Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Rewind: Episode #21: Alan Thicke and Shecky Greene

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

It's two brief but memorable interviews in one episode as Gilbert’s old boss, actor, producer and songwriter Alan Thicke, joins the boys for a look back at the late, lamented 1983 talk show "Thicke ...of the Night” (featuring a young Gilbert Gottfried)! and reminisces about everything from his short-lived disco career to scripting variety specials for Johnny Cash, Bobby Darin and Flip Wilson. Also, Alan and Gilbert swap wives, John Lennon praises commercial jingles and Paul Lynde drives his sportscar into a ditch. Next up, it's a clash of comedy titans as Gilbert and Frank extend a peace offering to Las Vegas legend Shecky Greene following the much-publicized Gilbert-Shecky Friars Club feud!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:37 First, I'll be speaking to my Wife Swap co-star, the guy I swapped wives with, and my old boss from Vick. of the ninth, Alan Thick. Hey, this is Alan Thick. And here with Gilbert Guthrie, is up there in the Kitbook. And I'm going to be switching wives. I'm going to have a little wave swept with Gilbert Guthrie because I like to swap waves with Gilbert Guthrie.
Starting point is 00:02:11 And I, you know, it's a wave swap. And so I like to have a wife swap with Gilbert Guthrie. And then I'm going to have a very strange conversation with my recent Friars Club, Arch Enemy, the legendary comic Shecky Greek, best known for having the name Shecky. You don't know who he is, but you have heard the name Shecky on like the Muppets and stuff like that. Anyway, I was performing at this event, a Friars Club event, and I was doing my usual type of peaceful material. And I mean, look, it was a Friars Club event where I first performed the aristocrats for a mass crowd. And they loved it there. That's what the Friars Club is about.
Starting point is 00:03:16 You could go there, Jack Benny and Milton Burl would go there and do Dick Jones. Anyway, Shecky, in the middle of my act, gets up and walks out, which shocked me in two ways. Number one, that he could still stand up, and two, that he can walk. Imagine what I could do to watch Stephen Hawkins. I had that kind of material. I could do some of my dirtier stuff and he'd get up and walk out going I'm very offended by that type of too soon and a tasteless comedy remark. And I don't have to sit here. Anyway, I decide I'm going to take the high ground.
Starting point is 00:04:16 and I'm going to call Shecky. I'll be the one to give out that piece branch or whatever the fuck it's called. And so I called Shecky, I'm reaching out to him. And I actually have a career, but I reached out to him. Here's Shecky, who's offended by my blowjob joke. Shecky, who has spent his entire life in Vegas with hitmen and hookers, and so I decided to reach out to him. Shecky, best known for the name, Shecky,
Starting point is 00:05:03 and, well, just going to have to listen for yourself. This is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, and my sidekick Frank Santo Padre. And, you know, a lot of people have been complaining. You've only had talented people on the show. And so now, as a change of pace, Alan Thick. And I'm still here after that intro. I know.
Starting point is 00:05:41 Which makes me not only untalented, but incredibly resilient and forgiving. I'm still trying to forgive you for thick of the night. No, no, the world, there are just some things that can't be overlooked. That's, I think, how we met. I was one of the resident cast of Zanis. Yeah. Thick of the night. And Richard Belzer.
Starting point is 00:06:13 Richard Belzer was part of it, Charles Fleischer, and an untalented guy in the group. Charles Fleischer, the voice of Rodgers. your rabbit. Yeah, exactly. Now, I heard you refuse to let your wife, Tanya, see any recordings of thick of the night. Well, it wasn't so much a matter of refusal. It's just that some of them have self-destructed, I hope.
Starting point is 00:06:43 And I just didn't see that it would contribute anything to my third marriage if my wife were to see any of that horrible show. show. And so just a discreet way of trying to preserve my marital status. Now, what I remember, can you tell us who one of the sponsors was? Oh, yeah, yeah. Just the irony of it all, just when already nobody was watching the show, because everybody was watching, everybody was watching Johnny Carson. And as you may remember I was getting roundly stoned in the press. And there was just one sponsor in particular that popped up every single night.
Starting point is 00:07:36 It was for lightweight feminine napkins. And in the middle of the show, the voiceover announcer on the commercial would say, once you've tried new lightweight, you'll never go back to thick again. And that was pretty much summed up my whole year. I remember I used to look forward to that commercial. Yeah, there was another guy. There was one critic in the country who liked me, just one, and it turned out that obviously he was a functional illiterate,
Starting point is 00:08:10 and he tried to pay me a compliment and wrote that Alan Tick has a nice self-deficating sense of humor. So I wrote back, I said, well, stick with us because we're improving excrementally. I remember when I was on the show with you, and it was, it's always the mark of, like, bad TV, when the producer has changed the whole format each week. Well, that's because we changed producers each week. Oh, yes. And each one of them had their own format. And unfortunately, everyone involved me.
Starting point is 00:08:54 I remember one of them, their idea was, and they told me, they were both really excited about this. They said, from now on, you're not with the whole group of characters you're usually there with. You live in the catwalk. That's right. You would live up in the catwalk where the lights hang, like the fandom of the opera. You would have been the phantom of thick of the night. And I was looking at them. thinking, I must be missing a part here.
Starting point is 00:09:30 And then, of course, they had us doing it, where you'd be coming out going, well, you get a good to give the kid free, who lives up there in the kit book. We get to get him down from the kit book. And I would yell, no, I'm not coming down. It was about as funny as it just sounded. Well, you guys were ahead of your time
Starting point is 00:09:53 because they did that bit on Letterman, where Chris Elliott would come out from underneath the stairs. Oh, my God. And he would live under the theater. It was like a Phantom of the Opera. I think they ripped you off. Yeah, we were revolutionaries. Yeah, so if we had actually done that and locked you up in the catwalk,
Starting point is 00:10:10 we might have been on to something. But, no, we made, there were a number of mistakes around that program, including the choice of a host. You know, I was quite successful in daytime television in Canada. We had a big hit up there for about three years. But I was good at the schmoozyer stuff. You know, I was a decent conversation list and a good listener, and I would have a little fun with people in the afternoon format.
Starting point is 00:10:44 But not being a pure stand-up and not having those chops, I was wrong for late night. Late night, you've got to, as you know, you know, you've got to have a killer instinct, you've got to go over the jugular. You've got to be ready to dump on everybody and anybody for a laugh. And I love the late-night format. I just, that was not me. I was never tough enough for that.
Starting point is 00:11:08 Alan, were you familiar with Gilbert? Were you a fan of Gilbert's, or was he sort of foisted upon you by the... Well, no, not a bit. I hadn't... I was not familiar with Gilbert for his SNL days, and I was on a talent recruiting, scouting, a trip in New York where they set up a few people for me to see in a showcase at a couple of different comedy places. And I went to this one with no knowledge or background whatsoever of
Starting point is 00:11:36 Gilbert Gottfried, and I was blown away by his insanely unique and hilarious take on everything and delivery, and thus began the bromance that continues today. I and then I because I remember a couple of years after thick of the night I bumped into you in L.A. And you asked me to come on you had another, it was a short-lived show called. That's my specialty. See, my specialty is getting on the show and getting fired. Yours is the whole show goes off. And it was hope and glory
Starting point is 00:12:26 Oh yeah, yeah, well that lasted two years on NBC Oh, that's... That was that primetime stuff Yeah So we were doing fine apparently Until you appeared on the show Now also You've
Starting point is 00:12:51 This is something that's always been amazing about You have written both, you know, some of the most famous commercial jingles and theme songs for TV shows. Can you name just a handful of those? I don't think so. Doesn't ring a bell. And that's our show for tonight.
Starting point is 00:13:16 No, actually, I did have a nice little sideline career. It started back when I was producing a couple of shows for Norman Lear. and so he brought me in and let me write a couple of themes songs. That was different strokes and facts alive. And it started a minor cottage industry for me, and I ended up writing close to 50 songs over the year. A lot of them were game show themes, because God bless those shows.
Starting point is 00:13:44 They run five days a week, 52 weeks a year, and they use five or six minutes of your music every day. So it was helpful to have that. a little revenue stream during cancellation periods. And I got to dabble in music long before Robin came along and actually became a musician and raised the family brand. But I was dicking around with four or five chords for a long time and having some fun with it. I think people know different strokes on the facts of life.
Starting point is 00:14:19 People that you wrote that, but I don't think very many people know that you also wrote the theme to Wheel of Fortune. And I didn't even know there was a theme to Wheel of Fortune. Exactly. But that was the artistic freedom I had. You know, I could in the middle of the night get an epiphany some great idea for the radar range theme. In the thick of the night. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:14:40 You know, I could have a great notion for a turtle wax underscore. And suddenly all the prizes on the show would have my music under it. The music that's on Wheel of Fortune now, is not mine. I wrote the original theme, if you remember, Wheel of Fortune started with Chuck Woolery hosting it. I'm sure. Ran on NBC for about eight years, and I went into syndication. And when I went into syndication, Merv Griffin, who owned the show, saw how much money I was making on the theme, and he needed some cash himself, I guess, and decided to write his own and replaced my music. And within a couple of years, he was dead, and that's justice for you.
Starting point is 00:15:24 Now, can you sing any of the Wheel of Fortune? I can't, and I'm sure nobody can't. But it was a perky little thing. Oh, my God. It was perg, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Cue the strings and the horns. Bap-ba-bba-bba-b. It was very catchy.
Starting point is 00:15:52 How did you, for our music fans and songwriters who were listening, Alan, How would you compose these songs? Would you sit down with a keyboard? Would you just get a tune in your head? I would do it on guitar. I had minor guitar skills and just enough chords to make it catchy without having it become actually musical. I see.
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Starting point is 00:17:40 with going to the movies, this one will bring you back. Ryan Gosling, in the first must-see movie of 2026. Project Hail Mary, only Beaters March 20th. Now that's something that I always found interesting. It's like like Barry Manilow once said he also wrote jingles and stuff and he said it's impossible for him to
Starting point is 00:18:12 write something that's not catchy. So what is the secret? I've never had that problem. I'll tell you, I got a little trivia for you. Yes. I was the writer of the Barry
Starting point is 00:18:31 Manelow ABC television special in 1977 that won the Emmy that year is the best special. Wow. And our biggest challenge on that show was wrestling with Barry over whether or not to include his medley of commercial jingles. He had written a lot of them and teams for other shows like American Bandstand. And Barry had been very prolific though. I think he wrote the McDonald's theme.
Starting point is 00:18:58 You deserve a break today. So get up and get away. Yeah, and Pepsi. But Barry, as the recording artist that he was becoming, didn't want to trivialize his recording cred by underscoring the jingle part of his life. So he wanted to leave that out of the TV special. But in fact, his live act in person, his concert act, the people went nuts for his jingles.
Starting point is 00:19:25 They loved that. So he and I had a few moments and had some words together over whether or not to include that. It ultimately was in the show. They left it in and we won the Emmy, so I rest my case. Yeah, and he did State Farm. Yeah, like a good neighbor, a state
Starting point is 00:19:44 farm is there. Yeah, he was great at it. It always became part of his show. It's funny. Yeah, he was a terrific skill that he had. And as far as commercial jingles, I think John Lennon
Starting point is 00:19:58 once said he watches a lot of TV and he thinks the commercial jingles are as good as any of the early Beatles stuff? I think the Wheel of Fortune has often been compared to strawberry fields forever. If you listen to it backwards when you're high, Alex. Robin was on the show today, by the way, as I told you. So he said to say hello. Great, excellent.
Starting point is 00:20:28 And, oh, then, just recently, we would meet up again when we were both on wife swap. Yes, through no fault of our own. I think they really just wanted our wives. They made our wives stars, and you and I were the wallpaper. Yes, so basically, this is a first for both of us. You didn't get the show taken off the air, and I wasn't fired from it. They're still swapping wives.
Starting point is 00:21:04 There are some traditions that can't be killed. Yeah, yeah. If it works the first time, it'll keep working. Has Tony got over the truck? I'll tell you, you were very instrumental and important in your own indirect way. Yeah. In leading to this show that we have on now, by the way, tonight is the mid-season finale, whatever they call that,
Starting point is 00:21:29 of unusually thick. We're on TVGN every Wednesday. And happy to say that we've been a hit, so we're picked up. The point was that the celebrity wife swap was kind of our testing ground, if you will, sticking our toe in the water, seeing if we could possibly play in that arena and have some fun and feel good about it. And so the experiment with you and Dara was wildly successful on our part because we really enjoyed it. It was an entertaining show. You guys made it pop.
Starting point is 00:22:04 And then we said after that experience, okay, well, we'll try it. this thing. And now we have a show that's on for a couple of years, and apparently I owe you a lot in royalties. I just wanted to know, Alan, if Tanya was over the trauma of being forced to eat in the kitchen at the Friars Club.
Starting point is 00:22:22 That has stayed with her, a memorable scene that people in airports are constantly reminding her off. But I think the trauma of that was nothing compared to her
Starting point is 00:22:37 Gilbert's opening line to her when they first met and he said, so this is wife swab. When do we have sex? And that kind of subtlety, I think, was the hallmark of his sex life in college. But the sex turned out to be good, so it had a happy ending. Yeah. We have lots of fun with you guys. Yes. And your kids, by the way, I saw a recent picture, quite gorgeous.
Starting point is 00:23:10 Apparently that skips a generation. I always say my kids are me if I had been born attractive. They're great-looking kids. Alan, tell us a little bit more about the show. I heard you describe it as Curb Your Enthusiasm Meets the Kardashians. Yeah, it's kind of, you know, it's our real family in our real situations. But with a bit of a wink, you know, we wanted to have a – we want Gilbert to have a happy ending. He's going to kill the down.
Starting point is 00:23:46 So, you know, we've basically taken family drama and turned it around a little bit. It's the same drama that every family has. And instead of doing the, you know, the housewives kind of thing, which they do so successful already, so they don't need another one, where people are tearing their hair out and throwing wine at each other. And, you know, we stop just short of ultimate cage fighting and try to find a happy ending to the family drama and situations. So it's a bit of a hybrid.
Starting point is 00:24:15 little different. If growing pains and the Kardashians had a love child, this is probably what it would look like. We've had lots of fun on it. Gilbert guested on one of them where Tanya did a birthday party surprise roast, and Gilbert said some appropriately unrepeatable things about me and fit very nicely into the episode. That's very strange for me to say something inappropriate. president. Now, you from 1972 to 73 were a writer on 26 episodes of the Paul Lynn
Starting point is 00:24:57 show. I was? Wow. You got to cut me some slack for that one. Actually, no, I don't I did his TV special. I didn't work on his series. I don't even remember that he had a series. We have fraudulent information here. But I, yeah, I think that you got that from Edward Snowden. Now, I'm hoping when you got the job on the Paul Lynch show, there wasn't a casting couch.
Starting point is 00:25:31 Well, there probably was, but it had holes in it. Tell us about writing for some of those people when you, when you, you started out writing for the CBC in Canada? I did. I started in Canada. In fact, the I think the first special I ever wrote was the Johnny Cash special. And we did as a Canadian co-production. And then when I came down here, I wrote for other people in the heyday of variety television. You know, when everybody who had a hit record also had a television series, and we were trying to make comedians out of singers, and some of them fortuitously could handle it.
Starting point is 00:26:11 And then they started bringing in comics. And we did series. I wrote Flip Wilson's show and Richard Pryor's show and Cosby's variety show, not the hit one, of course. So I had a wonderful life there through the late 70s, writing for other people. Now, did you ever hear Paul Lynn make anti-Semitic comments? Because I heard he was like the biggest anti-Semite, no order. I didn't. He might have suspected my
Starting point is 00:26:45 Jewishness and therefore would have been careful around me. Because I had heard stories he would get bombed on like Hollywood squares and stuff like that
Starting point is 00:27:02 and he'd be the other people would be just laughing telling jokes and he'd be going oh those fucking Jews yeah I wouldn't be surprised. He did enjoy his
Starting point is 00:27:15 alcohol. And my favorite story about him might have been apocryphal, but it was about him driving inebriated and flipping a car and ending up in a ditch and the police come over and recognize him. Paul Lynn,
Starting point is 00:27:33 are you drunk? He says, the car's not drunk. What do you think I am a freaking stunt driver? I heard appalling story. Also, might be totally untrue, but
Starting point is 00:27:53 he was working in some really awful place. That was basically like some refurnished barn or something. And he, of course, was disgusted, and he walked in, he said,
Starting point is 00:28:09 this place smells like a cunt, I think. Ha ha, ha, ha. You got a love him for being funny at least. He almost have to excuse his anti-Semitism. Oh, they should wipe those Jews out. But now you also wrote for the Bobby Darren show.
Starting point is 00:28:45 I did, yeah. I wrote either for comics or singers, because that's what was big television in the 70s. And in fact, some of the other music I wrote, I didn't write only jingles. I was also writing some, you know, TV music or occasionally had some songs actually recorded by people like the spinners, Lou Rawls, Alger Rose. So I had the R&B groove covered, and then on the flip side of that, I was writing for Johnny Cash, Glenn Campbell, Ann, Murray, Mac Davis, Olivia Newton, John.
Starting point is 00:29:23 So I had kind of country and R&B roots there covered somehow and with the same four or five chords. But that made that period of time, certainly my career, a lot of fun. You know, the variety of what I was experiencing in my work from year to year was really the fun of it. I remember hearing a quote where they said, you shouldn't sing songs. should write songs. Oh, well, one of the huge mistakes who made on thick of the night was me reading my own press clippings and thinking that I was all that and smooth and sexy when I played guitar and sang, and although that, of course, is obviously true.
Starting point is 00:30:13 The other, the other abiding truth is that that's not what anybody wants to see at 1130 at anyway. If you're going to do music, you've got to do it the way Jimmy Fallon does it, which is with wonderful impressions and co-stars. And he's terrifically musical, but he plays it for laughs. And I didn't. There were times during that series that I was taking myself way too seriously and deserve what I got. Now, I remember when Tanya was here living with me, I was following her around the whole time, singing your theme. song that you wrote and performed. Yeah, it didn't work for me either.
Starting point is 00:30:56 Poor Tanya. You know, it says, Mama don't leave the laden. I'm on the route to Nate. And I was following her around, and she would be getting, you know, disgusted and angry at me, and saying,
Starting point is 00:31:16 that doesn't sound at all like him. He doesn't sing like that. And then I looked up a song that you performed during the worst of the disco era, looking as gay as you possibly can, singing sweaty and hot. Oh, classic. And I remember Tanya heard you sing that, and she said, oh, my God, he does sing like that. Yeah, yeah, David. I guess we should point out that you can still find sweaty and hot on YouTube.
Starting point is 00:31:56 Yes, thank you for pointing that out. Because now people can only watch it and make fun without paying me. Yeah. At least for the other stuff, you know, but it's not on YouTube. At least you get 13 cents when they play your song. YouTube, they just laugh. I mean, transvestites would watch that video and think it's too gay. It was a little...
Starting point is 00:32:22 light in the loafers, yeah. Yeah, it was, it was you and a bunch of young, uh, aerobics. They were aerobics champion. Yes. Yes. Remember how big aerobics was back there in the 80s and God bless them. I was, uh, right there in the middle and, uh, singing sweaty and hot and pumping iron and dancing my little push off. It was a remarkable television. It was the Allen Thick answer to let's get physical. Yeah. Let's get nauseous. They even had you in a kind of, what was it, like a leather,
Starting point is 00:33:01 was like a leather, not a leotard, but like a sexy leather jacket unzipped. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll probably still have it somewhere. You had a little bit of a Cliff Richard thing going on there, I think. That could be. Well, you know, if you live long enough, you get a few of those arrows in your quiver. Of course. I'm curious about when you were writing for these variety shows.
Starting point is 00:33:28 You're writing for Bobby Darren and Olivia Newton, John, and Anne Murray, and people like that. Are you writing little monologue bits? Are you writing skits? Well, it's all of that, but what really goes into the writing of a variety show like that, especially if it's predominantly music, is it becomes a matter of pacing the show. So writing, I always compared it to supposing your kids' third-grade variety show at Christmas. it's just all the decisions that go into that. Do you want to start with a song?
Starting point is 00:33:59 Do you start with their comic? Do you start with Santa coming down the chimney? Do you have naked elves? So what are you going to do in your hour? And that really becomes the writing. So it's not so much just the words that you produce. It's the whole pace and tone and what the elements are. And some of them are just self-contained three minutes of music
Starting point is 00:34:22 where Tony Tenil is going to sing her. hit. But whatever that combination becomes, it all becomes the function of writing. I see. It's a shame. I mean, it's a genre that, I mean, it was interesting, Maya Rudolph just did a variety show. Yeah, I saw that, and she's wonderful and very talented, and you know, who knows if there'll be a call for her to do more of those, but if it's not her, then nobody can do it.
Starting point is 00:34:53 Yeah. She's pretty versatile that way. A platter for trying to bring it back. Yeah, and you're getting some of that now with Jimmy Fallon every night because his show is certainly more multi-textured than simply a talk show. He's got all kinds of things going on. He can do everything. And that might be as close as we get to variety now.
Starting point is 00:35:15 Do you think everyone's gotten too cynical to do variety now? uh... well it's just that you don't have to do variety now because you can get the original artists doing the thing that they do best so you don't have to have somebody else kind of a middleman interpreting uh... all of those uh... for the viewing public of that was the what mtv was the beginning of the end for variety because uh... uh... variety television was uh... tony orlando and tonyloneil and anybody named tony uh... sunny and shared like all those people who had our
Starting point is 00:35:53 long variety of Dean Martin. And so you'd have the number one song of the week done by Mac Davis or Tony Orlando. And you could simply switch channels, go to MTV and see that number one song performed in a million dollar video by the original artist. You know, Olivia Newton-John, whether let's get physical or whatever. So you don't have to listen to somebody else do their version of that. And that was what was killing variety television. And I think Mike Wallace said something like nowadays,
Starting point is 00:36:32 broadcasting has become narrow casting. And I think... Yeah, I think that's truer than ever now with so many channels and specialty channels and you can program for a niche audience. I mean, I was talking to some actress from in the house that I'd done a thing on that show. I did an appearance.
Starting point is 00:36:57 And we, and it was funny that you realize now, like there used to be shows with black people on it on TV, like Sanford and Sun and what's happening and all that. Now there's the Black Channel. And now there's the Rock Channel, and there's the Western Channel, and the Comedy Channel. I'll be coming with the All-Canadian Channel soon. You have the vocal stylings of William Shatner.
Starting point is 00:37:32 Comedy of Gordon Lightfoot. We'll sneak up on you. Gordon Lightfoot's hilarious. Rick of the Edmund Fitzgerald. It doesn't get funnier than that. There you go. Yeah. Every time I see that iceberg or whatever the hell I got him.
Starting point is 00:37:50 Now, speaking of William Shatner, what do you refer to yourself as? I am the affordable Shatner. The stuff that he turns down I'm there for. Now, see, what's your opinion of Shatner? I think he's a wonderful icon with a good sense of humor about himself, and he's done and tried so many things, speaking of the variety of life, and he's still around and doing things that please him and occasionally even please others.
Starting point is 00:38:34 And again, I think to have a sense of humor about yourself and what you're up to and being out there and doing your best at whatever comes your way, what a great life. So God bless him for that. He's had an amazingly long career. He really has. We were just talking about him in old Twilight Zone episodes.
Starting point is 00:38:55 Yeah. Yeah, that was one of the ones. the classics. And by the way, it's after three my time guys, I have to go immediately. A car is picking me up and taking me out of here. Don't tell me you're employed. No, no, I'm driving the car. I'm picking up Billy Baldwin and taking him to Chucky Cheese. Well, Alan, once again, it's always a pleasure working with you. Gilbert, you're just one of my favorite guys anywhere, and I'm so happy you have this podcast,
Starting point is 00:39:31 and Frank, nice to be connected with you again. Oh, the pleasure. It was mine, Alan. Thanks for doing this. I'm wishing you guys all the best with this, and looking forward to you being on our season two, Gilbert. And anytime I can come back, you just call me when somebody drops out and I'll be there. Yes, if screech from safe by the bell drops out.
Starting point is 00:39:53 There you go. Dustin Diamond forever. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Alan. Okay, I love you guys. This is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santo Padre.
Starting point is 00:40:19 And we have on our line, believe it or not, Shecky Green. Now, first, let me talk. One question I wanted to ask you. First, Shecky Green, what the fuck is your problem? I mean, here, let me tell the audience what happened. I'm at the Friars Club now doing this. And I was at a Friars event. We were honoring two older comics, Freddie Roman and Stewie Stone. And I even, and Freddie Roman even had his grandkids there. And I said, is it okay to, should I watch what I say? He said, nah, nah, this is a friars thing.
Starting point is 00:41:06 Of course, the friars was always known for centuries. Milton, Burrell, Jack, Benny, they'd work totally filthy. Now, so I go up on stage. next thing I know, instead of Shecky, you Shecky, closing this show, Joy Behar goes on. And Joy Behar goes, I don't know what the fuck happened with Shecky. He got offended by what Gilbert was saying, and he got up and walked out, and I was shocked by this. I was shocked you were able to get up. And then you went back home, and you tore up your members.
Starting point is 00:41:47 to the Friars Club. And it ruined the night for, not just me, but Freddie Roman and Stew Stone. So can you give your side of it now? How's that for an intro, Shecky? You're still with us? My side of it, my side of it is this. I'm in a hotel or casino. I didn't understand one, and I can't say the word,
Starting point is 00:42:13 one word that you've said. I know you just discussed about Freddie Roman and Stui Stone and talked about her. You said, Friars are in there. But when you talk, you talk, I get it, you know, I understand. Oh, I'm talking. Because where you talk, you fly away. So I don't understand one word that you just said. So in other words, I sound like Buddyhead.
Starting point is 00:42:38 Wait, wait, you gave me my turn to talk. Okay. No, go ahead. You said, I know exactly what you want, and I know exactly what you want to start. I heard about your friend Howard Stern, but I don't want to start anything with you. I enjoy you as in as a person. I never know so you act. I don't know what you're doing everything.
Starting point is 00:42:57 I didn't think under the circumstances what we were doing, and I was sitting with children, and I was sitting with the honoree, and the kind of material that you use was not for me, and they were just honoring. This was not a roast. not a rose like I could do with the friars this was an honoring a couple of guys anyway
Starting point is 00:43:17 I don't want to get into it because I'd like to be face to face with you okay and the thing is I'd like to talk to you in your native tongue but see Freddie
Starting point is 00:43:37 Freddie wrote Could you call me under different circumstances where I can hear you But I can't hear you and understand you at all. But I would like to settle the sake because I got 5,000 calls from people that hate my guts that love you. I got 10,000 calls from people that love me that hate your goddamn guts. Now I use that word I don't want to use. It's democratic.
Starting point is 00:44:01 So it's either a 10,000 or 5,000 against each other. But, I cannot discuss anything over like this. This is not the way to settle anything. And I'm very fond of you personally. So let's not worry about that. It's just the one. And then when I found out the product, George, we are poor Barbie bats,
Starting point is 00:44:19 about the cathedral, puts a gas, and she said what she said, that that broke my Sundan's, my Dateson, my students, my calliunes, my Korani,
Starting point is 00:44:29 the little fish in the Gatseroven, about Kourle! You speak Italian? Yes, yes, I understood every word. And I, Nagar, there's a fortune about a go.
Starting point is 00:44:42 Anyway, let's talk under a circumstance. Well, we can both understand each other. This is no way to handle. I'm standing in the casino. People are gambling. They're all looking at me like a... Did you win, lady? The lady won.
Starting point is 00:44:55 Anyway, I'm watching horses. I'm watching the people gamble. And this is no way to settle our situation. But they do me a favor. I don't know how it's certain. But tell him I doubly don't like him. And I know that your dear friend. But I think this is, first of all, I thought it was all Jewish, then I found it was all I had.
Starting point is 00:45:18 So I just half-hate them. Okay, guys, is that enough? And you call me and will talk. Like two sensible people will talk face to face, but not like this. And tell, tell the little Mikey, I want to tell you when Gilbert wants to talk to you. It's very important, okay? So I'm wrapping up right now and God bless all of it. All right.
Starting point is 00:45:45 Well, we'll be in touch. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Well, that was Shaky Green. That was what, was that an hour, Frank? At least. Yeah. It sure as shit felt like an hour. It felt like a fucking lifetime.
Starting point is 00:46:10 That was Shacky Green, ladies and gentlemen. explaining to everyone what happened and it makes perfect sense to me. See, at first, I thought he was out of his fucking mind. But now, now that I hear it, he's... You realize he's completely lucid in every way. Yes, yes.
Starting point is 00:46:32 You were misinformed. He makes perfect sense. I thought talking to Shecky was going to be like talking to some fucking mania. But it turns out, he's totally, totally makes sense. Nothing at all crazy about him. No angers.
Starting point is 00:46:58 None. None whatsoever. None whatsoever. I was getting a Dalai Lama vibe from him. I was getting a Beatles when they visited the Miseries. Maharishi. I was getting a real George Harrison.
Starting point is 00:47:19 Well, there's always praise of the Bahraishi of it. Yes, I, that was amazing. That was Shecky Green. He explained it all, ladies and gentlemen.
Starting point is 00:47:32 See, like a lot of you thought he was nuts when he stormed out on me for being dirty at the Friars How dare you? The Friars, where I did the aristocrats. That was much dirtier than anything I said in front of Shecky.
Starting point is 00:47:53 But I think Shecky might have heard things on his own. I think he's got voices talking to him. But now that we've got it all straightened out. It's all squared away. I have complete clarity. I thought he'd be a little nutty. I thought he'd be vindictive, but not at all. I was wrong on both downs.
Starting point is 00:48:23 You know, people had said to me, he sounds a little self-destructive, too. And I, after today's interview, I'll say, no, you're foolish shit. Why does he get this bad press? And now I have a message to give to Howard Stern. So once again, this was Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopatra, and we finally cleared the air with Shecky Green.
Starting point is 00:49:12 And it, once again, it made perfect sense.

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