Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Rewind: Episode #34: Susie Essman

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Actress-comedian Susie Essman is best known to audiences for playing the acid-tongued Susie Greene on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” but she began her career as a stand-up, opening for people like Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Belzer and a young Gilbert Gottfried. For the first live GGACP episode (as part of the annual NYC Podfest), Gilbert and Frank sat down with Susie to talk about her obsession with Turner Classic Movies, her favorite “Curb” moments and how comedy saved her from a life of crime. PLUS: Peter Lorre! Margaret Hamilton! Susie roasts Jerry Stiller! Larry David pens a pilot for Gilbert! And the curse of the “Shiksa Goddess”! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frozen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play Ojo. The online casino with all the latest slot and live casino games. What you win is yours to keep with no wagering requirements, instant payouts, and no minimum withdraws. Hey, I just won. Woohoo.

Feel the fun. Play Ojo. Honey, forget about the lasagna. Let's celebrate. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concern about your gambling or that of someone close to you. Call 16-531-2600 or visit conexontario.ca.

Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that. And enjoy. Via rail, love the way.

Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. My co-host Frank Santopadre and I have done over 40 or so episodes of the podcast. But we've never done a live episode until now. A week ago, we took part in a New York City Podfest where we sat down in Fontana's bar in front of a live audience with my old pal, Susie Esmond. We think it turned out pretty well. Listen for yourself.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Gilbert Godfrey's amazing colossal podcast. Samuel shows like American. Probably best. Susie Green. Athusiasm. Please welcome our friend and the always shy and retiring

Susie Esmond. Gilbert, you're such a good reader. Yes. No, it was all off the top of my head. Yes, as always. Yes. So if I may ask you a question that people in front of

the Lubavichael trucks ask. So pardon me, you jush. You know, interestingly enough, I played a Lubbuchar in a Hallmark Call of Fame TV movie, and I had to wear a shital, and it was the middle of summer, it was not fun, had to wear a shital in the whole thing, and the more I read about it, the more I didn't enjoy.

Do you know if there's any actual truth for that thing of Hasidic Jews with the whole sheet? I knew you were going to ask you. Yeah, yeah. Having never had sex with a Hasidic Jew, I don't know for a fact. And I think that's the only way you could know is to actually have sex with a Hasidic Jew. They don't want me. Actually, you know what?

Did you ever do this? The worst gig I ever did in my life ever was this, this Hasidic Cafe in Borough Park. Did you do this? Louis Veranda booked it. It was in Borough Park. It was a Hasidic Cafe, and no women, only men were allowed in. And they had comedy. They had comedy.

And I've never died a death. I mean, you're so used to dying in a way that nobody else was. I never died a death like I did. Everything about me offended them. They wanted a minstrel show. Everything about me offended them. It was death. Do you know, can I just tell the audience, years ago, I met Gilbert a catcherizing store like, what, 1983, 84, something like that.

And when they would have like stragglers at the end of the night, they'd be like two, three people that wouldn't leave. They would put Gilbert on to clear the room. Right. And who else do they put on to clear the room? Oh, wait, wait. Larry David. Oh, my God. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. To clear the room. Of course, with me, I didn't give a fuck Whether they were laughing or not. He didn't care. He would just go on like, you know, blind and...

And they'd be booing me and I didn't care And I'd go worse and worse. Right. And Larry would actually get in fights with people on the audience. Larry would... Like, if he's here, if everybody's laughing, one person looked at their watch, that's it. He's rivet on the one person that looks at their watch

and starting some... I remember once... And we used to all go watch him because you never knew. Oh, yeah. Something interesting was going to happen because he was going to start a fight. Quite often there'd be him and an audience member going out into the street. Right. And the club would pull him apart.

Right. One time I remember he was doing a bit about a bungalow, and a woman in the audience said something about what's a bungalow. This set him off into maybe three hours of tirades. It was quite interesting to watch. No, you were a different animal. You didn't give a shit. Yeah. Yeah, you'd be ripping up tissue paper into stairs. You didn't care.

Do you remember the first time you saw him, Susie? The first time I saw Gilbert, I opened for him at Caroline's on 8th Avenue on 28th Street. Richard Bellzer had asked me to open for him. I was introduced by Lenny, who died recently, Richard's brother. And then Caroline saw me and asked me then to open for Gilbert. And I didn't know who Gilbert was, and everybody said, oh, wait do you meet Gilbert? he's the funniest thing in the world. He's brilliant, but a little odd.

So I opened for him, and I think at that time I was just doing characters. I had never spoken. When I first started, I just did characters. I was too scared to speak in my own voice. And I remember I was in the village, and at that time, I don't know if you remember this, they used to have, Carolines used to have posters plastered all over the city with your picture on it. So there was a picture of Gilbert and some big afro.

And it was in Sheridan's, I remember this so well, and I had been in the business for like maybe three months, and then I see underneath it said, opening act Susie Esman. I remember I got the chills, because not that I was listed under Gilbert, but that it was like, oh my God, I'm really in this business now. I'm really, I'm like on a poster with my name and there's Gilbert's Fotch. Yeah, I remember that so well that it was like a moment. It was 1984 when I was like, oh, my God, I really, I'm a comedian.

I'm a legitimate comedian. Then, of course, I met him. I realize he was so, of course. Short lived. Oh, and I remember if we could go back, we were talking about Larry David. I remembered one story. That one

time Larry was on stage, and he was bombing, horribly. And he got into an argument with some guy in the audience, and the guy says, hey, your mother fuck's

my dog. And Larry goes, So yeah? Well, I bet your dog doesn't enjoy it. He's quick, that boy. And Larry wrote a special for Gilbert, which not a lot of people know. Oh, Norman's Corner? Norman's Corner. Norman's Corner, it was so bad that it almost kept, when he was trying to get the deal for Seinfeld,

the guy, the studio said, wait, who's who's right? it, Larry David, didn't he do that piece of shit for Gilbert Godfrey? What was it? You were a newsstand? Yes, yes. You had a newsstand and different characters came up to the newsstand? Yeah, it was bad. Were you and Larry on

SNL at the same time? No, no. He was... But you had equally horrible experiences. He was on Fridays when I was on SNL. So, and then he went on SNL after Fridays or before? Yeah, he did Fridays with Michael Richards. Yes.

And then you were on S&L in 80. Yeah. But only 13 episodes. 80 to 81. Right. Yeah, he was on with Michael Richards and then Julia Louis Dreyfus. That's right. Yeah, Larry was post-Gilbert on S&L.

Oh, so then Larry went to S&L after you. He was in the Brad Hall. They never wanted me, SNL. You auditioned? I auditioned all the time. And I did all these characters. They had no interest. I was too Jewish.

I was too. They had no interest in me whatsoever. You? After, well, after they have. After you, they gave up on the Jews is what happened. You ruined it for every Jewish comedian after that. But what made, when did you first, what was your first appearance anywhere?

When I was eight and I was at sleepaway camp. Not that far back. But it's interesting because we were doing, They were doing The Wizard of Oz. So I wanted to be Dorothy so bad. And I have a decent singing voice. And I auditioned and I sang over the rainbow and I was crying. And they gave it to some little blonde who couldn't act her way out of a paper bag.

And me, they gave the Wicked Witch of the West. So, and the part was pantomime. They had the witch pantomime. And I was like, fuck this shit. And I went to the counselor. I said, could I write my own part? So she said, yes. So I did.

and I did a whole melting scene. I was very careful not to make it Margaret Hamilton, to make it different, but equally as, you know, effective. I don't want to be derivative of Margaret Hamilton. At eight, I didn't want to be derivative of Margaret Hamilton and to end up doing Maxwell House commercials. That's right. So then after I died, I was supposed to sneak under the curtain, you know,

because I was dead. But instead, I got so many applause. I had to stand up out of my death and take a bow. And then at curtain, call, I got more applause than Dorothy. And that's when I knew, you don't want to play the ingenue. You want to play the wicked fucking witch. You know,

you want to play like the character. So at eight years old, I got that, that they didn't want me as the ingenue, and you know what? I didn't want them. So that's when I started realizing that I was going to be a character actress. At eight. Much more fun to be the witch.

Thank Linda. So that was my first, you know, than It took me many, many years before I got on stage again. Well, tell us a little bit about that. In your 20s, you were a little bit aimless. You didn't know what you wanted to do. Right.

You were depressed. I was depressed. I was very depressed. I was living with a bad guy. I was selling drugs. I was in a very bad place. And friends, I was waitressing. I used to go back into the kitchen and imitate all the customers.

That's how I kept myself entertained. And my friends that I was waiting with kind of dared me or forced me to get up at an open mic, which I then did, but I used to just do these characters. You know, like, I don't know, whoever. People from my family, which was psychotic, you know. Let's get into the selling drugs part. I never knew that about me. No, no.

Well, I had this boyfriend who was a drug dealer, but he couldn't, he couldn't, like, it was Coke, and he couldn't, you know, this was the 80s, and he couldn't, he used to do it. I never did it, Because why would I want a drug to make me more insane than I already was? You know, I didn't want an up thing. I wanted, like, tranquilizing things to shut me the fuck up.

So he gave it all to me to take care of because he couldn't handle it. So it's like he put his little, you know, wife into business. And I used to, I was cute in those days. And I used to go around to, like, Wall Street guys, you know, and sell them drugs. And they gave me money, and that was it. And I kind of equate that. It was, like, easy. It was kind of like you make people laugh and they hand you money.

You hand them cocaine, and they give you money. Same shit. Now, I'm not proud of it, but, you know. Now, how did you actually go? Did you just walk up to people on the street? No, no, no. I wasn't like loose joints, loose joints. I wasn't like that.

She's a businesswoman. I knew somebody, and they knew me, and then somebody else in their office, and then somebody else in their office. But then there would be guys at the apartment with guns, and it was not pretty. You know, it would be like mobster kind of guys around. I look back and I'm horrified.

And now that I have daughters that age, I'm horrified by my entire behavior. Luckily, I found comedy to get me out of the drug dealing trade. If I didn't find stand-up, where the fuck would I be now? I don't know. Take us through that a little bit. You took a comedy class. I took a comedy class. And I was so scared.

You know, they would give us an assignment. I don't know what, like, you know, write something about what you did last summer or whatever. And I was so scared that I would cut the next class because I was petrified to get up and talk in front of people. And then there was this guy, I went out with everybody from the class, and there was this one guy in the class who said, well, what if you do these characters? What if I just interview you when you improvise as the characters? So we did that one day. And I was getting laughed. So it was like, oh, wow, this is incredible.

So then I kind of put an act together of these characters, and I went to an open mic night. and mostly magic. Do you remember that on Carmine Street? Oh, yeah. They had an open mic on Tuesday nights. And I did my, you know, I got five minutes together, which I did in like a minute and a half, you know, because I was a wreck. And there were these guys there, Paul Herzick and Bert Levitt.

And they came over to me and they said, we're opening up a comedy club called Comedy You. And we'd like you to work there. And I was like, yeah, yeah, fine. I gave my number. Never got on stage again. It was petrified, horrified that I did it. A couple of months later, they called me. They said, we're opening the club.

We want you to come work there. Can you come down and do 10 minutes? And me like a fucking idiot said, yes, I didn't have 10 minutes. You know, 10 minutes stand-up is a lot. So I wrote 10 minutes and they just kept on putting me on stage for like six months. I never went anywhere else. And that's where I met Joy. They had a women's comedy night.

And that's where I met Joy Behar and Rita Rudner was there and Carol Leaper and all these girls that were, you know, had been doing it longer than me. and from there I met more comedians and then I went up to Catcher Rising. They wouldn't put me on stage at Catcher Rising stuff for years.

What was his name, Flip? Oh. That asshole. Wouldn't put me on. Wait, wait. Rick Newman ran. Yeah, yeah, but no, this was post-Rick. This was after Rick.

Oh, they, oh, there was Richard Fields who took that. Yeah, yeah, what an asshole he was. So, anyway, but The Lucian Hole put me on at the comic strip. He was my big... And then eventually I started developing, you know, an act in my voice.

I remember Ronnie Shakes, Oliver Sholem, was a great comedian. Died Young. He must have been... How old was he? Yeah, I think he was like 40. Yeah, I had a heart attack. And I remember him saying to me, it takes at least five years before you find your voice as a comedian. I remember thinking, yeah, that's not going to be like that for me.

I'll find it next month. But it took me like 10. You know, it takes you a really long time. to know who you are on stage, I think, and what you're... You know, Gilbert has such a specific persona, and you're always true to that persona. But, you know, so it took me a long time to develop and figure out who I was on stage, but once I did, it was smooth sailing from that. But it is.

It's like the amount of years where you just have no idea. No idea what you're doing, and you're doing it in front of people. You can't do it in the mirror at home. You can't really do it in a class. You could take a class in the very beginning, you know, but you have to do it in front of strangers. And we would be at these clubs, Catch Your Rising Star, and the comic strip and, you know, wherever.

We would, and like on a Friday, Saturday night, we'd do like five, six, seven shows a night. Remember, that's how we made our money? That's what was cash. And, see, when I started, there wasn't even in the cab fare. There wasn't even the $5. Well, cab fare was like seven bucks. Well, you were 15 when you started, right, Gilbert?

Oh, yeah. And what did you have to say at 15? Nothing. For years, I was doing it, and I'd go up. Sometimes I'd go up and I'd do great. And if you wanted, like, a seltzer or something, they charge you. Really? Yeah.

Wow. But see, later on, I think we got really smart, where we would just go to clubs that had food. Oh, yes. I don't know if you know this, but Gilbert is notoriously cheap. That's like a known fact. So we would have, you know, you would do, like on a Saturday night, do like a few clubs uptown on the Upper East Side,

then you go downtown to like the duplex and Green Street and blah blah, blah. And like Gilbert would always like find out where you were going and get in the cab with you and then never share the fair. I would go home from catch on the second avenue bus. In the middle of like a freezing cold night with snowing and raining. We'd see him standing on the corner

waiting from 77th Street and First Avenue to the lowery side on the bus. And I remember people who couldn't believe it, how, because I would do it every night, they would say to me, so, all right, three o'clock in the morning, and I go, oh, that's the 312 bust. And I know, down to the second. Were they on time? No. No. When did you decide that Gilbert was your favorite comic?

Very shortly, Gilbert could make me laugh in a way that nobody else made. made me laugh. It's just like when I, he would just, I don't know, he just hit a funny bone in me of almost like a childhood, you know, giggle fest. But then we would laugh a lot together. Because I think part of that was like we would be at the clubs and we'd be hanging out at the bar. And we would talk about old movies a lot. Oh, yes. We always said, but then there were other people that we knew in common that we could make fun of to each other, which always tickled us tremendously.

The most rewarding problem. Whenever you bad mouth, another person, you know. that you hate all the same people, that's a bond. Right, for sure. That's a strong bond. And being a movie buff, I mean, the first time I saw Gilbert, I think I was a teenager at the comic strip. And being a movie buff, here's a comic doing references to Ben Gazara and Ted Bessel, and Norman Fell. And it was the strangest thing I'd ever seen in my life. And what happens when you're a kid...

Rewarding to somebody who grew up on that stuff. But yeah, when you're a kid and you're a movie buff, and when we were a movie buff, And when we were kids, there was no VHS. You watched a million-dollar movie over and over and over. Or the 430 movie. The 4-30, the ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. But when you found somebody else that had that passion, you thought you were a freak and you were the only one that had that passion.

And then when I would go out and meet people, when I started being a comedian, there was other people that had these strange esoteric passions that knew who Norman Fell was. You know. And you found a bond there in something that was really important, I think. How many people know who Norman Fell was? That's pretty good. That's because you're here. Let me tell you something.

My husband knows who nobody is. Nobody. Tell us, when you met Jimmy, your husband, he had never seen you perform. He had never seen you on television. No, he had never seen me in Kerb, because otherwise, why would he have gone out with me? You know, I mean, it's like, he didn't have cable. He didn't have HBO, and he thought I was this delightful woman. and then I didn't let him say...

It's interesting because Joy Behor, who as you know is my best friend, when she first met Steve, her now husband, for a year she didn't tell him she was a comedian. Yeah, that's part of him. You know, and I think it's... Men would go on the road, even Gilbert, before he was married to the lovely Dara and get laid, okay? Women would go on the road, and nobody wanted anything to do with us.

You know, we were just like... I was getting laid on the road? Maybe not, yeah. But women find funny men attractive. Men don't find funny women attractive as much. Because they were more scared, I guess. I don't know. Is that why Joy never told Steve that she was a comic?

For the first year. She was afraid that he would not be attracted to him. She was afraid that he would just be, you know, exactly. But she wanted to let him be the funny one. I think women say they find funny guys attractive. See, it's like now there are these women who will, go, oh, see, I always was attracted to guys like

Larry David. Right. And I think, well, there are a million guys just like Larry David wandering up and down. Why don't you want to go after them and fuck that? You know, can I tell you something? Because they're not. I get this

all the time. I get this constantly where men come up to me, you know, at Zabars or whatever, and say to me, I'm exactly like Larry David. I have to hold myself back from saying, no, you're an annoying Jewish account from Great Neck. Larry is a genius. You're just a neurotic, annoying schlepper, basically. That's hilarious.

We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Okay. So Gilbert and I, I think it was nice. 1992 when we were in Miami doing the one-night stands for HBO. Oh, yeah. That was like an assembly line how they do those. And they did these one-night stands on HBO, which was the half-hour comedy specials. And they would pair comedians together. And Gilbert and I were the same night.

Yeah. We performed in the theater the same night. And so we were hanging out at the Doral in Miami Beach, and we'd be on the phone every night, just hysterical. Oh, and by the way, speaking of which, I scraped my knee really. bed. I tripped and fell because I was a nervous wreck because I was doing this special. And I had like, it looked like a really bad rug burn on my knee. And my boyfriend at the time

thought that I had had sex with Gilbert. And didn't believe me. And I was like, no, I hurt my knee. Like, that's a rug burn. And I know you were down there with Gilbert. It was like, no. I never told you that. Wow. So, there was. So,

he thought you were doing it like doggy style. I want you to picture that right now her and all fours and me behind her we would have just been laughing it wouldn't have worked

because we would have just been laughing so there was this so there was this comedian who was this comedian who came down from New York who was doing the warmest African American comedian you never heard of her so

oh okay so before Gilbert got there, she said to me, you know, I'm really, I'm really nervous about Gilbert coming, because when he comes, he always makes fun of me and always says things about me and always, you know, like, asked me what I think of good times and like the Jefferson. So I said to her. Yeah, I used to go, who did you prefer, Amos or Anson? Which would you? Right. So I said to her, I said to her, we'll call her Linda. I said to Linda I said listen you know what he doesn't mean it he's just his humor just ignore him just don't pay attention to him

just ignore him and he'll just stop because if he's not getting attention he's not going to go over so Gilbert calls me so he comes down and he calls me that night in the hotel room we weren't having sex and he says you know I was I did my usual thing with Linda

and started saying something to her about Amos and Andy and she said to me I'm not listening to you. I'm ignoring you. I'm not paying attention to you. I'm like, I told her to ignore him. So instead of ignoring him, she's like, I'm ignoring you,

I'm not listening to you, I'm not paying attention to you. Yeah, because you had been saying, ignore him, don't pay attention to him. And so all she did. I'm ignoring you. I'm not paying attention. So for years we've laughed over that.

That's a, you know, it's like 12-year-olds. And the funny thing is then you wrote about it in your book. I did. And they told you not to mention her being black. That's right. Yes. Sort of kills the story. Yeah, yeah.

There was no. Because, you know, when you write a book, they say to you over and over, put in anecdotes. Put in anecdotes. He's just like, I don't remember any fucking thing that happened. You know, I don't remember these things. They just want, they want details about what did Gilbert say? What did Larry David say? What did it?

It's like, eh. It's a funny book, regardless. Thank you, Frank. Frank has questions. He's very well prepared. Gilbert doesn't prepare a goddamn thing. You know, I was thinking about this, because I know this is about the movies, and I listened to the podcast with Robert Osborne, which, by the way, I ran into him the other day on 57th Street.

Nothing could have made me more excited. The nicest man. Oh, it's like, there's Robert Osborne. I got, like, you know, very, very excited. But I was thinking about growing up and what changed the exposure to movies that we got. And for me, it was when I was in college, they would show Saturday nights they would show movies. They would show full-length movies uncut. And you started to realize these movies that you had watched your entire life when you saw them uncut.

It was a completely different movie. You know, I didn't even know Humphrey Bogart was in Casablanca when I first saw it. I thought it was all about Paul Heinrich. Right. Yeah, I remember Robert Osborne was on the podcast, and he said he got everyone together for this one musical he loved that was coming on TV. And they watched it, and there was no music in it. Oh, that's right. That's right.

Yeah, they cut it out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was Cover Girl. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

So you're obsessed with Turner Classic movies, you told it. Well, you know, it's my background. It's my white noise. It's what I have on in the background. For many reasons. One, it's so visually, you know, especially the black and whites, I just like to have it on. And also, there's no commercials. You know, it's just Robert Osborne and Ben Menkowitz talking every now and then.

And Drew Barrymore. And Gilbert was on as a guest program. I know. That was a lot of fun. So only time I was ever jealous of you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Other than the time when I was fucking you dog.

From behind. That was the... What kind of narcissist am I that I would be jealous of you fucking from behind? It doesn't make any sense. You know what's interesting, though, about the movies. I was thinking about this. You know, when I watched movies when I was a kid,

or even TV shows, you know, what we grew up on, the Donna Reed and leave it to Beaver and blah, blah, father knows best, or just seeing, you know, the movies from the 40s, it never had anything to do with me. It was always pure fantasy, because it so completely had nothing to do with my upbringing. It wasn't until I saw Annie Hall,

and I saw the family around the dinner table talking about disease, was the first time that I thought, oh, that's like my family. The man is diabetes. The first time I ever saw something on screen that I thought, oh, that's like my family. Other than that, it was like this is nothing like anything that I ever grew up with. And the funny thing about the old movies and old TV shows, like, well, like Andy Griffith.

I thought this is a totally non-year. Jewish as you could get. And it was old Jews who wrote it. Yeah. Aaron Rubin created the Dandy Griffith show. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a spinoff of the Danny Thomas show. Which was also created by Jewish guys. Yeah, yeah, but Danny

was not. People forget. For me it was always hard because... Now, wait, wait. Since he brought up Danny Thomas. I know where you're going. You're not going to do it, are you going? Okay, would you tell the story? Well, I don't know the story. I just know the rumor. of, you know...

Yeah. And it wasn't at St. Jude's, I'll tell you right now. That according to rumor, Danny Thomas would lie under a glass coffee table. Hookers, some say black hookers. You pick your racial type. And the hookers would shit on the coffee table as Danny Thomas looked up

at this shit coming out of there. And said, make room for duty. Nicely done. Some say that there wasn't a table involved and they shit on him directly. We don't know if any of this is true, but we've heard the rumors. But then they

said, look, there's a rumor that Gilbert fucked me from behind in a hotel room in Miami. I'll tell you right now, it's not true. No, that was Danny Thomas fucking you from behind. You know, that was another interesting thing.

They always, it was like, well, he wasn't Jewish. He was what, Lebanese? Lebanese, I think. But they always had the Shixir wife, no matter who they were. Yeah, you have a theory on this, the Hollywood Shih Tzu. You know, I actually just finished reading the biography of Samuel Goldwyn. But I read about all these guys all the time. And these guys who created Hollywood were these, they were peddlers.

They were, they were. He was a glove salesman. Right. Or they were, and they bought into Nickelodeons is what they, they were. they first did and then they somehow it's amazing to think how they went from having a Nickelodeon with the Schmata to

you know MGM. Samuel Goldfish Shmiel Goldfish was his name actually But you know these are the guys that created Hollywood and they were so worried about assimilation and they were the ones that created the Shix a goddess which has ruined my career all these fucking years

but because they were so they all married non-Jewish girls they all, Louis V. Mayor converted to be an Episcopalian. They were so worried, and rightfully so, because there was a huge movement about, you know, Jews owned the entire industry in the 30s. So they were frightened about that, that they were bent over backwards to be not Jewish and to not have any kind of, even though all the writers were Jewish and all the directions, Billy Wilder and William Wilder and Mankowitz's, and blah, blah. I forget one of the movie studio heads,

you know, old Jew, and he changed his birthday. I think it was either to make it Christmas or 4th of July. That was Louis B. Mayor. I think it was Louis B. Mayor. Yeah. It was incredible. And they all

raised their kids like Christian. Yes. Well, Samuel got, well, his wife was Catholic and his kids were raised Catholic. But yeah, it was, but it was all I mean, in television, I also have this theory that all the television, not all, I don't want to go into that conspiracy, but a lot of television executives were Jewish guys, and it was okay for them to have the funny Jewish guys, the Seinfelds and the Paul Rizers and the blah, blah, blah, but the Jewish women, that just reminded them of their mother and their sister, so it couldn't be. They couldn't have us.

And it's funny, I remember reading that when they were creating golden girls. Yeah. The heads of the studio said to them, look, there's two things that people hate. Divorced women and Jews. Really? So they all acted very Jewish, like Be Arthur and the mother. But they said they were Italian.

Yeah, right, right. You were a lot like George Costanza. Right. Yeah. I always wondered about that. Why did George Castan... With Jerry Stiller as his father. Because wasn't the...

Right. Very strange. If that's not Jewy, Jew-Juman, I don't know who is. Yeah, Seinfeld was the most Jewish show in the world, and none of them were supposed to be Jews. Well, Larry kind of corrected that in Curb, and, you know, totally Jewed it up in Curb in a way that... Well, if the George Costanza character was based on Larry, which he was, why was the decision made to make him Italian?

Because it was more acceptable in some way, Frank Cento Padre. Ah, there you go. I changed it. It was Fishbine. Sorry. And Elaine. Elaine was a total Jewish girl. Yeah, well, Julia's Jewish.

Yeah. She's a French Jew. But they made her, you know, Elaine Benis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Decoy, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've also heard you say it's strange that Seinfeld's a mega hit, and it's a very Jewish show. Yeah.

you would think that in an industry where everyone loves to imitate success. Well, you know, even more to the point, Frank, is when I was first coming up as a comic, the nanny was a hugely popular show. And that was this, you know, Jewish girl from Queens with a heavy New York accent. So the networks are not that they're always copycatting. If something's a hit, then they try. Of course. So you would have think, if that's a huge hit, who were they going to try to develop something with after that?

No, they thought it was an aberrero. They thought the nanny was an anomaly That it shouldn't have been And obviously they thought the same thing about Seinfeld Because there was no other Jewish show And yet Larry went on to do curb Which was hugely successful Not in the way that Seinfeld was because it was HBO not network

But you know hugely successful What's his name? Silverman and a show called The Single Guy Is that actor's name? Help me out I don't remember Yeah he was from Jonathan Silverman From a weekend at Bernies I mean that was their attempt

There were a couple friends was supposed to be another Seinfeld But nobody was Jewish And then there was that show called It's Like You Know was the title. Well, that was Peter Melman show. Yeah. One of the Seinfeld writers. They tried. That was the L.A. Seinfeld.

You know what? It's really hard to make a hit show, regardless of whether you're Jewish or not. May I just say. It's like there's so many things that go into it. You could have a great cast and great writing and just somehow. You know, Seinfeld, something about Seinfeld just clicked and the chemistry of it worked. but it's really, really hard to get a show that the public likes and the network likes

and to keep it on the air. It's almost impossible. And when they try to create something, and it's like it's a cliche that you'll see in comedy bits, but they actually do sell stuff by going, well, it's kind of... Seinfeld meets Law & Order. Right, right, right, right.

And it's like, yeah. Right. Right. Meets lost. But it's like William Goldman famously said. Nobody knows anything. It's true. You know, I mean, you just don't know what's going to work and you don't know.

You could see it in movies. You could see a great cast and it just falls apart and it doesn't work. And then something else just is just magic. You know, we mentioned Casablanca. Why is that movie so magical and why does every piece of it works every time you watch it? It just does. Who knows? What would it have been with Ronald Reagan?

With Ronald? And yet the script wasn't written. until they were writing it day by day, and nobody knew it was going to be that. It's just, it's just, you know. They expected that show, that movie to be a disaster. Right. Because everything was wrong with it.

Exactly. And yet it's, you know, one of the greatest movies ever made, and I could watch it over and over and over again. So it's just, you can't decide on what these things are. Happy accidents. And what's fascinating about Casablanca to me, going back to the Jews again, is most of the Nazi army,

were Jewish actors from Germany. Right. And they were like in these tiny parts in Casablanca where they have like one line, it would be like a Jew from Europe who used to be a major star there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, it was sad what happened to all those great German. I mean, the German film industry was huge. And again, but a lot of those people, William Weiler and Billy Wilder and all those,

the von Sternberg and all those people came to the U.S. Michael Curtis and created in an amazing industry from that. Billy Wilders is, to me, the most amazing of all of them because he wrote some of the wittiest, most amazing scripts, and English. He didn't speak English. I know. It's incredible.

You know, it was his second language. And he wrote great scripts even before he started directing. And funny, you know, some like it hot. I mean, just really funny. So many. And to have humor in another language, I think, is really different. difficult, although you've been doing it for many years. In the interest of time, Susie, let's talk about, let's talk about curb, because we've

been talking about Larry most of the evening. And I don't think everybody knows how you were cast. I mean, you've told the story a couple of times, but how did you get the part? It's sort of an indirect path. I did a roast. Gilbert's king of the roast, you know, but roasts are hard. You see, you're really good at it because you're so jokey. For me, roasts are really hard, you know. I did a, you. I did a, you know, I did a, you know, I did a roasts. You know, a roast of Jerry Stiller. Were you on that roast? No. No wonder it was so bad. So I did a roast of Jerry Stiller.

And it was the Friars Club roast. Sure. And it was aired on Comedy Central. And Comedy Central, the Friars Club put me in to be on the roast, because I had done several. I had done a Danny Aiello roast, where he cried. Didn't Bells would make him cry?

Well, no, the Danny Iella roast. He had this, Joy was the roastmaster. She was the first female roastmaster. And he, and he, He had his show, what was the name of that show? Dele Ventura. Dele Ventura had just come out, and the reviews were just fucking brutal. I mean, they just ripped him a new asshole. And Richard Belzer gets up at the roast and reads the reviews.

And Danny cried. Yeah, yeah. Danny cried. He's a very sentimental guy, Danny. You know, he's a sweetheart. They had him on the show. I know. He's a sweetheart.

He's a very sweet guy. But he couldn't, you know, bells are so mean, you know. So, and I say that lovingly. So anyway, the Comedy Central said they didn't want me. I was too female, too old, too Jewish, whatever. I was not their demographic, which is this other demographic thing, pisses the fuck me off. So anyway, the Friars Club pushed for it,

and I worked really, I had laryngitis, which I think was emotional. I worked really hard on that roast, and I worked with our friend Larry Ambrose, who was a great writer, and I had lines like, you know, on the dais, my opening line was Alan King. Do you ever think you'd live so long that your prostate would be as big as your ego? You know, and Mori Povich, I said, Mori, we all wondered why you married Connie Chung.

Then I realized we all know Jews love to eat Chinese. And, you know, it was very jokey, which is not really my style, but it was very jokey. And then Larry David saw that, and he was, I hadn't seen him in years because he moved to L.A. You know, we used to all hang out, but then he moved to L.A., and married Lori, who saw him. He saw it when Comedy Central aired it. No, he actually saw it before that.

Oh, okay. Jason was the, Jason Alexander was the Rose Master. And he saw it, and he had this part in mind of Jeff's wife, and then he just called me and offered me the part. He called me over and never forget this. Susie, hi, it's L.D. I was like, oh, hi, I haven't heard from you in 10 years. What's up?

I have the part I want you to do at an HBO show. I said, well, what's the part? Don't worry about it. it. I said, well, can you send me the script? There's no script. There's no script. It's just you're Jeff Garland's wife and there's no script and you just play yourself. And I was like, okay, well, oh, and there's no money. There's no money. And you can have to fly yourself out and put yourself up. And I was like, well, Larry, you know, I love you and I'm sure it's going to be brilliant and I'm happy to do it for scale, but I'm not flying myself out and put it.

Well, that's the way it is. And I was like, oh, forget it. Then they call me back and they found money to flammy coach. And they did. We had no money on that show. We didn't have trailers. We didn't have, we had nothing. We didn't have Port-a-San. You were a day player for a while, weren't you?

I was a day player for three years. Yeah. Yeah, I was day-scale for three years. Yeah, three seasons. I know. Thank you. People see you on TV. They think you're loaded.

You know, they think you're loaded. No. I'm not complaining. But yeah. And you never discussed the character with him. With Larry? No. I mean, the only... It's funny, now that I think about it,

the first scene that I had to do where I was in true Susie Green form, the first episode that I did was just kind of introducing me and whatever. Then the next episode was where, you know, the only... He gave me two directions. One was, I want you to rip Jeff a new asshole.

which I thought I'd been in relationships before I could do this. And then the other direction he gave me was, don't make her too Jewish. I didn't listen to that direction. So, no, we never discussed the character. We just kind of had like a dialogue of the unconscious going on that he kind of saw what I was doing and then he started writing more towards that,

the outlines that he would write. And I kind of saw what he wanted it. But we never discussed it. We just kind of organically. But that, you know, that show is like that. That's one of those happy accident shows that just kind of evolved in that way. And that was, that's another one of those shows that gets brought up by people going, well, it's kind of a curb.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the new catchphrase now. This show is like a new curve. And it's not because Curb is, Larry has story brain that's just brilliant. really think Larry's genius in so many ways, but it's really story that's his true genius. And when you read those outlines and you see how they're constructed, it's just, I can't even understand how he

gets to it, and I have a comedian's brain. I read it, and it's transcended to me. I have no idea how he does it. And nobody else can do that. It's not this willy-nilly improv that we do. It's very structured. You know exactly what's happening in each scene. And so it's not like her, because unless Larry's creating it, It's not like Karp. And what was the first TV you did?

Oh, wow. I don't even remember. Was it Baby Boom? Well, Baby Boom, yeah. That was a fucking disaster. Sorry to bring it up. They cast Joy and I in the series of Baby Boom, which was a takeoff on the Diane Keaton movie.

But Kate Jackson from Charlie's Angels was playing the lead character. Not Diane Keaton. No, not Diane Keaton. But it was Charles Shire and Nancy Myers who created movie and they cast joy as a German nanny, okay? Like a Helga von Brunhilde. And they cast me as the secretary, which was a little closer. But the whole thing, we went out to L.A., we were miserable.

We were just, the whole thing was a nightmare. It lasted, I think it lasted 13 episodes, but it was just, the last I remember of Kate Jackson was she took us, the last night, she took us to dinner at Spago, and I just remember her, you know, in the bathroom having drunk too much. and Gilbert was fucking her from behind. Of course. Can I get sued for saying something like that on a podcast? What is a podcast? What's a pod?

Why is it a pod? That's a good question. We're at the podcast festival. Yeah. I don't know the answer to that. We'll check with Jeremy, the founder of the festival. It's because Kevin McCarthy invented it. Oh, the pods. Yes, I get it.

Who gets that reference? No one caught that. I get it. Yeah, thank you. Yes, Frank. What was your favorite curb episode? I know people ask you this. You know, I have different ones.

Each season there's a new different one. Like I loved the last season, I loved the one where, you know, if you would have said to me those days at Catch a Rising Star that someday I was going to be driving around Harlem, having an orgasm in a car next to Larry. Oh, that's a great one. And being paid for it. I would have said no fucking way.

You know what's interesting. If you would have said to anybody at the bar in those days at Catch a Rising Star that Larry David was going to be richer than all of us combined, we would have said, no. Insane. No, we never would have believed it. And yet he is. It's amazing. I thought he was one of those people that he would either be like a multi-billionaire that he is or be homeless.

Be homeless, which is what he thought he was going to be. He thought he was going to be homeless. I like his line that he says, I went from being a poor schmuck to a rich press. You're right. Always like that. But, you know, he said to me recently, in those days, if somebody had said to him, you could have $200 a week for the rest of your life, he would have just accepted that. You know, he wasn't that ambitious.

But neither were we really. Yeah. That was a very strange time. Yeah. Yeah. We were just like, we were just into doing the jokes and then going to the green kitchen afterwards and laughing. And we never really thought about like the career and getting a sit. Well, you had Norman's Corner.

Oh, yeah. So in your face, or in wherever it was when I'm fuck you doggy style. I have to say, Susie, I'm partial to the episode with Sherry O'Terry as the crazy name. That was a great. There's a lot of great episodes. I love the doll.

The doll's great. Because what's more fun. Where's the fucking head? Yeah, what's more fun than being able to screen? Get me the fucking head, you know. But to me, that job, I don't think I'll ever have a better job, that I just get to go there and just scream and yell and tell Larry and Jeff to go fuck themselves.

And it was, I mean, I did it for eight seasons, the most fun job I ever had. And much less stressful than stand-up. I mean, the stand-up is so stressful even now to this day. It's just so stressful. Acting is like nothing. It's easy. Yeah, people don't realize.

How different it is stand up in acting? Acting is like you get up from your chair. They go, okay, come this way, say this line. Especially, don't you love doing cartoons, voiceovers? Oh, my God. It's the most fun. Yeah, it's really fun. Tell us about that.

You did bolt. Yeah, because you go, I mean, it's hard. I don't want to say it's hard. It's draining, you know, because you by yourself in a room with headphones, and you're acting with a dog or a cat or a pigeon or whatever the fuck. rafting with. But you by yourself, the pigeon's not really there.

So you have to do the line like 10 different times, all different ways, faster, slower, louder, softer. But I enjoy it. I enjoy voiceover. Oh, it's a lot of fun. Yeah.

And it is like you're... And the residuals are nice. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you're almost never with the other people. Never. I've never happened. Yeah. Have you ever been with the other people? Well, I love hearing those stories of like, oh, my God, during Aladdin,

when Gilbert Gottfried and Robin Williams got together, I never ran into him once. Really? Yeah. You didn't work with Robin the entire time we're doing a lot. No, not once. Did you work with anybody? I think with the guy that played Jafar I worked with a couple of times.

And then they would have me like coming in by myself going. Mostly by yourself. Yeah. And the thing that I remember is that I had to do a lot of running scenes, so it became like this porn, because I had to do all these scenes where I was like, you know, like out of breath. Sort of like your orgasm and Larry's scarf. And then screaming, falling, ah!

Like all that kind of stuff. Well, I remember when they were recording the Aladdin cartoon and the princess is running and Aladdin is going, come this way, hurry, hurry, hurry. and I had them play this tape a hundred times because I loved it. She's going, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. Is that because you don't get to hear that off? I heard it once.

In Miami. When I was doggy-fucking, Susie. Yes, Frank. Tell your daughters not to listen to this episode. My daughters? Oh, God. Did strangers actually come up to you in the street and say, curse me out, do a sushi cream? Still. Constantly.

People want me to tell them to go fuck them. You know, I'm not always in the mood. You're going about your day, you're buying produce, you whatever, and people just like, you know, like, leafily want you to just curse at them. It's like, well, it's a job. It's work. Yeah, it's work. You know? And by the way, you don't get it for free.

Right. Right? Yeah, I can't tell you to go fuck yourself for free. Exactly. And what am I going to take ten bucks on the street? Oh, we're rapping? Oh, yeah. We haven't even talked about the movies.

Okay, talk about the movies. I have nothing to say. What's your favorite? You told me on the phone, gangster pictures and musicals are your two weaknesses. Yeah. So give us a gangster picture. My favorite gangster picture? Desert Island movie.

Maltese falcon. Really? Great. Yeah, just because the dialogue, you know, you're cracking foxy on me. And, you know, it's just, I think John Houston wrote that, didn't it? He did. It was Dashal Hammett. First picture.

Yeah. Yeah, so I would say that. I really prefer the asphalt jungle from John Houston. I know that's how to see. Well, I love that also. That's Marilyn Monroe's first, you know. Just love that one. Yes, she was very, what, Gil?

No, no, I was just going to say that Maltese falcon, is one of those movies where if you had never seen Bogart, Peter Lorry, Sidney Green Street, or Elijah Cook, and you said, just show me one thing that explains. That would be that. And one of my favorite scenes is the very end when they find out that the Maltese Falcons Frighton, Peter Lurie says, you stupid fathead!

You blotted idiot! It's one of my favorite things. I think I kind of stole that from him in my Susie Green years. You did. You borrowed from Peter Laurie. Exactly. I remember one of my favorite scenes there is when they're all yelling at each other. Bogod Astor and Laurie and the cops are trying to figure out.

And Lori picks up his cane and starts sneaking out. And they go, where do you think you're going? And he goes, I'm not going anywhere. It's getting quite late. There are different darker gangster films, but that one I could just watch over and over and over again. Because it's got a really interesting plot. It's a golden, jewel-encrusted falcon. What a load of shit that was.

The Macuffin. Yeah, the Macuffin. Yeah, exactly. And musical is my favorite musical? I don't know. The bandwagon, probably. We talked to Julie Numar on the podcast. Well, that would be seven brides for seven brothers.

She was in the bandwagon, too. Is she in the bandwagon? She's a dancer. She's very large. She was statues. They had to put her in the back. Yeah. But the bandwagon.

Any Fred Astaire. Any Fred Astaire would be. I used to wake up. I used to set my alarm, because on Channel 9 they would have Fred and Ginger movies at 1 o'clock in the morning. Remember that?

And I would set my alarm to watch them because that to me was just pure joy and delight to watch that. And I remember the first time I saw Avin and Costello meet Frankenstein. Did nothing for me. Yeah. That's a boy thing.

No, that's three stooges. Avvon and Costello, three stooges. No, I would have rather watched Shirley Temple movies, which I did every Saturday morning. Yeah, no, you liked Abin and Costello. Oh, I love. Well, you used to do that whole bit about

Abbott and Costello. You ever think you should do? Yeah, it's hard to explain to people. Yes, well. It used to do Luke Costello and Citizen Kane. Can you do that? Yes.

I think we should end on that thing. So, do you have anything to plug? Yeah. What's coming up, Sue? Oh, I don't know. I got a lot of gigs. which I'm dreading every single one of them. You and me both. Isn't that funny? Oh, God.

But it's fine. It's good. Yeah, yeah. You make the people laugh and they pay you money, and I'm very thankful that they still laugh and they still pay me. In my old age. Almost 60. Gilbert and I are the same age, which we found out that day in Miami.

No. I have a lot of gigs. You go on my website. Okay. And I'm actually going to be doing two guest stores on SVU. Great. Tell us about it. I don't know.

I haven't seen the scripts. My wife's favorite show. I haven't seen the scripts yet, so I don't know what the character is. A Jew? Maybe. Maybe a Jew lawyer. Go figure. And then there's another thing that I can't talk about that might be happening.

Okay. But I'll come back. I'll come back and plug that. Please do. Okay. So this has been Gilbert Godfried's amazing colossal podcast, the first live one. Yes. Thank you all.

Thank you. With me and my co-host, Frank Santo Padre, and our guest and friend, Susie Esmond. Thank you. Thank you, guys, for coming. We appreciate it very much. Thank you all so.