Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Rewind: Episode #30: Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Screenwriters/producers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have written some of the most offbeat and imaginative movies of the last three decades, including "Ed Wood," "The People vs. Larry Flynt," "Man on the Moon" and "Big Eyes." Gilbert and Frank dropped by Scott and Larry’s hotel as the boys prepped for the MOMA premiere of "Big Eyes" to talk about everything from their critically reviled debut film, "Problem Child" (featuring a certain shrill-voiced comedian) to their attempts at a Marx Brothers biopic and an "It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" sequel. PLUS: Margaret Keane’s existential crisis! Kelton the Cop demands a cameo! Gallagher vs. Gallagher II! “Ed Wood & Bela Lugosi: A Love Story”! And Scott and Larry meet the King of Pop! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

directed by Tim Burton and starring Amy Adams and Christoph Balls opens on Christmas Day. There also are only guests to own a Willie Tyler and Lester Dummy. Welcome Scott Alexander Razuski. Thank you. I'm doing for 20 years since we last saw you on Problem Child 2. No, we saw my problem shell 3. Oh, that's correct. And the cartoon show.

But you never worked on three. We supervised it. You did? We watched it from a distance. No one ever saw that movie. It was the lowest rated TV movie for NBC that entire season. They actually, they had a free rerun in their contract, and they chose not to use it. Yep.

That starred Greatest American Hero. William Cat. Yes. What was it like working with him? He was happy. And a different junior. Yes. I don't know whatever happened to him.

That's a great question. Which, which... To the replacement junior. Now, here's something I really want to talk about. You know, fuck your new movie. I, what I want to talk about... Let's talk about Junior for an hour. Okay, yes.

I emailed Junior... Junior, the problem child from the problem child pictures. I know, I gave you his email, yes. Yes. And he never emailed me back, which is the lowest insult you could get in this business. When Junior won't we turn your phone? Yes. Wow, that's a...

This is Gilbert again. I'm like, maybe they didn't get married. Yeah, I'm not sure you're answering me she was working. I'm in town just for a little bit, yeah. Maybe we get together. That'd be fun, old times. Didn't you ask him to do the podcast, too? Yes, yes, that was my intention.

And I don't know why he never answered. It can't be because he's busy. Maybe you weren't paying him enough. Yes. Bad memories. How about that? Now, what I remember about Problem Child, what got you to write?

Well, you originally wrote Problem Child as like a really dark comedy. That's correct. Very good. Yeah, we read a newspaper article, believe or not, Problem Child is kind of based on a newspaper article. We read a newspaper article about a couple that were suing an adoption agency. This is in Orange County, California.

Yeah, they basically, they adopted this kid, and they took him home, and he started writing his name in shit on the walls, and he tried to burn down their house, and they really turned their life horrible. And then they found out the kid had been adopted like 15 times. And every time he was like a crazy person. And the adoption actually knew it. And that was basically your character.

And then the parents actually had to go on the run and like have their names change because the kid was trying to find them. It was terrible. It was an insane story. A lot of people. The story was in the LA Times and a lot of bottom feeder writers and producers like us. Saw this story. Everybody in town started to pitch it as a horror film.

We were the only guys in town trying to pitch it as a comedy. Right. So we kind of broke through the clutter. So we sold it as a comedy pitch. Yeah, everyone thought it was like a bad seed kind of movie. And we were like, yeah, it's a bad seed kind of movie, but it'd be funny. Didn't I read you guys were trying to do something? Get away from movies like Baby Boom and Three Beards a Baby.

Yeah, exactly. Wow. You've done your homework. There was a bit of a genre at the time kind of like, you know, You know, how babies can change a yuppies life. She's having a baby. Oh, yeah. She's having a baby.

We just care about money and work in the late 80s. Kindergarten cop can change a tough cop. There are all these movies were about how cute little kids are. And it was a very profitable genre. So we thought it could sort of be a counter answer to that. Right. Saying, well, what if kids aren't all great? It was.

Now I can brag that problem child was based on a true story. It would be funnier if I had that credit in the beginning of the movie. And I remember, too, Universal at the time, I remember two quotes. One executive said, if this movie even breaks even, we'll be dancing in the streets. And another Universal exec said, we're going to treat this movie like a wounded soldier on the battlefield, and we're all going to run and save our own asses. Okay, I remember a few quotes.

Everyone was very embarrassed by it because it was a pretty shameful production. We reshot that movie about 11 times, just so the shots we cut together. After the movie came out, Tom Pollock, chairman of the Universal to his credit, said it was their most profitable film of 1990, which we felt very good about. It was so profitable, yet they were still so embarrassed, that when we went to make Problem Child 2, the head of physical production, I won't name her. But she tried to budget the film to shoot in 16 millimeter.

She didn't even manage to shoot 35 because what's the difference? The audience is it going to know? I remember one box office analysis at the end of the year because it came out the same year as Home Alone and they said Problem Child's more influential than Home Alone because

Problem Child proved that it didn't have to be good. I remember when it was my last day of shooting there, I was saying goodbye to John Ritter, and he was basically there with that look on his face, like, and he was saying, well, you know,

the way it is in the business, you do something, and that's all you can do. I mean, you go on to the next thing, and when he died, the Academy Awards, the in memorandum thing, it was him falling down

from probably. I was it Scott that cried at one of the screenings? I cried at the cast and crew screening. It was our first movie and it was so terrible. And I was so sad. It started to bring up. What's really weird now, though, but now people, they call it a classic,

which is really misusing the word. Oh, yes. But it's been so long, I mean, maybe God bless Ted Turner and TBS. That movie has been run into the ground, and so many kids, now for 20 years of grown up watching that movie, it is beloved.

Right. And so I guess my opinion of it has come around that it's still a mess, but it's out of its mind. And there are very few kids' movies that are just that black and that crazy. And so it gets points for that. Well, it's funny is that... And it's funny. Yeah, it's actually funny.

And for a long time, I would say we left it off our resume, but we wouldn't like to talk about it. We wouldn't lead with Problem Child. And nowadays, we go to meetings with executives, and they were 10 years when it came, they were 10 years old when it came out. So for them, they're like, oh my God, problems. You guys wrote Problem Child.

See, every day, I have people come over to me that say they love the problem child movies. And it is kind of a sick, deranged movie when you really look at it and that John Ritter's wife starts fucking an escaped convict. Yes, a serial killer. A serial killer.

Yes. She's having sex with a serial killer while her husband is catatonic. And he takes a pillow. And he goes to smother the house. Yes, and wants to kill his own child. This is a PG family film. So it was pretty dark. Yes.

Well, actually, the sequel, when we first submitted it to the ratings board. This was a closely held secret. Actually, this might be the first place I've ever told us her. It got rated R. And the studio went crazy. What the hell did you do? destroyed their family franchise How can some problem child too

be rated R? We had jumped from PG right past PG-13 to R. We had to take out, I think Junior one time was yelling at Dad like, Dad, you're pussy whipped.

And taking out pussy whipped got it moved to PG-13, but they were still so nervous that parents wouldn't take their kids that they slapped Woody Woodpecker cartoon. The world's shittiest Woody Woodpecker cartoon.

Smoked hands. They've literally grabbed anything so it looked kind of cute. I remember. It was like draping tinsel over a crappy tree. One of my favorite censor jobs is when Problem Child 2 was on TV.

There's one part where the women in the neighborhood are delivering pies. Martha Quinn of MTV? Yes, yes. And at one point one of the women, John Rudy, wants to take out and Junior says, oh, Herpie gave us the runs. So they don't want a diarrhea reference, so they cut it out and make it,

Her pie gave us the rash. Wow, that's filthier. Yes, they changed it from diarrhea to syphilis. Wow. So how did you get from Problem Child? from problem child you guys did not want to be known as the problem child i mean just just to blame ourselves a bit because we got so beat up on the first problem child and we got fired repeatedly when they brought us back for part two they sort of had no choice because they had to do it really fast because

michael the junior kid was growing and so they gave a script like just like like in eight weeks and so we said fine you want bad taste we're going to give you bad taste and and we had a little note up in our office, which no one ever saw, which was, we are making a Pasolini movie for children. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a, it's a, or, or John Waters' movie, it really was just one of these weird things where I, I think, because we just embraced it. So that second movie is insane with the vomit scene and the cockroachians. Oh, oh, on the right. So it really, it really does things. Yeah. And what I, I, I, I, like, gigantic shit the dog takes. Oh, yes, and the dog is paralyzed at one point.

we had a test screening with my beloved anecdote person Tom Pollock sitting in front of us like in Pasadena at the test screening and during the vomit it's like all over the screen and the audience is just howling audience is having a great time

and Tom Pollock a member covered up his head and crawled under his chair he was so bored of like what have I wrought I remember the big discussion after the test screening was were they laughing or were they moaning? We knew they were making noise, but we weren't sure whether it was pleasure. Oh, and there's a quick reference that the ASPCA guys that helped the dog are gay.

Yes. And then I was an adoption agency worker in the first movie, and I become principal of a school. So I just assumed there was a part missing where there's a help-wanted. for principle, no experience necessary. I will defend that one. Because we at least acknowledge it as a joke, which is

in your opening... This is all we're going to talk about. In your opening seat, you're saying... It doesn't say guys open Christmas Day, I think it does. Thank God. I got away from that bad town I lived in. I got out of that adoption agency racket.

I fast-talked my way into a good new job in this new town. Everything's going to be fine, and then the door opens, and there's Junior. So at least it has a form of a joke. In part three, which we did not write, they just, junior just like, I was a dentist. He has a toothache.

And he walks in the office and now you're a dentist. That doesn't make sense. How did Mr. Peabody go to medical school in between two and three? That's a sloppy. I'll even defend that in himself. Oh, yes. That what Gilbert was in that movie was the utility player. He was the funny guy, like a 1930s...

But he's the same character. He's the same character, but it was like, it was great. Like, whatever you needed that character to be... Like that's a... Exactly. Exactly. Mr. Pee Buddy shows up. Gilbert, do you remember on one and two,

you used to describe yourself as the cover set? Yes. The cover set? The cover set. Because all of your scenes were indoors. Oh, yes, yes. So you were the thankless cover set. You were just...

And we shot this movie in this strange... empty futuristic city called Las Kalinas, Texas and they had built a monorail with only one person on the monorail which was Gilbert Godfrey, riding around lonely for hours a day waiting for someone

to pull him on because he was the cover set. Well, that's nothing else to do that. That's how he became friends with you. And for people who are listening to this, a cover set is basically, when you're making a movie, there's usually like one actor you hired that stays there the entire time. Because he's not in the importance. He's not in the

important. So, like, if it rains, you can go, like, we'll go to shoot their scenes. That's why it's called a cover set. Gilbert was just hanging out in Texas with no purpose. It's like, three scenes to shoot. And so every night, he'd be like, oh, Gilbert wants to go to dinner. All right, well, let me.

It's like to dinner. Gilbert wants to go if it's going to rain tomorrow. No, it's not. I remember looking at, like, the sheets at the beginning of the day that give you the rundown. And it actually, it's... The rashdown. Yes, yes. And it goes, you know, John Ritter has seen 5, 6, and 7, Amy Asbeck, 7, 8, 9.

And it says, actually, it's true, it said Gilbert Godfried in case of rain. I think that's the title of your autobiography. Yes. And I'll praise Gilbert. For all the reshooting that movie did, I don't think we ever had to reshoot one of your scenes because they were perfect the first time. Yes. Oh, let's keep talking about me. Let's jump to Ed Wood, since

we're short on time of you guys. Oh, wow. I see you guys have a screening video, too. You didn't want to be known as the problem child writer, so you decided to do something personal. Well, yeah, no, I mean, we had written these problem child movies. They were hits, but the problem was we would go into executive's office and pitch our new idea,

and they'd be like, well, that's a great idea for a movie, but you guys wrote problem child. So they wouldn't buy it from us And so we felt really kind of crappy Because we weren't sort of like People get typecast pretty fast Exactly And so we decided that

Even though the movies are hits Maybe we We started our career the wrong way We should have We should have writing problem child movies We should have like just done the whole Like Sundance Film Festival game So we were going to write like a small indie movie

You know this reminds me of a story too That Larry David Once wrote some special I was in a terrible special called Norman's Corner. And when he was pitching Seinfeld, they were saying, didn't he write that piece of shit with Gilbert John Crillardt?

Oh. Except that you were the newsstandover? Yes. You were responsible for a lot of people changing their career. Yes. I could have stopped Seinfeld from getting on the end. Wow.

So Ed Wood, you wrote on spec? So, yeah, we wrote it on spec. We, um, and it, uh, managed to land on Tim Burton's desk and Tim Bird decided to make his movie and it really sort of changed our lives in a big way and he shot your first draft.

He shot our first draft. He did. Yeah. And if I can get pretentious for a second or read into it, I kind of think there's a weird link between the problem child movies and the stuff you did afterwards. Of course there is.

Because it was like, you know, disrespected but a big hit. and you guys were disrespected for creating it No, no, Gilbert that is that is all true Because

the Promptial movies were so reviled Yet popular Yes I mean, it's like when you read enough of these bad reviews You feel really sad We had reviews saying Oh this screenplay was finger painted It wasn't it wasn't written

And we hadn't set out to make bad movies It just happened It's just tragedy That should be the name of my own Oh my own He didn't set out to be bad movies You know I remember I remember

We were making the problem child too in Orlando And we ran to a security guard And he looked at you And you were hosting those bad movie nights Remember you? Oh, oh yeah He's like I know you You host that show

Sorry movies that suck which would have been a much better type of time. But yeah, it's like, because I think like you go from Problem Child where you become like Ed Wood, like a disrespect. And Problem Child is kind of like those big eye paintings. Yeah, sure, sure. Absolutely. The critics hated those.

Everybody thought it was garbage, but it was incredibly popular. Yeah. It was funny. Yeah. It wasn't even, if it had not been a hit, we could have always dissoned ourselves or whatever. But because it was a hit and it was terrible, it sort of just, it stuck on us. But I think what's kind of about to say. You're talking about your old show, bad movies that suck. Ed Wood was sort of famous as the crappy guy. And the Medved brothers had written the Golden Turkey Awards, and they had this traveling road show where they

would go around to the revival houses, they would show the Ed Wood triple feature, and then they would come out in between the movies and make fun of him. And I went to one of these shows when I was in high school. And so everybody was laughing at Ed. And so we started talking about Ed Wood and sort of saying, well, nobody feels sorry for him. Everyone is just making fun of him. And with the problem child experience, we had gone through for a couple years. We said, what if you made a movie about Ed, but you were totally sympathetic. And you're not going to make fun of him at all. because he came out to Hollywood and he wanted to be director, and he directed six feature films.

And that's more than most guys who come to Hollywood. Yeah. So what if we just celebrate that? And we just say, hooray for Ed, and he gave hope and purpose to all his buddies, and he made his movies, and he put his vision on film, and yay. Because, well, with both of your films,

it's like what I've noticed, with Ed Wood in particular, you know, you show the silliness, the amateurishness and the jokes, but you have a total sympathy for these people. Right, and in the new one, too, I mean, I think what we learned from that was to take a very non-judgmental attitude towards the work, whether it's, whether it's, you know, Planet Nine from outer space or Hustler magazine

or the King paintings. It's like we've... You're interested in characters on the fringe. Yeah, characters in the fringe, but also it's like, it's like the world has so judged these people and so looks down on these people that that becomes kind of the plot of the movie and so if we just stand back and just look at the art for what it

is, you know, and let people make up their own minds. I remember there was like, back when they had record stores, they had some dingy little opera record store that had a sign in the window that said, we don't carry Poverati

Check Tower records. Wow. And everyone loved Poverati, but you know, he's He's garbage. He's popular. He's a hack. Yeah. Also, the other thing, though, I'll say about a lot of these characters is that once you know their personal story, you look at the art a little differently. Like, you know, like Glen or Glenda in terms of Ed Wood, that was a real easy movie to laugh at.

Oh, he's wearing, he's a transvestite. Ah, ha, ha, he's doing all this. But once you know that that was Ed playing that part, once you know that Ed was actually, like, putting his personal story on film, it becomes much more of like a weird experimental movie. And the same thing with Margaret King's paintings. If you just look at those big-eyed children and they're done by Walter Keene, who's this masculine guy, this kind of Robert Mitchum guy,

why is he painting a picture of a crying child holding a cat? It makes no sense. Or if it's just in Woolworths, and it's just a piece of anonymous art, it's kits. But once you know that the eyes are crying because the woman is locked up in the attic and they're coming from a sincere place, I think you're able to look at the art just a little bit differently.

And Ed Wood is, It's such a personal story. I mean, it's such a far cry from something like Problem Child. You're sitting down and you're thinking at any point, is a director going to be interested in this material? Is this only something that we care about? Did you have Tim Burton in mind at all? No.

I mean, we really were just sort of trying to get back to course correcting. Like Larry said, I mean, while going to college, I had crewed on a bunch of low-budget horror movies, So I had lived in that world of horror movie. And you guys met the U.S.C. That's right. We were movies. Yeah.

And so the idea, this idea of I had sort of seen how people put together limited partnerships and they make little indie movies. And then we had our buddy Michael Lehman, whose first movie was Heather's. His second movie was Meet the Applegates. And then his third movie was Hudson Hawk. Oh. And Hudson Hawk was a big debacle for everyone. And Michael has a very good sense of humor.

and we were talking about this Ed Wood project and then we started joking about it with Michael saying maybe we should all do it together if you get the writers of Problem Tril and the director of Hudson Hawk making a movie about the worst filmmaker of all time now you've got something. They say right what you know, right what you know. And Michael had done heathers on a very small budget

and we all said, you know, maybe this is the way to do this movie is do it small. And then like Larry's saying, and then we sort of got our outline to Tim and we were really just hoping for Tim to say Tim Burton presents. which would help... Because Michael Lehman was going to direct.

Yes. And Tim Burton presents, and then we could go raise some money to go make an indie movie, but instead Tim said, wow, is there a script? I think I'd love to direct this myself. And then we said to Michael,

well, Michael, you know, Tim Burton. No, Michael was great about it, though. He was fantastic, and he stepped aside. And so Michael's terms, which were great, because they were sort of terms to kind of force Tim's hand, where if it's Tim's next movie,

he gets the script. If it's not Tim's next movie, then the script would revert to Michael. And then Tim was like, okay, it's my next movie. And the ticking clock on us, Tim was about to direct a movie called Mary Riley. So it was our job to blow up Mary Riley. And he had been prepping this movie for a year with like the costumes and the castles and all that and the casting.

And he had six weeks before the studio was going to force him to sign a pay-or-play deal. and so we had six weeks to give him a script that would be so cool that he would throw away this other movie he'd been working on for a year and so we wrote it we couldn't go over that deadline so we had six weeks we turned it on a Friday and he called us Sunday night and he said I read it it's my next movie and I have no notes we will return to gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast after this it was crazy it was crazy I think he was worried that like you know that it would be filtered through the development system. And all of a sudden, people would be asking, like,

oh, can't Ed make a better movie at the end? Or learn a lesson or something. And he just liked it for what it was. And he wanted to just make it Ed Woodstock. Was Landau in mind from the beginning? He was not in mind from us when we were writing. A lot of times people ask that kind of question about the biopics, and we tend to think of the real people.

But I think Tim Latch down to Landau really quickly because he liked the way Landau had that kind of crazy. career where he worked with Albert Hitchcock, but then he also was in, you know, the Harlem Globe Trotters on Gillies. Yes. So he was like, this guy kind of has his right wild eyes and wild lows, and so he could identify with, um... He knows what it's like.

He knows what it's like, right? And at that point, Orlando was on a total role. That was coming right off of crimes, Mr. Meeners and Tucker, and so, like, he was, you know, he was firing on a cylinders. Although we interviewed Betel Logosie Jr. You did? Yes. He took exception to the fact that you had his.

father using profanity. Yes. I said my father did not. But other than that, was he okay with the movie? Yes, I think he liked. I think he did, and he did like when Martin Lando accepted the Academy Award and he said in an interview that he

was getting the award for a bail of Lagoese. Well, here's the thing, it's like we've heard a bunch of times that Bella Jr. wasn't really that happy with it, and I don't take when you're making a move about someone's father,

they have different memories of their dad, you know, and maybe Bella didn't swear, you know. But I don't want to, you know, it's as, we were trying to make a loving tribute to Bella. I think Bella comes off great in that movie. You know, of course. There's a reason why I land out won the Oscar for it. It's, it's, it's, it's, uh,

we would describe the movie as Ed and Bella a love story. But I think Bella Jr. always said, like, why isn't someone making a movie about the good things about my father's life? Well, you know, why it wouldn't be a movie? Right, exactly. Why aren't they making a movie about the Dracula day? Yeah. When we were living in the big house.

Yeah. Why are we making about when he's destitute and he's hitting up kids to drive him to the supermarket? He doesn't have a car. Because the Hon. Bell Jr.'s life, this is this Ed Wood guy, some creepy guy came in at the end and was a drunk. He told us halfway through the interview, listen, I didn't know my dad all that well.

I mean, his father died when he was young. Yeah. 16 or 17. Yeah. He's a lawyer. Yeah. Called the undead. Gilbert.

I brought it up because, I mean, that he. he would make a great movie because it's the idea of a guy with the name Bala Lagozy Jr. And on top of it, he's a lawyer. For dead people. Yes. Yeah. We always talk that. I represent the dead. Yeah. We always say it was being great to being court. It's like, who's your life? I am Bella Lagozy Jr.

Yes. Your Honor. They approach the bench. Our mutual friend, Drew Friedman. I represent the court. is here in the room, and he gave me a question about the making of Ed Wood. Which members of the Edwood Stock Company did you guys have to deal with? Oh. In what sense? No, no, who were in the movie, like, yeah, the real life people.

We dealt with, like, the real Conrad Brooks and the real Paul Marco. Oh, Paul Marco was a kick. Yeah. Paul Marco, did you ever get to meet him? No. I wrote a train cross-country with Paul Marco. Why is that? Oh, wow.

You were flying for a while. You hopped a freight with the Paul Marcos? He's like, you know. Sad story. Covered with coal. Emperor of the Middle Pole kind of thing? A little bit like it all over. To be trapped.

Smoking, jump with me. Oh, dear. A scary character. He was a lunatic. He was very enthusiastic. Paul Marco was the founder and president of the Paul Marco fan club. Kelton the Cop. Kelton, the cop.

And if you ever see any memorabilia, I'm sure you can bite on eBay for a nickel, he would always identify himself as Kelton, then quotation marks, the cop, close quotation marks, which I couldn't figure out. He was insisted, but that, Drew will backing on that one. That was, that was the way to frame it. And so Paul Marco, once the Ed Wood movie started like showing up again in revival houses,

he would go around Hollywood in his cop uniform and sort of try to crash events and then kind of just wait for the crowds to circle him. My favorite Paul, Paul, memory of the shoot was, that, you know, actors have trailers. And Paul was brought in to just be like an extra in a scene. It's a big cameo. Big cameo. He had one line.

He had one little line. But he got there and he's looking around and he saw a trailer that had the name Paul Marco on it, but it was for the actor who was playing Paul Marco in the film. The actor, who actually saw him. So Paul, but Paul thought that was his trailer. Paul basically gets in there, takes off his shoes, touching all the food. He starts throwing on the clothes on it. The match comes up and like, oh, wait,

the rapar, Marco's the minute. I go, what can you do? Just let him have it for today. Oh, and I prefer the story when they start fighting over. I'm Paul Marco. No, I'm Paul Mark. And then Conrad Brooks was sort of the other Ed Oldtimer, who we gave a cameo.

And for the sake of screenwriting shorthand, we kind of, we team them up in the movie. Right. And then like they're a really good talent. Yeah. They became just like the, sort of like the Bowery boy's sidekicks. Like, hey, we need someone to go carry the wood over there. Sheep.

Oh, sheep. So they were those guys, and it kind of made them both crazy that we were turning them into a team because they weren't. So they got very competitive. It'd be like we're making a bio of us, and all of a sudden you and Michael Richards were hanging out on. Oh, yeah. You're two guys that just hang out. Yeah. Yeah.

So Conrad was much more low maintenance than Paul. So Conrad was an easy cameo. Paul heard about this. Paul wanted a cameo too, and I went to Tim and the producer saying, we got to put Paul on screen. And they were all scared of him because Paul was a nuisance. But I just got to find him a line. So we found him a line, and he was a security guard.

And the scene where they're stealing the octopus. And he's like, hey, what are you kids doing in there? He's that guy. And when you edit a movie, you have a long cut, and then you cut stuff out and shorten it, Paul's line got cut out. So, I'm really unhappy because Conrad's line got left in. Yeah.

Yeah, so we were always hearing about that. And what memories do you have of Jeffrey Jones? Very pleasant. Yeah. I'm not even going to take the bait there. That is bait. Careful. A fine gentleman.

It was quite depper. Now, can I just throw on something that has nothing to do with Jeffrey Jones or anything we've been discussing? Drew Friedman. Yes, you're in the room. Yeah. Just told me that Clark Gable and Andy Devine used to fuck each other in the ass. At the same time?

I think Gable fucked Andy Devine. They plug each other into that. And he was a bottom. Maybe they talk. We can cut this part out, guys. Okay, we'll get back to your career. Although I'd much rather talk about Clark Gable, fucking Andy Devine the Ash.

Now, also, you wanted to make a remake or a sequel to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. How do you know that? we know stuff I don't know how much we really wanted to do that it was more of a

remake we were intrigued by and we met with Stanley Kramer's widow who's a very nice lady but she was insistent we said the argument with this old lady insisting it had to be a sequel

not a remake and that we had to grab everyone who was still alive and it was just oh so depressing because it's like we had seen since these are going to his doctor's office in Beverly Hills.

Oh! You know, and poor Jonathan Winners, who was, you know... Marvin Kaplan. Because nobody's still alive. They're all hobbling right. I mean, Mickey Rooney was... Mejorani. Right in the first ten minutes,

and they're sharing it. It's like Murder in Express. They're sharing a secret. Now, and both... We couldn't win her over to our side. Yeah, exactly. And both Frank and I agree that...

It's funny. It's like, I definitely advise people to see Mad Mad World, but neither one of us thought it was funny. I'm with you. Man, Man, Man World, when I was growing up, I did not think it was funny at all. It's definitely, it had a horrible reputation,

and nowadays it, maybe it's like problems. Nowadays it has a perfect reputation. It really, I think it's just held up in a big way. Like when we, I do things for the American Cinemattech, whenever they run, it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world. Places packed. strength. People are laughing their heads off, and it's a great, it's a great time.

I would disagree. I don't think its reputation has ever changed. It's always been a movie that didn't really work, but it has enough great set pieces in it that people have a good time. And, I mean, there's hours and hours and hours of that movie. So if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, yeah, there's, there's, funny. But I think it's funny. But I think it's funny. They're all funny.

John are winners. Yeah, that's a great thing. So great in that movie. And so even if you're bored out of your mind during some 10 or 15 minute set piece that won't end, there's a good one come around the corner. I mean, I'm very fond of the movie. The movie doesn't work, but I do love the movie. And every time I've ever seen it again, particularly in a theater, I'm always glad I went.

Yeah, I'll agree with that. I mean, don't think of him as Stanley Kramer as a comedy director. I mean, I think of the defiant ones in Judgment of Nuremberg. I'm a pretty serious guy. Here's a good piece of trivia for people out there. For next time people watch the movie, I just learned this. Spencer Tracy was really sick when they were shooting the movie. I guess he was coming to dinner.

It was after this. But he couldn't move. And so anytime he had to move, it's a stuntman wearing a rubber Spencer Tracy mask. Oh, geez. And so someone was. telling me, if you watch the scenes where he grabs the money, he's running up the stairs, it's a guy with his face on. Oh, my God.

So that's kind of cool. I haven't checked this out, but it's a cool thing because they made up masks for all the cast. And so, like, all the scenes, like, where they're up on the ladder and they're moving around. Yeah. There's a guy actually wearing, you know, a Rochester mask. A mask. Peter Fawke mask. Fuck, mass.

I misspoke. I misspoke. Getthamaran wasn't on the ladder. She's down below screaming. Scott went to Rochester's grave recently. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first a word from our sponsor. Okay. What did it say on there?

Anything interesting? Uh, I don't know. Yes. Mr. Fennie? Uh-huh. While you're talking, I'll pull. up the picture. Well, speaking to projects that

didn't happen, we have to ask you about the Marks Brothers project. The Marshalls Project... Who wants to pay for that movie? It will make it for us.

The problem with the Marsh Brothers movie is it's a fine script, but it broke our rules. We sort of are the kings of the anti-biopic. We make movies about fringe pop culture characters,

and the Marsh Brothers was sort of a great man bio. It broke our rules and that was three hours long. It was, you know, It was a movie, I mean, basically, the Marsh Bros. deserve a biography. And I think our particular magic of screenwriters is to capture people who don't.

You know, people that, so it gives them a, the world can look at people in a different light. But the Marsh Brothers are just, you know, Richard Attenberg would make a Marsh Bros. And it's like the Mox Brothers were successful and were respected. Right, and they kept on getting more successful and more successful. Yeah. I mean, the Groucho conquered every medium he was in. They had their ups and downs. I mean, surprisingly, it was a big plot point in the script.

Duck soup was a debacle. Oh, yeah, sure. And they lost their contract at Paramount, and they couldn't get work for two years. And at that point, Zepo said, I'm leaving the act because there was no income coming in. He was reluctant to begin with Zepo, that wasn't he? Oh, sure.

He got forced under the straight man part by Mom because Gummo was the straight man initially because back in the vaudeville day, you had to have each of the types. And so, you know, you had the ethnic, you had the dummy, you had the professor, and then you had the good-looking young tenor. And those are the four brothers, each playing a vaudeville type. And at a certain point, Gummo just got fed up with it because he didn't think he was a particularly entertaining person,

and no one's giving him jokes anyway. And so he basically said, I'd rather enlisting World War I than being onstage. And so Gummo leaves the act And so You know, brothers call their mother in a panic Saying we don't have gummo And so mom goes and she springs Zepo At a juvenile hall

Right I'm saying put on your shoes You're in the act now And then she basically ships them off And he says that, ma I don't want to be in the act Shut up We need a fourth And so Zebo got force in as a replacement

Into a thankless part Right And Zepo everyone always said was a funny guy. And there's the great story. When Groucho got appendicitis, and then they didn't have an understudy, and the producers panicking,

saying, what do we do? And Zeppel says, I know all the lines. And they're all like, oh, shit, well, it's that or we don't go on tonight. And Zeppo put on the grease paint, and he killed. And the audience didn't know it wasn't Groucho.

Right. And then Word got back to Groucho in the hospital, and he throws on the gown, and he runs back to the theater. And he goes, what are you doing here? He says, I got better. Yeah, I got well sooner. I think it was our other.

Yeah, because at that point, you know, it's like, I think Groucho's worried that the Marshalls could be like the Blue Man group. You know, hey, I didn't even put the mustache on and just do my act. So, Dr. Rogers was going to protect that. Nowadays, he'd be like, hey, we can be playing in 10 Cinnies at the same time. We'd be on Gallagher 2. And real quick, is there a sitting... Can we talk about Gallagher 2? Can we talk about Gallagher 2?

You would love to talk about Gallagher 2 movie. Yes. That's a movie. I would have made a Gallagher 2 movie. Yeah, I absolutely. I've been saying for years I've been saying for years

somebody ought to make a movie about that because that is insane we should tell the story so people know what we're talking about Gallagher also disrespected I don't know and I don't know

why I think even we would have a hard time being non-judgmental and Gallagher used to smash his watermel He still? Yes. Oh, he still does.

It's a living. And then his brother, who looks just like him, wanted to be Gallagher. And he said, no, you'll be Gallagher, too. And it's an agreement that you don't smash a watermelon. And then he started smashing the watermelon and started to get all the jobs Gallagher would have taken, but for cheaper. Okay. I have a different understanding of this story. But this is Rushemann.

We all bring ourselves to the tale. My understanding of Gallagher 2 is like, this is the first time I've ever heard Rushemone and Gallagher in the same story. I'll protect this all and say. What I've heard allegedly happened. None of this condition is. Gallagher got.

It was that Gallagher allegedly got greedy, and he looked at his brother. He says, hmm. And he figured out that he's, whatever, you play the circuit. And you know there's like the A theaters and there's the B theaters. And there's the colleges in the big towns. There's colleges in the small towns. And the big towns can pay more for one night. And he figured out he'd send him a dummy younger brother out on the smaller circuit.

To the sticks. To the sticks. Oh, I didn't know that. But they can't pay... This is our interpretation. We can be totally wrong about it. I didn't research just before I came in here tonight. Yet.

You know, maybe they can't pay $10 grand a night. They can pay $2 grand a night, but money's money. Or $2, you get Gallagher 2. Yeah. And they're a big Gallagher and then in parentheses, a very small 2, you know, on the poster. And then people started not knowing the difference. And then Gallagher 2 started getting greedy and tried to book himself into the bigger places and he worked cheaper than his world.

It got ugly. Right. And then there's the completely bananas sidebar, which would be sort of like a third act subplot, if we were to ever write this. Gallagher completely horrors out the whole act in every direction where he decides to start playing Spanish language theaters. Yes.

With mariachi's and like Hispanic ladies in white flower dresses, and I'm not making this up. He learns the act phonetically. Yes. He doesn't. Oh, wow. And so he can come out and say, Buenos dea.

Seigneur, he does. So I Gallagher. And he was playing down on like the Spanish theaters on Broadway in L.A. All Spanish. Unreal. And why it would be perfect for the two of you is they did take it to court.

Yes. Gallagher one and Gallagher two. I don't remember how they did. One each other. I think everyone wound up on Gallagher 2's songs. Even mom. I think you're right. I think you're right.

The family of the Gallagher 2. You are correct. Wow, I forgot about that. Oh, no. His own family turned on. But it was all my idea, Mom. Real quick, and we'll get on to Big Eisen, and we can know you guys can go. Is there a Michael Jackson story that Drew tells us?

There's a surreal story about meeting Michael Jackson. Oh, we did meet Michael. That was a hell of an afternoon. I thought you were saying should we write to Michael Jones. No. Is there a novel project? After a gallery project. No, we, for a very brief time, we controlled...

Brief. Larry. What? Forever? Sid and Marty Crop were in our lives for years. Yeah, we love Sid and Marty Crop. They really are two great guys, and they're one of our... There are kind of guys.

You should get them on your show. Oh. They're on. They're amazing. They are so funny. But they're very different. Like, you know, Sid is the creative, trippy. kind of guy and Marty is the businessman, you know, and, uh, but we, we partnered up with them for a while,

and we sort of, we set up Puffin's, HR Puffin stuff as a movie, a bunch of different places. We kept selling that project. And, uh, we set it up one time at 20th century Fox, and for some reason, all of a sudden, the deal started not being able to close. And, uh, we were like, some reason, the cross we're not going to close the deal with him. And, uh, we're like, what's going on? Don't worry, don't worry. We got something better. And it turned out that, We got MJ. We got MJ.

That's Larry's impression of Marty. Yes, Marty. Marty talks like this. And Sid talks like this. So Marty's saying, we're cooking up a big deal with MJ and the richest black man in Detroit. What does that mean?

He's going to open an MJ amusement park. Right. He made all his money in parking laws. And he believes in MJ. Right. And so we got to walk away from Fox because this is bigger. Right. And we're saying, Marty, come on.

Fox just wants to make it. No, no, no, no. So eventually we thought this cannot be real. And then Sid had some connection to Michael Jackson. And God bless him. Sid calls one day saying, okay, can you boys be at this recording studio in Encino at 3 o'clock? And we go, sure.

Why? MJ is going to be there And we got this recording to do And there's Michael Jackson Yeah And he had his son Prince

Who was a toddler At the time So this is a long time ago And he was sort of Playing with this A very white little boy And then And then we sort of

spent the rest of the afternoon With Michael Talking about how We weren't quite sure Why we were there It turned out he wanted to direct Puffin' Stuff, star on Puffin' Stuff, and write the music for Puffing Stuff. Yeah.

It was kind of crazy. Yeah. But the highlight of the day was he actually, he was talking about Willie Wonka. I wanted to be like Willie Wonka. It's got to be like Willie Wonka. And he started singing pure imagination to us. It was basically he was singing it to us. He was saying at Acapella.

It was unbelievable. And he had no nose. He literally had just a little nail. And it was a clitoris as Mario Cantone refers to it. And now, I remember when I was little, I would go with my mother into Woolworth and they would have the velvet Elvis paintings, the dogs playing poker, and the Jesus blinking eyes, 3D Jesus on a cross, bleeding and blinking eyes. and that's where I became familiar with those Keene paintings. Well, no, Walter Keene was sort of the guy who invented the mass marketing of art. I mean, they were not accepted in regular art circles,

and so he sort of figured this weird end run around the whole enterprise where he would build his own gallery, put on his own coffee table book, and he kept on, you know, basically, not that people were really buying the prints. I mean, we're buying the original painting, so he figured a way to make them prints and make them cheaper and cheaper and cheaper until they basically were posters. And as posters, he could sell them anywhere.

And so he sort of took art to the common man, and he figured out that art critics didn't matter. If he could get a picture of him with Joan Crawford or Navley Wood or Kim Novak holding one of the paintings or get someone to go on the Tonight Show to sort of, you know, to tell the world what a great... Like Jack Parr said,

that, you know, one of Walter's paintings was one of the greatest works of art of all time. All of a sudden, they would just be, they were making money hand over fist. They would sell these, they would sell, you know, pictures and postcards and posters, and he was insanely successful, but that's not even really, that's only part of our story for the movie Big Eyes, because behind the scenes, what was going on was Walter couldn't paint at all. And his wife was sort of locked up in their attic, and she was the artist, and she was the one doing all the work,

and he was putting his name on it. And so the movie is sort of about this woman learning kind of to stand up for herself. And she lost all of her friends. Yes, yes. Yeah, well, Walter didn't want anyone hanging around the house because they might go into the painting room

and then he didn't want Margaret going out to lunch with people because they might say, what do you've been up to lately? Oh, I paint day and night. Exactly. And so he intentionally isolated Margaret from everybody. So really all she,

All she had was her daughter and the pains. Yeah, and she was also a woman who just, you know, struggled with, with, she had her own dignity. And so she didn't feel good about lying. So she sort of pulled herself away from her friends and other people. And how did he convince was he was overpowering and huge as sweet? But also, he was, he's an odd villain for a movie because he's so successful. Everything he says is becomes true. You know what I mean?

Because they were different talents. Yeah, yeah. It was one of the things were like, you know, when she first agreed, you know, and he sort of bullied her to let him put the name on it, and they were selling in the basement of the Hungry Eye Nightclub. It was just like art they were selling, you know, maybe we can make rent this month by selling these paintings. But he took this heart, and he turned it into the biggest selling art in America.

So all of a sudden now they had a gigantic house. They had a college fund for the daughter. And so he made her seem like she was ridiculous for complaining. So who cares who's names on the painting? You know, why can't you be happy, woman? And so she was in this weird existential dilemma of like, this is my art, this is my feelings on this thing, but you're taking all the credit, and I'm supposed to be happy about it. And we should say, this is a true labor of love for you guys.

You started the project in 2003. Correct. That's when you got deep into the research, you met Margaret King, you promised her that one day this movie was going to see the light of day. And 11 years later, and many false arts. Yeah. Yeah, we were going to direct it ourselves, and we kept casting it and financing it and getting a, getting a crew and then we would go and prep it in Portland or Salt Lake City or New Orleans or Buenos Aires, Argentina. And each one of these versions we would put a few months into, and no one ever paid us for 10 years.

So it was all out of pocket, and then it would collapse. Yeah, maybe that time that we cast Gilbert as Walter Keene. That seemed to really make it collapse a little quicker. Gilbert had reached where this was. Exactly. Shut up, honey. Who's names on it? I did a day's work in case of rain on...

On a million ways to die in the West. And Amanda Seafreed already has big eyes. So they did a quick gag in the movie for a second where she turns around she has the keen eyes. Oh, that's funny. They superimposed them. Is that the movie? Yeah.

Oh, wow. I saw the movie and I don't remember that. What? Yeah. Well, that's the thing. I mean, everybody, it falls into that thing where this pop culture thing that Scott and I love where absolutely everybody knows the paintings in that look, whether it's from, you know, the real thing or Pussing Boots in Shrek or whatever. But no one knows the story. You know, some people, people who see the movie say, God, I didn't know any of that. You're not really supposed to know any of it. You know, because when they were really successful, it was Walter Keene. It was Walter Keen was the guy totally in charge. And Martyr King claiming the rights of the paintings happened a couple years later, and that sort of happened off the front page of the paper. And so it was like if it was reported at all, it was sort of like those two people who make paintings that we don't really like anymore, they're fighting. So, you know.

I saw the picture last night. It's great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think you guys must be very gratified in a long journey. It's playing so well with audiences and, you know, and Tim did such an amazing job with the movie. and, you know, Amy Adams.

Yeah, her cast is wonderful. It's a very intriguing part because she, um, she's playing a very quiet woman. Sure. And so she has to do so much with just like expression, just like a silent movie performance. And the story's through her eyes. Totally through her eyes.

Yeah, but Walter is the showboat so he gets all the talk. Right. Right. It was fun. That's why we thought Gilbert would be good in that part. He just won't shut up. And now we have to let the two of you go, you're going to a another Our premiere.

Yes, the premiere of Big Eyes, which I haven't seen yet, but sounds fascinating. I know the story, and it's a fascinating story. And so we are, hi, I'm Gilbert Godfrey. This is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast.

I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santo Padre, and we've been talking to Scott Alexander and Larry Karasuski, who have said out in, they've said this several times that after working with Gilbert Gottfried on Problem Child, everything was downhill from that.

And they're on their way to see their latest film. Big guys. We hardly scratched the surface with these guys. I hope we didn't get to Larry Flint and we didn't get to Mars attacks or Andy Kaufman, so we'll do a part two. Okay.

And we didn't get the Ford Fairlane, which we were. We were on the set all the time when we were making Port Fairland. I saw it last week. It played last week at the Cinematheque in Los Angeles. The crowd aided up. Oh, my God. And Dice was there, and our friend Dan Waters, who wrote the script,

and I enjoyed watching you get electrocuted. Everyone did. And we didn't talk about Sammy Petrillo. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, wait, we got to start the whole show over. We'll do a part two with you guys. There has to be.

Okay. Thank you guys. This is, we could have gone another five hours. So we've been talking to Scott I, Alexander and Larry Karasuski, creators of Problem Chalked 1 and 2, and their current film opens on Christmas Day, Big Eyes. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you.

Yay. If you like listening to comedy, try watching you. on the internet. The folks behind the sideshow network have launched a new YouTube channel called Wait For It. It's got interviews with comedians like Reggie Watts, Todd Glass,

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