Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Rewind: Episode #12: Mike Reiss

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Gilbert and Frank sit down with writer, producer and former showrunner of "The Simpsons," Mike Reiss, who shares a few “dark secrets” behind the show that would go on to become the longest-running primetime series in television history. In this episode, Mike reveals the true story behind Itchy & Scratchy, how Groundskeeper Willie became a national hero, and why Marge’s bouffant is so tall (bet you don’t know the story behind that one.) Also, Mike recalls writing fake “letters to Santa” for Johnny Carson and working on one of Frank's all-time favorite series, “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show.” PLUS: Michael Jackson’s sound-alike, hookers in helicopters and Raymond Burr does Tiny Tim! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay, if you've never heard of Mike Grease, let me tell you who he is. He's written for National Lampoon. He wrote several years for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. He wrote Gary Shandling Show. He wrote The Critic. And he wrote The Simpsons where he never once hired me to do a voice. And here he is now, Mike Reese. Hi, Gilbert Gottfried.

This is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santo Padre, who told me in the last podcast I didn't mention his name. So I'm mentioning his name here. And I said, well, I didn't mention your name because I really consider you a total load. on the show. And you're just like having weight around my ankles when I'm trying to... That was my goal, really. So I feel like I've accomplished something.

Yeah, like I'm trying to run track and you're just holding my ankles. I do what I can. I do my little part. Okay. Now, tonight on the show, we have Mike Reese. Now, Mike Reese has been a... writer on the Simpsons, a show that's been on the air for like, you know, if you added up like gun smoke and mesh, it would be like double that.

And so we've been on 78 years. Yes, at least. Now, my first question is the show's been on that long. Why the fuck didn't they ever ask me to do a voice on it? And you have friends on the show? Yes, I, yes. You know people. I know everybody on the show.

I know the writers. I know the people who do voices. We don't feel your voices distinctive enough. Yeah. If you, when you, next time you speak to Matt Groening, just tell him to go fuck himself. Okay. Yeah. Tell him, I hope he dies a slow lingering death.

That's what I'll tell my boss in 25 years. That's what I'll do. You mispronounced his name, which is insulting to him enough. I remember, is it groaning? Graining. Graining. Well, tell Matt Graney to go fuck himself. I apologize. I take back what I said before Matt groaning, but it's Matt Graining, who should go fuck himself. You've come up.

Yes. You've come up. Your name has come up. You'll get your shot. In what context does his name come up? It comes up. You know, it's never flattering. That's the other thing.

So does I want to be on the show? Okay, here. We've cast you as a homeless, incoherent man. What? I'm terribly insulted. It's like, well, that's what we do. What did you think? Gilbert Godfrey is the Duke of Winchester.

We're not going to do it. It comes up as, now remember, we never hire Gilbert Gottrean for this show ever, if we're on another 2,000 years. Now, my next question, just looking at you, I don't need to ask, are you a Jew? I am Jewish.

Now, you used to be a writer. Oh, go ahead. No, no, no. I'll let you talk. Now, I'll do my Jew hunk later. But yes, I am Jewish. Even people on the radio now. Even blind guys, oh, happy Hanukkah.

They can hear your nose over the radio. It's big. They just, before you even talk on the radio, they go, I think there's a Jew coming up. It somehow pokes out a little. Now, you were a right. It's big. Here's the thing, too. Let me talk about Judaism for one sec. Like you know anything about it. I look so Jewish. And that joke I always do is I put myself through college modeling for hate literature. Great joke.

But, you know, I'm not Jewish at all. I don't believe in it. I grew up in a town in Connecticut where we were the only Jews. I never met other Jews. And some people are Jewish by faith or by culture. And I'm Jewish by faith. You're actually an atheist, aren't you? I am an atheist.

Well, God bless you for that. Now, you used to write for Johnny Carlis. I did. I did. For the Tonight Show. Yeah. Now, what would, was Johnny Carson an alcoholic? I don't know.

He can't fire you now. No. He's been dead for over 20 years. Yes. He, uh, I don't know. The weird thing with Johnny Carson was, you never saw him. I worked there a year and a half. I spent maybe an hour with him.

He just, he didn't want to be around people, and he especially didn't want to be around his writers. He didn't want to be around his writers. He didn't want to. to see him. And there was a weird day. I was working there the day he turned 60. And we threw him a little birthday party backstage right before the show. And it was just six of his employees. And he was as nervous as a cat. He just couldn't stand to be around six people. And then he was about to walk out on stage in front of five million people. But that was it. Just that he was friendly.

He was always that guy. And when I interview somewhere, this will get interesting. thing. But so when I interviewed for the job, which was pretty much the first and last time I met him, he brings me and my writing partner into his office. And his office was set up like the Tonight Show said. And we just sat on the couch and he sat behind a desk and he interviewed us for seven minutes. And then he said something and it got a laugh. And he dismissed us.

It was like if he could have gone to commercial in his office, he would have. But that was the guy. That was what made him what he was. He could talk to anyone for seven minutes and nobody for 10 minutes. So on stage and off, he was Johnny Carson. He really was, yeah. He had a set. He had a set in his office.

And that was it. He was nice. It was very congenial, but we never saw him again. And then the day we got the job, the head writer said to us, welcome to the job. You'll be fired in 13 weeks. Whenever Carson was unhappy. He'd just fire whosoever contract came up. And we hung in for a year and a half, and then we got fired.

And then two weeks later, he offered us our jobs back. Like, we'd become much better writers in those two weeks. Wasn't he going through a bitter divorce at that time? I remember reading about that. Yeah, was this 107 of his divorces? This was number three, and I think this was an especially bad one. And this is a story. that it plays like a joke.

And it was so true. Because again, none of us knew Carson, and the only way we knew about his life was reading The National Enquirer until we subscribed to it at the Tonight Show. And one day at the Tonight Show, it was the headline, Mrs. Carson demands $5,000 a week extra.

And two of the writers looked at each other and go, gee, between the two of us, we make $5,000 a week, and they got fired that afternoon. They needed the money. So now, when the writers would submit jokes, who would look at it and tell you what was what they wanted, what they didn't like?

Well, I worked. I'm embarrassed to say he had two staff. The place ran like an insurance company. It was so strange. So he had a staff of monologue writers in one building across the lot. And then he had us. We were the sketch writers. So we wrote.

Aunt Blabby and Edgwetness and Karnak. And people didn't even seem to know it. Every night he did a piece of material generally at the desk. He would do, here's 10 tips to beat the heat. Or where Ed would say, everything you want to know and he would do the... Those things. We wrote the bit, everybody hated every night. Oh, they were great.

We were the pallet cleanser before Suzanne Plachette. Oh, God. So that was the job. And so they would work out. They'd say, all right, today we're writing shopping tips. And my partner and I, Al Jean, we had to write 60 of those a day. We'd write 60. We'd give him to the head writer.

He'd get another 200 from the other writers. And I think he would cut down from 200 to 20, and Carson would read those 20 and cut it down to 15, and then do nine of them on the air. And that was the attrition. And of the nine, you know, four bombed. Now, did anyone ever, in all the years, Carson was on the air, go up to him and say, hey, do you realize your aunt blabby character is a blatant ripple of Jonathan Winters?

No, no, no. It wasn't Art Fern, a rip-off of Reggie Van Gleason? Oh, yes, yes. There was an homage. Sorry. When I was working there, there was a, Carson was on the cover, a TV guide, and they had all his characters. surrounding it. And one of the writers just pointed

to the characters and goes, Jonathan Winters, Jackie Gleason, Tommy Smothers. And then, you know, bless us, I mean, Johnny Carson was great. Yeah, he stole, all his,

he didn't have an original character. Floyd Turbo, was the rip-off of Tommy Smothers? Floyd R-Torbo. I mean, was just this blatant rip-off. You know, I never dawned on me until you just said it. That's it.

I mean, he would steal everything. He said, gee, I'll take the voice and the attitude and wardrobe. I mean,

that was the thing. Leave something. Change the color of the hat. Do something. And his delivery, he'd throw in a lot of Jack Benny. Yeah. Yeah.

So he was a great interview, but as a comic, it's like you wouldn't want him sitting in the back of the room during your set. There was once, I can tell you a lot of these things, but there was, he would, every year he would read kids' letters, the Santa Claus.

And he would read the letters. And it was like kids say the darnest thing. They were funny letters. They'd get them from the inner city schools where the kids didn't express themselves. And he'd read the letters, and then he would make a humorous comment. And we wrote,

those. We wrote all the comments and they just, he was so masterful at it. No one would believe he wasn't ad-libbing those. And I'm watching the show one night with my mom and he reads the letter and then he does his ad-lib and I said, my, I wrote that and she goes, no, he just made

that up. So he was perfect at that. And then he would always, when he'd read the kids' letters, he'd always go, he'd read him and get a laugh. He goes, you know, you can't make this stuff up. Makes the writers feel real good. Right? And One year he came to us, he says, the kids let me down.

You got to make this stuff up. So we had to write funny letters to Santa from inner city kids and then write his ad lives. Wow. And that was it. Whenever, you know, he was a great interviewer with celebrities, but whenever he had a civilian on, whenever he had, you know, the oldest lady in Iowa or somebody with a potato chip collection, they would pre-interview him, and then we'd write him a bunch of. bunch of ad-libs.

And he'd do them, and again, he would do him so effortlessly you couldn't imagine he wasn't making him up. So that's what he was good. Yeah, he was good at stealing. Now, who did he steal Karnak from? That was, was that Steve Allen?

Steve Allen did a thing. Yeah. Do you remember a Karnak that you wrote? Can I tell a story? Sure. I'm like somebody's great. No, no.

You want you to keep quiet. I got a lot of stories. Yeah, the more, the longer I go the less of you we got. Maybe it's for the best. It's, uh, I wrote a car neck. I won't even tell you the carnack. It was so bad.

But it was, because again, we had to write 60 of them a day, right? So, and I wish he just said, write 10 good ones. But no, we'd write about 10, you know, 10 good ones and 50 crap. And he'd always pick the crap and then he'd get mad. So he does the, well, I'll tell you the joke. Just because it was awful, right? I know it was bad. It was from the craplest.

And it was sort of, it was red square. What do you call that blotch on Gorbachev's head? Remember Gorbachev's head? Yeah, Winston. Yeah, no, red, okay. Red square. So, he goes out, he does it. Red square.

What do you call that blotch on blah? And it bombs. And I mean, it bombs. And it's, and it's that old saying that it sucked the air out of the room. Really, people were gasping for air. It was horrible how badly that went, right? So, and I see him looking around. Brown, who do I fire?

And of course, we had to write the savers, too. We had to write him ten jokes so he could crap on our material. Did you write the insult, too? Which one? Where he would insult the audience for not laughing at the joke. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, we'd write ten of those were the savers. You know, made the million man march stop at your daughter's bedroom and stuff. So, all right, so he did it, it bombed.

I almost got fired. except, you know, he didn't know who wrote anything. Six months later, he's doing Karnak again. And I go down to the set, and I'm looking at the cue cards, and by some clerical error, there's that joke again. It came back. Red Square, what's on Corvich's head? And I go, well, I'm fired now.

And he goes on the air, blah, blah, blah. Red Square, he does the joke, and it killed. It killed. And it was a big moment where I just go, I give up. I give up. This isn't science. It doesn't make any sense at all. That's great.

Now, Ed McMahon. Yes. Alcoholic? Oh, that's a statement or a question? Yeah, well, I think it's both. Well, this is the other thing about tonight show. It's just, you never met these guys. I worked there a year and a half.

That was at Carson for an hour. I never met Ed McMahon. I never met Doc Severin. About Pat McCormick. Was he there? No, everybody thought the legendary Pat McCormick had been fired five times. I see. They just loved to fire Pat McCormick, so I never met him.

There was a guy named Mickey Rose there. Mickey Rose who wrote bananas and take the money on. And he was wondering when I told that story about getting fired because Mrs. Carson wanted more alimony. It was Mickey Rose. It was he and another, it's funny, they're both dead. He and a guy named Bill Daley got fired the same day. But Mickey Rose, they found. fired him that day and Fred

it was Fred to court of it that was his job to fire people and he was so great at it he was so masterful and he'd go Fred would go you're fired and you go thank you he did it so well

and when he fired Mickey Mickey said to him well this is the third time you fired me I'm looking forward to the four now I heard a weird Pat McCormick's story about each

writer trying to out do the other one's party? I don't know this. Oh, okay. Then we'll go on to the next topic. Had to do with helicopter. Oh, okay, yes. I've heard that story. Oh, can you, you want to tell that story then? I just, what I've heard is,

it was for one of his birthdays or something. They came with a helicopter, with a hooker in it. Yeah. And they, the hooker, And that was it they flew. I think they flew over his home where his wife and kids were, and he got blown helicopter. Yes, that they would circle the house when his wife was home,

and the hooker would blow the rider. They took turns. Oh, really? Okay, no. Yeah. And the funny thing is I met Tim Conway. Yeah. And I said, look, I heard a story.

It's probably not true. I don't know. about Pat, and I don't even get the whole McCormick out, and Tim Conway goes, helicopter. He used to do a thing. Again, I never met the guy. He would dress as a priest, and he'd rent a convertible,

and he'd drive down the highway and the convertible with a woman dressed as a nun with no top on, and he'd wave. Now, what about the, you? You met the guest on Carson's show. No? No, no, man. So what the fuck do we have you here for?

Really had you guys isolated. That was it, yeah. I was there a year and a half. I didn't even meet the monologue writers. I didn't meet them at all. And finally at lunch, after about a year, I meet one of the monologue writers. And he says, I'm just introducing myself.

I said, yeah, my partner and I, we just got out of Harvard. And later this gossip comes back where they said, Mike, your job's in trouble. Carson just hired two writers from Harvard. And I go, no, that's me. They're just hearing about it in the trailer. There's another weird thing. This is something if you ever have a stalker,

there was a guy who he might. Yes. Some day, every you hope and pray. You have to tell random people. Yes. Stop following me. Yeah. If anyone's out there, please stalk me.

But Carson had a stalker, and he didn't know what to do about it. And so finally, he hired the guy. Right monologue? No. No, a job he could hang on to. And he just hired him to work in the... He was like a receptionist working in the front office. It worked.

I mean... Smart. Yeah, it worked. The guy got unobsessed with Carson and became obsessed with Paul McCartney. Which was fine, until the night Paul McCartney came on the show. Speaking of Harvard, you mentioned Harvard, and I talk a little bit about the Harvard Lampoon. You met your wife at Harvard. You met your writing partner at Harvard.

Yes, I did. And yet you have nothing nice to say about Harvard. I have nothing nice to say about the place. I write to Al-Qaeda. I encourage it as a terror target. I think I got nothing good to say about it. I mean, and that was it. But your comedy career came out of there.

Yes, I right. I went to Harvard to join the Harvard Lampoon just because they had a humor magazine. And I went there, and I mean, I hated Harvard. And the Lampoon wound up being a bunch of guys who hated Harvard and would just sit in building all day and make jokes. And it was a great environment. It was the closest thing you could find to comedy writer school, even though that wasn't the intent of it.

and about half our Simpsons writers have come out of Harvard. Jeff Martin and those guys. And you describe it as being pretty cutthroat. No, did I say that? I read that somewhere. Was it the Harvard Lampo or the National Lampoon? No, neither. National Lampoon, nobody was around.

Harvard Lampoon, it was just fun and exciting. It was what you would see on a Neil Simon play about Sid Cesar show. It was just everybody was funny, and someone would make a joke, and somebody would top it and run with it. And, you know, people in comedy are used to that, but I'd never seen that before. I'd never seen people like that where everybody was making each other funny

and bringing out the best in each other. And I like that. I met my wife through a freshman talent show. I was the emcee of the freshman talent show, and I'm doing comedy, and there was one other comedian in the show, and he bombed. He bombed so bad,

And at the end of the show, I said, look, you know, maybe comedy's not your thing. Stick to drama. And he went on to create the show, Howes? $800 million. David, sure? No, it was his boss. Paul Adonazio. Oh, I see.

I have a worthless imitation Harvard diploma on my wall. So do I, yeah. Yeah. Mine was, I think I was honored by Harvard. Is it really? Yeah, I was at Harvard, and it was some weird thing. And naturally, somebody had just died, some beloved professor. And they said, so there's only about six people here to honor you.

Who brought it? Was it the Harvard Lampoon or the Hasty Pudding? A Harvard Lampoon. Oh, okay. I think there's a poster of you up there. Oh, okay. They remember you. So at least it proves I was there, whether they were honoring me or not.

Yeah. Yeah. When I was there, I played, I was the president of the Lampoon, and I'd invite celebrities to come in, you know? And I got close with Frank Sinatra. He didn't come, but he invited me to a concert and he read my letter on stage. But as a prank, as a prank, I invited Charles Manson because I got, all right, he's in jail for a while, but maybe someday he'll get out, you know, 20 years from now, and he'll show up at the door of the lampoon with this letter from me saying, invited me, man. I won my medal. So you knew Frank Sinatra? That was it.

I just got his address from somewhere. I wrote to a bunch of people. I was it. I heard from Frank and got snubbed by Manson. So those, so you were friends with Sinatra and Charles Manson. That's correct. Trace the history of this a little bit for us.

We would all go to Jason. You went from the, the Harvard Lampoon to the National Lampoon. Correct. And then eventually out to Hollywood. Yes, I was working. It was my whole life dream. I'm sorry.

I just can't imagine anyone is interested in me. I don't know who. I'm just saying, this is like your first. Or us for that matter. This is your fifth podcast. And that's the end of our podcast today. I can talk all night. I know nobody's listening.

These mics aren't even on. Yeah. Mine's licorice. And I've been on five podcasts now. And I'm nobody. Nobody's ever fucking heard of me. This is my fifth podcast. And not only do I do them,

but nobody's ever come up to me later and go, hey, I heard you on that podcast. Wow. They always get you on podcast saying how many people are listening to that podcast. And it's the greatest press you can get. That's it. I assume I'm getting a big check for this.

I presume... I presume... A pastel of Gilbert we'd like you to have. So I forget what I was saying. So this is the career of Mike Reese. Everybody wants to hear about. Yeah, it was at Harvard Lampoon, and somebody at National Lampoon read my articles.

They had subscribers there, and that was my lifetime dream to go to work at National Lampoon, and I got hired right out of college. and the magazine was in serious decline. And there I was. That's around the time Gilbert was there. Yes.

Oh, yeah. Right when it was spinning around the drain. I loved it. It was the nicest job. And you can't, it was like I had to get out of there because someone said, it's going to fold any day now. I wrote letters. I used to write the letters.

I was the letters editor. When were you doing it? And George Barkin and Larry Doyle. Oh, okay. The very last incarnation before the padlock came out. I did. Yeah. I mean, I love the job, but I left because they said they were going to shut down any minute now. And they went another eight years. I went to hung in there. I never had a nicer job. I was there at the very, very end when Drew Friedman was the art cartoon editor. Yes. I used to have, I used to have funnies. Did you do photo funnies? I did. Photo funnies, I did. I mean, it was pretty shameless. I would write these photo funnies that would just get like naked girls to be in. a shot with me. And I would write them.

And after a while, it was like I was rewriting the same thing over and over again. And I just had my picture take with naked girls. And they'd say, isn't this the same exact thing you submitted last month? And I'd say, no, no, it's really subtly different. And I wrote some letters for them, too. Yeah. We didn't know each other then, strangely enough. We were both writing letters.

Yes. You know who else used to write was David Mamet? I was the letters editor. I was 21 editing letter, and David Mamet would send in funny letters, and they weren't that funny. He was a hilarious guy. I know. And the boss would always say, just buy it.

You know, it's David Mamet. So he got it, it was 25 bucks a letter. I got about 75 bucks of unearned pay. Went to David Mamet. I saw, I'll tell you a David Mamet letter. he goes, okay. He'll love hearing this. He's not listening.

You told me he was listening. That's how we got you on the podcast. He said, why? I think this is, why are children in China starving? Because children are small and they have to sit on phone books to reach the dinner table. And the phone books are very small in China because nobody has phoned. Sir David Madman, $25. Like American Buffalo.

Yeah. Wow. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. I was just curious about the Hollywood history. I mean, what was the trying to get to Alf and it's Gary Shanlich show and eventually to the Simpsons and the critic? So what was the jump from the lampoon? The jump was there was a guy, I got a call from Hollywood from a guy who needed jokes. they were making the movie Airplane 2.

Airplane 2. It was a hilarious comedy about the space shuttle blowing up. With William Shatner. Yes, William Shatner. And it was a dream come true. And Al Jean and I, we quit our job on a day's notice. We just quit. We moved out to Hollywood.

We left everything behind in New York to work on Airplane 2. And I mean, it was excited. We met all the celebrities on the, movie and Sonny Bono took a shine to us. Oh, yes. Sonny Bono was the mad bomber. Sonny Bono?

Wow, you saw the film. I did. Well, the Zucker's involved with that one? No. In fact, they took out an ad saying, we are not involved in airplane tube. And then their next movie

was top secret, which is a funny movie, but a complete flop. And so we were going to take out an ad saying, and we're not involved to have a secret. I remember, I think it was Julie Haggerty when I worked with her, and she said that the Sucker Brothers were telling the cast of the original airplane not to be an airplane too. Oh, really?

Yeah. Wow. Well, they didn't listen. No, they, who was it? Leslie Nielsen was not in the movie. I think Peter Graves. Peter Graves came in. He was hilarious.

I'm trying to remember. Lloyd Bridges came in. He was a pat... It's funny. I have more good stories about airplane, too. Lloyd Bridges, stubborn old coot,

wouldn't do the jokes, had his own gags he wanted to do. Oh, no. Oh, gosh. And that was, and he's like, he was like 87 years old, and he almost got in a fist fight

with the director, and I think he would have won. I mean, he was just this big, vigorous man. Now, what were some of Lloyd Bridges' jokes that he came in with? He wanted to come in, senile and he wanted to come in shaving and then talking to his electric razor like it was a phone

and then it was a barbell it was this this long chaplain-esque bit i don't know it was mighty bad and uh yeah he was there and uh shoot was robert stack in that one too robert stack was there he was very funny chat ever it was in the mood did chat ever just die jodd a while ago okay okay but i know he's doing the pie Yeah. That's not going to stop us. So we have a list of names that we have to cross off names every day. He's not kidding.

I was so excited he had Marty Allen on the show. Yeah, we did. I'm sure he's been dead for 20 years. I'm sure that's what a trooper the guy is. He had a phone in his coffin. He clawed his way out of the ground. And Raymond Burr. Raymond Burr was in the movie.

Yes, and he was, and Raymond Burr, we all know now, is gay. He was gay. He was gay. And I mean, God bless, he's so funny in the movie. Again, playing just utter seriously. And as soon as they go, cut, oh, my God, he was Tiny Tim. It was so great to see, you know. I think he played a judge and we go, all right, case dismissed.

Cut. Was that good? Could I do it again? I can do it. See, I heard stories about Raymond Burr, someone who was working with him on either Perry Mason or Ironside. And the same stories I've heard about this soldier, I mean a general who was an advisor on Gomer Pyle, you know, whatever. USMC. Yes. And they said like, after by the end, of the day with both of them, they could hold the, they could butcher up. Yeah. And then they get tired and drunk and then

become just flamers. Right. So how do you get from Airplane 2, Mike, into working on some of the great television shows? Let me see. I know we're working on, we're thinking to airplane 2, this is going to be a hit

and can we, you know, wait for Hollywood. And then we also got assigned to write a Vietnam comedy. Now, that sounds like nothing now, but in 1981, nobody even talked about Vietnam. I mean, there was maybe the deer hunter. And here we were. It was our director who was a Canadian communist said, we're going to write a movie about Vietnam called Cowards.

And we wrote this thing, and it just killed us. It killed us so dead. All right, I do have a good story about this. So we wrote Cowards. It killed our career. Nobody read it. and I'm in L.A., and I hated it. I hated L.A. every day I lived there for 26 years.

And the only thing that got me through the week is pre-computers, pre-D. DVDs and tapes or anything, you just had to watch TV. And the only thing that got me through the week was watching this show 9 to 5. It was a sitcom based on... Oh, I think Sandra Bullock. Was she in... Did she play the Jane Fonda part? Well, this is another one.

It went through many incarnations. Oh, okay. So when I was there, it was Rita Moreno. Wow. And Dolly Parton's cousin. Oh. I have no recollection of this show. No, Valerie Curtin was on it.

Wow. But I was there in the... So, anyway, I'm watching the show. It was the worst show I ever saw in my life. And, I mean, I would drink a beer and sort of toasted, you know, too horrible comedy. It was the worst show I ever saw. And then one day I get a call. Nine to five wants to be.

with you. They read cowards and they love it. And I went in, I said, yes, I watch your show every week. I love how the little boy lives on a shelf over the sink and they sell knife holders for a living. And they go, we've never interviewed anyone who's seen our show before. And I got, that was it. I got hired on that. And it was, it was the worst. I couldn't believe it. How bad the show was week after week. And then I got fired. I got fired off the worst show in TV. You by yourself or you and Al? It's always me and Al.

It's always me and Al. And so we got fired off of that. And then we got, I don't know, then we got a series of jobs. Then we worked at a show called Sledgehammer, which has a nice... Oh, Gilbert and I were talking about Sledgehammer. Yeah, he was kind of, I forget his name, that actor. David Rashi. Oh, I think you met him with me.

Yeah, I see him all the time. Yes, yes. Funny show. Yeah, he was, it was kind of like a takeoff on Clint Eastwood movies. Correct. Yeah, it was a funny show. People loved it. It had a little, it's got a nice cult following.

And that went off, and then I worked at It's Gary Shandling Show. And I worked there for a couple of years, and then The Simpsons came along. Now, if we could jump back to Airplane 2 for just a second. What I remember mostly about that movie, it seemed like it was 75% just repeating jokes from Airplane 1. That is correct. And it's really... Give the people what they want, right? It was funny.

I mean, they've done it more now. But, I mean, that was a movie of jokes. Airplane one was just about jokes. There weren't characters exactly. It was jokes. And so they go, let's make a sequel to it. And, you know, usually a sequel. Let's continue with these characters.

Let's continue this story. But this was just a joke movie. So they said, let's do those jokes again. Yeah. And that's what we did. Included. I mean, they were just kind of... They didn't know what to...

to do. And you realize they don't do that anymore. They don't make, there wasn't a sequel to Animal House. They don't make a lot of comedy sequel. They did. They did try Caddyshack too. Yes, they did. Oh, boy, yes. Speaking of Robert Stack. Oh, really? Yeah, he's in that. Yes. And it was

originally supposed to be Rodney Dangerfield and Sam Kinnison, and they got Jackie Mason and Randy Quay. Close. And I remember. And I remember, Remember Randy Quaid doing these entire monologues that were obviously written for Sam Kinnis.

Let's talk a little bit about its Gary Shandling show, which was an influential show. Yeah. And groundbreaking in its way. It was a nice job. It was a nice. People don't realize sort of how much of the Simpsons came out of there. I would say, I think, 11 writers from that show, including Sam Simon. First worked on that show.

And a lot of things that the Simpsons are known for, we did on Gary Shandling show, including, like, doing a whole episode parody. You didn't do a parody scene. The whole episode was a rip-off of some movie. We did The Graduate. Or you do a musical. Or we do a musical. Yeah. Yeah.

It was an inventive show. Yes. And it was very, very hard work. And the other funny thing is we're working on that show, and it was 80, 90 hours a week. It was brutal. Wow. Very brutally hard job, but fun. And then we were on summer break, and Alan Dwight Bell, who was running the show,

was doing a show called The Boys on Showtime. Oh, I remember that show. Oh, was that with the old comics? Old comics. Yeah, like Norman Fell was on. I remember that show. And Jackie Gale. Wow.

That was, and, oh, Al Jean and I, we would have killed to work on the boys. And for whatever reason, we weren't good enough to work on the boys. So we had to take our second choice, which was The Simpsons. And the Simpsons was just starting up, and nobody wanted to work on it. Nobody wanted to work on it because it was a cartoon, and there hadn't been a cartoon in prime time in 30 years, and it was on the Fox Network, and nobody knew if the Fox Network was going to be there from week to week.

This is 89. This is the original staff, right? Probably 88. 88. We're working out of a trailer. We didn't even have a real office. And that was when the Simpsons looked really. Really creepy.

Yes, they looked awfully weird. It's very funny in that I used to see those. I mean, they got the whole series off those one-minute Simpson shorts, and everybody loved them, and they were, you know, the height of cartoon sophistication and that kind of thing. I loved them. And you can't see them anywhere now. And the reason you can't see them is they're terrible.

Oh, yeah. They look bad. They're not funny. The voices are wrong. Right. But, you know, at the time, they seemed really great. Wasn't Castellanetta sort of doing Walter Mathau? He was doing...

Yeah, yeah. Borg. It was hard to watch. They were great at the time because you had nothing to compare them to. Right. Right. And he said there was no, Dan says, there's no emotional range in Walter Mathau.

Homer's always excited when popcorn pops. Right. So he... Come here, boy. There are so many things. wrong. I can tell you about the early Simpsons. I'll give you... These are dark secrets

that I can tell here and they will remain dark secrets. Don't worry, no one's listening to this podcast. Excluding the people that were in the room when we started. But here's two secrets of the Simpsons. One is Marge has tall hair. Do you know

why you seem to know a bunch of things? You got me stumped on that one. Marge has tall hair because Matt Graney said in the last episode she's going to take off her hair and we'll see she has long rabbit ears and because Matt Graney used the right of cartoon. Oh, that's right. Yes. So,

yeah. Wow. So Marge has rabid ears. That was one of his ideas. How strange. Now you got, I'm not making fun of Matt. We didn't know anyone was going to watch. Sure.

That was as good as anything. Yeah. Here's our last episode. Marge is a rabbit. Okay. Thanks for watching. You thought the last Seinfeld was bad. God, I remember.

That was they used to have. have it in like the village voice. Right. Sure. Well, wasn't that what drew James Brooks to Matt when he was looking for somebody to do the interstitials for the Tracy Elman show? That's it. They had these interstitials and it's a famous story. I'll tell the story. It's not my story. But it was they brought Matt Graining in for a meeting. And it was one of those things. I'm sure you've had these where the agent said,

it's just a hello. It's a meet and greet. Oh, yes. He goes in and five minutes before the meeting, they come out and said, gee, we're very excited about your new project. We can't wait to see what you brought for us. And he didn't know. He had nothing. So in five minutes, he drew The Simpsons. Based on his family.

Based on his family. His father's name, Homer, and his mother is Marge, and his sisters are Lisa and Maggie. And five minutes work. I think if he put an hour into it, how good the show would be. Right. It's incredible. See, but here's something really weird. In Day of the Locust, I know.

never read the book, but in the movie, Donald Sutherland's name is Homer Simpson. Yeah, we really break that novella. How strange. Yeah. That was, uh, yes, that novella clearly is less popular than your podcast. Yeah. You're the first one to ever say it was a classic novel, Day of the Locust, and Matt Graining, when he was in teenager, read the, and the main character was named Homer Simpson,

he goes, oh, that's a funny name, and plus the fact that his own father is name Homer. He said, all right, if I ever do a show, I'll use the name Homer Simpson. Yeah, I would love to see the movie again. It must look ludicrous. It looks, it's ridiculous now. Is Karen Black in that picture? Yeah, the locus. It's very dramatic. There's a part where a

mob attacks him and tears him apart. And meanwhile, they keep calling him Homer Simpson, which would be like doing a drama and saying, the lead character's Mickey Mouse. The lead character is Bugs Bunny.

And the murderer is. You guys were in the Fox lot on what? You were saying in a trailer? Yeah, we were in a little trailer. I visited Jay and Wally in one of those, I think was the early season, maybe season two. So I saw the working conditions. It didn't look so bad. No, we were out of the trailer by season two.

But season one, and the story I always tell is we're sitting there was just a summer job. I'm working on Gary Shanling Show, which is. was literally the lowest rated show on TV. And my summer job is inventing The Simpsons. And we're sitting in the room. I said, how long do you think the Simpsons is going to last? And everybody in the room, Jane Wally, everyone said the same thing. Six weeks. Six weeks, six weeks.

Nobody thought it would go longer than six weeks. And maybe Sam Simon goes, I think it could make it to 13 weeks. But don't worry. No one's going to watch it. It won't have your career. Incredible. Now, what are some of the ways that the Simpson characters have changed over the years?

Let me think. Oh, let me, I'll tell you my one more Simpson's secret, just because it'll lead into that. This is Matt Grainings' big idea. In the last episode, we were going to find out that Homer is Krusty the clown. Interesting. And if you ever see like a line drawing,

a black and white drawing of Krusty without where you can't see the color and the makeup, he looks exactly like, Homer and that was Matt's idea. Oh, it'll be a great reveal because Bart loves Krusty and hates Homer, and in the last episode, he'll find out they're the same guy. So, episode six, we've got a scene with Homer talking to Krusty, the clown. It's like, that went out the window. But in response to Gilbert's question, I think the most profound change seemed to be that Smithers changed races. Yes, Smithers was black. Oh, I got a good joke. Everybody's...

Smithers was black? The first season... The first one. Smithers was black, and it was when we saw the shows in color, we said, gee, this doesn't look right. We got one black character, and he's kissing up to his mean old white boss. And so we just went, poof, he's white. He's gay. This is how God does it, too. And no mention at all the day before he was black and straight.

No. So Smithers is the first man in history to go from black and straight to white and gay. the second was Michael Jackson. Right. Who also appeared on the show. Who also appeared on the show. Now with Michael Jackson, isn't that that he did this, he recorded the dialogue,

but the song was somebody else? Correct. Yeah. Michael Jackson, and I wrote this, Al Jena and I wrote the script for Michael Jackson where he played a 200-pound white mental patient who thought he was Michael Jackson. And Michael Jackson wrote an original song for the episode. And at rehearsals, it was funny, we went to Sandy Gallen's house,

the major talent manager, I guess. Dolly Parton's manager. Yeah, Donnie Parton again. Famous manager. So he, we go to his house and he said something I'd never heard. He goes, he says, I haven't been in every room in my house. That's how big his house was. And so we're doing a table reading of the script just to hear it. And so, and so I'm sitting right next to Michael Jackson, and he's singing the songs we've written into the show. He's singing Thriller and Bad. He's singing all his songs, Ben.

Wow. Six feet away from me. It was unbelievable. So then we get to record the show. We bring him into the studio. I'll tell all of this stuff. So his band, I guess Sandy Gallant calls. He goes, here's what Michael needs.

He needs a trailer. It's got to be heated to 90 degrees. It's got to have four kinds of water in there and raw peas. It was just this long. What a rider. Writer things we had to do for him. And then Michael Jackson shows up that day. He doesn't go anywhere near the trailer.

Didn't have an entourage. He came solo. He looked really handsome. That was about six noses before death. He looked pretty good. His tall strapping guy shook everybody's hand. Couldn't have been nicer, more affable. And we're recording him.

He's acting. He's terrible. The guy couldn't act at all. But we go, all right, well, wait aly sings. You know, this is why we hired the guy he's going to sing. And they go, and we get to that moment, he goes, one second, please. And he motions, and this little white guy comes in. And we're going, who the hell is this?

And he goes, this is Kip Lennon. He's my official sound alike. And Kip Lennon, he's the brother of the Lennon sisters. Wow. If that means it, wow. That gets one wow. Okay, wow. That'll be the second.

But that was it. Kip did all the singing in that episode. While Michael Jackson standing two feet away laughing, like this is wonderful. And Kip is, if you ever watch the show again, you'll see it's actually a parody of Michael Jackson. And his Kip is sort of just to make Michael Jackson laugh. He's doing over-the-top Michael Jackson impression. And we go to Michael Jackson, we go, why are you doing this? And he said,

It's a choke on my brothers. And we go, all right, well, as long as you got a good reason. So the song, Lisa, it's your birthday, isn't being sung by Michael Jackson. No, it is not. It's sung by Kip Lennon. Interesting. It's sung by Kip Lennon. It's written by Michael Jackson.

And the credits, it says it's written by Brian Golden. We don't know who the hell that guy is. And how did some of the other characters change? The characters change. I'll give you a good example. It's Ground's Keeper Willie. Groundkeeper Willie appeared in the script. He had two lines.

In Act 1 he goes, you'll be back. And in Act 3, he goes, I told you you'd be back. So we're recording the show. It's the last two lines of the day. And Dan Castlenet is at the mic. And he says, who is this guy? And we said, I don't know. Give him an accent.

And so he did him Spanish. And we go, nah, that sounds racist. So he says, whatever? I'll do him Scottish. And he did it. You'll be back. I told you you'll be back. And that was it.

We go, all right, that's a wrap. So four seconds of thought went into making Groundkeeper Willie Scottish. He's now a national hero in Scotland. They love him in Scotland. And in one episode, we said, Groundkeeper Willie's from Aberdeen. And in another episode, we said he's from Glasgow. And why do we do that? Because we don't give a shit, right?

But the people in Aberdeen and Glasgow, Glasgow, they care deeply about this. And whenever they play each other in soccer, a riot breaks out. And you go, what are they fighting about? It's like, hey, you know that alcoholic cartoon janitor who lives in a shack full of kitty porn? He's from my town. Did you and Al write the wonderful groundskeeper Willie Line where he calls the, he's teaching the, he's the substitute French teacher?

And he walks in the room and calls the kids, she's eating surrender monkey. Now, there was... That's a joke. There were three people in the room. I mean, usually we write the symptoms with 10 people, 12 people in the room. That day, it was me, Al Jean, and a guy named Ken Keeler. One of us wrote that joke. None of us remember it because...

It's such a great line. It is not a great line. It's mad lips. It's not at all great. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, podcast, but first a word from our sponsor. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds.

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In the old days, we would record, we'd have them all there. You know, we'd get everybody at a table, and they read the script out loud, and it's an amazing thing to watch. You should come. Since that's the only way you'll ever see it. But, yeah, we get it. And so it's an amazing thing to watch because you got six people doing sometimes 120 characters.

And, like, Harry Shearer does Burns and Smithers, and he just sits there talking to himself. It's an amazing, and he never slips up, never makes a mistake. Now, Paul Schaefer said to me, he goes, you know, Harry Shira, Harry Shira hates you. He hates you, you, Gary. He really hates you And because I did some joke

On my short-lived season of Saturday Night Live That was referring to Harry Shiro That I didn't even write But You can't stand Harry can hold the ground What was the line? You were describing yourself You had to describe the new cast members

Yes Each it was supposed to be like Each it was a whole new care So each one of us was getting up and going like, you know, Piscopo would say, I'm Joe Piscopo. I'm kind of like a cross between Dan Aykroyd and so and so. And someone else would say, I'm like Gilda Radna. And my line was, I'm Gilbert Gottfried. I'm kind of a cross between John Belushi and that guy on the show that did imitations who no one remembers anymore.

Wow. And for some reason, Harry Shearer took that as an insult. Wow. He could have been somebody else. Yes, yes. He hates you. Wow. So how has that affected your life?

Well, whenever Harry Shear is producing a major motion picture, he never has me in any of the story. Wow. What other characters did you and now have a hand in creating? Because it was such a, I know was a free for all in those days. Yeah, how half-assed like groundskeeper Willie was. And it was like, Al and I

with Mac Graying Sam Simon, wrote like episode six where Bart cuts the head off the statue of Jebediah Springfield. I'm looking at Gilbert. I can see he never watches the show. No, he's a fan. We've talked about it. Never. We've talked about it many times. No, it's just when you talk, I get to track.

Sir is zoned, though. Oh, gee. I said, I thought gone, huh. I thought the table was an inch over to taxes are only 10 months away. Yeah. I like pizza. So in that episode, one episode we did, that's the episode to introduce Jimbo,

Dolph Kearney, the three bullies, plus Nelson, we had a fourth bully. Why do we need four bullies? The four bullies, Chief Wiggum, Eddie, and Lou, they all came in in that episode, and Apu came in that show. and when we're writing it, I remember very clearly going,

all you had to say was 35 cents, please. And I remember saying, let's not make him an Indian. That's such a cliche, we're better than that. Obviously, you weren't. The clerk's line was,

35 cents please, and underneath in bold-faced capital letters, he is not an Indian. That was it. We get to the reading and Hank goes 35 cents please and it got this giant laugh and that's when we learned oh Hank

doesn't read stage direction Gilbert and I were talking speaking of the old Lampoon was itchy and scratchy you know where I'm going with this one was itchy and scratchy an homage to kitten caboodle no is homage French for theft

I was trying to be delicate yes I don't know I mean they were in the shorts. What are you doing a Johnny Carson? I'll give it to Mac Raining.

I don't know where his inspiration came from or if he even, he always says, everyone thinks it's Tom and Jerry. It's not Tom and Jerry. He says it's a parody of Herman and Catnip.

Oh yeah. Old Terry Toons rip off of Tom and Jerry where they really were worse than itchy and scratchy. Have you ever seen these old horribly animated cartoons? They're so vile.

violent. He says that's what it is. But then, you know, about a year ago, I'm in, oh, it may have been at that event. You saw him yet. I meet Brian McConakey, the old national lampoon writer who wrote Kitten Caboodle, which was itchy and scratchy in comic book form 15 years before The Simpsons. I go, gee, you ever mad about that? Have you ever noticed that? And he said, gee, if you gave me, if you let me write a Simpson script, I won't ever it again. So he did. He wrote an episode of The Simpsons. He was our first 70-year-old writer. He wrote a

really funny episode. That was it. And we're off the hook. I heard Chuck Jones. I read this recently. Created the Roadrunner and what's is our character?

His nemesis. Wiley Coyote. He created them. The first one he did was just a takeoff. He considered it a takeoff on Tom and Jerry because he thought Tom and Jerry was the worst cartoon on the air.

And then it became wildly successful by action. Wow. You know what? I heard a good one too. Scooby-Doo. You know what Scooby-Doo is taken from? It's the Dobie Gillas show. Really? And they said, let's do do, I mean, they said, let's do doby Gillis. We'll have them solving mysteries with the dog, but

it's character for character. Shaggy is Maynard G. Shaggy is Maynard. and there's the Warren Beatty guy and Tuesday well. Wow. So, yeah. So, you know, sometimes you can rip off something so well. Well, Hanna Barberra made an art form. Right.

Oh, yeah, the honeymooners. You know who Yogi Bear is? Well, I know it's like Ed Norton. Exactly, yeah. Hey, boo-boo. And Huckleberry hound was a little bit of old Andy Griffith. Correct. They all did back then.

You could just do celebrity and person. for every cartoon character. Right. And we still kind of do. Yeah, well, Wiggins is an Edward G. Robinson. That's correct. Hank Azaria always says all his characters are terrible imitation. And so Wiggum is as close as you get.

Wiggum is Edward G. Robinson. But if you know Lou, the black cop who works with Wigam, that's supposed to be Sylvester Stallone. Wow. And Mo, or people know Mo the bartender. Al Pacino. I heard it's a terrible Al Pacino. I never knew that.

That was great. And there's also the professor who's... Oh, that's just... Oh, that's just... Yeah, a little... Nuddy professor. You know, when we were watching old cartoons when I was a kid. I watched tons of cartoons.

And they were doing the same thing. You know, here's... Then we'll do this... This crow is fat swall. You know, you're a kid in the 60s going, Oh, Fats. That's Waller, isn't that? It was all, I mean, I guess you can do it.

I remember in the Dick Tracy cartoons, he would go to his characters. He would be Dick Tracy and then he'd get these talking animal characters. That was a cop. And one would be going on Dichet. Get throw down, he drove away, sir. They got into trouble for some of those Dick Tracy characters, too. Oh, yes. Oh, my God, yes.

Yes. It was an Irish cop. A little borderline. Oh, I have a story. Can I tell a story? Please. Sure. No, no, you can't tell me.

I can't tell us before. I have a Christmas special coming up. I wrote a children's book called How Murray Save Christmas. It's going to be an NBC animated special in December. And so we got Jerry Stiller as the lead and Jason Alexander. And then I got a bunch of just great, versatile animation voices to do the other. 50 characters than the thing. And we get to the, Tom Kenney,

SpongeBob is in there, and he's supposed to do the voice of the Thanksgiving Turkey. And again, we go, he goes, who is he? I go, I don't know. Think of it. He's trying things, and he goes, wait, I'll do Gilbert. So I go, yeah, Gilbert. Now, do you know Tom Kenny? No. Okay.

I work with Tom. But at least I made a check for him. That was it. So he goes, we'll do Gilbert, and he does, and I'm thinking, gee, I know Gilbert, I don't know if this It's kosher, and I could have had Gilbert, but I didn't want Gilbert. And so I would never have used it, except he did it, and it's not like Ethel Merman. It is so funny. Well, all that waste that a day?

That's his Gilbert impression. I was showing Gilbert Queer Duck before you got here, and we were enjoying the Paul Lind. Yes. And was it bipolar bear? Correct. Yeah. And that is Billy West. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, but in all fairness, sometimes I just break into, there's no business. Like, so busy. Okay. Well, I think we've run out of things to ask you about. That's it.

Before we let you go, what are you doing now? My mother is terribly sick. I thought you needed something. Well, I hope it's a quick death. Thank you. You're working on more children's book? You've done 17 children's books. And you have no children.

I have no children, yes. Is this because you can't get an erection? That is? Yeah, okay. All right. Suddenly we could go another out. Do you have a funny story about that? Can I tell the story about my impotence?

It also involves Paul Lind. Mike. That would, I wrote. That character, bipolar bear. Everyone should watch Queer Ducks. I like that better than anything I've worked on. It's all on YouTube. Look up Queer Duck.

It's great. And hard drink and Lincoln. Oh, good. Yeah, I like them too. And, yeah. So, but I wrote this Paul Lynn character, and you can do that when they're dead. That's the law. We're really, we're hoping you die before December.

And we're out of... Well, you're in a large group of people. I actually, on the podcast, we had Bayla Legosi Jr. Okay. Who is a lawyer for people whose voices and images have been used over the years, like Karloff and the Stooges. And he's a lawyer, so he fights too. He fights that now.

I know. That's his job. And did you meet, you had him on, you met him? No, no, no, never met him. He was on the phone going, Well, I'm a lawyer. I fight in court. I fight to rein the rights of the three stooges.

It actually wasn't that entertaining. No. Truth be told. Okay. So this. I know I got to make room for a much bigger celebrity. Larry Fine Jr. is coming in. We can't get them.

Cream Ali, Fine. The next door neighbor of Curly Joe Dorita. When is Murray, let's give you a plug, Mike. When is Murray? It's on the first couple of weeks of December. Okay, good. On NBC. On NBC. So, we've been talking to Mike Grease.

A man who's never hired me, but has worked on the Simpsons. for like 2,000 years, and will go out of his way. He swore he'll go to his grave without hiring me for anything he ever works on. And was a writer for the Johnny Carson show. You got no ending. Yeah, no ending. Well, we never do.

Yeah, no. I'll tell you how I met Gilbert, and that'll leave you. Okay, let's hear it. Even... Okay. Okay. Or it's my show now. So thank you for coming.

So, okay. Do you, Ethel Merm. Okay. So, when we lived in L.A., we used to throw Christmas parties and we'd invite 200 people and 300 people would show up

and we'd always get one celebrity. And I mean, it wasn't George Clooney, but we'd get weird, Craig Bierke. You know, someone weird, Al Yankovic. showed up one year. So one day I turn around, there's Gilbert Godfrey,

uninvited, in my home. And I say to him, he's eating my food, he's drinking my liquor. I said, Gilbert, welcome. I'm a huge fan. Thanks for coming to my home. And he goes, you look like that gay man. And I go, like that gay man who always plays gay men in the movies.

As he spits my food. back on me. It's been 17 years, but you look just like her. Talking to Mike Reese who looks like that gay man, who plays gay men in the movies. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast here with my sidekick, Frank. I fucked up Frank. That's okay. Usually it's the last name, I fuck up. It's getting worse. Frank's the really hard for a name. Just like French money.

This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my sidekick Frank Santo Podger.