Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Bruce Vilanch Encore

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

GGACP marks National Book Blitz Month and celebrates the recent release of Bruce Vilanch’s memoir, “It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time” by presenting this ENCORE of a 2018 interview with the legendary writer-performer. In this episode, Bruce looks back at the “golden age” of TV variety shows and specials, including “Donny & Marie,” “The Brady Bunch Hour,” “The Star Wars Holiday Special” and “The Paul Lynde Halloween Special.” (all written or co-written by Bruce himself). Also, Margaret Hamilton makes her move, Robert Reed channels Carmen Miranda and Gilbert takes over the new “Hollywood Squares.” PLUS: Jack Palance! Bob Hope’s filing cabinet! “Wayne Newton at SeaWorld”! And Bruce hangs with Tallulah Bankhead!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. Hi, this is Peter Riegert and I'm on Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal Podcast. Listen in. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Fertorosa. Our guest this week is a producer, actor, songwriter, activist, TV personality, and one of the most prolific and sought after comedy writers in the history of the entertainment business. As a performer, you've seen him in movies like Mahogany, The Morning After, You Don't Mess With The Zohan, I fucked up already.

You don't mess with the title. And The Aristocrats. Yes, I'm familiar with that one. As well as hit TV shows such as The Nanny, The Simpsons, The Martin Short Show, RuPaul's Drag Race, Hollywood Squares, another one I think I've caught, as well as the Broadway production of Hairspray in the role of Edna Turnblad. As a writer, he's contributed to dozens of specials and award shows, including Comic Relief, the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Tony Awards, the People's Choice Awards,

and the American Comedy Awards as well as an impressive 23 Academy Award telecasts. He's also taken home six Emmy Awards himself for his writing. But wait, there's more! He's also wrote some of the most iconic, for lack of another word, variety shows and specials of the 1970s, including the Donnie and Marie Show, the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, the Paul Lynn Halloween special, and last but definitely not least, the Star Wars Holiday Special. In a career spanning five decades, he's written jokes, songs, and special material for such artists as Cher, Carol Burnett, Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, Nathan Lane, Lily Tomlin, and of course his longtime friend and muse, Bette Midler. He's even had the honor of working with beloved entertainer Gilbert Gattry.

Please welcome to the show an artist of many talents and a man who delights in the fact that he once got Marie Osmond to sing Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, our pal Bruce Fallage. And the Mormons have never recovered. Bruce is so sharp he knows the jokes that are coming in the intro. Yes! Before they come, he's never seen it's never seen it to anyone who will he who will listen? like six seconds ahead of The joke is it just told somebody that story the other night about how that happened Marie Marie

Yeah, yeah, it was it was the Mormon sensors who are really that the the worst They're worse than the network the. The elders. The elders. The network sensor has nothing to do. She's counting the strobe lights to see if it's gonna put epileptics into seizure. Yeah. The Mormon sensors are saying, oh no, you mentioned coffee.

Oh God, no, you mentioned tea. Oh yeah, they couldn't say caffeine. Oh, you couldn't say caffeine. Everybody had a milk break on the Dottie and Marisha. And so it was, I mean, every lyric that came along, they censored. And I kept bringing in songs for Marita to do, and they'd say, oh, she can't sing that.

That's just too, it was an Ira Gershwin song called Treat Me Rough. And they said, oh no, it's too salacious about getting knocked around by your lovers. And so Ira Gershwin wrote a new lyric for her and they said, no it's still too much. And I couldn't, I said, Ira Gershwin, the Ira Gershwin is, you know, right.

Oh well it doesn't matter, she can't possibly do it. So then I brought in Coming From the Rain, which was- Oh I love that. My friend Melissa Manchester and Carol Sager had just written. And they said, what's about a woman who accepts her husband when he philanders, I don't know where they got that from.

I mean, from that lyric. It's just a lover song. Yeah, right. And they said that she couldn't possibly do it. So out of desperation, I brought in, don't let this thing go down on me, that they love. Oh, oh that Elton John. Oh, he's so peppy and so upbeat.

What a sweet message. And so I was sitting in the booth with the network sensor, Mrs. Futterman, who looked the way she sounded. Mrs. Futterman. Yeah, she weighed in, she was on the heavy side, at the plus size, Melissa McCarthy will do her movie. And the owl's eyeglasses, and we're sitting there,

and Maria's singing, don't let the sun go down on me, and she's she got away with it didn't you? Beautiful. Beautiful. The Mormons were just kind of oh this is wonderful. The irony is you were you were brought in in part to adult her up. Well I was actually I was really I was formally brought in when she turned 18 because they wanted to make her more adult exactly right Bob Mackie was brought in to give her dresses. Wow. You know, he gave her the,

Bob worked with a woman named Elizabeth Courtney and she built all of his costumes. And one of the tricks to the Bob Mackie costume is it's what's called a Moliere bodice. It's whale bone, it's a corset. And so it's like early version of Spanx. It pushes everything in. And then at the top of the corset are cups for your boobs. And so you take whatever boob you have and you put it in those cups and you look like you have gigantic boobs. And

so we did that for everybody. So people who were really not known for their boobs, you know, suddenly, oh my God, she's bodacious. Look at her. And that was part of, they wanted that for Marie. They wanted her to have that. These same Mormons who would not let her sing Ira Gershwin, treat me right. I wrote her talk show, the morning talk show

she did with Donnie, the syndicated show. And I found her to be a bit Randy. Oh, well, now she has eight kids. Yeah. You know, she had, we all went to her wedding. We all flew to Utah to the wedding because it happened while she was, she married the basketball player.

I remember. And we were all, we got there and we discovered that we couldn't go inside because we were all Jews. Oh God, geez. Because they kept hiring Jews because in variety television in those days, you know, the more Jews in the room, the funnier the show.

So there was a whole, a whole parcel of Jews had flown up and we all were in the courtyard of the more Jews in the room, the funnier the show. So there was a whole, a whole passel of Jews had flown up and we all were in the courtyard of the Mormon tabernacle sitting on lawn furniture, listening to the thing of while the Mormons were in the tabernacle. Incredible. Yeah. So then she got, then she really got, Donnie too, once they were freed of being Mormon kids.

He was a prankster and she was a little on the handsy side. Yes, right. So when did, how did you find out, and when did you find out that Jews weren't allowed in the Mormon temple? That was the day. Nobody had told us. We flew up for the wedding and they said,

oh, you can't come in, by the way. We've organized a lawn party for you. And we sat up there, and Art Fisher was the director of the show and he he was big Jew, and he was in love with Marie. I mean, I think, first of all, I think he wanted to marry her, and they said, under no circumstances, you know, could you possibly go near this girl?

And they married her off to the basketball coach, the basketball player, he was a star, like BYU, and then they had kids, and then she took the unprecedented step of getting divorced. She just don't do. And then years later, she came back to him, finally, after a bunch of other adventures. But so we figured, okay, we'll kind of respect.

I'd always said that we all had to respect each other's religions. I mean, at the beginning, the very beginning, Mother Osmond, Olive, who looked a bit like Mrs. Futterman, actually, Olive Osmond, came into my office and I was drinking a Bloody Mary, and it was the 70s, and I was on the phone with my drug dealer looking up,

I had the physician's desk referenced so he could mention a drug and I could look it up right away. It was the 70s. And I was on the phone with my drug dealer looking up. I had the physician's desk referenced so he could mention a drug and I could look it up right there. And she came in and she looked and she said, smoking and drinking, you know, your body is a temple. How can you desecrate your body this way?" And I looked at her and I said, mixing meat with milk, you heathen. Toy! And she abruptly left and I thought, that's it, I'm done here. But no, they figured that we need the Jews.

We gotta have Jews. Can't have comedy without Jews. We need the Jews. So we're not getting rid of him. But it was like that. At that point it was like, okay, literally you go to your church and I go to mine and I won't mock yours if you won't mock mine. And we would just cheerfully mock each other's. Wow. And there's a famous freelance story that

Donny Osmond when he was about five or something, said to you, oh, you look like a big muppet. It was the first day on the show. He came into my office to meet me. And he looked at me and I had a huge beard and a lot of hair. I was very Unibomber in my look. And I was larger than I am now.

And behind the, there wasn't a desk that fit. They had to go down to KTLA. a Unibomber in my look. And I was larger than I am now. And behind the desk, there wasn't a desk that fit, they had to go down to KTLA and get the news anchor desk and bring it up from my desk. So I was a formidable presence, but fluffy. And kind of squishy and cute. And he came in and looked at me and he said, you look just like a Muppet. And I said, it's the funniest thing,

Jim Henson had his hand up my ass, not 10 minutes ago. I think I said fist up my ass. I'm kidding. And there was this pause, this long pause, and he started giggling, and also doing what turned out to be the moonwalk, you know, backing out of the office while giggling. And I thought, okay, I'm done here. I always thought I was done there, you know, I thought I'd never survive.

And then he decided I was okay. You know, I was one of them. I wasn't one of them. I was one of them. I was like an ally because he was always looking for people who would enable him to get out from under the family. Because it was, the family was completely suffocating. I mean, these kids had only known the family.

And when I say the family, I mean everything, religion, family, business, show business, all was one great big ball of wax that was the Osmond Empire. And those kids were part of it, and there was no escaping. They lived together and they worked together, and they did everything as a unit.

And so anybody who could like spring him from that for an hour to go get his face sanded was the ally. And Marie was like that too, except they were, she had to fight her way in because they didn't want her to be, she was supposed to be a good Mormon housewife. And they had like 14 kids, one of them a girl.

And they didn't want her to do it. They were promoting Jimmy. I remember Jimmy. Who was at the time. Sure, sure. They said, isn't he wonderful? Little Jimmy Osment. He said, yeah, he looks like the Lepierre out of Wayne Newton.

Yeah. No. That was then. Then I got, I mean, subsequently I got friendly. He became a TV producer, and I was in a TV movie that he produced. No kidding. Yeah, I played Santa's elf.

It's called, it nearly wasn't Christmas. How nice you've both played elves. Charles Durning was Santa Claus, and I was the elf on steroids. I was all little people. All the other elves were little people. We shot the whole thing in, guess where, Utah. Where Jimmy Osmond built a studio in Orem, Utah.

And we all, the Jews flew up. A plane load of Jews would fly up every week to do the show. What was Durning like, as long as you've mentioned? Durning was fabulous. Somebody we love to talk about in this show. He was hysterical, and he was a great raconteur, and he was a wonderful actor, and very naturalistic, and was not one of these actors who,

who spent a lot of time on process. and was not one of these actors who, who spent a lot of time on process. If he did, it was privately. He got to the set and he was just kind of ready to go. I mean, and we'd rehearse it. And then right before we would do the take, he'd say, is that how you're gonna do it in the take? The way you did it in the rehearsal? I wasn't sure if he was saying you wanted to make sure, or you'd like what I did in the take? The way you did it in the rehearsal? I wasn't sure if you were saying you wanted to make sure

or you didn't like what I did in the rehearsal. Because at that point they said, eh, action. So we would play this thing. So this was just his, you know. Right. Was he busting balls? Oh, no. No, he was serious.

There was a girl, a child actress in the thing. She was local. Which by local in Utah means they brought her in from Denver, because they were cheaper than flying. Right. So, and she was good, but she was like a bratty kid. And we were driving home from the set the first day that she worked, and he said,

I met her this morning, and I thought, what a a cute little kid and now I've worked with her all day and fuck it's Faye Dunaway. Wow. So he yeah I mean that was you know he absolutely broke no trap. We love character actors on the show we love to talk about people like him and Jack Warden who Gilbert's worked with. You never worked with Durning, Gilbert? I know. I worked with him a lot. He was. He had great...

We also had war stories. He had literal war stories. Oh, I know. I know. He fought in the war and he killed people. He carried this tremendous guilt around. That's what we heard. Because he said, everybody who I killed was a kid. He said they were like teenage soldiers by the time I got over there

and they were fighting the last stand. And he said it was heartbreaking because I would be close enough to actually shoot them. And I had to, it was him or me. And since the kid, it was always a kid, I knew he would shoot me. So I had to shoot him first. And, but he, I'm doing a kid, I knew he would shoot me. So I had to shoot him first.

But he, I'm doing a very abbreviated version of it, but I mean, Charles Durning telling you this, I mean, it's Charles Durning. He must have liked you because my understanding was that he did not like talking about that to anyone. He must have taken you into his confidence. Charles Durning was among the troops liberating the camps too.

Yeah, he was. When did you guys meet? Do you remember meeting for the first time? What did it have been? You've walked together. It might have been Hollywood Squares, or it might have been at the Comedy Store one night. I was never performing, but I would have been seeing you.

I think probably it was Hollywood Squares. Yeah. Or some other award show, maybe the Comedy Awards, maybe Shlauders. Oh, that's right. I used to do that. Oh, then how you piss Shlauder off by going on and doing the, you did something that.

That one they wrote for me and I did it and it wasn't funny to begin with. I see. Was this where you were stuck in the podium? No, no, this was, I, this was. Didn't you do a bit about Pee-wee Herman? No, it had to do... This was, that was on the Emmys. Oh, huh.

Where they got pissed off. Okay. This had to do with, you know, wearing the red ribbon, the AIDS ribbon. And I thought in the middle of a comedy show? Oh, they wanted everybody to wear the, yeah, I remember that. Yeah, and I remember that didn't do,

and I remember that while I was up there thinking, eh, they'll never have me back. And I didn't write that thing, and they handed it to me. I don't think I did either. There were a bunch of us writing on it, but I wrote on a lot of those shows. Were you present for the famous You Fool recurring gag? I was up there, absolutely.

You were on the board? I was on the grid. On the grid? Yes, I was. And Penn, right? I think Whoopi was up there. He first started doing it, he first did it, and then I just started doing it after each joke, and then I was like the entire show. It was, but it was a guy who kept, kept getting it wrong.

But the contestant, I mean, every answer. And the woman, she, they went back and forth. It went back and forth. They, everyone, and we were bluffing them every time. And they went for it every time. And so it was, you fool. Yeah. You were so obvious. Yeah. But yes, I was. I don't know that

I got, that she actually called on me. But you know, in Hollywood Square, it's like, they call on you if you're strategically where they need to be. I mean, some people they would never call on, and they only will call on them if they have to use it to win or block. and they only will call on them if they have to use it to win or block. So. Yeah, and I think with that show, I was the only one left. They had to get through me.

Yeah. Oh, that's right. So it was like, I was the entire show. And they kept missing, and so the next one would have to go to him again. Yeah, yeah. So it was like six jokes in a row or something like that. Yeah.

It's a legendary one, at least among us, among aficionados of the square. Mm-hmm. It's funny, growing up, I would watch Hollywood Squares, and I always liked it and I always laughed, but I remember growing up thinking, oh, this has gotta be the bottom of everyone's career, doing Hollywood, and then when they offered it to me, This has gotta be the bottom of everyone's career during Hollywood.

And then when they offered it to me, I had so much fun on that show. It was great. You know, it was on 14 years the first time and it was a network show. And I think by the end it had become, I think a lot of people thought that's what it was. And then it came back in the 80s for five years.

And then our version came back. Well, that was the John Davidson version. John Davidson and John Rivers and Wayland and Madden. I can't really remember that. And then our version came back, which was like, with Whoopi, it was sort of like a star loaded. And the idea was that she would attract big names. And to a degree she did.

I mean, a lot of people use it as a vehicle to promote stuff. Did you audition to host the show? I did. Yes, I actually did. She suggested I host the show and they all said, oh, well, she's nuts, but we can't piss her off this early in the game.

I could see that. They auditioned me and there I was with all these other hosty types. This one's for the win, Louise. And they said, well, you know, we like your energy. We want to put you in a square. And I thought, I mean, my friends were producing the show and so they liked me and they wanted me to be in a square. But I thought that King World that owned the show

wanted me because they, I think they thought I might tame her, you know, I might like, because I'd be, they put me next to her so that she and I could like, you know, chat and have something going on camera and off camera and of course they, you know, you can't tame that. I mean, we used to joke that they mistaken mistakenly They didn't realize that she is basically a Jewish gay guy, and I'm basically a black woman Anybody who was slept with me and you will know

and and you worked with Someone Well Paul in yeah, I worked with Paul now. he was a legendary Jew hater, wasn't he? Oh, yeah. Well, you know, he was, Paul, on one drink was wonderful, and on two drinks he was the Wansee Conference. He was the Luftwaffe High Command. Hilarious.

He was, you know... You lousy kike, how you fucked me over, you goddamn cunt. And he, just, and so you, the goal was to keep him on one drink and not to get the second glass of wine. Because it was all, and the Jews were like, the cause of all of his troubles. And of course, he was surrounded by Jews. Maddox was with two Jews.

Incredible. Ray Katz and Sandy Gallant. And everybody in his, significantly in his life were Jews, but the other reason he was annoyed was, he always felt that he was a big star and had made a lot of money. But he'd come up in New York with other people. Charlie Ray.

Well, yeah, but specifically, Woody Allen and Mel Brooks had become movie stars. Oh, I see what you mean. And Paul was always like the guy, Rock Hudson psychiatrist. Right. Or the next door neighbor, J. Tudor's day, or someone like that.

And basically, it started with Bye Bye Birdie, which was his biggest acting role, where he played the harassed father, the suburban dad. And he never got to where they were, and it just pissed him off, and he decided it was because they were Jews. And I kept saying to him, they write their own material, come up with stuff, and they make their movies.

Yes, that's a good point. They are two filmmakers, and they generate their own stuff, and it's not because they're Jews, it's a good point. You know, they are two filmmakers, and they generate their own stuff, and it's not because they're Jews, it's because they're brilliant and they're funny, and they have this other skill set that you don't have, aside from the fact that Paul was a great flavor. I mean, he was exhibited best on the squares

because he would come in, would do the one line, and get out. And it's hard to carry something. When they gave him a sitcom. Oh, the temperature's rising. Well, that was the second one. Paul Linchow. Which had a huge first week.

And the second week was half the first week because he didn't really carry. It's very hard for the antic character to be the central character in a sitcom. Because basically you have to be the central character in a sitcom, because basically you have to have a cool character who is surrounded by colorful people. I mean, think Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore. Newhart.

Newhart. And then those are the things that work. It's rare that you get Archie Bunker. I mean, that was a magical combination. But I mean, Maude was too hot to last, as a soul, the center of the thing. And Paul was just the wrong guy to be the centerpiece of a show.

But great when you'd see him like his Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, when he had come in Steel City. So that never happened, and they bought him out and put him on Donnie and Marie as a regular at the salary he would have gotten had he been doing his own show. So he was making a ton of money. And then we would do specials, but they were special by the nature of it. And we would surround him with funny people. And so he wouldn't have to be on that much. You know, we'd have Betty White and

right, right, right. Other people around him doing things. Lawrence Henderson. Florence. Yeah, exactly, we had that Halloween show with everybody. I'm glad you got there, because we were gonna get there eventually. Oh, it was fun, I mean, and Kiss, you know, and, and Witches, he was a witch. And we had- And you know who Kiss was?

Margaret Hamilton is the wicked witch of the West. That's what I was gonna ask you about her. Witchy Poo. Billy Hayes. Billy Hayes, we had all, we had Witches, we had Tim Conway, we had Ros Kelly, Pinky Tuscalero. We had every, we had about 12 guest stars on that show. So he was well protected.

And who came first, Paul Lin or Alice Gosling? Well, everybody, they came together, although probably not in the same room. But they, they were both, I believe, in New Faces of 52, and Leonard Stillman discovered them both and put them in the show. And what I was too young to have seen it, and the movie, there's a movie of it,

but you don't really get the flavor of them too much. You can't, I mean, the claim always was one of them imitated the other and that and that they became the same person as it went along. But I never was sure who it was. The funniest of all is that, I mean like Paul has been dead for 40 years. If he... Has he been 40 already? 1981 or 82. Wow.

already? 1981 or 82. Wow. If he thought that we would be talking about him, he would be stunned because in his mind he hadn't made it, he hadn't done anything, he'd made money, but he hadn't become an icon, that figure. And now he is. He would be absolutely amazed. Watching that Paul Lin special, first of all, I mean, you keep talking about the assortment of drugs. Well, yeah. I mean, you said Tim Conway, Betty White, Kiss. It's just, it's the perfect 70s TV special. He's a trucker, right? He's a trucker at one point, and he's covered in rhinestones,

because I guess it's a- He's a rhinestone trucker. Yeah, I guess it's a Glenn Campbell, the Chol Song was on the charts and then he and he and Tim Conway fight over Pinky Tuscadero in a trucker bar. I mean it's unbelievable. I've been watching you Pinky. Oh yeah, I've been watching you watching me talk Paul. I bet I'm having a better time than you are.

Oh yeah? Do you think you could teach me to do that? I don't know, give me a little whistle. That's a good one. I bet I'm having a better time than you are. Oh, yeah? Do you think you could teach me to do that? I don't know. Give me a little whistle. That's too little. All right, I'll tell you what you do. All you gotta do is follow me everywhere.

Shake it up, shake it down Move it in, move it around Just go play the band Move it in, move it out Move it round, disco baby Move it in, move it out Move it in and about, disco baby Shake it up, shake it down Move it in, move it round, disco baby Move it in, move it out

Move it in and about, disco baby Shake it baby, shake it, baby shake your thing Shake it baby, shake it, baby shake your thing You gotta do it It feels like moving It's such a key thing For Halloween Day It's such a key thing, the Halloween thing. I like that funky stuff. And he didn't know who Kiss was?

Is that true? He didn't know who Kiss was. He didn't know who Kiss was. And, uh... Gilbert, you've seen it, yes? Oh, yes. He didn't know who Kiss was, but he, uh... He...

He didn't know who Kiss was, but he, uh... He didn't know who Kiss was, but he, uh... He didn't know who Kiss was, but he, uh... He didn't know who Kiss was, but he, uh... He didn't know who Kiss was, but he, uh... he didn't know kiss was but he He we he was profoundly depressed when when they brought over the president of their fan club and That was Ringo's daughter. Oh interesting way back then and he knew who Ringo was, and he was kind of like, he has a daughter, she's old enough to do this. And that made him feel old. But at the time we were shooting the thing, I mean he didn't know who anybody was really,

except like from golden age people. But Roots was on, and it was a huge success, gigantic success. And we were standing outside, because I think they had just passed a cigarette law, we were standing outside the sound stage smoking. And Paul was in a cape and a witch's hat. Smoking. And LeVar Burton, who played Quinte Quinte,

walked by with a little entourage of people because he was going to do I don't know live with Regis or something like that that used to be on that lot and he's walking by and and he sees Paul and Paul of course doesn't remember his name. Just looks at him and goes Rooooots Rich! Hahaha! Hahaha! And Larry Much to his credit, Love Harbour just burst out laughing. What else can you do?

Here's a guy in a wizard outfit Rich! That voice What was Margaret Hamilton like? She was adorable. She was at that point a very old Lesbiterian. Yes, Lesbiter. She's a Lesbiterian and she had of course lived on the down low for many years. She was living in Gramercy Park here in New

York and she was pretty frail and she didn't come out much but she just couldn't resist this the opportunity to do this thing and with Billie Hayes who she admired a lot. She thought it would be like her kind of swan song to just do the Wicked Witch of the Whist one more time. And she was just really funny and of course, you know, told all the stories and everybody flocked to her and all that. But I did get a kick out of her

because every now and again, you know, there would like, some gorgeous girl would walk by and she would nudge me on the elbow. Give me her number, would you? I love it. But I'm sorry, she's dating Marjorie Maine. Marjorie Maine. But Marjorie Maine was another Lesbiterian.

Yeah, I'm aware. Hey guys, everyone's away on summer vacation, but we still have to record those commercial I'm aware. Hey guys, everyone's away on summer vacation, but we still have to record those commercial breaks. So here's Gilbert knocking one out in his bathroom. I'm assuming. What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue meal. For $5.79 plus tax,

you can get your choice of junior chicken, McDouble or chicken snack wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Meal today at Participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. Hi, I'm Rosanna Arquette, and you're here listening to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal Podcast. Live from Nutmeg Post, we now return to Gilbert and Frank's amazing colossal podcast. And you did that very surreal Star Wars holiday special. We had Steve Binder in here too. Well he was called in. I know he was the second guy.

He's oddly proud of it, by the way. Well, you know, we, look, first of all, it was the 70s. We were on everything, really, but skateboards. We could have been if we had any balance left from all the weed we smoked. But, I mean, if we had thought that 40 years later we'd be talking about it, we would have paid closer attention. I mean, it was, in the world of television, it was not unusual to do something insane just to get the audience's attention.

You know, Wayne Newton at SeaWorld, I mean. Did you write Wayne Newton at SeaWorld? I did. Oh, geez. Cole Porter in Paris starring Connie Stevens. Who's just who you wanna hear sing Cole Porter in Paris. Oh, a great woman. I'm a friend of hers and I'm a fan. But that was the kind of show, you know.

Steve and Edie sing the Beatles. This was, you know. And so this was, it wasn't so unusual. Because you would do this thing and it would have a theme and then you would load it up with stars. You were cross promoting things. like it was a CBS show, so it was full of Harvey Korman and originally Cher, but she had had a little surgery and she couldn't do it,

and so Diane Carroll, who fit into the costume, the Bob Macklemore, was the fantasy sequence, which by the way, was the first, she was the fantasy of one of the Wookiees. Yes. And he was wearing a VR helmet, which George kind of came up with, and now they exist. Wow.

A virtual reality helmet, and it would plug in, and your fantasy would be realized, and she was his fantasy realized. I can't remember if it was Itchy or Lumpy. It was the grandpa. Oh, it was the grandpa. Itchy, Lumpy was the kid. Right, right, that's right.

And Itchy had the fantasy Oh, it was the grandpa. It was the itchy. Lumpy was the kid. Right, that's right. And itchy had the fantasy. So it was the first interracial interspecies romance on network television. Whereas my NAACP Image Awards, I ask you, we broke ground. It was a double header, not merely racial, but speical. What did you describe the Wookiee language as? The sound of... Well, I said the Wookiees,

they sound like fat people having organs. Right. Trust me, I know. That's my favorite. And... And... And that was, hi honey, I'm home.

And the Wookiees, they had a strange description of what they looked like. Really? Well, there was one in particular, I think, that he's alluding to, that George Lucas referred to, one of them. Well, Cunface was the one. Cunface was not a Wookiee.

Cunface was an alien. Okay. You don't wanna call him by the wrong name. Well, George had done, I have to explain that they, they're on their way home to the Wookie planet, Chewbacca, and he's in the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo and Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker,

and they stop off on the planet Tatooine with a cantina. That, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that's the cantina. And all these aliens da da da da da da da da da da da da. That's the cantina. And all these aliens are there. And George had shot the Empire, but it was editing it. And so he had a whole bunch of new aliens, but he didn't wanna use them on the show.

And he didn't wanna design, build new aliens. So we used remainder aliens. We went to the alien warehouse and pulled out the aliens that had not made the cut in the first two movies. And they were all like Elmer's glue wall and scotch tape, and those were the aliens. And one of them was like a huge vagina on your shoulders, and kind of nondescript space captain outfit.

And George has, there's a vaginal leitmotif in those movies. In the Empire, there's a huge vagina that almost, that swallows Jabba the Hutt. Oh yes. And Carrie's holding on, but she's got handcuffs and she almost goes, it's a big hole in the desert that looks like- The third one. The third one.

The big old Vagayjay. The big old Vagayjay. The prototype, I think, was this head that we called him Cunface. And he made the cut. He was on our show because we just said we can't. Even the censor let us use him. And then it was like he had to be there while Bea Arthur. Bea was singing a song.

Yeah, she wanted the song. B was maud at the time and she had come from Broadway where she'd won the Tony for Mame as Vera Charles and she'd been the original yent of the matchmaker in Fiddler and she wanted to sing. And she brought in a song that she wanted to sing and she was, it was the dark alien bar and she decided that she was the kind of Brechtian bartender, the woman who runs the thing. And

she was very Statue of Liberty, you know, standing there with her beer stein and she wanted to sing the Alabama song by Brecht and Kurt Weill. Oh, show me the way to the next bar. Oh, no oh no, that's why, and it ends with, I tell you I will die, I tell you I will die. And she said, this is my Brecht Weill number, I said, B, it's your Weill Brecht number, is what it is. But we should, you know, and we had to clear it with Berzweil Brecht's estate, and they said,

what are you nuts? You sing for the Hota so she should sing this thing on television with the alien, with the cunt face? So we had Kenan Mitchie-Welch who had written all of those Carol Burnett medleys. And they wrote a piece of special material that was sort of homage to Brecht and Weill. And it was, I forget what the song was,

but it was kind of, it also was a lot like Those Were the Days, my friend. Yeah, I didn't write it down, but. It was one of those kinds of songs. And so it was a bit more up than the Alabama song. And B.N.B. sang it. And Cunface was part of the group behind her, and it was 123 degrees,

and these guys in the heads were boiling and they would keep passing out. And every time one passed out and had to be taken away, I would move Cunface closer to B. And so finally it was like a two shot with her and Cunface. At the end of the thing and she's singing it to him. Whose idea was it to put Harvey Korman in drag as a Julia Child type?

Well, I remember, it may have been mine or it may have been Rod Warren, who was one of the writers, or Lenny Rips, or Pat Prof, they were all writers on the show. And in a stone session, who knows. But we knew we had to use Harvey because Harvey was on the Burnett show, which was a big CBS show and part of it was-

Working the CBS people in. Yeah, right. And so we were trying to think of somebody funny Harvey would do. And Harvey, of course, loved to do drag. He loved to do the big bosomy. As the stomach churns. Yes. And so we thought it would be funny to have him as Julia.

There were a lot of people doing Julia Child. Dan Aykroyd did the very funny one with all the blood, which of course we couldn't do. But we had to do a different one. So we said, let's make Julia Child an alien and have her cooking with eight arms so she can do a million different things. You've brought it up to Lucas over the years when you run into him?

Oh, he walks away. He walks away. Whenever I see him, he just, you know, head goes down. He doesn't want to be reminded. Don't talk about it. Yeah, for a long time. Nobody knew about it, and then the internet happened. Yeah.

And what happened was a generation of kids who had watched the first three, which are, of course, now the second three, they watched the first three Star Wars movies on video and knew everything about it and took it as a religion, discovered through the internet that there was this other thing that they had never known about, that George had actually been involved in,

that they then of course had to get it studied, and they were betrayed. They felt how could he have done this? How could he have lowered himself to this vaudeville with this thing which is kind of like, you know, the Mishnah. Yeah, they take it very seriously. It's the Talmud, these three movies. So they began writing him serious hate mail

and so he was appalled because he really thought it was dead and buried. Nice thing began writing him serious hate mail. And so he was appalled because he really thought it was dead and buried. Nice thing to be a part of though. Nice part of pop culture history to have been a part of. Oh yeah. From your standpoint. And then the author at the end of her song, she like hits her big note and swings her arm.

Yeah, she swung her, well, she swung her arm and she knocked her face. And he went over. And she turned to her arm and she knocked cunt face. And he went over. And she turned to the camera and she said, I've never hit a man in the cunt before. What would you kill to be on that set, Gillen? Oh my god. The whole thing got cut and we had to reshoot the number.

I just want to say one other thing about the Paul and Halloween special. And by the way, I just watched it again I own it on the on DVD. It makes me happy like the Marty Allen song makes you happy Every year people say oh we watch it ritual. Oh, it's just great and Billy Barty We didn't we didn't ask you about it is so surreal. Yeah, it's wonderful It is incredibly Julie Newmar told me a story, isn't it Julie Newmar? Sure, we had her on here. Oh, you did, okay.

She told me a story about a Billy Barty story. She said that they worked together on something and he said to her, he said to her, I want to eat your pussy. And she said, if you do and I hear about it. Oh god. And you know, we've had many, we used to have, we always had something that we would put in for the censor to cut out and it was always Billy Barty walking over to some tall creature and saying, I want to go up on you. Hilarious. And it was never a fail. And you worked on that show that I remember,

I watched it recently and thought, this must be what hell looks like. And that was the Brady Bunch hour. Brady Bunch variety hour. Actually, we had a lot of fun, but it was like, Sid and Marty. What was it? That was Sid and Marty.

Yeah. Sid and Marty was it that was that was Sid and Marty. Yeah, it's Marty Croft. Let's stay I remember one of them that I watch they were all in of course spandex because that was and costumes ugly by 70 standards and they did and now we're gonna do a tribute to disco. Always, always. They also did a disco number to end the Paul Lin special.

That's right. With Billy Barty and they sing like, Stayin' Alive or something. Well, that was very popular then. Yeah. At all the Sid and Marty shows, Earl Brown was a writer of special material who was actually quite brilliant

and he had a Christmas present for everybody and it was a frame, a glass frame and inside there was a feather and confetti and a balloon and a little note that said break in case of finale. Perfect. Because every one of their shows ended with balloon drops, confetti. Yep, the whole thing.

Well, Sid was a showman, you know, going back to the Garland stuff. But they did that show in the image of Donnie and Marie. I mean, you know, Donnie and Marie had ice skaters, they had water battles. Right, that's right. And there was a guy named Fred Silverman who ran all three major networks at the time at one point or another. And he kind of came up with the idea of weird host couplings. And some of them, of course, were huge.

Sonny and Cher, Tony and André Wendon. Pink Lady and Jeff. Well, that was one of the, you know, disgraces. But he had a lot, a lot of them really worked. I mean the very last variety show was Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters and that was the Silverman idea. And both Donnie and Marie and the Brady Bunch, he originally wanted the Partridge family.

And both the Partridge family and the Brady Bunch, which were like on in an hour together. Friday nights. Friday nights. They had both gone out on tour and for their audiences and so he wanted it to be the Partridge family because it was an extension of the old Partridge family show about these people who do a show and they and they live together and it's a variety show instead of a sitcom and

they didn't want to do it and so he decided the Brady Bunch should do it. So it was about the Brady family. Which you've described as a meta show. It was totally meta, yeah. The Brady family goes to Hollywood to do a TV variety show. The fact that they couldn't sing or dance, we called it One To Neal and Seven Captains.

Yeah, I love that. It was a very 70s reference. I love that. But they had done, they did state fairs and things like that, but they were not like, you know, big Vegas act. They were not cast for that. But so they were, on this show, they had to do all of that, everything,

and deal with guest stars and. Yeah, The Simpsons does a wonderful parody of The Simpsons' smile time hour. I remember they, Dead on. In one of their tributes to disco they have Rick Taylor. Oh yeah, well Rick D's first singing disco duck. We had Rick D singing disco duck.

Then he comes on in a big duck outfit. And so does Ann B. Davis. Yes, Ann B. Davis. And in the same one, Rerun comes out in his full rerun outfit. Well, it was an ABC show and What's Happening was on. He came out with the cast of What's Happening. Yeah, and they were all... This is my childhood, damn it.

One of Tina Turner's first gigs after she left Ike to make some money on her own that did not involve him was on the Brady Bunch variety. Wow. I remember her on that Cher special too, Tina Turner, the one with Elton John and Tim Conway. Yeah. Yeah. She was, where she was solo.

Oh yeah, later on. Tina Turner. Later on, yeah. That around, it was, actually it was all around the same time. Right around the same time. She had a lot of gigs that she had to do where they had bought Ike and Tina, and they weren't interested in Ike's solo,

but they were interested in her solo, and that was, that we put together an act. Did Robert Reed enjoy doing drag? He actually did, he got, he was so repressed. I think he got to work out a whole thing. I'm gonna put him in his Carmen Miranda. Oh, geez. He loved in Carmen Miranda.

What about guest stars on those shows, by the way, before we jump off, a Miltie, Buddy Hackett, Bob Hope, Vincent Price, anything stand out? I worked with all, well, Vincent Price was hysterical and really worked, loved the kids, and he played, when I tell people this, they don't believe it, but the model for the show was the old Jack Benny show. You know, where Jack Benny would just say,

oh, Mary, I'm going next door to Ronald Coleman's to borrow a cup of sugar. That kind of stuff. Right, right, right. Which is that great, that sound, the radio gag, you know, this gag with him where he says, we're out of sugar, I'm going down. And he said, I'm going to take a cup and go over and borrow.

And you hear footsteps, and you hear footsteps, and then you hear footsteps approaching, and then suddenly the footsteps stop, and you hear a quarter going into the cup. It's a great radio joke. You know that Jack Benny just put the cup out like a beggar. Anyway, so the idea was they live in Hollywood, and all their friends are stars,

and so Vincent Price was the new neighbor at Malibu. Right, the Brady's. Right, the Brady's. The Brady's are in Malibu, and Vincent Price had bought the house next door and was coming over to meet the kids and all, it was just, I forget the rest of it, but it was a really, it was a funny episode.

I think it may have been like the Halloween episode. But all of those people showed up. There are both shows a lot on. On Donnie Marie, yeah. Well Hope would do every show to kind of promote himself, his own specials, but he also, he was on Donnie Marie because he loved the kids. And Lucille Ball was on Donnie Marie

because she wanted to sing and dance. It was crazy. So you had to write some things for the guest stars as well. I always, yeah. So you had to deal with Lucy and Red Fox and Miltie and all of these people. And what was Bob Hope's,

I think it was Bob Hope's nickname to you? To me? Oh, he called me Mansfield. Yeah. Because of your long hair. Yeah, you look like Jane Mansfield with a dick. This is amazing. He, and he was, and I wrote for him separately from, aside from the show.

I got- I didn't know that. Oh yeah, I had a big kick out of writing for him. But, and we got, as friendly as you get, you know, he would, you used to just drop, you know, you would just drop, you know, you would just drop, you know But, and we got, as friendly as you get, you know, he would, you used to just drop, you have to drop the jokes off with the guard

at the gate of the house, you know. And I said, I want you to, yeah. I said, no, I'm coming over and I want you to, here you do the jokes. And then he had a box, like a toolbox, or it was a file cabinet, and he'd had a box, like a toolbox, or it was a file cabinet, and he'd pull out jokes, and they were on cards, and he would deal them like a blackjack dealer, and go, yeah, that's good,

that's good, that's a beauty, that's good, that's good. And you realize, this was a world about gas rationing. And I realized I was competing with writers who'd been dead for years. These were World War II. Yes, of course. He was going over and over again. I guess there was another,

because of the energy crisis. Oh, it's in vogue again. He was very funny and very, he was very randy. But I do have to say, I called him up and asked him to do a PSA about AIDS with Everett Koop, who was the Surgeon General. Right, sure. And he did it, no questions asked,

he came and he did it, he said, I'm yours, he said, this is a horrible thing and nobody should have to die from this thing. Props for Bob Hope. I know, I was, I mean, the famous, like, right wing, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, Charlton Heston marched with Dr. King. Well, there you go.

You never know. Did you write for George Burns, too? I did write for George Burns. I don't know if I wrote so much. I did write stuff, but I remembered for George. I mean, because he was still doing his act and he would forget. And I would, I was the archivist, you know, I would say. We used to do this joke about, oh, let's do that, yeah. he would forget and I was the archivist, I would say.

He used to do this joke about, oh, let's do that, yeah. And we'd put that in and we'd meet for breakfast and then he would take a long nap. Did he talk about the old acts? He did. Yes, Fink's Mules, he always. Fink's Mules. Fink's Mules.

You were sitting in when Ron Delsner was here, but did you hear us talking about Swains Rats and Cats? No. Okay, that was another vaudeville act. What was Fank's Mules? They were trained mules. They were like, they would do things, and generally I think a gorgeous girl would ride on them

and they would, I don't know, they would do, I'm trying to remember what he told me about them, but they were a lot like, there was an act, Lata and her would, I don't know, they would do, I'm trying to remember what he told me about them, but they were a lot like, there was an act, Lata and her horse. And she also, Lata worked with doves. And her finale would be the doves would fly from the back of the house and land on the back of the horse and at her command.

Everyone would just think about getting in a time machine and going back and seeing those vaudeville acts. We're seeing the Marx brothers in vaudeville on stage. When I was with George, one of the things, uh, uh, the Pointer Sisters were the opening act. And one of the word big jokes was, uh, uh, well we got here and the, uh, stage manager came in and said, George, there is a hole in the wall between your dressing room and the Pointer Sisters dressing room.

Should I fill it up with something?" And he said, ah, let him look. Right. So did you work with Benny? I didn't work with him. I interviewed him. I was a journalist and I interviewed him. And I interviewed him a few times for the Chicago Tribune. He was in town, I don't know,

he was going up to Waukegan to do something. They were honoring him. And I interviewed him then, and then he had a book and he called and asked me to interview him again. We had a good time doing it. And he was, and at the time they were trying to do, I remember, Hello Dolly. Merrick, thought it'd be funny if they did Hello Dolly

and he was Dolly and George Burns was Horace. And they were going back and forth and back and forth and he said, well, Benny said, well, you know I'd do it, except he won't show up. And I'll be standing there in a dress. And they tried to do the Sunshine Boys with Benny Burns. They did try to, yeah. He was too sick. I'll be standing there in a dress. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Yeah, they had many, he said, he told a story about a fortune cookie dinner where everybody had to read their fortunes and Burns had put all these fortunes in and then he gave Irene Dunn a fortune to reach the end.

I want a dwarf to eat my pussy. Irene, that gets up and very fast, I want a dwarf to hear wounds. He did that and he would did, the thing he would always do, he told me was when he would be at a party and Jack would go to light a cigarette and George would go, shh, shh, he's going to do the match bit. Oh, that's funny. There was no match bit.

That's funny. He was now with the cigarette and the lighter and a match, and everybody looking at him. And he was, of course, Jack Benny. What was he supposed to do? So he just said, and at some level I hated him, but I loved him. I don't think people know this about you too,

that you were a journalist and a film critic, and you were a child model too. They made a movie about me 20 years ago called Get Bruised, and it's all in there. Produced by Harvey Weinstein. Yeah, you were telling me outside. And he never touched me. I said, forget me too, I'm starting, why not me?

The doc is good. The doc was so wrong. The doc is good, by the way. Is Rose McGowan that much prettier than I am? Jesus. The doc is good and your mom shines in it, as I was saying outside. She and Robin Williams are the stars of the thing.

Yeah. And she was really, really funny. And she's very funny in that, particularly. And you were a child model? I was a child model. I was a charming chub for Lane Bryant. It was a very, talking about a niche market. Yeah.

But it didn't go much beyond that. It's all in the dog. I was a child actor too, so. But I'm never a star. And another room to be a Jew hater, who you worked with, Inglebert Humperdink. You know, he was great to me. I didn't know that. I never heard that. I never heard he was a Jew hater who you worked with, Engelbert Humperdinck. You know, he was great to me. I didn't know that. I never heard he was a Jew hater.

I heard that twice. Really? Yeah. But I remember principally with Engelbert was that he was deaf in one ear and he couldn't hear the orchestra and I would say turn around. Seemed to me to be the most obvious. We tried fun and it was, but you know, he was resisting. He wanted new stuff, but he was using stuff he'd always, he'd come up with like in, I don't know, English musicals or something like that. And he also kind of resented the, he had, he had a lot of friends,

and he was always, he was always, he was always, he was always, he was always, he was always, he was always, he was always, he was always, with like in, I don't know, English musicals or something like that. And he also kind of resented that, he had bought Jane Mansfield's house in Homely Hills, which is now all gone, it's part of the Aaron Spelling estate. But one of the things that was in the house was a piano,

and he said, this is the piano where Cole Porter wrote, they can't take that away from me. And I said, Cole Porter didn't write it. I regurgitated. No, no, I know it was Cole Porter. And he went back and forth about this, and I said, no, it's no it's and Cole Porter probably wrote nothing on this because he basically was in New York he may have come out here for

something and all that it's but it's not worth it if they told you that was the song they were they were making it up where did you come up with this he loves to talk about anti-semites on the show he loves to talk about which get which of our guests are Jewish? I heard two different sources one was Stewie Stone. Oh well that must be true. And and he said he was opening for Engelbert Humperding and Engelbert Humperding said that the Jews killed Christ and and Stewie Stone said, he goes, no, it was the Romans, the Jews might have stolen the nails.

But. But. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah.

Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah.

Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. I give you jokes that were too dirty for him? You'd give them to you for someone else? He would, oh yeah, he did give me one that I gave to bet that we turned it into a Sophie Tucker joke. Okay. Oh God. I couldn't read my own card, forgive me. Too dirty for Red Fox.

No, it wasn't, the heavy young man gave me stuff that he had gotten from a Red Fox. Gotcha. And he said it was too dirty, I couldn't do it. It was, one of them was the, one of the first Sophie Tucker jokes we did about, I forget what it was. I remember the punch line.

You've been munching grass for the last 10 minutes. Something about, you know, I forget what it was. But I also, I mean, I wrote clean stuff for Red Fox. That was what was funny. Yes, I mean, because Red Fox had this filthy act. You know, really filthy. And then he became a big TV star with Sanford. And so we got all these huge bookings

that he'd never had before. And so, and he would go, and people would come with their families, because they wanted to see Fred Sanford, you know, and he would come out and say, you gotta wash your ass. And it was like people streaming up the aisle. And so we constructed this show where he would come out and do stuff, funny but not dirty,

and then he was, now I'm gonna bring out the lovely Miss Lola Falama, and she's gonna sing for you. And when she leaves, I'm gonna come back, but not gonna be Blue Fox. It's gonna be Red Fox, it's gonna be Blue Fox. So if you wanna stay and hear that, you can just stay, after he had done like 45 minutes. And they would stay and they would see Lola,

and Lola would do like a half an hour, and then he would come back out and do the old material. And so everybody with kids would leave but they felt they'd gotten a show so they hadn't been shortchanged. Was he great live? Oh, he was hysterical. Did you ever see him live, Gil? Red Fox?

No. Boy. What I wouldn't have given. Is there a George Burns before we move on from George Burns? Is there a George Burns, Pia on from George Burns? Is there a George Burns, Pia Zedora story? Yeah, there is. I feel terrible telling you. You don't have to tell it.

You don't have to tell it. I saw you tell it somewhere. I do it in my act sometimes, but I ran into her now. Oh, okay, we won't put you on the spot. What about Jack Palance? Well, I only knew him from the Oscars, and he won for City Slickers, and he came up and he did that, he did the one-armed push-ups to show.

Yeah, sure. But what he did before was he, what people didn't realize was that he was, Billy was the host, and he introduced Whoopi, and Whoopi came out and presented the award and Jack won and he came up and his first thing he said was Billy Crystal, I crap bigger than him. And then he started thanking Billy

for putting him in the movie and then they all think I'm an old guy and he did the pushups and of course that became iconic and we were in the wings and Billy said, well, we have to go with this. I mean, first of all, he said, iconic. And we were in the wings and Billy said, well, we have to go with this. I mean, first of all, he said, I'm a piece of shit. And then he thanked me. And then he did these things.

So it's hysterical. So we just kept cutting material that we were gonna do. And we kept making jokes about what was gonna happen. And it became a thing we wanted an Emmy for. And then the following year he came back to present. So, and Billy was hosting again. So, you know, we did a whole thing where he's dragging the Oscar, a pyramid, like, you know, a huge.

Oh sure, I remember. He's dragging it, he's wearing a harness and bringing the whole thing on and all that. So, I mean, that's been my only experience with him, but I remember Billy telling me that, you know, he's really quite scary. We've had people tell us that. He said he's an actively scary guy.

Yeah. And Billy tells a very funny story about Jack Pounce coming up to him on the first day and looking at him and saying, don't be nervous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he was towering. I mean, he was towering. We've had people in here who said he was towering. I mean he was towering. We've had people in here who said he was intimidating. Yeah, oh I think. I think. And so when you see him in that picture with Joan Crawford, you realize it really is Godzilla versus the smog monster. What? Can you, speaking of the Oscars, can you tell, and I know people always ask you which jokes never got on and it's probably a cliched question at this point But can you tell the off-color Sharon Stone joke?

Yeah, but it got on actually oh it did it was it was Well, there was a theme it was the year of the woman Gil Kate's the producer of those shows loved themes and was the year of the woman and But it wasn't it wasn't a big year for women and the joke we had was oddly enough the biggest part this year was Sharon Stone's ah and she was not nominated but she was there of course and you know and they shot they went to her and she kind of, the problem was somebody, and I don't know who to credit, put together a really incredible clip package

of women in film, and it was absolutely gorgeous and weepy. I mean, by the end of the thing, the audience was like in tears, and Billy followed that. I see, so it was the placement. It was the placement. That was the problem. It was the placement that got it. And we all felt mortified.

And there was no time to change it. And he was, you know, I think he just said, I'll just go ahead and say he did it. So, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't an obscene thing. We did have, many, many years ago, Richard Gere was gonna present. And it was after the gerbil incident. And we were going to introduce him as Richard,

Richard Gere was going to present, and his original presenter was Fievel from An American Tale. But Fievel backed out. And Billy said, well, Richard was sitting in the audience and there was a camera on him. And so he wondered why is there a camera on me? Because I'm not nominated and I'm not him. And so Billy said, look at him,

he's gonna have a heart attack. I can't do it to him. I just can't do it. So we cut it. I also heard you say this is funny too. Maybe this was in the doc where you're talking about everybody that got a life achievement award died. So Doris Day turned it down every year.

Doris turns it down every single year. Right. So you get, you die. Myrna Lloyd got it. Tell Gilbert the other story that's great is that you and Shaman are trying to do a musical number about JFK? Well, you know, Billy did those film packages. And they were all, it was title songs from the nominated movies.

Gotcha. Of course they had no title songs, but we would take another song and do a parody of it. And the hardest was JFK, because nobody wanted to be associated with the movie, because it was Oliver Stone, and it was about the candidate and all that. And so one of the ideas we had was trouble.

and all that. And so one of the ideas we had was trouble. You got trouble right here in Dallas, Texas with the Capitol jail, rhymes with K, it's left in between. And it was written from the music man by Meredith Wilson and Mrs. Meredith Wilson who was living in a home somewhere in West LA. She had the rights.

And so we had to call her and sing it. Billy and Mark at the piano had to sing it over the phone to her. I love that story. And she said, very funny, boys, no way. That was that. Right. And finally, I mean, really we had a lot of ideas.

And one of the other things was we were working on this particular number when Maria Shriver showed up with her camera crew for her NBC show that she was doing. And she was doing a behind the scenes. And we said, Billy took her aside and said, you know, we're doing the JFK section, maybe you wanna sit this out. She said, oh no, she said, I'm a journalist, I can take it.

So she came and recorded all of this stuff. And finally, when nobody would do it, Billy called Sammy Kahn and he gave us Three Coins in the Fountain. Oh nice. Three shots in the plaza, FBI or Homer Simpson. That job is problem solving. It was, yes, it was exactly. Yeah.

I teased Gilbert with this over the phone. Is there a story about Joan Crawford and David Niven? Yes, there is a story. A story that David Niven Jr. told me. Or maybe it may have been David Niven when I interviewed him. Seems perfect for this show somehow. After we'd had some drinks. But the story was, well you know,

after the book came out, Mommy Dearest, people started telling the Crawford stories that they'd never told. And a lot of them had to do with stuff she did when she was drunk, which was a lot. And I knew her, and I knew her as a drinker. I was a favorite interviewer of hers when I was a lot, and I knew her, and I knew her as a drinker. Oh, you did know her? I was a favorite interviewer of hers, when I was a journalist, and so I'd done several,

she was always drunk in these interviews, and David Niven said that when he came to Hollywood, he was fixed up with her on a studio date, and they went out, and it was a terrible thunderstorm and he took her home and it was made fairly clear to him that when you went on a date with her, you wound up fucking her. So that was what she liked. Or if you starred in a movie with her,

and all these guys, you know, it was like part of the drill, as it were. And so he said, I should call the people I'm staying with to tell them I'm going to be overnight here, or late, or whatever. And she said, I'll slip into something comfortable. And she had, the house had a gorgeous staircase that you probably saw in the movies that went up

to the second floor, and in those days, people didn't have phones in every room. There were telephone rooms in some houses, there were like little phone booths off the hall, and, or she had a phone on a pedestal, and it was in the crook of this staircase, of the grand staircase. And so he went over to use the phone,

and he's calling these people, and he's thinking, and it's like raining on him. And he said, oh, she must have a leak in the roof. I must tell her she has a leak in the roof. And he looks up to see where the leak is, and she's hanging over the banister, peeing on him. There you go, Gil. My God.

Whether deliberately or by accident, he never knew. Said because it was a good way to end the evening. He decided. This is my early Christmas gift for you, Gilbert. Joseph Crawford was was being on David. From how many feet of high ceiling, 12, 14, maybe 18. I mean, if it was, you didn't see AJ Benz's reenactment. It was a great, yeah.

It was a great hall. What they call the great hall. I knew that it'd make them happy Bruce. Yeah. Yeah. I know that would make him happy, Bruce. Yeah. Yeah. I know my co-host. He, you know, it's semi-legendary, so, but I remember it being, I think he told it to me in an interview,

but I remember asking, I think, his son, who was a producer, David Newman Jr., was a producer, if that was the truth, and he said, oh yes, he said that was the Crawford story. She peed on him. The Crawford story. Lucille Lassour? Lucille Lassour, in this case, Lassour.

But she was, there were many, many, I mean, I collected for a while stories about her. Anymore? Nothing as good as that. That's pretty good. Nothing as slushy, I mean, just all kind of like, kind of crazy, that makes you believe that all the stuff that happened in the book,

with chopping down the tree and harnessing the kids and making them clean the bathroom, all that stuff happened during what they call blackout drunk periods, but I mean, during drunk periods. Because she would always start by being fabulous and warm. My mother used to play cards with Gertie Moskowitz who lived down the hall from Crawford in the Imperial House on the Upper East Side.

She said she left, they were playing cards, they used to play, actually they would play at night and she left at night, late at night, like around midnight. And Crawford was in the hall at midnight, vacuuming the hall because it was dirty. Wow. And she was like in Academy Awards outfit, shoo, you know, to vacuum the hall.

And she said she was completely plastered, but. She said it was... So it's like, you hear enough of those and you think, I don't think the woman was lying a lot, you know, when she made up, when she wrote the book. Now, do you know, because it's connected, do you know any Faye Dunaway stories? Oh, I know a bunch, because we had the same agent and all that.

But nothing like crazy. I mean mean a couple of things like that when she was playing Maria Callis and in LA They had a limo driver who said yeah, we're having a pool to see how many who how many telephones is she thrown at you? It was it was stuff like that. I mean, I don't have anything, you really. Betty Davis? And I know, well, I knew her, but I knew her towards the end. I knew her before the stroke, but she was just kind of colorful. I mean, she said, I would joke with her. I was on the Midnight Special,

like a politically correct thing. Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special. Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special. And we was on the Midnight Special. I do it like a politically correct thing. I was on the Midnight Special. The Midnight Special. And we did, David Steinberg hosted the first one, and the other David Steinberg was a guest. And I was a guest, and a few other people, and he didn't come back the second week,

and I wound up hosting it. And I hosted it for two years, because people stopped doing live television. They would give you their video. They didn't want to come to the studio and do a performance. So they had to fill that time that they used to have with bands. So they did it with a kind of politically incorrect model.

And David was on it. And we were, how did I start this? You were Bette Davis. I was Bette Davis. Oh, anyway, so I was on that show and I knew, I was friendly with a guy who was dating Bette Davis' secretary. And he said, you've gotta be Bette Davis,

she's hysterical. And she has seen you on the Mid the midnight special because we were talking about it because she's up all night so we had dinner at Betty Davis's apartment and very cool and I came and she said Mr. Vellange with the cigarette and I saw your television show, wretched! I said, well, that was an early one. We've done more since. She said, well, it had nowhere to go but up. And your hair.

When you come in at the beginning of the day, you go to your hairdresser and you say, fluff me. And I said, well, you know, that means something else. No, you don't care. You need fluffing. So it was kind of like that. She would, I spent New Year's Eve with her one year and it was during her period where she had the hats

with all the buttons. And I went over and I just said, I said something I've always wanted to say to you, Miss Davis. Happy New Year's Eve. And she was a long pause and she went, ha. Nice, nice job. You know, I think one of the things I liked

that Susan Sarandon did Bette Davis on that show was that Bette Davis would do, she had, she would pull out the Bette Davis character when she needed it. I see. But you could have a real conversation with her. I mean, and Sarandon did that on that show too. Crawford was always Crawford.

She was always in character. I never caught her when she was being offhand or anything like that. I was glad to see that show, that somebody was making, in this day and age, is making a show. Well, Ryan Murphy. Yeah, right, Robert Aldrich.

Now he's resuscitated Vogue, and ball culture and all that kind of thing. And wasn't Joan Crawford in like, stag films? Well that was the story that she had done a picture with a donkey in Tijuana. Yeah. And there are a million versions of it on the internet that claim that that's it, but I don't know.

Speaking of off-color- We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Speaking of off color stories, where do you stand on the Paul Lin Golddigger's dressing room story? Because we've heard different versions of it. What was I don't know that. Oh, where he said Peter Marshall tells it walks into the dressing room and he goes, they, the way I do.

Oh, that, oh yeah. Yeah, okay. Well, I, it could, that could be, I tell that story differently because I had a similar, a thing, maybe he was repeating it. Who tell? Well, we were playing Houston, the Arena Theater,

which was brand new, and there was, the dressing room was a trailer parked over a septic tank and this was his act we were doing and with with Roz Kelly and Mimi Hines and a bunch of people and he was putting his makeup on and he had the you know one of his young nephews with him this one was named Zack. They were all named Chad. One of his nephews. Yeah. Chad and Dash and things like that. They all looked faintly Hitler youth. And he was putting his makeup on,

and I walked in and he said, Harold, this trailer smells like a cunt. I think. That's the same story? That's the same story, That's the same story. Yes. But now it's very interesting because there are several versions of it.

Yeah, but he actually said now, now whether it may not have been the first time he said it, he may have thought, ah, I came in and here's a chance. Cause it really did stink to high heaven. Peter Marshall says it happened to him in the Gold Digger's dressing room. Well, I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, using the same.

Because I remember we talked about the Rockettes dressing room smelling like a sushi bar. And you wrote quips for him for the old Hollywood squares. Well, we were doing Donnie and Marie. And then at those days, they would do squares at night, because that's when people were available, rather than asking them to do it on the weekend. And so they would do like three shows one night

and two shows another night. And he was leaving ABC going to NBC to shoot it. And he said, come with me to Squares, I haven't got shit. And we would go, went through the questions and wrote some jokes. And I would do that periodically for him. And that was towards the end of, well, it was the end of squares.

I mean, it was the late seventies. But so I did write for him. I wrote Donnie Marie stuff for him and then I wrote some squares. I think it's fun to know that he would have gotten a kick out of people talking about him. Oh yeah. All these, as you said, 40 years later,

he would have just been completely stunned. Yeah. Hill, did you meet him? Never met him. You never met Paul wind. You met Vincent Price. I met Vincent price twice. And he also lost a part to Billy Barty, which he likes to, which he likes to dine out on. Yeah. Do you have anything else for Bruce? Apart to Nell Carter. Did you? I did, I seriously did.

It was, as you might expect. I love it, I love it. It was a fantasy. We're going a different way. What way is that? Nell Carter, oh. It was a ghost. It was a strange ectoplasmic spirit

and a pilot that never happens. It was a strange experience. Okay, as we wrap, Bruce. Wrapping. I got a couple here. We already talked about Wayne Newton at SeaWorld, which I must get my hands on. And Las Vegas and All-Star 75th Anniversary Special.

Yeah, I did that. Did you work with the Rat Pack? Did you work with Dean and Jerry and Sinatra? They were on it. They were all on it. It was a George Slaughter production, yes. And they were all, was Frank on it? Well, on the IMD, maybe it was Clips.

Tom Jones, Rickles, Shecky, even Gallagher. That, yes, they were all there. And Dean was on, Dean and Sam, they were on it. I remember that, yeah. It was great. It it was the convention center, and it was, I mean, it was one of those bogus things, a high concept show, and you used to get a whole bunch of guys on the thing.

But everybody kinda came in and did their thing and went out, it wasn't, nobody hung out. I would love to say that yeah we were in Vegas and all that kind of stuff. Okay I got what one of three wild cards for you and you can pick. You can tell us about being in Ice Pirates. Oh another epic up there with Star Wars. Or you can talk about writing, you said you like to say you've written for every combination of Sonny and Cher. That's true.

Including Sonny's comedy review. Brilliant. Which I will never forget. Which was opposite Cher. The Sonny, well not opposite, but at the same time they had, each had individual shows. And then they went back to do,

they went back to work together because they hadn't, they hadn't had, or he hadn't had success or, it was something, I mean, they, I forget what the timeline was, but he had his own show and, nice joke, that he was on ABC because, if it takes a village, oh no, this is the, if TV is the global village and he was on ABC because if it takes a village, oh no, this is the, if TV is the global village and he's the global village idiot.

He tried so hard. He did. I remember hearing like, cause you know in the big news story was that Chastity Bono is a lesbian. And I remember, and Cher went out and said, you know, how shocked. And I remember hearing that she was a big lesbian

years before this ever hit the news. Well, yeah. I mean, she was a tomboy, and she was a very butch girl. But she was, at the time, a rock and roller. She was not aoy, and she was a very butch girl. But she was, at the time, a rock and roller. She was not a successful rock and roller. But she was very much in the Melissa Etheridge vein.

She wasn't heavy. She was in the Melissa Etheridge vein of rock singers. It just didn't take. And then she decided to come out and and kind of give up the performing career and she went to work for GLAAD as their communications person and all that and so I think probably Cher was I don't know how can I say I mean she's the mother and she probably knew but must have been a weird childhood for her yeah oh yeah yeah very it was very, yeah, it was very, because she was,

I mean, here she is with this, with the mother who's a mannequin and. Married out on stage too as a prop. Right, they made a big deal. That used to be scary. Yeah, she was adorable. She was cute, but she was never comfortable in that role. And, but she had a very funny thing.

After that, some years later, she started, she did a very funny thing after that. Some years later, she did a couple of big gay fundraisers and she said, I'm doing this to make amends to my daughter. She said, because when she told me she was a lesbian, I did a very unshare thing and I regret it. It was not a Cher reaction. And it was bizarre because she was talking about Cher in the third person.

Right, the third person, right. Cher the character. There really is no third person. I mean, Cher is Cher. She's Cher dressed up and she's Cher in Mufdi, if that's what I wanna say. But it's always the attitudes is exactly the same. I mean, she, and she shoots him in the hip

and she calls him and she sees him and all those cliches. Last week she gave somebody an interview, she went to see the musical about her that's trying out in Chicago. I saw that. And she said, some of it's great. Some of it needs work.

It could use a few more jokes. But I had a good time watching it. I mean, you know, obviously she's getting money over this thing, but it was a very share thing to do. It was like, hey, I'm telling you what I thought. It's gonna get better, you know, because she doesn't wanna say it's fabulous, it's great. And then reviews come out that are not terrific.

So it will get there, I'm sure, but it's just, I thought it was. Yeah. And interesting. We had one of the Hudson brothers. We had Mark Hudson, who's a lot of fun. And he had a story that Cher used to hold auditions for her next boyfriend.

In the house. That's good. While he was in the house. Oh. Yeah. While he, was he one of the... I guess they had a dalliance, but I think they were more friends than anything.

I guess. Yeah. He's a friend with one of her boy, he is probably still friends with Josh Donnan, who was one of her boyfriends. He's very funny. Before Bagel Boy came in. But Bagel Boy apparently is a character, Rob Kamele is a character.

In the Cher musical? Yeah, I don't know that any of the other boyfriends are characters. We didn't even get to bet, but Gilbert and I found it very entertaining, the whole idea that old red hair is back, that she only wanted one guest and it was Olivia, and he agreed to do it.

That's right, he did. That is interesting. I know, he did, and then he called and said he had to go do The Boys from Brazil. One of Gilbert's favorites. He said, I'm an old man, I need the money. I'm going to go hunt Nazis in South America. But getting Hoffman as a substitute worked out well.

She had met him through Hoffman. They were shooting Marathon Man, and Dustin brought him to see her. We were playing LA at the time, the Drive to the Channel Pavilion, and he came back. We were like doing six nights, and he came back for every night. He was totally taken with her.

And said he would do it, you know, he said he would, any opportunity. In fact, there was, there at one point they were gonna do a big TV version of a, the second show from Anthony Nulli and Leslie Bricus, I have to stop the role, I wanna get off of it. And the second was called The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd.

And it's a lousy show with a phenomenal score. And they were gonna do that. It was Cyril Richard and Anthony and Nulli, and it was gonna be Olivier and Bette. And the Anthony and Nulli character is like a cockney. Could be a woman, could be a boy. Interesting. And it just never happened.

The material was a little too rarified, but he said he would do this and then he couldn't do it. And so Dustin said, I'll step in and do it. And we won the Emmy for that show, so it worked out very well. I remember it. Yes, I remember it. It's a really good show.

What else do you have, Gil? Oh, I don't know. I've gone through almost every card. I will say this, I love, I want our listeners, and we have many of them, to find Bruce's documentary, Get Bruce, which is great. Full of stories. Yes.

I also enjoyed your book. Well, that was, you know, I was on Hollywood Squares, and I got a lot of book offers. I didn't have a book at the time and I couldn't sit down and write one at the time. So I collected a bunch of articles and things I'd written for magazines. And then watches, it got reviewed

like I deliberately published this thing. This was- Oh, there were fun stories in there. Yeah, that's what you're talking about. And it was fine. I mean, that's what happens. And now I'm working on another, a book book. I was just gonna ask you, what's up now?

What are you doing? Well, I've written a musical which is With all the Patula Clark's music. We love Patula Clark 85 sign of the times. Yep, that's the title. Oh my god I love that and we're gonna do it in Wilmington at the Delaware Theatre Center We open November 20th for six weeks and is, we've done a few regional theater productions that we're refining it. Wonderful. Did you love playing Edna in Hairspray?

Oh, the greatest. It was the most fun ever. Yeah. How many shows did you do? 778. Good Lord. But who's counting? I mean, it was two years.

What a work ethic. It was two, yeah, it was. It hit an OCD button. You're complaining about going up on stage two nights a week. Yes. This man did 770 shows. Well, you know, you get into that harness.

It's getting into the harness that's the hard part. Once you're in it, it's great fun. I mean, Bette does a hilarious thing, which I hope she will film. Like, vaudeville performers. Hello, Dolly. About getting herself up the staircase to do the number, like at the end of the week after the eighth time she's doing it and

hauling hand over. And then the light comes out and boom, it's Dolly. But it's, it's hysterical, but that's what it's like. I mean, it, it, you do the same thing over and you find a way to make it fresh for yourself Of course, but it's physically exhausting because you know, it's repetitive. It must have been yeah and But but stage actors that's what they do I mean did you have and we talked about Gilbert and talked to Gilbert about this same thing Did you get the high and then have a hard time coming down sometimes after a show? Yeah, if you just you come off and you're totally exhilarated exhilarating It's like when I get off stage,

I totally understand why some people get into drugs. Oh yeah. I'm with you, I totally get it. Because you want to preserve that great feeling when it was a good night, when it's worked well and all that. But it's exhilarating, it's hard to just come down from it. And it's also difficult to be with people

who haven't had that experience. And so you wind up seeking out people who, that's why actors meet each other after the show. It makes sense. Yeah, I mean, because they're all sharing that thing. Go to Joe Allen's and drink till four o'clock so you don't have to go home. And I always remember watching a talk show

where Lauren Bacall was on and she was doing a Broadway show and she said she would get the adulation and the cheers and then go back to her hotel and be sitting by herself. That's common, we know that's common. That was part of what killed Janis Joplin, I think, is that she was the only female rock star who got that kind of reception.

And then there was nobody there when she came off after 20,000 people were screaming. There was no one person. She tried to find one person, but it never really worked out. But yeah, it's an amazing thing to suddenly have that, all of that, and then it boils down to, okay, I'll get a cab now. And oh, I just got a flashback of one story. You probably wrote this for her. Melissa Gilbert was on Hollywood Squares. Granddaughter of Harry Crane.

Oh, the legendary comedy writer, Harry Crane. I have a great Harry Crane story. So Melissa Gilbert's line was, if I married Gilbert Gottfried, would I be Melissa Gilbert Gilbert Gottfried? Yeah. And you were on the show and you said you'd be the happiest woman in the world. I know. Well, you know, I'd spoken to the staff at the comedy store. I knew. Fantastic.

I knew. Harry Crane and I wrote the first People's Choice Awards. Okay. Whenever that was. And I was like the young writer and he was the old pro. His reputation precedes him. I can't even remember who hosted it, but we were, we were, I was, you know,

I was bitching about something, about this guy wouldn't do this material and it wouldn't work and all that kind of stuff. And he said, hey, when you come across one of those, do what I do. I take the check and I put the check on the passenger seat of the Mercedes and I drive down Sunset Boulevard and I come to a light and I look and there's a person waiting

for a bus and I look at the person and I look at the check and I sing Zippity doo dah, zippity yay. I love that. That's for you, Gil. That's advice you need to follow. As Sophie Tucker said, I will never forget it. That is great. Harry Crane. What a legend. Oh yeah, he was, I mean, then he was writing Stephen Eady,

but he was like one of the original of those guys who wrote this kind of stuff, through a variety show. Right, right, right. When there was a lot of variety shows. Look at the person. So you're working on the Petula Clark musical, which is soon to happen. Did I hear another book?

I'm writing another one, but it's taken. I want it to be like a David Sedaris book. Great, you're the perfect person to do that. Essays, fiction, non-fiction. I don't want it to be another like, okay, and then I wrote the People's Choice Awards. I've wanted to have something more. Right, and I would be remiss if I didn't say

that Arnie Cogan said please thank Bruce for not letting the band play Jay, his son, offstage when he was making his Emmy acceptance speech. Oh, that's funny, I remember that. That you were in the control room saying let him talk. No, no, you can't, this is Jay Cogan. Yeah, and he appreciates that. Was he a Simpsons?

He was winning for Frasier. Oh, for Frasier, well yeah. And we did a Father's Day show with Jay and Arnie. And they were a lot of fun. There's so much crossover here. We had Jay and Arnie, and he was Donnie and Marie, and then we had Sid and Marty, and they said, say hello to Bruce,

and now you're here to give a different perspective on those shows. We should one day do a whole chart. A flow chart of our guests. I think, yeah. When you do 200 some out of these, it's funny how everybody intersects. Beyond 50 degrees, they're all.

You all kind of bleed into each other. And this one's purely for Gilbert. Okay. And you don't have to tell it if you don't want to, but is there a Tallulah Bankhead story? Oh, there are several, but yeah. Pfft. But I...

This is a gift for Gilbert. I hardly tell it because I have to explain who she was. Not to this audience. Oh, well, our listeners know. But if I do it on stage. But I was in a summer stock with her. I was in a production of a play called Murder on the Rocks, sometimes called The House on the Rocks.

And it was kind of a ridiculous sort of melodrama. And I was playing the butler and I was a, it was kind of a ridiculous sort of melodrama and I was playing the butler and I was very young and I was like 14 and I had a deep voice and all that. But they were casting on the cheap. And we toured all of these, wherever there were nice young men who sold antiques, we played. Mostly barn theaters on Cape Cod. And they were kind of ecstatic.

And it's a long story, but we played, as I recall, it was the Tapp-NZ Playhouse up the river. And it was a star, there was always a star in whatever the production was. And Helen Hayes lived at NIAC, where the theater was. And Tulu did not care for Helen Hayes lived at NIAC where the theater was and Tlulu did not care for Helen Hayes and we never were sure you know when you would talk to Tlulu you couldn't quite make out what she was saying you'd say this is love and you say it's whether and I say we thought you might go say, Helen Hay, Helen Hay, Helen Hay, Helen Hay, Helen Hay.

So you just say, okay, Ixnay on the Helen Hay. But talking to her was like talking to your dog, and your dog is kind of going. Tilt its head. Kind of gleaning what you're saying, tilting its head. And so we would learn not to tread too heavily. And they kept trying to get her to go up to have, And so we would learn not to tread too heavily.

And they kept trying to get her to go up to have, to meet Helen, and finally on the last day she relented. And she went up and she had a bite between shows with Helen. And she came back and she looked a little green, a little bilious, and the guy who worked for her, I said, how was it? And he said he said oh it was rest the food was terrible revolting to Lula has such gas and So she got through the first act and she was

And then she's going to the call and then And then she goes out to the... And then second act, the top of the second act, it was kind of a period thing, she wore hoop skirts. And the top of the second act, the curtain went up and she was discovered downstage center, sort of squatting over the prompter's box, where she belonged, you know, and she was in a pose. And before she could say anything, she let out with a longest, loudest,

most vivid fart in the English speaking stage. Her skirt billowed off. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha! The air turned blue in her vicinity. He enjoys this. And the audience began like, they all heard it. I mean, when we could hear it. I was in the third floor and I heard it on the PA.

Oh my god, she cut the cheese! We ran downstairs, what's she gonna do? And the audience is now like tittering and they're laughing and now it becomes a wave of laughter. And now it's hysterical, now they're, oh my god, she cut the cheese, you believe it, surprise manager. And she just stands there, just majestically,

Spartan in her bravery, and it all dies down, and she's now alone, and she just turns very grandly and says, that one was for Helen. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha You've got to write another book. She was quite a fabulous, she was quite, quite, yeah. The other joke that she said, she would tell me whether, she would tell me famous stories about her and then stuff that was true and all that. But there was a, she was, I was reading the paper and on the train between one of these places and the other

and it said And it said, six out of every, oh wait, what is it? One out of every seven Americans is carrying a weapon. And a gun is carrying a gun. And she looked this and said you know what this means don't you darling one of the Lennon sisters is packing a rod. That's a fantastic line. She must have been hilarious. She was very funny and she was also drunk a lot but at that point she wasn't around too much longer after that. It's funny, we talk about this flow chart of names. You are a link to so much classic Hollywood.

Yeah, it's a lot of it. I mean, how many people knew Tallulah Bankhead and Betty Davis and Joan Crawford and interacted? Well, you know, people say, how old are you? I said, well, I was very young when I worked with them. They were very old. Yes. Or they weren't that very old, but they were at the end of their careers, at the end of

their lives, old or not. So it was that kind of confluence. Not many people have worked with Tallulah Bankhead and Gallagher. It's true. Although you wouldn't have done badly with Tarp around Tallulah. At a certain point, it could get messy. Hilbert will not soon get over that Joan Crawford, David Niven story.

It's Bruce. That is a great one. You don't wanna hear it back. Now I'll hear from David Niven Jr. I didn't mean it. But. Let this man go home. Okay.

All right. Thank you for coming here. Thank you. And doing this. It's true. When I was on Hollywood Squares with you, those were like the jobs that I didn't consider jobs. Yeah.

Yeah. Sure, because they were fun. They were just fun and it was a party. Yeah. Whoopi tells me all the time how much fun you guys had, and I'm so envious. We had a great time, it was a day, you know, you showed up in the morning,

and there was breakfast, and then you did three shows, and there was a big, elaborate Wolfgang Puck-catered lunch, and then two shows, and lots of wine, and we were out by four, but it was just fun, and you'd be up there. And really, nobody could really act up because if they did, there were like eight other people going, girl, put one thing on the roof,

Zan pulled some shit on it, I forget. She was having an attitude. And Pamela Anderson, I don't know, had had a reduction or an enhancement or something, and she was in pain. And Anna Nicole Smith, I remember, was also kind of out of it. Props to the joke writers too, you, Dave Boone,

John Max, good people. Yeah, they were great. All good people. And it was fun to write, you know, it was fun to write that stuff. It was fun to write for people. It was fun to write for people. The funniest stuff was people who weren't, I mean scripted who weren't funny

necessarily stumbling on something. But it was fun to write for the people who were funny. Like him? Yeah. Sure. Yeah. And yeah, I just remember that show. Yeah, it never felt like work to me.

Just having a good time there. That show, yeah, it was, it never felt like work to me. It was, right. Just having a good time there. Well, I'll be looking for that Petula Clark musical for sure. We love her. Come on down. And so does Dara. Come down to Wilmington, it's just two stops on the Acela. I'm gonna come and see it.

Don't sleep in the subway. It's in there. So this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre and our friend the hilarious Bruce Volin. Hilarious. Hey. Thank you.

Stories all day. And into the night. Thanks man. Thank you. We'd like to thank the incredibly talented kids from What's Happening. Ernest Thomas, A. Wood Nelson. Fred Berry and Danielle Spencer. Yay! Awesome!

And the far out sounds of Rick Dees and Dis-Go-Rilla. Hey! The man listed in the dictionary under bananas, Rip Davis. You know, I'm a lady we love to love, Andy Davis. You lady would love to love and be David. And the Croftet dancers and water follies. And John Steerwalt. John Steerwalt, he's the guy who holds up the cards. Good night, John.

You print very well. And why don't I sing now? Right. Oh, I'm going to get you John. Right, why don't I sing now? There's nowhere in the world that I would rather be than with you, my love. And there's nothing in the world that I would rather see than your smile, my love. Oh, united we stand, divided we fall, and if our backs should ever meet against the wall We'll be together, together you and I

Good night everybody! Also appearing in tonight's show were Patty Maloney, Mike Cagan, Bruce Belange, and the Thank you.