Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 95. Kliph Nesteroff

Episode Date: March 21, 2016

Best-selling author and pop culture historian Kliph Nesteroff joins Gilbert and Frank (along with former guest Drew Friedman) for an informative (and frequently hilarious) analysis of topics covering ten decades of popular entertainment, including: the dark secrets of vaudeville, the tragic childhood of Eddie Cantor, the phenomenon of Martin & Lewis and the strange death of "Parkyakarkus." Also, Bob Hope dons blackface, Jack Benny swipes his stage name, Don Knotts sends up Hugh Hefner and the mob releases a comedy album. PLUS: Batman & Rubin! "The Baileys of Balboa"! Rodney Dangerfield vs. the feds! Aunt Esther goes electric! And the angriest man in showbiz history! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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P-O-D-F-R-I-E-D. You see, it's kind of a pun on the last name. Ah, never mind. Hi, I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And we're here once again at Nutmeg Post with Frank Ferdarosa. And our guest this week is a best-selling author and comedy historian with a vast, almost scary knowledge of old-time show business. Vice Magazine referred to him as the human encyclopedia of comedy.

And Los Angeles Magazine called him the king of comedy lore. His work has been praised by the Atlantic Monthly, the Chicago Tribune, Vanity Fair, and Comedy Central. His website, Classic Showbiz, a site devoted to comedians and showbiz, was called invaluable by the Onions AV Club and his new book from Grow Press, The Comedians, Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy.

Please welcome to the podcast unofficial Jack Carter biographer Cliff Nesterhoff. I thought you were going to say unofficial jackass. Yes. Well, that too. Which brings us, and thank you for the one sentence about me in a book about comedy. Well, you're in there a lot more than some other people. I think Red Skelton is maybe not mentioned at all. But, you know, every person that is in there, less than one sentence, I have heard from the biggest fan of those particular people.

So some Red Skelton worshiper who's 90 years old sent me a scathing email. How dare you? Don't you realize he was on television for 20 years? Don't you realize the Rolling Stones debuted on an episode? I'm like, Jesus. The book was originally supposed to be

just vaudeville through to the mobster comedy base. Right. I pitched the idea for the book that I pitched was about comedians in the mafia, because if you work nightclubs in the thirties, forties, fifties, or sixties,

nine times out of 10, your boss was the mob. And I found that kind of fascinating because people talk about Frank Sinatra and the mob. But what they don't realize is the reason he was connected to the mob is because he was playing all those clubs. So anybody who played those clubs was mob connected, including the comedians. And I always found that more interesting because it seemed more perilous if your vocation is ridicule than, you know.

I always what I find interesting is it's accepted that to me that singers back then, a lot of them were owned by the mob. Yeah. Where they did them a favor once, and now if they call them up and said, oh, my third cousin is having a birthday party. That's right. Fly across the world and you sing at it. That's right. They had to do it. Yeah.

Joey Bishop had to emcee the wedding of Sam Giacana's daughter in Chicago, the famous mobster Sam Giacana. He just didn't have a choice. He said, I need somebody to emcee the wedding. Are you available? Well, no, I'm not really available. Well, you're doing it, and it's on March 5th. You know, you didn't have a choice. Interesting.

Yeah. So there were a bunch of comedians owned by the mob. Most of the guys that were working in the 40s and 50s in nightclubs whether it was jack carter shecky green joey bishop uh uh so many of them they they even hanny youngman talks about you know in his autobiography uh he said most of them were were great guys even though they were murderers and thieves well the sammy shore says that in the point in the book. In my book, yeah. Does he witness a murder? Yeah. I mean, I don't know how much of Sammy Shore's word you can trust. He said he was playing a place called Dan's Supper Club in Danville, Illinois,

when somebody was assassinated in the back of the club while he was on stage. And he kind of did, he started playing the trumpet on stage to kind of distract people he played the saints go marching in while people were running out of the club and after that the boss of the club gave him a raise and booked him for an extra two weeks because he thought he handled it handled it so well and then he says great guys great guys great guys great guys i mean i've heard like jerry lewis say that they were terrific to them. You want to introduce our other guest who's sitting in with us? Oh, not really. Okay.

Okay. So, Cliff. It's written there. I'm not going to say a fucking word to you. Introduce me. Okay. It's written there. Yeah.

Oh, okay. You want to wing it? Yeah. I'm going to wing it because I don't know you. You know who I am? Not particularly. We only go back 35 years. Yes.

Also sitting in is a former two-time guest of this show, an award-winning illustrator, an award-winning illustrator, a satiric artist whose work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and the New Yorker, the Vermeer of the Borscht Belt, and the King of Jew Dots. That's a nickname I called him back in the National Lampoon days. Jew Dots. Our old buddy, Drew Friedman. Thank you, thank you.

I don't think Gilbert ever knew my name. It was just, he'd see me, Jew Dots. He'd follow me around. Jew Dots. Because he used to do dots for this show. Oh, yeah, yeah. Pointillism, right? He would show up at my apartment unannounced, and I'd look out the keyhole and, you know, Jew Dots!

I knew it was there, and I'd let him in, and he'd sit in silence and watch Lon Chaney Jr. move. Show up in the parka. The old parka with the hood. Yeah, yeah, I'd have to undress him, take his hat off, sit him down. And then my wife Kathy would come home from work work and she says, what's he doing here? I'm going to send him home to his mom. I remember my introduction to your work, Drew, was Howard Stern's Private Parts, that book. Right.

And I remember seeing the tableau of William Frawley being sodomized or an orgy of some kind. Something like that. That was a component of it. And I was young. I think I was 12 or 13 or 14 when I saw it and I was kind of a stupid kid and I could not tell if it was real or not. I wasn't sure if this was like fact

and this was actually photos that had been photocopied. I was like, we were trying to pull off in that early stuff. Like, is this really happening? Yeah, well, it was very successful in that regard. Cliff and I touched base a couple of years ago when he was doing this incredible blog, and he interviewed me. And I just loved what he was doing. It was a great blog.

And I was amazed to learn he was like 28 years old, which blew my mind. Yeah. Still blows my mind. Writing about this forgotten comedian. Yeah, yeah. Now, it's funny, too, because I had heard about vaudevillians and what they went through. And in your book, you go even further. So, like, they always ask comedians nowadays, oh, tell us about your nightmare gigs. Right.

But the worst nightmare gig you could have nowadays is a vacation in Hawaii compared to the vaudevillians. Yeah, because in those days, just commuting was impossible. There were no airplanes. So you were transferring. So many of the vaudeville palaces, I found a list when I was researching for the Orpheum Circuit, and it listed every city that had an Orpheum Theater in like 1918. And of course, there was Los Angeles, there was New York, there was Chicago. But the majority of the theaters are like Duluth and places like that, St. Paul or even smaller towns. And so most of the trains didn't even have direct connections or go across the country. So you

finish your gig in Duluth, you go to the train station at midnight, and you have to wait till six in the morning for your connection to the next town. So you're sleeping in the cold outside, and there was no really proper union representation. There was a company union, which was kind of to circumvent real unions. So if you didn't get paid, you just didn't get paid. There was no one to complain to. Nobody to complain to, and you had to get to the next gig. So it was pretty tough. And there was something in the book

like Moe from the Three Stooges said that they used to, in the room that they was called their dressing room, they used to store corn. And so it was rat infested. Rats would be tearing

open. Half the time the backstage was the storage room. So even if you were quote unquote a star playing these giant palaces that seated 5,000 people, behind the scenes it was pretty assorted. Yeah, rat infested, no proper heating or ventilation. A lot of the vaudeville theaters were closed in the summer because they were too hot to even function. They didn't have proper air conditioning and things like that. So, yeah, it was very odd. And even the big theaters like the Palace that people have heard of that were considered very ornate.

George Burns talks about how you thought you made it when you were booked at a theater like that. But you had to do like multiple shows a day. So you'd go in at 11 a.m., a theater that seated 5,000 people, but there's only 30 people in the audience in a place that seats 5,000. So you don't exactly feel like a success under those circumstances. There's also the story of the hook.

People think of vaudeville as the old kind of cartoonish classic hook to pulling somebody off stage. It seems like something out of a cartoon. George Burns telling the story about, was it one of the theater owners who sat in the front row and pulled people into the audience with a giant ring? Yeah, they called it the hoop.

The hoop! And it was, they do it on amateur nights, so anybody can go up and juggle, and if the audience started to boo, the guy who ran the theater or whoever his stage hand was, had this giant hoop that they would throw over the guy, pull them forward until they fell face forward into the orchestra pit and then everybody would cheer. They should bring that back.

And you thought Pips and Sheep's Head Bay was the best. Oh, yes. And there was also a story that, you know, well, the Three Stooges, of course, used to be with Ted Healy. Right. And they had a thing where they would jump into a pool like a pool on stage. Right. And one time there was a tragedy occurred. Yeah, I think it's – I can't remember if it was Shemp who joined the act after this, but one of them joined the act because there was a woman in the act.

They were called the Annette Kellerman Diving Girls, even though Moe Howard was in it as a guy. And they mistimed it. And it was sort of like you'd see in a carnival where they're trying to all dive into a very tiny pool. It seems like not possible. And surely enough, in one of those circumstances, it wasn't possible. And somebody jumped off the diving board and smashed their head open on the stage and died. And then I can't remember which stooge was, but that opened the door for them to join. It may have been Larry who joined the act because somebody had died.

Yeah, I think it was a girl. She died and hit her head. And then it was like, okay, sorry. Well, the way Moe Howard tells it, he goes, as luck would have it, there was an opening in the act now. Isn't Larry only able to join the act because of a suicide?

Oh, that's what it was. Yeah, there was another one. A theater burned down. Yeah, Larry was under contract to somebody else. Then the theater burned down and suddenly he was out of the contract because I think the guy who owned the theater burned with the theater. But yeah. Insane.

And then there's a part where you say there was this really scuzzy vaudeville guy, because there were about two guys who ran all of vaudeville, so you couldn't say shit to them. And he's by the name of Benjamin Franklin Keith. Yes. And before he was even using comedians, he would get people in the theater by advertising premature Negro babies. Yes, yes. He was considered the groundbreaking innovator of the incubator baby shows, which became a trend,

like a freak show trend, to see black babies born prematurely under glass. Didn't they have those at the World's Fair in 1930? Yeah, doesn't it sound like it? I mean, it was really kind of the inception of the sideshow idea. Oh, yeah. But it was such a huge success that there were all these people copying him. It was a trend within show business in the 1880s.

How did that fade away? I don't get it. And what were the— You want to bring it back? What were the premature Negro babies made of? Or were they actual? They were actual babies. They were actual premature Negro babies?

We're talking right at the end of slavery, like the early 1880s. That's incredible. Yeah. So any premature black baby was put, they were thrown in. Yeah, yeah. They were in show business, baby. That's how Nipsey started. Yeah, absolutely.

Tell us about one of Burns, it's just fascinating, the Vaudeville chapter. I mean, I read it three times. It's just, I couldn't stop reading it. It's so freaky. Tell us about one of George Burns' favorite acts, Swains, Rats and Cats. Swains, Rats and Cats. Swains, Rats and Cats. Did you read this part? Oh, yes.

George Burns told this story later in life, and I didn't know if it was true or not, because when I started to research it, the only initial information I could get was all from the 1980s, and it was all from George Burns. So I was like, well, I can't find anything from the 20s or teens about this act where supposedly rats were dressed as jockeys and then rode cats, real cats, as if they were racing horses. But as I was doing my research, I found an advertisement for an act called Nelson's Rats and Cats. And it didn't describe the act, but I think it was a real act,

and maybe Burns got the names confused and started calling it Swains. Yeah, I like Swain better. Or there was two competing, like there were competing Negro incubator baby shows, competing Rats and Cats, Jockey, Racing Cat acts. It seems a little bit specious, though, because if you're playing a 5,000-seat movie theater or presentation house, how people in the balcony would be able to see these rats on stage, I'm not sure. But, yeah, George Burns said that was his favorite act in the history of show business.

I remember him saying that on TV shows. Right. And I thought, well, this is something he made up as a joke. Yeah, yeah. But it's so funny to think that there was competition among the prematurely born Negro babies. Yeah, well, I mean, it was amazing in those days. He's not going to let go of this.

It's the greatest thing in the world to me. Well, you know, in the Vaughnville days, a lot of people just had moxie but not talent. So no matter what the act was, it would get ripped off. So even I think there's a story about Gallagher and Sheen at one point where they had to post signs backstage that said, please, only one Gallagher and Sheen imitator per show. Because people were all coming up on stage and doing that famous routine. For our listeners, that's the Marx Brothers uncle. Yeah. Al Sheen.

Was there a premature Jewish babies act ever? Frank Fay would have seen to it that that didn't stick around. Maybe they put them in blackface and they performed, the premature Jewish babies in blackface. You said there was a vaudeville theater in Massachusetts that was filled with seawater. Yeah, it's a story George Jessel told that for some reason it was right by the port, and when the tides would come in, it would flood the dressing room. So they had to put plywood down. And as you were applying your makeup, you were balancing and teetering backstage on these like flotation devices.

Yeah, it was part of the Sheedy Time Circuit, S-H-E-E-D-Y. And of course, George Jessel's joke was that it should have been called the Shitty Time Circuit. But it was one of these many low level, not very competitive vaudeville circuits that were kind of regional. That one was just in New England, and they weren't on the level of the Keith circuit or the Orpheum circuit. You know, the weird thing is I saw one of the few true things in Man of a Thousand Faces. It shows them starting out in a vaudeville theater, and they're trying to balance themselves on wood. And she falls in this nice dress

and then falls in the water. Huh, what studio made Man of a Thousand Faces? Oh, I wonder if that was... I think it was Universal. Wasn't it Universal? Oh, it must have been Universal. It must have been. That's right.

I would imagine. Cheney was Universal. Bud Westmore, I think, did the makeup. Because I was thinking that maybe there was a Jessel connection when he was producing films at Fox. He produced about 25 movies for Fox in the late 40s, early 50s. Not because George Jessel had any talent as a movie producer, but because he was gambling buddies with Daryl Zanuck.

So they just gave him producer credit, including Nightmare Alley. The best thing he ever had his name associated with. Nightmare Alley, the great sort of... Tyrone Power. Tyrone Power. Tyrone Power. He's a geek. That's a good movie. It's excellent.

And it's produced by George Jesse. I never knew that. When he was dating Rita Hayworth. Speaking of blackface... Why are you looking at me? I don't know. You can't let this go, Frank. I didn't know that Bob Hope did blackface.

Among a lot of other people. Mae West and W.C. Fields. Yeah, well, back in those days, now a lot of people just assumed that if you did blackface, it was because you were a racist. But it was considered stage makeup. So even African-American comedians would put on blackface to exaggerate the lips and the eyes and darken themselves up because it was considered theater makeup. If you put on blackface, then you were an actor, you know. And a lot of the comedians who in the post-Vaudeville era had started then refused to stop doing blackface, including Pigmeat Markham, who people know for Here Come the Judge and Laughing.

He did blackface, even though he was a black man, right up into the 50s. And it was a big controversy, just like Amos and Andy was a controversy. The NAACP was complaining to Pygmy Markham saying, you know, you shouldn't be doing blackface anymore after World War II. And he said, no, this is tradition. This is tradition. And the reality was he was so insecure. He didn't think he could get laughs or perform unless he had blackface on because he'd been using it for 30 years. So it was very common. And you said there were comedians who would put on blackface and do Jew material.

That's right. Yeah. That's right. They would speak with a Yiddish inflection and be wearing blackface for no reason. I always heard Al Jolson did hate black people, though. Oh, yeah? I've heard stories that he would drive up to Harlem and Tom Leopold tells the story. They would point at black people on the street and beat the shit out of them, basically.

Oh, jeez. Jolson. And then he'd go home to Ruby Keeler. I'm just, thank God it wasn't that Al Jolson was fucking Joe Best. You usually have stories like that. Who told you that? Yeah. By the way, this is a side note, but Robert Wohl says that your story of Clark Gable getting in on with Andy Devine.

Not true. No. Could not possibly be true. All right. I had false information. Is there not? I was told there's a town somewhere in the Midwest where everything's Andy Devine, where there's Andy Devine restaurants and streets

still today. We have to go. There's an Alan Hale Jr. town. I know that. I say it's one of those stories. Clark Gable getting fucked in the ass by Andy Devine is too good a story. We're not going to let it go. I thought Andy would be the bottom. I'm sorry.

It's also like... It balances out like it balances out. Thank you, Andy. You have Laurence Olivier and Danny Kaye. Your dick feels good in my eye. Well, now that you brought it up and we have the showbiz expert here, I want to ask. It's on my list of questions. I want to ask what you know about Danny Kaye and Laurence Olivier.

I know I'm going off the reservation. I don't know much, but Danny Kaye is certainly one of the most despised people. We've heard that from our guests. In show business. And even like guys that were despised themselves despised Danny Kaye. A lot of people despised Tony Curtis

and Tony Curtis said that Danny Kaye was the worst man in the history of Hollywood. And of course, there's the famous story about Danny Kaye. He had a huge rivalry with Judy Garland in the early 60s when they both started working at CBS Television City after they had built a yellow brick road for her from her dressing room trailer into the studio. was livid and he started making demands on CBS, they had to build a gourmet kitchen for him on the roof of CBS Television City to placate him. And that was the same time that Paul Mazursky was one of his writers.

But I don't know about the affairs of Olivier and Kay. But Danny Kay seems like... So you neither confirm nor deny. I would like to confirm though because he seems like... Malcolm McDowell confirmed it. That's true. I hope it doesn't sound too homophobic, but Danny Kaye seems like the kind of guy who is so bitchy that I believe that.

You know? Just the thinking that Lawrence Olivier left Vivian Lee for Danny Kaye is like... It's just like... It's like Rita Hayworth left Orson Welles for Georgie Jessel. So I'm going to say that it is true that Lawrence Tillivy and Danny Kaye fucked each other in the air. Well, we're going to get Malcolm McDowell on the show, too. And then we have Marlon Brando and Wally Cox on the show. That's a horrible one.

And that happened on 11th Street where they shared a penthouse. Oh, yes. It's been pointed out to me. They purchased furniture from Danny Thomas as well. A guy, a comedian. You know what I mean. A comedian, not even inside the Vaudeville Theater. He was outside the Vaudeville Theater and was killed.

Oh, yes. That's right. Yeah, I'm trying to remember his name. He was very obscure, but they had just built a new vaudeville theater in 1915. It was one of his first headlining gigs. You can look it up in the book. He's a very obscure comedian's name. This is really his only claim to fame. But he was headlining this theater. They had just finished building it. He was feeling celebratory before the show. He went out front to have a smoke, and the marquee above him gave way, the marquee that had his name on it, and buried him in rubble and killed him.

Unbelievable. Yeah. Wow. In 1915. Very poetic. You can draw a cartoon. That's showbiz. That's inspired.

That's a Friedman strip. I'm going to leave right now and start. Waiting to happen and and you said that the comedians uh like you know you think years later you know comedians doing coke and smoking right dope but you said they were big on morphine and opium yeah those were the two most popular drugs on the vaudeville circuit and uh joe laurie jr who wrote two great books on the history of vaudeville in the early 50s, and he had been a comedian in the teens and 20s. And then he was on this radio show, Can You Top This? with Harry Hirschfeld and these sort of now forgotten names. He tells the story

that in order to subsidize incomes, a lot of the amateurs were drug dealers in the vaudeville circuit. And there were all these showbiz rooming houses. If you go to old trade publications, Billboard and Variety, you'll always see these little classified ads. Stay at the such and such hotel in Boston just for show people. So when you came through town, this is where you stayed. And that's also where you bought your drugs. They usually had a drug dealer who lived in that rooming house, a local who would sell you morphine or opium. And those were usually the richest comedians in town you know you didn't make that much uh performing so yeah it was very very common and uh there was

also we were talking about how there were these acts that other people ripped off that were very common at the time lou kelly the vaudeville comedian was known for the dopeope Fiend act in which he played a drug addict on stage to comedic effect. And I guess morphine and opium was popular enough then that people recognized the qualities of such a drug addict that that became a trend. There were Dope Fiend acts touring vaudeville and it was very, very common. And back then, because it's funny, like I remember when I was a kid, I would watch Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges and a bunch of variety shows doing Niagara Falls. Slowly I turned.

So I guess there were like a thousand people doing Niagara Falls. Weren't there a lot of people doing Who's On First? Yeah. I mean, these were all kind of stock routines. They were, in my research, less vaudeville than burlesque. Burlesque and vaudeville often these days are used

as interchangeable phrases, but at the time they were completely different styles of comedy. Vaudeville was considered high class. Burlesque was considered low class. Burlesque, of course, was considered dirtier. But it was also the circuit and style of comedy where you did stock routines so if two burlesque acts were doing the same routine it was not considered stealing it was all sort of a pool of public domain comedy and who's on first came out of that and when abedin costello broke in 1938 on the kate smith

hour on radio uh it was controversial in the burlesque community because all these other guys had been doing the same routines or variations thereof. And they were always considered too dirty to be used on radio. So all of a sudden, Abedin Costello become the biggest things in radio comedy and the envy of all these burlesque comics. But, yeah, there were all these different versions of Who's On First long before. And Wheeler and Woosley do a version of it in a movie in 1933. Australian comedians, I think. Glenn Moulton sent me a clip of them doing a variation of Who's On First. Nothing to do with baseball, but basically the same routine.

Australian comedians. Yeah, from the early 30s or late 20s. The same routine, but nothing to do with baseball. Yeah, there's a Kraft Music Hall radio episode. There's a very obscure comedy team on it who do like a what, which, and where routine. Do you know who actually would have

written that routine? No idea. No idea. I think Slowly I Turned was written by Sidney Fields, I've heard. Can you confirm that? I can confirm that, but, you know, Ever Falls was written by Sid Fields, who used to perform it as the bum, you know, in the jail cell.

Are all those Abbott and Costello bits go back to vaudeville? I mean, the identical twin waitresses. Yeah, everything you see on the TV show. The loaf of bread is the mother of... The TV show was basically recreating, you know, what they were doing in burlesque. I heard a story that with Evan and Costello, when you bring them a new, if a writer would write something for them, they'd be scared of doing it. So the writer would make up a story saying, oh, no, no, no, I heard this in vaudeville a bunch of times.

Right, right. To verify that or to make him feel comfortable that it would work for sure. Yeah. He'd say he stole it and it's perfectly okay. Yeah. It's interesting. You know, Milton Berle, the reputation of being the thief of bad gags and all of that goes back to this comedy writer named Al Boasberg who wrote a routine for Burl in Vaudeville

in which he would go up on stage and brag about how he was the most original comedian in Vaudeville and then he would deliver a joke that was famously identified with another comedian and it would get a big laugh because he was bragging about how original he was

and then it kind of lost way and Burl started being accused of being a thief. But he wasn't a joke thief. He stole from himself and did the same jokes in the 70s he'd done in the 40s. But it was a persona that Al Boasberg wrote for him pretending to be a joke thief. And it's kind of interesting. I don't think a lot of people know that. It really stuck.

I don't think a lot of people know that. It really stuck. I remember hearing about Al Boesberg a few years ago, and they said he is pretty much credited for creating the sitcom. I don't know about that. He actually created the Jack Benny Cheap character. Yeah. Yeah. Also created the character of Rochester. But I guess he was maybe putting construction into like the Jack Benny show.

Because he died young. He died young. So, yeah, he basically created the radio show, which is actually superior to the TV show, believe it or not. Yeah, it might be the Jack Benny program that that's in reference to. He died young and he's pretty much forgotten. Boasberg had written previously for Phil Baker and Ben Burney in vaudeville. And they did something that was very similar to what became the Jack Benny program template. Phil Baker was the equivalent of Phil Harris.

He was like the drunken, carousing orchestra leader in Ben Burney's orchestra. And all the jokes that Al Boasberg wrote for Bernie and Phil Baker were nearly identical to the relationship between Jack Benny and Phil Harris on the radio program. That was the template. And I think I told you this before. Jack Benny was kind of trying to cash in or ride the coattails

of the Ben Bernie orchestra when he first started in vaudeville. He billed himself as Ben Benny so that people would get him confused with Ben Burnie yeah that's that's fun that's in the book and they did he got all this great um all these great bookings in major theaters as a headliner and then would go up there and bomb because he was an amateur um and eventually uh Ben Burnie sent a cease and desist order to Jack Benny saying you cannot bill yourself as Ben Benny. It's too close and people are getting confused.

So he changed his billing to Ben K. Benny. That also didn't help. And so then he eventually changed his name to Jack Benny. And he barred from Julius Tannen too, didn't he? Julius Tannen, who later became a prolific character actor, had been a vaudeville comic. Inspired by Frank Fay, one of the first comedians, both Fay and Tannen, to just go on stage in a tuxedo and do stand-up without any gimmicks. It is said that Jack Benny was heavily influenced by Julius Tannen, and there was a semi-legendary

newspaper review in Jack Benny lore when he was still very young that criticized Benny. They said, it looks like Jack Benny has been studying Julius Tannen, but obviously not close enough. I think there's a video of Julius on YouTube and he actually holds his hand up to his face. Effeminate. That's a different guy. It's a fellow named Jackie Whalen. He's very close. Late 20s, and he sort of does a gay character,

and he does do the same hand gestures as Jack Benny. Yeah, it's a Vitaphone short, and he does a stand-up routine, and it's eerily similar to Jack Benny. That you can see on YouTube. But Drew, you say that Jack Benny fucked Marilyn Monroe. I've heard that they would go to nude beaches together.

Jack Benny and Marilyn Monroe? Yes, in Los Angeles. She was the first guest on his TV show. They were that close. Well, I know Jack Benny famously had an affair with Gisele McKenzie behind Mary Livingston's back. Yeah, with the violin in the bed as well. And you said both Martin and Lewis separately fucked Marilyn Monroe. Well, I would assume, you know, and Milton Berle with Marilyn.

Milton too. I'm not saying she was loose. That's how Marilyn Monroe died. She was literally loose. She had her affair with Joe Besser as well. They say that when Jack Benny would climax, he would hum going, I've heard that. I can't verify.

I've heard it. I've heard that too. Now, here's a story I'd heard years ago, and you discuss it in your book. That, you know, I remember growing up, you'd see Bill Dana on TV a lot going, you know, and later on that would be considered way too offensive. Right. But I had heard, and then you sort of confirm it in the book, that the mob, that album, like, of Jose Jimenez, Bill Dana had nothing to do with. Yeah, there is a comedy record called Pat Harrington as Guido Panzini with his friend Bill Dana.

And it's got Pat Harrington only on the cover in a plaid coat. And it's on a completely different record label than all those other best-selling Bill Dana records. completely different record label than all those other best-selling Bill Dana records. Bill Dana's Jose Jimenez records are all on Cap Records, KAPP, who are best known for Burt Bacharach albums. And this other one is on Roulette Records. So when I talked to Bill Dana the first time, I said, what's the story? Did you have a falling out with Cap Records? Why did you do this one release? He said, it was done without my permission. It came out and I saw it in a record store one day and I was like, what the hell? I had nothing to do with this. Morris Levy, a famous Jewish mobster who ran Birdland, the jazz club, also ran Roulette Records. The story is that one day a guy from the Musicians Union or ASCAP came into Birdland and said, you owe this much in royalties for your band

doing these songs. And Moe Levy said, what? This is my club. I don't owe you any money. He said, no, this is the law. This is how music publishing rights work. And a light bulb went off above his head and Levi was like, you mean they just pay you money no matter what?

So he got into the music publishing business, claimed co-writing credit on Silent Night when he released a Christmas album, and Moe Levy became very successful in this way. night variety program they just recorded bill dana's act right off of the television with a reel-to-reel and then released it as the latest bill dana lp and when bill dana objected to it he started getting threatened he'd get phone calls at night telling him to lay off like it's none of your business this is good promotion for you it's also uh good that you leave it alone if you know what's good for you and then bill dana heard yeah you don't really fuck good that you leave it alone if you know what's good for you. And then Bill Dana heard, yeah, you don't really fuck with roulette records. It's the mob and they will hurt you. And he would notoriously, Mo Levy

had people who he would send to New Jersey to break the knees of bootleggers who were releasing rock and roll records that roulette had released as bootleg. So Bill Dana never saw a penny from that record, but you can still find it in thrift stores to this day. So it clearly sold very, very well.

Bill Dana's around. We should get him on the show. He wrote the All in the Family episode with Sammy Davis Jr. That's right, he did. Amazing career. That's right. And he produced that Joey Foreman album

with the Maharishi Yoga. Joey Foreman is a guy who's pretty much forgotten, and I knew him as Harry Who on Get Smart. Well, apparently that record, I can't remember the label. It was Bill Dana Presents Joey Foreman as the Maharishi Yogi, I guess. So the Beatles were really hot with the Maharishi thing, and they put that record into production when it was still like a big thing. Between the time of them going to production and that record coming out, the Maharishi had been discredited as like a fraud who was living high

on the hog and not spiritual at all. And the Beatles had kind of disowned him. So that record came out and just laid a giant egg. It was a huge thud. Have you ever heard it? Does it hold up in any kind of way? I have it, and it doesn't hold up because Joey Foreman, like Buddy Hackett's Chinese waiter, his whole

shtick was doing these kind of racist accents. Harry Who on Get Smart. Harry Who, you remember? Joey Foreman, like Buddy Hackett's Chinese waiter, his whole shtick was doing these kind of racist accents. He did it on Get Smart. Harry Who, you remember? Yeah, of course. Joey Foreman. And it's funny that Drew brings it up. But it is. It's like sexy Sadie had to do with the Maharishi.

You'll get yours yet. You made a fool of everyone. The Prudence was based on me. Prudence Farrow. Prudence Farrow. Prudence Farrow. Well, there's a whole genre also of Beatles parody comedy records. There's a Philadelphia Jewish comedy team called Fisher and Marks who put out an LP called It's a Cuckoo Beatles World. And they sing a song on it where they like – they increase the speed of the tape so it's a high-pitched voice.

And they sing Ringo, Ringo, Little Star. And they come out in – if you look at the cover, it's hilarious because the two jewiest-looking guys ever. Putting on what they think are Beatle wigs, but they're just these terrible, askew women's wigs and they're in tuxedos on the cover. Swan Records out of Philadelphia put out this horrible – I love that first episode when the Beatles arrive arrive in america not for the beatles on ed sullivan yeah but for you know soupy sales i think and frank gorshin marty allen well yeah marty brill and uh oh charlie brill charlie yeah then they start showing up in every sitcom and the beatles ruin it by you know performing and then they get back to writing. Right. I don't know. That episode with Frank Gorshin, the first Beatles episode, I think.

Yeah. Frank Gorshin, Beatles aside, Frank Gorshin does a brilliant performance on that episode. Yeah, he sure does. There's Bart Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, everything you'd expect, but he's on fire. Everybody remembers the Beatles, but not Frank Gorshin. And Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall. They didn't do so great. And young Davy Jones.

Yeah. That's right. And I think when Alan and Rossi came out, Rossi – no, Marty Allen was introduced as Ringo's – Paul McCartney's son. Ringo's sister. These are great photos of John Lennon and Marty Allen, like two worlds apart, when they were guesting. We had them on the show. We asked them about it. You had John Lennon on the show? No.

Marty. But he claims they were buddies. I love those photos. Like, John's looking at them like, you probably never heard of them the day before. Right. Of course. Marty Allen always says, my dear friend, John Lennon. That's what I said.

His buddy. It's like Joe Franklin became a dear friend to everybody. I interviewed Steve Rossi and Marty Allen separately. And I talked to Steve Rossi first. And I'm obsessed with this movie, The Last of the Secret Agents. Oh, yeah. Which was their attempt to be Abbott and Costello. They had a contract for a multi-film contract with Paramount.

They only ever made one because it was so horrible. But it was directed by Bud Abbott's nephew, Norman Abbott. Norman Abbott. Who also directed many of the Jack Benny program. Nancy Sinatra did the opening credits theme music. It's a secret agent spy spoof. And it's not as bad as I was led to believe when I finally saw it. I was expecting it to be much worse.

But it's not good either. Who is the – I'm sorry. Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say, when I asked Steve Rossi about it, I said, this movie, The Last of the Secret Agents, he goes, oh, God. I go, well, what did you think? He goes, it was terrible. It wasn't funny. They wouldn't let us use our own material.

They assigned some writer to us. It was a disaster. It's horrible. I never want to see it again. And then I interviewed Marty Allen, and I said, so The Last of the Secret Agents is notorious for being a terrible movie. He goes, oh, no, it's very funny. It's very, very funny. If they would reissue it, people would call it a comedy classic.

I believe Marty. What was the thing you sent me? Was it Buttman and Rubin? Oh, that was a horrible record they made. Written by Bob Kane. You know, it's possibly the best thing Bob Kane ever did it's one of the most horrendous things but Bob Kane also created

Courageous Cat and Minutemouth and a character named Batman but he wrote this album it's horrible it's about 11 minutes and it's basically Marty Allen saying holy bagels Batman his word is Batman but there's no jokes.

There's no human. Holy bagels, Batman. Where's the chopped liver? That's basically, it's 11 minutes, the whole album. And I heard for years after Alan and Rossi split up, Rossi was like a spurned lover who would show up at Marty Allen shows, I guess hoping to get back together. He had so many different comedy teams after that. It was a guy named Bernie Allen, very obscure comedian, and they were billing themselves as Allen and Rossi. But it was Bernie Allen and Steve Rossi.

And then Slappy White and Steve Rossi teamed up and did a comedy team. They put out a comedy record for Roulette Records. Was that black and white? Yeah, I think so. Well, I remember seeing them on TV. And Steve Rossi would go, hello, I'm Rossi. And Slappy White would go, and I'm white. Right.

You saw Rossi and White on TV? Yes. What show? Mike Douglas, maybe? Wow. Maybe. You saw Rossi and White on TV? What show? Mike Douglas, maybe? Maybe. And the jokes fell. You know who else Steve Rossi teamed up with after he broke up with Marty Allen and did a team with? Joey Ross.

They briefly did Ross and Rossi. And they did an Ed Sullivan show. And, again, when I interviewed Steve Rossi, I go, because I was writing an article about Joey Ross at the time called King of Slobs. And I said, Steve, you teamed up with Joey Ross for a while. He goes, yeah. I go, how long did that last? He goes, oh, a few years. We did about ten Sullivan shots.

I'm sitting in front of my laptop on the phone with him at the time. I'm like, well, it says here you guys were together for a week and did one Sullivan. I didn't realize Slappy White was a team – had teamed up with Red Fox at one point until I read your book. That's kind of how they got their start. Yeah, they were red and white. And I think Johnny Otis, who's a legendary rhythm and blues disc jockey in Los Angeles who discovered a lot of big names, he put them together.

He used to have Red Fox come into his rhythm and blues radio show and just talk and rap on air. And he thought they would hit it off. So he teamed them. Dinah Washington hired them as her opening act in presentation houses on the black theater circuit in America. They played Philadelphia. They played New York.

And one of their last gigs was playing the Old Palace Theater in New York, I guess around 1950 for a white audience. And they bombed. playing the Old Palace Theater in New York, I guess around 1950 for a white audience, and they bombed. And in my research, I found this review where it said, Slappy White and Red Fox's jokes about marijuana and prostitution don't fly with this crowd. Did you know that? Red and white?

No. Did you know they were a team? Slappy used to appear on Sanford and Sonny. Right, sure. He'd show up on Radicated and Stymie and all these guys that Red Fox worked with in the old days. Red Fox gave many black comedians who were in their 60s and 70s. Second shot. No, a first shot. Their television debuts because they were black.

They couldn't get on TV in the 50s and 60s. Well, the one who was on Dester was Rwanda Page. Rwanda Page. She had been a stripper kind of, a stripper, electric. She used to do stuff with electricity, if you remember. I didn't know that. Yeah, there's photos of her, maybe a video on YouTube of her. It was an act where she would plug herself in somehow, and her whole outfit, she'd wear a bikini.

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Get ready to go all out for less. There is a block in Los Angeles around La Brea and Willoughby where Red Fox used to have his office building in the 70s. And there's construction all around it right now. So I think maybe they're going to dig this up soon, but on the sidewalk, when Red Fox christened that building, he had all his old buddies come and put their hands and signatures in cement. So it's LaWanda

Page, Skillet and Leroy, Tony King, who was a black actor, and they all say thanks, Red, thanks for the shot, thanks for the chance. The four stepbrothers, their signatures are in the cement. Just around this construction yard. Which one was Grady?

Whitman Mayo. He wasn't really an old comic. He was actually a legitimate actor. And he was young, too. He was like in his 40s. Who played Bubba? Don Bexley was Bubba. And he put out records on Duto, which was the same label Red Fox started with in the 50s.

I had heard a story. on Duto, which was the same label Red Fox started with in the 50s. I had heard a story. Red Fox at one point was taking control of Sanford and Son. And he said, I just want only the whole crew has to be black, black writers, black producers. And they did it. And then the show started, became a total mess. did it and then the show started became a total mess right and then at one point red fox just said okay bring me my juice back bernie ornstein and saul turtle time cliff mentioned um joey ross and i there was something

i i wanted to ask you there's supposedly joey ross teamed up with maury scottsfield and went on ed sullivan right in the late 50s and they bombed and everybody mocked them when they I wanted to ask you. Supposedly, Joey Ross teamed up with Maury Scottsfield and went on Ed Sullivan in the late 50s and they bombed and everybody mocked them when they went back on the set of Bilko. I've never seen that.

Does that exist anywhere? I'd love to see that. Yeah, I don't know if it does. All of the Sullivan shows do exist and if you contact Sofa Entertainment and they have a very

stranglehold on the copyright, you know, they'll charge you a thousand dollars if you want a glimpse of these episodes. Have you seen it? I've never seen it. Phil Silvers talks about it in his early 70s autobiography. And I think if you look at the listings of the Ed Sullivan Show over the years,

they have it on their official website. I think it is listed there that they did do a routine. I've never seen it. I would love to see that too. Those two guys performed together. We talked about Joey Ross last night. We're recording this tonight just to tell our listeners. We're recording this the night after we did the –

I think that was the filthiest part. The Jewish comedy panel. I could see Eddie's face tightening. This was the Jewish comedy panel because I have a museum of my – the comedy museum is now on display. So we'll plug it. For the next two months in New York. Yeah, because there was talk. Well, I heard Nat Hyken hated Joey Ross.

Right. And he discovered him, of course. Yeah, he discovered him. And Joey Ross thought he was like Chaplin. Yeah. Well, Maurice Gosfield, too. It's interesting. Hyken used all these guys that were kind of slovenly. They were the same offstage as on. So if you didn't know better, you'd think these guys were just great comic actors, great at playing bums and lowlifes and degenerate gamblers. But in real life, they were bums and lowlifes and degenerate gamblers. And Heiken, brilliant as he was.

Brilliant as he was, Hyken previously, before he created Bilko, had produced the Martha Ray show and started using Rocky Graziano as the comic foil with Martha Ray. And he got huge laughs because he couldn't read the cue cards properly. He worked with LaMotta, too. Jake LaMotta was in Car 54. He loved the old boxes. He loved the pugs. Punch-drunk boxes. He liked ugly faces like you do. And Nat Hyken, yeah, Nat Hyken.

We all love Nat Hyken. Absolutely. Nat Hyken, he liked funny-looking people. You know, he could have never produced Friends. He didn't care how they even spoke. He would use B.S. Pulley and not have him speak in certain episodes of Car 54. Right, and B.S. Pulley is in Nat Hyken's final project. I'm sure you've talked about it on this show.

The Love God. We haven't talked about it. Starring Don Knotts as a photographer. Oh, yes. We know it. Which is one of the, I think, an underrated film, actually. It also broke Nat's heart that he didn't get the cast he wanted. And he died soon after making that film.

What was the cast that he wanted? He wanted Dick Van Dyke, Walter Matthau, and Jane Fonda. And he got Don Knotts, Anne Francis, and Edmund O'Brien. That would kill anyone. Which is still a good cast. It's still a pretty good cast. And the film is interesting, of course. B.S. Pooley is in it.

James Gregory of Barney Miller's fame is in it as well. And he's the prosecuting attorney who points at Don Knotts. It's a really funny scene. James Gregory is pointing at Don Knotts in court and a really funny scene. James Gregory is pointing at Don Knotts and Gordon says, look at this degenerate! Look at this! This is the face of a pornographer! This is the face of the degradation of the United States,

ladies and gentlemen! And it's just Don Knotts wincing with every word. And I heard, like, with Don Knotts and the love bugger, the love god, I mean. That was his attempt to try to be relevant in the 60s. Right.

Well, it's very 60s. There's a scene, a montage of him trying on different Nehru suits, and they're playing this song composed by Vic Mizzi called Mr. Peacock. For me, it's a camp classic. I love the love gods. It was a huge flop, and it basically derailed Don Knotts' movie career. He went back to TV to do his variety show. Yeah, and he went and did a bunch of Disney movies. I mean, Don Knotts was always really just doing children's movies.

Mr. Limpet, The Reluctant Astronaut. All those are really for kids. Shakiest Gun in the West. Yeah, he had his moment as a movie star, and like Dick Van Dyke, it kind of fizzled out and that was... And what was that one he did where

he's a detective with Tim Conway? Oh, the Private Eyes? Oh, they did Private Eyes. Oh, yeah. That was later. Those ones I don't care for. Yeah.

Back to Nat Hyken, everybody thinks a Milton Berle's TV show is like, you know, the first great television show, the biggest hit. He was Mr. Tuesday Night. But the radio show that Nat Hyken actually wrote and directed in 1947 before Milton went

over to TV was far superior to the TV show. It also had Arnold Stang, but it was, you can listen to it. It's, you know, it's online. There's a running gag in the Milton Berle radio show that's really funny. It was taped in front of a live studio audience. And this bit does not really get laughs because it's just kind of weird, but it's definitely Nat Hyken. I don't know who the actor is that plays this woman,

but it's a man playing a woman. And I don't remember her name. We'll just call her Mrs. Smith. But there's a scene where Mrs. Smith shows up at a party that Milton Berle is throwing, and, Oh, Mrs. Smith, it's so nice to see you. Oh, yes. Are you having to see you. Oh, yes. Are you having a good time?

Oh, yes. Would you like some punch? Oh, yes. And this bit goes on for like 60 seconds. I remember that. Yeah, it's really, really funny. Even if you hate Milton Berle, it's like possibly the best thing he ever did. You know, now we talk about Milton Berle for only one reason.

But that show, and we talked at length about it last night. And I'm sure we'll get to it. The radio show was his best work. Now, because we were talking about these Beatles takeoff records, and I'm sure we all remember those awful records that would come out years ago where it would be like, Martians have landed on the earth. Dickie Goodman. Yeah. Mr. Jaws.

Yeah. Dickie Goodman. And they'd go, hey, would the man from Mars say anything? She loves you. Yeah. They would cut in. Yeah, that genre has a name. I forget.

Does that still exist? Break-in records exists break-in records or cut-in records well you'll sometimes you'll see somebody you'll sometimes you'll see somebody on youtube do something similar but i don't think it's based on that but it really is kind of uh you know dickie goodman got the credit for creating those yeah dickie goodman mr jaws was the any of them hold up i mean no because there were so many fun no they were so so unhim it was like unfunny. It was like Dickie Goodman and Kermit Schaefer had their own category of inventing something.

Kermit Schaefer did the blooper records. Pardon my bloopers. Yeah. And Will Jordan, the impressionist, may be a future guest of your show. We hope so. He's a few blocks from here. He told me that those Kermit Schaefer blooper records, for the most part, are fabricated. They would play outtakes from radio shows where somebody like the famous Jack Benny, instead of saying Drew Pearson, Don Wilson says Pooh Drearson and gets a big laugh.

So these records would be compilations of those bloopers. But Will Jordan told me that they were actually all recreations, and some of them were made up, like the famous story about the children's host. Uncle Don. Yeah, that'll hold those SOBs. Will Jordan told me that he was hired to recreate all of those because he was a mimic. made up, like the famous story about the children's host. Uncle Don. Yeah, that'll hold those SOBs. Will Jordan told me that he was hired to recreate all of those because he was a mimic. And when you listen to him, none of them are real outtakes.

They always sounded suspect to me. I had them when I was a kid. And then I would listen to them twice. I said, wait a minute, this doesn't really click. So the Uncle Don thing never happened or it was just recreated? Joe Franklin swore it never happened and it ruined. Joe Franklin loved Uncle Don. He was a kiddie show host who said that ought to hold the little bastards. Right.

It was famous. And they recorded it. Joe Franklin says it never happened but it ruined his career and broke his heart. So now I don't know what to think. I'd like to think it happened. But it does appear on one of those Kermit Schafer pardon my blooper LPs. But it sounds like it was mocked up. So I may have been created by that.

So how did they create that story if he never said it? I think it, well, it did ruin his career. So I don't think he said that. Yeah, I think he said something. Like Soupy Sales said something that got him suspended.

Send me your parents' little green book. I don't think Uncle Don actually said that or to hold the little bastards. I think he said that or to hold the little bastards. I think he said that or to hold the little cocksuckers. And somehow it got turned into little bastards and ruined his career. You were just speaking about funny names on the Benny show. Where did Rodney Dangerfield come from?

Because the name is – I'm jumping forward here, but we're jumping all around. Well – In the interest of time. It's interesting because Robert Klein talks about how Rodney – Who we were with last night. Yeah. He says that Rodney told him that he flipped through the Manhattan telephone directory at random and picked the name Dangerfield. But there are two episodes of the Jack Benny program on radio in the late 40s that use the name Rodney Dangerfield.

And if you listen to that show, there were these recurring characters, two female telephone operators. Jack Benny would pick up the phone and say, oh, hello, operator. Could you get me Murray Hill 52600? And then it would cut to the sound of the two operators going, oh, it's him again, Doris, Mr. Benny. Well, what are you doing after work, Helen? Oh, I'm going to go see a new movie with my favorite matinee idol. Who's that? Rodney Dangerfield.

And it got a big laugh because it was this weird name. That joke appears in two different radio episodes in the late 40s. Coincidence? Well, I'd been told that Rodney got his new name. He had been known as Jack Roy. He was born Jacob Cohen. Changed it to Rodney Dangerfield around 62. That his manager, this guy Roy Duke, had suggested the name Rodney Dangerfield.

Will Jordan's manager, right? Yes. Yeah. But he had to change his name. This is in my book. The had to change his name. This is in my book. The reason he changed his name. And this story is not in Rodney Dangerfield's memoir. But when I researched, I found this incredible newspaper article from a Long Island paper in the mid-50s.

People who are really into comedy kind of know the story that Jack Roy was a failed comedian. So he got into the aluminum siding business. Then got out of it. Got back into comedy kind of know the story that Jack Roy was a failed comedian. So he got into the aluminum siding business, then got out of it, got back into comedy, changed his name to Rodney Dangerfield. And if you read Rodney's memoir, he says, I made a good living selling aluminum siding, but I wasn't living. So I had to get back into showbiz. But the reality is he was managing this company called Pioneer Construction that did aluminum siding and home repair in New Jersey, in Long Island, Rhode Island, all these little areas. And he was the subject of an FBI sting operation because it was a scheme. It was a high-pressure – if you ever see the Barry Levinson movie Tin Man. 10 times what the work was worth or sometimes not doing the work at all and taking the money. So his whole company was monitored by the FBI for a year and then they broke into his house at 5 in the morning and arrested him. And there's a newspaper story that says Jacob Cohen –

Did you know this story? No. Jacob Cohen, better known as Jack Roy, was arrested in an early dawn raid. And I did ask that of Robert Klein. Like have you heard the story? He goes, yeah, Rodney was kind of cloak and dagger about it. He did mention it but he didn't get into the specifics, and he didn't serve jail time.

But he had this now stigma about him under the name Jack Roy. So there's a theory that is mine that he changed his name to Rodney Dangerfield to erase the stigma of this FBI arrest. It's a good theory. And tell us about, we're repeating this, and I'm not sure we've told this on the show, but we did tell it last night, the death of – the Friars Club death of –

Oh, of Albert Brooks' father? Yeah. Well, it's interesting. Again, talking about radio and stuff like that, Albert Brooks' father, also the father of Bob Einstein, who is best known as Marty Funkhouser on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Super Dave Osborne, Bob Einstein, Albert Brooks. Their father was a comedian named Harry Einstein. He was from Boston. He was a furniture salesman who did comedy on the side as a lark. And he did something that was kind of common back then.

Al Kelly would do this too, where he'd go up on stage, be introduced as like a foreign dignitary and be introduced very seriously, representing something. And over the course of his speech, it would be revealed that he was an idiot saying preposterous things or talking in double talk and start to get laughs. And Eddie Cantor came through Boston one week on a testimonial dinner or Israel Bonds dinner, something like that. on a testimonial dinner or Israel Bonds dinner, something like that. And they introduced Harry Einstein as a Greek dignitary.

And the thing that he said, he pointed at Eddie Cantor and said, I can't believe that these people would laugh at this unfunny man. You Americans are so stupid, so insipid. Anything makes you laugh. Just because he has big banjo eyes, you think that's funny? In my country this man wouldn't be good enough to shine our shoes you know and just insulting him to his face and canter was shocked because everybody had been falling all over him and praising him and all the locals knew uh harry einstein was a put-on artist so they started laughing and then finally when

harry einstein looked at canter he couldn't keep the deadpan because he looked so horrified that it was funny and he cracked up they realized it was a joke so eddie canter signed albert brooks's father harry einstein for his show to be a bit of a sidekick and he created this character named parkia carcass which was sort of uh not really a greek dialect comedian but sort of the name uh uh intimated but when you heard him, it wasn't really a Greek accent. But anyways, he was a sidekick on the Eddie Cantor program in the 30s, on the Al Jolson radio program

with Martha Ray in the 40s. He had his own radio show on the mutual network called Meet Me at Parkey's that was kind of juvenile. But in the late 40s, he had chronic back pain, and he went into a doctor's office to have it looked at. They performed surgery on his spine, but they fucked it up and paralyzed him in the process. I should also note that in the late 30s, Harry Einstein did a bunch of B movies for RKO,

like New Faces of 1937 that also featured Milton Berle. Oh, I didn't see that. And this woman, Thelma Leeds. And Joe Penner. Joe Penner. Oh, Joe Penner, right. At one point, they wanted to make joe penner and park your carcass a comedy team which did not succeed because nobody really liked either of

them that much you remember joe penner gilbert want to buy a duck yeah but new faces of 1937 one of the actresses in it was telma leads and harry einstein married her and that is the mother of albert brooks and bob einstein so the the parents are in that movie, New Faces of 1937. And Harriet Nelson was also in that. Harriet Nelson, that's right. And she sings a great song. Harriet Hilliard. Yeah, yeah.

And you said, I mean, according to the book, Eddie Cantor had a tragic childhood. Yeah, I can't remember exactly the details, but both of his parents were gone by the age of 10. One died, and maybe the father was just— Yeah, his mother died when he was like a little kid. Yeah, yeah. And then his father just left. Yeah, Cantor has sort of that classic Lower East Side Jewish upbringing story, you know. Like Jessel, and they were both boyhood friends, too.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. And they both were children in vaudeville, like in a Gus Edwards troupe. There's photos of them. Yeah, as children together. Yeah, kind of. Young boys. Kind of incredible.

And Cantor was considered by his writers in the 30s as not having any talent. Like he would oversell every joke. And the thing was, he was so used to vaudeville and Ziegfeld Follies Broadway where he had to project to the balcony. When radio came in, he didn't adjust. So, you know, the actress would come in on the radio show and say, hey, Eddie, I heard you went to the dance. What's that, Marjorie? You say I went to the dance on Thursday? Joe Franklin loved him.

I think he's the only Bob Bob Greenberg or Joe Franklin, everybody else, nobody can stand Eddie Cantor. I've never heard anybody else say that he was funny. He's hard to deal with. Now, do we all remember the Eddie Cantor story

starring Keith Brazell? Yes, Keith, K-E-E-F-E, or strange name, Keith Brazell. This is an insane story, the story of Keith Brazell, because the Jolson story was such a hit.

We didn't finish Parking Carcass. We'll get to Parking Carcass. Go ahead. The Jolson story was such a profitable hit for Columbia. They made the sequel, Jolson Sings Again. Yes. Warner Brothers wanted to cash in on this vaudevillian biopic craze, so they were like, we'll do the Eddie Cantor story.

And it was a project that was in turnaround for years they just couldn't get it made uh sol sax was one of the producers by 54 the craze had passed but now they were putting it into production eddie canter eventually put up his own money to get it made the eddie canter story and they cast this saloon singer keith brazell and warner brothers hyped it an exciting new Keef Brazell, and Warner Brothers hyped it. An exciting new discovery, Keef Brazell, not since the Jolson story has there been such a film. And so Keef Brazell started to believe his own hype. Yes, I'm the next big thing. I'm a huge star. Started acting like a huge star. The movie comes out, it lays an egg. It's the biggest bomb. Warner Brothers lost

a lot of money. And Keef Brazile didn't get another starring role for years. But his ego remained the same as if it had been a big hit. So he started playing Las Vegas and connecting with mobsters who kind of kept him afloat and kind of stroked his ego. Now, if you flash or fast forward ahead to the early 60s, when Jim Aubrey was the head of CBS television. He was known for being kind of an abusive guy towards women. Jim Aubrey was the guy who greenlit Gilligan's Island and all those early 60s sitcoms. He was at a Hollywood party. He got into a fight with a woman, threw her down a staircase, and she broke her arm.

Turns out the woman was a mobster's mole and a hit was put on the head of Jim Aubrey, the president of CBS television programming. The only person he was friends with that he knew who had mob connections was Keefe Brazell. So he phoned him and said, listen, I don't know if you heard. And Keefe Brazell says, yeah, I heard. Everybody's talking about it. They're going to kill you. And he said, well, is there anything you could do to help to intervene? He goes, yeah, I can maybe get it called off. I don't know. I'll make some phone calls. So Keefe Brazell did. He got the hit called off. And Jim Aubrey, the head of CBS television, lives to see another day. But now he owes Keefe Brazell a favor. Keefe Brazell called up Jim Aubrey. He said, you know, I saved your life there. And he goes, yes, I'm so grateful. Anything I can do for you, you just tell me.

He goes, well, I'd really like to have my own primetime series on CBS. And Jim Aubrey said, OK, you got it. And Keith Buzell said, no, you know what? I'd like to have three primetime series on CBS. And Jim Aubrey said, OK. So that fall, three series premiered on CBS without any input from the network or the board of directors. The Baileys of Balboa starring Paul Ford from The Belfo Show. Hermione Gingle is in that. It sounds right.

Yeah. The Kara Williams Show starring a forgotten woman who's still alive named Kara Williams. And a drama, an hour-long drama called The Reporter. Keith Brazell created a production company that would keep all profits. And all three of these series went on the air. All were maligned. Critics were aghast saying, what's going on at CBS? The board of directors was aghast and they cornered Jim Aubrey in the next meeting and they said, what the fuck happened here? How did this happen? Why did this happen? And he couldn't tell them. And so eventually he was ousted from CBS.

Bob favor. Bob payback. Is that in your book? That's not in my book at all. So that'll be in the sequel? You can find that. I wrote that article online that people could buy. What I remember in the Eddie Cantor story, they were showing that Eddie Cantor was friends with Jimmy Durante. And they have this guy come into his apartment with like the phoniest looking rubber nose.

And go, hey, Eddie, ha, cha, cha. Wow. Oh, my God. I've never seen, I haven't seen that film for maybe 50 years. But doesn't the real Eddie Cantor show up at the very end? At the very end, they're in a screening room, Eddie Cantor and his wife. And the wife goes – The real wife?

Yeah. I guess – yeah. And she goes, so, Eddie, how are you feeling? And he goes, I've never felt better in my life. Wow. Eddie Cantor was the first person to host the Colgate Comedy Hour when it premiered. He was the very first host. The second host were Martin and Lewis.

The third was Fred Allen. Everybody talks about how Fred Allen bombed on TV, but that was one of his first TV appearances. He had to follow Martin and Lewis, so he just looked tired and slow. One of those episodes from the Colgate Comedy Hour actually has Abe Vigoda's first TV appearance. That's right.

He plays a cab driver. A cab driver. Like 1952. That's right. Is he driving Eddie Cantor or Jimmy Durante in that scene? I don't remember.

And he looks like Abe Vigoda even though he's like in his late 20s. Oh, he was born 90 years ago. Yeah, he looks like he's about 75. He's like 29, I think. And what,

another thing is like Martinin and lewis i mean from everything they say about them it was like a religious experience watching them yeah there's footage on youtube of their copacabana act i think it's 1954 uh there's just a stationary film camera was propped up at the end and people walk in front of it and waiters and stuff. But you can see the magic there, why they were so popular. For a lot of people who don't get Jerry Lewis or Martin and Lewis, the movies don't do it for you. And even the Colgate Comedy Hour. But to see that footage of them in a nightclub, which is what made them famous, it starts to make sense.

Because we all know comedians who you got to see them live to appreciate them. You see them on TV and the magic is gone. Shecky Green is the same thing. Shecky Green's whole reputation has been maligned over the years. His name is just associated with a hack comedian because he didn't translate to TV. He was a nightclub comic who needed two hours to go crazy and get worked up and climb the curtain and whatever. who needed two hours to go crazy and get worked up and climb the curtain and whatever. So Martin and Lewis, I really think, again, they're creatures of the nightclub. And to see them in the Copa Cabana and Jerry Lewis running through the audience, breaking things,

people are just going crazy. It's Beatlemania. When Cliff was working on the book, I've been in touch with Jerry Lewis. You know Jerry Lewis. But I asked Jerry. I said, Jerry, my friend Cliff Nesteroff is writing this book about the definitive book on 20th century comedy. He'd like to talk to you. And he said, what's his name? Cliff Nesteroff.

And he just couldn't get his mouth around that name. Cliff Nesteroff? Cliff Nesteroff? Cliff Neshteroff? Cliff Neshteroff? I said, yeah, you know, he'd love to talk to you about, you know, because, you know, you're basically the most famous comedian of the 20th century. And you got to, you know, when you're talking to Jerry, you got to build, you know, you got to build up. Got to blow him a little bit.

I don't know if he ever wound up talking to you. Well, I talked to him. I phoned him shortly after that conversation. I said, and he answered the phone. And I said, hi, Jerry. This is Cliff Neshteroff, a friend of Drew Freeman's. Yeah. And I said, he mentioned that he This is Cliff Nesteroff, a friend of Drew Friedman's. Yeah. And I said, he mentioned that I was going to call. Yeah, he did.

He mentioned you'd call. And I said, well, I was wondering if we could set up a time for a phone interview. No, I never do interviews. I said, well, Drew just mentioned. He goes, yeah. He wouldn't give me anything. It was a very awkward experience but you know whenever i of course i had my recorder uh going so i have at least the audio

of him yelling at me like that i also uh mort saw you're in good company mort saw i didn't get to interview for the book but mort saw i i phoned and it's funny because a lot of these guys have cell phones now but they're not necessarily that good with them. So Mort Saul. I love old people online. Yeah. All caps. Mort Saul. That's me.

Yeah. Your wife's pointing at you from the couch. Mort Saul, I called and I said, I would like to set up a phone interview, talk about your career. He goes, talk to my assistant. Try to set something up. And then he went to hang up his phone. That's something up. And then he went to hang up his phone. That's pretty good. And he didn't properly hang up his phone.

So I could hear him throughout his day. And Mort Sahl is in like a bagel shop. He goes, yeah, I'll have poppy seed. Did you see the Tonys last night? Oh, God, that Neil Patrick Harris is sure something, isn't he? And I'm listening to Mort Soule's Day, so I have that recorded. Did you record that? Yes. I got to tell the conversation with Will Jordan,

which you told last night. Oh, yeah. This is beautiful. Will Jordan is hard of hearing. He's almost 90 years old, and he knew everybody in his show business. He's a great storyteller, but like I say, he's hard of hearing. So I said, Will, you're one of the only living people who can really tell me about this. I wanted to talk about one of the most famous dicks in the history of show business,

and that's Burl Schlong. What can you tell me about Burl Schlong? And Will Jordan said, oh, wonderful, wonderful performer. I go, wonderful performer, Burl Schlong? Yes, wonderful performer, Berl Schlong. Yes, you know, the thing about Dick Sean. Berl Schlong. Yes, Dick Sean.

Yes. That's great. You know, and getting back to Martin and Lewis, their movies were so mediocre. Yeah. I mean,

they were big hits, monsters. I contend that the Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrello meet Bela Lugosi is actually better than any Martin and Lewis films. Oh, yeah. Scared stiff. I'llend that the Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo meet Bela Lugosi is actually better than any Martin and Lewis film. I'll give you the weirdest Duke

Mitchell trivia, and I'm sure all the listeners know Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell. The kids go crazy for the Sammy Petrillo story. This is a weird kind of comedy connection. Before Sammy Shore got the lease for the old Ceros's to turn it into

the comedy store, the last person who had that lease was Duke Mitchell. Oh, that's in the book. Yeah, it was called Duke Mitchell's Living Room, and you would go there and watch Duke Mitchell. He was the only performer every night of the week, and he would sing there at what became the comedy store right before

it turned into that. I'm sorry, Cliff should finish the Park Your Carcass story at'm sorry, Cliff should finish the Parkia Carcass story. Let him finish the Parkia Carcass story because we're winding down. It builds up to that conclusion. We're running short on time. As I was saying, Parkia Carcass was incapacitated. They had this botched spinal surgery so he was confined to a wheelchair.

So he couldn't really do many public appearances or much performing anymore. However, he could still do Friars Club roasts. He was a member of the Friars and at a roast, he could sit at the dais. This is the LA Friars. Yes. And he could lean on a podium.

So he had been doing all kinds of roasts for several years. He roasted Nat King Cole, Glenn Wallachs, the head of Capitol Records, Dean Martin, Tony Martin, all these people. Glenn Wallachs, the head of Capitol Records, Dean Martin, Tony Martin, all these people. And in 1958, he was booked on the roast of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. It was the 10th anniversary of the Friars of California. It was also a fundraiser for a Burmese leper colony, which, of course, was a popular group of 50s charity. Art Linkletter was the roast master, and the other people on the show included Milton Berle,

George Burns, Tony Martin, Dean Martin, and it was a big night. There was about 1,000 people in that audience. Parkey Carcass went up fifth, and he killed. He had the set of his life. He brought down the house. He went and sat down at his position on the dais next to Milton Berle, and Art Linkletter said,

Take another bow, Parkey. How come we don't see him on TV more often? Parkey a carcass. Harry Einstein. And as Art Linkletter was saying that, Parkey a carcass, his face fell forward into his food, and he dropped dead in front of a thousand people. And Milton Berle, who was sitting next to him,

yelled, is there a doctor in the house? And people laughed because it was Milton Berle yelling this cliche showbiz phrase. But he was truly dead. People realized something was wrong. And of course there were doctors in the house because it was Beverly Hills. So all these famous doctors came up and tried to resuscitate him.

They cut open his chest with a pocket knife and frayed a lamp cord nearby and tried to administer shocks from the lamp directly to his heart, but it was too late. He died on stage after the set of his life, and in order to kind of distract the audience from what was going on, Milton Berle said to Tony Martin,

why don't you go up on stage and sing a song, get people's minds off this. Tony Martin went up on stage and sang a song that had been a hit for him called There's No Tomorrow. That's the punchline. Did Albert Brooks give you the Parkey Carcasses routine?

No, it was a fella from Florida. I did Mark Maron's show and all these nerds came out of the woodwork and sent me all these rare roasts and all kinds of interesting things. Albert Brooks radio appearances from the 70s on a disc and stuff. So I did get that work and sent me all these rare roasts and all kinds of interesting things albert brooks radio appearances from the 70s on a disc and stuff so i did get that final performance of parkia carcass the whole roast really it cuts off right as he dies you don't hear anybody you hear art link

letter just like that paying tribute to yeah that that extraducing but the thing is the reason it was recorded uh knx radio was going to air it at you know as the fryer's anniversary show so that's why there's audio of that and you can go online and hear it worth mentioning that albert albert brooks's real name was albert einstein of course and and getting back to the previously mentioned dick shawn mad mad world of producers oh yeah he also died on stage. That's right. That's right. There's three. Parkia Karkis, Joey Ross, and Dick Shawn all died.

Frank Sutton, who played Sergeant Carter, died on stage. Really? Yeah. In a dinner theater production. And I think Carmen Miranda either died during...

That was backstage. Or a meet... Yeah, backstage at the Jimmy Durant. There's also Jackie Wilson fell into a coma on stage that he never came out of. And maybe the best one of all is the king of country swings, Spade Cooley, who was in prison for stomping his wife to death. He had the number one. He's a Honeymooners reference. Spade Cooley.

Oh, yeah. Spade Cooley had the top regional TV show in the 50s in Los Angeles, but he stomped his wife to death, killed her with his foot. Good Lord. Went to prison. He was taking a dark turn. You know, that southern musician, right? Went to prison, was released from prison on one day leave to perform for an audience of soldiers, did the show, and as they were plotting, he dropped dead. And with that...

Quickly, quickly, give us one Jack Carter-ism. Oh, you have a few. How can there be one? Give us three. A few, yes. Take us out. We had him booked on this show, and he went into the hospital. Right.

Make sure to mention his parting words to you, too, as you were leaving his house. I must tell you, Gilbert was standing outside the Friars Club in the rain. We had just interviewed Paul Williams, and Dara said, good news, I booked Jack Carter. And Gilbert looked at us, and he went, well, get him quickly. Yeah. Yes. And he died, what, 10 days later we should have called him well we were out in the rain we should have called i used to tell people jack carter was

like the oldest guy in the world you know and people would ask me they're like how old is jack carter now i go he's 92 but he doesn't look it they're like oh really i go yeah he looks like he's a hundred eyes going in different directions but jack carter was the angriest man in the world he was hilarious off stage not very funny on stage but he would rant and rave about anybody you mentioned so i remember i was interviewing him one time and i said uh uh you were on an episode of the carol burnett show yeah vicky lawrence was a nazi cunt. You were on an episode of Password, weren't you? Yeah.

Alan Ludden was just Bill Cullen without the limp. I love that one. Yeah. And then the last thing he said to me before he died, the last time I was at his house, and I should say, I should describe his house for you. He lived across the street in Beverly Hills from Sidney Poitier. And I don't know if this was intentional, but Jack Carter was an old school guy. The first thing when you walk up to his steps, ring the doorbell, right in the corner, the first thing you see is a black-faced lawn jockey.

His Spanish maid lets me into the house. If you look to the left, there's a solarium of plants. Right in the middle of the solarium is a sculptor's bust of Jack Carter. Which I would love to own. Oh, my God. Then he takes you into his den. On the wall, there's an oil painting from the 70s with a butterfly collar of Jack Carter. That's online. You can see it.

And then on the other end, a different oil painting of Jack Carter. That's online. You can see it. And then on the other end. This keeps getting better. A different oil painting of Jack Carter in a tuxedo. And then on the wall, all these photos of him and Norm Crosby. And I was like, oh, you're really close with Norm Crosby, huh? Fuck Norm Crosby. He's a thief. Fuck him.

I went to Red Button's funeral. Norm Crosby gets up. He's doing all my material. All my best jokes. I went to Bob Hope's funeral. They asked Norm Crosby to host. Who the fuck knows why? It's a great check.

Wow, we missed out. Oh, did I say the last thing? We missed out. The last thing that he said to me before he died. I was leaving his house. I had just signed the contract to write this book, The Comedians, Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy. And I mentioned that to Jack. And as I'm leaving the house, the last thing he ever said to me, how does a total fucking nobody like you get a book deal?

Praise from Caesar. And then he died. And then he died. How do we get our hands on that statue that's sitting in the solarium? That's a very good... I would kill to own that and put it into my juseum. Oh, yeah. Well, you can talk to Roxanne Carter.

Contact Roxanne Carter. I hate dealing with family members. That's rough. There's always problems. Roxanne Carter, who was Jack's widow, she was a PR person in the 60s and claims to have been the one who settled the feud between Ed Sullivan and Jackie Mason. That she was the go-between to get them to make up and have Jackie do one last appearance where they shook hands and met up. Wow. Yeah, because that was when Jackie Mason was accused of giving Ed Sullivan... And I saw a clip, and he didn't give him the finger.

No, no, no. But Ed Sullivan was a scumbag, wasn't he? I don't think anybody liked Ed Sullivan. No, I mean, well, especially comedians, because he had no concept of comedy. He would say, I like that part, cut this part out. You go, Ed, that's the punchline. Yeah, I know, it's good. Just do that setup, it's good.

Well, shit Jack Carter says, is that still, can people still find that? Yeah, you can Google that hashtag, shit Jack Carter says, and then it'll have a whole bunch of Jack Carter reasons. But there's no new shit. I started a new one called Shit George Schlatter Says. Yeah. Because he's been saying some amazing things to me recently. George is our guest this week on the podcast, but who knows when we'll post this. But you barely scratched the surface on Jack Carter stuff.

There's so much good stuff there. I drew Jack Carter from my Jewish comedian books, and he's the only comedian who hated his portrait. And he wanted me to draw it again, too. Yeah. Tell that real quickly before we go he said he said uh when he heard about the book he said uh old jewish comedians and he said old and he was about 92 at the time and then he said and jewish i don't work jewish and then he law and then he saw the drawing and he hated that especially and he said tell him to draw me again. I hate it.

He put those stupid liver spots on my head, and he gave me a comb over. I don't look like that. And I said, no, one per customer. That's what you get. I will tell you, though, that he kept the book, and it was in his closet. I had no idea. In his closet. His closet, it was like Fibber McGee's closet.

It was full of stuff. And Jack, when I would go over there, he had all these great old photos. And he'd go, there's some photos in the closet maybe you can look at. And I would grab this one photo, which contradicts history. It was an NBC publicity photo. It's Jack Carter with Martin and Lewis. And it says, watch Martin and Lewis's television debut this Saturday on the Jack Carter show, which I've never heard before.

I thought they debuted on, was it Sullivan? Sullivan. And so I said to Jack Carter, I said, this photo, this is amazing. And he grabs the photo. It had mold on one corner. He grabs the photo. He goes, ah, it's all moldy. And he threw it in the garbage. I was like, good Lord, Jack.

So at one point I stashed photos in a secret spot. Wasn't Mr. Saturday Night sort of based on Jack Carter, the Billy Crystal film? Maybe. I was like, good Lord, Jack. So at one point I stashed photos in a secret spot. Wasn't Mr. Saturday Night sort of based on Jack Carter, the Billy Crystal film? Maybe. I don't know. Probably. It's not by an amalgam. Jackie Leonard.

Same thing with my favorite guy who was always at the Friars Club. Oh, Gene Balos? Gene Balos. Oh, really? Yeah. Now, Martin and Lewis. Gene Balos claims that Jerry Lewis ripped off his act. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. We could do six episodes. Martin and Lewis. Gene Bayliss claims that Jerry Lewis ripped off his act. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We could do six episodes. Now, Martin and Lewis hated each other, right? When Martin and Lewis broke up. I never heard that. When Martin and Lewis broke up, it was around the same time that The Tonight Show had been kind of torn apart between Steve Allen and Jack Parr taking over. They did this thing called America After Dark. Oh, the one hosted by the critics.

Yeah, it was hosted by newspaper men and it was a big bomb. And Walter Kempley, this comedy writer, said that the show was so bad people went next door to turn it off to their neighbor's house. But Dean Martin was on the premiere episode being interviewed by Earl Wilson. And there was a famous tabloid at the time called Confidential that was very salacious. And this was right after the breakup. And Earl Wilson asked him about Jerry Lewis, and Dean Martin said, what I want to say about Jerry,

Confidential wouldn't even print. Wow. Hot damn. It's in the book. Oh, wow. Okay, so... We could do six episodes with these gentlemen. We didn't even get to Milton Berle's appendage.

Yeah. Think of that. But there's always next time. We'll do's appendage. Well, think of that. But there's always next time. We'll do a mini episode. How many times does that come up on this podcast? All right. A lot. Milton Berle's dick.

Now, we've just had it. We've covered it a lot. Yes. We covered it last night. We've tried to cover Milton Berle's dick. And Guy Marks supposedly had it. Yeah, and Eddie Fisher and Gary Cooper. And Huntsall.

Huntsall. All right. And, of course, Forrest Tucker. And Gilbert Gottfried. We were with Larry Storch last night. He won't talk about Forrest Tucker. He doesn't like to talk about him. He won't talk about him.

He's a gentleman. But he's seen it. He basically will nod his head, yes, yes. He's a gentleman. Yes, it's true, it's true. So, Mr. Gottfried? Oh, okay. Hi, I'm Gilbert

Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. Once again at Nutmeg Post with our engineer, Frank Ferdarosa. Thank you, Frankie. And we've been sitting in with Drew Friedman, famous illustrator, busy illustrator and cartoonist.

And our guest today was Cliff Nesterhaus. Nesterhauf. Nesterhauf. Ah, fuck it. It's the end of the show. Cliff Nestorhaus, who's Nestor Huff. Ah, fuck it. It's the end of the show. Nestor Cliff. Cliff Norton, Pigeon. Cliffle.

Cliffle Noidleman. Clyde Dinfloyvin with the Clyde toy. And he's got a book with the thing with the Clyde toy and he's got a book with the thing, with the pages and and he's a knuckleboidal and he's a, he's a

cliffngoygin and he's got a book with the reading and the publishing he's a clip on the comedian Cliff Cliff Nidelman.

Close. What? The book is called The Comedians Dr Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy. And the Floydelmans with the Nechum Bidels and the Clifton Webbers. It's a terrific read. Thank you, Cliff. Anything else coming up that you want to plug?

No, not at all. Okay. Drew? Well, just this comedy museum that you guys can see till May 1st. Right. Which has over hundreds of items. Tell them where it is. It's at the Center for Jewish History on West 16th Street.

And you can Google that. And my exhibition will be up until May 1st. Terrific. And I'd like to plug Scarlett Johansson. Terrific. Speaking of the Jews. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.