Exactly. A fine gentleman. He was quite dapper. Exactly. Now, can I just throw in something that has nothing to do with Jeffrey Jones or anything we've been discussing? Drew Friedman. Yes, you're in the room. Yeah. Just told me that Clark Gable and Andy Devine

used to fuck each other in the ass. I think Gable fucked Andy Devine. They didn't fuck each other in the ass. Andy was the bottom. Maybe they... We can cut this part out. Okay, we'll get back to your career.

Although I'd much rather talk about Clark Gable fucking Andy Devine in the end. Now, you wanted to make a remake or a sequel to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. How do you know that? Wow. Yeah. We know stuff. I don't know how much we really wanted to do that. It was more of a remake we were

intrigued by and we met with Stanley Kramer's widow who's a very nice lady but she was insistent we just had a bizarre argument with this old lady insisting it had to be a sequel not a remake and that we had to grab everyone

who was still alive. Oh! And it was just oh, so depressing because it's like we had seen Sid Caesar going to his doctor's office in Beverly Hills. Oh!

You know, and poor Jonathan Winters who was, you know... Marvin Kaplan. There was nobody who was still alive. I mean, they're all hobbling.

I mean, Mickey Rooney was... ...Jerani. They all died right within the first ten minutes and they're sharing it. It's like

Murderer Express. They're sharing a secret. Now, and both... We couldn't win her over to our side. Yeah, exactly. And both Frank and I

agree that it's funny. It's like, I definitely advise people to see Mad, Mad World, but neither one of us thought it was funny. I'm with you. Mad, Mad, Mad World, when I was

growing up, I did not think it was funny at all. It's definitely had a horrible reputation, and nowadays it's like Problem Shop. Nowadays it has a perfect reputation. It really, I think it's held up in a big way. I do things for the American Cinematheque. Whenever they run, it's like Problem Child nowadays it has a perfect reputation it really I think it's held up in a big way like when we I do things for

the American Cinematheque whenever they run it's a mad mad mad mad world place is packed people are laughing their heads off and it's a great

it's a great time I would disagree I don't think it's reputation has ever changed it's always been a movie that didn't really work

but it has enough great set pieces in it that people have a good time and I mean there's hours and hours and hours of that movie That's the Mermin's funny in it Phil Silver's, I mean there's

great stuff in it Buddy Hackett and John the Winner's is so great in that movie and so even if you're bored out of your mind during some 10 or 15 minute set piece that won't end, there's a good one coming around the corner. I mean, I'm very fond of the movie. The movie doesn't work, but I do love the movie.

And every time I've ever seen it again, particularly in a theater, I'm always glad I went. Yeah, I'll agree with that. I mean, don't think of him as Stanley Kramer as a comedy director. I mean, I think of the Defiant Ones in Judgment in Nuremberg. He's a pretty serious guy. Here's a good piece of trivia for people out there. For next time people watch the movie, I just learned this. Spencer Tracy was really sick when they were shooting the movie.

I guess Coming to Dinner was after this. they were shooting the movie. I guess coming to dinner was after this. Yes. But he couldn't move. And so anytime he had to move, it's a stuntman wearing a rubber Spencer Tracy mask. Oh, jeez.

And so someone was telling me if you watch the scenes where he grabs the money, he's running up the stairs. It's a guy it's a guy with his face on so that's kind of cool

I haven't checked this out but it's a cool thing because they made up they made up masks for all the cast

and so like all the scenes where they're up on the ladder and they're moving around there's a guy actually wearing you know a Rochester mask a mask

Peter Falk mask Peter Falk mask I misspoke Ethel Merman wasn't on the ladder she's down below screaming Scott went to Rochester's grave recently

did you? yes I did okay what did it say on there anything interesting? I don't know did it say on there? Anything interesting? I don't know. Did it say yes, Mr. Benny? While you're talking, I'll pull up the picture.

Speaking of projects that didn't happen, we have to ask you about the Marx Brothers project. The Marx Brothers project... Who wants to pay for that movie? It will make it for us. The problem with the Marx Brothers movie is it's a fine script, but it broke our rules.

We sort of are the kings of the anti-biopic. We make movies about fringe pop culture characters, and the Marsh Brothers was sort of a great man bio. It broke our rules, and that was three hours long. It was a movie. I mean, basically, the Marsh Brothers deserve a biography, and I think our particular magic of screenwriting is to capture people who don't. You know, people that... So it gives them...

The world can look at people in a different light. But the Marsh Brothers are just... You know, Richard Attenborough could make a Marsh Brothers movie. And it's like the Marx Brothers were successful and were respected. Right, and theyuggs brothers were successful and were respected. Right. And they kept on getting more successful

and more successful. I mean, the Groucho conquered every medium he was in. They had their ups and downs. I mean, surprisingly, it was a big plot point

in the script, Duck Soup was a debacle. Oh, yeah. Sure. And they lost their contract at Paramount and they couldn't get work for two years

and at that point Zeppo said, I'm leaving the act because there was no income coming in. He was reluctant to begin with Zeppo, though, wasn't he? Oh, sure. He got forced into the straight man part by mom

because Gummo was the straight man initially because back in the vaudeville day, you had to have each of the types. And so you had the ethnic, you had the dummy, you had to have each of the types. And so, you know, you had the ethnic, you had the dummy, you had the professor, and then you had the good-looking young tenor. And those are the four brothers,

each playing a vaudeville type. And at a certain point, Gummo just got fed up with it because he didn't think he was a particularly entertaining person, and no one's giving him jokes anyway. And so he basically said, I'd rather enlist in World war one than being on stage and so gummo leaves the act and so uh you know brothers call their mother in a panic saying we don't have gummo and so mom goes

and she springs zeppo out of juvenile hall right i'm saying put on your shoes you're in the act now and then she basically ships him off and he says that mom i don't shoes you're in the act now and then she basically ships him off and he says that my i don't want to be in the act shut up we need a fourth and so so zeppo got forced in as a replacement into a thankless part right and and zeppo everyone always said was a funny guy and there's the there's the great story uh appendicitis when groucho got appendicitis and then they didn't have an understudy and the producer's panicking, saying, what do we do?

And Zeppo says, I know all the lines. And they're all like, oh, shit. Well, it's that or we don't go on tonight. And Zeppo put on the grease paint and he killed. And the audience didn't know it wasn't Groucho. Right. And then word got back to Groucho in the hospital and he throws on the gown

and he runs back to the theater. And they go, what are you doing here? He says, I got better. Yeah, I got well sooner. I think that's what he says. Yeah, because at that point, you know, it's like, I think Groucho's worried that the Marshmallows could be like the Blue Man Group. You know?

I didn't even put the mustache on and just do my act. So Groucho's going to protect that. Nowadays, he'd be like, hey, we can be playing in the Ten Cities at the same time. We can be on Gallagher 2. And real quick, is there a city in 10 cities at the same time. We can be on Gallagher 2. And real quick, is there a city... Can we talk about Gallagher 2? We would love to talk about Gallagher 2.

Yes! I want to make a Gallagher 2 movie. Yeah, I... Absolutely. I've been saying... I've been saying for years... I've been saying for years somebody ought to make a movie about that

because that is insane. We should tell a story so people know what we're talking about. Gallagher, also disrespected. And I don't know why. I think even we would have a hard time being non-judgmental.

And Gallagher used to smash his watermelon. He still? Yes. Oh, he still does. He does. It's a living. And then his brother, who looks just like him, wanted to be Gallagher, and he said,

no, you'll be Gallagher too, and it's an agreement that you don't smash a watermelon. And then he started smashing the watermelon and started to get all the jobs Gallagher would have taken, but for cheaper. Okay.

It's a betrayal story. I have a different understanding of the story. Okay. But this is Rashomon. We all bring ourselves to the table my understanding of Gallagher 2 is like

this is the first time I've ever heard Rashomon and Gallagher in the same sentence I'll protect this all

and say what I've heard allegedly happened none of this could be true Gallagher was that

Gallagher allegedly got greedy and he looked at his brother. He says, hmm. And he figured out that he's, whatever. You play the circuit. And you know there's like the A theaters and there's the B theaters. Yes.

And there's the colleges and the big towns. There's colleges and the small towns. And the big towns can pay more for one night. the big towns, this college is in the small towns and the big towns can pay more for one night. And he figured out he'd send W Younger Brother out on the smaller circuit to the sticks.

Oh, I didn't know that. This is our interpretation. We can be totally wrong about that. 100% wrong about that. I didn't research this before I came in here tonight. You know, maybe they can't pay 10 grand a night. They can pay 2 grand a night. But money's money. Or 2 two grand you get Gallagher 2 yeah

and you know and then a big Gallagher and then in parentheses a very small 2 you know on the poster yeah and then people started not knowing

the difference and then Gallagher 2 started getting greedy and tried to book himself into the bigger town in the bigger places and he worked cheaper than his brother

right and it got ugly right and then there's the completely bananas sidebar, which would be

sort of like a third act subplot if we were to ever write this. Gallagher completely whores out the whole act in every direction where he decides to start playing Spanish language theaters. Yes.

With mariachis and like Hispanic ladies in white flower dresses. And I'm not making this up. He learns the act phonetically. Yes. He doesn't speak Spanish. Wow.

And so he can come out and say, buenos dias. Senoritas, senoritas. Soy Gallagher. And he was playing down on the Spanish theaters on Broadway in L.A. All Spanish. Unreal. And why it would be perfect for the two of you is they did take it to court. Yes.

Gallagher won and Gallagher too. I don't remember how they did. I think everyone wound up on Gallagher too. Even mom. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you wound up on Gallagher 2's side. Even Mom. I think you're right. I think you're right. You're right.

The family, the family all love Gallagher 2. You are correct. Wow, I forgot about that. Oh, no. His own family turned on him. But it was all my idea, Mom. Real quick, and we'll get on to Big Eyes, and then we can let you guys go. Is there a Michael Jackson story that Drew tells us?

There's a surreal story about meeting Michael Jackson. Oh, we did meet Michael Jackson. That was a hell of an afternoon. I thought you were saying, should we write to Michael Jackson? No. Is there a Michael Jackson story? That's it. After the Gallagher project. No, we, for a very brief time, we controlled.

Brief. Larry, what, forever? Sing brief time, we controlled. Brief. Larry. What, forever? Sid and Marty Kropp were in our lives for years. Yeah, we love Sid and Marty Kropp. They really are two great guys. They're one of our, they're our kind of guys. You should get them on your show.

They'd be amazing. They are so funny. But they're very different. Like, you know, Sid is the creative, trippy kind of guy. And Marty is the businessman. You know, but we partnered up with them for a while, and we set up HR Puffin Stuff as a movie a bunch of different places. We kept selling that project. And we set it up one time at 20th Century Fox, and for some reason, all of a sudden, the deal started not being able to close.

And we were like, for some reason, the cross, we're not going to close the deal with them. And we're like, what's going on? Don't worry. Don't worry. We got something better. And it turned out that we got MJ. We got MJ. And so that's Larry's impression of Marty.

Yes, Marty. Marty. Marty talks like this. And Sid talks like this. Marty talks like this. And Sid talks like this. And so Marty's saying, we're cooking up a big deal with MJ and the richest black man in Detroit.

What does that mean? He's going to open up an MJ amusement park. Right. He made all his money in parking lots. Right. And he believes in park. Right. He made all his money in parking lots. Right. And he believes in MJ. Right. And so,

we gotta walk away from Fox because this is bigger. Right. And we're saying, Marty, come on, Fox just wants to make it. No, no, no, no. So,

eventually, we thought, this cannot be real. And then, Sid, Sid had some connection to Michael Jackson and God bless him.

Sid calls one day saying, okay, can you boys be at this recording studio in Encino at 3 o'clock? And we go, sure. Why? MJ is going to be there. And we got to this recording studio, and there's Michael Jackson. And he had his son, Prince, who was a toddler at the time so this was a long time ago and he was sort of playing with

this very white little boy and then we sort of spent the rest of the afternoon with Michael talking about how we weren't quite sure why we were there turned out he wanted to direct Puffin Stuff, star in Puffin Stuff, and write the music for Puffin Stuff.

Yeah. It was kind of crazy. Yeah. But the highlight of the day was he actually... He was talking about Willy Wonka. I wanted to be like Willy Wonka. It's got to be like Willy Wonka. And he started singing Pure Imagination to us.

It was basically he was singing it to us. He sang it a cappella. It was unbelievable. Unreal. And he had singing Pure Imagination to us. It was basically, he was singing it to us. He sang it a cappella. It was unbelievable. Unreal. And he had no nose. I mean, he literally had just a little nail. A clitoris, as Mario Cantone refers to it. Oh, wow.

I remember when I was little, I would go with my mother into Woolworth, When I was little, I would go with my mother into Woolworth, and they would have the Velvet Elvis paintings, the dogs playing poker, and the Jesus blinking eyes, 3D Jesus on a cross, bleeding and blinking eyes. And that's where I became familiar with those keen paintings yes well no well walter keen uh was sort of the guy who invented the mass marketing of art i mean he they they were not accepted in regular art circles and uh um so he sort of figured this

weird end run around the whole enterprise where he would build his own gallery, put on his own coffee table book, and he kept on, you know, basically, not that many people were really buying the prints. I mean, they were buying the original paintings, so he figured out a way to make them prints and make them cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper until they basically were posters, and as posters, he could

sell them anywhere. And so he sort of took art to the common man and he figured out that art critics didn't matter. If he could get a picture of him with Joan Crawford or Natalie Wood or Kim Novak holding one of the paintings or get someone

to go on the Tonight Show to sort of tell the world what a great... Jack Parr said that one of Walter's paintings was one of the greatest works of art of all time. All of a sudden they would just be, they were making money hand over fist. They would sell these, they would sell pictures and postcards and posters and

he was insanely successful but that's not even really, that's only part of our story for the movie Big Eyes. Because behind the scenes what was going on was Walter couldn't paint at all. And his wife was sort of locked up in their attic. And she was the artist.

And she was the one doing all the work. And he was putting his name on it. And so the movie is sort of about this woman learning kind of to stand up for herself. And she lost all her friends. Yes. Yeah, well, Walter didn't want anyone hanging around the house

because they might go into the painting room. And then he didn't want Margaret going out to lunch with people because they might say, what have you been up to lately? Oh, I paint day and night. Exactly. And so he intentionally isolated Margaret from everybody. So really all she had was her daughter and the paints. Yeah, and she was also a woman who just, you know, struggled with, she had her own dignity

and so she didn't feel good about lying. So she sort of pulled herself away from her friends and other people. And how did he convince,

was he was overpowering and she would just leave? But also, he was, he's an odd villain for a movie because he's so successful.

Everything he says becomes true. You know what I mean? Because they have different talents. Yeah, yeah. It was one of those things where when she first agreed, and he sort of bullied her to let him put the name on it, and they were selling in the basement of the Hungry Eye nightclub. It was just like art they were selling.

Maybe we can make rent this month by selling these paintings. But he took this art, and he turned it into the biggest selling art in America. So all of a sudden now they had a gigantic house. They had a college fund for the daughter. And so he made her seem like she was ridiculous for complaining. So who cares whose name's on the painting? You know, why can't you be happy, woman? And so she was in this weird existential dilemma of like this is my

art this is my feelings on this thing but you're taking all the credit and I'm supposed to be happy about it. We should say this is a true labor of love for you guys you started the project in 2003. Correct. That's when you got deep into the research you met Margaret Keane you promised her that one day this movie was gonna see the light of day and 11 years later and the mini fall starts. Yeah yeah we we were we were going to direct it ourselves and we kept casting it and financing it and getting it getting a crew and then we would go and prep it in portland or salt lake city or new orleans or buenos aires argentina and each

one of these versions uh we would put a few months into and no one ever paid us for 10 years so it was all out of pocket and then it would collapse. Yeah, maybe that time that we cast Gilbert as Walter Keene. That would seem to really make it collapse a little quicker.

Yeah, Gilbert at least were the split. Exactly. Shut up, honey. Who cares whose name's on it? I did a day's work in case of rain on on A Million Ways to Die in the West

and Amanda Seyfried already has big eyes so they did a quick gag in the movie for a second where she turns around and she has the keen eyes they superimpose yeah well that's the thing i mean everybody it falls into that thing where there's this

pop culture thing that scott and i love where absolutely everybody knows the paintings in that look whether it's from you know the real thing or Puss in Boots and Shrek or whatever. But no one knows the story. Some people who see the movie say, God, I didn't know any of that. You're not really supposed to know any of it. Because when they were really successful, it was

Walter Keane. Walter Keane was the guy totally in charge. And Martin Keane claiming the rights to the paintings happened a couple years later, and that sort of happened off the front page of the paper. And so it was like, if it was reported at all, it was sort of like, those two people who make paintings that we don't really like anymore, they're fighting.

I saw the picture last night, it's great. Thank you. And I think you guys must be very gratified. You're very, very. It's playing so well with audiences, and Tim did such an amazing job with the movie, and Amy Adams. Yeah. The cast is wonderful.

It's a very intriguing part because she's playing a very quiet woman. Sure. And so she has to do so much with just expression. It's like a silent movie performance. And the story's through her eyes. Totally through her eyes. Yeah, but Walter is the showboat, so he gets all like expression. It's like a silent movie performance. The story's through her eyes. Walter is the showboat so he gets all the talking. It was fun. That's why we thought Gilbert would be good in that part. He just won't shut up.

And now we have to let the two of you go because you're going to another... A premiere. Yes, the premiere of Big Eyes which I haven't seen yet but sounds fascinating

I know the story and it's a fascinating story and so we hi I'm Gilbert Godfrey this is Gilbert Godfrey's Amazing Colossal Podcast I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we've been talking to Scott

Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who have said this several times, that after working with Gilbert Gottfried on Problem Child, everything was downhill from that. And they're on their way to see their latest film, Big Eyes. We hardly scratched the surface with these guys. We didn't get to Larry Flint, and we didn't get to Mars

Attacks, or Andy Kaufman, so we'll do a part two. And we didn't get to Ford Fairlane, which we were on the set all the time when we were making Ford Fairlane. I saw it last week. It played last week at the Cinematheque in Los Angeles. I saw it last week. It played last week at the Cinematek

in Los Angeles. The crowd aided up. Oh my God. And Dice was there and our friend Dan Waters who wrote the script and I enjoyed watching you get electrocuted.

Everyone did. And we didn't talk about Sammy Petrillo. Oh no. Oh no. Oh wait, we got to start the whole show over. We'll do a part two Petrillo. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, wait. We've got to start the whole show over. We'll do a part two with you guys.

There has to be. Okay. Thank you, guys. This is, we could have gone another five hours. So, we've been talking to Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, creators of Problem Child 1 and 2, and their current film opens on Christmas Day. Big eyes. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Thank you. Yay! If you like listening to comedy, try watching it on the internet. The folks behind the Sideshow Network have launched a new YouTube channel called Wait For It. It's got interviews with comedians like Reggie Watts, Todd Glass, Liza Schleichinger. Schleichinger, I've been friends with her for 10 years. One of the funniest people out there, and I still have a hard time with the last name, Liza.

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