Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Michael H. Weber

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

GGACP celebrates the birthday of a friend and a recurring guest, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Michael H. Weber ("The Disaster Artist," "500 Days of Summer," " The Fault in Our Stars") with this CLASSIC of a frequently hilarious interview from 2018. In this episode, Michael discusses the studio development process, the many eccentricities of Marlon Brando (and Tommy Wiseau), the cinema of Richard Curtis and the importance of truth in storytelling. Also, Jane Fonda takes a seat, Bill Murray thanks Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman pursues Hannibal Lecter and the boys list their favorite romantic comedies (and romantic comedy cliches). PLUS: Evel Knievel! "The Knack...and How to Get It"! Gilbert hangs with Paul Rudd! In praise of "Jerry Maguire"! And Michael swaps punchlines with Steve Martin! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Peloton has everything you need to help you get going. Get a head start on summer with Peloton and choose a flexible payment plan that works for you at onepeloton.ca. Hello. My name is M. Emmett Rolfe. One key. And I want to thank you for watching. Here's another Gilbert and Price. Whatever it is he does, they pay him money for it. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre.

We're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Verderosa. Our guest this week is an award-winning film and television producer and screenwriter of popular movies, including 500 Days of Summer, The Fault in Our Stars, Our Souls at Night, The Pink Panther 2, The Disaster Artist, for which he and co-writer Scott Neustadter have been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adopted Screenplay. Or adapted. I adopted it. As I was saying it. You got Neustadter somehow, but not adapted.

That was impressive. It was in an orphanage. Yeah, it was As I was saying it. You got new stutter somehow, but not adapted. That was impressive. It was in an orphanage. Yeah, it was. It was. The minute that came out, I said, that didn't come out the right way. In just a few years, he's gone from working as personal assistant to Robert De Niro to becoming one of the most sought-after screen and television writers in the business. Jane Fonda, Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Shailene Woodley, John Cleese, Willem Dafoe, James Franco, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Laura Dern, and Robert Redford. And he doesn't know it yet, but soon he'll be writing an Oscar-winning role for yours truly, Gilbert Gottfried. And yes, you guessed it, it's a 3D remake of Yentl. Please welcome a loyal listener of this very podcast, a man far too young and successful

to be caught dead appearing on it, and a man who cares to disagree with me about a little movie called Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Our friend, Mabel Whoop-Dee-Doo. Mabel Whoop-Dee-Doo? Yeah. Are you going to do everything I can to make sure that's how they say my name at the Oscars on March 4th? Oh, please do. Mabel, what do you do? Wait a minute.

We should give a little context to that. You were here for a couple of mini-episodes last week. We referenced the fact that when the Oscars were announced, Tiffany Haddish had a little hard time with your name. She did. She mispronounced Scott's last name and my full name. And it was hilarious. It was a great moment. Right.

And then, Gilbert, you pronounced it 15 different ways. You were Mickey Wiggly last week. I really thought you were going to go with Marcus Welby. Right. I think Mabel Whoop-Dee-Doo is the winner. Michael Weber is here, ladies and gentlemen. Guys, I'm honored to be back. Thank you so much.

Oh, him I don't know. Oh, he's good. He's nominated for an Oscar. Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Welcome back, Michael.

Thank you. Thank you so much. In your King of Comedy t-shirt, would you like to explain, first of all, we're very impressed, would you like to explain to our listeners what you're wearing? I'm wearing a cast and crew t-shirt would you like to explain first of all we're very impressed would you like to explain to our listeners what you're wearing i'm wearing a cast and crew t-shirt from the set of the king of comedy uh and my my first job out of college was working for robert de niro and i was a

we talked about this a little bit on the mini app i was a full-time assistant for a year uh and then and then bob to his his credit uh and I owe him so much, created this position for me where I basically archived his props and wardrobe, his mementos, his personal photos, his scripts. And we had this warehouse that looked like the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it was just boxes and boxes. And I had a lot of time on my own to write. And when I wasn't writing and I needed to pay the bills, I would sort of go through all this old stuff for him. And that collection is now at the Harry Ransom Center on the campus of the University of Texas. And anyone can go see it. It's an archive. So it's sort of partly a museum,

but partly available for scholarship. And if you are interested in screenwriting or costumes or directing, there is something there for you from his nearly 50-year career. Do you have to make an appointment to go and say, I want to come see this stuff, or you just show up? Both. So on the ground floor, there is a permanent exhibit. And the reason it's there, because you don't normally associate De Niro in Texas, it is a cultural depository. So the stuff they have there, the Watergate papers of Woodward and Bernstein are there.

Wow. One of the actual original Gutenberg Bibles is there. They have... This is the Steve Gutenberg. I knew he was... You know? I couldn't even get... I couldn't turn my head fast enough I knew he was going there

It's basically his notes from Cocoon 2 Yes And Yeah, and the Chicken Chronicles I was just starting to turn my head Before I even got a fraction of an inch He had it out All things considered I'd rather read the Steve Guttenberg Bible than the...

Me too, buddy. Me too. So anyway, when I was doing all this work for Bob, there were all these treasures. It was, you know, I told you guys last time, his script from Taxi Driver, where he wrote in his own hand in the margin, you talking to me, you know, just thumbing through that stuff. And one of the things was a box full of cast and crew shirts from the set of King of Comedy.

Which you are wearing. And I showed it to Bob because he would pop in every once in a while because I'd have photos I couldn't identify or just weird mementos. And I'd be like, what is this from? And the amazing thing is Bob's recall was incredible.

I'd show him a hat and I would say, do you remember what this is from? And he'd look at it and go, I'm pretty sure that's recall was incredible. I'd show him a hat, and I would say, do you remember what this is from? And he'd look at it and go, I'm pretty sure that's guilty by suspicion. And I'd pop the DVD in, fast forward, and what do you know? He's wearing the hat. He's wearing the hat. So he gave me this T-shirt, and I thought, you know, in honor of you guys and the podcast,

I would wear it tonight, and hopefully we can take a picture and put it online. We'll take a picture and put that up for our fans. What's interesting about that is that that font appears nowhere in the publicity for the film. Which happens all the time, by the way, on movies. It's not on the poster or anything. They adopt something ahead of time. And then when, you know, when the marketing department gets their hand on a movie, they decide, okay, here's what everything's going to look like later on. But the font, and oddly, like you can tell from the year it was made, it's like off-center a little.

Like, I mean, it's an old, old T-shirt. Yeah, it's very interesting. Now, you say, you, this second time you said, like, greatest of the lost art. You know where that scene comes from? Tell me. That long row of boxes Citizen Kane. Yeah, Greg Tolman. Oh, right, of course.

Yeah. Right, right, right. It's an homage. And then at the end, you see the sled being thrown in the fire. Yeah, Greg Tolman. Oh, right. Of course. Yeah. Right, right, right. It's an homage. You see the sled being thrown in the fire. Yeah. That's probably a better comparison for the De Niro archive because it was really, his whole life was in that room. I mean, it was everything he's ever done.

Does he have any desire to go back to go to Texas and look through it again? He's gone a bunch of times, actually. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So he's gone back to do events with them. And, you know, I was 22 when I started working for him. I was an intern at 20 and 21, and I met my writing partner, Scott Neustadter, there, who was working for him reading scripts. And, you know, when I was in my early 20s going through these boxes, it was, you know, a portal into film history.

And he really cared about it. The one mandate he said to me was, don't break up the collection. So I went to meet with people at NYU. And because space is limited in New York and Bob has made dozens and dozens, I'm probably nearing 100 films now. Maybe over. NYU said, listen, there's about 20 films we'd like the stuff from, but we don't have the space for all of it. And the one thing Bob kept saying to me is, look,

I would love for it to be in New York, but don't break up the collection. I met with a Smithsonian. I'm like, I'm like 24, 25, and I'm meeting with a Smithsonian on behalf of De Niro. And the Smithsonian said, even we don't have the room because it's government, you know, everything, the money, the the funds have to come from, from, uh, you know, through the government and everything. They said, we could probably only take about half of it.

And the ransom center, there was an article in the New York times of, uh, about the ransom center at the time and about that they had, um, acquired the Selznick archive. Wow. So all of Selznick's, uh, um, you know, everything from his career was there. So I took a trip down there and met with them. And the thing about Texas,

they have the space for all of it. So even now, you know, I haven't worked for Bob for 10 years, but every film he makes, when they're done

with the reshoots or anything else or they know there's not going to be a sequel, everything goes down to Texas. Immediately goes into the collection. Yep.

And they only wanted, NYU only wanted from select films, they only wanted, you know, something from Taxi Driver or something. Oddly, they wanted... Nothing from Jackknife? No, they wanted the second Analyze This. They wanted the third Meet the Parents. They wanted, no, no, they wanted like, they wanted the 15 movies you could think of.

Of course, of course. You know, it's funny talking about De Niro, and people should listen to those mini-episodes because there was so much information about them. And I just wrote this down, and we'll move on quickly past it. What an output in the 80s. Oh, yeah. I mean, listen to this.

Raging Bull, True Confessions, The King of Comedy, Once Upon a Time in America, Brazil, The Mission, The Untouchables, and Midnight Run. In a decade. Do you have a favorite from that list? I love Midnight Run. Yeah. I love The King of Comedy and Midnight Run. But they're all good.

They're all really good. They're all terrific films. The Mission is really underrated. It really is. It's not talked about enough. The Mission is great. It really is. Gilbert likes Bang the Drum Slowly.

Oh, yeah? We're talking about lesser known De Niro performance. Yeah, I'm a fan of that one. Oh, it is great. It really is. Gilbert likes Bang the Drum Slowly. Oh, yeah? We're talking about lesser-known De Niro performance. Yeah, I'm a fan of that one. Oh, it's great. Yeah, Michael Moriarty, Vincent Gardena, Marshall,

oh, Marshall Efron? Might be Marshall Efron. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well worth seeing. Now, I wanted to mention three. True Confessions, I mentioned last week. Yeah. With Robert Duvall, where he plays a corrupt priest.

Brazil. Incredible. Harry Tuttle. And he was supposed to play the part. I think he had his, correct me if I'm wrong, he had his heart set on the part that Michael Palin was playing. Yes, yes. And there were drafts of the screenplay he had read with notes as if he was going to play that part. Right, and then Gilliam had already promised it to Palin,

and then he played the air conditioner repairman slash suspected terrorist. That was the coolest thing about going through the archive was finding out, and I love, and it's a big part of your show, sort of like alternate history of Hollywood, because going through all of Bob's stuff, there were just incredible things there. He was attached to Silence of the Lambs for a little bit. I was just going to ask you that. And he was going to play the Anthony Hopkins part. Yeah, I was just going to ask you, did he turn down Hannibal Lecter?

There was a script for a version of Godfather III that they talked about making in the 70s that never came to pass. So, I mean, you think about some of these things that could have been should have been yeah i heard that also that he that scorsese was kind of pursuing him to play the jesus part in last temptation before defoe there were there were copies of the script i remember but i don't i don't remember it was so long ago yeah the last one i want to mention is mad dog and glory oh no which nobody talks about you know that movie oh Oh, with Bill Murray. Yeah, which is very strange because it's Robert De Niro playing strongly against type as a coward. Yeah, he's like a wimpy guy.

Yeah, he's a milquetoast. If I'm not talking out of turn here, I remember part of my job was going through because there was a lot of correspondence of all the people he'd worked with and there was a there was a note from Bill Murray basically saying I mean I you know I can't quote it this was I was looking at this note probably almost you know 14 years ago but the note was basically saying um thank you for really teaching me how to be a professional on set it was basically that he learned more about acting and how to be on a set and how to sort of conduct himself and tackle a role, but sort of the presence he needed to be. It was really, it was a little bit about acting and a little bit about professionalism.

This really beautiful note Bill had written Bob that stuck with me. A movie I think people should see. I mean, it's not entirely successful. No, no. But they're both good in it, and Uma Thurman's good in it. Yeah, Uma's great in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you know, lastly, on the subject of De in it, and Uma Thurman's good in it. Yeah, Uma's great in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you know, lastly, on the subject of De Niro, and we'll move on.

What do you know about a project called Bogart Slept Here? I don't know. Tell me. Gilbert? I remember the title, and I've never seen it. It's the original version of The Goodbye Girl, before Neil Simon went off and rewrote it. Oh, wow. It was a straighter version with De Niro and Marsha Mason.

Whoa. And it was abandoned. And he went off and decided he was going to have to write something looser and lighter and frothier, and that became The Goodbye Girl. And then I guess De Niro was no longer right for it. And Richard Dreyfuss comes and wins the Oscar. Wow. Incredible.

Yeah, which is fun. And I heard with Silence. That and wins the Oscar. Wow. Incredible. Yeah, which is fun. That's a different movie. With Silence of the Lambs, I heard both Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall really wanted to play Hannibal Lecter. You could see Duvall. I don't know that I could have seen Hoffman in it. Could you?

Very different movie. Oh, yeah. I like Dustin Hoffman, but it. Could you? Yeah. Very different movie. Oh yeah. I like Dustin Hoffman, but I don't, I don't quite see that. So I, you know, one of the other great things about working for, for Bob those years, and I, you know, I was basically a kid was just all the people who were in his orbit because I'm in my early twenties. It's working for him. It's like having a key to the city and you never knew knew who was going to answer every time the phone rang. And I sort of off mic had told you guys last time there were a couple of interactions with Marlon Brando.

Oh, yes, yes. Okay, we can tell this again. Yes. We didn't tell it on the air. We didn't tell it on the air. But I think it saved us. Well, there's a couple of these stories I can tell you on air. I love this stuff. I love to hear them.

I felt like when I had this job, I wasn't getting paid a lot of money, but I was getting paid in these interesting stories of sort of being in this world. Life experience, you were being paid. It really was. And so one of Bob's business managers came in, and this was an older gentleman who had been in the business for a lot

of years, and his former partner had been managing money for people in Hollywood going back to the 50s and this business manager said was regaling us with stories of movie stars wanting to make unwise

business investments. Oh yes. And Hollywood history is littered with these. And I said, what's the craziest, what is the craziest thing a client ever came to you guys with that they wanted to invest in? And he said,

in the 70s, Brando wanted to do a dial a fart line. Like a celebrity fart line. And he was 100% serious about it. He was going to go around and ask like his celebrity friends to fart and he'd record it.

And then he'd have like a 1-800 number or, you know, $3.99 the first minute, 99 cents each additional minute. Carl Malden, press four. Really, it was. It was like, Burt Reynolds, press two.

Shelly Winters, press 4. Really? It was. It was like, Burt Reynolds, press 2. Shelly Winters, press 8. Thelma Ritter, press 11. What a concept. I'm sad that never happened. Well, I've got to see if this exists anywhere. I mean, I know that I believe the story, of course, because it's wonderful. But now I have to dig into the Internet to see if there's more. Would there be some kind of proof that it was actually that celebrity's fart?

That's a great question. Because you could call the Better Business Bureau. That didn't have the resonance. I know Charlie Weaver's flasholence, and that's not it. And you, sir, are no Charlie Weaver. This sounds like an idea for the internet, because you can do a video right now of the celebrity farting. It's really a much more current idea.

I think Marlon was decades ahead of his time. I urge you to go back and listen to the episode we did with Josh Mustel, where if your memory serves, he ended the episode by doing impersonations of different celebrities passing wind. Oh, my gosh. So there you go.

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This single malt scotch whiskey is guaranteed to impress dad this Father's Day. The Glenlivet. Live original. Please enjoy our products responsibly. Live from Nutmeg Post. We now return to Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Podcast. Was there another Brando? There's a couple of Brando stories.

So I was working for Bob when they were shooting The Score up in Canada. Good little movie. Yeah, underrated. I really liked that movie. Frank Oz directed it, who's a legend in his own right. And would be a great guest on this show. Working on him. I mean, the man was Yoda.

It's incredible. Well, he's also made some really good movies. Oh, yeah. So, Frank, my understanding was Frank Oz and Marlon did not get along. And you know what? Most people didn't get along with Marlon. You know, most directors he sort of had problems with is my understanding. But early on... Ask John Frankenheimer.

Oh, my God. Not Dr. Moreau. Oh, geez. And Marlon was very sensitive about how he was shot and that he had to be shot above the waist. And I guess he was very suspicious that Frank Oz was shooting him below the waist or full body shots, and he was very sensitive, so he started to act up on set, and it would be, there'd be an important scene, and he would be chewing a giant wad of gum and refuse to take

it out of his mouth and, like, chomping away on this gum during the scene, and then another day, he'd come to set wearing a baseball hat and insist on wearing the hat while shooting the scene. And I guess, you know, it led to tension and people would storm off set and, you know, it was a mess. And basically it built to the point where he showed, Marlon showed up on set for an important scene

with no pants on and his dick in the breeze and it was the only way he could guarantee almost the alternate title of that film. Dick in the breeze. Dick in the Breeze. And it was the only way he could guarantee. Almost the alternate title of that film. Dick in the Breeze. Dick in the Breeze. It was the only way he could guarantee that he would be shot above the waist. And when I say like it wasn't like two or three people on set,

I mean he showed up on set ready to shoot with 20, 30 people there, his pants off. I love it. Just flapping in the wind. Gilbert, you've done that. All the time. He's doing it now. Problem child off. I love it. Just flapping in the wind. Gilbert, you've done that. All the time. He's doing Problem Child. He's done it in at least 30 podcasts.

I remember there was that famous quote from Truman Capote that all actors are dumb. And I always believed that with Brando. That he wasn't bright? Yeah. Really? I always believed that with Brando. That he wasn't bright? Yeah, like that he was a great actor,

but he didn't strike me as the smartest person on the planet. Just because he wanted to invest in a celebrity fart line? No reason to hold that. That might have been successful. I don't know. I think he was bright in his own way. Here's my last Brando story for you guys That's all I've got So I was working

I was working for Bob Still in I want to say 2003 When Ilya Kazan passed away And Bless you And Bob pulled me aside and he said I want to get in touch with Marlon because let's do something nice for Francis, Ilya's widow. You know, privately, nothing public and do something for her and make sure she's okay.

Which is a really nice gesture and the kind of way Bob is very thoughtful that way about his peers. But that was the point where Brandon was really reclusive. And I'm not sure. It was very hard to get in touch with him. And he basically didn't have an agent or a manager. And he only had that lawyer who's famous, and I'm blanking on his name, who was sort of the go-between in Marlon's last years. Right, right, right.

Was the only way to sort of get him. You can't think of his name either. Yeah, I know. I'm spacing it. As soon as we turn off the- Brenny Fields? No, that was his executive. He was a film executive. And it was the only way to sort of get. Can't think of his name either. Yeah, I know. I'm spacing it. As soon as we. Freddie Fields? No, that was his executive. He was a film executive.

And it was the only way to get in touch with Marlon. And I basically got in touch with him. And I explained, you know, Bob was hoping to talk to Marlon. And they could come up with something together to do for Ilya's widow. And the attorney said, all right, I'll get in contact with him. And I'll get back to you. So he got back to me a few days later and he said, Marlon says it's okay for Bob to fax him,

that Bob should write down what he's thinking and send Marlon a fax. And he gave me the fax number. I said, okay, that's fairly reasonable. And he said, here's the thing. Marlon will, he's only going to read the facts if you put it to the attention of his cat. Oh, geez. I love this stuff.

And I said, excuse me? He said, yeah, no, you just, you just have to put the facts to the attention of his cat or he's not going to read it. And I went back to Bob and I, it was so awkward to have to put the facts to the attention of his cat or he's not going to read it. And I went back to Bob and I was so awkward to have to explain this. And Bob was peeved, let's just say, and was like, I'm not doing that. And Bob just went and did something nice on his own,

but was like not playing Marlon's games that day. How bizarre. Yeah. Had to be facts to his cat and then he'd look at it. Yeah. There's a documentary about the making of Dr. Moreau. Oh, it's insane. That's insane. Have you seen this? No, I haven't. Oh, I'm

going to give it to you on DVD. Yeah. Because there's just so much great Brando stuff in there that you can't believe. It is disaster artist-esque. It really is. It really is. I mean, I remember there's so... I mean, there's nothing that makes sense in that movie.

Nothing. Nothing. Have you seen the movie itself? Yeah, of course. Oh, my God. It's incomprehensible. It's a fever dream. And there's one part after Brando dies that Val Kilmer is sitting there doing a Marlon Brando imitation.

Yeah. It's very strange. Didn't Mini-Me come from that movie? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody showed that toMe come from that movie? Yes. Yeah. Somebody showed that to Mike Myers and it led to work for Vern Troyer. And Brando

came up with the ice bucket hat on his head. Oh yeah. And the white clown makeup. It's wonderful. Oh, it's beyond. It's truly wonderful. Alright, before we jump in and we want to talk about 500 Days of Summer. And one thing we spoke about last time is Drew Friedman was once lucky enough to see Brando leave an ice cream store, eating an ice cream, and blasting off a loud fart.

But it was a method fart. So would it have made the hotline? Would it have, like, did you have to pull? I don't know what the criteria was. Was, like, Marlon's fart a freebie to hook you in on the... Yeah. Maybe he was trying to sell Drew on the business idea. He was, like, he wanted to bring Drew in as a partner.

Indirectly. Yeah. Several people didn't want to make a big pitch. Started investing right there on the spot. Thank you, Baskin-Robbins. Now, Gilbert.

Yes. Gilbert paid you a compliment that most guests are not paid. He watched your movie. Whoa. Yes. Usually I have to duct tape him to the chair. Speaking of a king of comedy, I usually have to do a Sandra Bernhard, Jerry Lewis thing with the duct tape to get him to watch anything.

He watched 500 Days of Summer. Oh, thank you so much. And you say that Zooey Deschanel was not a cunt. She was wonderful to work with. Is that what you came away with from that wonderful movie? That's right. Zoe was great. She used to bake cupcakes for us.

Wow. She was terrific to work with. Okay. She was super sweet. And her father made a great movie. And her mom, because you forget her mom was an actress.

Her mother is an actress. Her mom was in The Right Stuff and played Ed Harris' wife. Yes. And she has a stutter and she's embarrassed to go on TV and she's brilliant.

Talented family. You know, if Zooey Deschanel called me and said, I'm coming over there to fuck you. I would have to ask her to wear her hair in bangs, wear the heavy eye makeup and act very flighty. So that's a compliment. Yeah, because it's this whole character she created. You know, I'll say to her credit, she had to create a character that exists entirely in the mind of the other character. Because that entire movie is from Joseph Gordon-Levitt's point of view.

And his memory at that. And his memory has gaps. So we always say anything not in that movie about Zoe's character is either because Tom, Joe's character, didn't know it or didn't remember it. So she had to find a character via him, which is not easy to do.

Yeah. I had to sell Gilbert on this idea because Gilbert asked, remember the drive we took to New Jersey to the chiller and you were ragging on, on rom-coms on how romantic comedies work. Yes. And she's uptight and he'll,

and she'll do, Oh, he's the uptight guy and she'll teach him to loosen up. We were talking about bad formulas of romantic comedies. And before we get to that, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a Jew, isn't he? He is.

Yeah, he is. I don't know how much of a practicing Jew he is. I've never seen him at synagogue, but my understanding is he's Jewish. Are you sure? Yes. He and Paul Rudd. You were just hanging out with Paul Rudd.

Yes. You and Dara. Did you book him for the show? No. I know the answer. That benefit for stutterersers he does every year a bowl-a-thon kind of thing and and uh yeah so he's a jew i didn't ask him to come on this show even though he's been in like 150 different movies why would you advocate for your own podcast i have a great

random fact you guys are going to love. Okay. So our director of 500 Days of Summer, Mark Webb, who's great and would be a fun guest for you guys and is filled with all these great stories. His grandmother in Butte, Montana, gave Evel Knievel his nickname. That's fantastic trivia. Wow. Yep.

So Mark, who hails, half his family hails from Montana and is still there, his grandmother basically coined Evil to, I don't even remember what Knievel's birth first name was. I don't even know what his real name is. I used to know. I used to know. Robert something.

Evil Knievel, I heard, hated the Jews. My understanding is he was, had a lot of substances in him. He refused to jump over Jews. As a matter of fact, it was a very strange, daredevil-specific anti-Semitism. I know, they wanted him to jump Mount Sinai. He said no. That is correct.

Very good. See, you get a comedy writer in here. It helps. It only helps. But my point was that he, we were talking about how typical romantic comedies are and how formulaic they are. And you guys broke the mold. Thank you. You did something different.

So, you know. Something brave and bold. My writing partner, Scott, and I, we sit around and we love going to the movies. We love talking about movies. We sit around and we love going to the movies. We love talking about movies. And we were so annoyed for a long time in the 90s and early 2000s that what had happened to the romantic comedy genre? They were terrible.

Most of them. Oh, yeah. They were built around a trailer moments of these sort of wacky concepts or sort of they're on a date at the aquarium and he gets bitten in the ass by a dolphin. Or like there's just shenanigans. Or someone's in a coma. Yeah, exactly. Or he's still living at home and he has to keep a secret from her. And all this is just so stupid. Was that failure to launch? Probably.

And we would sit around and when we weren't talking about movies, we were talking about our own lives and our own relationships. And we kept noticing our relationship war stories were so much more interesting and relatable than what we were seeing up on the screen. Because for us, we grew up on Annie Hall and Say Anything and all these classics that- Good romantic comedies. Great romantic comedies. Harold and Maude. Harold and Maude. And When Harry Met Sally. These were our touchstones. And it felt like all of those movies came from a real place. And around that time, we kept talking about how we

wanted to do this and talking about how we wanted to do this. Scott broke up with this girl and it was sort of a traumatic breakup. And that ended up being, we channeled that relationship as the jumping off point for the movie. And it's nice that people responded to it, you know, comparing it to some of those other

classics, which is really sort of the nicest compliment to us. Because that's really where it came from. And then the funny thing was, because that script became a bit of a calling card for us, the only jobs we were sent for a couple of years were the worst romantic comedies. So it was almost like Hollywood didn't understand that what we had written was a response to that crap. Right, it was a genre buster. Right, and we were only being sent stuff like that. So it was kind of funny that, of course, even within the industry, they didn't see what we were trying to do.

Well, you did it well. Oh, thanks. I think Jennifer Aniston said that most romantic comedies are about the scheme. Right, right. It's true. It's like, what's the obstacle? What's keeping them apart? And for us, it's always go to a real place.

Usually it's one person doesn't feel the same way about the other. You know what? I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on. Nothing's going on. the same way about the other. Don't pull that with me. Don't even try to... This is not how you treat your friend. Kissing in the copy room? Holding hands in Ikea? Shower sex? Come on, friends my balls. I like you, Tom. I just don't want to... Well, you're not the only one that gets to say this.

I do, too. And I say we're a couple. God damn it. You watch these romantic comedies and there's the contrived third act where somebody overhears something or somebody sees somebody with a sister and thought it was another lover. And there's a force. There's a nonsensical imposed reason for them to suddenly come apart before the last 20 minutes.

But you guys weren't working with that kind of thing. No, and we wrote it at a time when we thought we both had day jobs. I was still working for De Niro. Scott had his day job. We didn't think writing was going to take us anywhere. It was written at a time where we thought, let's write the movie we'd want to go see and not worry about what Hollywood wants. the movie we'd want to go see and not worry about what Hollywood wants. And the funny thing is when we first started showing it to people, some people got it and some people said the craziest stuff to us. So some of the notes we got, I remember, um, we, we, you know, in the movie we have the,

the number days as it's great. It's a great device. Day three Oh eight, day 10. And, and, and one guy held up our script and said, cause we had the numbers on the script and said, this is what your script looks like. This isn't what a script looks like. And he held up another script. This is what a script looks like. Like he was, he, he couldn't get past the optics of us having the numbers on the page. Someone else, I hope he never sees a Wes Anderson movie. Right, right. Exactly. Somebody else, and this was a big producer, and I have to be careful how I tell this story.

No names. No names. A big producer, who's still a very big producer now, met with us because we thought he was enthusiastic about it. And he said,

you know, I almost bought it and I wanted to make it. And the reason I didn't, I would have made it if it was about something other than a relationship that's the whole thing that's the whole movie and can we talk about the invasion of Normandy

you had a sale someone else said that channeling double indemnity someone else said you know I love it but can it open on Joseph Gordon Leavitt driving a car and he's been stabbed, and we don't know how, and he's about to drive over a cliff,

and we're going to flash back to this relationship, and it's tumultuous, and we're going to build to him being stabbed. But that's the price of writing something truly original. So, yeah, those were the notes we got. Because you can all identify. Oh, who hasn't been stabbed by a girlfriend? Suddenly it's body heat.

And what are, let's talk about the cliches. Oh my God. That are in every fucking romantic comedy. You did that whole piece in that car on the way to the Chiller Fest. Oh yeah. It was like a Gilbert routine. It was like a new bit. There's the, like the girl always has to have a less attractive girlfriend. Oh, yeah, the sidekick. And she's the one, she's boy crazy usually,

and she's the one who tells the audience, you know what your problem is, Mary? The Elizabeth Perkins part. Yes. The Rosie O'Donnell part. Yes. is, Mary. The Elizabeth Perkins part. Yes. The Rosie O'Donnell part. Yes. Yeah, right. You're always working and you don't open yourself up for relationships.

Right. himself, if he knocks over a mountain of soup cans in a supermarket, the girl immediately falls in love with him. Well, yeah, my objection is that these movies that you're talking about, these romantic comedies, for a while, and you always see it in the trailer, Hollywood got it in its head that when a woman falls down, she's endearing. She has to slip, fall out of her shoe running for a bus, fall into a puddle. No, no, it was the same.

That's shorthand for character. And the guy version of that was, well, he's a bit of a dick. How do we make him a nice guy? We give him a dog. If he has a dog, he must be a good guy. I was saying that with Nicholson. Or if he talks to his mom on the phone, then he's a good guy.

Or there's a little kid that lives in the building that he's sort of friendly with. He pats on the head. He's a good guy. There has to be, at very least, one major gay character. Of course, of course. Who he turns to in a pinch because there's a big date and he doesn't know what to wear. Oh, yes. Oh because there's a big date and he doesn't know what to wear. Oh, yes. Oh, there's that.

Or he has the wealthy friend and it's like, let me borrow your apartment tonight because I can't have her think she lives in my shithole. Or one of those kinds of misunderstandings that he then has to keep the lie going. And then there's the feel-good scene. And I'm thinking about my, I'm calling you out my best friend's wedding. There's the sing-along or there's the scene in the movie where that's the shameless audience pleaser song a scene where everybody where they all know every fucking word yeah what are they you yeah like like I I want to see it where it's like, where it's something like, you know, I love you, baby, because...

Like in real life. Right, because the uncle played by M.M. at Walsh wouldn't know the words. And they all sing beautifully. I mean, it's amazing how they should be a choir. Oh, and when girls start singing together, they all start holding up their hairbrushes or mixing spoons as an imaginary microphone. When they decided we're going to band together and support each other, they break into a song and any kind of long object right they also have to the woman has to date the asshole first you have to have the bellamy and he's the guy that that's in the company that she's looking up to because her value system is out of

whack or she thinks she doesn't deserve better so she has to date the shithead because she hasn't yet learned the last boyfriend was a schmuck, a bad guy. Right. And she's a little bit in denial about it. Correct. Or she still has hurt feelings. So she's not dating because all guys are bad guys. Right, right.

But she hasn't learned that the best friend, that the guy that she hasn't seen, has the qualities where he can actually be a lover. Oh, God. But she hasn't seen his sexuality yet because he hasn't done that thing that he needs to do. Whatever that cliche fucking thing is that he's going to do. We're practically writing a parody right now. And it's immediately laugh out loud funny if a girl is in a wedding dress any place but a wedding situation. If she's on the subway walking down the street that's immediate comedy every head turns yeah so it's a credit to you guys and it's interesting oh wait go ahead

he's got more interracial couples it's okay uh for a white girl to go out with a black guy. But a white guy dating a black girl is bad because that means she eventually has to split up with the white guy to go out with the black star of the movie. I'm trying to think of it. Which movie is that from? There's been a few. You know what I liked?

One of the things I liked about the spectacular now, since he brings that up, is that, is that, uh, who is the ex, uh, uh, the, the one that he's still, uh, the, the one that, uh, Brie Larson. Yes. That she's now involved with a black character and nobody mentions it. It's not, it's, it didn't. It's so casual. It wasn't a thing. It's not even, oh, my God, she's having an interracial romance.

The new boyfriend just happens to be a black dude. Yeah, it's not a thing. And it's really well handled. No, that's what, for Toss, it's not a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to talk about Summer. And by the way, the fact that he liked a romantic comedy is a breakthrough. Wait, so let me ask you, do you have any all-time favorites in the genre?

Because still, even now, it's almost a dirty word to call something a romantic comedy. But the all-time greats, I mean, I still watch these movies all the time. One that I like is Crossing Delancey Street. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's not bad. I watched it recently, and it wasn't as good as I remembered it when I saw it in the 80s. But it's okay. It's not bad. Yeah, with Peter Rieger. Yeah, it's not bad. He's the 80s. But it's okay. It's not bad.

Peter Rieger. Yeah, it's not bad. He's the pickle man. Yeah, of course. And Amy Irving. Yeah. I love The Apartment. I can watch that every day until the end of time and be happy.

Me too. Me too. But again, now you're getting into a movie that is as much a drama as it is a comedy. So it's a different animal. Oh. As opposed to the pure romantic comedy. And you would put The Graduate, I guess, more in that category as well. Same thing.

A coming-of-age film and a bit of a drama. And a drama. It's tough. The lines are blurry a little bit. It's a drama. But you're talking about things coming from truth. Those make better stories because they're coming from real emotion. They're not made in a lab like these rom-coms we're talking about.

Of course. Of course. And by the way, it's not an accident that people with a marketing background started taking over a lot of these Hollywood studios in the 90s and 2000s. And it shows. While you saw that creative decisions on what gets made

was based on star power. Oh, the star wants to do it. Let's just do it. It doesn't matter about the script. Or do we know what the trailer looks like? Are there trailer moments? And sort of, they're just looking at it

from the lens of can we sell this picture rather than is it going to be a good movie i advise everyone to watch the trailer to the wedding planner with jennifer lopez because it is the entire movie yep yep they meet they break up the father says go after him right now and she goes after it is the it's basically saying come here you won't be surprised you won't have to think about a thing and it's unkind to say but those movies did some damage to people's careers like kate hudson like mcconaughey oh yeah i mean and then you see him in true detective and you remember to say, but those movies did some damage to people's careers, like Kate Hudson, like McConaughey. Oh, yeah. I mean, and then you see him in True Detective, and you remember that he can act, you know,

but for a while, and I think you grant. No, really, the genre, even in the business now, when Scott and I are cooking up a new movie, we'll say it's a drama with some comedy rather than call it a romantic comedy, because the studios, it really is a dirty word now. Having said the goodbye girl which we talked about before is as good

classic as good as good a film that fits i guess that that framework totally yeah also that's a another thing in romantic comedies the guy is in love with a girl and then the guy is in love with a girl. And then the guy is in a room with a girl he doesn't love, but she's crazy about him. So she'll grab him and kiss him hard on the mouth. And at that exact moment, the guy's girlfriend. The intended love interest in the story. Yes. Walks in and sees that. Yeah.

She walks in, makes a hurt face and walks out. And at that point, the guy has the strength to push the girl away. But then it takes another half hour to repair that tiny mistake. And I hate the scene where they both get on opposite ends of a phone and they call the dial-a-fart line. Because that takes me right out of the movie. And when you hear the voice go, Oh, this is Marlon Brando.

You've just called up dial-a-fart. It's a little like David Brenner. It's called a dial-on fart. It's a little like David Brenner. Now, also, let's see. There's that. The, oh, God. Well, as you think of them, I'm going to move on.

Would you call A New Leaf a romantic comedy? I wrote it down, buddy. Is that it? Right there. Oh, nice. Sure is. And a good one. Yeah, a very good one. A good one.

Harold and Maude, I mentioned. The Apartment. Love in the Afternoon. Oh, nice. Sure is. And a good one. Yeah, a very good one. A good one. Harold and Maud, I mentioned The Apartment, Love in the Afternoon. Oh, yeah. Wilder. And I mentioned a movie to you last week, which I said, which I compared to 500 Days of Summer, and it's a compliment. Stanley Donnan's Two for the Road. Oh, thank you. I love that movie.

But that movie, that's more dramatic to me. It's more dramatic. There's not a lot of comedy. I mean, there's some moments of comedy. A little comedy. They call it a comedy drama. It's charming. Yeah.

But not a lot of comedy. But thank you, because I love that movie. Here's of comedy. A little comedy. They call it a comedy drama. It's charming. Yeah. But not a lot of comedy. But thank you, because I love that movie. Here's four modern day ones I love. Amelie. Oh, yeah. Oh, here's what I was thinking. Uh-oh. There's in the middle of the scheme where a guy is totally tricking a girl and screwing her over whatever she finds out about it and she's not

angry about the scheme against her just that he wasn't honest and it triggers the old feelings yes that she always dates an asshole so why go out there and try again? Exactly. Because she's only going to leave herself exposed. But then that's why the next day at work, at her job, probably at a magazine or an advertising agency. Probably. The co-worker friend is like, I told you.

Or a catering company. Or the catering. The co-worker friend is saying, I told you. They're all like that. Yeah. 27 dresses. Oh, yeah. As bad as it gets in that formula. Yeah. Okay. Here's all like that. Yeah. 27 dresses. Oh, yeah. As bad as it gets in that formula.

Yeah. Okay, here's a couple more good ones. About a Boy. Love that movie. Me too. Me too. High Fidelity. I know I'm stretching the genre a little bit.

And your hero, Cameron Crowe, Jerry Maguire. Jerry Maguire is... Pretty perfect movie. Really, really terrific. Yeah, it really is. And Cruise will never, ever do anything better than that in his entire career. Oh, God. Because it's just perfect.

It was the right role at the right time. And Renee Zellweger also. Wonderful. That kid, everyone is at their apex. Wonderful movie. Oh. A sports movie that's not a sports movie, too. Correct.

The kid in Jerry Maguire is a Jew. Haley Joel Osment? No, that's the kid from Sixth Sense. I got it wrong. It's the dogs and bees smell fear. Yes, bee. But is Haley Joel Osment a Jew? He could be.

He could be. He could be. Now, you guys wrote that thing in your spare time? Yeah, basically, Scott was living in L.A. and writing coverage. Basically, he was reading scripts for a bunch of studios

and producers and writing almost like a book report on scripts, and I was working for De Niro, and we were doing this on the side. Wait, I have a couple more deeper cuts for you. Go!

The knack and how to get it. Richard Lester. Yes! Yes, it's very good. Very good. I haven't seen it in years. Yeah. Very good. It's uneven but there are a lot of things great about it. Yeah, yeah. And then this is a deeper cut and I saw it on TCM

not long ago. Richard Lester's still with us, by the way. Really? Yes, he is. We've got to track him down. You have to get him on. I know. I think he's a recluse. Avanti.

Yeah, Lemon and Billy Wilder. Juliet Mills? Juliet Mills, yes. Yes. And shot on location, I think in and around Naples, so it's beautiful. But it's a bizarre... All Wilder. I think like in and around Naples. So it's beautiful. But it's a bizarre. All wild. It's like really out there.

And he basically spends the whole movie, Jack Lemmon, commenting on her weight. Like calling her fat. And then they end up together. It hasn't aged well. But there's charming moments to it. Karma LaDeuce while you're on that track. Yes. What do you guys think of the Richard Curtis movies?

Because I'm a fan. Yeah, my wife likes Love Actually better than I do. I liked the last one. I liked the time travel one. Oh, yeah. I can't remember the name of it. He was in the- With Rachel McAdams.

What is the name of that movie? I know what you're talking about. Oh, shit. Oh. It was good. It was good, and I can't remember the title. And then there's Notting Hill. Yeah. It's okay. I like Four Weddings and a Funeral better than Not Oh, oh, oh, oh. It was good. It was good, and I can't remember the title. And then there's Notting Hill. Yeah.

It's okay. I like Four Weddings and a Funeral better than Notting Hill. I do, too. They're good. They don't insult your intelligence. Here's my problem with the Rachel McAdams one. You saw this? Yes. Okay, what, on a plane?

I guess so. I definitely didn't go to the theater and go, oh, when does that movie start? Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. She didn't invite you to the premiere? Is it called About Time? Yes, yes. About Time.

It's a good title. It's a good movie. And I'm spacing on the actor's name, and he's great. And he was in Brooklyn, and he was in... Yeah. Help me out. He's terrific and everything. He was in Ex Machina.

I can't think of his name. But I like the movie. Go ahead, Gil. Okay. Here's the problem I have there. Rachel, he does some game with her where every time she can't answer or won't answer a question, she takes off an article of clothes. So then she's left in her underwear, and she's got her hands covering her breasts.

Now, number one, I'm thinking, well, if he's watched her, if it's a girl he's going out with and he's watched her just now take her bra off, what who is she covering her breasts from? Who is she covering her breasts from? And then it comes like the last question. She's supposed to take her underwear off and she runs away from him and she's covering her breasts. Now, if he's trying to remove her underwear, wouldn't she be clutching her underwear rather than covering her? It's like these ways actresses find not to show their bodies. Like how they'll- Can you blame them with letches like you watching every frame? Yes.

It's like when a girl gets out of a bathtub and she wraps the towel around her. Or rolls over in the sheets. Yes, yes. There's the move of like rolling off the guy, but somehow perfectly sort of rolling over and then the sheets are covering everything. And when she gets up, it fits her like an evening gown. Gilbert, I've seen you get out of bed like that. With a bed sheet wrapped around your nipples. Oh, and the other thing is when a girl's getting out of bed and her clothes are right at the edge of the bed for her to pull on. That or trying to put the jeans on in trips and falls.

That's it. And then she's endearing. Yep, exactly. And then you got to love her because she fell. Exactly. What was I going to say? And, okay, here's one more. I want to know what sexual position in real life this is.

In movies, you'll see two pillows at the beginning of the scene, and you'll hear the orgasm, and then both fall back onto the pillow side by side. Yeah, that's in the trailer. So what sexual position, or do they have their genitals on their hips? They were levitating. Yeah, yes. Or regaler. You know what it is?

The rating system would be so harsh if they ever showed that position. It would be beyond. It would be NC65. No one can see this. You know, it's a fun topic, so I'm going to throw this out to our listeners too and they can put it on social media.

Favorite bad cliches in romantic comedies gilbert just listed about 50 of them and also favorite romantic comedies best romantic comedies is some like a romantic comedy just a comedy right sort of a comedy it's a comedy it's hard the lines are blurry a little with some of these because it's two characters because it's right because you don't think of it in traditional it's a comedy with romance. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll tell you a funny, not to prompt your cards. Go ahead.

When 500 Days of Summer was a sample script that our agent was sending around, we still, no one wanted it initially. It took a, it was, it took a while for it to sell. And we couldn't get, we couldn't get work. Everyone liked it. You do sort of the bottled water tour of L.A. We were going around and just having these sort of meetings where they're handing you a bottle of water. I've been on those meetings. They talk to you for 40 minutes.

They tell you how great you are. And then, but you don't get a job. You do seven in a day, six or seven in a day sometimes. Zipping around L.A. Sure. So we were doing that, and we were having a hard time finding work. And it was our sample script at the time of 500 Days of Summer that led to us getting hired for Pink Panther 2. There you go.

I'm glad you did. You jumped my cards cards and that's exactly where I was going. While we were on the topic of before 500 Days was made, someone at the studio had read it and we went in for a meeting

and they said, we need a writer for Pink Panther 2. And before we could even say anything, they sort of told us that Steve Martin's first Pink Panther had made a lot of money,

but they weren't all that thrilled with how it had turned out quality-wise. And I love A Shot in the Dark. That is one of my all-time favorite movies. And one of the good sequels. One of the few exceptional sequels. Phenomenal. That scene, I literally cannot pick up a pool cue without starting to mimic that scene

where Sellers is playing pool. I just, I'm obsessed with that movie. So for me, when the studio is saying, you know, we want you to do this, but the first Steve Martin one was just not very good. And our agent said to Scott and I, listen, you know, you guys have to, you should go after this.

It's in the baby steps of a career. It's important to get hired for a movie that's definitely getting made. That it'll help sort of advance things for you. And the nice thing is the studio head was saying to us, we don't want what we did in the first movie. We don't need a diamond. We don't need a murder. We don't need a murder.

We don't want a bunch of 60 something year old men running around. We're, we're coming. I mean, Scott and I, we were in our twenties. They're like, you guys are young and cool.

And they said to us, you're cheap. They were like, we want a young, cool, inexpensive writers, uh, to kind of take this in cool directions.

So come up with something cool. We love what you did to romantic comedies in this sample script of yours. Do that for the Pink Panther. So Scott and I went off, and we spent about a month cooking up a version of a Pink Panther movie for Steve Martin that we loved.

And it was crazy. It was channeling some shot-in-the-dark stuff. It had some meta moments. A little homage to Blake Edwards where you could. There was just, I mean, we poured our hearts into this and it was going to be something really different, but also a throwback to the older ones. And we went in to meet with the studio

and we were really the only writers they were talking to about this. This was sort of ours to lose and we'd followed everything they'd told us, and we got about two sentences into pitching this, and the person at the studio cut us off and said, you know, I got to stop you guys. Where's the diamond? Where's the murder? What are you guys talking about? This is so weird.

And we were like, but you said what? I don't understand. Like, this is not for Steve's fans. What are you doing? And we kind of walked out of there. And we're so new to the Hollywood business at the time. We're like, this is just not, forget it. Screw this.

We're not, forget this thing. And our agent kind of talks sense to us. He goes, look, look, look. Just give them what they want. Just, this is getting made. So come up with something that they would make. Like, put your sort of studio hat on.

And a meeting was set maybe another month later, and Scott and I were brainstorming, and we had nothing. And we were on the set of the lot about two hours before. We were playing cards, which is sort of what Scott and I do before every big meeting. And we kept saying,

we can't go in there. This is a pitch meeting. We can't go in there and go, we got nothing. I have. So, I mean, we're literally sitting there like, do we tell them we're sick?

What do we do? What do we do? And Scott, in a moment of genius, goes, well, what if we just say, we just have to come say something

and we can bow out of this gracefully. I was like, okay, okay, we just say, we just have to come say something and we can bow out of this gracefully. I was like, okay, okay, we'll just come up with something right now. We had two hours to go, under two hours. And Scott's like, well, what if just like, um, priceless artifacts are being stolen from all over Europe and Clouseau has to team up with like the best detective from Spain and the best detective from Japan and whatever. They can stunt cast it with Antonio Banderas and Jackie Chan and whoever the hell they want. And I was like, great.

And that's literally all we had. And we walked back into this meeting and we thought, okay, we'll just say this and they're going to go, okay, not really what we're looking for. And we've bowed out gracefully. And we get about half a sentence into what I out gracefully and we get about a half a sentence into what i just said to you guys which was barely a sentence and a half itself and the woman cuts us off again and goes i love it oh geez that's what we're looking for incredible and that is a hollywood

story and we walked out of that meeting going i i i guess i guess we have to write this thing now. And we went to lunch with Steve Martin. And that was the coolest part about this because you're sitting there. We had lunch at Trattoria dell'Arte on 7th Avenue. Right here, yeah. And going into it, the producer said, don't pitch Steve any jokes. He'll come up with the jokes.

Just talk to him about the plot. Hear his thoughts. And so, and he said, look, and Steve will maybe give us a half hour. So Scott and I kind of run through the plot with him and we have it a little more fleshed out, but not, I mean, not much more fleshed out. And after about 25 minutes,

the producer prompts him like, Steve, I think you have that thing. And Steve's like, no, no, no, I can, I'm good. So like we had sort of made it, we got, we had earned a second half hour with him, which was cool. And he ultimately ended up staying with us for about two hours and probably about an hour in, we felt confident enough to start pitching jokes to him. And he liked some of the jokes and then we were riffing on his jokes and you're sort of sitting there jamming, making music with Steve Martin. And that was incredible. We walk out of the lunch and the producer turns to us and said, I know that was fun for you guys.

Don't write any jokes. Just write the plot of the movie. And I don't care what the guild says. You have three weeks. I need a draft in three weeks. So we wrote the first draft in 20 days and we turned it in

a day early and we never heard from them again and in fact those deals have multiple steps so they had said to us that no matter what we put down Gans and Mandel who are legendary writers

and were Steve's go-to guys for a long time and those guys are amazing us that no matter what we put down uh gans and mandel who are you know legendary writers and and steve's go-to guys for a long time and those guys are well i mean you know those guys are amazing yeah um they uh worked on it after us and then more writers after them and then more writers after them and two years go by and we get something in the mail, and it was like 20-something writers had worked on it. And the studio had said, we get credit with Steve. And we thought, how's that possible? Did it go to arbitration? So we thought, okay, well, there's two pages of names of writers here.

Somebody's definitely going to go, wait a second, this is mine. And nobody, there was no arbitration. No one claimed credit. So they shot the movie. They invited us to set. We went for two hours. We didn't see Steve. We sat in the corner.

Didn't see anyone. Didn't see Steve. They were shooting a scene we didn't write with characters we had never heard of that we didn't invent. We had no idea what was going on. This is still, we had not had anything else made. This was our like cup of coffee in Hollywood and they send us to a test screening in Pasadena some months later and

Scott and I sit there and we have our hands down to the side and we're gonna count how many lines we wrote in the movie that is credited to us and There are only five lines in the movie that is credited to us. And there are only five lines in the movie that are credited to us. But to this day, we get residual checks. And here's the crazy thing. Our agent, Bill Zotti, who we love and is like our

Italian big brother. Ah, Italian agent. He's the best. I love this. He's the best. The only agent we've ever had. We love him. He's the best. I love this. He's the best. The only agent we've ever had. We love him. He was right. Because in the baby steps of a career,

we got other jobs simply off of the announcement of us being hired to write The Pink Panther 2. Other places took us more seriously. This is perception business. It's perception. Yeah.

But only five lines in the movie were ours and it still says written by us, which is... Good for you. Yeah. You did the work.

We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast after this. What happens when 20 extremely athletic Canadians who thrive on competition and won't settle for less than number one find themselves on a team?

Taking on jaw-dropping obstacles all across Canada is one thing. Working together on a team with some pretty big personalities is another. It's a new season of Canada's Ultimate Challenge and sparks are gonna fly. New episodes Sundays. Watch free on CBC Gem. It always gets me when reviewers will talk Panamovie and say,

and this movie had 20 writers on it. And I'll think most movies do. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think most movies do. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like most movies and TV shows have hundreds of writers, and when the credits are rolling, it's, you know, written by Joe Smith. You know what I don't understand is,

so it leaks that a high-profile movie had to do reshoots. A Star Wars movie or some big franchise movie has to do reshoots. And it's like the sky is falling. The trades, the internet, everyone's like, it must be a piece of shit,

all this and that. You know, what I don't understand is they do reshoots on most movies. Of course, the press has to have something to write about. And movies turn out, a lot of movies turn out great that have reshoots on most movies. Of course, the press has to have something to write about. And movies turn out, a lot of movies turn out great that have reshoots. And you would think that studios would be savvy enough that the movies that turned out great or were a hit afterwards tell everyone,

yeah, we did a bunch of reshoots because then the public will make less of a big deal and the trades and whatever will make less of a big deal when it gets announced or leaked that something is reshoots because they can then point to other things and go, yeah, but this had to do reshoots and this had to do reshoots. For some reason, it's still a secret so that whenever it comes out now, it's treated as like, uh-oh. Remember Elaine May getting crucified because Ishtar went into extensive reshoots and how the press ran with that. Right. Titanic won how many Oscars? And they had months of reshoots.

But they used it to bludgeon that film. Right. And the other way to prove that a movie is bad or that an actor is bad in the movie is I'll say he was not their first choice. Now, how many movies have their first choice starring very few yeah that's it's crazy that that's a metric by which to measure the quality of something you know every movie successful films they went to like 500 different actors and it all fell through and so logan last year which i thought i thought logan was brilliant it was brilliant for like a comic book movie. It was amazing and it nominated in the same

category as Scott and I for adapted screenplay and I had heard that they had a lot of delays on set and it was, you know, behind schedule and lots of like throwing pages out and redoing things, but they kept that a secret and it didn't come out. Why not

after the fact tell everyone that? Because then the next time it does leak, no one makes a big deal out of it. Exactly. It's so strange to me. It's counterintuitive. Well, also, as an advertising thing, when they talk about now with previously unseen footage, previously unseen footage. Every movie and TV show has unseen footage,

and usually it's shit, and that's why it was cut out. I heard you telling Odin Kirk in your interview, you and Scott were talking about disaster artists, and you were saying that there's probably more than enough stuff for a special edition DVD deleted scenes. We shot a lot more of Greg and Tommy, James Franco and Dave Franco more than enough stuff for a special edition DVD. Deleted scenes. We shot a lot more of Greg and Tommy, James Franco and Dave Franco struggling in LA, trying to get acting jobs.

So there's a lot more fun stuff of them scraping through the business. Those were fun as it is. Yeah. What was in there? And there's even crazier stuff. And then in terms of recreations of the room, we probably recreated close to a third of The Room. So we have these great side-by-sides at the end of the movie that we're really proud of that we meticulously recreated scenes from The Room.

And if you don't know The Room, it's considered the Citizen Kane of bad movies. Yes, indeed. And rightly so. Oh, my God. It's up there with Island of Dr. Moreau. I'd rather watch The Room than twice. Yeah, The Room is, I think, more fun. The Room has a charm to it, even with how bizarre it is.

So we have these recreations at the end, these side-by-sides. We did probably about a half hour or so of that. So this will be a fun DVD eventually. You know, it's funny because I was thinking about it. We were talking last time you were here for the mini and we were talking about movies about movies. The Disaster Artist also falls into another subgenre, which is movies about crazy dreamers. Oh, yeah. Movies about crackpots like Fitzcarraldo and the Mosquito Coast.

Field of Dreams. And Field of Dreams and Tucker, the man in his dream. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Field of Dreams. And Field of Dreams. And Tucker, the man in his dream. And movies. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Movies about crazy people with a dream that usually ends poorly. Oh, yeah. Right.

This one ended happily. Successfully. And Scott and... Oh, Scott and Larry. Scott and Larry. Yeah, Ed Wood would fall into that category. Yeah, yeah. For sure.

They were very fascinated by people who were dreamers. Yeah. Who were not popular. Larry Flint movies. Yeah, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They're fascinated by oddballs and misfits.

I found this interesting. You said that Tommy, this is funny, that every time you guys met him, it was like a new introduction. He just didn't know who you were. Yeah, Tommy Wiseau. Because I have that problem with Gilbert. In fact, I did for the first eight years. I've been trying to forget. I swear the first seven or eight times we met, he had no idea who I was.

And it was like a month apart each time. What's your go-to move? Like when someone knows you and you don't remember them, do you do like a, hey? Well, see. I know what he does. Oh, go ahead. You say, yeah, I know you. You're the guy in the purple shirt.

Yes, yes. Because I'm never sure. See, it's also, you know, being in movies and stuff where you go, uh-oh, is this someone I actually did meet or am I meeting him the first time? Because if it's the first time, I shouldn't be saying, hey, great seeing you again. I shouldn't be saying, hey, great seeing you again. It's like the Simpsons where Mr. Burns has no idea who Homer is, even though he's met him 230 times. That was me and Gilbert. It always happens with me that someone who we know will come up to me on the street

and talk to me and then say to Dara afterwards, oh, I ran into Gilbert. And she goes, did he know who you were? And they'll go, no fucking idea. There you go. See, I try to remember, but then right before you need to know that split second, I have a moment of doubt of, but wait, what if that's not their name or what if I don't? Yes. And then I just kind of shut down and I don't know what to say.

There's a lot of Tommy Wiseau in you. So Tommy was like that. And you, Gilbert. We met Tommy a bunch of times and he kept, and then eventually he knew who Scott was and could not remember who I was. And he said to Greg Sestero, because I said to Greg once, I'm like, why? Tommy still doesn't know who I am. And he goes, no, he knows who you are.

He doesn't know your name. He just knows you as that smiling guy. And that he says, I don't know if I can trust that smiling guy. So that's how Tommy thinks of me. Oh, I remember I did an episode of Crashing. And it was right after we had interviewed him. Yeah, it just aired. A couple of weeks ago.

And on the set, some guy comes up to me and says, oh, really, really, thanks for doing it. I really appreciate it. And I was just giving him a look like, who the fuck is this? And he points to himself and he goes, Judd Apatow. Nice. My brother-in-law is the set dresser on that show, on Crasher. And I said, go find Gilbert and tell him who you are.

And he called me the next day and says, are you sure Gilbert knows who you are? Tell us a couple of other things as we wind down. I found this fascinating, too, that you guys were reading a lot of scripts, and you decided it helped you boost your confidence because you realized you didn't really need to be intimidated. You would assume that most scripts were good scripts and then you realize no there's only one Aaron Sorkin there's only one Tarantino yeah it's a lot of this stuff is mediocrity I think it helped us working in a in a production office when we were starting out not because anyone was reading our crappy scripts or anyone was even introducing us we weren't making contacts but we had access to a

script library and you read the stuff that's circulating through hollywood and you go wow the bar for acceptable work is so much lower than you assume until you're in the pipeline and you read this stuff and you go oh my god that this this company paid how much for this script this is terrible. I miss those days of reading those scripts and getting that feeling. It was such a confidence boost to read all these terrible scripts coming in, and a lot of them from, like, name writers, that we thought, you know what, we can give this a shot

because, I mean, what apparently passes for acceptable is a lot worse than we assumed. Let that be a lesson to young screenwriters. There are a bunch of scripts that I've read that, you know, horrible, horribly bad. But I had this prayer like, oh, please make this into a movie because I'll watch it every day. Even though you don't want to be in it. You don't want to make this into a movie because I'll watch it every day. Even though you don't want to be in it. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to be associated with it. I just have to see how the fuck anyone could make this into a movie.

I have to say, too, how much luck is involved. When I was floating around L.A. for a decade, and I knew a lot of managers and agents who'd say, just read this. I loved going into the office. You know who Gold Miller is? Their management company? Oh, yeah, of course. Jimmy Miller. They used to be

Dennis Miller's brother. Right. Are they now something called something else? I feel like they... I had a friend there. He used to just give me scripts by the truckload. And the opposite is true. You really enjoy reading something that you discover that for whatever reason isn't being made and you want to champion that thing. Hey, have you

guys read this? That is what happened to us. You basically described... we weren't actively trying to build a career we were writing more for ourselves and and someone we had worked with at deniro's company unbeknownst to us she liked uh the script for five injuries this summer and she gave it to a friend of hers to read who had just gotten a job working for two young managers who were just starting out as managers, only a few years older than Scott and I. And those guys called us up and said, hey, we're new manager.

You know, we've only been doing this a couple of years, but we're looking for sort of new young talent. And we love your voice. And it reminds us of of of Cameron Crowe and Mike Nichols and all these people we looked up to and to this day those guys are still our managers so it was a luck of like we didn't even know that some of our work was circulating just among people who were looking for something good to read and it landed in the laps of these two guys who had just started out as managers and gave us a call.

Luck is involved. I remember reading scripts and thinking, this is a great script. Everything about this script is hilarious and perfect. And then the movie came out and it was all wrong. Yeah. Because, and I'll mention one script. There's a writer named Adam Resnick who's a very, very funny guy. He wrote Death to Smoochie.

Oh, yeah, of course. And a movie called Numbers. It was a movie. It was released as Lucky Numbers with Travoltavolta and i read the script was called numbers they changed the and that was like a really hot script the script was fantastic the script was i read it on a cross country train ride laughing out loud at almost every page in the script and when the movie came out is this has this you experienced this when the movie came out, has this, have you experienced this? When the movie came out, I thought, what the hell happened? Another script I read and loved was a script called Surviving Christmas.

It was written by two Simpsons guys. And it was made with Ben Affleck and James Gandolfini. Right. And the movie missed by a million miles. The script was funny. And you realize how much luck is involved in the process. What if this falls into the hands of the wrong studio? What if it gets developed to death?

What if they throw more writers on it that kill it? So, speaking of luck, before they went to Joseph Gordon-Levitt on 500 Days of Summer. They do. Exactly. It was Friday night, so he wasn't answering his phone. And the powers that be had decided, you know what? We want to put Andy Samberg in 500 Days of Summer. And by the way, I love Andy Samberg.

I think he's hilarious. I don't think he's right for 500 Days of Summer because it tipped to comedy with him. Yes, yes, yes. And for us, it was more important that we landed the real pain of heartbreak of having an actor in that who's not a comedian. And I think the movie would have turned out very differently. And they were considering Andy Samberg and I guess talking to some of his people and all that. And then he had that movie come out

that was about the sort of the, not the dune buggies or whatever, that car racing movie he made with the go-karts. Yeah, I can't remember the name of it. Oh God, what was the name of it? And the movie didn't do well. And immediately they were off of him. More luck. More luck. And if that movie had done well, and I can't even was the name of it? And the movie didn't do well. And immediately they were off of him. More luck.

More luck. And if that movie had done well, and I can't even remember the name of it, he would have been in it, and then obviously it would have been a very different film. I was reading numbers, and the whole time, and you're imagining an actor, as you're reading the script, as you would if you read a book. And I had Bill Murray in my head. And I've never talked to Adam. We have mutual friends, so I'll connect to him and ask him.

He must have written it, because the character is a sleazebag. And he's a con man. And when I go to see the movie, it ain't John Travolta. No. Not that John Travolta can't do great things. But it had to be, or like a young Nicholson or somebody, it had to be. No, you want that baggage sometimes. It had to be a con. I young Nicholson or somebody, it had to be. No, you want that baggage sometimes. It had to be a, I'm trying to think of another actor, Michael Keaton could have pulled it off.

It had to be a confidence man, a trickster. And the casting was wrong. The direction was wrong. It was soft for that. Yeah, and it missed by a million miles, and it was such an education. Who directed it? Nora Ephron. Oh, right.

It's like like how could they get that so wrong it's on the page another thing that happens in hollywood is there'll be writers who you go this is the next writer he is the next big writer or this is the next big director or next big composer. And you go, oh, what? Okay, what did he direct? Well, I don't know. I can't think of anything he's directed. But the word is out there already.

And you don't question it. They say, oh, this guy's the next big one. It's a perception thing, yeah. No, we see it all the time. Because if you work for a producer, if you work at the studio, you spend a lot of time building these lists. It's sort of who's the hot actor, who's the hot director. And then they just sort of go down the list trying to get the hot names and pair people. It's not necessarily being thought of as always who's the best person for this. It's who's more marketable what's an entry

you know what's that um um you know who has heat uh and and what's their q rating they used to say in television oh yeah there's the when we made the spectacular now which is an independent film there really was that good film thank you there was that book and it was sort of had the international value for actors and as we were casting the smaller roles it was well that person doesn't have international value or only has marginal international value. There was a real book on how much these people were worth internationally because you're making an independent film. You want to sell those foreign territories to help make up the cost of making the movie. So all those sort of little choices matter. And it was so bizarre to me of like,

I mean, one of the reasons why, you know, Travolta has had a lot of flops in recent years and yet still seemingly gets a lot of parts is because for a long time, his international value was still so high that even though his movies weren't making money here in the States, he was so big in Europe, in Russia, in Asia, that it was a safe gamble that even if the movie flopped here, it would do so well overseas that you'd make back your money. Well, Phil Rosenthal, listen to this episode that we just put up, today's episode. Phil Rosenthal had written a script for Alan Arkin, and they were excited, and do you remember this? Oh, yeah.

They went in the first meeting, the guy said, Alan Arkin doesn't open a movie, and that was the end of that. Oof. There was that documentary a few years ago. James Toback and Alec Baldwin. And obviously, no, we don't talk about James Toback anymore. But he made that documentary, Seduced and Abandoned. Yes.

And it's not about his... Yes. Whatever he did to women. 700 women accusing him of... Yeah, which is obviously horrible. But this documentary is about packaging a possible film at a film festival and trying to raise financing.

And there's a brutal scene in that movie where he and Baldwin go to meet with a big international financier. And this movie was made maybe like 10 years ago. And this guy looks at Alec Baldwin and goes, and after they tell him Alec Baldwin's going to be the star, and this guy looks at Alec Baldwin and goes, and, you know, after they tell him Alec Baldwin's going to be the star, and this guy says,

but I have to remind you, it's been a long time since your submarine movie. Basically saying to Baldwin's face, you're not a star anymore. Hunt for Red October? Right. That's what, and you're watching this,

this financier is saying, I'm not giving you the money for your movie because Hunt for Red October was a long time ago. Wow, they had the balls to leave it in the movie. And they left it in the movie. That took guts. Yeah. Tell us, before you run out of here, Gilbert. Here's something that got me in a movie as far as being painful because it's based on reality.

based on reality. And that was in the last Dumb and Dumber movie. Kathleen Turner was cast as the ugly woman. What? It was kept being referenced that she was ugly. You know, to go from like the former top sex symbol. Oh my God. To like jokes about how ugly she is. Speaking of sex symbols, you're meeting a lot of people in Hollywood.

Can you introduce Gilbert to Scarlett Johansson? I've never met her. I've never met her. That is not an excuse. Next time I see Jane Fonda, she has to come on your show. We would love to have Jane Fonda. Her stories are phenomenal. Because I tell her I whacked it during Barbarella. I think she just assumes everyone has.

I think she's going to meet you and assume that. Yeah. I have to say, like, when we were developing the script, she would. I remember more than once she wanted to explain how she wanted the motions of something going in the scene. And she would move her seat. She would get up and sit next to me or sit next to Scott and take our hand and put our hand. Like, she would act out the motion. You're like, Jane Fonda's sitting on my lap right now.

What's going on? This is unbelievable. Do you think Jane Fonda, if we met, she'd at least give me a handy? You know, 50-50. How much did you like Barbarella? And on Golden Pond. Last questions. Because I just want to know this.

Would you guys, a lot of writers want to take control of their own material. I'm sure you've been asked this question. Would you guys ever consider going behind the camera? I don't think so. We've been so lucky to work with directors who've made our work better. Also, I have to say, just as someone who sees a lot of movies, and I'm sure you see this, a writer has written a few good movies and then tries their hand at directing, and the movie isn't bad.

It's just okay. Yeah. And you go, I wonder if what was missing was that collaboration of the director questioning some choices and forcing the writer to just make the choices a little bit stronger, tighten the screws a little bit. We see that.

A good director makes us justify our choices, and then the whole thing gets better. So, I don't know. I like working with people who collaborate with us and make it all better. So it's interesting that the Wilder Brooks films are so much better than anything Gene Wilder did on his own and anything Mel Brooks did on his own. Definitely. There was some, there was some dynamic, possibly attention of them disagreeing, compromising, something that made that work. I think Scott and I, our work is better

because even Scott and I, internally, the two of us have to agree. So when we don't see eye to eye on something, we'll talk it out and try to find a solution that makes both of us happy, which in turn makes the whole thing better. Right, right, right. You know, we like collaborating. I'll also say we just like to work. Maybe this is something we learned from our years working for De Niro for deniro who you know bob gets crap for making a lot of movies and not all

of them turn out as well as he probably hopes but not all of our are the stuff we write turns out as well as we hope but we like to work and yeah the interesting thing that that we've learned is the best directors have this crazy laser focus where they work on one thing and it seems like it's just that thing for you know it could be two or three years where you're just on this thing and and scott and i i me me especially like i i get restless creatively i like to know that anything we're writing in 90 days 100 days i'm going to be working on something completely different. I don't know if I have the right muscle to just work on one thing for two years. I feel like you need a certain kind of focus that maybe is not my strong suit. So you never say never, but I don't see us directing any time soon.

Interesting. I love to write. I love writers. I don't know. It's just not the dream to have that much control. Gilbert, any plans to direct? Oh, yes. That's always been my first love.

We'll write it for you. And the 3D Yentl. All we can say is good luck at the Oscars. Thank you. We're going to put this up. This has been a different kind of episode for us in the sense that we never have anybody in here under 70.

No I was saying this is maybe the first episode where you can't say we barely scratched the surface. I'm not old enough. You guys you cut deep. And yet I have more.

Will you come back in 30 years? I will definitely come back in 30 years. Are you excited about it? And I assume Gilbert you'll remember me in 30 years.

I didn't even get to that time I was in that Prisoner of War camp with Sonny Fox. I have all these other stories that I haven't told yet. Okay, what's your favorite episode of the podcast? I think that's my favorite episode. Sonny Fox! That is, the Sonny Fox episode is... How about that? That one

surprised the shit out of me. We'll take it. That's the episode, as I've recommended the show to so many of my friends and peers, it's such a great jumping off point because you don't need to know Sonny's work to appreciate the stories, the names, what he went through, his career. And, you know, the banter is great. It's really, there's a little bit of everything in that episode. I love Mario.

Yes. Mario is. We love him too. Just so every time he's on, I just smile because he just sort of... It's his energy and... He's a force of nature. When you guys start singing and it's just... It's great.

He turns this into an entirely other show. He takes it to a different place. I bet he... I feel like it was hinted at, but not... He didn't offer his opinion. I bet Mario agrees with me and loves Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Oh, no. That movie sucks.

Okay, go ahead. Two minutes. Fuck that movie. And Matthew Broderick, if you're listening, fuck that movie. Matthew Broderick, if you're listening, you're my hero. That movie is great. What makes you think he's listening? There's no way he's listening.

There's no way. If ever there was a chance. He's got a better chance of listening to Dial-A-Fight. After being on here. Wait, so what's wrong with it? You don't like the character. I think the guy's a fucking dick. And I wanted him to get like, get his ass kicked.

But he was nice to everyone. He had friends and everything. No, he was a piece of shit. The guy was a piece of shit. Everybody around him had to be a total asshole to fall for what he was pulling. Future episode. So, wait, is it safe to say you watched that movie and rooted for Principal Rooney? Yes.

Yes, I did. That's what a bastard he is. When you look at it, Principal Rooney, what is he doing that's so bad? He sees that there's a kid missing school. And he's supposed to find out about it. But there's more to life than school. Yeah, that's bullshit.

You proved. Future episode, you guys can go toe-to-toe on this one. Good luck on March 4th, buddy. Thank you so much. You excited? I'm going to now wear my orange slice pin, my orange wedge. We gave him an orange wedge pin, folks.

I'm going to wear an orange wedge to the Oscars in tribute. And you'll wear a little Cesar Romero mustache. I just got a chubby. Thank you, Michael. Good luck. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys. This was a blast.

I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And we've been talking to Marco Wibbles Wobble, but they don't fall down. You almost became Mark Webb would also work. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Michael Weber.

Thank you, pal. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you, guys. Yeah, yeah, what I got, full stop, thoughts and dreams are scattered. When you pull them all together, and I can't explain. Oh yeah, well, well, you. You make my dreams come true. Well, well, well, you. Oh yeah, you make my dreams come true Well, yeah On a night for bed

Think of the screamer When the man's in with the dreamer With the laughing in the face Twist and shout my way out And wrap yourself around me Cause I ain't the way you found me And I'll never be the same Oh yeah, when I call you

You make my dreams come true You, you, you, you Well, well, well, you You make my dreams come true You, you, you, you Listen to this I'm down on my daydream Oh, that sleepwalk should be over by now

Oh, no