Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Alan Zweibel

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

GGACP celebrates 2025's Year of the Snake by revisiting a memorable Milton Berle anecdote, as told by Emmy-winning comedy writer and Thurber Prize-winning author Alan Zweibel. In this episode, Alan discusses (among other topics) the evolution of “Saturday Night Live,” the genius of Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon and the 2018 documentaries about longtime friends and collaborators Gilda Radner and Garry Shandling. Also, Desi Arnaz invents the sitcom, Jay Leno offers sage advice, Buck Henry makes a bad investment and Gilbert makes like Willy Loman. PLUS: Praising Kate McKinnon! Remembering Bruno Kirby (and Herb Sargent)! Mel Brooks comes to dinner! And Alan writes the Paul “Bridge Over Troubled Water” Simon Special! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. TV, comics, movie stars, hit singles and some toys. Trivia and dirty jokes and evening with the boys Once is never good enough for something so fantastic

TASTIC! So here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal classic. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, I've already forgotten the name of the show. Yeah, I haven't done it for a couple of weeks. I forgot the name of the podcast.

We've been off, you see. Yeah. I'm going to say it's Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santop Padre. Our guest this week is back for a return engagement on this podcast. He's a screenwriter, producer, playwright, children's book author, Thurber award winning novelist and Emmy award winning television writer. Award-winning novelist and Emmy Award-winning television writer. He's been honored with the Ian McKellen Hunter Award for lifetime achievement by the Writers

Guild of America. He wrote the screenplay for the feature films Dragnet, The Story of Us us and North on movie film critic Roger Ebert is still panning five years after his death. He collaborated with both Billy Crystal and Martin Short on their one-person shows, the Tony-winning 700 Sundays and Fame Becomes Me, and also served as a writer and producer on two of the most admired and innovative TV series of the last 30 years, Curb Your Enthusiastom, and Curb Your Enthusiastom, I give up, and it's Carrie Shandling's show, a program he also co-created. But he's perhaps best known as one of the staff writers of the original Saturday Night Live, penning classic comedy skits such as John Belushi's Samurai sketches and weekend update segments featuring beloved characters Emily Lattella and Roseanne Rosanadana. And that's not all.

He's also one of the executive producers of the soon to be released documentary Love, Gilda, about the life and work of his dear friend, the late great Gilda Radner. Both Frank and I have seen the film and it's terrific. Please welcome back to the podcast one of the funniest people in show business and the tallest Jew in America.

And a man who saw Uncle Milti's legendary member up close and personal and lived to tell about it, our pal Alan Schweibel. Well thank you for having me and those are very very nice words. Can I take that home with me? You can. I want to show my wife who she sleeps with. It's all yours, Alan. It's all mine.

Welcome back, buddy. So let's get back to the last interview where you saw Milton Berle's dick. That's all I want to talk about. We talked about it last time, but I can repeat the story if you want. Hey, you can never talk about Milton Berle's cock enough. You can never talk about it. Well, you know what, David? Was it David Brenner who was at the Friars Club, okay, walked into the steam room, saw Milton... I love it already.

...saw Milton sitting there, stark naked, saw Milton's cock, and David said that he thought that Milton had brought his son with her. I think that's attributed to Brenna, but God knows. What were the actual circumstances under which you were so blessed? Worth telling again. It was not only worth telling again, I will tell it whether or not you want to hear it and as a matter of fact on my way home to Jersey I'm gonna stop by the toll Whoever wants to hear it in their cars. I

Know burl hosted SNL. I guess it was like the fourth year that we were doing the show and Lauren sort of paired me with him because He told jokes. I had used to write jokes and, um, also I think that Lauren probably couldn't stand. Oh yeah. So he said, so the Alan, you, you, you go with him. I'm in Milton's dressing room.

Start there. Okay. I'm sitting on the couch and there's a coffee table in front of me and he's on the other side of the coffee table. So I'm sitting on the couch, coffee table, he's looking at me, he's wearing one of those bathrobes that come like mid-thigh, okay? And I say, Milton, you know, it's really amazing that I'm meeting you finally. I said, because for years, which was true, before I got the job on SNL, I used to write

for those fryer's roasts, those stag roasts. And you always wrote about whatever the stereotype was about the guy. So for Milton, it was always about his cock, you know. He used to write these jokes. And he was circumcised, they used the foreskin to cover the infield at Yankee Stadium. All these fucking big dick jokes. So I said, Milton, I said, it's so weird to meet you

after I talked about your cock, usually it's the other way around, you know? So he says so you haven't seen it now I'm getting scared okay because he's wearing this little short little bathrobe and I say uh no and he says would you like to and I am somewhere between the N and the O in no. Okay? Opens his robe and he takes out this anaconda. Okay?

And he just about like lays it onto the coffee table. But it's staring me in the face the way this microphone is right in front of my mouth. So he says, it's really something, isn't it? And I say something like, yeah, it's really something, right into the dick at this point. The door to the dressing room opens, it's Gilda looking for me, okay? And she walks in as I'm saying, yeah, it's really something.

And she says, I'll see you later, and she closes the door and left. Perfect. So that's my Milton World cocks story. Oh. That's rare company. Yeah. Yeah, it's...

I mean, he didn't show it to everybody. No, Wolf, what I understand, he showed it to anybody, whether they wanted to see it or not. Is that so? Oh. Yeah. I assumed it was a privilege. No, no, well, he made it you a privilege. it to anybody whether they wanted to see it or not. Oh. Yeah. I assumed it was a privilege.

No, no. Well, he made it you a privilege. Nobody requested, hey, I'd like to be privileged. No, he shoved this fucking thing in your face. And yeah, there were pictures at the Friars Club, like these paintings, okay? And there was one that was hanging for years in the dining room, it was a watercolor. And if you looked at the bottom,

the watercolors was in the shape of what looked like a penis. Incredible. Yeah. Yeah. You did maybe show number 14, we're talking about this before we turn the mics on, 14, 15, he was in, I think the first 15 or 20 shows for sure. The amount of times we've discussed Milti's members

since you've been here. Well, I'm happy to give you guys material. I'm happy to help out because it's legendary. It is, it's one of the stars of this show. It is. It's one of the stars of this show. It is. I see it sitting right there. So Lauren kind of immediately regretted booking Milti, Mr. Television, to host?

I can't speak for Lauren, but on paper, it made sense because when he was doing the Texaco hour, that was like the Saturday Night Live of that day. Here's the next generation. I'm not sure it was the same studio. It could have been. Then I don't know. But it's sort of, there was something sort of symmetrical about it and whatever. But he did some weird things which were just antithetical to the spirit

of the show. We were blocking his opening monologue. So that's usually done on a Thursday because the sets are being built for the more complicated sketches which you block on Friday. He's standing on the runway, you know, and takes his mark where the host still when they're giving the monologue and he's reading the monologue which is on cue cards and he gets to a point and he says to Dave Wilson who's the director, he says Dave, he talks into the boom mic, Dave is in the control room.

Dave, when I get to this line, I would like somebody to have put in a sound effect of a crowbar falling and hitting the studio floor and sort of reverberating before it comes to a stop. Dave Wilson said why and Milton said I hope you should be taking this down. Milton said because at that point I am going to ad lib. Repeat that line. I am going to add lib. It looks like NBC dropped another one. Well, fuck. You know, this was a live, you know, this was so opposite of everything. Later on in the same monologue, he got to a point where he told Dave Wilson once again to cut him off.

The bottom of the frame should be, let's say, at the belly button, right? And it was at the point where Milton will say that he just turned 70. He says, make sure you're at my belly button or higher. Why? Because his hands were going to be below frame and induce the audience to give him a standing ovation. Unbelievable. That just turned seven.

Okay? Yeah. So, did I say more? So he lost everybody pretty early in the week. He lost everybody pretty early and he... Because it's year four. I mean mean you guys were a unit now. You knew what you... you knew who you were, you knew how the show worked. Oh God!

You didn't put up with that kind of Hollywood shit. It's so funny because the cliché, like Jerry Lewis would do it as a joke. He'd come out, they'd be applauding and he'd give like the come on. And it was like a cliché comic thing more more. Yeah, like more more but burl actually did it seriously And if I'm not mistaken, that's that show is never repeated. I think that's true I think it's in the box set though for complete. Oh, I think it's finally it's in the box set I remember reading the Saturday Night Live book that came out in the 80s the one with by Hill and Weingrad was it? Jeff Weingrad, Doug, yeah, I remember them saying that Belushi was the one defending him that Belushi kept saying what's wrong with you people?

This is a great man. This is mr. Television Remember that now that you mentioned it that could have happened I don't remember it but there's no way I'm going to say that no way that that happened. Yeah, I heard it was Lucien Ackroyd in the beginning. Yeah, this is a great man and he invented television. Well, what John and Danny had, and I was just with Danny a couple of weeks ago up at the National Comedy Center that they opened in Jamestown, New York. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. They made it Jamestown because that's where Lucille Ball is from.

Mm-hmm. Okay. All right, so there's a good reason for your pilgrimage, okay? He and Danny, and we had a little SNL reunion on stage. We were interviewed by Ron Bennington, interviewed me, Dan Aykroyd and Lorraine Newman, and it was really a lot of fun, you know, just reminiscing. I'm sorry we missed that.

And Ron is a really good interviewer. But Dan, we had dinner with afterwards, and I haven't seen him a lot, but he and John had, so I don't doubt that at all, was an affection and a respect for what came before us. You know what I mean? And when you think about it, when you do parody, when you do any kind of satire, you've got to know who and what, what the straight line is, okay? But instead of making fun of the people that came before us, they embraced it. They found the artistry in, okay, that's what people were laughing at then, you know, and all of that.

So I don't doubt that for a second that they looked upon Milton as a pioneer, which he was. You had two hosts, interestingly, in those days that were early, that were television pioneers, Desi Arnaz, too. Well, Desi Arnaz was great. I mean, the fact that Ricky Ricardo came to host the show... I remember Schiller playing, doing the I Love Lucy spoof. Well, Tom Schiller's father, Bob Schiller, used to write the I Love Lucy show. Okay, and here's Lucy and all the other Lucy stuff that came after it.

And so he grew up on the set, Tom Schiller did. And he was friends, I think, with Desi Jr. So that was in his blood. So Tom would walk around the office sometimes just doing Desi Arnaz. That's great. He was great the way, but Desi Arnaz came at first not knowing anything else about him other

than he sang Bobba Lou and was married to Lucy okay I didn't know that he created the way we shoot situation comedies I didn't know that Desi Lou was at the cutting edge of what we now know is television so also they put Star Trek on the air they put Star Trek on the air. They put Star Trek on the air. And so he was older man. I believe he came in, I saw at least one bimbo.

I think that there were a couple of others. And then, boy, Lorne could tell you better than me but I seem to remember when he did Bobba Lou he's got into it so much and he's such an older man at this point. Desi Jr. was there too. He was on that episode. And he I think that the direction to Dave Wilson, the director, was, if Desi's lips turn blue, go to commercials. Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!

And I heard that during the week of making that show that Desi would walk around and go, see that thing over there? I invented that. Well, yeah, you invented everything. Yeah. You're gonna know, Desi Yeah Thomas Edison did the bulb not you But he was really personable and he was real funny and what I was really struck by I

Can't remember if he did it in this show if it was in a monologue or something But when he spoke about Lucy His face lit up. Oh, no kidding. This was so many years later. She was long married to Gary Morton He had the bimbos, right? Yeah, and and and but when he mentioned her it was like a kid with a crush That's nice to hear. It was really sweet. I I remember talking to It was like a kid with a crush. That's nice to hear. Sweet. I I remember talking to um, Uh, oh rob at osborne. Uh-huh and and I I I asked about because I said, you know Desi always cheated on lucy and they broke up and he said

One thing about them is like they might have had a horrible divorce and everything but they never stop being in love. That's what I got. I didn't know, but that's what I got from him. And up in Jamestown the next time you're there when you go to see the... You're in the National Comedy Museum. You're in there, Gil. You're in there. We'll have to find a horse and carriage to go carriage. We were actually invited to take part in it. We didn't make it. It was really fun. We had scheduled problems. I had a great time. I was interviewed by Lewis Black. We had a bunch of people show up for that and Lily was there.

Lily was there. Amy Schumer was there. It was great. But there's also the Lucy and Desi Museum there. Okay? Because she's from Jamestown. That's why they put it there. Oh, did you see the pictures of the original Lucy statue? Yes! That was unfortunate. That was incredibly unfortunate. And now they said, look, they've got another statue. Then they said to me, but the old statue that you're talking about is still there. It is.

It is. I didn't see it, but I asked if it was face down. Because it was horrifying. It's a monster. I know. It's something you run away from. Yes, it's like a Godzilla thing. It looks like the original idea before they perfected Planet of the Apes.

That's exactly right. There's a clip of you guys online. There's a couple of clips of you guys, the interview with Bennington. Oh, oh, oh, okay. clips of you guys the interview with Bennington oh you should everyone out there look up Lucille Ball original statue yeah the poor thing it was like that fresco they tried to repair did you see that thing no no I'll show you a picture of it but you guys were talking about how Lauren's mandate I thought this was interesting that was at the very beginning. I thought I knew everything about the original show

I never read this that he said the only rule was that you guys had to make each other laugh I mean, I try to make it often. I'm sure others have too that when we first started What what is this show? What are we gonna do? You were 24? I was 24. Wow. Let's make each other laugh. And if we make each other laugh, we'll put it on television. And weren't you originally offered like, hee-haw or something like that?

Oh, no, not hee-haw. Oh, God, let's clear this up right now. It's pretty damn close, but it wasn't hee-hgo. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was me and Roy Clark. It was between the two of us. I would love to see that. Alan Swybell and Junior Sample. Oh, no, no, no, no. It was Hollywood Squares.

Oh, okay. I was given a job. I was offered a job to write the questions and bluff answers for Paul Lind on the Hollywood Squares. Now for about 12 seconds, I'm going, all right, well, wait a second. Hollywood Squares is going into its ninth season. It's network, prime time, LA, the whole business is there. All of those stars have nightclub acts in their own shows.

This could be an entree into show business Whereas 1130 to 1 on Saturday night. Who the fuck is John Belushi? Do you know what I mean and all of that that 12 seconds way too long? It was probably a millisecond. Okay, I'm going but yeah, that was it I wish I was off at a hee haw. God damn. Gilbert likes to point out on this show that Paul Lin may have been an anti-semite. Have you heard this before? I know nothing about Paul Lin, but I'm gonna go along with it. When I was doing Hollywood Squares or Hee Haw, one of the producers was the producer of the original and he'd say like during lunch,

only celebs would be like, you know, having lunch, telling funny stories, everyone got along. Paul Lin would be bombed. Lunch? Yeah, yeah. He'd start drinking early in the day and he'd be wasted and real angry and he'd be going, oh those fucking Jews. They're the reason I don't have a career.

The Jews stood in my way every second. Fuck all those Jews. Jesus! This was confirmed by Bruce Valench. Every second, fuck all those tubes. Jesus. This was confirmed by Bruce Valench. Well, who did write those questions for Paul and those bluff answers for Paul? Well, he would know this.

I just wonder what he was pulling was like at dinner. I mean, this was lunch, and he had time for two or three more bottles maybe. Yes. Wow. You guys were talking about in the panel too, about how the show gained momentum. Lilly hosted the sixth show, Elliot Gould was the tenth show, and you were talking about how it just, how quickly it took off. It was interesting because the first show was George Carlin, and if you look at that

show, he did about three monologues. That's odd because it's sort of a George Carlin special. It was a George Carlin. Well, it was George Carlin, right? And also you had Andy Kaufman. Right. You also had Valerie Bromfield. I remember.

Okay, now Billy, Crystal was supposed to be on it. He was on it in dress rehearsal, but between dress and air, they told him to cut for like from seven minutes down to two or something. And he ended up not being on the first show. But the original game plan was you had a monologist doing three or four monologues in Carlin. You had Valerie Brownfield. You had, um, it was the other one that I said, Andy Kaufman, Mighty Bouncing. And you had Billy, it was supposed to be there. Also had two musical guests,

you had Janice Ian and Billy Preston. So by the time these guys, they performed, Weekend Update was three and a half minutes. People forget. People forget, and because Lorne reran that show when George died, and so I'm sitting here watching with my wife Rob and I'm going, wow, there's a lot of monologues here, you know? And Paul Simon did the next week, okay?

And so it was a little bit, it was a reunion with he and Artie Garfunkel, and it felt, it was starting to feel good. Rob Reiner did the third, Candy Bergen did the fourth. I can do every show, okay? It's like sense memory. Remember them all fondly. Yeah. And by the time Lily did it, and then Richard Pryor, you know, and then Candy came back again.

And Buck in there somewhere? Well, Buck was the 11th show. And okay, and so by the time we did the 10th show Elliot Gould, we really hit a stride and then it just kept on going from there. Always used to love when Buck hosted the show because it was having a great writer among us and having written all but one of the samurais, he was the guy who came in and ordered the sandwich from Samurai Deli. And wanted his pants, you know, shortened at the tailor. And took a sword to the head in one episode. Well that was... What had happened was we did Samurai Stockbroker, and this was a studio in Brooklyn. The reason we were in Brooklyn was they had taken 8H, where the show was done, and converted

it for the election returns of 1976. I never knew that. So we went to Brooklyn to one of the soap opera studios and they made it look like you know 8-H with sets and all of that. In that studio we did a Samurai stockbroker. A buck came in complaining and yelling at John, I believed what you said, I invested all my money in whatever the hell it was. Now I don't have a nickel left in my name. Okay? He says, if there was a window on that wall, I would jump out of it.

So Belushi takes out his sword to start hacking a window for Buck to jump out of. Oh wow. As he withdrew the sword, he hit right over here. And if you look at it, you can see him flinching. And then during the course of the show, everybody started wearing bandages. That's right. Everyone had to wear bandages. He flinched.

He's a pro because you see him flinch when he gets hit. But then he has to jump out that window. He has to jump out the window, and this wasn't exactly the best scored window you've ever seen. It looks like he could have hurt himself jumping out the window. Yeah, no, you really had to make an F to go out this window. You know what? Go ahead, Gil. You told a story in the last show that I'd like to hear again, and that's when you were in college Yeah, yeah, oh this is the essay yeah, this is the other box or something I actually

This is what happened One of my favorites do I was in College and this was during the Vietnam War. Okay, and I took a poetry writing course that I was failing, but miserably failing, okay? And if I failed this course, I would have failed out of college and there was a war. So I'm going, fuck, okay, this is no good. So I had to salvage a passing grade in this course, and I had a 92-year-old teacher, and it was Dr. Nora Rent, I still remember. And as my last poem to hand, given her age, I figured there's no way in hell that she was going to recognize that I handed in the lyrics to Paul Simon's song,

the boxer as my poem. Okay, handed in. This was on a Friday. Come Monday. It was good news. Not so great news. Good news was she didn't recognize it. The not so great news is she was so impressed by my poem that she wanted me to come up and read it to the class. Now, you've got to understand, the class, who's in the class? These are all 20 and 21 year old kids like myself. All have got record collections. And I'm about to go and read the liner notes of the biggest selling album of the fucking year.

It won like nine Grammys. So I'm begging her off and I'm going, no, no, no, I don't like talking in front of people. And she just prevails on me. So now I take my poem and I start walking to the front of the class and I check the time, you know, there's still like 45 minutes left in the period so there's no way I'm running out the clock. And I get in front of the class and I look over at my 92 year old teacher who was really very disappointed to see she

was still alive, okay? And I start reading. I am just a poor boy, though my story's told and told. I've squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises. All lies in chess, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. I take a breather, I look over the paper, your podcast audience can't see you, but the whole, all my friends are going,

what the fuck, what's this? They're like this, they're a gog. You know, and I look over, my 92 year old teacher, she's beaming at this Jew in Long Island who somehow captured the grittiness of New York streets and she goes, continue. I go, fuck me. When I left my home and my family, I was no more than a boy in the company of strangers

in the quiet of the railway station running scared. Laying low seeking out the poorer quarters where the ragged people go. Looking for the places only they would know. And that's when it happened. That's when all the kids in the class had enough of this horse shit and they all started singing, LILA LIE, LILA LIE, LILA LIE, LILA LIE. I can't even begin to tell you, but the weirdest reaction of all was the 92 year old teacher who said to the class, it's inspiring, isn't it? Great story. You worked with Paul so many times, you had to tell him that story.

He saw me do you on Letterman. Yeah? He wrote me an email the next day about how record sales of the box has soared. It was really funny. It was one of those emails you keep, you don't believe. While I nudge Gilbert awake, listen to these words from our sponsor. Are you speaking? The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications.

Or how about more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs. And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling Problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connexontario.ca. I'm George Shapiro, and I love, I'm listening to, and I'm dedicated to Gilbert Gottry amazing colossal podcast. Don't miss it. Don't miss it Perfect I thought that was good Did you feel my passion I did very much. I got a tear in my eye. Okay. I'm gonna go cause they're gonna tow my car away. Thank you. It's Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Podcast!

And now, sadly, we return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal podcast. I mean he just passed away recently but you were friends with Neil Simon. Well I knew him, we weren't pals, but he was an idol and I sought him out. He lived in LA when I did and we had the same as Zeus. Oh! Yeah, and he wrote me, and then when I had written a book, I think it was Bunny Bunny, which was my tribute to Gilda, I had sent him a copy of the book saying that, you know, I have so many of his books on my shelf, it's about time that he made some room for me.

And he wrote back a thank you note, he cited the masseuse and said, oh well, one degree of separation. He was a very, very witty man. You know who was also really smart was, when I think about that writing room. Oh yeah, with Gelbart. Gelbart. Oh insane. Tolkien. It's Tolkien and Mel and Carl. You go, wow.

And what's some Woody Allen in it? Woody Allen, Cal and Lady. There, you go Wow and what's from Woody Allen? What do you Alan yeah, yeah there was I don't know if I mentioned this the last time I was on Rob Reiner has a screening room at his house in LA and He shows on he showed maybe he still does I don't know on Sunday nights He would show movies. But they wouldn't be first run movies, they would be classic movies.

And because he's Rob, he can get somebody connected with the movie to be there. So if he showed Raging Bull, maybe De Niro or Scorsese watched the movie and we'd have dinner afterwards and it would be like a classroom, okay? It was, you know, asking questions about it this one night Each the the night was the theme of the night was Caesar's hour and your show is shows

Okay, so the guest of honor Will call Reiner and his wife is stealth. This is not a hard call for Rob to make it all, Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, Larry Gelbart and his wife, and Sid Caesar and I think his wife, but I know Sid was there. Now they're in the back row, the last row of Rob's screening room, I made sure that Robin and I were right

in front of them because I wanted to hear their reaction to seeing what they were watching. Oh yeah, the best seat. The best seat. Yeah. And the other people, the other ones at the kids' table were Larry David and his wife Laurie. I think Hanks was there with Rita Wilson. I want to say Shandling and his then girlfriend and Lovitz, who I know was by himself.

We were there and Billy Crystal and his wife Janice. So like I said, I purposely am in the next to last row and I'm watching Caesar's Hour and your show is show is now this is mid 90s. Okay. So it's 40 years since this was on television. And think about the bodies of work that they've produced since then. And this is what I'm hearing while we're watching and laughing. Larry Gelbart saying, oh, Doc wrote that sketch.

And then Mel saying, yeah, but Woody came in and gave him the joke about the ice. They were footnoting the sketches, who wrote it, who contributed. And I know that when I see an old show that we did SNL, I remember, Oh, yeah, Franklin and Davis wrote that. Oh, Jim Downey wrote that. It's ingrained in your head. But I don't know why I thought that these guys, given so many years, so many movies,

so many plays and whatever, wouldn't do that, but they did. It was fantastic. And afterwards we all ate and we sat sort of cross-legged under a table that was close to the floor and we had Wolfgang Puck food and because Rob is Rob, Wolfgang Puck prepared it for us. And this was like this, but this was a beautiful thing. We asked all these questions of the guys and no matter who we asked the question of, they made sure that they deflected it by way of Sid Caesar. It was still deferring to him all these years later. They were still deferring to dad.

How about that? The one who gave them their break. And he arguably didn't have the same careers that these other guys had after his show. The respect that they showed for him was beautiful. They made sure, Sid, you remember the thing that Alan just asked about? It was amazing to the point where the next day one of Rob Reiner's children had a birthday. So we pulled up for the birthday party and behind us, Carl, the grandfather, Reiner pulled up and as we're walking into the birthday party, I said to him I said Carl

What was it like for you guys last night because like for us? It's like we died and went to heaven It's like being in the Yankee locker room and he put his arm around me and he said Alan What you kids kids what you kids did for Sid you gave him ten more years on his life That's I mean the affection that he had for him, it was really, really a beautiful thing to say. It's interesting because he's been depicted, like in Laughter on the 23rd Floor, as such a difficult boss.

He must, he may have been, but let's, okay, let's put it this way. Maybe he was, so let's say that this is a wonderful tribute that the guys he hired. How sweet. Maybe it's more of a reflection on them, you know. It was just wonderful. And Larry Gelbart, one of my books, a book of short stories called Clothing Optional, I wanted, and I hardly knew Larry, I met him that night, maybe two or three other times. I emailed him and I asked him to pardon the intrusion, but I would love it. I said, I have a book of short stories. I was very, very, you know,

shy about it. I'd love a blurb from you if you see fit. If not, I understand. He asked me to send him five or six of the short stories. I did. He gave me a blurb and then to pay him back the next time I went out to LA, I said, I want to take you to lunch. And so we went to lunch and he was sick at this point. He had glasses that were really thick and I don't know what it may be a diabetes I honestly don't know what he had but I just was one of those lunches that you don't forget and it was three hours long and you know you don't care right it was great what it what it what a perfect guest he would have been for this show huh Larry

Gelbart oh just the perfect guest you mean he he he was a poet in a way with the English language. He thought of things that I'm not gonna say who, but a mutual friend was performing at Michael's pub. And we all went to see her. So it was me and Robin, Larry Gilbert, who I did not know at this point, and his wife. This is so long ago. It might have even been Gene Wilde and Gilda who died in 89. So she was either there or not. But it was, and this woman who was singing was the wife of somebody else at the table and she was dreadful. She was terrible and we don't know we're in the first table closest to the stage and we don't know where to look and her husband

is sitting there like swooning. He's got like love in his eyes. He's why and she was horrible and but he's just enchanted and Gilbert gives me a little nudge and I lean over and he indicates the husband and says Obviously love is also deaf I know who that singer was, but I'm not gonna say Since you brought up clothing optional, I just want to get our listeners to pick it up. It's on Amazon. Oh, thank you.

And it's so much fun. Thank you. And there's so much in there, Gilbert, that you would enjoy. Is it true that a young executive wanted you to cast Queen Latifah as Eleanor Roosevelt? Yeah. That's honest truth. This was for Fox. And I had, Fox I had a lot of problems with prior to that I had created a show that

was called Jerry's Kids. No connection. No connection. I love the title. No, no, no, no, no, no. I said, okay, let me name the guy Jerry. He's got kids. But that's with the similarity. But this was a family that had four

generations living in the same house. Okay so there's children's parents, children's parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. They accepted the script and now we go to we're starting to cast for the pilot and the head of Fox at the time, I get this memo, nobody in the show should be above 50. So I start doing the math. I've got great grandparents here. Now, unless these are the most Amish people who ever lived, how's that going to work? Okay. lived. How's that going to work? Okay. Also at Fox was I had written something, I can't even remember what it was, but Eleanor Roosevelt was in it, okay? Queen Latifah was really hot at the time. And so when they suggested it with the explanation that nobody knows Eleanor Roosevelt, everybody knows Queen Latifah, I'm going, wow, what a disconnect that we have. That's what, that's the guy's honest truth.

It's one of the funniest things in the book, which I will recommend. As I said, it's on Amazon, as is your, your Thurber winning book, The Other Shulman. The Other Shulman is also on there. Which is, which is also a lot of fun. But I want to ask you, since we're talking about Gilda and we're talking about SNL, let's talk about the new movie a little bit, which both Gilbert and I have seen. Well, originally they were going to name it Love Gilbert, okay? Yes! Well, that's in Bunny Bunny. Right. Why you called her Gilbert? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Gilda and I were friends. We became friends the very first day of SNL and we started hanging out together and yes

When she started becoming famous it spooked her a little bit We're here. She was this this this adorable girl and she was so funny and but she was scared of the big city she was from Detroit Okay, and I think part of the reason that she felt comfortable with me In addition to me not being a sexual threat What I knew this city I'm from here, you know, So we hung out, we had lots of dinners and whatever. And I remember we went to a basketball game, we went to Madison Square Garden, and we walk in and as we're making our way to the seats, people are yelling, hey, Gilda, and Gilda, you know, I also have a needing disorder. I also, they

knew stuff all about her, all these strangers. And I remember afterwards, she said, listen, I'd rather you, could you not call me Gilda anymore? And I said, well, isn't that your name? She says, that's what everybody calls me. Can you do me a favor and call me something else so it's special? So I said, would you like me to call you? And she said, Gilbert. Who knew? Who knew?

But this documentary is the brainchild of a woman named Lisa Diapolito. I hope I'm pronouncing it right, because there's an apostrophe somewhere, and God knows what to do with those things. I think that's right. Okay, Diapolito. Diapolito. And she worked on it for many years. I don't know exactly how many, but we saw it.

I saw a rough cut of it. My wife Robin and I became executive producers on it, which was basically, it was a very interesting thing. My role on it was to get people to be interviewed that she couldn't get to. But also we gave her a lot of stuff. Gilda was the godmother of our three kids. So when the kids came to when Love, Gilda, the documentary opened the Tribeca Film Festival, the kids are sitting there and they're on the screen, they're going, oh, I remember that, Seda. Oh, that's great. And then some pieces, our home movies are in it. Gilda and Gina singing Happy Birthday to our son Adam, his first birthday.

Okay, and they were at the party. So there was a lot of that stuff. So I've seen the movie a few times and I think Lisa did a really terrific job. It's lovely. It's clearly a labor of love. Yeah. And not only from Lisa, but from all the people involved myself and Robin included and what they have was Aside from the people that Gilda work with and knew her What was really touching for me was Amy Pola? Okay, Maya and Maya Rudolph and um Melissa McCarthy

Yeah, and was it Hader Bill Hader Bill Hader they read from Gilda's Diaries and you can see And was it Hayter? Bill Hayter. They read from Gilda's diaries and you can see, one of them even says this, I mean, she actually wrote these words. I'm touching the actual paper. It was like, you know, the reverence they had, like it was the Dead Sea Scrolls. There was that kind of respect for it, you know, they were in awe of what they were holding and what they were reading. Yeah. It's the, I have to urge, when is it open, by the way? September 21st. Okay, so we're gonna urge our listeners, we'll time this so that it comes out

right just before the movie. Well, you can do it like September 25th and say, boy, you guys missed something really good. Yeah. Go that way with that, leave that up there. Gilbert, you and Dara went. Oh, yeah. You went to your screening.

Yeah. Yeah. Very sweet. I learned things I didn't know. I didn't know she was the first screening? Yeah. Yeah. Very sweet. I learned things I didn't know. I didn't know she was the first cast member hired. I never knew that. Yeah. I remember even when I was still debating the big hee-haw question. I had heard that this girl named Gilda was hired. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many touching things. The other thing I didn't know, I never knew Emily Lattella was based on her grandmother. It was actually a nanny. Oh, a nanny. It was a nanny. Oh, I thought it was Nana. No, no. An actual Nana. An actual nanny and she was

hard of hearing and guilty. And, but that was a true collaborative effort. I think that Tom Davis gave her the name Emily Lutela and Late great Tom Davis. Yeah, Al Franken's funny man funny funny man. Yeah, you know, so we all contributed to that but you know, it was this little old lady who Couldn't was a little hardy hearing so she would talk about Saving Soviet jewelry, you know, or your presidential erections. And what was the marriage like between Gilda and Jean Waller? Well, it was, I think it saved Gilda's life. Gilda had a world of demons, okay?

She was bulimic, and this was nothing out of school. It's all over the place. She drank a little bit, and she was really not healthy at all. And when she went to do a movie called Hanky Panky that she co-starred with Gene Wilder here she met an older guy who basically took her under his wing aside from falling in love and all of that stuff sent it to a battery of doctors and within time the bulimia was over and the drinking was over and basically it saved her to a great extent. But he was older

and so Gilda would treat him like an old man. In church you'd make a reference to something or you wouldn't know blood, sweat and tears because you're so fucking old. You know, Kate Kaiser, maybe you know him. But it was, and then Rob and my wife and Gilda became very very close So that was a lot of fun and the two of them would make fun of Jean also, but Jean was a He he was a great cook he was a chef he was also a francophile if you went over his house Yeah, that's in the movie. It's fun. Oh my god you go over his house It's a fucking cheese course. Okay but five cheese courses because you have to each course there's another thing of cheese and

One time I really pissed him off because He put out some camembert, bree-ish kind of thing that was aged and whatever that we were supposed to just do a palette with. And when he turned around, I got rid of that and I put a square of American cheese. By the way, how's Richard Fader, your brother-in-law? Richard Fader. For people that don't know.

Those of you who don't know, when Gilder and I created this character called Rosanne, Rosanne, and Dana, the first couple of them, if you look, we use people on the crew and on the staff. And about the third or fourth time, I wrote in Richard Fader from Fort Lee, New Jersey, who was married to my sister, and they lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Gilder just like saying his name, so it became a running thing that this idiot would write a letter every week, ask the stupidest questions, okay, and she would answer to him and he had to change his phone number or he would and he also at one point I remember my mother telling me this was when the when that character was very popular she says we're thinking of uh Richie Fader. Fader is thinking

of making t-shirts. I said well what will the t-shirt say? It will say I'm Richard Fader is thinking of making t-shirts. I said, what will the t-shirt say? He will say, I'm Richard Fader from Fort Lee, New Jersey. He was gonna capitalize. Yeah, but I said, I said, unless he pays for his own t-shirt, who else is gonna buy this? Unless your name is Richard Fader from Forlady, New Jersey, okay? If I'm Bob Watson from Freeport, Long Island Why am I wearing a t-shirt that says I'm Richard Fader from Forlady, New Jersey?

So there was a little miscalculation, but he's okay. She wind up in Toronto because she followed a guy there. I mean, that's just like Andrea Martin did. Oh, remember Andrea Martin told us that? That she wound up in Canada because she was following a guy. The guy was in, you're a good man, Charlie Brown. And Gildo followed a guy up to Toronto. Now, I'm trying to remember who the guy was because I know when she was in Toronto for a while, and I don't know if she followed Marcus O'Hara,

Catherine O'Hara's brother. Interesting. Or met him there and started going out with him there. So I don't know if he was the ticket to run the business. Lot of close connections here. All very incestuous. It's great when Marty Short says the saddest thing he ever saw was her audition for Godspell where she just got up and sang Zippity Doo Dah.

Yeah. For Godspell. And she got it. Imagine that. It's great too, Doc, because you're tracking not only Gilda's life, but you're tracking that period of comedy from Second City to Lemmings to the National Lampoon Show to how the SNL cast is put together. I think that those pictures where you see Harold Ramis and Brian Del Monte and Bill Murray, you know, the genealogical chart that you could make,

you think about Second City in total, start with Mike Nichols and Elaine May and go through all the different generations who came out of there. But you're absolutely right. That stuff is, generations who came out of there but you're absolutely right that stuff is there's a little bit of a fun history lesson yeah if you're a fan of comedy in the 20th century you also you have to see the movie for that reason. I mean you look at Paul Schaeffer with a full head of hair. From Godspell. From Godspell. Right. Right. Who knew? Yeah. Yeah it's fun too to see the the you guys are talking about how you were insulated from success she talks about in the the, you guys are talking about how you were insulated from success, she talks about in the movie, how you guys were locked away up in the studio.

Absolutely. And in a way you didn't know what was happening until the Mardi Gras show. The Mardi Gras show, there was a live show from the Mardi Gras and you talk about miscalculations, there was, Gilda, as Emily Lattella got attacked by a bunch of college kids, went after Emily Lattella. She was okay, she didn't get hurt and nothing horrible happened. But it was, I don't know if you've ever been in New Orleans or in Marty Grogge. Have you, Gil? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, haven't been. It's a vomit bath. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's scary. It's scary. And what happened was we had a vomit bath. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's scary. It's scary. And what happened was we had a reviewing stand. So it was Buck Henry and Jane Curtin doing Weekend Update live from the Mardi Gras on

a reviewing stand. Okay? And every time they were to be on TV, the lights came on them, which was a signal for this throng of drunken kids, you know, those doubloons, those- Oh, yeah. To start hurling them at them, okay? Now, at the start, what I had written with Buck and Herb Sargent, we had gotten a rundown of what the Backest Day Parade, what the floats and all of the things would be as they would pass the

reviewing stand. So it wrote jokes about all of those things. How are we supposed to know that at the beginning of the parade something terrible happened? They stopped it. Somebody got killed. stopped it. Somebody got killed. So now the lights come up. Not only are they getting pelted with doubloons, I'm under the Weekend Update desk writing jokes about what they would have seen. And I remember the last joke I wrote was that Mardi Gras is French for no parade. There was no parade. But yeah, that was a zoo. That was the moment for a lot of the cast members that they realized. We were outside of the confines of the studio

where there was decorum. Now, we got a little hint of it because I as a writer would do a college dates where I give speeches, okay? And I'd go there and I'd go, wait a second, this auditorium is filled for a writer. And they would applaud if you said Roseanne, Roseanne and Danny, and you go, wow. But you understand also, this was our first job,

I thought that this is what life was like. Yeah. Oh yeah, your writers go and they get this kind of recognition. I can't imagine you being in that kind of circus at 24, 25 years old. Well, yeah. You were so young.

It was so young, but having just about everybody with the exception of Lorne, I want to say Chevy, maybe Marilyn Miller or maybe Rosie Schuster also, no one worked in TV before. So when Lorne says, okay, let's make each other laugh, we'll put it on television. And Herb, of course. Oh, Herb Sargent, of course. Herb was 54 when we started. And Marilyn Miller coined this phrase, hey kids, let's put on a show.

So we just did this. And the impact, there were certain times, like when Gilda at Madison Square Garden, at the Mardi Gras show, at the college dates. But when we left the show in 1980, then it really sunk in because we had spent all our Saturday nights in the studio. Now you're out there in the world.

And so when people tell you where they were on Saturday nights, what they did, how it was part of their constitution and everything. It was really, and then I went back a few times to be a guest writer years later. The host, if you liked somebody, I don't know if they still do what they may, I just don't know. So when Eddie Murphy hosted, he asked me to be his writer. When Shandling hosted, because I created the Shandling show, so it was during the run of

that. And also, my good friend Jesse Jackson, for some reason. Jesse Jackson asked you to come in? He didn't ask me. Dick Ebersol, who was the producer. I see. Maybe he wanted some protection. I don't know.

He said, Jesse Jackson is hosting, can you come and write the show this week? I said, where do I come to Jesse Jackson? He said, what if I said please? I said, okay, fine, I'm coming. I told you downstairs, I was there the night that Marty interviewed you at the Y, and you were talking about,

I was kind of touching that you still watch the show, that it's your alma mater. So you and Robin still sit down on Saturday night. Or Sunday morning, because we're all Jews now. On Sunday morning. you still watch the show that it's your alma mater. So you and Robin still sit down on Saturday night. Or Sunday morning, because we're all Jews now. On Sunday morning. But you're still watching. Oh, yeah.

Look, you root for your high school football team. You're too old to play for it, but fuck. You're still root for it. And I actually, I look at the show, and I see, I think Kay McKinnon is like a gift from God. She's great. You know, and so they get people that you go, wow, I like watching this, you know. Yeah.

What did you learn from being that young and experience that kind of fame? What were some of the things you learned about fame and dealing with it? Well, I think that not so much as a writer, but from what I witnessed, you know, from cast members or whatever, you know, it's all the cliches that it's fleeting. There are people who are coming up right behind you. And I think not to take it too seriously.

Do you know what I mean? It's not, and it's hard not to take it seriously Do you know what I mean? It's not It And it's hard not to take it seriously because it is a mark of your success You you how do we measure that kind of success? Well people you're famous a lot of people know you and like you but I think Having your own family, something to ground you was very, very important. And I think a lot of people learned that because they realized that that was like a fistful

air in a way. You know, I watched the Shanley documentary and this Leno has that interesting line where he says, show business as a hooker, don't fall in love with a hooker. Yeah. Which was really, really profound. No, I mean, I thought Judd did a great job did a great job on that Shanley documentary. And, you know, Gary was a fascinating character. He I'm still not over his death only because we didn't really have a chance to fully reconcile before he died.

We were moving in that direction. And in fact, I was in LA on a Saturday and a Sunday. We couldn't, for some reason, we couldn't get together. We said we'd speak that week and he died that week, okay? But when I watched it or when I spoke at his a memorial mm-hmm and I saw that everybody else had Did you know Gary did you know well? I'm not well. I mean I'd run into him we talk yeah I knew he was a fan. Yeah, I remember long ago. He was a big fan of yours He um very complicated guy

you know and Very spiritual you know I had At his memorial. I told you last time how I met him didn't I? The phone call yeah, yeah, yeah of the night Yeah, well, he would call in the middle of the night or he'd call like six o'clock Sunday morning So the phone rings in the hour. the night or he'd call like six o'clock Sunday morning. So the phone rings in your house. This is the days before caller ID.

So six o'clock in the morning if the phone rings in your house, for us it was one of two things. Either someone's dead or it's shandling. And me and Robin used to debate which was worse than this. So there's one morning, it's literally six or seven o'clock Sunday morning, and I tell this story because I was talking about channeling spirituality, okay? So it was my turn to talk at the memorial and I'm talking about this one morning, it's six in the morning, the phone rings and Robin just picks up the phone and hands it over to me. Okay, doesn't even talk into it. And I go, Hello, Alan, it's Gary. No, hey, man, what's

doing? Alan, I had a date last night. Oh, yeah, how did it go? Well, we were in bed and the girl said no fingers in the ass. And I said, look, it's my finger and it's my ass. And if that's where I want to put it, you don't have a vote. So I tell this joke, it's a great, everybody's laughing. And Judd comes out to introduce the next speaker and it's a Buddhist monk with robes and a thing. Talking about fingers in the ass. Oh, hilarious.

So that was both sides of Gary. Before we talk more about Gary, Gilbert, you got on stage at 15, right? Yeah. So you must have been somewhat famous by 24 or by 25. I was not getting fame, fail miserably. How did you deal with it? Like I was on Saturday Night Live and worst, worst season.

Yeah, was that the Gene DeMagnon season? Yeah. Those are the only ones Alan didn't watch. Yeah. Who else was that the Gene de Mania and sees yeah. Yeah, those are the only ones Alan didn't watch. Yeah Was in the cast. Okay, uh Joe Piscopo Eddie Murphy was originally a featured player then he became a regular, uh Charlie rocket Denny Dillon Denny Dillon and

Rizzo Lee Gal Mathias Wow and I mean people were attacking that show before it ever ended because how dare you? Yeah. It was like, if in the middle of Beatlemania, you got rid of the Beatles and had four new guys. So I did that and that was supposed to be my big break and I, that was horrible failure. And I followed that with another big success. Think of the night. Oh geez. Yeah. That was going to be Alan Thicke knocking Carson off the air and Carson's off the air. Well don't forget

Norman's Corner as your third act. What was Norman's Corner? Yes, Norman's Corner, they were gonna, it was called a backdoor pilot, which is like you make a special with the hopes that people will like it and and make it into a series. So that was terrible. Larry David wrote it. I starred in it. It was terrible. It was so bad that when they were discussing doing a show that Seinfeld would star in, they said, well, who's going to be writing this show? And they said Larry David. And one of the execs at NBC said, isn't he the one that wrote that piece of shit for Gilbert Gottfried?

It was a Cinemax comedy experiment. You remember those? Of course I do. Yeah. I don't remember Norman's Corner. Norman's Corner. He was a newsstand owner and Arnold Stang was in it. That's all you need to know. Oh, the chunky guy. Oh, wow. Oh, man. I remember hanging out at the Improv. If I was 23, I don't know how much younger you are than I am, I was born in 50. Yeah, I was born in 55.

55. So if I was 23, you were 18, and you were doing... Oh, still doing... He's still doing it. With a few folks at home. It was with the bar trays. Yes, yes. It was the funniest thing.

And the Mickey Mouse ears. The Mickey Mouse ears and iron side and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey Mouse ears and the Mickey You know, you folks at home, it was with the bar trays. Still doing it. It was the funniest thing. And the Mickey Mouse ears. The Mickey Mouse ears and iron side. Who was this, was it Louisa Franklin? Oh. Oh.

Oh, was it a National Geographic joke? Yeah, yeah. That's what it was. Yeah. Okay, Jesus. She's not even cold yet. Look what I did. What I just did What I did.

Sit on the radio. You're still doing it. How did you handle that kind of fame? You were in your 20s. Yeah. I didn't really get the good fame until I did MTV. And that's when I got the good fame. But it's weird.

It's like now, you know, you look back on it and you go, Oh, I could see why it would drive a person nutty. Yeah. It's a very interesting thing because, um, and some of the very famous people that we've both met, um, I, I, some of them, they're still conflicted because they go to a restaurant with you and they go, oh no, here they come, here they come, you know, the autograph seekers and the people who want selfies, okay? But God forbid nobody comes to the table for an autograph for a selfie. They think they're out of the business, okay, and they look, and then, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

do you know what I'm saying? So where are you happy? What do you want to happen? What do you want? Yeah, I know when I walk down the street and I'll see a group of people think, okay, well, now they all want their picture taken with me. And then no one will ask, and I'll go, oh, fuck.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, fuck. Yeah. You say that. I mean, how funny is that? So it's like, neither here nor there. What is it? Yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal podcast after this. I got to ask you a couple of things before we move off of Gilder.

Just a couple of things about Bunny Bunny, which I went back and read and Gilbert you'll appreciate there's an Irving Vileshahs reference Ah in it. Did you first of all, this is just total trivia Did you rent Larry Fiennes old house when you were okay? There's a fib. Okay, there's a fib. Okay You know when I wrote bunny bunny Okay. You know, when I wrote Bunny Bunny, the first draft was pure therapy to get over the loss of a friend. It was at the urging of Robin. She said, your best friend died.

You haven't even cried yet. This was two, three years later. So my form of therapy was to try to relive everything that I can remember. Where did we meet? It was 14 years of conversations as I remembered them. I wasn't wired, so I knew that. But to capture the essence from when we first met to a eulogy I gave at her memorial, that was probably the most at her memorial. That was probably the most honest, heartfelt version

of my feelings for Gilda and our history. The minute I decide to get it published, okay, I'm going, all right, look, we need a better joke here. You take this scene and that scene and put it, so you lower the bar a little bit, you know. Well, you also have to turn it into drama. You have to make it into a play. You've got to give it into an arc and all of that.

I had rented, do you remember there was a singer named Frida Payne? Sure, band of gold. Band of gold. I rented her house. Okay. Okay. Still good. And in the first draft of Bunny Bunny, it was still Frida Payne. And I'm going You know, I don't know if people know fear of pain who'd be funnier. So I made it Larry

Still works Also, he also recorded bandicole Few people know that but but even when I do my speaking engagements I say Larry fine and people laugh go, he was my landlord. In the living room, there was a dent in the wall, and I figured, oh, Moe must have done that. And so it's my little three stooges little thing. And trying to pick up a girl at the Anne Frank house?

Oh, that I did. Oh, okay. Yeah, that was pathetic. That was pathetic. I went to Europe by myself, and I tried to pick up a girl at Anne Frank's house. Oh, jeez. This was the lowest. Even Gilbert wouldn't do that.

No, people are crying, and they're looking, and we're in the attic. And I go over to this American girl, and I go, you know, I got an Emmy. You know. Oh, fuck. I go, you know, I got an Emmy. You know. I said something about an Emmy and I think I said something about it being at my hotel room. Like I went to Europe with the Emmy. Funny, funny, I have to, that last line gets me. It's a beautiful thing.

Why does God make people then take them back when they're just starting to have fun with the life that he gave them? It's a beautiful sentiment. That's a beautiful sentiment. That I wrote for the eulogy, thank you. And the other line that I'm real, really, which honestly really happened, we had this platonic relationship, okay? And like most platonic relationships, one person doesn't want it to be platonic. You go, okay, if these are the rules, fine, I'll live by it.

But one of these days you'll wake up and see the glory that's in front of you. Well, this was 14 years, okay, of a platonic relationship. And God knows I tried my best to make it not platonic. When she got cancer and she was at Cetus Sinai, I went to give blood and I'm on the gurney and the nurse hands me a pad and a pen and I say what's this? She says well Gilda likes to know whose blood she's getting write something nice she's having a tough time. And I wrote, dear Gilbert, Gilbert, I know I get some fluid of mine into you one way or another. Nice.

Nice, it's a bunny bunny's a beautiful piece of work, Alan. Thank you, and next year is the 30th anniversary of her death, so I had adapted it, it was an off-Broadway play. And now there's some people who are wanting to bring it to Broadway and I would love it. So stay tuned. Tell us one thing about Bruno Kirby who played you. It was the he's a great he was a great guy. It was so miscast. You know, I wrote this for my voice of a big, awkward, neurotic Jew. And so when

we first started raising money to form Gilder's Club, because it's written in dialogue form, the two people, James L. Brooks, staged these big readings at the Walter Kerr Theatre here at the Geffen in LA, and it was Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander. And they were great, because they are great, and Jason, neurotic Jew. This wasn't a stretch. When we were out of town before New York, they cast Bruno Kirby, and I'm going, well, Bruno's's a great guy and I love him as an actor but This is not a neurotic too, you know

He got great reviews and they were able to raise money on his name. So he brought it to New York He was a very he was you did you ever meet Bruno Kirby real gentleman once they give you sweetheart Yeah, I like them immediately. He was, did you ever meet Bruno Kirby? No. Real gentleman. I met him once. Did you like him? Yeah, I liked him immediately. He was, he had this morality to him. He was very honorable. You know, in his whole body of work, Godfather 2 and Bess, Levinson movies and all that. I'm working with Billy in City Slickers.

In City Slickers, yes. Yeah. It's a sweet piece of work. Again, people can get that on Amazon too. And I hope there is another version of it. Oh, I would love it. I would love it. I got to ask you a couple more things about Gary and about it's Gary Shanley show.

And the doc is great, isn't it? It's four hours. Did you see the Shanley doc on HBO? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's four hours. Did you see the Shanling doc on HBO? Yeah It's four hours and it flies by it, you know when Judd first sent it to me. I Thought it was a rough cut because it was four hours long Who knew you know what I mean, but I told him and I believe this sincerely I told him that because he asked me what I thought I called him and

I likened it to Do you remember that HBO had a special about George Harrison called living in the material world? Oh, it was the Scorsese thing. Yeah, yeah, and it was similar because the first Episode was about the Beatles and stuff that we knew and but the second one was about him as a single performer and stuff that we knew and but the second one was about him as a single performer and also his spirituality and this was not dissimilar in terms of tone yeah and I just thought that Judd did an amazing job really did for an Emmy he really did I mean it's it's it's clear it's about so many things but it's clearly a Valentine from somebody who deeply loved him. Oh God, Judd was, you know, he was a, Gary was a mentor to him and, you know, Judd was

like a mentee. I heard a story recently, I think I was talking to Jackie Martling, and that originally Gary Shanling was saying that he thought his phone was tapped. And everyone back then thought, well, Gary Shanling's obviously nutty. He thinks his phone is tapped. When he had that big, huge falling out with Brad Grey. Yeah. Yeah, it's all in the movie. Yeah, it's so, that was an issue.

Pelicano? Anthony Pelicano. Yeah, so it got real dirty and it got really underhanded about how they were gathering information to use against him and everything. So yeah, that was a thing. So it wasn't, yeah, I can understand people thinking it's Gary's paranoia, okay, but I believe that was the case, right? One of the, yeah, and one of the recurring themes in the movie or motifs is betrayal, is how deeply he was affected by that Brad Gray situation.

Well, see, he was the thing with Gary. I mean and if you There there are different degrees of Betrayal in the sense that and I talk about it in in that documentary I was married with three kids Okay, so Gary was didn't have anybody in his life. Okay So if on a Sunday Robert and I took the kids to Disneyland and

Gary wanted me to be in an editing room with him That was betrayal Okay, Gary's definition of betrayal and and it's in the movie is Stuff you do away from him when he wants you to be with him. Interesting. So there was a, it was pretty severe, it was illogical. Now with Brad, okay, or anybody else that, because he also had cause he also had a financial, uh, advisor who screwed him too.

Okay. I didn't know that. Yeah. So there was, um, that kind of betrayal I totally get. See, I thought that there was a little bit of an irrationality. If Gary it's Sunday, you know, we have kids, I'm going to go to, okay, we can, we have a hiatus week coming up, we can edit tomorrow, you know, if all day off, edit. So that I thought was a little bit over the top.

But the story with him and Brad, it was a very sad story because they all started out together. They slept on Brad's couch. How Brad started to become Brad, he was in a doubles tennis game with I want to say, I know Bernie Brilstein, I want to say Mike Oviets, and here's another, was a William Morris agent, nice guy named Jeff Witches, okay, might have been the fourth in that, okay, and Brad went up to Bernie after one of the games

and said, can I buy you lunch, breakfast tomorrow? to Bernie after one of the games and said, can I buy you lunch breakfast tomorrow? Bernie meets him for breakfast and Brad was this little pischa at this time says, listen, you got these older clients, you've got Gilda Radner, you got Lauren Michaels, you got Jim Henson, you know, you Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi. I got these kids that no one knows of yet. Their names are like John Lovitz and Dennis Miller. And Saget. And Bob Saget and Gary Shanling.

I don't think there were a couple of others like that. You know, if you mentioned them, I'd go sure. You know, why don't we get together? I have the new wave and you've got the established now. And Bernie said, give me the weekend. And then on Monday he said, okay, let's do it. Okay, so the roster of people that I mentioned. So, Brillstein Gray Forum, just that simply.

Well, Brad, I think initially was an employee of Brillstein Gray, then it became Brillstein Gray. Shortly afterwards, mind you. Okay, but the roster of people that Brad handled that I just mentioned, Kevin Nealon was one of them too, was they all started out together, they all slept They all started out together. They all slept on each other's couches. And I think Gary, of the names I just mentioned, was the first probably to break out. Brad was there and Gary trusted him left and right. I mean, it was like speaking about God, you know, he wouldn't make a move without Brad's consultant and all of that.

Now when whatever happened between the two of them happened, okay, Gary's devastation was profound, okay, because Gary was very romantic that way. You know, he had a deference for the fact that we all started out together. Hey look, we're all getting a house. Sure. Well there's pictures in the dock of them sleeping in the bed together.

Oh God, yeah. They were real buds. They were real buds. So yeah, I know that that was devastating. Yeah, there's a real journey in that movie. You watched the whole thing, Gilbert? You watched all four? You know, there are moments where you're taken aback

by his self-involvement. I mean, of course he always laughed at that. You know, maybe the way he treated Linda wasn't ideal. He tries to make amends when he puts out the DVD. But over the course of watching this four hour documentary, you start falling in love with the journey that he's on and the person that he's trying to become. Absolutely, that's real, real smart

because he was very self-aware and he was always trying to get out of his own way. And when I first met him, God, I want to say it was 86, he would say things like, oh, let's go to that restaurant that's got a good energy. You know, he had crystals. He had a cabin up in Big Bear. So there was a certain amount of, I don't think he did TM, but if he did, I wouldn't

be surprised. I don't think he did TM, but if he did, I wouldn't be surprised. I don't think he did. And so he was very spiritual. He would give me books about God, you know, for like my birthday or whatever. And he knew where he wanted to get, but he, you know, he'd come over the house, we got the kids, you know. I mean, I would see him kiss a dog on the mouth and slobber with the dog, you know, exchanging spit with a dog. And he'd approach my children like they had plutonium. He just didn't know he was, you know, you know, the expression, you know, you're awkward

in your own body. This is beyond anything. And towards the end, years before, but leading up to, he found boxing, which they talk about in the documentary. And it became almost like a religion to him. And a lot of the things he would say would have sort of like double entendre boxing references, you know. And I had dinner with him and he would be like this across the table. For you folks at home, I'm bobbing and weaving right now. He would be like that. And I'm going, the Jew that I am, I'm going, well, why are you davening?

But it was just, it looked sort of like that, you know? It's fascinating, the personal journey that he went on. And of course you get to read the diary entries on the screen and he's constantly urging himself, find the better place, be present, be real to people, be kind to people. And one thing about Gary and the people who were, not disciples, but devotees of Gary, I used to play in those basketball games

that he had on Sunday. Did you ever play in any of those? No. Whoever was in town played in that game and it was on a Sunday. And so let's say the game started at 1. I'd get to let's say 1230 and they were already Judd Apatow and all these other young writers who had been there already since 11. And when I left after the game, they still stayed there. Gary, when it came to writing, and they do hit upon it in the documentary, he would talk about writing from the core.

He would talk about find the essence, the jokes come later. And to this day when I'm writing, I do have Gary on my shoulder and going, okay, what we think it is, you know what I mean? He was, when he, after the memorial, I remember, I think it was to sag it saying to him If there's another place after this, you know life Gary was ready for it He was done with being he was not never comfortable here. But in his in his spirit There was some other place. There was some other thing. That's fascinating. And if there is such a place, I think he's thriving there, you know.

So it's safe to say you guys had a fraternal relationship with all the things that come from big brothers? Yeah, well that's a great way to put it. I mean, have you ever written with the same person a lot? I know. I don't think he's ever written with anybody. Have you ever written with another person? Do you know anybody?

Do I know anyone who knows how to write? Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I remember, I remember at Gilbert's 60th birthday, the dinner. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I remember we were going around the table offering toasts and I don't know who it was who came before me.

It might have been Leopold. I don't know. Or Drew. Okay. Or Drew, who said that Dara was the best thing that ever happened to you, and when I spoke, I corrected him. I said, no, no, no, Dara is the only thing that ever happened to him. You've never sat down and actually collaborated with a writer.

Maybe you've used writers on shows, but not for your act. Yeah, no. Yeah. No, how could you write for him? How could you write that? I don't know how you could write for something like Gilbert. How could you write a Ben Guzzara joke? It's so specific.

No, every time I'd see Gilbert, I'd go, wait a second, he took this and put it with this. Yeah. Those two are not supposed to live together this and put it with this. Yeah. Those two don't live together. No, no. But he did. No. He did. Combine Kurt Waldheim being suspected of being a Nazi with Norman Fell.

No writer could approach that. No, no, they would be committed. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you're writing with somebody, and there's a synergy there, you know, but there's also a strange alchemy that happens, that exists, which is the two of you become something that you can't be by yourself. You're different than me, I'm different than you, I have respect for what you do, you have respect for what I do, and together we're going to make something that neither

of us can make alone. So there's a dependence there. And it's a very hard thing to do to sustain when one person is writing for the other, writing with the other person for that person. Because the physics of it is simply one person's giving, the person's taking everything, you know. I remember, oh God, this was the fourth year of our show. We must have done 65 shows already. And we're in the editing room, okay and we're not getting along and I knew everything about him I wrote his autobiography every week and at one point I just look at him I go what college did I go to He didn't have a fucking clue. That's telling.

Yeah. Yeah. But that being said, I love this man and I miss him a lot. You said he had the biggest heart in the world. Biggest heart in the world. Yeah. Tell us about Gilda doing the show, the Shandling show and how important that was. Gilda wanted to do the show.

She liked it. It made her laugh. And when she got sick, which was probably the first year we were doing it, Gary and I would send her a cassette every week, like a Hallmark card, because I had said to her when she told me she had cancer, I said, What do I do? She says, I have cancers cancers why Bell and I need you to help me get through this part of my life And I said, what do I do? And she said make me laugh. So that became my role so Gary and I would send her a cassette every week and I Call her and tell her jokes and this and that just and she only wanted to be thinking of positive things if you went to her

House it was pictures me and Robin and the kids on the refrigerator that just and she only wanted to be thinking of positive things. If you went to her house, it was pictured me and Robin and the kids on the refrigerator, Harold Ramis, his wife and their kids, Marty Short and his wife and their kids only the future, only positive things. And she wanted to do the Shanley show and Gary wanted her to do it. And I was walking with her one night. I think we were on the beach in LA and she started getting cold feet and she said, you know, I haven't been on TV in six years. I'm afraid that nobody's going to recognize me when the audience when I come out and I was just about ready to say don't be silly

and she says but you know something I I do have to do it my humor is the only thing the only weapon I have against that fucker that's what you referred to the cancer that fucker and she says why Bel can you make me help me make cancer funny so she came and she did the show and the cast and the crew were you know this goddess was among them and she was sick um but she had the best time that she had because she had not done a tv she was not in front of a live audience in a very, very long time. And, but she was sick. I remember, uh, we shot the show on Tuesdays on this particular Monday.

I was looking for her and I found her in, um, her dressing room and she was on a couch just holding her belly. And what's up the night before she had gone to a Chinese restaurant with Jean and people and you know that the The mince meat that the chicken that they put in a wrap like yeah a lettuce. Yeah Yeah, she accidentally had some lettuce and she wasn't able to digest it Oh, okay, so she was the plumbing was fucked, you know she went and she did this show and She was unannounced

so there's 300 people 250 people in the audience and Gary's doing some monologue about sea monkeys or some shit and all of a sudden is a knock at the door and He goes I wonder who that is he opens the door and she walks through and says, Oh, hi Gilda. Hey everybody. It's Gilda. Well, this audience exploded. You know, this was the people she thought wouldn't recognize her. And then he said to her, uh, I haven't seen you in a while. What's anything wrong?

And she said, well, I've had cancer. What's your excuse? And he says, well, I'm stuck on the show, which is no cure for whatsoever. You know? So, and that was a great shot of medicine for her. She got nominated for an Emmy Award for Guest Appearance and wanted to do TV again. As a matter of fact, I have it somewhere in some folder.

Me and Gary were talking with her, with Michael Fuchs, who was running HBO at the time, creating a show for Gilda where she would play the star of a variety show, like a Carol Burnett. And so you'd see her at home, you'd see backstage, you'd see the writers room. And we started talking about it, we had two or three meetings about it. And then she got sick again and eventually passed, you know. But yeah, that was a great shot in the arm further. And with Gilda a few years ago, because you know, Gilda's club is all over the country. In some state, they wanted to change the name.

The idiots. Yeah. Yeah. I remember they, and there's a lot of the, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post saying how they say the people don't know who Gilda is. So I'm going, why not change the name of the Lincoln Tunnel? Pete Slauson Yeah, sure. Pete Slauson I said, keep her name and if a kid asks

who she is, show him tapes, show this little kid tapes of her being funny and show her being courageous And show her what her spirit was and maybe that will embody these these poor kids. This is ridiculous You know even advocated she even when she was sick. She decided to write that book. She wrote the book She was on the cover of right look Life magazine. Yeah, I used to go to the Laker games with her She had a bald head and Kareem would come over. He had a bald head and he'd point to his own bald head. He goes, I'm fine, it'll be fine.

Okay, you know. The most heartbreaking moment in the film is when she says, I really thought I was gonna get away with this. Yeah. Well, we should urge people to see it. Comes out in a couple of weeks. The Gilda, love Gilda. Before we get out of here, you want to tell us the Annie Youngman story again?

Because it's so worth it. I'm sorry to shift tones like that. I joined the Friars Club. I was 33 or 32. When I left SNL, I didn't have an office anymore, 30 Rock, and our son Adam was born in October of 81. We had an apartment and babies cry. I needed a place to, like an office. So I joined the Friars Club and back then on the floor, in the room that now has the pool table, there was a lounge, there was a couch and a newspaper rack and a big big screen TV so I used that as an office.

So one day I'm walking to the Friars Club and this particular, I don't know if it was a Saturday or it was sometime in the afternoon, nobody was around. This is the key to this fucking story. No one was around. So it's on 55th between Madison and Park. So I'm walking on Madison and now I make the right turn onto 55th. There's no one around. Out of the doorway, across the street from the club, steps Henny Youngman, the king of the one-liners. He doesn't know I'm there. Important part of the story, he thinks he's alone. There's no one around.

I'm all the way back there in his blind spot. He walks across 55th Street to go into the Friars Club. He gets to the curb and as he does, a pigeon flutters down, lands at his foot, Henny looks at him and goes, any mail for me? I never get tired of hearing it. He thought he was alone. He was talking to a bird. I'm starting to do session abrupt shift on you like that. I got a little whiplash from that one.

We just love that one. Oh my god Alan So we could go on and on and on and on great you kidding? Uh, I also discovered doing a little research. I let you know, I love to do I love to do the research I also found the old Paul Simon special from 77 and rewatched it. I haven't seen that since then grodin deserves an Emmy That's how funny he was. Well, we did get an Emmy for it. Yeah, it just meant his performance. But Charles Groden, Chuck Groden, he was so funny and so understated.

And I remember him sitting down, Paul and Artie. That's great. Right? And telling them the sound of U2. Yeah. Together. I would really consider patching things up. Yeah. Paul and Artie telling them the sound of you two together. I would really consider patching things up. Yeah, no, he was so funny and understated. He wants to change the title of the special to the Paul Bridge Over Troubled Waters Simon

Special. Great, great. Because we'd have the recognition factor. If people can find that, absolutely find it. Lorne wrote most of that with Paul. Did he? Yeah. It's great.

He added Franken and Davis and myself to the staff. But Lily has a writing credit too. Oh, she said, I didn't even realize that. But it was Lorne and Paul, they did more than the lion's share of that. How is Groden doing? Talk to him. I saw Chuck about a year ago, maybe a little bit more than a year ago. We're gonna bug you to get him, to help us get him here.

Oh, he's great. We gotta grab him. I'll do everything I can to help you with that. We get a lot of requests for him. He's just funny. You know, I don't know what else to say, but he's in his eighties now. So I get in the car now. All right.

Well, we'll send a crew to him. Yeah. He's in Connecticut, isn't he? He's in Connecticut. We'll send a crew right to his door. If it'll get him. It'll cinch the deal. We'll have to recommend your books to the listeners. The other Shulman, Lunatics, which you wrote with the great Dave Barry, Clothing Optional, which we talked about, which Gilbert, I'm going to give you because there's some stories in there that you absolutely have to read, including one about a Hitler tattoo. And a nice tribute to Herb, our mutual friend Herb Sargent in there. And it's Gary Shanling's show, which is a wonderful show ahead of its time.

Yeah. If people, there's a DVD. There's a DVD. It's a collection. It's a little bit of, it's very frustrating because I'll tell people it's Gary Shanling's show and they'll go, oh, I love Jeffy Tambor on there. Right, right. Right to Larry Sanders and I go, no, no, no, there was like one before.

You guys were doing all kinds of shit, a graduate episode you know a musical episode drove a Car from one set to another I remember yeah, it was It was here. We put on the fourth grade play every week a brilliant a brilliant show if you guys don't our listeners Don't know what shame on you find it and and these two documentaries So we just want to I just want to mention the Shanling doc again the Judd made which you're in. Yes, which is beautiful And also in the Gilbert and you're in the Gilbert doc. Gilbert one. I wanted to thank you for that, too Thank you for having me. I was honored to be in Gilbert's documentary for me and I've told this to you and Darren a number of times,

I loved it. Great job by Neil Berkley. It was to watch, yeah, the tributes were great, and you and the kids was all great, but the, and your sister, and there was so much heart in there, and to see the Willy Loman aspect of the comic, you know, with the schlepping the suitcase. Yes, yes. The washing the socks in the sink? Yeah.

I go, wait a second, you know, and now it's become part of my life. Robert and I will check into a hotel and you walk down the hall and you see the cart that the ladies who cleaned the room have and it just... As a tribute? And she said, who are you? Gilbert? No, I'm going to give it to Gilbert. I'm going to send Gilbert the shampoo.

It was a real stroke of genius on Neil's part too to give out the soap at the premiere. Neil did an amazing job. He did a wonderful job. That's one of my favorites and I've recommended it. Billy Crystal came up to you and I was raving about it to him and he saw it on my behest. I'm sure he would have seen it eventually, but Billy then called me before he ran into you and thanked me for being so enthusiastic about it. Yeah, he was very nice.

It's great. Gilbert was forced to sit there and squirm as he watched his own life on the big screen. Oh, so difficult for me. I didn't realize there were so many O's in the word soul. Oh yeah. I sat next to him at that, where you and Robin were there that night at the SVA theater and I sat next to him and he was just squirming for two hours. Yeah.

And it wasn't the first time you'd seen it with an audience either. No, no. If I watch it now, I'll still be- Squirming. Grabbing onto my seat. It's kind of like, you know, the first time you hear a recorder with your voice on it. You go, yeah.

And you go, it got everyone else's voice correct, but mine. Boy, they distort me. Yeah. We'll also plug the Comedy Center. Since you're a part of this, you're an unofficial ambassador here. Yeah, I'm an plug the Comedy Center, since you're a part of this. You're an unofficial ambassador here. Yeah, I'm an ambassador to Comedy Center.

National Comedy Center in Jamestown and this... Jamestown, they want to make as a destination... It's a little far. Well, you know, but look, you know, Cooperstown became a place where people... True, true. ...ended up seeking out. So the Comedy Center, the building there is not to be believed. They cover everything from vaudeville, even before like Commida del Arte, all the way through episodes.

It's really a pretty terrific place. Gallagher in there? I said, look, it's either Gallagher or me. Or Gallagher 2. Gilbert, you're in the museum. You have to go. Yeah. Yeah. I know, but it just seems like one of those places, like, you'd have to take a rowboat

to the last spot of it. No, it's easier than that. You fly to Buffalo. Already. And now you're only two hours away. By the way, speaking of George Carlin, that moment in the Shandling Dock where George was so good to him when he was a kid,

when he was a college student, and he'd made the schlep from Phoenix to Tucson. Beautiful, another beautiful story. Well, and we've become friends with Kelly Carlin. Yeah, we had Kelly on. We love her. And she was very close to Gary, too, and there's a thing, you know, there's spirituality there

also. She's a big shot at the Comedy Center as well. What else do you want to plug? Well, let's see, what do I got? I got two books coming out next year. Last year, I wrote a book with Dave Barry and Adam Mansback. If you don't know Adam Mansback's name, he wrote a children's book about four years ago that sold a gazillion copies called Go to Fuck to Sleep.

Okay. So the three of us wrote a parody of the Haggadah last year, that Passover Haggadah. For this we left Egypt, and it did so well that the publisher gave us another book deal, so the three of us, we just handed it in last Friday, as a matter of fact. It's a guide to Judaism from fa to oy. Okay? So, got that. And also, I'm writing a memoir, a cultural memoir,

called Laugh Lines, 40 Years Trying to Make Funny People Funnier. And it's me as a tour guide through my career of the Catskills and SNL. Oh, God. So taking you through all the years and everything. From Gunty to Shanling. From Gunty to Shanling, there you go.

Yeah, I think the writer of Go to Fuck to Sleep filmed me reading his book. Yeah, yes he did. Yes, yes. Yes, he did. I put you guys together. Yeah. That's right. There you go.

Because he first had Samuel L. Jackson. Yeah. And he says, who else can I have? I've already had Samuel L. Jackson. I'm going, well, when you say Samuel L. Jackson next time I'm going to go to the game is Gilbert. Absolutely. Thanks for coming man.

Thanks for having me you guys. I remember a Gary Shanling story that I had was around the time I had the burst appendix and then I had to go get another operation to repair it to put my stomach old And and I was I was talking to Gary Shanley and and he and I said well I already found a doctor and he's gonna perform the surgery on my stomach and and he said where is the The operation is gonna take Where is the operation going to take place? And I said, at the New York Eye and Ear.

And he said, well, Eye and Ear? Shouldn't it be the New York stomach and ass? There's nothing that can... Shanley loved talking about asses and his ass. I'll tell you this, if you can keep it or not. Are we still on? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

I sign off and then Gilbert continues and goes 20 more minutes. Oh, yes, yes. He does another show. He does another mini episode. So I meet Gary and now we've figured, okay, we're gonna create a show together. And I wanted to learn a little bit more about him on stage.

I'd seen him on like Letterman in here, but those were like six minute things here and there. Wanted to see him on stage. So you ever perform at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach? I think I did. South of a great place. Okay nice guy named Mike Lacey owns it and so I'm in LA and So Shanley and I are going

We're traveling we were driving on the 405 To get to the comedy a magic store In the middle of the drive he says to me says now listen When I'm on stage, at one point, I'm just going to scratch my ear. When I do that, that's your signal to ask me about, to shout out, tell us about the chimp. I said, tell us about the chimp. He said, you'll see, you'll be about two thirds,

three quarters the way through. And he says, no matter what I say, no matter how much I try to dismiss you, no matter how much I refuse to do it, you insist that I talk about the chimp. All right. I have no idea what he's talking about. So I'm sitting in the back and he's talking about dating and girls and trouble with relationships. And he says, you know, I've had some really horrible dates. And at which point he tugs his ear.

I go, tell us about the chimp. And he makes believe he doesn't hear me. So he starts saying, you know, I've had some horrible dates and go, the chimp, tell us about the chimp. And he goes, Mr, please, please don't. You know, I'm in the middle of my act and I go, the chimp, tell us about the chimp.

And he goes, you know, it's a little embarrassing. He says, please don't embarrass me with this story. Come on, we want to hear about the chimp. Now the rest of the audience starts asking to hear about the chimp. Nobody, of the audience of course starts asking to hear about the chimp nobody including myself has any idea so finally gets up and he says all right I have this pet chimpanzee so I'll start who copies everything that I do and the other night I brought home a date and I brought her into my bedroom and the chimp took one look at me, jumped upon the dresser, stuck his fingers in a jar of

vaseline, rubbed the vaseline on his ass, bent over and started pointing to his ass. And Gary goes, and I kept on saying, bad chimp, naughty, naughty chimp. And then he said to his date, I swear he's never done this before. The audience went fucking crazy. Great. But I always wondered, just like, you know like that other thing that I told last time, I told you when I had first met him, we went to dinner, I flew to LA, we went to dinner, I checked into

a hotel, now it's like one o'clock in the morning and it's four o'clock for my body and the phone rings. Hello? Alan, it's Gary.'clock for my body and the phone rings hello Alan it's Gary oh hey man what's up Alan my dog's penis tastes bitter you think it's his diet oh well I call Robin and say I think I found a writing partner but I'm talking about as a writer to write that joke. Yeah to write that joke about it's my finger in my ass It's a great joke. It's the right that story about the chimp putting Vaseline on his ass and betting over Great writer the docks full of great jokes like that. It was

unbelievable, yeah Nearly missed by a lot of people. I met him three times and each time was memorable. It's funny because those basketball games, a lot of our connections, I know Sarah Sylvan because of those basketball games. I emailed her today, as a matter of fact we exchanged emails. You know, Ben Stella, I've met him other places but it started there, you know, there was, you know, so yeah, the people came to Gary's. He was a uniter, fair to say.

Well, what do you think? Thank you, guys. This was a blast. This was so much, so if it's going to be an hour, I see it says an hour 50, what are you going to do? Oh, we release an hour 50 minute episode, no problem. Yeah. Looks like if I go down on 60 everybody will be selling it now. On the D train. On the D train platform. Our maiden episode at

Earwolf Studios. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santo Padre. Oh and if you want to see Gilbert, it's on Hulu Get that in and and we've been talking to the man who saw Milton Berle's cock This was great Alan Swine, now. This was great, guys. Thanks, Ellen. A rooster says good morning with a cock-a-doodle-doo. Good morning. A horse's neigh is just his way of saying, how are you?

A lion growls, hello. And owls ask why, and where, and who May I suggest you get undressed and show them your wazoo? Oh, the animals, the animals Let's talk dirty to the animals, fuck you Mr. Bunny, eat shit, Mr. Bear If they don't love it, they can shove it Frankly, I don't care of

The animals, the animals Let's talk dirty to the animals up yours Mr. Hippo, piss off. Mr. Fox, go tell a chicken. Suck my dick and give him chicken pox. Oh. The animals, the animals. Talk dirty to the animals.

From birds in the treet tops to snakes in the grass But never tell an alligator bite my, no! Never tell an alligator, bite my, yes, never tell an alligator, bite my snitch. Gilbert Godfrey's amazing colossal podcast is produced by Dara Godfrey and Frank Santapadre with audio production by Frank Fertorosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPatton, Greg Pair, and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fotiades, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovancho and Daniel Farrell for their assistance.