Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Trading Card Confidential with Gary Gerani

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

GGACP celebrates the birthday (October 5) of writer, author and "Card King" Gary Gerani by revisiting this 2018 mini-episode about the fascinating, decades-long history of Topps trading cards. In this episode, Gary looks back on developing and writing card series for "Creature Features," "Star Wars," "The Incredible Hulk," "Superman," "Star Trek: the Motion Picture" and "Dinosaurs Attack!" (among many others). Also in this episode: the artistry of Norm Saunders, the birth of action figures, the wit and wisdom of Stan Lee and the golden age of Wacky Packages. PLUS: Gilbert remembers Chick Tracts! Frank pens Bazooka Joe gags! And Gary meets the King of Pop! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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covers it all get on the money search on the money with Dynamic Funds and follow today. 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. Fantastic! So here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's

another Gilbert and Franks. Colossal classic. hi this is gilbert godfrey and this is gil is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal... Uh-oh. No. Okay. Take two. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and this is Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. Now you're talking, brother. Now, I like to bring you people. I like to bring you fellow Lon Chaney Jr. fans.

Oh, good. I like to... You know, I just... I put a sandwich sign, you know, those old cardboard sandwich signs on the street. Like from the three streets. Yeah, and I walk up and down 45th Street looking for Lon Chaney Jr. fans.

Anyway, our old friend Gary Gerani is here. Gary and I go way, way back. How far back do we go? Oh, way back. To Topps. To the classic era at the Topps Trading Cards. They call Gary the card king. This is true.

And how many trading card series off the top of your head? I'm going to put you on the spot. Have you written? Hundreds and hundreds. I remember back when the century turned, I tried to count how many card sets I wrote, edited, art directed. And there were hundreds back then. And I've done so many more since then. So I don't know.

Hulk, Waltons, $6 million man. Right, right. I mean, my very first trading card set was Emergency Adam 12. They combined the Adam 12 TV show and the Emergency Show. Did you even know there were Adam 12 cards? No. But I remember as a kid, they had cards for everything. Oh, yeah.

They had like about five cards in the pack and a stick of gum. And I remember they had both Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare. I think that's going to predate Gary. Yeah. But a few years, but only a few years. A few years. The Beatles. Yes, Beatles was huge for Tops.

Who wrote those? Woody Gellman and Len? Yeah, my good friend Len Brown. Len Brown. Wrote most of that stuff. He was hired, I think, around 59. He was there a long time. I knew Len.

When I worked there, Len was there. Len is a teddy bear. He was like my big brother there. Great guy. And, yeah, he did most of the text for that. He also wrote the famous Mars Attacks. Of course. The bottom line was whatever they gave you to do, whether it was a preexisting property, a movie or TV show or something that we were creating, you'd be there giving it your all.

Of course. And I remember the Planet of the Apes. We talked about those before we turned the mics on. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. 70, 72. No, no.

72? No, no. The original movie came out in 1968, and Topps put the product out in the candy counters of America in 1969. Okay. Which was interesting because that was very different than the way we would eventually do it. We would always try to release the product literally like the first week the movie was out, years later with Star Wars and all those things. But back then, it was interesting.

They kind of waited that extra time. That's why I thought it was later. But you're right. It was a year later. What I remember with the Planet of the Apes cards is that they have one where he's captured by them, and he does that line. Uh-huh. When he starts screaming, you know, get your dirty paws off me. Oh, get your paws off me, you damn dirty apes.

So they cut damn out of the card. We would have to do things like that. Yeah. You know, and what was it? I know why I said 72. That was the year you started. Exactly. Right, right.

And then a couple of years after that, they did the Planet of the Apes TV series. Oh, the series. Do you remember the series? The short-lived Planet of the Apes series? It was one year on CBS. Was Roddy McGowan in it? Yes, he was. But unfortunately, they didn't have him playing Caesar, which was the character he had played in the last couple of Planet of the Apes, which was a great character.

Which, when they did the new versions, the Caesar character became the main character. It was a very strong character. Instead, they kind of just did a kind of watered-down version of the original movie plot with a couple of astronauts. I remember. And he was just the made-up character, but it was still Roddy McDowell, so that maintained the continuity. Right, right, right. He was the link.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And CBS had shown those movies the original movies on their Friday night at the movies that kind of thing the ratings went through the roof so that's why this TV series was greenlit did you collect the cards you you had the Planet of the Apes cards uh yeah I had the Planet of the Apes cards and the Beatles what'd you do with them yeah oh it's Well, that's one of those things. Everything from your childhood, if you had any brains back then, you would have stored

away in a vault because you'd retire on it years later. Those days, those weren't collector days. You didn't have Mylar sheets. You didn't have that whole kind of park culture. As a matter of fact, the way they would put the cards out in the pack and all that, usually one card, the one where the piece of gum was kind of rubbed, would be ruined.

Trash. So you would have to throw that one out. With the melted sugar. Yeah. And years later, again, the collector market came in and all of a sudden we had to rethink the whole strategy there. Right, right, right. And of course I would chew bazooka, Joe. Best bubblegum flavor ever. You know, when Topps, it was so crazy, but soft bubblegum came in in a big way with things like Bubble Yum.

That was like in the late 70s or whatever. I remember, sure. And Topps, you know, was sort of caught behind on that a little. And they created their own soft gum called Smooth and Juicy, which was, I remember saying, go back to the original bazooka. Because that's an all-American flavor we all love. Rip your fillings out. Right. But they finally did a soft bazooka.

And that was delicious because that flavor was just. I was writing bazooka comics when I first got there. Did you? Yeah, when you and I first met. That's so great. I also remember a pack that would have like a card and a piece of candy. It would come in a little box.

You know, like a box that you'd get with a sticker or a trading card. Weird. I think it would have one card, a little toy, and a couple of little candies, but it had to do with monsters. Yes. I know what that was.

It was like the box was half the pleasure. Yes. Because what you got in it was sort of a throwaway, but it was like the creature from the black – Yes. Whatever the monster was on the front, that was – yeah. Whatever are we talking about here? This has got to be the 60s. Yeah.

Early 60s. This is really, really primitive. Well, I remember as a little kid getting this. So I think like the 50s. Yeah, I'm saying it was really, really way back. And I don't think that was Topps. I think that was another company. Everybody would vie for that.

Maybe Bowman or one of those companies. Yeah, or some cheesy little. Floating around. I wouldn't say that. Maybe Bowman or one of those companies that was floating around. I wouldn't say that. Bubblegum companies, candy companies, there were a bunch of them around that did that kind of thing.

Do you remember the Monster Flipbooks? Oh, yes. Here's the story behind that. A rival company, now we're going back into the 60s again.

A rival company had gotten the rights from Universal to do the classic Frankenstein's, Dracula's, whatever. They even had Adam and Costello with some of their cards. I don't know how they got away with the rights on that. And Topps wanted to jump in with a monster movie card set during that era. This is what I'm collecting.

We're talking about 64, whatever. So they couldn't do the cards because that license had already been granted. So they invented the flipbook format. And you had Frankenstein, the mummy, the creature, and one other one, I think the wolf man. And you'd have these little flips. And the creature movies hadn't even been on TV yet. So the first time you got to see the creature tossing a car over in Florida or whatever the heck it was from Revenge of the Creature was in the Topps flipbook. So, man, I love that.

I don't think I even remember those. You didn't hang on to any of that stuff. None. Yeah. They would fall apart because they were like kind of flimsy glue, and then it was like so many little pieces of paper to get the flip effect. So, yeah, they'd always fall apart on you. And, well, I didn't keep any of the Aurora Monster models.

Oh, yeah. Gary, you must have had those too. Oh, my God. The first one I ever got was the Creature from the Black Lagoon, which I simply called The Creature. Okay. And again, I had never seen the movie. I always wanted to.

And I had been introduced to the character in the pages of Famous Monsters magazine. Now, we're talking about late 50s, early 60s, before a lot of these movies had come on TV, you know, like The Creature was a movie from the 50s. So I remember just seeing the photos of this greatest of all monsters, head to toe, great looking monster, right? Desperately waiting and waiting for it to come on TV.

Finally did December of 1964 on The Late Show here in New York. I think I sent you the ad that I sent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were talking about Million Dollar Movie. He's a Brooklyn kid like us, so he remembers Creature Features. Oh, God. The Benson Hill Theater.

And his Brooklyn experience. I remember I used to read about these movies and famous monsters of film land, of course. And then I would hear, I'd see in the paper that one would be showing on TV, like sometimes one in the morning. And I'd be like, you know, with my nose pressed to the screen. Waiting. Yeah. Did you have to like sneak into the room so your parents couldn't hear? I mean, that was for a lot of people.

They had the TV on so low. Yes, yes. You could barely hear it, but you had to see it. You know, it was, and if you didn't see it, it might be six months again before it was on again. Right, right. Not like, I mean, I tell these kids today, it's like, God, you don't know how easy you've got it. We used to have to

suffer for the things. We have to wait. Well, also, you made the point that there was no DVD or VHS, though, so if you wanted to own a little piece of the movie, that's where trading cards were so great. And action figures weren't as big as they are now.

It wasn't big business. Right, I remember when the term action figure was created because they were dolls. And they were dolls for little boys, so they couldn't

call them dolls. So they invented action figures, right? I think the first card series I remember getting from Topps, collecting from Topps, were the Norm Saunders Batmans, the Batman paintings. Oh, they were gorgeous. Which I have a repro framed on a wall in my office, but they're beautiful. And there's a story behind

that. When the Batman phenomenon hit big in 1966, at first, Adam West and Burt Ward were not allowing their likeness to be on these things and so there was a lot going on but Batman was so huge and because DC Comics owned Batman you could get a license you just couldn't use the TV episode imagery

but you could use the character in any way so Topps didn't want to wait forever to get the rights cleared that's the story behind those they hired this incredible painter who eventually did the Mars Attacks So Topps didn't want to wait forever to get the rights cleared. That's the story behind those. That's so cool. They hired this incredible painter. The great Norm Sonnen. Who eventually did the Mars Attacks classic set for Topps.

And he painted these amazing sets. Do you remember these cards? They're Batman. If I showed them to you, and I will when we finish, I'll show you the – I have them on my phone. You'd recognize them immediately. They're paintings of Batman and and the joker and the penguin they're because as he said they couldn't get the the yeah the license so we painted our own set and and basically you know those paintings were fantastic i mean looking back i'm glad we didn't

get the rights at first because we i joined the company a few years later later but um uh because as a result we did these fantastic painted sets I think we did about like three or four series. They're great. And then eventually the rights were cleared for the photos. With puzzles on the back. And we did the whole puzzle thing. But then we did eventually do – You did.

They did them. They did them. Which had a lot of images from the 1966 Batman movie. The movie. Right. I have those too. And I also got a flashback. Didn't the Dave Clark Five have their own card?

Not only the Dave Clark. Oh, God. They would try anybody. Now, at least the Dave Clark Five were the Dave Clark. But, I mean, years later, I remember doing Minuto. Oh, sure. I was there when they were doing it. I was there when they were doing New Kids on the Block.

New Kids on the Block. And Desert City. Well, Cindy Lauper we did. Michael Jackson. And Living Color. That was all kids on the block. Cindy Lauper we did. Michael Jackson. Living Color. That was all there on my watch. And Michael Jackson, they flew me out to his compound. I'm there waiting

for him to come out and I see llamas looking at me from the windows. And then he comes out and he shakes my hand. I have to admit, it was the flimsiest handshake I've ever had in my life. Interesting. And he says, I'm a big fan of your work. And I had just done the movie Pumpkinhead, I think, at the time or whatever.

It was right around that time. And he wasn't talking about anything like that. He was talking about my bubblegum card. Michael Jackson was a trading card fan and collector. Well, he was a big kid. Yeah, that's great to hear. So everything that we did. And he had

small kids around him. Well, that's a whole other... That would have made a very interesting sub-series. Now you... Those would have made an interesting training card. I gotta tell... An interesting puzzle on the back. Get the piece with the... I don't want to go there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did a lot of those bands. They did the Monkees. Yeah. They did all that stuff. I mean, some of them made sense. Some of them were just, what the hell. There were laughing cards.

I have them from the Topps Vault. I have a pack of open laughing cards. Because laughing was huge, right. And that was also like around the late 60s. 68, 69. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after

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It was funny. I was switching around on the TV and I see, oh, it's laughing. And it must have been that later season. Oh, the Willie Tyler years. Yeah. The later ones. I didn't recognize anybody.

Yeah, because they kept changing. Like Saturday Night Live, as it went on, some people became famous, and they left, and other interesting people came in. I think like Lily Tomlin came in later. And some less than interesting people were brought in. No names. All right. That happens too.

I think that Lily Tomlin stayed on and Gary Owen stayed on for the end when Willie Tyler was there. You had to fall down to the riverbank, right? Yeah, I think almost

everybody else was gone. Yeah. Maybe Joanne Worley was still there. Joanne Worley probably stuck around to the end. To the big time. I got one last thing about Michael there. Joanne Worley probably stuck around to the end. Everybody else flew the coop to the big time. I got one last thing about Michael Jackson.

I will say he insisted that the piece of bubble gum that appeared in the packs with his cards be wrapped in like a Wrigley's piece. None of this. The powdered. Yeah. Yeah. So he kind of forced us to, you know. He was such a purist. He didn't want the powdered gum to ruin the card. I don't know if that was it or maybe he just, you know, wanted a better piece. He was such a purist, he didn't want the powdered gum to ruin the card. I don't know if that was it, or maybe he just

wanted a better piece of gum. But of course, we did. And actually, that... Well, he needed something to hand out at parties. I guess that did the trick. You know, if you're trying to get laid, you don't bring out the cheap beer. The good stock. But we kept them well supplied.

Did you do Wacky Packs too? Oh, yeah. Before me though, because when I came in, it was like later. Yes, because I started in 72. I don't think I was officially full-time until 73.

So I was like still in college, still working part-time. And it was weird because it was Lem Brown who hired me, and that only happened because he saw my ad on the Monster Times. Monster Times. You remember the Monster Times? Oh, yeah. That newspaper?

Yes. Now, I've got to talk a second about that. Love that thing. You've got to remember, I grew up loving Famous Monsters, a film by a magazine. Yeah, Barry Ackerman. And there was another great one, Castle of Frankenstein, that Calvin Beck was in charge of. He was a wacko guy.

And again, this is what we kids had back then who loved horror movies. So when the Monster Times came out in the early 70s, I was about right at that time to be able to contribute to these rather than just being a fan. So that was my first professional writing was for the Monster Times, Confessions of the Black Lagoon Creature. I became the creature. I finally achieved my dream. And I relived my experiences going from South America and the Black Lagoon, going to Hollywood, and having an affair with Esther Williams because it was the 50s. It was all this crazy stuff.

And I had no idea that the humorous approach was really going to work, but they loved it. And then they started to ask me, why don't you become Godzilla? Why don't you become Gorgo? Why don't you become the giant behemoth and just tell the stories from their point of view?

And how did that... I remember there was a magazine, Monsters to Laugh With. By Stanley. Yes. Oh, wow. You are good, Gottfried. Beautiful.

As a matter of fact, the, you know, what fools immortals be, Monsters to Laugh With by Stanley. And again, that was, what that was, was a variation of what you were doing on trading cards. You'd have a photo,

black and white photo of a monster movie, but instead of a funny caption on the bottom, they would have like a comic book balloon with a funny gag. Yeah, remember those funny monster cards? It was the lamest jokes. Yeah. It would be like the wolf man, and it would be like, I need a shave.

Yeah, those kind of things. A lot of blood bank jokes with Dracula. Oh, yes. We also, not only did we have lame jokes, but we felt

it was our obligation to continue those lame jokes over the years. So there are some lame jokes that kept on being repeated in our minds.

Hi, I'm the new babysitter with the Frankenstein monstrosity. We've used that over and over. In other words, boy, they sure have ugly girls in this neighborhood. Those two we kept repeating over and over. Or like the mummy would be, I need a Band-Aid.

They did stickers with Marvel superheroes with dumb gags in the 70s. Do you remember those? I did those as well. They were die-cut. They were die-cut, and they had the balloons incorporated into it. And it was the same kind of lousy, ridiculous gags that we're talking about,

the obvious kind of stuff. You came to tops from the Monster Times. So let me explain that. Yeah, I was, so I was writing for the Monster Times and because I was writing

for every issue, they gave me a free classified ad in the back of the publication. It was a newspaper. It was actually like Rolling Stone format rather than an actual magazine. And Lem Brown at Topps happened to be reading the Monster Times one day and what my classified ad was for was saying, wanted 16 millimeter science fiction and horror movies and all that because we were collecting films. And Lem Brown was a film collector. So he got in touch with me.

We started talking. He said, you're doing all this kind of, you know, you did this Monster Times articles, this funny stuff. Why don't you come down and try to write some gags for us? I said, sure, why not? And so I got my job. What was the first series? Not the New York Times, but through the Monster Times. What was the first Top series? The very first day that I was at Topps, they were doing their Creature Features series.

At that point, Creature Features was big for them and Wacky Packages. So the very first day, it was crazy back then. Really, when I look back at this, I don't know why the heck they didn't work this out. Topps got the license to do the Universal Monsters. But at that point in time, you could show the photos of the monsters, but the actors in the shots, like the women that were being carried off or whatever, they didn't clear the rights to the actresses and actors or whatever. So what they did is they took photos of all the people at tops and superimposed our heads over all these actors so the very first when you stood in for carloff yes yes uh uh for carloff in um abner costello meet dr jekyll and mr hyde there's mr hyde on one hand i'm whoops i'm on the other side

and also i stood in for onslow Stevens. There you go, Gilbert. Gilbert just had an orgasm. Part of the dream sequence and it's great because he's like, the monster is there and Onslow Stevens who's deranged is pointing. It was just part of a montage sequence in the movie but we have the photo and it's me instead of Onslow

Stevens. I think the gag for that is look Albert, it's a hamburger stand. Tell people, and I think people would be interested in the process, and you did all the Star Wars cards, too. Oh, God, yes. And you put out those wonderful books, by the way, and thank you so much for sending them. Oh, I'm glad you enjoy them.

They're absolutely wonderful. Yeah, they did a whole bunch. They're great, Abrams books, and we'll plug them, too, at the end. Yeah, and they also did The Planet of the Apes. I mean, they're getting even beyond Star Wars. And they're nicely done. They really are. They executed them very, very well.

They even include, like, you know, cards in the back. I mean, they're like crazy stuff. And the covers are like the same, the wrapper kind of thing. So they really got into it. You were working on some of the earliest licensing for Lucasfilm. And what did they send you? I mean, how does the trading card, I know the answer to this, obviously, since I did them. But how does the trading card writer approach the project if you haven't seen the movie?

Sometimes they send you a script, sometimes they. Yes, it was a very interesting process, right? In the early days, they would get you a script. And of course, in the early days, everything was a little more relaxed or whatever. As time went on, and then the Star Wars thing exploded or whatever, they were afraid to give you scripts because they didn't want the secrets of their movies to get out. That was like a big deal back then. of their movies to get out. That was like a big deal back then. So after a while, they wouldn't send you the script. I'd have to fly to California.

They would lock me in a room and I would have to read the script. They'd let me take notes. Is that wild, Gilbert? Yeah. They'd lock him in a room and he'd have to read the script and give it back. Wow.

So he could do the card series. Right, right, right. And you'd just fill a book with notes so you knew you had captions for the time period? Yeah, every now and then if there wasn't anybody around, I would have a tape recorder

and I would actually just read the script so it's easier to remember everything that way. Now, here's something that I'm sure you had nothing to do with, but I'm putting it in here.

Perfect. In my opinion, anyway. And I think the guy who made them was something like, his name was like Kristoff or something. Do you remember

those little kind of oblong comic books that they'd hand out on the street that would teach you about Jesus and all those things? Yeah, Gary wrote those. I wish I could say I was involved in that. Do you remember those?

I don't think I do either. I don't remember that, but all I can give you is not necessarily religious, but it's almost biblical. When I saw the original Steve Reeves' Hercules movies, they gave us a thermometer that you would push it, and if you were really strong, you were Hercules. If you were less strong, you were whatever. That's about the closest I could think to a gimmick. Right, right, right. Not a religious one. Well, you know what, Gil?

We'll throw that out to the listeners. Yes. If you guys remember, we'll see what people write. I know Penn Jillette. He knew about them. When you say oblong comics, you mean they were rectangular comics? Yeah, rectangular. That's the word I was looking for.

And they would hand them out for free on the street. These, like like church group. And they would have these stories about, you know, someone who's a drug addict or someone who's cheating on his girlfriend. Doesn't ring a bell. So it would be a real world story that they would then give you a religious. So it wasn't really depicting images, scenes from the Bible. Quite often they'd wind up in hell at the end. Wow.

Yeah. Well, there used to be TV shows like that. There was something called Insight that there were these little dramas, little human stories about. Yeah, yeah. I remember that on Sunday mornings. It was almost Twilight Zone-ian. Yeah. You know, but I have to say, I can't quite remember.

That's great. We did talk about doing trading cards based on the Bible. I was just going to ask that. A painted series. Seems like a no-brainer. Because it was like there were so many disasters and exciting things going on, not to mention there's demonic possession, all this other stuff in the Bible. I'm reminded of the Odd Couple episode where his brother works.

His brother Floyd works for the bubblegum card company. Great moments in opera. Number 16, Mimi gets tuberculosis. Yes. You know, meanwhile, years later, I wouldn't be surprised if they did something like that for certain venues that are into it. Because years later, you did have adult cards, if you will. Oh, sure, sure. That was big business for a while.

William Redfield. Wasn't it something? What was that actor's name? William Redfield? William Redfield. Wasn't it something? What was that actor's name? William Redfield? William Redfield. The guy from Cuckoo's Nest. Yes. He played Felix's brother.

Boy, you are good from Cuckoo's Nest. Yes. Yes. You are good. William Redfield also, just for trivia fans and science,

he was the fellow who captained the little ship in Fantastic Voyage. That is correct. He also appeared in a radio show that I wrote a million years ago that I don't even want to think about. But, yeah, he was wonderful.

Really nice guy. Not to be confused with Renfield. That's what I thought you were saying at first. Oh, and I think he was in the Fortune Cookie also. He might have been. He got around. Oh, and the Hot Rock. Yeah, he's on the Hot Rock.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He must have been. Cliff Osmond's in the Fortune Cookie. Remember Cliff Osmond? Wait. I'll show him to Rock. Yeah, he's in the Hot Rock. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He must have had a... Cliff Osmond's in the Fortune Cookie. Remember Cliff Osmond? Wait. I'll show him to you. Yeah.

You come back one day, we'll do a whole show about weird character actors. Do you remember all the cease and desist letters we used to get about wackies? From all these companies telling us to stop?

Do you remember Wacky Packs, Gilbert? They were the product parody stickers. Oh, yes! Like Crust Toothpaste and Lip Torn Soup and Mrs. Clean. Those were the classics in the 60s. They kind of set the stage for Garbage Pail Kids years later because they had that same, what I used to call, gleefully subversive sense of humor.

Tops would look for that aspect in the kids because kids like to rebel and all that. And we'd come up with things that they can slip into their notebooks so the teachers couldn't see. Like, we were playing. Contraband. Right. And like, they would have you-hoo, but they'd call it boo-hoo. That's it.

Yeah. That's it. Well, those are the classic ones. I remember instead of Playtex living gloves, I wrote the gag Slatex living gloves. They're not only living, but they're struggling. I know that one. Jock full of nuts and bolts. Crackle of crayons.

Yeah. I mean, they were great. And part of the process of that, you know, they would send me to the supermarket.

Me too. In the 90s. And it got harder and harder to find products that we didn't parody. Or ones that were not on the verboten list. Right.

Or somebody had not already written a letter saying that we're going to sue you. Topps was very good. I mean, Topps, the minute they said, take it away, they would stop it. They didn't, you know, play games. That was one of the joys of my life, I have to say. Those freelance days, going there for two days. We were describing to Gilbert the old Topps factory in Brooklyn in Red Hook.

Nothing like it. And it was frozen in time. Asbestos everywhere. It was wonderful. I'm telling you, the place was frozen in time. Asbestos everywhere. It was wonderful. I'm telling you, the place was a fire trap. Old ladies in the luncheonette in the cafeteria

with hairnets and they had a scoop of potato salad and an ice cream scoop. It was really like going back in time. Another era, the place looked like

it came from another era. But in 92, it looked like 53. Right. But that was what was so cool for those of us who worked there who were nostalgia freaks and people were into this. And Drew was there. Drew was so cool for those of us who worked there who were most nostalgia freaks and people were into this.

And Drew was there. Drew was doing Toxic. He fit right in. Toxic, yeah. We had some amazing, Mark Newgarden, and Korsart Spiegelman. Crazy, creative people

who did work for us. And there was a huge crossover with the Mad Magazine people because they did a lot of the same kind of humor that we did. Matter of fact, Stan Hart was the guy who wrote most of the par kind of humor that we did matter of fact stan hart was

that's right wrote most of the parodies of the movies and tvs for mad and he would do do work for us too very funny guy he was wound up being the head writer on the carol burnett show yes stan hart uh yeah and he was this tall towering he'd come into hello hello hello and everybody would kind of he wrote everything scared yeah uh he. He was kind of formidable, but brilliant. Well, there was a lot of talent coming through that place. Oh, also, aside from the religious comics, this is to all of the listeners. Find out the names of those monster candy packages. Those little boxes.

Yes. Right, right. Because I had them, too. And I remember, yeah, what you got inside was crap. People will know. It was the box that was the thing. That was a waste. Yes. Right, right. Because I had them too. And I remember, yeah, what you got inside was crap. People will know. It was the box that was the thing. That was a waste of time. Right, right.

Real quick, tell Gilbert the Star Wars erection card story because I think he'll enjoy this. I am asked about this usually more than anything else I've done at Topps. Yeah, no, no, no. No problem. Yeah, well, when we did the original Star Wars set way back, 77, they really weren't fully prepared to give us everything we needed because the Topps products was nothing but pictures, pictures, pictures, just constantly have pictures.

So they kept going through all of their files, and eventually I said, all right, we'll go through, pull something from this file. Okay. So I'm pulling stuff out, and, you know, no big deal. There's a picture of C-3PO, pull something from this file. Okay. So I'm pulling stuff out. And, you know, no big deal. There's a picture of C-3PO. And I send it through.

I write the caption. It gets printed. A few months later, I'm out in California again to select pictures for the next set. I get a call from Tops. I'm in a hotel room. I get a call saying, you gave us this pornographic picture of C-3PO. What are you talking about? He's having an erection.

I'm going, I don't understand what you're even talking. Well, sure enough, you look at the picture, and there seems to be this metallic appendage extending from that portion of his body. And Topps immediately airbrushed out the offending appendage. I'm dialing up the picture for you. And that became the most famous. Oh, my God. Yeah. No, that's definitely a dick.

Yep. On 3PO. I had to explain this to the president of the company. R2 was a very happy fella. Lothar Shorin, who was a wonderful guy, really, really cool guy. And I said, look, I don't know what happened. Maybe they were playing around on the set. Maybe, you know, Harrison Ford was having some fun.

I don't know, but for some reason, and it wound up in their book. Nobody noticed. Lucasfilm didn't notice. So it was a gag. It was an on-set gag. Yeah, and our art director didn't notice. It was only after it was printed that people noticed.

But I think years later, someone actually did. I hate to say it because it kills the whole mystique of it. But apparently, it seemed like it was just part of his costume got loose or something. Right. Frankly, I don't remember seeing that on a costume. I like that hand move. Yeah. I like it.

But yes, that card is infamous. I remember Disney, after they did the animated Tarzan, they made a Tarzan electric action figure, and you press the button. It was supposed to be, I think, that he was holding a spear and moving his hand up and down. And it's like when you took the spear away, it just looked like

he was jerking off. Hilarious. The hand was right at crotch level going back and forth. Hilarious. Well, Disney was famous for playing around like that.

The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid box cover. And I remember because they said that you could see a dick. Right. If you're looking for it.

In the tower. In the castle. Right, right, right. And I remember, I thought when I heard that, I thought, oh, this is one of those things where I could go either way. And then I saw it, and I said, no, that's definitely

a dick. There's no way around it. I gotta give those guys credit. And this is Iago speaking. Exactly, right? Shame on you. Iago says, that's a dick it's official we should

we're going to wrap this one and come back and do another one about your wonderful book there's so much more crazy stuff but plug those tops books tell people where to get

those trading card books that Abrams did because they're absolutely wonderful oh yeah well I guess you know whether it's at a bookstore near you if there are any bookstores

anymore no bookstores anymore. No bookstores left. In that case, you should go to Amazon or whatever, and they're all up there. I did one, probably the best one is the 1977. That's the thing that really changed the world. I even wrote a screenplay called 1977 about how Star Wars came. What a great year. And how I went from zero to hero in a way at Topps because I was the movie guy. Right, right.

So I was suddenly in charge of all of that. So this was the Star Wars books. There's three of those. They did the Star Wars. And then – Empire. They did Star Wars. They did Empire.

And they did – I mean they did the original. And then we also did the Wide Vision. Yeah, those are great. Original trading cards, you know, the classics, baseball card size and shape. And then I remember like at a certain point, I guess it was in the 90s, I said, let's do something really amazing. Long cinemascope cards, if you will. I don't know if you've ever seen those. And cinemascope, like mimicking the look of cinemascope for a trading card.

So it wasn't the standard. It was just like the way you go to see a movie and the square shape of the old screen would then turn into something twice as long for full cinemascope panavision. Well, we were able to do justice to all that great imagery in the original Star Wars movie, including the opening shot with the overhead. All that stuff looked gorgeous in full wide. And on the backs of those cars, I had the storyboards and everything to show how it— it was like a state-of-the-art trading card set.

The original stuff is wonderful pop culture, but it's a little goofy. This thing was like for American cinematographer. And there's a Planet of the Apes book, too. The Planet of the Apes cards are reprinted. Which covers the original Charlton Heston movie and then some of the other sets and even the Tim Burton movies. We'll tell the Charlton Heston story when we come back, and we'll talk a little bit about Dinosaurs Attack. Wonderful. Next week.

Yes. If Gary comes back. Yes. Oh, yeah. So? Oh. So I have to wrap this up? Yes.

Oh. You have to wrap this up. Only because we're coming back to do another one. Oh, yes. Let's see if you can handle that. Okay. Boy, we could almost do three shows. We could yes. Let's see if you can handle that. Okay. Boy, we could almost do three shows.

We could at least, we could do six, but this is going well, but I want to get to the book. Is this Army? This is great. Huh? Army? No, it's the name of our guest.

Yes, I know. What's that? Gary Gerani. Gabby Gerani. Not Gabby. Gabby Hayes. We're here with Gabby Geronimo. Not Gabby. I can't do that. Gabby Hayes. You've been here with Gabby Geronimo. Yeah.

And what's his name? Gary Geronimo. Gary. Hi. This is Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And we've been talking to Gary Girondi. No, Girani.

Girani. Gary Girondi. And I'm having a ball. And then he got the name of the show wrong just now. Yeah, that's fine, too. Oh, it was Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal obsession with Gabby Girondi. Whose name I can't pronounce. With Gabby Girardi.

No, that's true. With Tard King. Yes, indeed. Gary, one of the masters of pop culture. Gary Girardi. Thank you so much. Come back next week. I will be here.

Okay.