Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Dick DeBartolo and Al Jaffee Encore

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

Gilbert and Frank celebrate the 100th (!) birthday of Mad magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee with this encore episode from 2016, featuring Al and longtime Mad writer Dick DeBartolo, who discuss their friendships with publisher William M. Gaines, their admiration of Jack Davis and Mort Drucker and the secret origin of the term "potrzebie." Also, Al remembers Harvey Kurtzman, Dick falls for Lauren Bacall, Stephen Colbert pays tribute to a comedy hero and Gilbert bashes "Up the Academy." PLUS: Gloria Swanson! "To Tell the Truth"! "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions"! Al parties with Jason Robards! And the warped genius of Don Martin! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In Season 3, Carmi and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade, a Michelin star. With Golden Globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White, Io Debrey, and Maddie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. Hey there, loyalists. Frank here. So Gil and I have been working hard to crank out shows for the last three months straight without a break, and we're going to take one this week. We're going to take a little Easter Passover break,

and we're going to run an encore episode from back in 2016. It's a favorite episode of ours that we talk about a lot. This is in celebration of the 100th, unbelievable, 100th birthday of the legendary comedy writer and cartoonist Al Jaffe, our friend Al Jaffe. And this was recorded back in 2016 when Al was a mere lad of 95, four years before he would eventually retire at the age of 99. And it quickly became a classic episode. Longtime Mad Writer Dick DiBartolo joined us, too, and we got into a lot of things. We got into William M. Gaines and the history of Mad Magazine and Dick's experience in game shows. And, of course, Al told many touching stories about his childhood,

which you will hear. But lots of enlightening and entertaining conversation. And, as I said, it's a longtime favorite episode of ours. So happy 100th birthday, unbelievable, to the great, unsinkable, one-of-a-kind Al Jaffe. great, unsinkable, one-of-a-kind Al Jaffe. And we hope you guys enjoy this Encore presentation from 2016. And then we'll see you next week with a brand new show. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre,

where once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Ferdarosa. Our guests today are two celebrated satirists and longtime Mad Magazine contributors who together have appeared in the pages of Mad for a combined 115 years. Dick DiBartolo is referred to as Mad's maddest writer. He sold his first article back in 1962. And since 1966, he's appeared in 454 consecutive issues, serving as creative consultant. consultant from 1984 to 2009. He wrote movies and the mad book of sex, violence,

and home. What was that? Home cooking. I was going to say, that's a deadly title. The mad book of sex, Violence, and Home Cooking. There you go. Among others.

Collaborated with legendary artist Don Martin on several titles. And he authored the 1994 memoir, Good Days and Mad. He's also a recognized gadget expert known as the Giz Whiz and a prolific writer for stand-up comedians and TV game shows, including To Tell the Truth, Tattletales, Family Feud, Super Password, and the long-running match game, the bawdy and irreverent style of questions that made him famous. Okay, thanks. Good night. Take a breath. Yes. Okay, thanks.

Good night. Take a breath. Al Jaffe is one of the most prominent and admired cartoonists of the 20th century. He began his career in 1941, worked alongside fellow cartooning and publishing icons Stan Lee, Will Elder, and Harvey Kurtzman, and has been writing and drawing for MAD since 1955. He's authored 60 paperback and hardcover books and is well known for his signature creations, Al Jaffe's Mad Inventions, Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, and of continues to turn them out 52 years later. presented with a plaque by the Guinness Book of World Records for having the longest career as a comics artist at 73 years and three months. Please welcome to the show two legendary members of the usual cast of idiots. Gang, gang. Gang of idiots.

Please. Boy, I've read this for I don't know how many years, and I said cast of idiots. Fuck me. Please welcome to the show two legendary members of the usual gang of idiots. Dick Bartolo. Dick Bartolo. Ah, fuck it all. D-Bartolo.

Dick Bartolo. D-Bartolo. Dick D-Bartolo and Al Jaffe. Okay, you can both go home now. Yeah, I think so. Now you know why we edit. You know, we're too famous for this. I've never had a longer introduction in my entire life.

Well, you know, the fans write to us and say they really dig the long introductions. Do they really? Yeah, it's become part of the show. It's become part of it. Oh, it has? Oh, okay. We have people write again. Oh, okay. It's become part of it. Oh, it has? Oh, okay. We have people writing in.

Oh, okay. Because the producer is sound asleep. Yeah. They say if it was ever a normal introduction of like a few seconds, they would be disappointed. Oh, okay. I feel better. Okay, I feel better. And if I ever got anything totally right in the introduction, including my co-host's name.

It took about 12 shows. Oh, okay. I don't think there's any fear of that. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you for coming over here on a busy day in New York City. Yeah, with the president coming in. Yeah, it snarled traffic everywhere in the city. Now, you, Al, wrote a

book or some, you co-wrote a book, My Mad Life, I think it's called. Al Jaffe's Mad Life, which is not far off the mark. And it's basically a memoir, but it also covers my career with the usual gang of idiots at Mad Magazine. Now, I have to ask you, Frank and I were talking about it. Your childhood, you are your your mother and father. Your father lived in New York and your mother stayed in Lithuania and she insisted her son stay with her. stay with her. Well, actually, our family, my mother and father lived in Savannah, Georgia. And then I was the first born, and then there were three younger brothers born afterwards. And at some point, my mother had a yearning to go back to the old country and visit her family and friends and so on.

And this was 1927. And she took all of us back, which was ostensibly to be a short visit, but it just dragged on and on and on. And finally, after a year, my father came over and dragged us all back. And when you were in Lithuania, it was like practically zero money that you had. I heard you had like one light bulb. That you had. I heard you had like one light bulb. Oh, when I first came to Lithuania in 1927, there were no light bulbs. There were only kerosene lamps. Electricity had not been introduced. And then the big day came when the electric company from the big city arrived and put in limited amount of electric wiring.

But no one had more than one light bulb because that was all the power that each house was allowed to get. So it was still a kerosene lamp business. Of course, when you're a little kid, your reaction to all of these things is, this is normal. Everybody's doing it, so it's normal. And missing meals became normal. Ash, your mother didn't feed you guys regularly, too. No, she was not very often around. We didn't know where she was,

and sometimes she didn't have the money to buy anything. And there were no stores nearby anyway. We used to wait for peddlers to come by peddling bagels and fruits and vegetables. So it was a very primitive existence. But as I look back on it, it was very interesting. And now when your father then decided you're coming to New York, and we came back in 1927. And then in 1929, she decided to take us all back again. And we were there from 1929 to 1933 when my father saw that Hitler was going to—well, Hitler already was chancellor of Germany. So my father saw that

there was no stopping the Holocaust. He had the foresight. and came over to take us back. And my mother told my father, OK, take the three older boys, leave the youngest one with me, and I'll rejoin you after I've said goodbye to friends and relatives, and I'll rejoin you. But time went by, and she didn't, and my father, in exasperation, and he was the savior. In exasperation, he made arrangements to have my youngest brother kidnapped from my mother by a young immigrant Polish man.

This young man went over to where my youngest brother and my mother lived, got hold of the kid who was 14, and told him the story. Your father has made arrangements for me, and I have tickets and everything to go to America, and he wants you to come and rejoin your brothers and your father, and your mother can make up her mind later if she wants to come. So he came, and we saved him. and we saved him. And now, when you were leaving with your father on the train, your mother was supposed to meet you

at the train station. And then what happened? She was always late. And as the train whistle blew and the train started to shake, there she was at the locked gate. And that's the last time we saw her. So with the train moving away, you and your brothers saw it.

That was it. That was the last sight. Last time. And then probably the Nazis. the Holocaust Museum, and the earliest information I have is that the large Jewish community in Zarazay, there were no survivors. To the best of my knowledge, they were taken, what the Red Cross reported, and now I think the Holocaust Museum is working on it. They were taken to the local woods where I and all my friends used to play and cut down our

fishing poles and pick strawberries, but they were all taken there and told to dig trenches, and they were shot. That's where they all wound up. Okay, now this brings me to something that fascinates me. It's like, this was as sad and tragic a childhood as you can imagine, and you built a career on comedy and making people laugh? I have always believed, and I'm firmly convinced of it now, especially after having to talk about my early childhood for the book. I'll mention the name, Al Jaffe's Mad Life. Yes, go ahead.

I'll mention it a few times. Mary Lou Weissman. Mary Lou Weissman was the author. Very well-written book, by the way, and gross. Thank you very much. She is a wonderful woman and a wonderful writer. And so what I discovered early on was the first thing that a young child wants to do is become part of the little group of other children that you meet. You want to ingratiate yourself to them somehow so that they accept you and allow you to play ball with them or go fishing with them. And I found that my ability to draw fascinated them. So I started drawing.

First I started drawing American cartoon characters, which I used to love on Sundays, bringing up Father with Jigs and Maggie and Little Orphan Annie and Dick Tracy. And I would draw them from memory the best way I could. And that kind of went over like a lead balloon because these kids were not reading American Sunday funnies. But then I started to do caricature of each one of these kids, and that made them hysterical laughing because one kid would walk around with his pants practically hanging below his bottom. And I would feature that in the cartoon. And they'd all have big yucks about that.

And I found out that, and by the way, these drawings were in the sand in the street. All the streets were sand. There were no paved roads. And so with a stick, I would draw these things. Later, I did it on paper and showed it to them, and they laughed hysterically. So I found humor was very important, not only this way to ingratiate yourself in a new tribe, but also as a way for oneself to get your mind off the daily misery that you might be going through. Yeah. So I saw in humor a magical device for becoming accepted.

Popular, you know, I wasn't going after it. You hit that anyway. But fortunately, eventually a little popularity came our way. I love the idea of tragedy and comedy and how they connect. They do connect. They're almost the opposite sides of the same coin. While we wait for Gilbert to find the men's room, we promise we'll come back to the show after a word from our sponsor.

Don't go away. And now back to the show. There's some great stories in the book. We'll come back to that, too. And I want to bring Dick into this. I grew up in that hellhole called Brooklyn, and I have no sympathy from anybody. And I have no sympathy from anybody. Well, you were trying to, I mean, it's not as maybe as hardscrabble as Al's background, but you were trying to get out of Brooklyn and you didn't want to go into your dad's business.

And you were trying to escape in your own way. Exactly. And my father kept saying, what do you want to be? And I said, I want to be a writer. And he said, a writer is not an occupation. An occupation uses tools. And I kept saying, no, but I want to write. And so you're right.

I wanted to get out of this. So my escape was hanging out. We had a basement. And in the basement, I got a desk and I bought a microphone and I pretended I had a radio station. And I could actually just broadcast to the front door. I hooked a speaker. The early gadget. Exactly. I was into gadgets very early. I wired this thing up and put a speaker in the hedges and I would hide in the garage. And when someone would go to park, I would say, that is a no parking zone. And the person would look around because they couldn't see the speaker.

And I would just, and that's how I entertained myself. You fell in love with Sid Caesar too. I mean, I read where you said that you wanted to do that for a living. Yes. Watching the Sid Caesar show, I remember him and Imogen Kunkka did old movies. Oh, yeah. And these old movie sketches made me hysterical. And I was reading Mad Magazine Magazine and then I thought, after about the fourth issue,

I thought, I don't want to read this. I want to write this. So I bought a book called Writer's Year Book and it listed, it said, a lot of magazines will not accept anything unless it's presented

through an agent. And I'm in high school and I don't know from... So I find Mad Magazine and it said, Mad Magazine will read anything. And I said, well, I can write anything. So I wrote a takeoff on ads and I sent it in, but I had also read, you must send a big self-addressed envelope or if they don't want it, they'll just throw it out. So weeks later, I got back my own big envelope and was very depressed. And then I thought, well, maybe it could be, it's almost good. So I opened the envelope, and the envelope was stuffed with cardboard, and scribbled on the cardboard, it said, ha ha ha, thought your script was rejected. Staple to the script is a $100 check, which was a lot back in 62.

And it said, please call us about writing more material, signed by Nick Meglin. Terrific. And not only was I thrilled, but when it came out, it was a takeoff on TV ads. They had a single-page ad that Al Jaffe had written, and they combined them. Is the Imperial Margin piece? Yes, exactly. Yes, Imperial Margin. You have to be very old to remember that.

The crown would appear. I don't remember it. The crown would appear on someone's head. And the satire was, how come everybody they stop in the supermarket is so normal? Why aren't they stopping and talking to the crazy people? And then I started submitting stuff to MAD and kept submitting stuff and turned into 55 years. What was the connection? Al contributed a page?

Al had, I didn't find out too much later on because when my piece came out, it said by Dick DeBartolo with Al Jaffe. And later on, I found out that they had a single page commercial takeoff that Al had done.

And they didn't want to have it run by itself. And they thought, well, we're going to use your three pages, but we'll put al's in it and it'll look like a big spread on ads right um and i didn't actually know al back then no you know the only way i knew about dick was i had a friend a lady out on Long Island where I lived there, Joan Chasnov, and she was crazy about funny programs, crazy shows.

And she came by one day and said, there is a guy who does these presentations. And it was things that, events that you produced in parks and... Well, back in the match game days, it's a whole thing. We'll get around to that. Yeah. I used to make movies. Yes. Movie satires and show them anywhere.

You know, we'd rent hotel rooms and just show them old 8mm movies. You did home movies with some of the celebrities. Yes, I first did them with the kids in the neighborhood. And then when the match game came around, I kept the camera at the studio. And I would say to every celebrity who came on, look, I make silly home movies. Could you do a minute of shtick with me? And, you know, so we had Van Johnson and Audrey Meadows, and I didn't ask Gloria Swanson.

Gloria Swanson. Wow. Oh, yeah. Where were these things shown, Dick? They were shown. We used to rent a hotel in the city. And this girl, Ray Pincher, we were very crazy and we said, why don't we have a black tie opening? And she was very good at PR

and she called the Monaco's Hotel and said, some people at Goodson Taubman made this silly movie. Is there any chance you'd lend us a ballroom? And they said, what? And they said, but you know, it's for Mark Goodson and Orson Bean will be there and all the- Orson Bean, a guest here on this very podcast. Yes, yes, yes. Robert Q. Lewis. So she got the ballroom for free. And then in the movie,

we had used old cars. So we called this car company and said, could we have a, can we rent old cars for celebrities? And they said, well, if they're big enough celebrities, you can have the old car. Anyway, it turned into a big joke. And Dorothy Kilgallen reviewed it as if it was a real thing. Oh, my friend Joan raved about it. She says, these are the funniest people in the world. And she mentioned your name in particular. Before I even met you at MAD, I knew your name. That's a weird coincidence. Yes.

And a weird connection. It is. And Al, you invented snappy answers for stupid questions. And can you tell us how that first came about? He loves that story. Yeah. As I do. Yes.

Well, the original story is that, although, you know, we all do snappy answers to stupid questions just naturally. Everyone does. But so I probably was doing it long before the event I'm about to tell you about, which crystallized into an idea of presenting it to MAD. into an idea of presenting it to mad. I worked at home and very often under high pressure because I was producing, writing, penciling, inking, the whole magilla of two comic books a month. And, you know, I burned the midnight oil a lot as page after page. So one day there was a storm and the antenna attached to our chimney was knocked over. I borrowed a ladder. I'm terrified

of heights. I go up and I try to tighten a strap. And I hear footsteps on the ladder behind me. And before I know it, my son's hot breath is up against my behind. And he says, where's mom? And I said, I have killed her and I'm stuffing her down the chimney. I have killed her and I'm stuffing her down the chimney. So the footsteps retreat very rapidly. Later, I had to pat him on the head and say, I didn't mean that. I was just scared up there with the ladder shaking and you in the back of me and all that.

But I kept thinking about it, saying, you know, there's something funny about it. It's sarcastic and nasty, but it's funny, and it happens all the time. And then I remembered an occasion where somebody had bumped into a tree on our block, and somebody had come by and said, have an accident? And I thought, in my mind, no thank you, I already had one. So, I put those two thoughts together, and I quickly wrote a bunch of ideas down on cheap paper, and I went into the editor Al Feldstein I got him right off the bat he said I love this I love it he had a nasty disposition anyway

that's true I would have appealed to him but no Al was he was sometimes difficult to get along with because he was tough. But he was also really quite talented. He was a good writer.

He was a good painter. And he graduated from the same school that Harvey Kurtzman and I and Will Elder and John Severin went to, the High School of Music and Art. and Will Elder and John Severin went to the High School of Music and Art. So, Feldstein, and he was also one of the creative geniuses with Bill Gaines on the horror comics, which was making them both rich until Mr. Wortham decided to kill the whole business. I think everybody pretty much knows that story. I read an interview with Feldstein. He said that he was, I think he was a little unhappy about the fact that Kurtzman got so much credit for MAD in the early days. And that he is often lost to history.

That's understandable. Lost to history. That's understandable because it's like somebody is running a push cart and along comes someone else and says, this looks like a good idea. Do you mind if I turn it into a restaurant? And next thing you know, you've got horn and hard art, you know. So who's going to get the credit? The guy with the push cart or the guy that does a chain of restaurants? Harvey Kurtzman was an idea man.

And he came up with a lot of very funny, outrageous things. And MAD was not financially successful under Harvey Kurtzman. It probably was holding its own, you know, just paying for what it cost. But it was Feldstein that brought it up to a million and a half or two million copies a month. With Harvey Kurtzman, maybe it was $55,000 or something like that. Harvey was more an artist than a businessman. Oh, with Harvey, it was all about the art. He would have paid a talent out of his own salary. He practically did that with me to get him to go along on some of his projects.

did that with me to get him to go along on some of his projects. So, and I loved Harvey, but I respected Feldstein. not a humorous man. But he surrounded himself with clever people like Nick Meglin and this guy. Dick. One day I'll learn to pronounce your name. That's D. Bartoli. D. Bartoli. I got to tell a story.

Sure. When the two of you came in before, and Al was saying, you know, I'm tired and angry. It took me, I had the longest cab ride. It took me, I had the longest cab ride. It took forever. It cost over $60 from my doctor's office. It was the longest. And Dick says to me, he goes, and your doctor lives in your building. He's quick.

He's the master of those quips. He's quick. I must have heard, in fact, I've repeated a lot of his without giving credit. Don't give him credit. No, I always give him credit. That's one I really witnessed between the two of you. Dick is one of the wittiest guys that Matt has. Now, there are a lot of very funny writers who are not witty at all in person.

And I'm right about that. Don Martin. Don Martin. Don Martin was not funny. Al Jaffe. We were going to ask you about Don Martin. Don Martin was so funny. I wrote like three of his books.

And I'm saying, so we're going to do this cowboy satire. Okay. I said, so there's 20 Indians. There are five Indians. Five Indians. Okay. And then there's covered wagons. There's a covered wagon.

He said, you're saying it. I'm drawing it. I don't want these big scenes. We were roommates on mad trips. I saw Don laugh out loud once. And it was because I loved dogs. And in Paris, we were walking down the street and there was this little French poodle. And I bent down to say hello to the dog. In Paris, we were walking down the street, and there was this little French poodle,

and I bent down to say hello to the dog, and the French poodle leaped at me, and I fell backwards. Don laughed for 20 minutes. And back in the hotel at night, he's going, He loves dogs. He loves dogs, and the dog hates them. He loves dogs. He loves dogs and the dog hates them. That's the only time that I saw Don, but cartoony.

But what a hilarious artist. Oh, my God. What a vision. When I would write stuff, I could not wait to see how it came back. Because he would add, you know, the people with the feet that fold over when they come to the curb. And the nose would go cover the mouth. Yes, and then the weird sound effects. He was 100% visual. Yes, yes, exactly.

Visual. When I was a kid, I sent away for Captain Klutz. Captain Klutz. Well, Dick worked on those books. Yeah. Yeah, there were – Jack – I forgot. There were three of us who wrote Captain Klutz books. And, you know, it was just let's do superheroes and let's do a crazy superhero.

And I don't know how it came up, but we kept thinking about what's the costume going to be? What's the costume going to be? What's the costume going to be? And then I don't know who – the three of us said, well, how about he's going to commit suicide and he jumps out the window. I remember. I remember this. You remember who did it? Oh, no. Go ahead.

He jumps off the roof. He accidentally falls into a pair of boxer shorts. That's right. Actually, a pair of long johns. Long johns. Yes. With the flap. Right.

And a husband is there, and he goes to his wife, this is the ugliest hat you've ever worn in your life. I'm throwing it out. And he falls, and the hat goes on his head. Right, right. I remember all this. And that's how captain klutz came about yeah no no right brilliant yeah the stuff was visually brilliant yeah so it's so

fascinating that he wasn't a funny guy in person i never knew that no he was not funny at all that's a newsflash i remember in one of the Don Martin books, someone says, oh, it's an eye doctor who's talking to his patient. And he goes, you know, you go to that, I think, like movie theater. It's like about, and the movie theater is right across the street. You can see it clearly. And the eye doctor is going, you can see it. It's like about 12 blocks away. There's a lot of trees in front of it and a lot of traffic.

What were the other characters, Fester and Carbuncle? Oh, my God. They used to be on the road. Yeah, Lance Parkatip, noted notary public. Of course, had all those books. With his dog. Yeah, no. We all took a crack at writing stuff for Don. I, no. We all took a crack at writing stuff for Don.

I'm sorry? We all took a crack at writing stuff. I wrote a number of them. Don Edwin did. Don Edwin did a lot of them. A lot of them. But it was Don Martin's interpretation. It's one thing to write a gag in an Italian restaurant.

And in the Italian restaurant, the waiter is going to come by and there's a piece of spaghetti hanging down. And then it's going to be some joke, you know. But then Don would take hold of it and you'd swear the spaghetti is alive. Yeah, no. You know, he would do things to it that I would never think of doing. And who was inventing the weird sound effects? He did. He did.

He did it. Yeah. Like goglier. Yes. What a mind. And point. Like the woman's wearing a tank top and one of her boobs comes out. Point.

Point. wearing a tank top and one of her boobs comes out. Now, what was the falling out then between Darn Martin and Matt? I think that his wife thought he should be doing more stuff. And I think she was unhappy with the pay scale and that he would be better if he just went on his own. And it was – and the funny thing is my letters went from hi, Dick, to dear Mr. DiBartolo when the split happened. Oh, geez. And then we had a book together. And when the book contract came up, the lawyer called and we actually split the book. I became – I retained the rights to the story and he retained the rights to the artwork.

And so I got an artist to reillustrate the book with my script and he got someone to put words to his drawings. It was very bizarre. I don't know. You know, we're not Bill Gaines, so I don't know the backfighting. And what I remember is then I look on the cover of Cracked, which was the ripoff of Mad, that said, now featuring Don Martin. They made a big deal out of it. He defected to the competition deal out of it. Yeah, that's where he went. He defected to the competition.

Oh, yes. Yeah. And so did a writer. Lou Silverstone went there, too. Lou Silverstone and the editor. I forget his name. Well, I just don't remember. It was a long time ago.

Speaking of Gaines, since his name keeps coming up. Oh, God. And the stories in your book are just, I mean, tell us about the first time. I know the first time you met him was over the telephone. Oh, well, I was writing stuff and I called Nick and I said, Nick, I don't have a check yet for the so-and-so story. And Nick said, oh, talk to Bill. I said, no, Bill. I said, don, talk to Bill. I said, no, Bill. I said, don't give me Bill.

I said, give me the bookkeeper. And Nick said, Bill is the bookkeeper. I said, I don't want to trouble him. And he said, hang on. So I hear another phone ring. And then I hear a voice say, who is it? And then he says, DeBartolo. Who the hell wants to talk to DeBartolo?

And then he says, hello. I go, Bill, I'm sorry. I was trying to ask about a check. I didn't want them to put it. And he laughs and he goes, welcome to MAD. This is how we treat people when they don't know us. Welcome to MADD. This is how we treat people when they don't know us.

And then we became great friends. He did love us. He did love you. He felt like we were part of his family. And he did. Can I tell the train trip? Tell it. Let's plug your book, too, while we're at it, which is called Good Days and Mad, and it's a terrific read. It's all about Bill.

And it's about your friendship, really. Yes. And then you have the four words that are written by various freelancers and contributors about – essentially about Bill. About Bill. It's great. Because he loved to do special things for people. And he said, write this date down. And I said, okay. And he said, and you'll be gone all day. That's all I'm telling you. I said, all right. And he said, and you're especially

going to like this. I said, great. So we get closer to the date and Bill says, go to Penn Station at 8 a.m. You'll be gone all day. I said, okay, fine, fine. So we go to Penn Station, and he invited 10 of us. And they announced the train, the Metroliner, to Boston. And Bill says, go down to the platform, but don't get on the train. So we go down to the platform, and the Metroliner pulls in. I said, Bill, what the hell is going on? He said, you will be surprised. Just stand here. So we're standing here. We hear a train whistle. And out of the tunnel comes a switch engine,

a little switch engine, pushing an 1890s restored observation car with three chefs standing on the observation car. Bill says, that is your surprise. We're going to Boston. They're hooking this observation car up to the Metroliner. We're having a champagne breakfast to Boston. When we get to Boston, they're going to put this car on a siding. You guys have 10 hours in Boston. I'm staying on the train.

And he said, at seven o'clock, we're going to have another dinner on the way back. And it was an unbelievable day. And on Monday, I said, Bill, that was one of the best days of my life. I said, how much did it cost? And he said, you want to know? I said, oh, how does somebody rent a train? And he said, how much did it cost? And he said, you want to know? I said, oh, how does somebody rent a train? And he said, it's $5,000 to rent a train, and then you have to pay 10 first-class fares for the number of people that ride it. But I said, it's astounding that you would think to do that. He did things like that, didn't he? Yes. He loved to do that. He did things like that, didn't he? Yes.

He loved the staff. He loved to surprise people. And, of course, people know about the trips that he took you guys to Haiti and to Moscow and to all kinds. And was Kenya at one point, too, and all kinds of exotic places. We went to Thailand. The funny thing is my take with Bill was never to be thankful. That was during the event. So we're in Tahiti, and it's this sunset. That was during the event. So we're in Tahiti and it's this sunset.

We're on the beach and you can see tropical fish in the water. And I say to Bill, how did you find this hell hole? And Bill says, only you could be sitting here and conjure the word hellhole. I said, well, Bill, I could be home cleaning up dog poop in Riverside Park if you didn't drag us here. So the whole thing was just to be thankless to everything. But, you know, he knew that we really loved him. And it was great. Now, another artist who I loved in Mad, and that's who used to do the movie parodies,

Mort Drucker. Yeah, how is Mort? Mort Drucker was everybody who has followed in Mort Druckucker's steps. Mort had to retire because of heart condition and other problems. But then along came other people who were doing it, like currently it's Tom Richmond, who is fantastic. Tom does a great job.

Richmond who is fantastic but they all Tom Richmond all the guys who followed Mort tipped their hat to Mort and say he's the master he was and he was the master he the my way of explaining Mort Mort's mastery is that you could recognize in one of his movie satires throwaway actors, doorman, you know, people in the movie who weren't even listed in the credits. Bit players. Bit players. Bit players. But he would get them. He would nail them. You know, one of my biggest honors is they did, Mad did a takeoff on Beverly Hills Cop 2.

And I saw Mort Drucker drew a picture of me. Yeah, that's great. And I thought, wow. Oh, and I'm sure he captured you, your personality. Well, he gave you a personality. Mort's around. Why don't you get him to sign that for you? Oh, my God, yeah.

You should. Oh, he would love to do that. Is he doing well? You know, I don't know. No, he's got health problems. love to do that. Yeah. Is he doing well? You know, I don't know. No, he's got health problems. Sorry to hear that. Yeah. He's quite brilliant.

Yeah. I remember Michael J. Fox on The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson said to Michael J. Fox, when did you really know you became famous? And he said, when Mort Drucker drew my likeness on the cover of Mad Magazine, I knew I was famous. And I was thinking, God, what a tribute to Mort and to Mad. The artists we grew up on. Yes. Aragonas and Al and the great Jack Davis.

Oh, see, Jack Davis, it was funny because he not only did Mad, but like every movie poster, every comedy guy. And album covers. Album covers as well. Yes, many posters. And it always looked like his characters, you know, it was still drawing, but it looked like everything was moving. Yeah, absolutely. He had a very spectacular talent for movement. The first article I wrote for Mad Magazine was about boxing. And Jack Davis was hired to do the boxing scenes.

Davis was hired to do the boxing scenes. When that came out and I looked at that and I thought, how did he capture what was in my head? I mean, I didn't even discuss it with him. That's great. I didn't even meet him. He was handed my script. It just – what I really wanted to show in this satire is I was satirizing the pleasure of beating someone to death. You know? So – because I'm just as fascinated as anyone about boxing lore. And, in fact, I used to watch the Friday night fights when I first got a television set because when you first get a television – when the first television sets came out, you would watch grass grow.

You know, it was so – such a thrill to watch anything. So I watched the Friday night fights. Of course, I look back on it and I say to myself, what kind of an idiot are you to become so anti that gratuitous violence? Put two people in a in an enclosure and tell them to beat each other's brains out. Now we're four. Exactly how I feel about it. And we are not succeeding. He's still breathing.

We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this. While we're talking about, before we move off of games, there's so many great Bill Gaines stories. But you were a game show writer. We talked about it in the intro. And you managed to get Bill to do To Tell the Truth. I did.

That's a good story. So I said, Bill, you should be on to tell the truth. And he said, well, I said, because you're a famous person. I saw that. Yeah. So he was on to tell the truth. And they got the two people that they briefed to pretend that they were Bill Gaines. games and no one guessed Bill. And that cheered Bill up no end because Bill refused to wear a suit and tie. And as a matter of fact, Jaffe really invented the t-shirt with the tie painted on it because Bill liked to go to expensive restaurants. Oh, he has a picture of it in the book. But he doesn't. So Al said, Bill, I'm going to make you a special T-shirt.

So he made a T-shirt with a tie. And when Bill would just wear a jacket over this T-shirt, he looked like he was wearing a shirt and tie. Well, I don't want to interrupt you. No, no, no. Go ahead. We were on the African trip. He took us on an African safari, and he wanted to go to the, what was the name of that?

Tree Tops. No, no, it wasn't Tree Tops. It was that very exclusive country club restaurant where you could not come in without a jacket and tie. And I had painted, well, I had given him this gift for his birthday sometime earlier, maybe six months or eight months earlier in New York, in Long Island, where he invited me and my wife at the time. And I gave it to them as a gag because I said, here, Bill, if you ever have to go to a restaurant, you don't have to wear a tie. I did a jacket with a lapel and a tie and even little buttons and everything. I spent a whole day painting this thing. So we're in this African poshest of all clubhouse restaurants.

I mean, this is where British royalty lived, practically. Your kind of place. He doesn't own a tie either. So I'm sitting there with a couple of the other guys on the trip. And Bill walks up and throws his chest out and says, hi, Jeff, having a good time? I said, yeah, Bill, what's not to have? I got a martini and there's all kinds of goodies here. He says, yeah, you're really having a good time? And he keeps pushing me with this.

And then he says, Jaffe, you blind fuck. Can't you see what I'm wearing? Great. And, oh, and the other artist, and I forget his name, of course, the Spy vs. Spy. Oh, Proheus. Oh, Proheus, yeah. Where did he come from? And Peter Cooper now.

Peter Cooper's been doing it for years. And where did he come from? Proheus was from Cuba, right? I know the story. Oh, go, go, go, go. Okay. He was an editorial cartoonist in Batista's Cuba. opportunist in Batistas, Cuba. This is before Castro. Well, Batistas, Cuba was so corrupt.

I mean, you know, people, men used to go there in flocks just to go to houses of prostitution, and there was gambling galore, and a lot of the American low-lifes owned casinos there. So, Prohias worked for a newspaper, and he did a cartoon, editorial cartoon, that sounded a little rebellious, or looked a little rebellious or looked a little rebellious. And the cops came after him, Batista's henchmen, and they let him know what his crime was and that he would hear from them. know what his crime was and that he would hear from them. And he knew he was going to wind up in a cement suit somewhere in the Caribbean. So he got the hell out of Cuba. He escaped and he came to the United States and he wanted to work as a cartoonist, and someone steered him to mad,

and he came in with a portfolio. He came in especially with Spy vs. Spy. I guess that was on his mind, having come from a Cuba that was formerly a dictatorship and then on the right, and now a dictatorship on the left with Castro. So the Spy vs. Spy, the left and the right, and now a dictatorship on the left with Castro. So the spy versus spy, the left and the right, inspired him. And Mad went for it immediately.

Of course, his calligraphic style was so unique and engaging that there was something magical about his work. And he did it for years and years and years. He did it for a long time. And then when he died, Peter Cooper took over. And I must say, Peter has not only kept it up, perhaps at times he's even enhanced it. He's especially written some very funny ideas that go beyond the original simple thing, stories that Proheus did.

But between the two of them, I put them both on the same plane. They both are terrific cartoonists. And the lighter side with Dave Berg. The lighter side of Dave Berg was – The lighter side of the heavy Dave Berg. Yeah, tell us something about Dave. Dave – Oh, I had the pleasure of meeting once at a Mad Christmas party.

Oh, did you? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and I liked him. You did like him? I did. Yeah. Dave thought we were doing real art or something.

I'm not quite sure. He always thought to Bill that there was something religious in what he did, that it was a teaching. Yes. And I think he wanted to do a book about the religious side of the lighter side of and bill said are you crazy it's like we we often get requests to do a teacher's guide to mad because teachers would often write in and say uh the only thing i get a student to read is mad and it's good because they read and they learn a little something. Could you do a teacher's guide to MAD?

And they wanted to do like the God's guide to MAD. And Bill would say, we have got, we have never have to, we can't do anything that makes MAD look good. And I remember once before an interview, I said, Bill, they always ask what mad's philosophy is. He said, so what? I said, so give me mad's philosophy

before the guy gets here. And Bill thinks, and he goes, how about this? Mad's philosophy is we must never stop reminding the reader how little value they get for their money. And I say, perfect. It's just perfect.

Who the hell was Kaputnik? And where did he come from? Kaputnik was just something. Just a funny word. Like Pots Reby? Yes, exactly. He would draw himself. Roger Kaputbe? Yes, exactly. He would draw himself. Roger Kaputnik?

Yes. They actually are from old Jewish lore. Potts Rebe is in Yiddish Potts Rebbe. Potts Rebbe is rabbi. Putz is your genitals. This is good stuff. The reason this expression came into being is that the Rebbe in Europe, in the shtetls, he was not a rabbi per se. He was a teacher. He was like a teacher in a parochial school. And they were very often violent. And their word was like from God

and they would hit you with sticks or rulers. And so in order to get back at them, you would call them names. And one of the names was Potzlebe, which is the saying, the teacher, the schmuck. Even Dick didn't know that. No.

Didn't know the history. No. It's good mad history. So he never heard that. I am glad I came. Natural. Joe Rayola is here, and he's the editor, senior editor of Mad is sitting out there. You're nodding.

Do you know that story, Joe? Didn't know it either. Yeah. No, no. You're educating everybody here. We got questions from fans on Facebook and Twitter when we posted that we had you guys. Can we ask you some of them? Oh, yeah.

No geography and no math. We'll go quickly as time is winding down. This is from Danny Duraney, and he says, our friend Danny Duraney helps us book this show. He says, be sure to ask Dick about the time that Lauren Bacall almost became Lauren DiBartolo. Oh. Lauren Bacall was on Match Game a lot, and we became very friendly, and we laugh it up in the makeup room. And I'm proud to say I was able to, she said, please call me Betty because her friends called her Betty.

And it was a time on the show when she came out and I would sit just off camera with the match game questions to hand to Rayburn. And Lauren came in and she stood there and she didn't sit down. And Gene said,

Lauren, are you going to sit? And she said, I'm in love with Dick DiBartolo. The clip is on YouTube. Yes, the clip is on youtube yes on youtube and then i did a you know the the camera went on and i saw i was on and i knocked the questions over and fell off the chair and you guys stayed friends didn't you yeah for a long time yeah i have a lauren Oh, hit us, Kate. She's my girl. I know, but I'll make this fast because otherwise it gets very— The National Cartoon Society was meeting in New York in the Astor Hotel. Okay.

Walled up in the Astor Hotel. Okay. So at the end of it, my wife and I, and I was very friendly with Johnny Hart and his wife, Pat. He did The Wizard of Id and— B.C. And B.C. Right, right. Very famous cartoonist. Johnny was another cartoonist. it's early, it's like 12 o'clock. We were young then.

Who wants to go to bed now? Let's go out into a bar and have a nightcap. We're in the bar having a nightcap. In walks Jason Robards, whose play A Thousand Clowns is across the street. And he's going to have a nightcap. and clowns is across the street, and he's going to have a nightcap. So my wife at the time, Ruth, was very forward, and she said something to Robards like, do you realize who these two guys are? These are two of the most famous cartoonists in the country. Would you like to meet them?

So Robarts came over and said, sure, just buy me a drink and I'll meet them. So we all had drinks together. And we all got very tiddly. And finally, he said, I don't want to end this. You come back to my place. Oh, my gosh. So we all piled into cars, went back to the Dakota. Yes. Wow. And we were in the living room, and it was getting later and later and later. And it was bizarre.

At some point, Robards got up and peed in the ice bucket. So, and then after that, he came over to me and Johnny says, your glass is empty. You need a refill. And I held up my glass and I said, okay, hold the ice. Great story. That's a great story. Oh, my God. That was great. But then now it's about four in the morning and a half-asleep woman comes marching in angry as hell.

And she says, do you guys realize he has a show tomorrow? I think he may have had a matinee. Oh, my God. And she kicked us out. Oh, my God. Very, very quickly. What a story. Now, speaking of that, that reminds me.

I mean, I used to be on Hollywood Squares, and it was fun. But when I was there, there was no drinking going on. And I heard in the early game shows, everybody was, like, totally sloshed. Well, it worked like—I think a lot of the drinking came when it went to California. Yeah. Because there was no restaurant nearby. And, you know, a week of game shows is done in one day. Yes.

I'm sure you're saying, right. So what they would do was do two shows in the morning, take an hour and a half for lunch break, and then do the three shows in the afternoon so that no one would leave the studio and get lost looking for a restaurant or get lost in Farmer's Market, which was nearby. They would serve wine at lunch.

And so people would start to drink wine and sometimes they would drink a lot of wine. And so the afternoon shows were always much looser than the morning shows. And we did that to a lesser degree in New York City when we taped at NBC. But it was the same deal where the celebrities would stay and have lunch and they would have lunch sent in. But it was wilder out there

because the New York match game had a totally different, same format, but it was only two out there because the New York match game had a totally different same format. But it was only two celebrities and four regular contestants. And California had six celebrities. So they could really have a cocktail hour among themselves. And with Gene Rayburn, of course. So there was – and I always like to believe there was drinking here at the – There's a little drinking. There's a little drinking.

There's a little drinking. Just a little. No peeing in ice buckets. Oh, Jaffe, stop. We got another question from a fan. Lucas Matt wants to know, Al, how did you feel about being honored by Stephen Colbert as a surprise on your 85th birthday? Well, naturally, the answer is I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed by my entire experience

with Stephen Colbert and, you know, the whole crew. The way I got involved with them is that they were putting out a book called America. And I got a telephone call from one of the producers who said we'd like to have a fold-in in the book. And I agreed to do it. and I agreed to do it. And when I finished the fold-in, I called up, and I said, I have it finished for you.

Will you send a messenger for it, or, you know, how do you want it? And I'll never forget this because it was such a nice thing to say, oh, please, Mr. Jaffe, could you deliver it yourself? Oh, they wanted to meet you. Yes. So I arrived there and I went to reception and she called up and she said, they want you to come upstairs. And all the writers and everybody was there. It was the most marvelous reception. So later on when they celebrated the book at a restaurant, they invited me to come there and Steve Colbert came over and sat down next to me. And he was just such a lovely guy and still is, I'm sure. Because he said to me, you know, we all grew up on your stuff and the rest of the mad gang of idiots.

I mean, we loved you guys. I always thought it was a crew of idiots. I mean, we loved you guys. And we... I always thought it was a crew of idiots. Yes. It used to be a crew of idiots. A crux of idiots. But anyway, that's how

I got to meet them. And then I was invited as a guest to the show. And well, actually, before that happened, my wife and I were returning from Mexico on a late flight, and we were dead tired, and we got into bed and had a case of the big eye, you know,

where you can't fall asleep, you're so over, absolutely overtaxed. And so Joyce said, turn on, you know, the show with Jon Stewart. The Daily Show. The Daily Show. So we turned it on and Jon Stewart was just finishing. Colbert was coming on. And the next thing I know, Colbert is saying, do you know whose birthday it is today? Al Jaffe. And a caricature of me flashed up on the screen.

Oh, that's great. And then he talked directly. I mean, we were, I'm still stunned. I can't remember what was said because it was so unbelievable. He said, and we baked a cake for Al Jaffe. And he got down from his chair and walked over to the table, and there was like a four-foot cake. And it said something on the cake. And it folded into a cupcake.

It was a fold-in cake. It folded into a cupcake. He pulled the center out. Right. Oh, how clever. And pushed it together, and it's the nice message on top turned into, Al, you are old.

Well, it was my 85th birthday. That was 10 years ago, almost to the day. Great. So, that's my only personal experience with him. And I later on did a fold-in for Matt that wound up with Colbert as the answer. Colbert as the answer. I don't remember exactly what it was, but he's a lovely guy. He comes from a very big family. Told me that I think he's the youngest of nine children or something like that. I think he has a sister who's a nun. Oh, is that so? Yeah, I believe so. I believe so. Do you guys think about things like that? Do you think about the legacy?

And I mean, how many comedy writers and comedians have been influenced by your work? Do you pinch yourself a little bit? No, never pinch yourself. But it's kind of fun. You know, so many people sent me emails that I had already heard it. Jerry Seinfeld getting coffee with celebrities. He and Howard Stern. And Howard Stern was saying, God, you know, when I was a kid, I longed to be one of the usual gang of idiots. And Jerry said, oh, I love mad. And they went on for like three minutes about how

much they love mad. And I just I just think, God, what I'm so glad to be associated with MAD. Me too. And, you know, especially guys who are slightly older. I remember once I got upgraded. Oh, you did? Yes. On a flight? On a flight.

A guy said to me, Dickie Bartolo, do you have anything to do with Mad? I said, yeah, I write the movie Satis. He goes, no Mad writer is going to be in Coach. Give me that ticket. You're in first. I thought, my God, thank you. You were two guys that just wanted to, you know, escape your circumstances and be funny and connect to people through humor.

Yeah, well, we did it. Look at all the people you've been, including the two people here. Yes. Gilbert and I, who've been reading the magazine forever. And I had fortunate. Oh, well, then there were all the failure stories. You know, if the Wortham thing hadn't come along and driven EC, driven all the horror titles out. Yeah.

Would Mad have ever, you think, how history changes things, would Mad have ever gone from being a comic book into a magazine? Well, it had to only because they ran out of material. Because original MAD, the comic, satirized only the comics. Right. And after 23 issues, which is almost two years, they thought, well, what do we do now? And then they thought, well, why don't we just satirize absolutely everything? And it couldn't look like a comic book anymore because it had to take on the look of what it was satirizing.

Yeah, Harvey wanted to satirize Life magazine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was ambitious. Mad Magazine, too, started – when Mad Magazine started, Senator Joe McCarthy in the House of Un-American Activities was going strong. Oh, yes. Right. But Mad didn't – Mad no longer fell under the comic code because it was a magazine. comic code because it was a magazine and Bill closed all the, Bill would not, did not want to subscribe to this code that they came up with. Well, because he hated censorship. He hated censorship. Yeah. And he just said, you know what? We'll start mad and it will be a comic, a comic, a comedy comic, and it's not going to come under this code. And then we can do it what we want.

And the rest is we want and the rest is history and the rest is history and speaking of bill and hate gilbert wanted to ask you about the movie up the academy oh my god do either of you have a reaction to that ron leapman who's starting it had his name taken off the picture i remember the old man office bill had the statue we still have it oh you still have it. And he chipped away the. Yes. It said Mad Magazine presents and they had chipped away the the P.

So it says Mad Magazine. That was a thrill for me. Yes. So the story was they sent Bill the script and we were working on a mad movie. And Warner Brothers said, we have this movie and if you like the script, we could make this the first mad movie. And then when you come out with a mad movie, we can have a franchise like National Lampoon. So based on the script, Bill said, yeah, this is a funny script. But then did you go to the preview? I may have.

Anyway. He blocked it from his memory. The movie was appalling. Appalling. Directed by Robert Downey Sr.? I'm sorry? Was it directed by Robert Downey Sr.? You know what?

I don't even remember. I believe it was. Des, do you know? Desmond Devlin, Matt Freelancer is here. Bill said, can you take Matt's name off it? And they said, no. We made like 3,000 prints. We can't take Matt's name off it.

But this is the great thing about Bill, about how ballsy he could be. So he said, Warner read Matt. The only thing they didn't read was the letters page. So Bill said, let's take out the letters page. And we will do Mad Magazine resents up the Academy on the letters page. And I think it was four panels. And then it says, wait a minute. This movie is so appalling, we can't even satirize it.

And let's just leave the next page blank. And so that, no one at Warner saw it until the magazine was printed. And Bill was willing to take that chance. And Bill was willing to take that chance. But he did pay, I believe he told me it was $10,000 to have his name removed when it went to DVD and VHS. So it no longer said Mad Magazine Presents. It was just up the account. Who was in the movie?

Ron Liebman, I think. Did Gilbert tell you that he had his name taken? Did you mention that? Yes, yes. Now, wasn't there something, too, with the statue that the statue was taken out at one point? Yes, I think they wanted no reference to Alfred in it. Joe is screaming.

What's Joe? Joe's at the glass and he's holding up 5-0. What's that? Come on in. 5-0. What's that? Come on in. 5-0. We'll cut this together. What are you saying, Joe? $50,000.

$50,000. Oh, $50,000. Thank you. Joe Rayola is here, senior editor of MADD, as we pointed out before. Thank you, Joe. To have MADD's name taken off it. And the statue. The statue is in our office.

Yeah, but wasn't they – The statue is actually, I believe, in the movie. But I think Bill paid the $50,000 to have Mads' name taken off it and the scene with the statue removed from the movie. So that there would be no Alfred E. Newman likeness because the statue was Alfred E. Newman. Yes. Right. Right. It was supposed to be kind of an Animal House knockoff, wasn't it?

Yes, exactly. Exactly. But it was. I saw it on TV. It was bad. Yeah. We'll get Ron Liebman in here at some point. Oh, my God, yes.

We'll upset him by asking about it. We'll talk about nothing but. Before we wrap, and we should let these gentlemen get on with their lives. They've been here a long time. Do you have one Harvey Kurtzman story, Al, to take us out on? One great Harvey anecdote? Or am I putting you on the spot? Oh, well, you're putting my addled memory on the spot. I'll tell you, one of the nice things in the book is that you guys went to high school

together. You and Will Elder were seniors. He was a freshman. Yes. And he said, even back then, one day I'm going to start a humor magazine. Yes. And you guys are going to work for me. Well, our experience, Will Elder and I somehow became, you know, the house cartoonists. Fine art was the stress, and it was a wonderful school for fine art.

I mean, I had a class in— LaGuardia, we should point out. Well, now it's LaGuardia. It used to be the High School of Music and Art. Now it's LaGuardia. It used to be the High School of Music and Art. And, in fact, I was in the auditorium when LaGuardia came on stage and blessed us all. Wow. Because he came on in his high-pitched voice and said,

My boys and girls, I am so proud of you. For people graduating from grade school or junior high school to select needle trays, automotive, aircraft, special schools. Printing. Printing. High school printing. Yeah. And all these auto mechanics even. All these special trades because we were in the Depression.

And, of course, earning a living was the most important thing. But he had noticed that there was no school that was really dedicated totally to the arts. So he created the High School of Music and Art. And I was fortunate enough to be in the first class with Will Elder, who was then Wolf Eisenberg. And one day, and Willie and I were actually selected for the high school of music and art out of the same junior high school. So we got to know each other and we lived a block apart. And we were in the gym one day.

And we were well known for drawing cartoons all the time, both of us. So we're in the gym, and we looked up on the bulletin board, and there was this hilarious series of cartoons depicting the freshman boat ride. And it was signed Harvey Kurtzman. Freshman Boat Ride, and it was signed Harvey Kurtzman. So someone came along to us at other times, at another time, and said, you better look to your—oh, as a matter of fact, that's how it really happened. Someone came and said, you better look to your laurels, you two wannabe cartoonists.. Go up to the gym and you'll see something by a freshman. And Willie and I raced up there and saw this. And we, you know, it was eye-opening. Harvey Kurtzman did a spoof of this boat ride that the freshman class was on. And there was so much funny schtick going on in this boat, you know, kids throwing up on other kids down below, and, you know, typical teenage stuff.

So we knew of Harvey, but unbeknownst to us is Harvey set his eyes on us. And later on, in later years, he came to me and he said, you know, I swore to myself that someday I'm going to have a publication of some sort and you and Willie are going to be in it. And that's the story of how we knew each other. Now, Will Elder also put out those books, the comic books. Or is that Will? You're thinking of Will Eisner. Will Eisner. Will Eisner.

Will Eisner. Will Eisner was my first boss. And this goes back a little bit. I know it's out of sequence, but you were talking about Dave Berg earlier. I went up to Will Eisner with samples, which I thought was such hot stuff, which I thought was such hot stuff, a comic idea that I titled Inferior Man, Defender of the Inept. And I thought that is funny, you know. Wow, they're going to go crazy for it. Well, Will Eisner liked it.

And he said, I'm going to hire you for $10 a week. And he gave me a seat and it happened to be right behind Dave Berg, who was doing something called Death Patrol, a wonderful comic at that time that I had. It was, I mean, it was just beautifully done in my view. And Dave took me under his wing, took me out and showed me places where I could get a cheap lunch and stuff like that. And we became friends socially for years afterwards. What fascinates me with Will Eisner is I love his books, but his books, I want to kill myself afterwards.

They're always so sad and so down. So what kind of a person was Will Eisner? Will himself was a very lovely man. very lovely man. I looked up to him as absolutely as if he was a god. He wrote, he created and wrote and drew the spirit. He hired, I know this is going to be, sound self-aggrandizing, but I have to say it. He hired some of the best. Jules Feiffer, he hired. Joe Kubert, he hired. And Vince Cardi and Bob Powell.

These were all terrific cartoonists who wrote and drew beautiful features for him. He was a packager. He did not publish anything. What he did is he discovered talent and put together comic books and delivered them to people who published them. people who published them. And so he had a wonderful eye, which was probably proved mostly when he let me go after six months. No, he did let me go, but in such a nice and friendly way and tried to send me to other people. And the reason was he was running my feature, Inferior Man, as a one-page filler. So if a story ran short, I would appear.

If the story filled up, if the stories filled up the whole magazine, Inferior Man did not appear. So under those circumstances, he didn't feel that I would be going anywhere with my feature. But I admired him enormously and met him later on in the military in the Pentagon, and we were always friendly to each other. Can you tell one more thing about comedy and tragedy? Comedy and tragedy, in my view, are different sides of the same coin. That's why when you see depictions of comedy, of masks, of comedy and drama, there's one sad mask and one happy mask.

And I think the best comedies and the best comedians have always come out of, you know, the lower classes where people are striving tremendously and going through hardships. And the thing that sustains them is seeing the humor even in their agonizing, agonized lives. And I think that so many of the early big comedians in the United States in the early days of vaudeville and radio and so on, they all came out of dire circumstances where there was nothing really to laugh about. Certainly Chaplin, yeah. Charlie Chaplin. Great example. And so many others. many others, they created humor to help people help themselves and help others survive.

Because you cannot survive in misery. And comedy is a release of tension. In my view, these are just my views, and I'm not a professor of comedy, but I have experienced in my own life how being funny, doing things that are funny, is an uplifting experience for yourself and for others. And so I've enjoyed a very long career. And there's nothing funny about that. No, seriously, folks. I really have had a very long career. I just recently celebrated my 95th birthday, and I'm still enjoying working. And you're still doing the fold-in. The latest fold-in that I

turned in is the best one by far that I've ever done. Really? That is great to hear. Wonderful. I am so thrilled with it. It hasn't come out yet. It will in the next issue of MAD. I expect it to come out.

And probably everyone will totally disagree with everything I've said. I doubt it. Now, okay, I should start wrapping up. Now, okay, I should start wrapping up. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my sidekick and my co-host. Sidekick sounds like he should be wearing a cape. Yeah, and a mask. With my co-host and fellow Mad Magazine reader, Frank Santopadre. Some of us have even written for the magazine for the last 25 years.

Yes, yes, Frank has written for it. I'll tell you, being in Aragonis' foldout in the book with the entire staff, you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yes, yes, yes. The big foldout on the poster and finding myself in there and finding that I was included in there is one of the thrills of my career. And I wrote an intro for one of their books. And I've seen myself pop up in a few of the cartoons, which is always a thrill.

Well, you guys influenced us. So thanks. Well, that's a sad note to end on. Yeah. Didn't mean to bring the room down. I want to plug the books before we go. Oh, yes. My God.

And Dick has some plugs, too. Yes. Go ahead. What do you got, Dick? Oh, okay. If you like weird gadgets and a fun show, I also do a podcast. It's called The Giz Whiz. You can read all about it

at gizwhiz.biz. gizwhiz.biz and there's also some mad stuff there that you can buy. There's even some original match game questions there. gizwhiz.biz And let me promote the book, too.

Even though you wrote it years ago, it's still available on Amazon and people can still buy it. A memoir by Dick DiBartolo. Yes. I said scoldingly. When did he start using the D? Matt, Good Days in Mad, a hysterical tour behind the scenes at Mad Magazine. And Al's book is riveting, Al Jaffe's Mad Life, written with Mary Lou Weissman and illustrated by Al.

Engrossing. I read it on a train. Couldn't put it down. Almost missed my stop. So once again, this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa. Thank you, Frank. And Desmond Devlin and Joe Rayola are here too.

Mad. Long time mad. And today we Devlin and Joe Rayola are here too. Mad. Long time mad. And today we've had the honor of talking to two legendary members of a legendary humor magazine. Dick T. Bartolo. He got it, Dick. Yeah. Whoa. And Al Jaffe.

Who? Thank you, gentlemen. Thanks for doing this. We appreciate it. It's going to be a very popular episode. And now, two-bit isn't TV because we're going to fold in Al Jaffe. Thank you, guys. Listen, Al Jaffe is capable of folding himself.