Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 83. In Memoriam 2015

Episode Date: December 28, 2015

In their final episode of the year, Gilbert and Frank pay tribute to some of the stars and talents we lost in 2015, including Wes Craven, Stan Freberg, Omar Sharif, Yvonne "Batgirl" Craig and former GGACP guest Joe Franklin. Also, Gilbert remembers screen goddess Laura Antonelli and "Star Trek Compendium" author Allan Asherman shares his thoughts on the legendary Leonard Nimoy. PLUS: Roger Ramjet! "Love on a Rooftop"! Buddy Hackett disses Jack Carter! Christopher Lee, Nazi hunter! And the greatest Tevye of all time! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. hi this is gilbert gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And tonight, we're going to be doing our special In Memoriam show. Something a little different. We haven't done this before. Yeah. But I thought, you know, we've talked about so many people during the year who've passed like al molinaro from the odd couple and we've talked about yvonne craig

bad girl and i remember on the academy awards they had the in memoriam segment and afterwards steve martin said i i love the in memoriam segment so, I can't wait till I'm on it. Funny. But you revealed to me today that it's your favorite part of any award show. I love. I look forward. I just want to see that. The other parts bore me.

The In Memoriam, I just love. Me too. I don't know what that is. We're obviously both. It's because of the historian in what that is we're but we're obviously both it's because of the historian in us or we're both just morbid yeah both morbid historians right so so we should start by uh acknowledging the passing of a real icon uh and that was the great Yes. And a friend of mine who's spoken to Nimoy, and this is a guy I met. He used to work at DC Comics.

And he, I mean, with all my bottomless pit knowledge of meaningless showbiz trivia, this guy could skate circles around. That is terrifying. Yeah. That such a person exists. It's very scary. He's bordering on Dustin Hoffman and Rain Man.

And he's a writer. He's written several books on Star Trek. So if anyone can speak about Leonard Nimoy, it's him. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show, Alan Asherman. Hello, hello. Alan, thanks for doing this. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Of course. Tell us again the titles of the Star Trek books that you authored. I wrote the Star Trek Compendium and the making of Star Trek II and the Star Trek interview book. Cool. That's great. Now, tell us how Leonard Nimoy's past growing up. Well, I think Leonard's whole life was actually the buildup for playing Mr. Spock.

He had unique features, which were the product of his for playing Mr. Spock. He had unique features, which were the product of his Ukrainian Jewish heritage, and they caused Hollywood to classify him as a character actor, a performer whose physical appearance does not conform to the film industry's image of a potential star. He was, therefore, an outsider by Hollywood standards. He portrayed a succession of outsiders during his early TV career. His roles include juvenile delinquents, minor criminals, bandits, Middle Easterners, foreign revolutionaries, the whole thing.

Even an alien, a Martian named Narad in a 1952 serial called Zombies of the Stratosphere. in a 1952 serial called Zombies of the Stratosphere. And he, but that alien, that experience of being an alien came from his growing up in Boston, right? Yes, he was raised in a tenement in the Jewish section of Boston, and he was always an outsider there from the time he began acting in little theater at neighborhood installations at the age of eight. That was how bad it was for him. He felt he needed an escape of some kind, even at the age of eight. Interesting. So Nimoy, growing up, was already the alien by being with you in Boston.

He was already mirroring the actor who lived in two different worlds. The world of the character actor making a living day to day, week to week, and the dream of stardom that every actor hopes to attain, but which few character actors achieve. And ironically, landing the role of Mr. Spock, the quintessential outsider, led to Nimoy's rapid transformation into a Hollywood insider, a star. But it wasn't easy. There were a lot of reservations in the beginning. How did Roddenberry come to cast him as Spock?

Was it an episode of a show called The Lieutenant? Do I have that right? That's a popular story, but they had known each other before. Roddenberry had written many scripts for a producer named Fred Viv, among whose series was Sea Hunt. Yeah, sure. Lloyd Bridges. Lloyd played in about a dozen episodes of Sea Hunt.

Okay, so there was a pre-existing relationship between him and Roddenberry. Yes, and Roddenberry didn't remember when. It might have been on the set of The Lieutenant. It might have been when they saw each other on the Zivlot during the 50s. But at one point, Roddenberry turned to him and said, Someday, I'm going to put pointed ears on you. Wow, I hope that's put pointed ears on you. Wow. I hope that's true.

It's great. Now, you told me that there were a few variations on the pointed ears in the beginning. Yeah. The initial reservation was Leonard wondered how would people react? Would they laugh at him? And the first pair of ears that were received from a makeup man, a very capable makeup man, Leonard probably kept his eyes closed on the makeup couch,

and then when he opened them, he was aghast because he looked like an elf. He kind of looked like a Keebler elf or something, but in fact, in one episode of Star Trek, Captain Kirk calls him an elf with a

hyperactive thyroid, which may have been a dig at that first reaction he had to the first pair of pointed ears. There were other

doubts, too. Could Gene Roddenberry convince NBC to keep Mr. Spock in the series there exists a very rare booklet that NBC did on Star Trek and in the booklet NBC

airbrushed out Spock's eyebrows and made his ears non-pointed and when Roddenberry saw this, he was aghast, and he was told that there was some pressure, some fear.

How would fundamentalists take this character who had a satanic appearance? And immediately there was pressure to take Mr. Spock out of the continuity. Oh, I never knew that. That's interesting. Another question was, would his character survive at all? And would he survive to become a beloved individual rather than a curiosity?

That's what Leonard hoped to make him, a beloved individual. And my favorite story is the Vulcan greeting with the middle finger spread apart that Spock used to do. And where that came from. You know what that is because you're Jewish, too. Yes. In the congregation. We're trying to hide it. He's been trying to pass all these years.

Go ahead. He's been trying to pass all these years. Go ahead. In the high holiday service, the priest, the kohanim, left the congregation. And they do, with each hand, what Spock did is the Vulcan greeting. And that is where it came from. And I think one person recognized it when they were acting on the show, Celie Lusky, who was the pal of the high priestess in the episode of Muck Time. So Leonard doing the sign and said,

Oh, of course I can do that. I've seen it for years in shul. That's great. We should talk a couple of things, Alan. Ken Berry was on the show. You might know this since you know so much about Leonard. But he was Ken Berry's CO in the Army Special Services. Did you know that?

No, I didn't. We had Ken Berry on the show, and he gave credit to Leonard for really helping his career, putting him on stage, encouraging him, which is fun trivia. And he was a renaissance man. I mean, people know Spock, and some people know Paris on Mission Impossible. And, you know, he did photography. I mean, he was a director. He wrote poetry.

He wrote poetry. He recorded those wonderfully kitschy records Oh yes In the 60s Yes Which he came to have a sense of humor about He even did what you guys are doing He was a radio host for a while

That's right And then in search of Yeah Yeah He also had a radio show And was a voiceover artist Yeah Yeah he did everything

And like a lot of actors, like Fred Gwynn as Herman Munster and all these other actors, they get embarrassed by what they're most beloved for. And I think he wrote a book called I'm Not Spock. Yes, and then years later,

he wrote another book called I Am Spock. Yes, and then years later he wrote another book called I Am Spock. That's right. That's right. By that time he had come to terms with his status as a super icon.

And he realized that this was his immortality right there. Yeah, there was so much to admire about him. You know, I worked on the on a show at cnn the joy behar show a couple years ago alan and we had the the pleasure of having um leonard on as a guest and he told a great story about driving a cab when he was a young struggling

i don't even know if he was an actor he was driving a cab in boston and he picked up a young senator john kennedy oh wow in cab, and he told a great story about it. He was such a wonderful interview. He was good in comedy, too. I mean, he was wonderful in that Simpsons episode. Oh, very funny. You know, in the beginning, Roddenberry was very reluctant to put comedy

into Star Trek. He wanted it to be a show for adults, and he was worried about crossing that fine line into parody and satire and therefore finally farce, which is what he never wanted to do. It took one of the best directors in Star Trek, Joseph Pefney, to change his mind. Pefney directed, to give you an idea of Pefney's versatility as a director, he directed Man of a Thousand Faces, but don't hold that against him.

He directed The Trouble with Tribbles, which is the funniest episode. And he also directed City on the Edge of Forever, which is potentially the most serious episode. And it was Petney who said, you know, this man,

you have a man here, Leonard, who has a wonderful comedy timing. Let him use it. And he used the comedy timing to make it clear that Spock was an outsider, but that he was also very conversant with Earth and its customs, and sometimes he used Kirk as a straight man in his jokes. Yeah, I thought he would be a funny guy when we had him on the show. Very, very.

There was this reverence for him when he came on, and, you know, he's a serious actor, and he's Mr. Spock, and he really played against that. And Nimoy on Star Trek sometimes would say these lines that was so obviously like an insult to earthlings or what was going on. It was always very funny, and he played it straight. Now, Nimoy in his last years, like, really embraced the whole Jewish heritage part. He always did.

But he never made a really big deal out of it until he had the clout to be listened to. And he was, I think, instrumental in reawakening William Shatner's heritage as a Jew. And toward the end of his life he actually did a very, very enjoyable and funny special about Hanukkah.

I didn't know that. He made it clear that the Jews had been persecuted for centuries but that that diminished his humor any. And there were some jokes, basically. And he also, sense of humor, and there were some jokes, basically. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, he also, I want to say, too, when we're talking about him as a director, people forget

he directed Three Men and a Baby. Oh, yes. But also, I think one of the best Star Trek movies, Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home. Yes, and he put a lot of jokes in there for himself. Yeah, there's a lot of this, The guy, the Vulcan pinch on the guy who's playing the loud boombox on the bus. There's a lot of laughs in that one. Yes.

The guy who was playing the boombox was actually the assistant of somebody working on the movie. And they turned to him one day and said, you're going to be the guy I do the nerve pinch on. His name was Kirk Thatcher. I know this because he worked for Henson. And we have a mutual friend.

What an honor to get the Vulcan pinch from Mr. Spock. Absolutely. And we should too, we should mention that Shatner has a book coming out this year

from St. Martin's Press called Leonard, A 50-Year Friendship. So look for that. Okay. So we could talk to look for that. Okay. So we could talk to you for a few hours, obviously, because that's what our phone calls are like. But I should wrap it up to get to some other dead people.

Tackful. So, ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking to writer and a friend of mine Alan Asherman Alan thanks for coming on and telling us some stuff about the great Leonard Nimoy again thanks for having me and do call

me back soon we will talk to you again no thank you bye don't forget to follow us No, thank you, Heinert. Bye. Don't forget to follow us on our Facebook page, Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, on Twitter, at RealGilbertACP, and on Instagram, Gilbert Podfried. P-O-D-F-R-I-E-D.

You see, it's kind of a pun on the last name. Ah, never mind. So now we're continuing with our in memoriam, which is always with Frank and I. This is both of our favorite segments of any award show. Yes. Yeah. And I don't know the reason for it, but it's part of our show. It's become part.

We do talk about people that we've lost, and some that we lost, we were about to interview them. Oh, yes. Jack Carter, the great Jack Carter, comedian, agreed to do our show. Back in the summer. Yeah. And I was thrilled to be speaking to Jack Carter. He had turned into an old curmudgeon. Well, I don't think he turned into.

I think he was a curmudgeon. He was a curmudgeon when he was 15. From go. Yeah. In fact, I remember a story that at Milton Berle's funeral, Buddy

Hackett was talking to Nancy Sinatra. Okay. And Buddy Hackett said to Nancy Sinatra. Okay. And Buddy Hackett said to Nancy Sinatra, I hope next year we can meet under happier circumstances like Jack Carter's funeral. He did not pull punches or suffer fools, Jack Carter. In fact, Cliff Nesterhoff, the show business historian who does wonderful stuff, look on his – K-L-I-P-H is how you spell Cliff's first name.

And he's got stuff on his website called Shit Jack Carter Says. Oh, yes. Which I sent you. Hysterical. Which is hysterical and wonderful because Cliff got to interview Jack in his later years, and he left no stone unturned. Jack didn't give a shit about hurting or insulting anybody. You know, he was a local boy, Brighton Beach.

Jack Shachran. Yes. Or Shachran. And, I mean, the stuff he did. I mean, he was on Broadway in Call Me Mister and Mr. Wonderful and Top Banana. And he worked with Ed Wynn and Jimmy Durante and Martin and Lewis. I mean, he'd been around. And he was one of those guys back in the old days with those guys like Jerry Lewis and Milton Berle

who did a little of everything. Yes. They were not only comedians. They sang. They danced. They acted. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but as acting credits, I mean, Diagnosis Murder, Rockford Files, Touched by an Angel, Emergency, Fame, Fantasy Island, Seventh Heaven,

Baywatch, Third Rock from the Sun, Coach, Desperate Housewives. He worked constantly. And we weren't in the same episode, but we were both in the very, very popular successful series, The Watcher. That's the first time you think you've even brought that up. The Watcher. Yes. All right. I'm going to ask

you about that after we're off. He also was very close to Sid Caesar and delivered the eulogy at Caesar's funeral, which I found out. So that was a real loss. I remember standing in front of the Friars Club with you and you kept saying, get Jack Carter, get Carter. You kept saying, get him quick.

Get him quick. We were standing in front of the Friars in the rain. Darrow was calling an Uber, and I think he passed like six or seven days later. So that was a bad break. And then he was like booked for a month later. And I said, not a month later. That's right.

Get him now. That's right. So that was the great Jack Carter. Yeah, that one hurt. And definitely find shit Jack Carter says on Cliff's site. It's gold. And I should definitely tell the audience, you know, whenever there's these in memoriams, there's usually an outrage afterwards because so many talented, great people are left out. Oh, yeah.

We we're going to be the same. You're going to leave out. Oh, you know, I tried. I mean, I went on the Hollywood Reporter site and there's a list, a long list of 117, 118 people, and I was scribbling names down, trying to write writers down. We can't possibly get to everyone. So we'll leave out some great stars, I guarantee. We'll leave out some great people.

Let's talk about Gary Owens. Oh, before Gary Owens. Oh, I know where you want to go. This is really important. I know where you want to go. A few weeks ago, we interviewed Mr. Skin. Yes, Jim McBride. Because I don't want to brag, but I pride myself on watching naked actresses in movies and jerking off.

Go ahead and brag. Yes. I figure I'm quite the aficionado. Go ahead and brag. Yes. I figure I'm quite the aficionado. I think of myself as one of those yacht racers who takes when it comes to jerking off to see a naked actress. And one person we brought up, Mr. Skin had mentioned he loved the old Italian sex comedy. had mentioned he loved the old Italian sex comedy.

And one film I brought up was Secret Fantasy with the very sexy Laura Antonelli. Yeah. And she passed away this year. In June, I believe. And when we were talking to Mr. Skin, I didn't even realize she had passed or I would have mentioned it. Yeah, I didn't either. Yeah. She did a lot of stuff.

And she had a big career in Italy. Oh, yeah, and just also, just one of those old-time Italian actresses who was just totally like, what, how

Ed Norton would describe as va-va-voom. Very good. He worked the Honeymooners into a Laura Antonelli tribute. Yes. Yes, indeed. So the very sexy Laura Antonelli. She was not that old, either.

She passed in June. So Mr. Owens. Yes. We had George Slaughter on the show. We haven't run that episode yet. He was the announcer on Rononan martin's laughing from beautiful downtown burbank yeah another guy who was on our list yeah and we really that and i'm kicking myself about that one because my my wife says to me now she says look look up these people's

age call them and start ranking them by age and gary wasn't that old I think he was in his early 80s, God, he would have been wonderful for us. Look, to us, only the two of us would say, he's not that old, he's in his early 80s. Well, relatively speaking. He's a kid. Olivia de Havilland's still hanging around. She's 170. Yeah, I'm kicking myself for this one. Oh, there's a bunch I'm kicking myself for this one. Oh, there's a bunch I'm kicking myself for.

Yeah, but he was a gifted comic and another guy who did everything. You know, he did radio shows. He did characters. He was a comic. Beautiful downtown Burbank. Of course, most people would know him from laughing. I mean, he did theme park voiceovers. He did television commercials.

And he was hired on Laugh-In through an accidental meeting with George Schlatter in a men's room. I think Perfecto Tellez. Perfecto Tellez, another guy we didn't get. You remember Roger Ramjet? Oh, yeah. Where Roger Ramjet and his eagles fighting for our freedom. We fly with him through outer space not to help him but to feed him. Roger Ramjet, he's our man, hero of our nation. For more adventures, make sure to stay tuned to this station.

That was Roger Ramjet was Gary Owens. He was also the voice of Space Ghost. Oh my God! He did all kinds of stuff. He hosted radio shows all over the place. He created characters like Earl C. Festoon and Endocrine Stern

Swallow. And he worked with June Foray and dawes butler and the great paul freeze oh the great voiceover people yeah and mel blank and he was a screenwriter for jay ward productions did you know that and uh gosh and yeah and on laughing he always held his hand over his ear like the old-time hammy radio announcers. And it was so funny. Yeah. He did 30,000 commercials. Wow.

Yeah. And I just wished we had gotten it. And I can't hold on to one. No. Speaking of people we missed out on. Yes. And I guess we should really get to something near and dear to your heart, Christopher Lee. Ah, yeah.

The wonderful Christopher Lee. Old horror actors. Yeah. Now, yeah, Christopher Lee passed away, and he played Frankenstein, the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, and the mummy. Yep. Still, he hasn't lived up to my boy Lon Chaney Jr., who was Frankenstein, the mummy, Dracula, and the wolf man. Yeah, and tell your interesting story about Christopher Lee, about the stabbing. The stabbing story, because this is so interesting.

Recording. I heard someone was recording this when they were – because Christopher Lee was in the Army. Yeah, yeah. He was nearly killed in 1943 when he tripped over a live bomb. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And according to this, and they have it,

they're directing some actor has to be stabbed in a movie. And he does a sound of someone being stabbed. And Christopher Lee very quietly goes up to him and very knowledgeably goes, no, no. When a person is stabbed, it's the sound of air being released so it should be more of a sound than a person and i'm thinking oh my god christopher lee obviously stabbed someone yes or was very present yes during stabbings he was apparently reluctant to talk about his war experience but he he was involved with special forces that hunted down nazis yes yeah and i see yeah he was he was involved in that and i heard too that he was among the troops uh in the liberation of the concentration camps and christopher lee said he now because of all that he has no trouble

with horror films because he's seen real life horror right right and here's some good trivia for you do you know who his step-cousin was oh ian fleming oh God. Isn't that interesting? And he's in a Bond movie. Yeah. He was like scotcha much or what? Scaramanga. Scaramango. Scotchy, scotchy muchy. Snooki Lanson. He was the man with three nipples. Oh, yes.

He was the man who walked before Krusty the Clown in The Man with a Golden Gun. Yes. Yeah, he's great in that film. And, you know, people know the horror films, but he did a lot. He's great in The Wicker Man, which I've talked about on this show. He's creepy in The Wicker Man. And he does like a little weird, scary dance in The Wicker Man. Yeah, and he's wearing high-top sneakers, and he's got long hair, and he's just disturbing.

He was friends with, I mentioned this to you, he went to prep school with Patrick McNee. Oh, my God. John Steed of the Avengers. Yes. Who also passed this year. Oh, wow. It's interesting. They died.

They were close friends for life, and they died in the same year. And I heard Christopher Lee loved imitating cartoon characters. I never knew that. And he would, like, toward the end of, when he would, he was friends with Peter Cushing. Sure.

Because they both worked together all the time. Right. And he would call up Peter Cushing and go like, fluffering fuckatash.

I've never heard that. He would do all these cartoon characters and Peter Cushing would laugh. That's wonderful. He turns up in things like Billy Wilder's Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. He's funny in Spielberg's 1941. Oh, yes.

Another movie I've talked about. Richard Lester's Three Musketeers. You can see him in. He's on the Band On the Run album cover. Oh, that's right! With James Coburn. Yes! Yes, the Paul McCartney album,

which is fun. And we also have to mention his wonder, we've talked about it with Alan Zweibel and Lorraine Newman. And that was his wonderful appearance as Mr. Death

on Saturday Night Live. With Lorraine Newman where he plays Death. Yeah. And those episodes, the entire run of the original SNL is available, so find that episode. I remember him introducing Meatloaf, who was the musical guest. Oh, wow. And he said, ladies and gentlemen, Meatloaf.

I like its first and last name. Yeah. I think he was wonderful, and it would have been great. I mean, when we started the podcast, he was already 91. Who knows if he was giving interviews at that point? But, boy, what a great. Where do you want to go now? Oh, another one that I actually took part in a documentary about, who I wish to God we would have had on a podcast, and that's Theodore Bacall.

Theodore Bacall. He lived to a ripe old age. Yeah, Theodore Bacall. I forget the name of the podcast. I mean, the documentary I meant. Yeah. I forget the name of the documentary. What?

Was it When Jews Were Funny? It could have been. Oh, something. No, I don't know. We'll look it up. Look it up. Yeah, Theodore Brakelle was one of those people. I mean, what a...

Yeah. He was like the Jewish Burl Ives. That's funny. He acted and sang. Yep. He was a the Jewish Burl Ives. That's funny. He acted and sang. Yep. He was a folky. Yeah, he was known as a great folk singer. I think he was one of these people who spoke like 100 different languages.

Yeah. Christopher Lee spoke five, by the way. Oh, wow. Yeah. And he was in movies. Oh, wow. Yeah. And he was in movies. He co-starred with Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen.

He co-starred with Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, and once again, Lon Chaney Jr. Oh, the Defiant ones. Yeah, I like that film. Yeah, he's been in billions of films. He was a writer, a singer. And the greatest Tevye. Oh, yes. They say.

Yes. Although Zero Mostel supposedly did a wonderful Tevye. I've heard people say that Theodore Bickell. I don't know if this is true because I didn't see them. Yeah, I would have loved, I wish there would have been film clips of both of them as Tevye. I'm sure both were great. Yeah, he would have been great too.

But again, and he lived to 2015. I mean, and he's in, you know, he's in these movies a long time ago. He's in these old crackly black and white movies. I used to see him pop up on like Ed Sullivan and shows like that with his guitar singing folk songs yep yep yep and now when he popped up in another movie and this is one i think i'll be recommending soon and that's uh uh i want to live oh susan hayward yeah yeah and he uh he pops up as a psychiatrist that's right i think ro Robert Wise made that movie. Yeah.

If I'm not mistaken. He was in everything. Yeah. And in a lot of television. You know, versatile. Yeah. So that one, I'm kicking myself. I mean, I don't know if while the podcast was on,

if he was well enough to do an interview i don't i don't know i don't know i mean it's you know people ask me about booking guests all the time i mean you can't get to everybody no i mean there's so there's so many people on our list and some people are easier to reach than other people and then some people are have hit their late 80s or 90s and they don't have an agent anymore or a publicist anymore because they're retired, and it's extra hard to find them. We've been trying to find Jules Bass of Rankin-Bass. The great renaissance man, I guess, Theodore Bacall. Yeah.

Actor, singer, writer. One of those who he and his family were lucky enough to have fled Europe. That's the name of the doc? Oh, yeah. In the shoes of, is that the name of it? Oh, wait. Is that the name of the Theodore Bacall doc that you think? In the shoes of Sholem Aleichem. Is that the one?

I think it might be. That's the one. I'm talking. John Lawless. Oh, John Lawless from Up All Night? Yes. No kidding. I remember him.

He originally directed me on Up All Night. I remember. I worked for him. Yes. Yeah, I wrote a USA TV show for him. So look up that one. Narrated by Alan Alda. It says here.

Oh, wow. Yeah. It came out in 2014. We have to get Alan Alda on this show not that I mean he's going to die he'd be great working on it so yeah look for that documentary

John Wallace is the director did he direct this I think it was yeah you should learn about charlotte uh well you should learn about charlotte malem but you should learn about theodore bagel loved him you want to talk a little bit about west craven oh another horror maven yeah yeah yeah died too young yeah great horror how was he? I have to look.

Maybe Derek can look that up. I think he was maybe in his late 60s or early 70s. He wasn't. He'd been sick for a while. An interesting man who taught English. Oh, wow. You know, he was a teacher. He had a master's in philosophy.

He was a nature lover. He was a bird conservationist. I mean, people don't know these things. They think about Wes Craven. He was a bird conservationist. I mean, people don't know these things. They think about Wes Craven. And you think of him as just demons, monsters, and people having their throat cut off. You know, here's an interesting thing about Wes Craven is that when he started his career, he made some porn films under pseudonyms.

Did you know this? No. When I was in SVA, I was a film student at the School of Visual Arts, and one of my teachers showed us a movie. I don't know why he was showing it to the class. I think it was called Fireworks Woman, and it was directed by a guy named Abe Snake. Which is the perfect porn name. Yeah.

I mean, it's a weird tribute to the great Wes Craven, but in a way, it shows his versatility, or the strange journey that he took. And he had a sense of humor about it. But he directed some of these films under pseudonyms.

In doing my research, he got an early break from Harry Chapin's brother, Tom Chapin. Oh, wow. Which I found interesting. Catch in the cradle. Yes. Here's a weird movie we have to track down. This may be, and now Wes Craven experts are going to write me and tell me how wrong I am about this, but he was an editor on a film, and I love this title,

called You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat. And in that movie were Richard Pryor, the character actor Alan Garfield. Oh, my God, yes. Who's still around, by the way. You know something funny? Oh, God.

Was it Michael Lerner, the other actor? Michael Lerner, the big heavy guy that was in Barton Fink? Yeah. I remember when I auditioned for the part of basically the Jew behind the desk in Beverly Hills Cop 2 with Eddie Murphy, I remember thinking, they're not going to give this to me. It's going to be up between Alan Garfield and Michael Earnhardt. But were they even auditioning? Or you just pulled their names out?

No, I just saw them as like the two Jews. Alan Garfield did a lot and then changed his name to Alan Gorwitz. Yeah. I think he went back to his real name. Yeah, that was his real name, and Alan Garfield was. Yeah. Also, in a movie I recommended on the show, The Conversation with Gene Hackman. Yes.

Alan Garfield is in that. He is indeed. As a really sleazy. He is indeed. We can do a future episode about the films of Alan Garfield is in that? He is indeed. As a really sleazy... He is indeed. We can do a future episode about the films of Alan Garfield. He was usually sleazy. Yeah. But in that movie,

in How You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It or You Lose That Beat, was also Richard Pryor and Robert Downey Sr. Oh, my God. So that sounds like a real relic. You know, we should have our friend Mike McPadden, who's a horror expert, write something about Wes Craven. I like Serpent and the Rainbow. I like Shocker.

Have you seen these films? Oh, some. Yeah, I mean, they're underrated. Swab Thing. similar to Elm Street, Nightmare on Elm Street. Right. Because it was also like a murderer who wouldn't die. Wasn't there a Karloff picture like that, the man they could not hang?

Was there somebody who kept coming back from the dead? Yes. Yeah. He also directed Meryl Streep to an Oscar nomination in a film called Music of the Heart. And I love this quote. He said, to be able to make films for 40 years is remarkable. If I have to do the rest of my films in the horror genre, I have no problem with that. If I'm going to be a cage bird, I'll sing the best song I can.

Wow. Which I was touched by. Because so many people are in, like I I said with Leonard Nimoy was like that. He at first hated Spock. Right. But someone like this who accepts it and goes, you know, people love what I'm doing. Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah. We could talk in a future show about people who kind of get pigeonholed. Oh, yeah. Into a career. So that's the great Wes Craven. Yeah, somebody else who would have been good for us. And he was apparently close friends with Alice Cooper, who we need to get. Oh, wow.

Oh, we've got to get him. Yeah. And Alice Cooper was friends with Groucho Marx. That's right. Yep. Strangest friendship ever. Supposedly, and I don't know, we asked Steve Stoller about this, supposedly Groucho and Mae West went to an Alice Cooper concert.

Yes, I had heard that story. Trying to get that verified. Yeah. I want to talk about, we'll go down a long list at the end. Well, let's do it now. These are just some names of some other people we lost and other people that were on our original booking list. Maureen O'Hara passed.

Oh, yes. From The Quiet Man and Miracle on 34th Street. She lived a long time. How old was she? Well into her 90s. Wow. We lost Omar Sharif. Yeah.

This year. Who played a Jew. Did he? He was Arabic, but played a Jew in Funny Girl. That's right. Where he was that real-life gangster, like Arnie something. Yeah, Nicky, was it Nicky Arndt? Nicky Arndt.

Do I have the right name? Nicky Arnstein or something? I'll have to check. Nicky somebody. Because Fanny Bryce was in love with this real-life gangster, a Jewish gangster. And that song, but, you know, he does it a lot. And he said, but I love him. Oh, I'm trying to think.

Yes, I love him. Yeah, Dara just said she loves that song. Two or three girls has he that he loves as much as me, but I love him. And everyone was familiar that she had had this affair with this gangster who broke her heart. And they say, like, grown men watching Fanny Bryce sing that song would break down crying really that's good trivia that's good stuff he was also an expert bridge player omar sharif and he had a he had a bridge column i remembered uh an omar sharif story okay lay it on okay he was supposed to go out with this girl you know because he was uh you know, let's face it, a pussy hound.

Yeah, I'm sure he was. He was going to go over to have sex with this one girl. She kind of stood him up or whatever. And so because he wasn't going to be having sex with her, he went down to the gambling tables and he won a fortune and and he then filled this girl's room he had like about a thousand bouquets of flowers uh filling this girl's room with the note that said, thank you for canceling. You would have been the most expensive fuck I ever had. Wow.

When did you hear that story? He had told it in an interview. Some of these are the strangest Hollywood tributes you will hear to the deceased. The great Omar Sharif and wonderful in Lawrence of Arabia oh yes um and and Zhivago Dr. Zhivago of course Dean Jones passed this year the Disney star and yeah who was always like it it's funny with Dean Jones because he started out as the typical Disney like like the goofy, innocent character, like the boyfriend or father, always like a goofy, innocent guy. And then in one movie, it was like made in the style of a Disney film.

He played, they purposely cast him as the villain. Really? Yeah. I have to look that up. I wonder which one that is. He's in... He's in all the love bug stuff. Yeah, he's playing like an evil character with a gravelly voice.

And you could tell he's having the time of his life. Got to look that up. He was a born-again Christian who suffered from depression his whole life. Interesting man. Rod Taylor passed away. Oh, wow. From The Birds. From Time Machine.

From The Time Machine. Great movie. Yep, and a terrific actor who didn't work a lot late in life. He was one of those guys who walked away a little bit. Robert Loja, the character actor. Robert Loja. We lost a few weeks ago. Okay, Robert Loja.

I mean, I wish I could have met. I met Robert Loja once, but it was already toward the end of his life. So he looked like he was obviously slipping. And he wasn't that, you know, Robert Loja. Yeah. You know, in these movies like Scarface and everything. And I have to say. He was a great tough guy.

Pritzy's honor. About Robert Loja, why he stands out in my mind, I remember my mother was a fan of Robert Loja. Really? Yeah. You never told me that. Yeah. So he stands special.

Why would your mother be a fan of Robert Loja? I don't know. She just thought he was a terrific actor. I love that. And he was in that show, T-H-E Cat, was it? I think so, yes. Yeah. Yes.

Yes. Terrific guy. Yeah, SOB, Blake Edwards, SOB, a local boy from Staten Island. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Terrific guy. Yeah, SOB, Blake Edwards, SOB. A local boy from Staten Island. Yeah. Robert Loja. We lost Donna Douglas this year, Ellie Mae the Beautiful, Ellie Mae Clampett. Oh, yes.

And we had Max Baer on. Yeah. And to go back to that episode, he said so many nice things about her. Dick Van Patten. Oh, yes. From Eight is Enough and When Things Were Rotten. Oh, yes. Mel Brooks.

He was pals with Mel Brooks. He pops up in a couple of Mel Brooks films. Oh, he's in High Anxiety. Oh, yes. Yeah, a funny guy. Another local boy from Queens. This one we were really kicking ourselves about at the time, and that was Alex Rocco.

Yes. Who we lost from the famous Teddy Z and the Simpsons. Oh, and of course, most importantly, the Godfather. And of course he was Mo Green. Yeah, he got shot in the eye. And there isn't even a plaque or a monument. And I didn't get angry. I knew that he was hot-headed.

But this is the business we have chosen. Thank you, Hyman. Yes. Yeah, he was great. I understand through some people who worked on The Simpsons who told me he was a great storyteller and would have been wonderful for us. I had such affection for him as an actor. He was in the George Carlin show that Sam Simon created for Fox. I liked everything he did.

And one great story he told that I'll try to describe it. It will not work, and we might have to cut it out. It's okay. When Francis Ford Coppola wanted him to be in The Godfather, he said, well, he had reservations, Alex Rocco, because he said, see, I'm Italian. I don't know if I could play a Jew. And Francis Ford Coppola said to him, he goes, it's simple. And Francis Ford Coppola put like his fingers and thumb together and waved the back of his hands forward and said, this is Italian. And then he put his hands down a little to show the palms of his hands and waved them forward a little

and said, this is true. I love it. I think people could picture that. We'll have you do that for the website. We'll videotape it. Interesting, because Kahn was a Jewish guy playing Italian. Yes. In the movie, Alex Rocco was an Italian guy playing Jewish.

Probably a lot more crossover. Oh, yes. Look up a show that he did with John Cryer called The Famous Teddy Z, which is wonderful. He turned up in everything. He had a long career. While we're talking about character actors, James Best from The Dukes of Hazzard and many other things. He was, I guess his most famous recurring line in Dukes of Hazzard was, he would get flustered and start going, and yeah, he was like the deputy to Sorrel Book.

Right, Boss Hogg. Boss Hogg. Yeah, and he turns up in a wonderful Andy Griffith show. I think he was in a Twilight Zone. Probably he was in the Twilight Zone. You know, I don't have all the IMDb pages here, but these were guys that worked for a long time. Geoffrey Lewis or Geoffrey Lewis.

But I have to say with James Best, what stands out best in my mind, What stands out best in my mind. And this was, I always laugh when an actor gets saddled with doing the exposition. Oh, yeah, we've talked about it. Or giving information. There was this Jerry Lewis movie, which was not one of Jerry Lewis's classics, called Three on a Couch. Sure, I know it. And he plays Jerry Lewis's friend, and his whole thing there is to start trying to make it sound conversational, and he'd go, now, whatever his name was, Jerome.

Now, Jerome, in college, you did a lot of voices. Now, your wife has three patients. She's a psychiatrist psychiatrist the top psychiatrist in the country now why don't it would be funny if you did uh voices as each one of these patients and you went to her because you want her to come with you to france to accept the Medal of Honor. And she can't because she's a poor guy. Yeah. A little stilted. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You're kind of you kind of feel for it's like that example you gave of Goodman in the Bobby Darin movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bad exposition.

Where Kevin Spacey, as Bobby Darin says, I haven't achieved anything. And Alan Goodman goes, what are you, crazy? You've won 12 Emmys. You've won 15 Grammys. You've won 20 gold records. Oh, great. You've got so many stories about all the people on this list. Jeffrey Lewis I wanted to mention.

I'm not sure if it was Jeffrey or Joffrey Lewis. The Cooler Knot? No, no, that's Jeffrey Holden. Oh, Jeffrey Holden. Jeffrey Lewis. Because we lost him. I think we lost him a while back. This was an actor in all the Eastwood movies,

the father of the actress Juliette Lewis. You recognize him as soon as you look him up. Yeah, he's one of those actors just you got to see the face and you go, I've seen him in everything. He did a million things. Richard Dysart,

we lost from being there and many other things. Louis Jardin. Oh, yes. Passed away. Anita Ekberg. I mean, I got a long list here which I'm trying to mention everybody. Melody Patterson from F Troop, Wrangler Jane. Oh, yes. Passed away. Anita Ekberg. I mean, I've got a long list here, which I'm trying to mention everybody.

Melody Patterson from F Troop, Wrangler Jane. Oh, yes. And we had, so far we had Larry Storch. And Ken Berry. And Ken Berry. Right. And we missed out on her. And I think the only major name from that show that's still alive is James Hampton, who played Dobbs.

Oh, my God. The trumpeter. We've got to get him. Melody Patterson, An Interesting Life. Ann Mira. From The Great Stiller and Mira. Stiller and Mira passed away a couple of weeks ago.

And Ann Mira was in another movie I recommended, Boys from Brazil. Correct. Did you ever work with her? She was fun. Okay. I you ever work with her? She was fun. Okay. I didn't work with her directly, but she was also in this

movie. I saw that if you missed it, you didn't miss anything, and that was Highway to Hell. How do I not know these credits of yours? Oh, yes. I thought I knew everything you've made. But I remember I would run you've made. But I remember I would run into her

and Jerry a lot. And they were both. So just to speak to them was funny. Yeah, I met her a couple of times at the Friars and then on Joy's old talk show. She's another one who didn't suffer fools and just loved unfiltered, said it like

it was. She'd insult everybody. Loved it. Yeah. She was fun. Real quick, I'll go down some of the rest of the names on this list. George Barris, the car customizer who designed the Batmobile and the Munsters car. See, there once again, I was about to get mixed up and go, well, the gong showed. He's around.

He's a wreck. Chuck Paris is a recluse, but he's still around. Patrick McNee from the Avengers, we already mentioned. Judy Karn, speaking of laughing. We were just talking to George Slaughter, legendary producer. We'll have him on a future show. And, yeah, he'll be coming up soon.

And I asked him about Judy Khan, because Judy Khan was the perky and sexy girl on Laughing. Socket to me. Yeah. And she would dance in a bikini. With those temporary tattoos. Oh, yes.

Yeah, that would be like peace signs and everything dance in a bikini. With those temporary tattoos. Oh, yes. Yeah. They would be like peace signs and everything from the city. And then at the end, it would freeze on some funny thing. Yeah, she was great. Like, you bet your bippy. Right. Or they would zoom in. They would do those bad 60 zooms.

And her career and her life kind of fell apart, like through drugs and alcohol. Yeah. Paul Schaefer and Tom Leopold have a great Judy Karn story that I won't tell here because it takes too long. We have to move it along. But we'll have Paul or Tom come back and tell that story. I liked her in a show called, you remember a show called Love on a Rooftop? Yes. With the late Peter Duhl?

Yes. Who committed suicide. And I think Nipsey Russell was in it. Don't quote me. Peter Duhl from that show that was a ripoff of Butch Cassidy. Oh, it was Butch Cassidy. Alias Smith and Jones. Yes.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Who else do I want to bring up? Here's some writers. I mean, Melissa Matheson, who wrote E.T. and The Black Stallion. Stuart Stern, who wrote Rebel Without a Cause. Brian Clemens, the Brit who created The Avengers and wrote many other wonderful things.

You pitched Save the Tiger on the show recently. Yes. And Steve Shagan passed away, the writer of Save the Tiger. Wrote a wonderful movie called Primal Fear, too, with Richard Gere that I suggest people. Yeah, and I had recommended Save the Tiger. Oh, you said the Tiger. You mentioned Jack Clement. And while we're talking about writers, Sam Simon from The Simpsons and Taxi.

Oh, yes. Which is a very sad story, but uplifting in a way that he passed away and left the bulk of his fortune to charity, to animal charity. Oh, wow. Became a philanthropist. Stan Freeberg, we should mention. Oh. Because we talked about him with Weird Al. Yes.

You know, the great Stan Freeberg. He would create these funny, well, first of all, a great voiceover guy. Yeah, another renaissance man. You know, like they used to have a great voiceover guy. Yeah, another renaissance man. You know, like they used to have these brilliant voiceover guys. Now they've got so many celebrities, but they'd have these voiceover guys that only in the business you knew. And Stan Freeberg was one of the top guys. Yeah, and he was an animator. He was a voice actor.

He was a puppeteer. He was a very accomplished ad man. Check out Stan Freeberg Presents the United States of America, which is a wonderful piece of work. And he would do these funny comedy recordings that he creates. Yeah, satirical songs, musical parodies. Another guy who worked with Mel Blanc, Bob Clampett, for his freeling, Dawes Butler. He died in April at the age of 88.

He would have been wonderful for us. Another young guy. 88. A mere kid. I want to talk, and we're winding down, so let's... Oh, my God. There's so many people we could get to. Say yours.

Did I miss somebody for you? One person I wanted on the show show and we were planning on getting, and he played Jimmy Olsen on a classic TV show of Superman, Jack Larson. Jack Larson, who my old boss, Bill Getty, from The View, knew Jack very well. They were neighbors in Palm Springs, and he called me afterward, and he said, not only did you miss out by not having him on the show, but you would have loved him. That he was just, personally, he was a great guy

and a raconteur. And that one hurt, too, when that one happened. Because he was on our short list. And Jack Larson, I remember telling a story. Because he knew James Dean. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

And obviously George Reeves. And oh, yes. I mean, the stories he could have told would have been amazing. Noel Neal is alive. Maybe we should track her down. Yeah. Lois Lane. No, but Jack Larson told a story because he knew James Dean.

uh told a story because he he knew james dean and and he said because and everyone like worshipped everything dean did like oh so holy and so sensitive and he said james dean would walk in one time walked into a party and and he there was a drum set lying on the side of the room. And he started pounding on the drums, not playing them, but just pounding really loud, making noise. And finally, some guy at the party yelled out, hey, Jimmy, you're giving me a headache. And then he said that James Dean put his head down like he was about to cry. put his head down like he was about to cry. And Jack Larson said, and I'm sorry, I just didn't buy it. Where did you see that interview?

On some show. Oh, he would have been so good for us. And I thought, boy, oh boy, would I love to talk to him. He wrote librettos. He was a writer. He was a musician. He had a whole other life. Yes. Apart from Superman.

Speaking of superheroes, I have to mention Batgirl, Yvonne Craig, who I got to know just a little bit. I worked for the FX network, and we had Batman on the shows in the early 90s. And I said, let's get Yvonne on the show because Batman – in those days, FX wasn't doing original programming. Oh, yeah. It was mostly reruns. And I called her up, and she was great. I've mentioned this on the show before. In those days, FX wasn't doing original programming. It was mostly reruns. I called her up, and she was great. I've mentioned this on the show before.

She had such a sense of humor. She was cracking me up. There was no part of her that took herself seriously. And she worked with Elvis. She had this interesting career. She was in Star Trek. She was in In Like Flint with James Coburn. Oh my God, yes. She did a lot of other stuff that people didn't

know her for, and she was an accomplished dancer. And I think on both, I think she was left out of an in memorial. She was. And I was told by a mutual friend of ours that her sister was very upset by that. I remember we had her on the show, and I was told by a mutual friend of ours that her sister was very upset by that.

I remember we had her on the show, and I made a donation to her charity, which is the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Charity. If anybody loves Yvonne and was fond of her work and wants to donate, she did a lot of stuff. She did The Ghosts of Mrs. Muir, McHale's Navy, and remember Land of the Giants? Oh, yes. Man from Uncle, Mod Squad. She had a lot of stuff. She did the Ghosts of Mrs. Muir, McHale's Navy, and remember Land of the Giants? Oh, yes. Man from Uncle, Mod Squad. She had a big career. I remember Land of the Giants. I had that model. Yeah. I used to put together

a monster. The Aurora model? Yes. God bless your heart. With the giant snake and the tiny little astronauts fighting it. Bless your heart. Yvonne was great. I met her at a convention, too, after that phone call. And a shout-out to her sister, Maridel.

And somebody else that we knew personally, and that's Taylor Negron. Yes. I can honestly say, well, I can honestly say, I can say I was in three movies with Taylor Negron. Bad Medicine. Oh, sure. There's one I know. Starring Steve Guttenberg. Yeah.

And one that everybody knows and I'm sure you have it in your film library. Funky Monkey. Oh, it comes up all the time. Funky Monkey. I think James Lipton on Live at the actor's studio discussed funky monkey and and we were both in the aristocrats of course right right he he did a lot of stuff he did a lot of wonderful stuff he studied with lee strasburg

which i didn't know um he studied comedy with Lucille Ball, which I didn't know. I found this in doing a little research on Taylor. He said she gave him advice. When playing a drunk, speak very slowly and clearly, and never produce a show about helicopters. That was her show business advice to him. Now, you guys know Taylor as the pizza delivery guy in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but he's in Easy Money with Rodney.

He's in Young Doctors in Love. He's in Punchline. He's a villain in a Bruce – not Bruce Stern. Bruce Willis. Is that The Last Boy Scout? I think so. With Damon Wayans? He's a villain in that.

Yeah. He was really a super sweet guy. I got to know him through a mutual friend, and he was directing a one-man show about Tully Savalas in the village that I went to see. And, you know, he just, there were some people you meet and you wish you knew them better. And when he passed, I was heartbroken because we were going to have him on the show. And he just had,

read, there are tributes about him that you can read. Go to XOJane.com. There's a wonderful tribute written by somebody who knew him. And Philadelphia Weekly. He was a very special person. And I remember being at, we both were at Professor Irwin's,

Corey's house. And I was sitting with Taylor Negron the whole time. And you know me, of course, because Taylor was gay. I kept doing fag jokes. Shocks me. The entire evening, one worse than the other, just fag jokes. And then Taylor at one point turns to me and yells, And then Taylor, at one point, turns to me and yells, pointing his finger, he goes, Gilbert, you're a sexual bully. That's great. There's also a great tribute to him on the Onions AV Club site. And I love this thing that he used to say.

He wasn't famous. He was famish. He directed plays. He directed plays. He wrote plays. He wrote poetry. You could see him in Friends, Seinfeld, Fresh Prince, The Ben Stiller Show. He was another Renaissance man. I didn't know him well, but I liked him immediately. I'm sorry that I didn't get to know him better and that we didn't have him on the show.

Now, who else? I've got one name him better and that we didn't have him on the show. And now who else? One! I've got one name left, and that is our only podcast guest, our only previous podcast guest to have passed away. Well, first of all, we should name Leslie Gore. Did we say her? Let me get to the last couple of names on the list. Leslie Gore passed away. That one bothered me personally.

Leslie Sue Goldstein from Brooklyn. She would have been great for us. See, that's why I would have wanted her. Yeah, I love Leslie Gore. Just the fact that she was a Jew, I don't care. Yeah. And on Batman. She was Pussycat.

Yes. In that famous Catwoman episode. I think we asked Julie Newmar about her. Two of the little rascals, Dickie Moore and Gene Darling. Yes. Both passed away. And we had Dickie on our Gene Darling. Yes. Both passed away. And we had Dickie on our list.

That didn't happen either. The great composer James Horner of Titanic and Apollo 13, Field of Dreams. Jane Meadows. Oh, my God, yes. Passed this year. Anita Ekberg. Oh, yes. As long as you're in your Laura Antonelli... Another va-va-voom.

From eight and a Half. And Gene Sachs, who was married to Bea Arthur. Oh, the great stage director. The great stage director and director of The Odd Couple feature. Yes, yes. Which we can't fail to mention Gene Sachs. Felix! That's all I have. I'm sure there are many other people.

There are a lot of people we are leaving out. Yes, and so feel free to write about them and post about them. And we have to get to our friend Joe. Yes. So what can you say? Joe was one of those people. Joe Franklin. Joe Franklin was one of those people. Joe Franklin. Joe Franklin was one of those people.

If you lived on the East Coast and you stayed up way too long, there was a strange reward in getting a show that if they spent two cents on it, I'd be

surprised. But he did more of them than anybody else. Yeah, the Joe Franklin show. And it was weird because he would have on, like, a lounge singer and a house painter and a dentist. Right. And he would try to get them all to talk. Yes.

And go, so if you as a singer needed your house painted, you could go to this man here. The most clumsy. He loved them for it. When Billy Crystal spoofed him as the Joe, I guess it was the Joe Frankfurter show on SNL, I mean, they had Christopher Guest playing a, I'm trying to remember what it was, a ventriloquist,

and George Carlin was the local fire chief. And they captured that. You know, if your house was on fire, would you call? And I remember when they'd have a singer on, always an unknown singer. Yeah. They play his song, but he wouldn't be singing. He'd be just sitting there uncomfortably while a song is playing. And the other people you could see tapping him on the leg or something, going like mouthing, oh, that's good.

Yeah. And, you know, we've laughed. We did a great episode with Joe. I mean, I have to tell the story of how we walked into his office. I think I looked forward to that one more than any that we've done. I mean, I have to tell the story of how we walked into his office. I think I looked forward to that one more than any that we've done. I remember leaving work. I was working at The View and I jumped in the cab and we went

to Times Square. We walked into the office and Gilbert says, he says, I'm a little hungry. And Joe says, what do you want, a chicken salad sandwich? And opens his desk drawer. Terrifying. And I mean, people who are fans of these hoarder shows.

Oh, God, that office. These people on hoarders are neat freaks compared to Joe Franklin. Well, we were afraid. Remember, Dara's here, too. We were afraid to stay in the room. Yes. And our engineer could... We lucked out. Our engineer couldn't find an outlet. Their stuff was stacked

so high. I mean, you could see pictures of it, and we took pictures. Like the Collier brothers. Yeah. They died by one of their junk piles collapsing on them. We were sitting... Gilbert and I were sitting in two chairs under a tower. I mean, it was a

it looked like Jenga. It was a shaky tower of books and albums and I looked at him and I said, this shit is going to come down and kill us. I mean, it'd be a fun way to go. And we'd all be dead. And I remember too, I started at one point

to sing to Joe Franklin Georgie Jessel's song. Yeah. You know, like, what's the first? My Mother's Eyes. One bright and shining light that taught me wrong from right. I found in my mother's eyes. And Joe Franklin did the middle talking section. Yep. That was great. That was great. That was amazing. That was great. People should go back and listen to that episode. And also, what I remember, Joe Franklin was a bit of a braggart. Well, he was a bit of what my grandmother would call a butter and egg man.

Yeah. He told tall tales. He discovered everybody. He discovered people before he was born. He discovered them. He discovered Christ. Game is a break and and i and he talked at one point he goes you know on uh on on on one of my shows we had on both james dean and al pacino yeah and then we did the math and al pacino would have had to have been six. Right.

He was on that show with James Dean. Right. I mean, but people he did interview apparently, and I think this is a legit chaplain, John Wayne, Woody Allen, Nixon,

JFK, Lennon and Yoko, Elvis and Sinatra. I don't know if these are verifiable, but I can, I believe them. I don't know if these are verifiable, but I believe them. I think he said. He interviewed them.

And we have to talk about how he sued our buddy Drew Friedman. Yes, Drew Friedman, the artist, for doing the comic strip, The Incredible Shrinking Joe Franklin. Was it that one, or was it Joe Franklin is a dreamwalking? There were two. Drew, Drew did these great strips.

And, and, and, uh, at one point, Joe Franklin angrily said, you know, why,

why is, uh, is Drew attacking me like this? I was, I was great friends with his father, Bruce J. Friedman. And Drew said he was never friends with his father, Bruce J. Friedman.

And Drew said he was never friends with my father. Find Drew's books online, folks. The early books have the, what's the, any resemblance or any similarity between any persons living or dead, I'm fucking up the title, is purely coincidental. It's a wonderful collection of cartoons. One of them, if it's that one or the one afterwards, I did an intro.

I think Warts and All was the second one. Yeah. With the raised cover, with the raised warts. But those two Joe Franklin strips are gold. I don't know why he sued them for $40 million.

I mean, Joe Franklin was already a living cartoon character. Correct. And he threatened to sue Sarah Silverman after the aristocrats. Remember that? Because Sarah Silverman, the aristocrats, did a long story that ends with her looking to the camera and going, Joe Franklin raped me. I think that by that point, somebody advised him not to do it.

And we have to tell people, there we were in his Times Square studio. We walked out. We left his office. God, I was just going to talk about it. You tell it. You can talk. I'll set it up. But we left his office because we thought we were going to get killed by falling debris.

There were no outlets. We went down the hall, and if you listen to that episode, you can hear traffic noise because we're right on Broadway in an empty room. I mean, it was an absolutely empty room, and we had a card table in the center of the room, three chairs, you, me, and Joe Franklin. It was surreal. The audio was not ideal. And when we did the interview interview gosh i i had the time of my life doing that and when we when when he finished to tell tell them what happened we we were frank and i are sitting there we said goodbye to him and he turns around and slowly is walking out. And the only thing missing would be like a really sad rendition of Smile.

Like, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Or a sad there's no business like show business. And he's walking and he's turning with his back to us into a silhouette. was so strange he walked off into darkness yeah we both looked at each other and not no neither one of us said anything yeah it was one of those rare moments where we both recognized a moment yes and we looked at each other it was a very long corridor and he said well so long fellas you know see you next round up and he walked down this long corridor, and he disappeared into darkness. And it really looked for all the world like Chaplin exit. On a TV show or movie, you would think they had to work on that for a month to get that perfectly.

It was beautiful. Yeah. And I somehow knew it was the last we'd ever see of him. Yeah. And I think it was his last interview. Yeah. And I think it was his last interview. Yeah. And somebody wrote me and said, this is at the point that the podcast, I started to realize that the podcast was becoming more than just a podcast,

that maybe we were, and it sounds a little self-serving, but maybe we were archivists. Yes. Because we're getting the last, you know, we're last interviews with some of these people. That was special. I just want to wrap uh real quick anybody else you want to bring up before i uh i think adam sandler died this year

or is that just wishful thinking now you've done it i just want to add one person uh that is my dad, who passed in April. And, you know, he was a funny character. His name was Charles. You can look at his paintings. Go to charlessantopadre.com and look at his art. Very interesting guy.

My dad, we had a complicated relationship, but he introduced me to stuff like W.C. Fields and Jackie Gleason and Peter Sellers. He hated Danny Kaye and Bob Hope, and I think rightly so. I won't tell you his feelings on Jerry because I know how fond you are of Jerry. He would call me in the middle of the night. When I lived in L.A., he never could understand the time difference. Oh, yes. So he was up at 8, and he'd call me, and it I lived in L.A., he never could understand the time difference. Oh, yes.

So he was up at 8, and he'd call me, and it was 5 in L.A., and he'd say, I don't understand. I don't understand these. I don't understand. How did Dane Clark have an acting career? You know Dane Clark? Yes. Nobody knows who Dane Clark is. Or he'd call me, and he'd rail about Richard Jekyll. You remember him? Yes. Nobody knows who Dan Cole is. Or he'd call me and he'd rail about like Richard Jekyll. You remember him? Yes. I'd say no one knows who these people are but you.

Or he'd call me and he'd say, I can't sleep. I'm confused. Which one is Julia Armand and which one is Juliette Binoche? We'd have these really weird non-sequitur conversations. I watched movies like Mad, Mad World. He introduced me to that and The Great Race, which we've talked about. And then Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines. Oh, my God.

Those movies that they don't make anymore. Those magnificent men and their flying machines. They go up, they go down, they go down. And one of our last conversations, I got him to listen to the Danny Aiello episode of the podcast. And one of the reasons our relationship was complicated was because he was kind of the star or the talent in the family. And it was hard. It was sometimes hard to get him to check out or take seriously what I was doing. But he called me and he said, boy, that Danny Aiello episode, he sat and he listened to the whole thing.

And he said, I never knew you had such a good voice, which was odd. And then he said, I got to tell you one thing. And I said, what's that? And he said, that Gilbert Godfrey, he is one funny fuck. Gilbert Godfrey. That should be on the poster when I'm outside a theater. Gilbert Godfrey, one funny fuck. What do you think?

For a one-man show? Godfrey. G-O-D-F-R-E. It's not like you've been in the public eye for 40 years, that he should have learned your name. Anyway, this has been a wonderful trip down memory lane. And we apologize for the many people who are leaving out. Well, the next time we get together, we'll bring up...

Hopefully have more dead people. Oh, Al Molinaro from The Odd Couple. Oh, my God. Murray the Cop and from Happy Days. And in all of the obituaries, they mentioned Happy Days. None of them mentioned The Odd Couple. Pissed me off big time. He was so.

I remember one episode of The Odd Couple where he and Tony Randall are sitting sipping cocoa on a couch and out of nowhere, for no reason at all, Al Marr goes, you know, sometimes when I'm sitting in my car, I imagine the patrol car is a giant pumpkin. Remember that? And my nightstick is a magic wand. And Tony Randall says, drink your cocoa, Murray. Do you remember

the one where Felix is on the Richard Dawson show and Murray's watching from home and Felix looks into the camera and he says, Murray, use your coaster. He can't see me. There was one great gag that he came up with for the odd couple. They were doing this scene before he walks into the room of Oscar and Felix and it was taking a long time.

Oscar and Felix, and it was taking a long time. So Maranaro, who had this big nose, shoved his nose through the peephole. That's another great one. And said, hey, when are you going to be ready for me? So they used that on the show. It was a great one. Murray, come in here. You're breathing up all the air in the hallway.

And I think he was the person who introduced Gary Marshall to Robin Williams. Oh, wow. I think that's how Robin Williams was cast as Mark. I can't verify it. And Henry, when we had Henry on the show, he didn't remember that. But I had that from a couple of reliable sources. Anyway, I'm out. That's all I've

got. And you know what we'll do the next time we get together? We'll just run down some people we forgot. Yes. And hopefully some more people will die i expect so tends to happen okay so uh i'm gilbert godfrey this has been gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre, who told me that his father's expert opinion was that Gilbert Godfrey is one funny fuck. He knew comedy. Why don't you put that on your website? Speaking of websites, I promised John Steele

we would plug the site, which is gilbertpodcast.com, our brand-spanking-new website. Oh, yes. Courtesy. And subscribe. Subscribe on iTunes. Yes.

Anything out? Did we leave anything out? No, this has been our In Memoriam show. We'll see you next year, guys.