Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Arnie & Jay Kogen

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

GGACP celebrates the birthday (January 23rd) of Emmy-winning comedy writer Arnie Kogen ("The Carol Burnett Show," "Newhart," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show”) by revisiting this 2018 father-son interview with Emmy-winning writer Jay Kogen (“Frasier,” “The Simpsons”). In this episode, the boys talk about failed pilots, cheesy variety shows, the outrageousness of Pat McCormick and the "unwritten rules" of writing for television. Also, Soupy Sales takes flight, Jackie Mason takes offense, Garry Shandling gripes about the sunset and the Kogens party with the Jackson 5. PLUS: "Monkey World"! The genius of James L. Brooks! “The World's Oldest Fireman"! Jay reinterprets "The Aristocrats"! And Gilbert and Arnie remember "Thicke of the Night”! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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TV comics, movie stars, hit singles and some toys. Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough for something so fantastic. So here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal Classic I'm Tim Matheson and you are listening to the amazing colossal Gilbert Godfrey's club fucking podcast That's the one that's it Now I am Tim Matheson and you are listening to Gilbert Godfrey's amazing colossal fucking podcast

Colossal Fucking Podcast. Tim! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha The best! Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Ferdorosa, our guest this week for our first ever Father's Day episode are two of the most prolific, versatile, and successful comedy writers of their respective generations. Jay Cogan is a four-time Emmy-winning writer, producer and director, who's written for hit series like Frasier, Malcolm in the Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Tracey Ullman Show, The George Lopez Show, News Radio and School of Rock,

and was one of the original writers on The Simpsons. He, along with former partner Wallace Wal... Waladarski! Also wrote what many viewers, including my co-hosts, consider to be the best episode in that show's 30 year history last exit to Springfield is the best legendary producer and comedy writer Arnie Kogan has written for popular TV programs such as Candid camera the Mary Tyler Moore show the The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, The Dean Martin

Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Empty Nest, The Love Boat, The Tim Conway Show and of course The Carol Burnett Show for which he took home three Emmy Awards. He's also been one of the usual gang of idiots at Mad Magazine since, get this, way back in 1959. Between them, they put jokes and dialogues in a mouth. Or dialogue. Yeah, I thought I would sneak that by. Between them, they put jokes and dialogue

in the mouths of some of the most popular entertainers of the last half century, including the aforementioned Carol Burnett, Johnny Carson, and Bob Newhart, but also, Soupy Sales, Don Adams, Shelly Berman, Flip Wilson, Harvey Corman, Sammy Davis Jr., Kelsey Grammer, Brian Cranston, Phil Hartman, Ray Romano, Jackie Mason, Mike Myers, and Eddie Murphy, just to name a few. Please welcome to the show two of the funniest people walking the earth and the most talented father and son since Wallace and Noah Beery. Arnie Kogan and Jay Kogan. I don't remember walking the earth but if you say so, okay.

Was that intro long enough for you guys? Thank you. Well good night. Jay's credits are much better than mine. Screw you, Jay. That's okay, Pop. I don't know about that. Now, Arnie, before anything else, we need affirmation on this story. I've told it on the air a few times, but unfortunately I was not there. Great comedy writer Pat McCormick used to

meet all the other writers and pals to have lunch together. Going right for it. Like once a year. Now do you know the story? I think I know the story you're talking about. I was not there but I heard a lot, I definitely heard about it. Well tell a story! It was not done over my house. He was not one of the people in the helicopter. Happily married men. I was the pilot of the helicopter. Would you like me to tell it? Yes, please! Well, the story goes, as Pat arranged, I forgot what the occasion was, I think he arranged for friends and writers of his, and he hired, get in a helicopter, I don't know how many

there were, there were about six, seven of them, and he hired some hookers. And I believe, which is the beginning of every helicopter story. And as they flew over each home of the resident writers each of the hookers Performed a service for each of the writers and exactly as they were flying over the house. Did you know the story Jay? I've heard the story now. I would have trouble maintaining an erection There's going to be trouble. In front of other riders. I mean there's a lot of problems with it for me.

I've had seven guys on my roof doing the same thing. I think there was a lunch thing. It was a sandwich. He gave them all a bag with a tuna sandwich in it and an apple. I never heard the bag and apple thing, but I believe you. That was from Ronnie Shell. Ronnie Shell, then you got to believe it. We heard Buck Henry's version on this show.

We had Ronnie Shell television. I think Ed Weinberger told a version. And I think the ending of the story is that one of the writers got home and she said, so how was your lunch today? And he said fine and he goes how was your evening? And she goes it was okay but I don't know what. That's Troy. It's got to be true. I wasn't there, but Paul Patt has done many stuff, many things like that. And I'll tell you more about it later.

But yeah, it's probably true. Yes. Especially since Ronnie Shell mentioned it, of course. Yeah. Well, you know, you hang out with those Yarmys Army guys. I mean, you're a member of that tribe. I've been there since the beginning, yes. And name the people who are a member of Yarmys Army.

I don't know who those seven people were. They could have been around 19, I don't know, like when he was doing the Danny Kay Show at the time. I think it was. Name the people in the Army's Army or in the helicopter? The L.O. in the Army's Army. Oh, Army's Army. Or name the hookers who are in that helicopter.

They're all, the hookers are presidents of the Army's Army. Don Adams' brother was Dick Yarmay. When he passed away, or when he was very ill with cancer, a lot of the comedy writers and friends got together with him and tried to cheer him up. We had dinner with him every week. And after he passed, we said, you know, this has been fun. Let's continue the group. And it was originally was Ronnie Shell, Harvey Korman, Hank Bradford, Howie Storm, Tom Poston,

or about 40 comedy writers, actors, comedians, and we've kept it going all these years since 1990 I believe. Wow. There was a meeting last night. I wasn't there but there was a meeting of your army's last night. Still going strong. Yep. The hard part is finding someone with cancer every time.

Every single time. Otherwise it's no fun. Well you wrote something nice about Pat when he passed Arnie. I think it was in the Writers Guild magazine. Yeah I did a whole thing about Pat. It was sweet and you know it was very great affection for Pat and he did incredibly you know he was a bizarre brilliantly funny guy, tall man, very tall man, and he did, well, I'm trying to think of all the amazing things he did. Well, I mean, I like that he wore a priest costume. Well, he did, yeah. Besides streaking the Tonight Show and dropping his pants a lot, he would on social occasions, you never knew what he would do. We'd be in a restaurant like the Dome, ten of us.

We all knew Pat, but this time, it may have been Jack Raleigh had a date. She never met McCormick. We're all sitting there. McCormick came in dressed as a priest. So, he walks in, and we're used to this. I've seen him in seafood restaurants dressed as a giant snail. He's done many things like this before. So he sat down and he did immediately did 12 unpriest-like things. He would say there was a little cup of either mayonnaise or

tartar sauce. He held it up and said, all that's left of the Errol Flynn estate. That's hilarious. Then he proceeded to do many more things and finally he turned to the young girl who was attractive and he said to her, my dear, a blessing on your vagina. Oh my God. She turned to her date and said, is he really a priest? And then Pat proceeded to go, the restaurant. He took the fancy restaurant He took all the fireplace equipment and put it in his pants the poker and all these fireplace equipment He started to walk out the manager said excuse me

I'll have to come back and replace that he did Then he walked out on Sunset Boulevard and proceeded as the priest to bless a lot of automobiles I blessed his Ford Fairlane. I blessed this Toyota he blessed about nine cars and that was the evening with that I bless a lot of auto-inveils. I bless this Ford Fairlane. I bless this Toyota. He blessed about nine cars. And that was the evening with that. That was the typical evening with McCormick. You guys wrote together on, was it Carson?

No, no. Well, we wrote together on Carson, but we first met on a show called The Funny Side. Oh, Bill Persky's show. Bill Persky and Dunoff. And Gene Kelly was a host. As a host, he would do everything except sing and dance. He just...

That was... Trying to break out of that... Yeah. That cellar of singing and dancing. Stereotypes. So we had... Premise was five couples, an older couple, a younger couple. Burt Mustin.

Burt Mustin was the old couple. The girl... Queenie Smith. Queenie Smith. John Amis. John Amis, the black couple, a blue collar couple, a urban couple, Dick Clare and Jenna McManus, performed in Roeford Burnett. Cindy Williams was part of the younger couple. Michael Lembeck, right?

Michael Lembeck and Williams, yes. So five couples would just do a funny side of newspapers newspapers the funny side of weather the funny side of relatives One week we had a guest host Jack Benny McCormick and I were by the way be preceding that Sandana said to me You know, why don't you work with McCormick? We're gonna put you in the room McCormick and he was like a rock star He was like my idol and it was like going here, you know, he's like an apprentice electrician working with Thomas Edison. I said, okay, I'll work with him.

And it was great. And my first week there, we did some stuff for Jack Benny. So I worked with McCormick and Jack Benny in the same week. It was brilliant. And it was terrific. So we met there and then we did,

for about two years, worked together on comedy material and the Tonight Show again. We did a lot of projects together. And I always like to hear what was Jack Benny like to work with? I heard, I just remembered that one time, I heard he was delightful and terrific. I knew some Benny writers and he was a very sweet guy. And I think the best Benny line ever on his radio show was not your money or your life.

It was one episode when he was in a tour bus going through Beverly, not he, but there was a tour bus going through Beverly Hills. And the bus driver said, and here's the house of Gregory Peck. And over here is the house of Alice Fay. Here is the house of Clark Gable. And over here is the house of Jack Benny. And you hear getting off. What about the McCormick story? Buck Henry told us this, but I've heard that we've heard

another version of it that it wasn't Pat McCormick, that it was actually Jonathan Winters. You know, NJ, you know this story too. It's a famous showbiz story. That a woman asks him for directions and he takes out his junk and starts pointing and says, follow this. You see this vein? This is the 101. I heard that's true, yes. Frank, I was shielded from a lot of these stories

when I was a kid. So I don't know a lot of them. He was in a supermarket with Jack Rowley and he's reeling a shop out. He gets to the checkout counter and he said to the lady, excuse me, do I have enough toilet paper for all this food? Also fantastic. But he would drop his pants a lot. He would do a lot of creative.

At his memorial when he passed away, in tribute to Pat, a lot of the guys got up on stage and we dropped our pants. We got up on stage and about 20 of us dropped our pants. I love that. Yeah. Jay, this is a jump because I said we were going to jump around a lot. And you wrote something nice. Your dad wrote something nice about Pat when he passed and you wrote something nice about a friend of yours Somebody you knew a long time in the business Gary Shanley. Oh

Yeah, I mean, you know when people die they it brings back memories of that person and memories of that time in life and and Gary was a very influential guy to me. I worked on its Gary Shanley show as a as a PA So I basically got him yogurt a lot And if you've ever there's something traumatizing about watching Gary Shanley eat yogurt Pretty big lips and the yogurt didn't all go inside the mouth. It stayed on the outside but he was amazing amazing, interesting, fascinating guy and always in search of, you know,

egalitarian, would ask everybody everything, so being a PA didn't mean I was less than, but his whole MO was just trying to find the better script and make the joke funnier and make life better and you know all that stuff was great except he lived in a little bit of a torture because you know he saw the he saw the problems yeah and that's what caused him to want to find the better thing and what I wrote was about being in Hawaii

with Gary and he looked out at the beautiful sunset, and Hawaii said, you know, it's good, but it's not great. I was like, it's Hawaii, it's a million dollar sunset. And he said, no, it's not great. And so I was, you know, I always wished for Gary to be happy with the sunset. We had the same therapist. He went more frequently than I. He went like four times a day.

I went every springtime, one hour to a therapist. You really did have the same therapist? I love that. Yeah, we did. We did, yes. But I only went there once a year. Dad should have gone more. How well did you know Shandling, Gilbert? You guys cross paths a bunch. He was one of those guys I would run into a lot and we'd talk. He was friendly. The only real shambling story I remember is after I had a burst appendix, I had to get another operation to sew my stomach back together.

And I was talking to Gary about it and he said, when hospital are you gonna have it? And I said, New York Eye and Ear. And he said, well, that's kind of a strange hospital. Don't you think it should be a New York stomach and ass? And that. Oh, and now Jay, before I forget Gilbert yeah, fuck you I was never asked to be on the Simpsons That's on purpose Gilbert Was pretty synonymous with other cartoons and other other networks and stuff. So come on

Oh, okay We had Mike here. We had Mike Reese here. He gave him the same shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a it's a you know, there was a time at the very beginning of the Simpsons when we couldn't get anybody and Then immediately after becoming hit we began to get anyone which was amazing I want I once tried to get Bruce Springsteen to come on the show and and No, I couldn't get him on John Lando his manager I get on the phone and kept saying well, maybe he'll do it Maybe he'll do it and then I saw Bruce Springsteen at a movie theater in Los Angeles and I ran up to him

Saying Bruce Bruce. I have to talk to you. Not realizing he's a rock star. And people are haunting him all the time. So I'm a big guy and he was with his wife, Patty, her girlfriend at the time, and basically he protected her from a crazy lunatic. And I said, we've been trying to get a hold of you for The Simpsons, we wanted you to do the show. He said, oh, I'm definitely gonna do the show for sure.

And then he walked away, he never didons. We wanted you to do the show." He said, oh, I'm definitely going to do the show for sure. And then he walked away. He would never, he never did. We got Sting to do that instead. But he may have done it later, but we got Sting to do it. Oh, and also, at one point when you are much younger, you wrote a Bob Newhart script that you showed to your father. Yes. Yes. Big mistake. He did not like it. It was not I was to be fair I was how old 15 years old 16 years old? Maybe younger. He was working on the bob new art show He wrote it every day of his life. I wrote a spec script and i'm sure it was awful I mean that's every spec script I read is awful. So. My comment was Jay, page nine is shit. No, you, you, you, you know.

He told me, he told me, hey, you know what, you might think about being an agent or a lawyer. I really paid. I thought Jay would be a very good agent. I really did. Yeah. Well, he's being a loving dad. He wanted something more secure for you.

Yeah. But to turn the tables, years later later when Jay was on Frasier, I went up to pitch stories to Frasier, to Jay, to my son. There were some pretty good ones. They turned, well, Jay said, let me talk to the guys. I didn't sell a single one, but I loved coming in the room and pitching to my son. That was a great feeling for me.

To come in. Turnabout. It's fair, it's true. Now we've had, then my son is now a music 16 and he's very much interested in becoming musician and to me I keep saying you know you could be a lawyer or an agent or something yeah same thing I gotta say go ahead I have that same thing cuz like I have two kids and now I think about it and I think in terms of like I would rather they go through the trash in the street and find bottles and cans that they could turn it for five

cents because it makes sense to me. Showbiz makes no sense. It makes no sense and the amount of time and effort to go and then put yourself out there and risk everything and then chances are it's not gonna work out. The bottles and can things is a guarantee. It's a lot. Yeah. They went to bottle and can junior college. Remember I wanted to say.

I gotta say that Jay was, and he's heard the story many times one of the funniest young men ever when he's 11 years old I was at a wedding or something and Jay was at the same wedding and to be kind of funny I put a whipped cream mustache on my face on my lips and go to the different tables say can I get serious for a moment there is 11 year old Jay came up to me with a whipped cream on his face and said to me what tables haven't you worked? I knew then something was going on which leads to the natural question

Which you guys have been asked a million times, but we'll ask it again Jake What's the experience of growing up with a with a comedy writer for for a dad like and at what point did the did the the? Light go on you know hey, and at what point did the light go on, you know, hey, I could do this? Well, the experience is not what you would think. I mean, my dad was away a lot and was in writers' rooms a lot and writing in his office with the door closed a lot. It did not look like fun.

I see. It looked like really hard work. And the last thing I wanted to become was a writer. I wanted to be an actor. I did stand-up comedy. I did growlings, improvisation, and the last thing I wanted to become was a writer. I wanted to be an actor, I did stand-up comedy, I did growlings, improvisation, and all kinds of stuff, all to avoid locking myself in the room and being alone and having to sweat out writing a draft.

But apparently I was such a shitty actor, such a shitty comic, and the only thing I was geared for was writing, so that wound up being my career. The training though was trying to make this guy laugh my whole life. It's like growing up in a writer's room trying to make the head writer laugh.

So I figured out how to make him laugh and that translated to make other writers laugh. And so I kind of have that passed down to me from dad. It's like, you know, if he was a blacksmith, I would then know how to do that. But... Well, I'm proud of him. He's...

Anything you would have done, I would have been proud of it. Well, maybe not a dry cleaner, but almost anything you would have... Those people are scumbags. Of course, and Arnie, it's like, this is getting back to the beginning of this. Yeah. You being like such a successful writer, when you first saw stuff that Jay wrote, you were like, it must have really worried you. It didn't worry me.

I guess I was critical. And then, you know, pretty soon I was incredibly proud of him. The Shandling and then all the success. And once I was at a studio at 20th and he was coming back from a writer's room after rewrites or pre-production and I see him walking back with Jim Brooks and all those writers and I said, Jesus, my kid Jay is a writer. I was thrilled. I really was thrilled when that happened. We wrote stuff together.

We did a Mad Magazine take off on the Golden Girls and we called it the very funny title, The Olden Girls Lady. There you go. Right? Yes. Right. We also tried pitching, getting some pilot ideas together.

I remember doing things. And when I do shows and have pilots, my dad always does a punch up or a rewrite and he comes and he's very funny. Fantastic. And we did a roast for my mother. Jase Nanapali, my mom, was about 73 years old and we surprised her with a comedy roast. The whole family flew to Massachusetts. And we did a monologue, we did props, we did a car-neck, we did...

She's an easy target. She was very small, and she was a horrible cook. Great lady, but a terrible cook. So we had like four hours of stuff to do. It was great. We haven't found another way to reuse that material, have we? We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first a word from our sponsor. What's up Spotify? This is Javi. I remember this one time we were on tour. We didn't have any guitar picks and we didn't have time to go to the store, so we placed an order on Prime and it got there the next day, ready for the show.

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Since you bring up pilots and I've seen interviews with you and you talk about the heartbreak of trying to get pilots and going and the time of your, the part of your life that you invest into it. Do I have this memory we met 20 years ago and you're on your in on the lot on the Fox lot when you and Wally were on the Simpsons and you guys were working on a on a pilot about called Monkey Jungle. Did I dream this? Monkey World. Monkey World. Monkey World. Yes. Okay. It was a great pilot and it almost got made except for the head of Fox, it got bought by Fox. The guy running Fox at the time was named Sandy Grouchault and Sandy was notoriously

not a great executive and he bought it and just couldn't figure out. It's a very weird show, very funny, I thought very funny idea about a Millionaire like Trump loses everything except one asset which is a shitty amusement park in the middle of Orlando called Monkey World So he has to rebuild his empire. I liked it from Monkey World and he and and it was Everyone there was like a bidding war for the pilot. It was it Fox got it, but then Sandy wanted us to get Like Robin Williams to star in it. Robin Williams at the time wasn't doing TV anymore, he was way into, he kept saying, if you get me three movie stars, we'll make it.

I was like, well, you bought it, and a good actor can play it, and we can make that person a star if you just let him be in the show. But he wouldn't make it, so he wound up killing the show based on that. But we know Sandy Gou, we like Sandy Gou show now. We see him. I always like, I grew up kind of with Sandy Gou. I liked him as a person still do, but I don't think he was a great executive. He admits to me actually now that he was not a great executive. Those days were not his best days.

And I admit I'm not a great father. So we get a great father. No, I'm kidding. I like to kid you. I will not take, accept the joke about that. I think that was 92 when we met in, at the Simpsons and Monkey, I didn't get the, remember the name, but Monkey World stayed with me all these years. Yeah, I think it's great.

And here's another thing I always wondered about. Whenever I would see those bits with Tim Conway and Harvey Korman, where Harvey Korman would inevitably Crack up right? I was those real all real. It was not fake news. It was real Harvey really Could not control himself when Tim was around he tried to but sometimes he just burst out and it was real and Tim would say the stuff for the air show. We did two shows, a dress and an air.

And on the dress show, we'd kind of keep it quiet and they'd get it on tape and they'd get filmed and they'd have all the stuff they need. On the air show, he might go a little nuts and Harvey was uncontrollable. Tim was a very, very funny guy, very funny guy. So yeah, that was real. The dental sketch was brilliant.

You know, you remember the dentist sketch. Of course. Yes, yes. It's classic. One of the funniest, funniest things of all time. The Novacaine. Yeah. Yeah.

And were Tim and Harvey friends in real life? They were friendly, yeah. I'm not sure, you know, they'd see each other. They were friendly. I don't know how often they would mingle socially, but yes, they were. Didn't you write that one, that classic sketch, the world's oldest fireman, where Harvey's the- Thank you.

I did, yeah. That's a great one. Yeah, thank you, yeah. The old man sketch, the old fireman. Now let me get this straight, he's a fireman. So he's very, very old. Right? Right?

The world's slow, yes, Very slow. I'll get it. I'll help you. I'll get it. Mouth to mouth resuscitation. I'll hold your horses up. It took him about, at the beginning of the sketch, it took him about a minute and a half to get to break through the window. Harvey said, I'm a wealthy man. I live and I have my paintings. Please

send somebody. And you see a hand with a little axe at the window and it would take about 23 seconds for the axe to hit the window and then he'd slowly hit the window again It took about a 20 minutes to get into the window. He just but he was careful to make every piece of glass Ended with mouth to mouth resuscitation. So, uh... And that was unscripted. They just wanted a kiss. Uh, the script was regular mouth to mouth.

I think he turned Harvey around in the actual air show. Okay. So, yeah. It looks like you're going to be alright. You're starting to get some color in your cheeks. Oh, wow. I can't breathe. I can't. I'm choking.

It's not working. I need oxygen. I need oxygen. Hurry. Mouth to mouth resuscitation is the only way. Where are you from? I hope you'll be gentle when you talk about it. Somebody we had on the show was it Ronnie Shell or somebody who was friends with Harvey? Maybe it was Dick Van Dyke. By the way, why was Ronnie Shell on the show? I'm just curious.

It's a good question. Twice. Twice. Somebody was here. Twice? Shell was on twice? Yeah. Well, this show is show business history, you know, so we're in for the stories. But somebody told us Harvey was a bit of a hypochondriac.

He may have been. I didn't notice that. Except when I banged his knee once and he said, well no, okay, that's all right. I was once banned from the Carle Burnett Show for asking Harvey Carlin an inappropriate question from the audience. I said, I used to go to every taping the Carbunnet show, we used to go, it was great. It was an amazing show to watch.

They did it almost live. I mean, they would do a sketch, there would be music, and then we'd change settings and they would go. It took something like an hour and 20 minutes to film an hour show. It was so fast and so good. And there was a dress rehearsal and then a regular show and they both were fabulous

I used to go and in between when they were changing set Sometimes Carol would come out and sometimes Harvard come out and take questions and I asked a question Some version of what's it like to be a second banana? I was asking that Sincerely sincerely. I didn't think a second banana was an insulting term that sincerely I didn't think a second banana was an insulting term in but my parents did think it was an insulting term so I had to apologize to our friend I was banned for a year you also at one point said to them I understand the first address show didn't go that well you said that yes I used to say

things like that too I was kind of an asshole kid speaking of watching dad work we did a when you were a kid, what were you now, seven or eight or something when you were on the Dean Martin show? I was five. You were five. Five. My sister was seven. Yeah, there was a Christmas show and all the kids were on the special Christmas show.

Like the Deluise boys and. I think Dennis Weaver was the. Yeah, Dennis Weaver think Dennis Weaver was the It was fabulous we would go there and I and I would see people singing and dancing and and Having fun and I could this is work. It seemed like such not work and And and it seemed so fun and I thought well this this is I should do something like this Just not what my dad does which is lock himself in a room fun like what they're doing on stage. And it is fun, by the way.

It turns out it's a really fun thing when you get to do it. It's a great job. The Dean Martin show, I worked on there one year, and I got to meet Dean Martin once. First day of taping, Greg Garrison, producer, director, brought the four new writers on stage. Said, Dean, these are the new writers this year. This is Ed Weinberger, hello Ed.

This is Treva Silverman, hello Treva. This is Stan Daniels, hello Stan. This is Arnie Kogan, hello Marty. I shook his hands, never spoke to him again, never corrected him, never spoke to him again in my life. So he had the name on. You're in good company, you called him Arnie and Mandino called him Marty. But that night, was it Mom?

Three weeks later, my wife Sue was at Stefano's restaurant at Sunset Boulevard with an associate of Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet. Her name is Judy. It still is Judy. And she's sitting at a table and Mord Viner and Dean Martin are three tables away. Mord recognizes Judy Tannen and said, oh, there's Judy Tannen. And who is with her? Oh, one of the writers' wives. Come on over. Sue spent an evening with Dean Martin. I got Hello Marty. Wow. She has a much better lifestyle than I have.

And Jay, you worked with Tracee Ullman. And Arna, you worked with Carol Burnett and you said there's a difference. There is. Yeah both are very funny the difference is Carol you know almost like Sid Sears could not relate really to an audience Carol could I'm not sure how well Tracy was at just related to an audience but Tracy Tracy's what made Tracy a very interesting and great actress is her ability to mimic, and mimic a person.

I don't think, she doesn't come from loving a character necessarily. She comes from the idea of what's funny about that character, what are the flaws of the character and how to exploit it. Carol is just a lovely woman and she's trying to have fun, and she conveys her warmth from all the characters. Even when she was like Miss Hannigan and Annie, and the evil villain, she's still great,

and she still exudes a life force that's worthwhile. Tracy buries herself so deep in the character that you don't necessarily see that same life force. You don't see that same. More than that, Carol, the key to that show, I think, was the Q&A, questions and answers. She got in front of an audience, you'd be warm and funny and friendly,

and that opening three-minute spot, that was the key to the success of the Burnett Show. Conversely, Tracy Oman would take questions at the end of her show in a robe and alienate the whole audience. What can I say to that? Insult them and alienate them. Yeah, so very different. That's the difference. Well, you know, she was tugging on her ear a robe and alienate the whole body. We're going to suck them and alienate them.

Very different. That's the difference. Well, you know, she was tugging on her ear to Carol as a little sign to her grandmother. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, so there was so much affection there. Yeah, as a little sign to my grandmother, I had eight guys in a helicopter going over my grandmother's house. Okay!

So it's amazing how it ran full cycle. Appreciate the callback. How about that writers' room at Burnett with Patchett and Tarsus and Gail Parent and Barry Levinson and Rudy DeLuca? Great, it was different in the years Patchett and Tarsus were on the first year. I love them. I'd work with them again on a show we'll talk about later if you want. Sure.

And then- We just asked Jay Tarsus to do this show. So hopefully he'll come on. He's great. Oh yeah, yeah. I haven't seen Jay in a while. And then Janet Dixon, Janet worked on Parrot. Gene Parrot is very funny.

Oh, Gene Parrot. Great gag writer. And he worked with Bill Richmond, who was the drummer for Jerry Lewis and wrote screenplays for Jerry Lewis and then Barry Levinson and Rudy DeLuca And it's great staff and it was a great place to work First of all, the Burnett show is like being hired by the New York Yankees. I was a Dodger fan, but it's like going to the Yankees it was terrific and we get out 6 6 30 and

I don't Ever remember I there may have been a rewrite. I don't remember if there was I do not remember a rewrite in four years So a beautiful place to work story was True story. I was driving back from CBS television city to Encino took Laurel Canyon Along the way stopped by a cop he said excuse me license and registration what was the problem you're going a little fast 35 miles zone you're going 40 where you coming I said I'm coming from work where do you work

Carol Burnett show and as he's writing a ticket he said ought to be a lot of fun this year with Tim being a regular and all I got the ticket but he knew all about this show how's Lyle doing okay I still got the, but he knew all about the show. How's Lyle doing? Okay. I still got the ticket, but he knew the show. That's LA for you. Jay, what was your standup like since you brought up your... My standup was... wasn't horrible.

It's just I didn't have... I was a comic in search of a persona. Okay. You have to have a persona to to ultimately succeed Gilbert you've got a persona Very clear wonderful persona my like my first attempts to stand up were just Plain jokes just jokes another version of it was turned to be like weird like Annie Kaufman's kind of I

Brushed my teeth the La Bamba. I just put on the record La Bamba and brushed my teeth to it. So it's a little performance art in there. Yeah, I was trying to be funny. I thought it was funny, but I don't know if it sure was. And my best version of it was putting on a tuxedo and doing jokes as if I was 65 about kids today. I was 15 years old in a tuxedo and I would rail against how I did not understand what's that? That's not music. That's just noise, you know that kind of stuff and So that was a character I could do and I got laughs, but I couldn't sustain it

so so I also hated performing in comedy clubs because a lot of people are there on dates and they're not there to see a Show they're there to sort of get drunk and and giggle and have fun and they're not there to see a show, they're there to sort of get drunk and giggle and have fun. I went over to the Groundlings Theater, and when people go to a theater, they're actually more apt to have a show. There are no hecklers at the Groundlings. There are hecklers at the improv.

So I found that just a much more, a better environment for a 16-year-old kid. No cigarettes, no booze, just people performing. There's a heckle Jay at home. I'd heckle him a lot at home. And when you first got The Simpsons, both your father and other people were... Yes.

Yeah. Well, how were they reacting? They said, Grant Tinker, one of the great show business wise men. I was in a meeting with Grant Tinker who said do not do a cartoon. You'll destroy your career. And I said to my dad, I said I'm being offered this cartoon and he said you just got into live-action into the Tracy Oman show. You're winning awards. Why would you ruin

yourself by going into this cartoon? Which is completely understandable. Nobody had ever succeeded with a cartoon at all. It was sage advice from my father. However, my partner Wally and I thought, well, it's 13 episodes, it'll be fun, it's for Fox, who knows what'll happen, and it just seems really good. Sam Simon and Matt Groening are really funny.

It'll be interesting. So he couldn't have known what we knew at the time, which was, you know, the auspices of what they're trying to do is different, so maybe it'll work. It worked. It seemed to work. Yeah, it worked out okay. I left after five years thinking,

how much longer could this go on? I was wrong. 25 years later. Yeah. Al and Gene, Al Gene and Mike Reese have stuck it out from the, what, they've been there from year one? Well, mainly Al. Al is there day to day.

Mike comes in, Mike is a consultant. Mike lives in New York and he comes in and he consults and he goes in. But Al is the day to day top guy at the Simpsons. And yes, he's been doing it day in and day out for a really long time. Mike too, you know, week to week and then consultant. It's not easy to be a consultant either, but Al seems to have shouldered the burden with Matt Selman to try and keep the show alive.

And I must say, a lot of people, you know, like you, Frank, you're very kind about some episodes we wrote, but I watch the show now, and I think it's just as funny as it was then, and I don't think it's lost its step. I think people have gotten used to it. I think it's just as funny as it was then, and I don't think it's lost a step. I think people have gotten used to it. I think it's sort of like a great restaurant. You know, there's a restaurant here in LA called The Ivy.

It's wonderful food. Every time you go, you go, oh my God, how great it is. But you're used to it. It's there, it exists, and it's been there forever. New restaurants come along and people get excited about it. But The Simpsons is a great restaurant that serves a really great meal every time. And I don't know that the fans appreciate it.

They live in a nostalgia for their childhoods about how exciting it was when it first came on. And now a question for both of you. It's like, other than funny and not funny, when you're writing, are there any kind of rules where, no, I would never go in that direction, or I would never try that? Oh, sure. Yeah. He's got more rules than I do. I don't know. I never think about the rule. I just write what seems natural and stuff. Well, that's the rule. Does it seem like a character would say this what it would it are you writing a joke? That's maybe funny, but ruins the character ruins the reality or hurts the the show or hurts to get's not grounded

Are you writing something that is? So alienating that it's going to take the audience out of it. Are you writing something that you know there's beyond funny. It's about Heart it's about what are you trying to say. It's all the other stuff about writing. That's the same for drama as it is for comedy. If you can get emotion into a comedy half hour script or 25 minute script, that's all the best. All the better if you can get some emotion

and some feeling. You need to. I think you need to be, in order to be carried away by the story and invested in the story, there needs to be some emotion no matter what it is. I have no emotion in my life, so I can't translate that into a script. That's true.

You know, when it happens, it's a lucky break for me. He has a good computer approximation of emotion that he uses. Well, I've heard you talk about too, how freeing The Simpsons was, because you're writing a half hour, you know, they're going to build one set, you're allowed three actors,

and in animation, you really could, you know, go anywhere you want to go. Right Right budget is not a consideration in an animated show so you can write I always say you can write in interior volcano day and actually go inside a volcano they'll build it for one line you know those are right you know there's no way on a real show will they build an interior volcano set for one line but you can do it in a in a and they won't even do it for a movie but they can do it in an animated show. The Czechoslovakian army comes over a hill you're not gonna get that in a three-camera. And that's and I'm kind of the Simpsons was freeing in that you

could do all that and the goal of it at the time was trying to stay somehow emotionally grounded or at least emotionally invested. So Homer, while being an idiot, still somehow cares about his kids. His wife, although married to an idiot, still somehow managed to care about him and they want their children to succeed. Even when Homer's selfish, he realizes he owes his children some measure of happiness. Those things which are thrown out on other shows were kept on The Simpsons. I think, actually I think that made The Simpsons better,

although maybe now it makes them old hat. But I actually think it makes them better. I don't think so. I think that's the thing you return to 30 years later is the core, is the relationships. Yeah. The characters to care for each other. I don't think it's as prevalent on a show like Family Guy or other shows that also try to do the same thing.

Right. But they they don't worry about being as grounded, especially with their cutaways do anything. There's no sense of reality. And and that's good for them and very successful for them. It's a very funny show. It's just different for for what we were trying to do at The Simpsons. And some of the characters like Kang and Kodos for what we were trying to do with the Simpsons. And some of the characters like Kang and Kodos that you are the father of. I am the father of Kang and Kodos. I love those aliens. Three house of R.

My favorite thing, one of the favorite experiences I ever got to do was draw a character of the Simpsons. And I drew Kang and Kodos. Oh, that's cruel. Because they couldn't understand the stage direction. The stage direction said, it's an octopus with fangs and he has a trail of slime and he's in an old fashioned sea diver's helmet. And the artist came to me and said,

we don't understand what you're talking about. And so I drew, you know, an octopus with one eye and fangs and a sea diver's helmet and like a bad trail of slime. And that's pretty close to what they did. You know there's two aliens on this show and Harry does one of the voices and yeah, maybe does both in you Didn't you base that on a Twilight Zone episode? Yes. Yes, there was a Twilight Zone episode absolutely, and we were parroting that for for our Our treehouse I thought I thought it was based on the life of dawn to four

Be off here. Are there any listeners alive who remember Don DeFore? Only on this show. Okay, wow. Yeah. They appreciate a Harry Von Zell reference too. I was about to say Harry Von Zell, but then I thought nobody's gonna know him either.

So Dondepour and Harry Vonsel walk into a bar. That's what we're here for. There was that Twilight Zone episode where there's lights in the sky or whatever, and the whole neighborhood turns on each other. Yes. They get paranoid. They all are fighting each other and at the end you see these two aliens going, it will be easy. Look how they react to each other.

Wow, I miss that one. They can destroy the world. That was their plot on how to take over the world. And they're all being paranoid and afraid something bad is happening and they convince themselves nothing bad is happening but in the end, aha, something bad was happening. What a great series That was yes better than two broke girls How dare you sir I think I found both equally chilling Jay Jay just a question about the voice actors on the show cuz you and Wally wrote

Was it like like father Clown with Jackie Mason? He wrote, yes. Yeah, and how was, how was, then I want to ask you another question about an infamous, I think you'll know where I'm going, a guest voice that you wind up not getting on the show. You know what I'm referring to? I don't, but I will in a second.

What do you want to know about Jackie? How was Jackie to deal with, to work with? Well, I had met Jackie Mason years before. He had been doing his one-man, before he was doing that one-man show that got him a lot of acclaim. Oh yeah. I had seen him perform at Dangerfields.

I was a comedy nerd when I was 10 years old and 12, and my mom took me to Dangerfields to see him. And we went backstage to go see Jackie Bason. I don't know how we got backstage or who we knew, but I wanted to meet him. And he answered the door in his underwear. He's like, he doesn't want to hurt his pants. And you take your pants off between shows

because you don't want to get them creased or whatever. Old school showbiz. Yeah, old school showbiz. And he was the most nicest guy and very sweet to me and I never forgot him and Bob Hope and other people who were really nice to an idiot little boy, Jay Cogan. Yeah, Bob Hope. But then years later we flew to New York to get his voice because we wrote this Father of the Light Club and we needed a voice of a rabbi and at that point, Jack, he had been

doing his one man show and been pretty famous for being a super Jew not just a Jew And he was great he was fabulous, but he would not a he didn't remember many of the lines and be To ask him for a different read was a stupid question like you do it differently So he only does his Jackie Mason reading and there's no, you know, more emotional. I was very emotional. This is not emotional. That's all. He just does one voice. It's his voice, but it's one voice. It's very recognizable. Rabbi, did not a great man say, and I quote, the Jews are a swine bunch of people.

I mean, I've heard of persecution, but what they went through is ridiculous. But the great thing is, after thousands of years of waiting and holding on and fighting, they finally made it. End quote. Oh, I never heard the plight of my people phrase so elegantly. Who said that, Rabbi Hillel? Nope.

It was Judy the Pious. Nope. My ammonantly. Who said that, Rabbi Hillel? Nope. It was Judy the Pious. Nope. My ammonities. Nope. Oh, I got it! The Dead Sea Scrolls! I'm afraid not, Rabbi.

It's from Yes I Can by Sammy Davis Jr. An entertainer like your son. The Candyman? If a performer could think that way, maybe I'm completely upside down on this whole problem. Give Jay a little bit of your Jackie. Let's just treat the boys. I just remember my wife running into him. Well, we were walking in in Florida or something and my wife ran into him and she said, oh,

I'm married to Gilbert Gottfried. And Jackie Mason goes, I don't like that Gilbert Gottfried, he loused me. That Gilbert Gottfried loused me. And I still don't understand how I loused him. No, you loused him. Take his word for it. I don't know what that means. But he was really great. We had a flight to New York to get him, which was another great privilege. Just a fun to New York to get him, which was another great privilege. Just a fun to go get interviews with people. But he was terrific, he was terrific.

I would work with him any time. Was there an attempt to get O.J. Simpson back before the? Wow. Is that bullshit? I don't, not while I was there. Okay. For what role? For some role, I got bad information.

I mean, it's possible, the show's been on for 30 years. I was only there for five, so. Only before the incident, obviously. It's possible. He's better as a guest after the incident. They're better jokes. Once he's a murderer, it's actually better. And if you do ask him,

you'll have to ask him very nicely. Yes. No, we didn't. We had other sports figures. We had a lot of baseball players on. We eventually had some of the Beatles on. Oh yeah. The B-Sharps episode with George Harrison. Michael Jackson was on Uncredited.

Really? Right, right, right. And another uncredited Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman didn't take a credit. I recorded Dustin's performance for that show. I went to a trailer that he was doing a movie with an engineer and a tape recorder. We recorded maybe lines, post-production lines, and he was great. And he was very insecure. Like, was that good? Am I good? Was that fine?

Like, no, you're Dustin Hoffman. It's all good. It's all great. It was the opposite of Jackie Mason. Yes. Yeah, he took a screen credit Sam Eddick Semetic. Yes That was the time when I think people were afraid of being Identified on this dumb cartoon show it became before became a giant hit and the same thing with Michael Jackson. He was uncredited And I remember one line in that episode where he gives her a very sentimental goodbye that he's leaving and and Lisa and he goes you do believe me Lisa don't you and she goes yes I believe your voice your eyes semitic good looks. Yeah. That's a sweet episode. It is sweet episode.

So he gives, Desenov, the teacher, gives Lisa a note, which is supposed to be the answer to everything, and it says, you are Lisa Simpson. You are Lisa Simpson, yes. And that is very, Jim Brooks, James L. Brooks, who is one of my heroes, no one else can write something like Jim. Jim can tread on something that could be hokey,

but make it new and fresh and unhokey, and he makes sure to make it interesting, but emotionally viable and real. He's one of the greatest writers I've ever met, and he's a gigantic hero of mine along with my father That's an example of the depth of the show because obviously the show was funny But here you are and with the Hoffman episode what maybe eight nine ten episodes in and you have a moment like that And you realize that I remember watching it and I remember this is this is gonna be something different. This is this is special

yeah, and you can also imagine works on another level a room full of This is special. Yeah, and you can also imagine it works on another level. A room full of of of cynical writers in their 20s who all heard Jim Brooks say that go, Oh, God, this is going to be horrible. And then it comes out and is, oh, my God, it's beautiful. So you don't know anything when you're 22 and just looking to make people laugh. OK, just when the show is starting to get good, we're gonna throw a monkey wrench into the works with this commercial word.

Live from Nutmeg Post, we now return to Gilbert and Frank's amazing colossal podcast. Now here's a segue. You guys ready for this? Yeah. Because we were talking about Kang and Kodos in space. Yes. And I'm going to go from there to NASA and we're going to ask Arnie about the Supey Sails movie.

Oh boy. Birds do it. Yes. He gave the whole plot away, Frank. The whole... Well, hey, everyone in the world has seen that movie, don't worry about it. It's like Star Wars.

Those festivals going on. It was amazing. I had no idea I got that job. I was writing for about two years. I was doing the Les Crane show. Doing some talk shows, and Ivan Tor is the producer, and Marty Ingles was on the Les Crane Show,

and somehow he recommended me to Ivan Tor's to write a movie. And it was either Ingles or Jerry Lewis or Super Sales was going to star in this movie. And they hired me, and I didn't never show them a script, I never wrote a script, I had never written a feature movie at all. And there I was down in Florida, at Arvin's Tora Studios,

rewriting a script called Bird's Do It, art author who wrote the original screenplay, and I was kind of punching it up. And I had no idea what I was doing, and you could tell from the movie when you see it that it looks that way yeah I will give it I will say the movies in color that's the only positive thing about Arthur O'Connell shows up yes and Ted's tab tab Hunter was a tab hunter tab was quoted as saying this is the worst film I've ever been in in my life. So, and he was in Operation Bikini with Jim Backus.

So, but I think he's right. He was right. So I had no idea what I was doing. And we thought it would be like a hard day's night, the Beatles film. We thought it'd be a hip trendy and the director was not a comedy director. He was a director of flounders and sea animals.

He did Flipper and so it didn't quite work out. And Doctari, all those Ivan Tor shows. Yeah the Chimp is in there. Yeah. Judy the Chimp who was in Doctari turns up in the movie. Oh is that the same Chimp from Doctari? Yeah. I did not know that. So you have a whole new perspective. Well she's on the poster I should have been able to tell. I know Jay shares our fondness for monkeys. I do. I love monkeys.

But I got a screen credit when I was young in my career. So I'll take it, I think. Yeah. No, I've had monkeys in many, many shows. I do love monkeys. It's true. And in Last Exit to Springfield, I'm going to go back to that. There's that wonderful gag where Burns goes into the locker room locker room and what is it there's a thousand chimpanzees

typing, a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters. Yes he wanted to see if they would write Shakespeare. They come really close. Arnie, I think Gilbert's fascinated by this. Talk about writing for some of the stand-ups early on. You wrote for Morty Gunty. Morty was the first comic I ever wrote for. Right around the time I started writing for Mad Magazine. I wrote for Gunty and I wrote for Toady Fields. I wrote for Jackie Vernon, who was very smart.

You remember Jackie Vernon? Sure. Don Adams? Don Adams? When I first started writing, I wanted to write for Don Adams. He never bought it. I wrote something, he used to write those things with Bill Dana, the baseball umpire and the football guy, which were brilliant.

And I tried to duplicate that. I didn't sell anything at that point. I did write a thing about a school teacher in the same voice and did that routine at a New Year's Eve party once and a girl, pretty girl in red dress laughs very loud at it, ended up marrying her. It's Jay's mom, Sue. Oh, that's a lovely story. Yeah, she reacted well to the act and... So I'm here because of a bit you couldn't sell? That's... Whatever it takes.

I could have been flying over the house with a helicopter. You wrote some books with Phyllis Diller. Did you write her acts? I wrote a book for Phyllis Diller, a book for Toti. Wow. I wrote a lot of stand-ups for singers that were not very funny. Oh, Banter. Banter, yeah.

Jackie Deshannon and Nino Tempo and April Stevens. Jackie Deshannon, put a little love in your heart. That's right. Yeah. Yes. Very good. And other singers, Steve and Edie wrote for for many years, Steve Lawrence and he's, but Steve is funny.

Steve Lawrence and Edie for me. So, you know, a lot of standups and a lot of singers. Diana Ross, who I never met, I wrote some material for her also. And Sammy? Sammy, I wrote for, there were two Academy Award shows that I wrote, kind of. One was for Carol Burnett, she was one of four hosts on some Academy Award. And Sammy was also one of four hosts on, he was a host along with Alan King and Helen

Hayes and my goal was to make him funnier than Helen Hayes. The line of reference that was kind of quoted was, he said, this year they're honoring two films, they're featuring two films honoring my people, Shaft and Fiddler on the Roof. Perfect. That's a good one. Good joke. That was the Sammy stuff. Now I heard a story that Bob Newhart was one time watching TV and Don Adams did one of Newhart's bits word for word.

Wow. Wow. I never heard of that. I believe that. But they worked so different. They're not the same rhythm you know interesting comedian that needs material needs material and didn't build a whole Byron Glick thing for for almost he rolled over so I think he's a Maxwell

smart yeah he and Don Adams wrote those comedy pieces the lawyer or the you know you know baseball umpire although it are the legs of a homicidal maniac, I think Dana wrote a lot of those. Dana ended up working on a show I was a head writer and producer for, Donnie and Marie show. He was one of the writers. Oh yes, you got to talk about that too. So another writer that I was going to hire, there was a guy, I said we need one more monologue

writer. I met a guy from the Midwest, he came in his truck I said I like the material do you think it could write for Donnie Marie said I can it was David Letterman Letterman and I went back I said I want to hire this guy it turns out we did not have enough money so Letterman never wrote the Donnie Marie show Wow good for him and but we were about to hire him but you wound wound up working with him anyway on that Mary Tyler Moore. Mary Tyler Moore had a variety show. Do you remember that show?

Sure. We called Mary. Yeah. But Patchett and Tarsus were running the show and Letterman and Michael Keaton and Swoozie Kurtz. Swoozie Kurtz and Dick Shawn and Mary Tyler Moore. So Dick, Mary may have been the least talented of the bunch, but the show we thought would be brilliant and run for 23 years, we shot 13 shows,

only three aired, and they canceled it. Didn't quite work out. They wanted to see Mary doing Mary Richards. We had her singing Dead Skunk in the middle of the road. We had stuff that was inappropriate. Mary Tyler Moore covers Loudon Wainwright. We had six guys in shirts and ties. We had the Ed Asner dancers doing a disco dance.

So it was a lot of stuff that she was not comfortable with. And the show went off pretty quickly. That's too bad. Yeah. She was also famous for not being so nice. Could be a little luck. That character in that movie with ordinary people was not quite that, but but almost she could be like that

Oh my god. It's so funny. You say that because when I saw ordinary people I Remember watching her going, you know, I don't I never met her but she seems a little too good but she seems a little too good at playing this character. Interesting. Wow. Anthony Hopkins also eats people. Really? Between the two of them.

Yeah, sure. The line was, Mary Talamor had diabetes, I think, and she went to the doctor and she went for a checkup and the doctor said, you know, she said, how am I doing? He said, you're doing fine. You know, you can play tennis, you can exercise, you can dance, you can do anything you can. You can do everything except variety. Right?

Right? Oh, that's fantastic. Oh. Gilbert, I was at a poker game Monday and some people were quoting a joke of yours. There's other jokes, but Bill Prady, who runs, who helped create the Big Bang Theory, did an imitation of you doing a joke about an alien spaceship coming over head, getting a car, pulling the car up.

It's a long joke. I don't want to ruin it because I'm not Bill Prady. I can't tell, but it was brilliant. If you want to, you can do long joke. I don't want to ruin it. I'm not Bill Prady. I can't tell it, but it was brilliant. If you want to, you can do it, but I can't. You want to do the biddy setting you up for this. Oh, God. Remember it? Talk about...

I'll do it. So the alien, the car, he sees lights in the sky. Suddenly the clouds clear and a big magnet starts shaking the car the car is swooped up into this thing it's clearly it's an alien spaceship he goes into the alien spaceship these strange creatures come or surround the car they roll down the window through you know telekinesis and suddenly they say and desire is a good Work more! The poker room laughed a lot. So we owe you some money. That's the bit. That's a long way around the bend to get to a Ben Gazara joke.

Ben Gazara in Roadhouse was great. And I remember somebody told me they met Ben Gazara. I never met him. And he was there with smoking a cigar, you know, and he goes, hey, do you know Gilbert Gottfried? He goes, oh, the one with the eyes. Yeah, yeah. And and he tells him that bit and he says Ben Guzara starts pounding the table Punching him in the shoulder

That's funny He did he did not feel that you loused him Not louse him. No Ben Guzara said he loves me He comes No, Ben Guzara said, he loves me. He comes to me. Right. Loves me. Do a little, since Jackie Vernon came up, I love to put you on the spot on the show. Treat, treat, uh, treat the gentleman to a little bit of, okay.

It'll bring back flashbacks for Arnie. Here's some slides for my vacation. Here I am with Manuel the tour guy. Here's Manuel leading us around the quicksand. Here we are from the way stop. Here's a bunch of hats and rugs and things. He was a bunch of huts and ropes and things. He was a very funny guy. The line I liked best of his was he said, you know, he's a dull guy.

That was his persona. He said he was once arrested at Times Square New Year's Eve for loitering. That's a good joke. That's funny. Somebody told me who was friends with Jackie Vernon and he also had a thing where he would go into a supermarket or department store, wherever a woman would be by herself. And you know, he had that big pot belly. So he'd walk up, act like he's looking at stuff, and then he'd suck his belly in so

his pants would fall down. And that was his big thing of going up to women and doing it. Classy. Me too. It's a me too now. And he can't do that. In his line, in his act, he does a pick-up line saying, at the beach he said, excuse me, I seem to have lost my congressional medal of honor around here someplace.

Ha ha ha ha! A pick up line for him. My introduction to Jackie Vernon was, there was a character on the cartoon Underdog that was basically Jackie Vernon. Really? Yeah, one of the villains of Underdog was Jackie Vernon. And I didn't realize who it was,

because I was five, but then I was going through my dad's comedy record collection, and I pulled it out, and I hear, the voice is the same. So some cartoon actor was doing Jackie Vernon, and they drew it, the villain to look like Jackie Vernon. That's hilarious. But he's, in the way that a lot of the Hannah Barbera characters were named after.

Oh, we've talked about that, yeah. Yeah, how they would be doing Art Carney. Dean Martin or Art Carney. It's the other people. Yeah, exactly. And a Luckleberry Hound doing Andy Griffith. Yeah, all of them used to be, well, like, yeah, Yogi Bear was Art Carney.

Right, right, right. And on the Dick Tracy cartoon, like, they would have, like, one who sounded like James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson. Well, Simon Barr's sinister on Underdog was Lionel Barrymore. Basically, if you go back and you listen to it. Very popular one, Lionel Barrymore in the cartoons. Also to imitate Ed Wynn in the cartoons.

Yeah, great voices. Now, Jay, we were both in the Aristocrats. We were. You were better than me. You know what? You know what a fan wrote in Jay, he set you up, but we take questions sometimes from our listeners and a fan named Bobby Mago or Mago wrote, I need to ask Jay who did his favorite version of the aristocrats. Oh, really on the spot. You know, I would say me, me, I did my favorite version. Somebody would never, you get to do your own version.

That's the whole point of the joke is you get to do exactly the version you want to do. I do the version I want to do. Yeah. You call them the sophisticatedates, I think. Yeah, well that's the other variation of it. A little bit. Yeah. You guys have never met? You and Jay have never crossed paths? I don't think so.

I have met Gilbert, but he wouldn't remember meeting me. Well, join the club. He's a famous celebrity. Gilbert, do you remember meeting me about 35 years ago? Oh my god, no! Thick of the Night. Oh my god! I was one of 18 writers in the room there.

Try to burn that out of your memory. Holy fuck! Why would he remember that? Oh fuck was on the script. I tried to block out Thick of the Night. Same here. Toughest show I, I try to block out. Same here. Same toughest show I've ever done in my life. I've done like a zillion shows. Toughest, toughest gig I've ever had ever. Since you mentioned Thick of the Night. Yeah.

The theme song was written and performed by Alan Thicke. Yes. And it went as follows I was talking about that an hour ago in the car coming here with Jay. I said I want to get a recording like all the theme songs of shows I've worked on. The Jackson 5, the Donnie Marie, New Heart, and Think of the Night. I want to get all these things. I'm gonna handle that for him. I got it.

That's a birthday mix. Yes. Right there. Well, Donnie and Marie, you were working with, maybe not with, but Sid and Marty Croft. Sid and Marty preceded me. Oh, okay. I came in, or I don't know, the first year. And then I came in myself and Ray Jessel, a partner I had at the time, brought in

Mike Ovitz was our agent, he just got us on the show, you guys are gonna be head writers. I said really? They have head writers? Well, you're gonna go in. And we were head writers and I enjoyed it a lot and Sid and Marty were there and found me was very terrific and I enjoyed doing that show for a year and a half. Did you hire Bruce Vellanche for that show? I did. I hired Bruce, yes. Yes, good move. Same year, yeah, very good move and the same year I hired Bill Dana and some other people and

yeah, Vellanche is very interesting and funny guy. Yeah, we're going to have him on in a couple of weeks. Sid and Marty Croft to this day have an office at the Radford CBS studios. They're coming on with us next week. A small office. I went into their office one time and it was like going into Cheech and Chong's van. It was like the smoke and the smell of pot was crazy. So I know what HR Puffin stuff means. I get it now. And yet they deny that to this day. Every time they're interviewed, they deny that there's any drug connection to any of their creations. Hmm, okay.

Sid and Marty said... They would know better than me. Sid and Marty, somebody did impression of, not impression, they described Sid and Marty, they said, Sid and Marty, they'll have a production number and Sid will say, let's have 200 dancers in chandeliers and exquisite costumes coming down these gold staircases and Marty would say, not 200, three dancers. He'd be the money guy.

Sid would be the artistic guy. That was the difference. Sid did all those shows with Liberace and Judy Garland back in the day. Yeah. But like the Dynomaree show, for some reason, they always had a, each year, like they had an ice skating production number. But like every opening, every opening was ice skating. Always ice skating.

But what the fuck was that about? I mean, like that's not a production number. It's the same thing. I think it's a cost saving measure. We have an ice skating rink. Toortize it will do it over 22 episodes My next production meeting note was going to be what the fuck is this all about? I never did that Water then they did one with a pool. Yeah, it's like As a child it annoyed me

You guys could do better The Simpsons did a great send up of one of those Sid and Marty shows of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour where they did the Simpsons Family Smile Time Hour. And it's so spot on. It's such a brilliant. It's so easy to make fun of that. I know, I know.

Have a sitcom suddenly become a variety show is not easy and not pleasant. Those poor kids. I don't remember much about the Jackson Var show, but I was doing research on it. You had Joey Bishop was on it and Muhammad Ali. Well, no, well, the Ray Jessel and I again, it was a summer show that we did. We did four episodes, four half hour episodes. It was a Jackson's without Jermaine.

There was a contract thing going on. Jermaine married the daughter of Motown and only every Jackson except Jermaine did it. And Janet was around nine, there was another Jackson around nine or ten. Randy. Michael was 16. It was a lot of fun. The guests were Joey Bishop, Ed McMahon. John Biner. That was McMahon. John Beiner.

That was later. They later picked the show up and as a regular season, I was doing Don and Marie that I couldn't do it anymore, but it was fun to do a forest shows with the Jackson. They lived in Encino, we lived in Encino. Jay, you remember we had a party. Yeah, we had like a premier party at our house where the Jacksons came over.

They came over. And it was like us and the Jacksons, and I think not a word was said. Well, we had like a premiere party at our house where the Jacksons came over. They came over. And it was like us and the Jacksons and I think not a word was said. Well no, there was, we spoke and Buzz Cohen came over he was a consultant and at one point in the evening Sue's mother Nana Chickie was there. So at one point I see Nana Chickie, Sue's mom talking to Marlon Jackson. What the hell were they talking about? I have no idea. No idea what this 73 year old lady and Marlon Jackson, I have no idea. I just remember them being incredibly shy. Like Janet Jackson trying to talk to a beat. She was incredibly shy. Michael was also. Michael was at that time.

There should be a Kogan flowchart too with all the different people that you guys have worked with because you both worked with Michael Jackson. That's true. Yeah, yeah. But I knew I kind of, he grew up in the neighborhood neighborhood so I kind of ran into him a couple different times. I get by like a local pizza place around the market and stuff. He was not as you know like he was not quite as sheltered when he was a young guy. Yeah. We got an oxygen tent. We got to ask Arnie about Mad. Uh-huh. Arnie we had Al Jaffe here. Ohaffe here on the show maybe about a year ago. Going strong.

What is he, 95? Yeah, 94. Did he have any snappy answers for you? You bet he did. And when I was a kid I was a credit reader and watching the Carol Burnett show and I said, wait, Larry Siegel, Stan Hart, Arnie Kogan, these are the same guys that I'm reading in MAD. Yeah, yeah. We all did the Calabar Net show. Larry was the first guy, not the first. Larry preceded me by a couple of years and I came along and Jaffee was there also before me.

It was great to write for MAD. My first comedy sale ever was MAD magazine. I had always wanted to write comedy in some form, and I saw Mad, I said, this is great. And I wrote some spec Mad stories, and I brought them to Mad, and they, Feldstein and Jerry DeFuscio at the time said, this is not right for us. If you want to bring them to someplace else, you can. I went there, and that time they were like 23 in person. There was Panic, there was Nuts, there was Think,

there was all kinds of crazy magazines. I went there and that time there were like 23 in person. There was Panic, there was Nuts, there was Think, there was all kinds of crazy magazines. I brought all the stuff to Panic magazine, said, you know, this is good, you have anything more? I said, I can do some more. I gave him 17 story ideas. He said, I want to buy all of them. I said, great.

He said, but I cannot pay you until 12 months from now. I said, well, I don't know if I want to do that. He said, well, you can turn around and go back to Mad if you want. Went back to Mad and I submitted three of the stories. Two weeks later, I got a check in the mail from Mad Magazine, one of the biggest thrills of my life, ever, ever, ever, aside from this podcast.

Of course. Yeah. Yeah. So. Oh, the first time I sold a piece to Mad, I got the same thrill. Yeah, it's very exciting. Better than the honeymoon, isn't it? Yeah, it was. Go ahead, Jay. I still write for Deferred Payment magazine.

It takes a long time. Do you stay in touch with those guys? With Angelo and Mort's out on Long Island? Well, Mort I speak to once in a while. Larry Siegel was, he's in his 90s now. We saw him at a rehab center about six months ago. Frank Jacob. Physical rehab, not drug rehab, just to make it clear. Physical rehab.

I see Sergio every once in a while. Sergio Arrigo. He's the best. My God, he's the, he is the genius. To me, he's the genius of Mad Magazine. He is a genius. Not withstanding my father. Yes.

But I mean, just as growing up reading every episode of Mad, what's happening in the margins or when he seemed to me to be the funniest thing in the world. The drawn out dramas. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Frank Jacobs is a genius. I think. Absolutely.

He's great. I think your dad is a genius. I agree. Jackie, certainly. I agree. Jacobs is brilliant. Jaffe, funny thing, I left Costco about a year ago carrying a pizza. And a guy said to me, did you just buy a pizza? And I said, my snappy answer was yes.

So I called out Jaffe a half hour later. I said, Jaffe, I needed your help a half hour ago. I wish you were with me. I had nothing for the guy. Gilbert you're a mad reader from way back and aren't one of Arnie's specialties along with Celebrity Wallets which I always enjoy. Oh thank you. One of Arnie's specialties were the parodies the movie and the TV parodies. Oh yes. He did botch casually and the and the what was it in the some dunce kid. Thumb Dunce Kid. And Least Horizon the wonderful parody of that terrible Ross Hunter musical.

I didn't know anyone read that. Oh yes. I remember the word or sound yich was always very popular. That was one of the sounds, yes. I don't know if I wrote that much. Black and yich. Potts Reaby. So, Titanic would be Titanic. Yeah, Yech and Yech were in there quite a bit. And one joke that seemed to have been in every single movie parody

was one person going, I can't take it any longer. the other one would go you mean the guns and the bloodshed and the other would go no this dopey movie so you read my stuff huh? Marty I go through those things today the eight James Bond movies oh thank you that's right you took you took the right side classic stuff thank you now that's all collapsed now you the right side, classic stuff. Thank you. Now that's all collapsed. You know, the Mad Magazine has restarted. I know.

They're out to the left and they went out west. Yeah, I stopped writing for them about a year ago. I did 58 years with Mad Magazine from 1959 to last year. And I've written my last for Schlugner. I've typed my last for Schlugner. The bad name for a sad novel. My last for Schlugner. I typed my last for sure I've typed my last for schlugger for schlugger The bad name for a sad novel my last for schlugger I typed my last for schlugger And and I think the godfather was something like the Claude father was the odd father

Yeah, Siegel did that the funniest story ever from that was written by a guy named Tom Cook who wrote for Bob and Ray He was a writer for Bob. Yeah KOC-O-C-C-H. K-O-C-H. Right, right, right. Yes. And he had a thing called 43 Man Squamish. He made a, he created a game, a combination of rugby and soccer and football and 12, it was brilliantly hysterical.

I was pounding the table when, you know, spit soda through my nose. Very, very funny stuff. Well, he wrote those great Bob and Ray bits. The Slow Talker of America and all that. The Komodo Dragon. I had no idea they had a writer. But then when I found out they did,

I was like, holy shit, that guy's a genius. Yeah. I remember individual jokes of yours from the magazine, Arnie. That's how sick I am. I remember a Bernadette Peters joke in your longest yard parody. The longest guard? Which one? The longest yard?

The longest yard? Oh, yes. Wow, I did. Really? It was a joke about her hair exploding. I can't remember. I liked Who Boy Columbus. I used to die.

Oh, wow. Yes, you've written a lot. Yes. I love that stuff. Having a dad write for Mad Magazine in elementary school was kind of a big deal. I can imagine. If an eight-year-old could get pussy, I could have worked my way into that. Shay, I'm calling your mom. I'm going to call again on the iPhone and calling you. The best I got was an extra chocolate milk. That's the best I got.

on the iPhone and calling it. The best I got was an extra chocolate milk. I got nothing. Yeah, I remember I was a fan of Don Martin. Oh, sure. Sure. And he looked when we do it on the mad trips every year, they almost every year, Bill Gaines would take the writers and artists on these mad trips. I went I was working a lot so I couldn't go on the bag.

One, a number of them. Don Martin was there. Don Martin looked nothing like what you'd expect him to look like. He looked like... He didn't have a giant head with crazy ears. He had feet that folded. Yeah, the TV series Adventures in Paradise.

It was, I forgot who this, good looking star. That's what Don Martin looked like. He looked a very handsome guy, very quiet. On the man trips he said like two words, four words, all true. But he looked, you know, nothing like what he you'd expect him to look like. But the mad trips were great, you know, games to take the writers and artists and production people someplace in the world and we'd have a zillion laughs. Yeah, I know Dick DiBartolo and I know Al, so we've heard the legendary stories of the trips. Yeah.

You didn't get to go on all of them because you were busy working. Well, the first one I didn't get to go on, they went to Haiti. And they said, okay, you're going to Haiti and Kogan will be going. And it turns out you needed to have written or drew 20 pages to earn the trip to Haiti. And I had 18 pages in my first year or second year. So they said, you mean Kogan's not gonna go for two pages? And I said, no, no, Gaines is very strict that way. I love Bill Gaines, but he was very strict.

He said, no, no. So about three years later, Bill Gaines' mother died. They said, are you going to the funeral? I said, I don't have enough pages. I didn't go to the funeral. Before we let you get you guys out of here, Jay, talk a little bit about working on Frasier and with those actors that I've heard you say could make any script better. It's true. I mean, it's one of the three best experiences of show business I've ever had.

Working on Frasier with that writing staff which was enormous, every writer there was fabulous and smart and interesting and run the room by a great, great writer named Chris Lloyd who now runs a great modern family and runs half of it was just genius. I mean, we wrote plays. They were really plays.

They were three act, four act plays. And we'd sit and people would, it wouldn't be about going from scene to scene to scene. People would take our time. They'd build the story and they'd use the characters and they'd make really smart, interesting choices. Now, we'd give those scripts our best efforts to that cast and they would always make it better. And usually

make it better by just embodying those characters and taking their time and really, you know, the best jokes. It's like your money or your life. If you know what the character's thinking, if you're the audience's head of the joke and you you ask, uh niles You know, what's who's your favorite pitcher? Uh, and you know niles knows nothing about sports and you see him thinking there's just a joy in seeing him think and how long He can hold out that beat and they would always if in rehearsals They would always blame themselves if something was going wrong They would say we did it wrong. We did it wrong and and we'll do it better next time, and we would tell them no it's

bad, we've written something bad for you, let us write something better for you, and it was the only show I've ever worked on where the actors didn't hate the writers and the writers didn't seem to hate the actors. They were, they were, each one was in awe of the other in a way that made everything better. How refreshing. Kelsey Grammer hates me. Yeah, Kelsey's not a fan of Gilbert's. Did you louse him? Why does Kelsey Grammer hate you? I mean, Frank was working on a show at Kelsey Grammer heard I was on it. It was a roast and Kelsey came and Gilbert was booked on the same roast and as soon as Kelsey showed up and knew Gilbert was there he split. And it has to do with

Gilbert it has to do with you teasing him on the or teasing his making fun of his wife's disorder on the Howard Stern show. I was on the Howard Stern and we did like a couple of hours of her with the irritable balsam. The ex-wife. Even and to make matters worse they animated it and when he had his TV show they animated her with us doing the voices and her with her irritable balsam. He might not hate you so much now I'm just gonna say that divorce divorce may have bridged the gap but Kelsey by the way, you know is and was genius Wonderful and one of the greatest stars of any show I've ever worked with he led people in a very positive way on the stage and made everybody's lives better and

Clear so you know on this side Gilbert I'm sorry I have to take Kelsey's David Hyde Pierce pitched jokes. Oh my god. Yes. He pitched jokes all the time, but never for his character Always for one of the other characters. And when we were stuck on a joke, he would sidle over to us and kind of whisper in one of the writers' ears, you know, one of the characters could say X, Y, and Z,

and it would always be brilliant, and it would always be funny, and never for him. He was a giving, smart actor. He could have written any of our shows. He could have done it. He's a great writer, great director, great musician, great actor. He can do, David Hyde Pierce can do anything have done it. He's a great writer, great director, great musician, great actor. He can do, David Ida Pierce can do anything.

And it was an honor to work with him. When I was doing Newhart, he would come over to me and whispered my lines through Larry Darrell and Darrell. So I had no idea that he, yeah, no. But you know actors all want more lines. They want more, not him. He just was just giving to the show. He just wanted the show to be there.

He wasn't William Shatner, in other words. Exactly. He was just giving to the show. He just wanted the show. It wasn't William Shatner Yeah, yeah, I will also direct our listeners to your wonderful Emmy acceptance speech when you oh, yeah Frazier which they can find online and it's and it's truly it is a it is a shining moment That's to watch you run through the audience Making every person in the theater. Yes, I tried to do Roberto Benigni had been on Academy Awards that year and I decided to try and do Roberto Benigni as best I could. And I also wanted very much to sort of hug and kiss celebrities who didn't know me. I wanted to just run up and grab people who didn't know me and just say, we did it, we did it.

You know, but unfortunately the only people in my hour actually people I knew so it was hurting my bed So I so I ran up and then I did a bunch of jokes Kelsey was there and Hank is area to Helen hunt who I'm friendly with but but what I Tried to do which is I don't believe awards really mean that you are the best of anything awards are just kind of bullshitting But what's fun is to be able to give a speech and make jokes in front of an audience is fabulous. You know, I was a 16 year old kid trying to brush my teeth to La Bamba, so I'm willing to do anything

for what I think will get a laugh. Well, it's great, you say you thank Sam Simon for taking a chance on a well-protected rich white kid. Yes, well-connected rich white kid. Well-connected rich white kid. I'm sorry. Yes, exactly right. The funny line. Yeah, no connected. I'm sorry. Yes exactly. Funny line. Yeah

No, I had I had pages of jokes lined up and I started to get Joke after joke and I started to get played off and this will bring back to Bruce Ville Ansh who was writing on the Emmys and sitting in the booth told the the director let the guy go Let the guy go so he Bruce Ville Ananche is responsible for me getting the full speech out. I didn't know that till now. That's wonderful. Pay a little payback for this. Exactly.

Maybe you tell them a line about your mom, about the real estate. Oh, well, I don't want to spoil it for the people going on the internet, but yeah, I do a lot of jokes about my mother being a real estate agent and all the people. It's fine. Well, tell us something about John Mahoney

who just passed. The great John Mahoney. Rat bastard. Oh my God. Thank God he's dead, thank God he's dead. I would have killed him myself if he hadn't already died. Fuck him. No, John was, I don't think, I worked there for a bunch of years,

I think I said three words to each other. He came in, he did his job, he was like, get a journey man, he came in, he did his job, he liked acting, he liked doing it, and then he went home, and that was his thing. It was not, he was there, he loved acting, and he loved doing it, and he didn't make a big deal about it, and he was really smart and special,

and he sort of he brought he fully brought his humanity to the to the part and that's was a You know a grounding force to that show and the combination of his character and the other characters Were what made that show good if it was just you know a bunch of a feet guys You know without sort of a blue collar bent it would not have been a good mix so He but he was he was strong. He never missed a line. He always was Funny and but he never he never played anything for a joke He played everything for a reality and that is a great lesson to all actors who ought to be funny

Play the reality to committing to that reality as best you can that's what's funny We just had somebody on saying that we just had we just had a comedic actor on saying you saying play it like Strenberg I think was that Begley at Begley jr. We just had on well play it like it could be funnier. It could be funny When they were first making Airplane, the studio wanted to fill it with comedians. And they thought that. And they said, no, dramatic actors. Yeah. No, I mean, that's so silly. The dramatic actors sort of grounded it and sort of played it straight and allowed it to get back on tracks for uh, You know for more more time for the jokes, but even in a show like, you know, whatever

Any comedy that's worth its salt has actors who are trying to embody a reality They're not winking at the camera. They're not they're not playing it for big gags The second you do try to play it for big gags, you're ruined you're not playing it for big gags. The second you do try to play it for big gags, you're ruined. You're done for. That's it. And I think George Burns liked to have actors on his show because he said they believe it. The lines they're saying. Yeah. Yeah, the actors and Fred Allen. Artie, we're gonna let you guys get on with your lives, but quickly tell us either something about Tom Poston,

who we love, or the great Richard Mulligan, who we also love. I loved, I liked, I knew Poston better and loved him and was very kind of close to him. And you know, big loss. And I loved doing the Newhart show, all the Newhart shows I did. and Tom was a big part of that. So, you know, Newhart for me was like Jack Benny

and he was a reactor as far as doing comedy. But Poston, I knew him from Yarmys Army and I've known, in fact when I moved into a building recently 10 years ago, I bought his apartment in Los Angeles. But Tom was a beautiful, really, I would phrase beautiful guy as the wrong phrase, but he truly was.

Boston was great. Very sweet, he was sweet to me too. And we were friendly with his son. And as you grow up, you meet people who are star-like and people who are just people. And Tom was just good people. And he was kind of edgy when he did a comedy bit. He had a lot of edge to him. The quiet Tom Posen character, the handyman was not really what Tom was all about but he was

kind of slick and very funny. I liked him a lot. Yeah, he's the kind of guy that would have just been so perfect for this show. We tried to get Bill Dana and Bill was in failing health. We try to tell the history through these guys. Yeah. It's so rich. There's so much of it. Yeah, almost got Bill... Steve Allen guys, you got anybody else on from that show? I think we lost them all. Well, Louis Nye's gone and Pat Harrington's gone and we didn't... We started this four years ago. I mean, we're, you know, we're We know he's gone and Pat Harrington's gone. And we didn't.

We started this four years ago. I mean, we're thrilled with the people we have been able to get, including both of you. I remember talking briefly to Bill Dana on the phone shortly before he died. And I remember, boy, I was looking forward to it because he was still funny. Yeah, very funny guy. I spoke to him just after he died. And he's still funny yeah very funny guy I spoke to him just after he died still what do you got coming up Jay I'm driving dad home yep Pollo Loco Pollo Loco tonight you're directing these days I try to direct I

can't I seem to I there's a there's one person who will hire me and that's me Okay, I wind up hiring myself a lot because I'm very good But I want other people to hire me as well But yeah, I've been doing a show that just got cancelled the school of rock I directed a bunch of them and I directed the show before that Wendell and Vinnie and now I've got a show with my friend Max Burnett, you did The Troop with my friend Max. The Troop, absolutely and and got to direct there too. So I've been enjoying directing because it again it gets me out of that locked room that I so dreaded as a boy and actually working

with actors and and to me that's so much more fun to work on the stage with actors. I'm gonna go home now and put Jay in a locked room I'm gonna lock him in the room What do you think Gil? Wow, that's a show Well, it's like now I know you've never used me on The Simpsons and now I've got some guy on the What was that? The big on the Big Bang Theory, who has never used me on the Big Bang Theory. Well, wait a minute, they did guest voices on Frasier and Jay never used you on that

either. Oh, okay, that's good. And Arnie, it's so good working with you again. Every fucking 35 years we're going to do this. Say, would you rather me work with you or work on the thick of the night? If those are the choices. No working is better than working on the thick of the night. I've got to say that Alan was very nice with my sister, my daughter,

who passed away last year, but when she was 13 years old, she was a tremendous hockey fan, went to the Kings games. Alan, who was big with the hockey group, he arranged for the auditorium to write Happy Birthday Jill and then invited her up to the Forum Club and had one of the Kings players, Butch Goring, who had never said five words his whole life, he sang Happy Birthday to her. So it was a huge, huge huge drill Wow Appreciate that switch. Yeah worth a year of horror from the thing of the night Yeah, we had Alan on the show. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Gilbert had real history had history with him

Yeah, and I and I switch wives with him Okay, why did wife swap? Yeah, did you and Belzer do a bit where you were, he was ventriloquist and you were his dummy? Yes! I seem to recall that. Yeah, thick and stinky. I would sit on Belzer's lap. Yes, yeah. I sat on his lap last week. It was not received very well. Guys, we can't thank you enough for this and for slumping in. Thank you. What an honor and a pleasure. Oh my god, I've had more fun doing this one than any in 20 shows. Just pure laughter. Thank you. What do you think, Gil? Fight us back anytime. We will. Okay, well, we have been talking to, uh, Jay Cogan, who's never used you, who's never used

me, on The Simpsons, and Arnie Cogan, my old friend from Thick of the Night. Wait a minute, Arnie, did you ever write anything for him specifically either? I don't recall that. Okay, so Arnie for him specifically either? I don't recall that. Okay, so Arnie, so... I said I don't want to. I said, please, leave me out of this one. They stiffed you, both stiffed you. That sounds like one of those answers you give at a trial.

I don't recall. I got about 20 cards here in my hand and I think we got through about 10 of them. So we'll have you guys back and we'll have more fun. Thank you. Because as we always say at the end of each show, we haven't scraped the surface. Well, you know, they've met a lot of people and written for a lot of people and there's only so much you can cover in 90 minutes. I thought you were going to say scrape the bottom of the barrel.

I didn't know what you were doing with that. Exactly. We had a great time guys. Thanks so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal podcast is produced by Darragh Gottfried and Frank Santapadre with audio production by Frank Fertorosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McAdden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fotiadis, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovancho and Daniel Farrell for their assistance. So So You