Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Encore: Remembering Johnny Carson, Part 1 with Mark Malkoff

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

In connection with this week’s “Fun For All Ages” encore episode about Johnny Carson’s 100th birthday, GGACP revisits part one of this wide-ranging 2019 interview with comedian-historian and host of “The Carson Podcast,” Mark Malkoff.In this episode: Mel Brooks takes on Tony Bennett, Ed Ames performs a “bris,” the mystery of the Zsa Zsa Gabor story, and Johnny turns down “The King of Comedy”!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with my co-host, and we're once again, and we're once again a nutmeg with our engineer Frank Furtarosa, and this is Gilbert, Godfried, and I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopatra, and we're once again a nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Ferd Rosa, and this is Gilbert, and this is Gilbert, Frank's amazing colossal obsessions Pure polish. Yes. You know that? You're like Derwood Kirby. I thought of myself more of an Alan Funn. An Alan Funn's type?

I don't think Alan Funn was a well-liked guy. Maybe our guest today can help answer that since he knows a lot about show business. We have our pal, our pal, blah. Mark Malkoff. Nice to see you with us. When we were talking off the air. You said, and we've had him on the show, and I did a movie with him,

the actual problem child, Michael Oliver. Michael Oliver. Johnny in the 80s, early 90s. Well, let me set you up before we get to that. Mark is a host of a terrific podcast called the Carson podcast that you guys should know about. In fact, we get mail about your show. Oh, that's nice. I do the same about you guys. Well, that's nice because we're both doing show. about the golden age of show business. Yours is very specifically geared toward Mr. Carson. That's correct. And how many of you had done?

I think we've released, I think 115. I've done up probably 125. Wow. Yeah. It's a great show. Thank you. It's a great show. And we'll get into detail, but satisfy Gilbert.

Tell him he's Michael Oliver. Michael Oliver did the show, did the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, plugging Problem Child. And that was when he was definitely having kids on the show. He went through a time period where Quinn Cummings, do you remember her? Of course. I follow her on Twitter. Goodbye girl.

So in her memoir, I wanted to try to get her on, but she was very nice about it. But apparently, and I watched the tape, she went on with Johnny, and Carson wouldn't have kids on for something like a year after she was on. I mean, it was, she calls it disastrous. I watched the videotape, and you could tell Johnny's patience were, it was waning. Wow. So it was really, really tricky with kids. They either scored with Carson. I mean, that one kid who, was it a Spelling Bee champion?

It's like the famous clip he goes on with Johnny, and he asks, Johnny's doing coin tricks for him. And he's like, how do you really make the money disappear? You get married. It's a famous Carson clip. He was either really good with kids or they didn't go well. Interesting. Yeah, but Michael Oliver. Joey Lawrence, I remember him doing very well with.

Yes. That's a classic. He was up, Joey Lawrence said that he only got to see the show once when he was nauseous up late at night. and Johnny did the looking into the camera, the direct thing, and that always made the anniversary shows. But Michael Oliver did okay. Yeah. Yeah.

But you never got to do the show. No. Never did the Carson. Yeah, you did a ton with Leno. You did a ton of the Tonight shows with Leno, but never did a Carson. Definitely, if sometimes if Jim McCauley and Johnny perceived a comedian as being to David Letterman, they did the letterman a lot, they wouldn't necessarily get to do the show with Johnny. So you were considered more 1230 than 1130.

Oh, I think so. You did a handful of lettermen's. Oh, loads of lettermen. He used to call me in for those sketches in the beginning of the show. Those were fun. Now, what I found really odd growing up when Carson was on the air is, you know, there's been a million, you know, urban legends and showbiz urban legends. But with Carson, what was so sick about it, there'd be these urban legends about Carson, which everyone would swear to you, they saw. The Jane Fonda thing, it never happened.

Yes, yes. We're talking about Zaja. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's just a myth. It's just a TV myth. I mean, the thing that's a myth to me that I only know one person that has a tape and I've never seen it is I sat down with Rich Little in Vegas and he says he has the tape of Dick Sean. destroying the Tonight Show set,

but I've not talked to anybody that's ever actually seen it. I've talked to people in the Carson camp. People say that they think it happened. Some people, but no one has the videotape other than Rich Little. That's bizarre. Didn't you have Dick Sean saw on us?

Yeah, I'm Sean, yeah. She had a cat in her lap, according to legend. As the story goes, yeah. And Carson, she said to Carson, would you like to pet my pussy? And he said, yeah, if you'd get the damn cat out of the way. Jane, I have seen clips of Jane Fonda telling that story. That was near the, Johnny retired May 22nd, 92, and that was, I think, in the last month or so. It was definitely

near the end that she told that. But there are people that are convinced it happened. I'm glad you said the date, by the way, because that's what we're doing here. That's why I'm here. It's 25 years ago this week that Johnny. Can you believe it? Yeah, left, May 22nd. Johnny left the air. And there was another story that there was some actress on who was a lesbian. And she said, oh, I'd like to show you, you know, the love of my life. And then she points to this woman in a crowd. And according to legend, Carson goes, oh, what a waste. Wow.

I have never heard of that. I don't know that one either. You know, the first 10 years were erased. most of them. I was going to ask you about that. There are some that were saved. I was with Ed Ames. I couldn't believe Scott Ruggowski,

our friend Scott Ruggowski. Yes, our mutual pal, Scott. I was heading to L.A., and he said, do you know who's still around Ed Ames? And I said, you have to be kidding me. Yep. So I reached out, and Ed Ames personally called me, and sure enough, I sat down with him.

It's one of your best episodes. Oh, it was really amazing to hear him. I'm talking about the Tomahawk. But that was one of those things where Carson, in his brilliance, realized we have to, we have to preserve this clip. And I think Johnny put it in his drawer and it's funny because Ed Ames mentioned

that he would go on sometimes with Johnny five nights in a row and sing the same song. They had an hour and 45 minutes when they first started and then it went down to 90 minutes and all this time to kill. Can you imagine a late night show now having the same music singer on every night singing the same song? Five nights?

I remember the 90 minute version and you would get usually an author at the tail end of the show. I mean, Buck Henry. I mean, told me when they went down to 90, when they went down to 60 minutes, you lost a lot. of the intellectuals.

Oh, yeah. It became a completely different show. The old days, you'd get Calvin Trillin, or you'd get Norman Miller, or you'd get... Gore Vidal. You'd get Gore Vidal, and you'd get those... Irma Bombac. Johnny wanted to pick up the pace of the show, and that certainly did happen, but I definitely think, I have heard from many people that he regretted it.

So a little origin first. You and I have known each other forever. Yeah. You've known Gilbert a long time. You were at our comedy writer's party a couple years ago. How did you, and why did you decide to devote? what I'm guessing is a large part of your life because I know how much effort this show is

into doing a podcast about Johnny. He was one of those figures that was larger than life when he retired. I think that there was a mystery almost like J.D. Salinger when he bid America farewell and he, I mean, he showed up, what, twice on Letterman doing cameos. And he did The Simpsons,

but I think he did Bob Hope 90th birthday, but that was it. It was this fascination. I had so many questions about Carson, about his Tonight Show. His stable of his inner circle never talked publicly. All the books about him, there were very few. Almost all of them were very negative with people that had, in my opinion, I could be wrong. They seemed like that they had a bad experience, but the people that were actually friends with him, his coworkers, they'd never talked publicly.

And I had so many questions. And guess, people were very protective of Johnny. And I will say that Peter Jones documentary on Carson, American Masters, was I think. I think the thing that started to soften people a little bit. Well, that's where you get the first glimpse into is his troubled relationship with his mother in that documentary. People have told me that people that knew him. And his ongoing troubled relationship, I guess you could fair to say, with women. I sat down with Matt Weiner, who created Mad Men, and we talked about the similarities with Carson and with Don Draper.

And they're definitely, Johnny was a complicated guy, a very shy person. But talking to David Steinberg and people that knew him, if he felt comfortable with you, if it was Steve Lord, Lawrence, Newhart, Rickles, Peter LaSally, and Johnny. He was pretty much the same Johnny that you would see on the Tonight Show. It's just around if he did not know the person, he would not make eye contact a lot of times. He would put his head down and he was just painfully, painfully shy. Interesting. And the Jerry Lewis character in King of Comedy was based on Carlson.

As the story goes, Johnny was approached to play that part. He tried to get De Niro, I believe, to be a guest. I think he was trying to barter because De Niro, But back then, Hoffman Street, Pichino, they all do the late-night shows. None of them went on Carson. Maybe Hoffman early in his career before he was Hoffman, really Hoffman. But people didn't do those shows. And De Niro, and I think probably rightfully so said, I would not be good on your show.

But they did try to get Johnny. But Freddie de Cordova was wonderful. Oh, well, Freddie turns up. Yeah, he's in the King of Comedy. Let's ask you about Freddie since it kind of comes up in the research I did in listening to your episodes. And that Freddie apparently did not do a lot of work. that LaSalle gets the lion's share of the credit. And I don't want to malign a dead man,

but that he kind of sleptwalk through the job. 22 years of being charming and drinking vodka, apparently, during the show. And that he just exuded charm. So many people I talked to that worked on the show said he was funny, charming, handsome man, in that Peter LaSalle was happy to do the work. And Freddie just would stay in his office, 80 degrees, smoky. I talked to one guest recently that said that they would joke. He was the devil because his office was always hot and smoky.

Did you ever meet him, Gil? Freddie, as Rickles used to call him, decutiva, Dakotava, he used to mangle his name. As a matter of fact, because he worked also when Leno was doing. Yes, he was a consultant. He was there for, I think, the first couple years of Jay. And he said, and I had been doing these, like, guest spots for those sketches, Lano would call me in four. And one time DeCordafer asked one of the writers, he said, uh, who is that kid? And he goes, that's Gilbert Gottfried.

He's a comedian. He's been in these movies, these TV shows. He's all over the place. And he goes, oh, I thought he was some kid like a bus boy or something. How flattering. Yeah. DeCordova was larger than life, and everybody says that if he perceived a weakness and saw a vulnerability that he would just go for the jugular. Really?

And he and Johnny just couldn't believe it. And a lot of people that knew him couldn't believe it. He went broke. I mean, when he passed away, Johnny sent Fred's widow, Janet, a check for $100,000. And he just, I guess she was a spendthrift. That's what I've been told. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing. colossal podcast after this.

And now back to the show. Why did they fall out? Why did they, why did Freddie go broke? No, why did he fall out with Johnny? Oh, that's it. Okay. So Rick Carson, I believe, was 39 years old. Johnny's son passed away.

It was a photographer. And it was a horrible accident. I don't think Johnny did the show for something like six weeks. It was definitely took like a month off. And it was, I've talked to people. that said that when he came in for the first day, he had been gone a month. Johnny just, that people worried about him. He got through the show the first night.

And at the very end, they did a tribute to his son. And he said a minute or two, just talking about his son and just this outpouring of love from the public. And then they showed a clip montage of his son's photography. But when he was setting everything up, and I've heard other people that have studied this film, I think Bill Zamey, who is a Carson expert, said he studied this film like the Zimbruiter film. You can see, and I've watched it, I have watched it many times. You can see it for a split second, Carson looking over off camera, and it's to Cordova. Apparently he's on the phone or giving that rapid up sign or something like that, because the show was done in real time.

I mean, we can talk about that later, that if they did not stop tape unless Della Reese had a stroke when she was guest hosting the show. Did you know that, Gil? No. Yeah, they had to stop tape. Stop tape. We can talk about those moments. And there was a John Davidson thing where they stopped tape? Yes, we can talk about all of that.

But so there are people over there that told me it was one of the rare times they actually saw Johnny really irate. I mean, he was after the show, he told Fred to Cordova, you will never step foot on. Was he speeding him up? Again. Through his, was he was. Yeah, he was. He was exactly. His son's tribute.

To stay on within the 60 minutes, it was the, yeah. So Johnny, I mean, it was just so hard for Johnny to do this. and yeah, de Cordova kept up the appearances that he was still running things. He would go into the guest dressing room, but Peter LaSalle, the last two years or so, was running the show. And Fred would be off to the side, not even in the studio, but just in offices. And apparently would make snide comments about Johnny. It's like, Fred, what's it like to work with a genius? And he's like, well, I did work with one genius.

His name was Fred Allen. Wow. Wow. Wow. It seems like it was a strange place to work from everything you hear. And you know, you had Mike Reese on the show. We had him here. Well, the writers didn't even interact with them. They didn't meet him. You know, it's interesting that you say that there, you know. Except for maybe a select few. Back in the 60s, there was a period where Marshall Brickman was headwriter and they would go every month or so to the U.N. to Johnny's apartment. And they would, they would, the writers would sit down with them. And the last couple years, you had Daryl Vickers and Andrew Nichols. were headwriters and they went to Johnny and they said, you know, I would think it would be good for you to sit down with the writers and Johnny started having the writers. I think it was weekly to Malibu to sit down with him and that changed. And he definitely, I mean, I don't know if you

guys know this, but in retirement he would have lunch with his writers and his writers would actually give him material and he would perform it at the lunches for them. I didn't know that. I know he was sending material to Dave at the end. Exactly. Exactly. Peter LaSalle said you need to send this in. But the thing is, when I was, you know, when he left, Carson left the show when I was a teenager. And you'd read things every so often about Johnny, very rare that the media liked to play it off that he was this recluse guy. But he was, he was taking magic lessons. He was going to Africa with Bob Wright on safaris with Jim Fowler. He was learning Swahili.

He was still doing the poker game. He was out and about. I mean, he definitely would retreat on the Serengetti, his yacht. And he definitely was a loner. I mean, there's no question about that. And a lot of people that would spend time with him, like Carl Reiner would say you never really got personal with him. But he definitely was not Howard Hughes type person that was just hiding in the corner by himself. He was out and about.

And what are these stories where they had to stop filming? That is a good question. So they're very few. They stopped taping. Della Reese, when she guest hosted, had a stroke. They stopped. John Davidson apparently the story goes John told me that

I don't know if there was a strike or not but there was something wrong with the sound where Johnny couldn't hear the laughs from the monologue so he thought he bombed and then John Davidson got up and couldn't the monitor was messed up so he kicked I think a speaker and the electricity all went down and they had to put a rerun on

that night they had a stop tape rerun that night and that was yeah those were two I know that at one point they had a stop tape where a gentleman from the audience actually got up onto this made it to the stage I think Carson was interviewing

Buddy Hackett and the audience member just sat down and Carson went tried, you know he's like yes and in it try to go with it for a little bit and Buddy Hackett said you know what this is never going to air

and they stopped tape and Carson was upset Did you know that kill that's good stuff somebody from the audience went out and sat next to Hackett And there's another one there's a comedian who

Tom Shales I talked to him and I forget who it is. Michelle's even told me, but there was a comedian that went out that just went completely blank. Nowadays, on certain shows, they will have kind of a cheat sheet, a cue card for the comedians, but Johnny and Dave didn't do that. And there's a guy that just came out that just, he came out five seconds of panic and I guess ran behind the curtain. And Johnny stopped tape. And, you know, Johnny was a comedian's comedian.

He really cared. And he said, let's stop tape. This can happen to anyone. We're going to do this again. he was compassionate. He was. But then again, you have someone like John Davidson, again, who another time forgot his song lyrics. Now, my dad went to 6B, the sixth floor of NBC in the 60s, Barbara McNair and Doug McClure were on. Doug McClure had his music on cue cards. John Davidson said you had the option. If you wanted cue cards or not, if you were a singer,

I was at the first Letterman ever on August 30th, 93. Billy Joel absolutely had cue cards to no man's land. It was, I very rarely would I ever see, though, and I worked in late night a little bit, see somebody that had cue cards. John Davidson, this time, I think it was in the 80s, said, no, I don't need cue cards for this song. And he lost his words, the words very, very quickly, and turned to Johnny, can we stop tape? And Johnny said, absolutely not. And John, and it was amazing segment. I mean, now nobody does the show in real time. I mean, they're the first ones to stop.

But it's such an amazing segment. And, you know, he eventually gets it. And the audience is just, he's endeared himself to the audience. And those vulnerable moments, they, that stuff just very rarely. I think there was a moment recently on Seth Myers that he had a problem with a cue card with Wally, who I know, Farisden. And it was this really cool exchange. But it just seems that those moments very rarely happen. Let's talk about Ed Ames to a little more in detail because it was interesting.

And thank you, Scott Rikowski from making that happen. And he's still with us. Ed Ames is still singing. Yeah, he's still out there. But the famous Tomahawk. Oh, yeah. He throws it and it hits the target in the crutch. Right, right.

And I found out from listening to your episode that he didn't know what he was doing. He wasn't an experienced, they sell him like because he's playing. What character was he playing? It was in Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone. And they sell him like, oh, he's an experienced, he had no idea. He had no idea. And it was one of those things where...

He's teaching the rotation of the axe, but... And you can see. I mean, Johnny's brilliance. I mean, he hits the crotch. The audience explodes. And Ed Ames goes for the... He's going to go pick the axe out and Johnny stops him. And it has been called, and I don't know how...

If this is an actual record, but it has been called the longest sustained laugh from a studio audience. And if you go to YouTube and you watch the clip, it very may well be. He's got great instincts. Because Ames is about to go retrieve the... axe. Johnny pulls on him, stops him, and he kills time by pretending he's sharpening the two axes, waits for the audience to die down because he's got the line, because he's got the saver. And what is that? It's like, don't tell something about being Jewish. He says, I didn't know you were Jewish, yeah. And then he also, I think before that, he's great, great

television. He says to him, he goes, I don't think you can earn him any worse. But again, the first 10 years, I mean, almost everything was wiped. Was Groucho on the first episode? Yeah, the first episode was actually the first 15 minutes was all Groucho. Can you imagine, Gil? Wow. Wiped out, erased. It's Groucho over the first 15 minutes.

He introduces Carson, and you had six months of America waiting to see Johnny while he was contractually obligated to ABC. They would not allow him out of his contract. So you had six months. He was doing the game show. Six months of guest host where you had Mort Saul, you had Jerry Lewis, you had Jimmy Dean, you had Merv Griffin, you had I'm trying to. I'm trying to think who else, but you had this parade of Jack Carter, of the guest host, leading up and Skitch Henderson and Hugh Downs, and then leading up to October 1st, 62, where you had Groucho marks, and it was this people, I don't know if people know what a big media event this thing was. I mean, it was so built up, and Johnny has Groucho bring him on after 15 minutes, and then it's Mel Brooks, 36-year-old Mel Brooks, 36-year-old Tony Bennett, Rudy Valley, and Joan Crawford. How about that? Wow.

Gone to the dust, the dustbin of history. The idea that Mel Brooks and Tony Bennett were ever 35. Yeah, 36. But yeah. And Brooks, Brooks did this thing. He did. He reverted to Borsh Belt and he got up on his desk and he was actually, he told me that Tony Bennett was ticked because he was making fun of Tony Bennett.

He was mocking Tony Bennett. singing hi and somebody told me I don't know if this is true that that's when Tony Bennett was to debut in I left my heart in San Francisco Wow Wow wow wow wow We're gonna stop but this is so good We're gonna come back for a part two

Let's do it What do you think of that app? I like it huh? Gil? Yes There's more there's more Carson to come There'll be more Carson to come And this is the end of

Our first part one Of Gilbert Godfrey. Of Gilbert. One day I'll get the title right. Let's just rename it. Gilbert and Frank's amazing colossal obsessions, the Carsonier. Yes. We're back with more Mark Malkoff.

Next week. colossal obsessions.