Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Jay Thomas Encore

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

GGACP celebrates the birthday of the late comedian, radio personality and Emmy-winning actor Jay Thomas (b. July 12, 1948) with this ENCORE of a hilarious interview from way back in 2014. In this episode, Jay talks about playing doomed hockey star Eddie LeBec on “Cheers” and tabloid talker Jerry Gold on “Murphy Brown” and shares some brutally candid anecdotes about everything from stealing Bill Cosby’s jokes to getting kicked out of a “West Wing” audition to the world's worst cross-country flight. PLUS: Richard Dreyfuss! Cheech & Chong! Joe Piscopo runs afoul of the mob! Jay runs afoul of Rhea Perlman! Gilbert's opening act steals his material! And the Lone Ranger “rides” again!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino. Where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Jay Thomas is a show business jack of all trades.

He's appeared in movies like Mr. Holland's Opus and TV shows like Mork and Mindy and Cheers and Murphy Brown, for which he won three Emmys. He's also a popular and successful radio host and the star of the aptly named The Jay Thomas Show. So here to tell hilarious stories and to borrow a pair of my socks for some reason is Jay Thomas. Hi, Gilbert Gottfried with Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. Here with my sidekick, Frank Santopadre. And if you've never heard of Ray Thomas, that's... Ray Thomas. Right?

He's tired. Jay Thomas. Yeah, Ray... Oh, if you've never heard of Ray G... Well, you could call me Ray. You're rough. And you could call me G. Really?

But you don't have to call me Johnson. I will tell you, I'm now glad you were fired. Yes. Now, Jay, you've known me a while. Can you please just talk about how great I am?

Are you hard of hearing? Is that why you yell like this? Yes. God forbid. I have to put headphones on. Yes. And I hope these are noise canceling rather than.

All right. Well, I will tell you, it's lovely to be, you know, it's weird when you know someone as long as I know Gilbert. We were at the improv together years ago, and I realized I didn't want to be a part of the group of individuals called comedians. I really found all of them like,

what is wrong with them? They're all unhappy, and I come in there happy and telling jokes because I'm happy. They're all miserable, and Larry David, he'd throw a rope over the you know, the rafters in the back and want to hang himself.

It was crazy. You were actually fairly happy. You lived with your mother, I remember. Yes, yes. Is she dead now, your mother? Yes, yes. Is that why you live here? Yes, yeah. I moved in here. And Dara's taking care of you like your mother did.

Yeah. Pretty much. But it's a really lovely apartment in a beautiful neighborhood where four guys asked me to move in. Good evening. Yes. Now, who are the other comics you remember back then? I remember guys that kind of didn't make it. Barry Diamond. Remember him?

Oh, my God. Yes. Yeah. He had a great joke. He said he was playing basketball in a neighborhood so rough, he went up for a layup and a guy shot him in the knee. And I remember going, you know, God, you know.

Episcopal was there, who was a good guy, and then became a complete asshole. And I think admits it, you know. And then, you know, had these big muscles and said he never took any juice. And I said, Joe, I've been working out with weights my entire life.

And unless I took something, I wouldn't look like you. But he said, oh, no, I never took anything. So, Joe, Larry David, the Wayans brothers, I think, were... Oh, Keenan Ivory Wayans used to be. Yeah. One night I did a bit where I did the whole

movie, the TV show Zorro. There's a television show, Zorro. And I had a wooden horse and I had props and all this. And I ride the wooden horse around and I pretend I'm the big fat sergeant. And I ride out of the door. And the door closes and I'm locked out of the improv.

And by the time I got around to the front and came back on the stage, they'd put another comic on. They didn't wait for me to come back. It's true. I came and then I come riding down the middle and I go and there's, you know, somebody else who was a really good looking comic. He was in Boston and he had testicular cancer. Oh, yeah.

What's his name? That, I think, was Brant Von Hoffman. Yeah, Brant Von Hoffman. Yes. Yeah, I remember him. They were nice guys. Yeah, he was known for testicular cancer. Yeah, he went, and he gets testicular cancer,

and I think I mentioned it on the stage. And, you know, I was just developing this style of being an asshole I guess and there was a ball-headed guy in the front row so I just worked this ball-headed guy over and it turns out it's Brant's dad who didn't like the fact that he was a comedian or whatever and he'd come to the show, and I said, well, why don't you put your ball-headed fucking father in the front row? Who, by the way, his head looks like the testicle

that's left. Oh, yeah. They hated me. No wonder. So, that was that. And he became the president of HBO, who was the manager. Oh, yeah. Chris Albrecht. Chris Albrecht, sure.

So I know Chris. I see him every now and again. Restaurants, how you doing? And he's the head of HBO. Never calls me. You know, nothing ever happens. Likes me and all that. One day, I get a call from Chris Albrecht.

Like at my home, called the agency or whatever. He says, Jay, I'm doing a show at blah, blah, blah. Would you come and do it? I go, yeah. What is it? And he says, you know, women in film or something. He booked me to emcee a free afternoon luncheon. Oh, wow.

Women in film. And that was it. He booked me for a free. I guess he figured I'd be the only emcee available that day. Yeah, it was weird. That you'd be so thrilled. I did it. I'd be the only emcee available that day. Yeah, it was weird. You'd be so thrilled. I did it. I went and did it, you know, and there was whoever was there and women in film and, you know, I think my

line there was, I really loved Bonnie and Clyde and it was a chick flick with a happy ending. Not Bonnie and Clyde, Thelma and Louise. It was a chick flick with a happy ending and they groaned. Because in the end, the two women died in the car. I thought that was funny.

And I said I didn't go down on women during their period. I remember I said that. Seems like the right room for that. Yeah, it was all bad. I can't believe it. As my wife would say, well, of course he'll never use you. Ever. As long as you live with that kind of material. It's horrible.

Didn't Albrecht, wasn't he half of Albrecht and Zamuda? Comedy A to Z? He did try to do some comedy for a while, right? And then he was the manager, the bartender kind of a guy over there. Yeah. And then Bud would open sometimes.

When you were there, did you always want to follow a singer? Who were those sad singers at the improv? Well, I remember she mainly worked catch, but Pat Benatar was a singer at one time. Oh, wow. And Patti Smythe. Holy shit. Yeah. They were like the big singers.

Fuck. Can you say holy shit? Fuck shit. Okay. Holy shit. Yeah. They were like the big singers. Fuck. Can you say holy shit? Fuck. Shit. Okay. Cunt. Rick Newman was managing Pat Benatar. Oh, yes.

She was a singing waitress. That's right. At Catch. Wow. And there were a bunch of other singers who went absolutely nowhere. Yeah. And they would sing, you know, and the crowd is there and it'd be polite and you're going, oh, you know, they couldn't wait.

You know, they'd think anything was funny. And what I remember when the singers would get off stage or when they were ending and saying goodnight, the waitresses, for some reason, as a show of support, would start screaming, more, more. And I

thought the audience is looking around going, we don't want to hear any more of this. We didn't come to a comedy club to hear singers. The waitresses wanted to hear more singing? Yeah. They must have been lesbians. Yeah. We had to be lesbian singers, right?

Jay, you said you were a comic. When you started out in New Orleans, you were doing other people's material. Do I have that right? Yeah, I did. In high school, I started imitating Bill Cosby and Woody Allen and whoever. Because, you know, you get an album. They weren't on TV all the time. And I would do that.

And then I'd put my own stuff there in the middle. And I began to win talent shows and stuff. And then I got hurt playing football. And it was devastating for me because that's all I really wanted to do. And so a teacher said, look, we're having the talent show. And they were big deals. These big, you know, thousands of people would come over five nights to these talent shows. And so I emceed my high school talent show at Jesuit High School in New Orleans, and I won the talent show.

I wasn't entered, and I won it. And so then other schools called. And so then I was taking typing lessons at the YMCA, which was about six or eight blocks from the French quarter. And I would go into the French quarter and I would say, can I tell jokes? And it would either be strippers would be there or there was like a hootenanny kind of a place or whatever. And they would let me tell these, you know, my jokes. And I would sometimes stand in the, where the go-go dancers danced in like a cage. And guys would throw shit at me while I was telling.

It's like the Blues Brothers. Yeah. The chicken wire. And the cops would come. And, you know, I was, you know, 16. And I'd hide under the stage. And it was fun. And then I, you know, my parents would have been horrified.

So I'd drive, and I would touch the YMCA. I was Catholic. I don't want to lie. Touch the edge, and then go tell jokes. My dad would go crazy because I couldn't type. And I said, you know, my hand hurts. I can't do it. I go to his deathbed.

He said, you know, I never understood it. You can't type, but you're very funny. I go, well, I don't know how that happened. You rest easy now as you take off, you know. So, yeah. So, yeah, that's true. It was nobody knew. Or if they did know, they thought I did a good impersonation.

Didn't you do the Woody Allen bit about stealing second base and feeling guilty? Yeah, feeling guilty and going back. Stealing second base at this paranoid camp he went to. Then Bill Cosby, I did all the football stuff. Pro, this is a kid. Kid, this is a pro. What's the matter with you,

boy? Well, I can't get no girls. Yeah, and you ugly, too. Oh, Jesus Christ, they would go crazy. This is your beginning in show business. Yeah, it was fun. And, you know, I did theater and stuff. And then I boxed. I wrestled.

I played football. I ran track. And then went on to college and kind of did the same thing and told jokes and started writing my own material and became a DJ, a sports announcer first. In Charlotte? No, actually in Panama City, Florida. I was a high school football announcer at the junior college and did stuff there and then moved to

Pensacola and then to Knoxville and then to Nashville and then to Charlotte, North Carolina and then from there, Jacksonville, Florida and then I moved to Charlotte again and back to New York. I was a big deal in the South.

I did basketball, football, told jokes, morning guy and all that stuff. I mean, Howard Stern once said that they used to listen to me at 99X before they were in Long Island. I remember 99X. I made fun of everybody. Steve Allen came in. It was a big deal for me when he came in. And he wasn't funny at all. He's one of those guys that, and I have comics come on my show now,

and it drives me nuts. They don't know how to do it. You know how to do radio. You're not afraid that you're going to ruin your show that night or whatever the hell it is, right? There are a lot of these comics who are afraid, I guess if they do their material in conversation, that they can't use it again. And, you know, the joke is, well, no one's listening to this show. But I've thrown a

football and told the same joke on Letterman for almost 20 years. And there are still people that come up to me and or send me the video as if I've never seen it before. Right. And it's been, you know, 10 million hits or whatever. So you can say the same crap over and over. I mean, you do the same material forever and ever. There are also those comedians that come on the radio that unless

the interviewer has it prepared, like and goes like, so I heard you were trapped in an elevator with a gorilla. It's worse than that. I will lead them to everything I think they should be working on. So I would go to some young comic, you know, I would go,

what about that war in Iraq? I must have some jokes about that. You know, hey, how about that traffic out there? And I say to my producer, I go, you know, just tell me what to ask them. And I ask, you know, whatever it is. You know, got boyfriend troubles or whatever, you know. But a lot of young comics come on and they just, you know, they don't. All the, let's say over 45 years old, you know, they're all beat up and drunk and everything else.

They don't give a shit. They come on, they'll say anything, you know. I mean, have you ever heard anyone yell out one of your bits when you started doing it? Oh, yes. Oh, you have? Yeah, yeah. Does that bother you? Yeah, it's annoying.

I've had opening. Do the Japanese guy for us. They do that one? I've had opening acts doing one of my bits. That's impossible. Yeah. I've heard. I've been sitting in the dressing room hearing the opening act.

Oh, that's my bit. My God. What are you doing a case like that? Nothing. Remind them. Yeah. Hey, do you remember the story of Joe Piscopo getting beaten up? Yeah.

By a mobster. Yeah. Yeah, he was making fun of, and he was beaten in the coat room, and he was put in the hospital for three days. Joe and I were really close friends. He had married a woman from Fort Walton Beach, Florida. I was a DJ in Jacksonville, and he was going to a college, kind of a broadcast college there,

and he and his roommate would do bits on my nighttime radio show and so years later like five or six years later I end up in New York and I'm here as a DJ and I'm here to do my thing right and I go to the improv and there's Joe Piscopo telling jokes and we'd never met face to face I don't I don't think and I went up to him and I said it's me you know jay thomas and i and he goes what are you doing i said i want to be a stand-up and he got me in there on on sunday nights i guess we started on sunday nights yeah so joe got me to the improv yeah that's how we started yeah i i remember joe during that period of muscle man period. It was weird. He used to grease his muscles.

Yes, it was odd. It was a weird thing. Why was he beaten up? He made a... I said catch. Oh, was it catch? I thought it was improv. Catch is where...

Because he was joking about some guy in the audience and saying something. Oh, yeah. All the mob jokes. Like you were doing, pushing your nose to the side. Yeah, all that stuff. You were explaining that to the listener. Well, it's not being filmed.

Why don't you Skype this? Yes. But he's doing all the mob jokes and what are you, a hitman for the mob? Turns out he was. Yes. And then he comes out. Joe is just there at the bar. His name was Nick Slasher Abagado.

No, even better. Wow. And then he's out at the bar. And out of nowhere, this guy punches Piscopo right in the face. Just cold cocks him. Yeah, yeah. Rick Newman's great advice is, Joe, run! And he makes acks. Yeah. Yeah. Rick Newman's great advice is Joe run. And he makes a run for it.

And then Rick Newman visits Joe Piscopo at the hospital and he's shaking his head back and forth. And he goes, I can't believe he did that. I can't believe Johnny Rip would do a thing like that. Well, you know what else? No cops were called. No lawsuits. Nobody saw it. Nobody said anything. You know, nowadays, you know, first of all,

you tweet it. Oh, yes. First thing you do. I was beaten tonight. You know, by an Italian. Then Joe would get in trouble for saying he was a mobster. And by the way, he wore black shoes. That's racist. He had black shoes on.

And I ran like a Negro. That's racist. Yes. And I wanted to go home and get an arrow, put it through his heart, like an Indian, like a redskin. It would have been all. And I wanted to kill his family like a Puerto Rican. It would have been racist. And I turned yellow like a

Chinaman. Yes, I was as yellow as the guy that delivers my food. Oh yeah, he'd be ruined. He'd be ruined. It's way over 146 characters. They were asking me, we'd like you to comment on the firing

of Anthony from Opium. I said, here's my comment. I would work as a tweet. We'd like you to comment on the firing of Anthony from Opium. I said, here's my comment. I don't give a shit. I just hope they free up his salary and give me a raise. I don't care. What do you think of the Redskins controversy being a football guy? I think he has to change the name, and I think he must be trying to save on, I don't know what, what, stationary?

I don't know what he's doing. He's got to change it. How about his copyright protection? The Radskins. How about that? Come on, Radskins. Let's go. There's really no fearsome name you can think of.

That's the problem. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio.

Exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Now, you, much like, what was the guy on Married with Children, originally from Happy Days, who killed every show? Oh, I know who you're talking about.

Ted something. Ted McGinley. Ted McGinley. Yeah, I have that in me. So you were like the Ted McGinley for a while. What shows have you killed? Well, there was a line of them back, but, you know, I was added to the cast of Hung. Next day, canceled.

I did Dennis Miller's TV show, canceled. But literally the next day. Yes. I just did The View. Sherri Shepherd interviews me. God told her it was over. Did you read that statement? God made the earth in seven.

That's a completion. She's been here seven years, so it's over for her. You know? That's it. I've watched shows that were canceled. This is sat and wide, and it canceled the next thing. I just saw that show for the first time last night. You've got a lot of power.

One show you were put on, right at that desperation stage. There are always these series. I have done that, the desperation. The shark jumping. You know more than me. This was a show that was series. I have done that, The Desperation. The shark jumping? Okay, this one, this was a show that was a big

hit at one time, and then they went in for every gimmick and stunt and extra character they could throw in to try to salvage it. What show? Mork and Mindy. Well, now wait a second. Well, he was there for three seasons. Now wait a second. Mork and Mindy was the number one show because of Robin.

And I remember watching it, and I was not – I'd done some off-Broadway stuff and was fooling around with you guys. And so I'm watching Mork and Mindy and thinking, wow, this is crazy. And I get called for an audition, and I was in that group where Jay Leno's face scares children. Have you heard that? Oh yes. That was Mork and Mindy. They looked at his face. They looked in and that these were the days when they flew you out to Hollywood for a screen test. And this is what I remember. I go and hundreds of guys are trying to get this part of the deli owner. And, um, I win the audition here and they fly me out first class. I'd never been in a first class seat.

And I'm working at the radio station at 99X at the time. And I'm in the first class, and I can't believe there's going to be Chateaubriand and champagne. I mean, it was when it was a big deal. And all of a sudden, they bring in and they lay down two seats next to me, two giant first-class seats right next to me, and the one behind me. So it's me, and now these seats have been leveled. And they bring on a stretcher. And in the stretcher is an old, dying woman that they're transporting from New York to Los Angeles.

And they put her in the seats next to me. And when I say dying, dying. And so her daughter can't afford the first class seat, so she's in the back. daughter can't afford the first class seat. So she's in the back and the daughter comes forward to roll her mother so that she doesn't get any more bed sores. And it's a six hour flight. And here comes,

here comes the Chateaubriand, you know, the, the, the cocktails, the whatever. And every now and again, this almost dead lady fart would come, wafting through. And then the daughter would come, and she would ask me for help,

and we would move this blanket. And the old lady would go, oh, oh. Six hours across the country. Yeah. Imagine, you can't write it, make it up, nothing. Yeah, it ruined my whole trip. But you get there. I got there.

I get there, and the audition is like on Monday, and they put me in the Holiday Inn there in Hollywood, and Alien was showing. And it was pilot season, so all the comics were out there. And Larry David was there and I think Rob, who was the... Oh God, I know him so well too and I'm forgetting. Robert... He played the agent on HBO.

Oh, Robert... Yeah. We're all forgetting. Oh, from Odenkirk. No, no, no. Oh, Robert Wool. Yeah, where Robert Wool's at. And they're all starving, and they're all comics, and they're there for pilot season. So aliens play, and, you know, this movie.

So I'm doing anything to relax myself. I go over, and I see these comics that I know. And I get in line, and I see them all. I'm saying hi, and I'm so happy to see them and everything. There's like eight or nine of them. And I go, what do you got? You know, we're all here for pilot season, and we're delivering this thing.

And I said, oh, well, I'm here at the Holiday Inn. Paramount flew me in, and I'm screen testing tomorrow for more command. I went and got popcorn. When I turned around. They had dispersed. They were not sitting with me. They were not around me. That was that. So now I go into this unknown movie and I'm just there and I can't stand horror movies. I'm scared to death of things. I sit down in the middle next to this and there was a black guy next to me.

I'm sitting down there. When that monster came through John Hurt's chest, I grab on to this black guy next to me and I I mean, I'm like

in his language, get the fuck off me, man! Yeah, and so I watch Alien. That ruins me. I go back to the room. I wake up and I read with a series of girls that were going to play my sister. And so I pick out the cutest one and immediately want to fuck her that night. And I thought, we'll be on TV a long time. Why not fuck while we're doing it?

Seems reasonable. They hired the least fuckable woman of the group. And she played my sister because she played cards with Gary Marshall or whatever reason they chose. And then I go do Mork and Mindy. And for some reason,

Robin had no interest in me being there. None. He wasn't exactly mean, but he wasn't welcoming, and I know he was all coked up and all that kind of stuff. But instead of me, the character, taking him places and showing Mork the world

or whatever, did you do a Mork and Mindy? No. Oh, they would bring in they brought in Paul Rubens came in. He was a comic. end either? No. Oh, they would bring in they brought in you know, Paul Rubens came in. He was a comic. They would bring in all these comics and they would have the scenes with Robin. And I would have two or three lines or whatever.

And if I had a show, I thought I did well. So, you know, Robin just wasn't saying, gee, let me be with Jay, right? And so now this first season ends and I'm making like $10,000 a week. And the agent that I'd gotten didn't believe or something that I got these big auditions. And I was already in radio.

I had a lawyer and everything else. So I called the guy up and said, look, I've got a huge audition, and you're not really treating this properly. So I'm not going to use you as an agent. And he says, well, I'm going to sue you. I go, well, okay, but, you know, I don't know. So I call this lawyer friend of mine and I go, you know, this agent guy, he says, well, I know the vice president of Paramount. And my lawyer calls up and he goes, yeah, we got you the deal and the whole thing. And so now that the agent sues, sues, right. And, um, for five, you know, for 10% or whatever it was. And I hadn't signed

a contract with him and in LA, they make you sign, but in New York, everybody was running around with us. And had I, um, uh, won the lawsuit, I would have changed. All these actors could have just stopped working with their agents who they never signed with. So now the union gets involved. Everyone gets involved. And I think I paid the guy 5% for a year. So now, I didn't have an agent. I had no one to send the check to. I would stand in

line with all of the truck drivers and everyone getting their checks on a Friday night at a window at Paramount. And they were getting $800 or $1,000. And this $10,000 check would be handed to me through the window. And I would get this $10,000 check. And I'd made, you know, 60, 70 grand.

I made money as a radio. Now I'm making, you know. So I would sign a piece of paper, and I would go to the bank and put my $10,000. I didn't even need two shows. The $10,000 would last me forever. Sure. $10,000 a week.

Yeah. The lawyer guy calls me. I still don't have an agent. I have no agent. I don't even know how to get an agent. I'm on national TV. No agent. He calls up.

He goes, oh, and this is what they used to do in Hollywood. They would lower your salary and cut your shows, and of course, you quit. You quit. So the lawyer calls up. He goes, look, you know, they're not as happy with you, blah, blah, blah. They're not going to give you a full season. I go, oh, okay. I'm on the phone in my apartment in New York.

He goes, yeah, instead of doing, you know, 13 or 26 or whatever, they're going to give you eight out of 13 shows. And they're going to cut your salary to $9,000 a week. And I go, okay. And the guy goes, did you hear what I said? I said, yeah. Eight times nine is 72. Something like that. And he could still get along.

It was fine. He didn't need a telethon. And the guy kept saying, now, do you want someone to negotiate? No, I think this is going fine. I think this negotiation is really going well. And I said, you know, where do I go to get the papers? When I show back up at the set, everyone's like, what? What did he do?

We cut his salary. We cut the show. He's okay. I said, all right. You wouldn't take a hint. So I did the next season and then in the third year, they fired me and about four other people and they hired Jonathan Winters.

Yeah, that's what they did. I did 30 shows or something and it was in the whole time I did 14 minutes or whatever. It was weird. I wasn't any good either, but they also didn't really have me ever doing it.

It was one of your first acting parts, really, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'd done theater and stuff, but I didn't really do enough work to get better, to become a TV actor. Then I came back to New York, went back into radio, and did four or five years of solid theater, and did some more stand-up, not a lot, and really learned how to act.

And then when I went back to L.A. again, I was replaced by Howard Stern. You know, he learned so much from me that he beat the piss out of me. Well, that would go on to happen many times. Yes, it did. Many markets. Over and over again.

And so I go out there, and I auditioned for Cheers, and I got on Cheers. Yeah, that's how that happened. Now, he was a story I was talking with Frank about. I don't know where he's going, Jake. What is it? Now, you then, you're on Cheers, like a number one show on the air. Yeah.

Second number one show I'm ruining. Yes, yes. Number one. I played a really nice guy, though. I played a really sweet. Eddie Lebec. Really sweet player. And then you went back to your radio show.

Number one radio show. Yes. And had some, we're talking about. Rhea Perlman. Rhea Perlman. I would make fun of the character Carla. I mean, everybody did. They were Carla.

And I was being listened to all over L.A., right? And I go to work, and I started noticing she didn't speak to me. You know? And guys would call up, and they'd go, Hey, you want that collar on her? They got to pay you extra. I go, Yeah, I want that collar on her? They got to pay you extra. I go, yeah, I get battle pay to kiss her. And we rub our stubble together.

So one day I'm home. Phone rings. And it's Jimmy Burrows, the biggest director. And I'm in my living room. And he says, are you sitting down? I'm thinking, I know they're going to add either Bebe Neuwirth or me as a main character because I was recurring

but I recurred a lot. Oh, cover a TV guide. One hour specials. We did it all. We had children together. We had everything. And he goes, well, and he goes, now this isn't because of Rhea. That's what he opens with. Right, so you know it.

And I go, you mean I'm not coming? No, you're not coming back. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's kind of quiet for a minute. And I go, well, okay. I think he reiterates, you know, this isn't for Rhea. And I go, okay. And so I think he reiterates, you know, this isn't for real. It doesn't real.

And I go, okay. And so then it's quiet, and he goes, do you want to know how we're going to get rid of you? And I go, okay. And he goes, well, we find out you're a bigamist, and you're such an old beat-up hockey player that you're run over and killed by a Zamboni machine, which goes like half a mile an hour and cleans the ice. And he starts dying laughing on the phone. And you were traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins, which we know, but it's the Ice Capades Penguins, and we're going to bury you in your penguin suit. And this is how much of an actor I am.

You want me in the coffin? You know, I would have gone back for another nine grand. I'd have gone back and died and been dead. Like Sherry frigging Shepard, you know. Hung around. Oh, they can me. Oh, you fired me? Well, give me some makeup. I'll be back out in a minute. Your old buddy, Ken Levine, did a funny blog about the death of Eddie LeBanc recently. Then he went on to be a big baseball... A baseball guy for the Padres.

Yeah. So you killed one show. You were killed on another show. I've been killed. Yeah, it's all happened. It's all happened. But you won an Emmy. Two. Two Emmys. Nominated three times. Okay, one was Murphy Brown.

Two, all three, all of them. Oh, all were Murphy Brown. So now I lose my job at Cheers. Back to the radio. And I was doing other episodics. I was on the radio. And I would make fun of it on the air. I was playing dance music.

I mean, every Mexican in L.A. listened to me, and my car was parked immediately when I pulled up. I couldn't get into the club, but my car was waiting for me when I came out. So, no, la catabandia. La donda abonigas. Now apologize to Mexicans. I am Mexican.

My mother's black. I'm not apologizing. How can you make fun of a black woman? My mother's black. And she has those big immigrant nipples. They look like that hard sausage that you buy in the Italian deli. The ones you cut,

they have like dots all over them. God damn, Gilbert. You made me choke on my own shit here. So, they send you a script. This happened with West Wing too. And you know, I was kind of known and no one knew what happened

to Cheers. It wasn't like Twitter or whatever. So I go in and they'd been on the air for a few years at Murphy Brown, like two or three years or whatever. And they were looking for a few years at Murphy Brown, like two or three years or whatever. And they were looking for a guy to be in the office or something like that who was kind of an

overbearing asshole. So I come in and all the people there and the director I knew from New York was there. And a guy that, Barnett Kelman was his name. And Diane English is there and they're all there. And so I come in, and I begin firing like an asshole, completely. I looked at Barnett, and I go, I thought you were dead. You know, I did all that shit, you know. And, you know, I animated he had AIDS or something. He was very skinny, you know, whatever. And I get back to the car, get the phone,

and my agent goes, well, what did you do over there? What happened over there? I go, what do you mean? He goes, well, they don't, they don't, you're not being called back. And they don't want you, like, to come back over there. I go, well, no, I was, I was playing the carrot. You know how they go, well, he came in, he was ball-headed. He brought a knife with him.

We hired him as the killer. You were doing a little method. Dead. Completely, you know, get out of here. So other stuff happened. I do other work and everything else. And a few years passes. And they have another character named Jerry Gold that no one saw,

but it was the nemesis of Murphy Brown, the left-wing news announcer. And Jerry Gold was, you know, like Bill O'Reilly or somebody, right? Morton Downey Jr. was the guy back then. So they go, we've got to get somebody in here, and they go, hey, remember that asshole, Jay Thomas? Yeah, let's get him back, I swear to God. So they call my agent, and he says,

they must have forgotten that they read you three or four years ago, but go in anyway. I go in. I am nervous. I'm completely nervous. So they give me the script, and I read, and it's dead silence. And they go, what's that? What is that?

I go, they go, act like you did before. I go i go what do you mean when you said he was going to die of aids and all this kind of all this kind of shit and so i just acted like that in the game of the job they wanted you to go off script they wanted me to act like an asshole i see so that's what happened and now I did that. I got called for the West Wing. I choked on a guy. I should, why am I eating during an interview? Rob Lowe was sitting in the lobby, sweating bullets,

and because of that video or whatever, he hadn't worked in a long time. And he had been called back four or five times. I'm so well known, I was just called back for the final auditions for West Wing to play some guy in the White House. And my agent's going, you know, it looks like you and two other guys. No sweat. So Rob is out there sweating. I say, hey man, what's going on? He goes, hey.

I'm back five times. I don't know what's going to happen. I go, shit, you know, they ought to hire you. I go into this room full of people. John Wells is there, you know. Sorkin probably had done like a half a gram of coke and he's sitting up in the audience up there, West Wing. And I go, before I audition, I'd like to say,

I think you should hire Rob Lowe. And this room full of people goes, why? I go, because he has a huge cock. You'd seen the tape. And if you see the video, you see the girl right here, a big squiggly line, and Rob is right here.

And they threw me out of the audition. I get back to a phone and my agent goes, what did you do in there? I drove back to Santa Barbara and we moved. We moved away. We moved to the East Coast. I'm not joking. Wow.

Yeah, it was bad. It was bad. Even today, the casting director will hug me and say, that's the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. It ruined you, but it was the greatest but how did you manage to get the part i didn't from this i didn't get the part yeah that was that famous rob low with the two girls yeah and they told they didn't even want me on the lot it was like weird because that's all that was their problem they couldn't decide whether they should hire this nice-looking guy to play the part

or if this video thing would play into it. But no one would say it. So I said it. Did Rob ever contact you and say? We know each other. I did a little movie for him. I never told him I did this, but maybe he's heard it. I don't know.

It's not a story I tell on talk shows. You just did. Well, on this one, I would. Who's going to hear it? No one. No one at all. Who's going to fucking hear this? Now, you've worked a lot with...

I could choke and die here. And you know what? It would be like in the old days when they go like this. President Adams, what? The war is over. They signed the treaty a month ago. Oh, wonderful. That's how long it takes, you know,

for information. The treaty was signed. France surrendered. Win. Two years ago. Oh, thank God. Bring our troops home. They're still fighting,

and the ships are going over. Now, you've worked with, and are friends with, uh, Richard Dreyfuss. Yeah, I did a Mr. Holland's opus and then he would hire me, uh, to do, to do stuff. And, and he was doing a drama at PBS and he got hurt. And, um, he, uh, they go, well, Richard, what are we going to do? And another scene, we can get another actor. And he goes, yeah, I think you ought to bring Jay Thomas in. And all of these dramatists at PBS, they go, Jay Thomas?

And he goes, yeah, that's who I want to replace me. And they called me up, and I had 103 fever. And the director calls me up and goes, hey, what do you know? I go, oh, man, I'm really sick. I'm in bed. He goes, yeah, I'm doing this thing with Richard there in New York, and it's too bad.

They'd like you to come. And I go, you mean to be on the show? He goes, how much? I go, $10,000. I said, that's my number. I got up, got in an airplane, burning in fever, and flew out. And then he did a play and stuff, and then he did a show called The Education of Max Bickford with Marsha Gay Harden.

And if you go on my jthomas.com, it's Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Gay Harden, and if you go on my jthomas.com, it's Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Gay Harden and me, you know, the two Academy Award winners. Yeah, I mean, he was great to me. Really wonderful. That was a great show. It was good, and you know... They didn't promote it.

They shouldn't have canceled it. It was good, but that's what they did. It's funny, because Dreyfuss has that image of being like the actor. Yeah, and he's a great guy. And he loved working with me on Mr. Holland's opus. And there was a play reading, and I had owned a screenplay for a while. And he came and did the reading for me and all. He was wonderful.

You know, I mean, it was great. And then the PBS thing was a big deal for me. So like not at all full of himself. No. Just a great guy. He once flipped a car on Sunset and when they got there, the Coke was falling out of his pocket. Like, you know, and I think after

that he got straight. He straightened out. There's a lesser known film that I love him in. Once Around. Yeah, Once Around is wonderful. One of my favorite films. Lasse Hallström film. And also The Big Fix, which you can't find, which is a film noir, a modern-day film noir, where he plays a private eye.

I might have seen that, but I think Once Around is one of the... He's great in it. Yeah. Holly Hunter. He said to me, Once Around hurt my career because he plays such an obnoxious guy that he said people thought I was like that. And I said, maybe that's my problem. You know, because I really

am obnoxious. You know, what's funny, I think people think I'm going to act weird on a set, which I've never done. I've never, you know, I do my work and I'm doing a play now, which my son wrote the music for, called Somewhere With You, on 40 Seconds. You just go to Somewhere With You.

And I do Ray Donovan also on Showtime. Now, is there any chance, or is that strictly for Letterman, of the Lone Ranger story? No, I don't. I'll tell you the after story. Okay. Everybody knows it, and you can go online and see the original. It's a treat.

For people that don't know it, Jay does it every year on the Letterman Show. They know. Somebody knows it. But the Lone Ranger, I opened car dealerships. I was a disc jockey, and you can see the whole thing. And so after it's over, there was a car wreck, and the Lone Ranger helps me and my stoned friend

out of this situation. So we get back in the car, and we're driving the Lone Ranger back to this hotel, motel, in Charlotte, North Carolina. And so we're so thankful he helped us out of this wreck situation. And we get him back to the Red Roof Inn or whatever. And is there anything we can do for you, Mr. Moore? And he goes, as a matter of fact, could there be any perhaps entertainment or – As a matter of fact, could there be any perhaps entertainment or or or or?

And we go, we realize he wants a chick and he's wearing a mask and the hat. He's wearing a mask and the full Lone Ranger. Get up. I just recently his his daughter contacted me. Tell me how I kept her father's memory alive. I said, well, I'm going to tell you a story that's going to ruin your father's memory for you. And I told her this story. I said, so Mike and I knew this girl. Her name was Melanie, and her last name is a color.

You can pick whatever color you want. It's a color. And she liked to screw celebrities that came to town. And we would call her up and we would go, Melanie, you know, Cheech and Chong are in town. She'd go, fuck Cheech and Chong. You know, Melanie, Tony Orlando is in town suck Tony Orlando

you know tie a yellow ribbon around my dick you know and you knew Melanie was there so we call Melanie up and the Lone Ranger the show had been off the air for quite a while

and she was much younger than we were and so I go Melanie we're in front of the Red Roof Inn right now. And the Lone Ranger is in town. And it's dead silent. And she goes, really? I go, yes. And we've told him all about you. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. So I said, look, we're going to come get you. And she was a lovely girl. Her father was like a big realtor or whatever. And she would bring girls to me who had never had an orgasm, and I would make sure they still never had one, but would work with them, would work with them. And so you know what works?

You get Tupperwareware and you know when you click it you put their clit in there and you click it and it works somebody got a pen yeah write it down so uh i i uh so we we go get melanie we bring her back to the red roof in and i say look we're gonna go out to the radio station and i'm gonna get the william tell overture i'm gonna bring it back to my apartment and after you're done we're going to go out to the radio station, and I'm going to get the William Tell Overture. I'm going to bring it back to my apartment, and after you're done, we're going to come get you. You will not speak, and you will come into the apartment, and we're going to play...

And you will tell us everything that happened when you entered that room. We wait, you know, about an hour, hour and a half. Get back to my apartment. I make sure, you know, there's turntables and all that. My friend and I, we take showers. We get ready. The phone rings.

We go get her. Don't speak. Don't speak. We get her back. Put it up. Put it up. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And she goes, I went to the door, and he opened it up,

and he had on a blue robe that looked just like the Lone Ranger outfit, and he wore these glasses that looked just like the mask. I said, what? He dressed just like the Lone Ranger except in casual wear. So she comes into the room, and he has food and everything, and she said, he had equipment. I said, equipment? He had, and you know, we didn't know from vibrating.

We didn't, you know, we used our penises. We didn't, you know, you want to vibrate, we shake our dick a little bit, you know what I mean? You know, put a fucking, you know, electric toothbrush up your ass. That was about the amount of whatever. where we shake our dick a little bit. You know what I mean? You know, put a fucking, you know, electric toothbrush up your ass. That was about the amount of whatever. So she goes, he was wonderful.

And when he takes his robe off, finally, he has pajamas that are the same color as the Lone Ranger, you know, outfit. And he made love to her, and he vibrated her, and did all of these things, and meanwhile in the background, ba-da-dump, ba-da-dump, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, a high-ho, silver! Yeah, that's a true story.

Fascinating. How old is Clayton Moore at this point, when this is happening? He's probably... The show was on in the 50s. Yeah, I guess he was in his late 60s or whatever, which then was old, now, of course, 60s, the new not dead yet. Wow.

To get you to laugh like this, I can't tell you what a thrill it is to get you to laugh. Wow. What an honor to hear the after story. Yeah, the after story. Yeah. We will return to

Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. No commercials, right? Gilbert and I were talking. Who would the fuck sponsor this? We got one. A rug company. Hi, Melvin's Rugs. I'm Melvin.

We got one offer. You want to ask Jay about Darvaconger? Oh, my God, yes. How'd it matter? Well, there's a new show on called Married at First Sight. Right, that's right. We just talked about it on The View, actually. Yeah, exactly.

And it's really, and, you know, before it's over, they're running out of ideas. Let's watch Retards Fuck. It's coming. It's coming, and you know, before it's over, they're running out of ideas. Let's watch Retards Fuck. It's coming. It's coming. Anytime now. But so they hire me. They call up, and Buckwall's my agent, and they go, Billy Crystal's turned him down, and this person's turned him down, and they're trying to get someone to host this show where

a multimillionaire guy is married to someone he's never met. I go, oh my God, I don't want to do that. I'm working in New York. I'm doing great, and I don't want to do that. So a week passes. They can't find anyone to do it, and the number goes up to like 100 grand for like two or three days. And I go, Jesus, and my agent says, let's take the money.

No one will ever see this thing. So I go to Vegas. I bring my whole family. We rehearse, and there agent says, let's take the money. No one will ever see this thing. So I go to Vegas. I bring my whole family. We rehearse, and there's all these women, and they're vying for this so-called multimillionaire. The guy owes $2 million. Rick Rockwell. Yeah, he doesn't.

And he's friends with Heidi Fleiss's brother, who's the producer. Can you get any sleazier than that? So they do this show, and it's happening, and it's live. And this judge, after watching it for like two or three hours, who's going to perform the wedding, says, I want to leave. I don't want to do that. I go, you can't leave. You cannot leave.

So now all they're going to get down to eight or ten girls, and Darva Conger was just a bitch, right, being a bitch. No one has seen the multimillionaire, and he's hidden behind in a bubble, like in a shroud. So at one of the breaks, I run behind the shroud, and I go, whatever you do, don't marry the blonde. And he looks up. He's shocked.

There's security around him. He goes, oh, that's the one I liked. I go, don't, don't. And I go back and the producers get mad at me and he goes, why not? I go, she is a bitch. So I go back. Well, he chooses Darva Khan.

And he tongue kisses her and she is in shock. Now she was there playing the game with everybody and he says to her you know jay told me you were a bitch and not to marry oh oh you know don't help me don't help me any so they get married she cries all the way to to hawaii he brings a buddy of his and another woman they're all drinking and acting crazy and darva conger is sorry and she is married to this guy and they're all drinking and acting crazy, and Darva Conger is sorry, and she is married to this guy. And they go to Hawaii, and it blew up in their faces. And then they said that he had, you know,

threatened a girlfriend or something. Who knows if it was even true. And the president of Fox said, we will never, ever do a show like this again. Well, he's no longer with us. And they canceled the show and then, you know, it had a life afterward, right? And I went on every show there was to go on and Darva Conger and I would appear as a person she hated. And she started saying, well, I

wasn't, didn't want to really do it. And I would go, why are you lying? You did want to do it. So what? I live in Santa Barbara. She ends up as a nurse, an emergency room nurse in Santa Barbara. Had I ever been really injured and bleeding? Can you imagine? They're taking me into the fucking thing. And there's Darva Conger, you know, turning the oxygen off or whatever. And, you know, I think she is still a nurse someplace. I think her sister is like a big realtor in Santa Barbara.

But that was really the first reality show. That really was. And I remember. And that was canceled. So there you go. That was canceled. She kept saying she wanted her old life back. And then she posed for a play.

Oh, yes. Of course. Yeah, it was weird. And there was such really, there was a girl from Washington who was a little bit Oh, yes. Of course. Yeah, it was weird. And there was such, really, there was a girl from Washington who was a little bit overweight with braces. And I said to him, I said, marry her.

She will be so happy. You know, a girl with braces with a couple of pounds on her. You know, she'll be faithful. You know? That show would have run forever. Now, a buddy of mine comes over at like 7.30, quarter to eight. We're going to dinner.

It's the night the show's going to run. We taped it like a week before. I really am not going to watch it, right? But some friends of mine had gone and they stayed for the four-hour taping. And I said, okay, you know, I couldn't believe it. So they edited it and all that. And my friend says, which show is it? I said, it's this crazy show where a multimillionaire just marries this woman. And he goes, well, let's watch it. So we like smoke a joint, you know, and we get some cocktails. And I turn on the TV. And after about 45 minutes, we cannot leave the apartment.

It's that riveting. He's turning and going, oh my. Meanwhile, the show opens up with 3 million people. Second half hour, 6 million. Third or fourth half hour. It ends with over 20 million viewers. People are calling, you've got to watch this show. And I go, oh my God, this is it.

I did it. And within my God, this is it. This, I did it. You know, and they, within three days, it was canceled. You know, O'Reilly wanted me on because this was the end of civilization as we know it. Another end of civilization. Yes, another end, you know, by him. But, yeah, that went nowhere. But it was fun. It was fun.

And, man, I got paid $100,000 for like two days. I mean, that was like being in some big stand-up. No one would do the show. No one. No one. It was fun. It was fun. And, man, I got paid $100,000 for like two days. I mean, that was like being in some big stand-up. No one would do the show. No one. No one. It was wild. I had a tuxedo. The New York Times had me on the front page emceeing it,

and they reviewed it and said it was all awful. And they said, but Jay Thomas somehow watched it with us, almost away from it, in bemused horror. Now, I've been acting a long time, and I don't even know how to play bemused horror. I don't even know. It was a compliment. It was.

And so that really kind of put me kind of in a, you know, yeah, I was bemused. I was horribly bemused by it all. Yeah, I would have done it forever, for years, you know, and been very rich. It's still infamous. It is. And you worked with Woody Allen. Yeah, Woody wrote a play called Writer's Block.

It was kind of like the one, Purple Rose of Cairo, where there's characters, and they're really characters in a play, and then real people come in. And so the agent calls. She says, look, you know, she calls. She said, look, don't fool around with him. Don't do anything. Don't make jokes, you know. And his casting director forever is a Jane something or other.

She's been with him forever. Is it Julia Taylor? Somebody or other. I forget. So I go in the room, and they give you two pages. And so, you know, I don't really know much about it. So Woody is there, and he's got his head down, and his hands are over his face, and he's got that hat on, and Chevy Chase is waiting in the lobby.

Chevy's there. And every comic, every actor, everybody's reading for this part. And Chevy is shaking. He's so nervous. It's really weird. I mean, I read for a lot of stuff, so I go in and I begin to read and apparently it's the wrong script.

It's an old version or whatever. So I hear Woody say, it's really a wrong script. And I go, you can talk up, I can hear you. So he looks up and keeps his hands like over his head. And so the woman says, Jay, they've given you an old script, and we really want to give you something else to read.

Would you like to leave the room and look at it and come back? I go, that's the oldest trick in the book. I'm not leaving the room, okay? And they're going, oh, this guy's fucking around. And I go, look at me when I talk to him. And I get the thing and I read. And I leave. And Chevy goes in after me.

And I'm not two blocks away, and they gave me the part. I mean, I couldn't believe it. So I start doing the play, and it's me and B.B. Newarth. Paul Reiser was in it and a cast of other actors. Sadly, names I don't remember. And so Woody's the director, and everybody's all excited about it. And then the actors turned on him after about two weeks. It's really weird.

Theater actors are strange. Interesting. They really kind of turned on him. It was an okay play. Everybody came to it. Grant Shoud was in it. He had quit Murphy Brown to do free plays in Ireland or something. He would have diuretic shit and vomit

before every performance. And we're in a little room, and the bathroom is like right there, like in a comedy club. And we're all getting our makeup, and we're here. Before the show. And he would eat sushi.

He would eat sushi. So Woody would come in, you know. The director of a play is sushi so woody woody would come in you know the director of a play is there all the time woody would come in there's nobody to buffer him he's there right he'd never directed a play in a movie he can buffer himself with the ad or whatever and he would come in and he would go uh you know i want to give you know your notes and all that and and so grant would hand him and say would you like some sushi? And Woody would take a clipboard, put it over his mouth and go, he would say, Woody, do you want some? He'd go, want some? I'm sorry, I'm in the same room with it.

He would say shit like that. And I would fucking die laughing. Woody Allen. And then Soon-Yi with the two kids. They were both, you know, Chinese adoptees. So I've got the scandal right in front of me, right? And I am just in my glory. And I've always said this.

People go, oh, you know, he married his stepdaughter. I just watched their relationship for a while. Whatever hell there is, she's it on earth. And, you know, she runs the whole thing. I mean, she is not like some shrinking violet that was, I don't know what, seduced by, you know, Woody Allen. But we had a great time. He was really fun and a great guy. And everybody came, you know know to the thing and not one of us got a job out of it not one of us that's all we did and he never put any of us in a movie why why were people turning on him it's weird you know um we we learned everybody learned their lines or whatever

they thought that that woody wanted us to learn our lines too quickly and you're supposed to learn your lines while you're doing the blocking or whatever. And maybe he was saying, then he fired a woman who wasn't funny, and he brings in another really beautiful, better actress, and that was Gurwitz, whatever her name is. She wrote the book about being fired. Annabelle Gurwitz. She wrote the book about being fired. And that was from the Woody Allen thing.

You know, and then uh bb new earth acted really weird was playing my wife and if she wasn't getting a laugh she wouldn't do the line you know and stuff like that it was you know it's theater people and then they were bickering backstage and then they all hated her and i she's playing my wife so i was trying to be nice then one day i said something her she yells at me and all the other cast members. You see? I'm going, oh, you know. Yeah, it's weird. I mean, even in the little play I'm doing, I can see if we're there for another few months, which we're only going to be there for a week or so.

Yeah, theater actors. Imagine comics every night for a year. Every night, the same four or five people doing the same thing every night. They need to make drama. They need to cause trouble. Thrive off it in some way.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, after a while, you're driving a bus. You learn the lines. You learn the blocking. You know where the laughs are, where the crying is, whatever it is. And now you need to pick up the stakes a little bit. You know, my mother, my son, my boyfriend, my whatever. Yeah, backstage is wild. up the stakes a little bit. You know, my mother, my son, my boyfriend, my, you know, whatever.

Yeah, backstage is wild. Still a pretty cool journey for a kid from a small town in Texas to wind up being in a Woody Allen. I didn't stay in that town for a year. But you were born there. Yeah, I was born there. Even New Orleans. New Orleans is a big town. It's a big town. So Woody Soon-Yi was insane. Oh man, runs the show.

He runs the whole deal. Well, you know, I mean, he was an old man at the time. He was like, well, I'd say he was 68. He's in his 70s now. Maybe he was 70, I don't know. It was like 10 years ago, so he was almost 80. But Jesus Christ, he marries his stepdaughter, which is so weird, and then defends it. You know, I don't think he did anything.

His funniest line was he couldn't have done anything with the daughter because they did it in an attic. And, you know, he's claustrophobic. And he says, I've never been in an attic in my life. Do you know that? Do you know that? He's never been in an attic in his life. And it's true. He would, if somebody sneezed or whatever.

So one day, you know, we were talking or something like that. And I said, well, you know, Woody, I'm from New Orleans, so you got to keep your eye on me because, you know, sometimes I like to go, because he plays clarinet in New Orleans all the time. And he said, you know, I like to see you in New Orleans and all that. And I go, yeah, yeah, sure. So I said, you know, but, you know, you better keep your eye on me because I could, you know, I could get drunk and just not show up you know how people in New Orleans are

right so one day I'm late I'm can't catch a cab or whatever and I'm like late and cell phone's not working or whatever so they're waiting for me and waiting for me and someone says you know we don't know where Jay is and Woody, he's probably laying drunk in a gutter. You know? And he writes every morning from 7 o'clock to like 2 in the afternoon and this old 1940s typewriter every single day. Now, what are your feelings about all the rumors spread about him? I don't think he did anything with the daughter.

And I mean that about him. But, you know, if you look at the movies, if you look at Manhattan, you know, there was a – I think, you know, there are rumors that Scarlett Johansson fucked him, if you can imagine. I mean, this guy apparently says something or does something, and women find him attractive, you know, and he's funny and all that. He's also a really good athlete. Did you know that? Yeah.

Diane Keaton came on The View and talked about how virile he was. There you go. And a terrific, like, baseball player and stuff. So, you know, it's like you. I mean, there's your wife sitting over there who is much lovelier than any human being who looks like you should be with. So, you know, I was wondering if the first night you fucked,

did Aflac give her some sort of, you know, coverage, you know, in case she died of fright, you know? You look like a porn star from Auschwitz with your clothes off. Really. So there is something to be said to the power of comedy. But yeah, it was something to be around him. And I've been around a lot been around, you know, a lot of famous people for a short amount of time. We talked about Dreyfuss and stuff. You know, not as many as a lot of, you know, character actors and all, but I'm a storyteller, so I remember everything.

He was very complimentary. He wrote me two really wonderful notes after the fact. And all I can really say is that you can't imagine it, but who knows what demons drive people. I have no idea, but it seems hard to imagine, but still he fucked his stepdaughter. No way around it. At 17 years old or whatever it was,

and she put a naked picture of herself up, and that's how Mia Farrow... Now, Mia Farrow is supposed to be you know crazy also so and they never lived together they lived across the park from each other you know so so yeah and you know you wanted to put you put you in one of their movies and all that he never never I don't I mean I think um um BB's been in one already but I don't know that he used anybody from the from the play so um yeah it was disappointing I wish he'd put me in one already, but I don't know that he used anybody from the play. So, yeah, it was disappointing. I wish he'd put me in one of the movies.

It would have been fun, you know. He'd go to cut a line sometimes. Not one of mine. He'd just go to cut a line. And, you know, I can't help myself. I would go, oh, don't cut that. It's fucking hysterical. Well, I guess I can't when you say it like that, you know.

And he would put it back in. I mean, he really is a little kind of a nebbish of guys. Wouldn't he ask the actors if you have a better line? Not really, but, you know, not many actors are any good. When they say, oh, they're doing a movie and the actors are going to improv or whatever, oh, please. Actors are not good ad-libbers, you know. I mean, some comics are bad ad-libbers.

They have to have their written material. They saw something. They work it. So the worst thing you can do is have an actor ad-lib a line. I kind of do it for a living, so I'm allowed it. I will throw lines in a play, but if you don't use it, it's okay. I've just given myself a great compliment, which is true. So I'm just kind of good at throwing stuff when i'm doing a part even if it's a drama you know so um so i would i would add a few things but nobody else said anything most actors don't say much

you know about about the lines and it it seems like working with woody allen is kind of like working with neil simon like why would you know, it would be like sacrilege. Yeah, and that's how they felt. And I would say things and they would go, you know, the other actors would be shocked by that. But what the fuck? It's a collaboration, you know. Maybe in a movie. You know, you find in some of Woody's movies, everyone acts like him.

You know, they have this same... Especially when there's the fill-in characters like John Cusack and Bullets Over Broadway. Yeah, they begin to act like him. Bullets Over Broadway, he has, you know, Chaz Palminteri. And you know, the story about Chaz and

Bronx Tale is that he, you know, Chaz can barely write his name. Really another guy who ended up being one of the writers on The Sopranos really wrote and put it together is his story. And so when he hired Chaz, if you go back and look at this, there are plenty of guys that dislike Chaz because he made a three-picture deal and left out, I forget the guy's name, Joe Rizzulli or whatever. And then Chaz really couldn't write.

He couldn't write anything. And then he hires Chaz Palminteri to play a guy who ends up writing a script for someone who really can't write. And, you know, it makes everybody wonder, did Woody ever hear that? See, I think Blue Jasmine is a streetcar named Desire. It's not Madoff. And when you watch it and you see it, she's playing Blanche DuBois. There are a lot of echoes of it.

And it's weird. It's like it's just so obvious to me, but, you know, who am I? So I think that Woody is a sponge, and I think Woody watches TV. I think he reads scandal things and all that. I think he read everything that was said about him in his privacy. Yeah, I do. Because it comes out. And so I think he also showed himself with the young chicks

in the movies. Which, you know, so what? That's cool. Chaplin did it. Yep, sure did. He had to move to England, but he did it. Did to fuck a young girl with bad teeth. Now, you also worked with Eli Wallach. Yes, we were on the steps. We were doing a show, John to fuck a young girl with bad teeth. Now, you also worked with Eli Wallach. Yes.

We were on the steps. We were doing a show. John Turturro played Howard Cosell, and I played the president of the NFL. I played Pete Rozelle. And Turturro is called Monday Night Mayhem. And Eli Wallach is playing one of the bigs in the NFL, one of the owners that I have to deal with.

And we're shooting, and it's snowing at the Plaza Hotel, and it's getting late, and I guess Eli died in his 90s, right? I worked with Eli two or three times. I did Max Pickford with him also. So I'm standing on the steps. I'm excited I'm doing this movie. You know, Totoro's a big deal. I'm there working.

So I turn to Eli and I say, so Eli, Academy Award winner, you know, everything. I go, so it's wonderful to be with you in this movie. I go, do you work? No, I don't work much. I just kind of do shit like this. I do pieces of shit like urine. But he meant it, but it was a throwaway.

I'm on the steps going, yeah, I hope you get fucking pneumonia and die. 90-year-old fucking relic. Hung on to 98. Yeah, 98 years old. All right, my kids, I think, are waiting downstairs. Do you want to tell us what the play is again, Jay? Yeah, my son is a songwriter who wrote five number one records in the last few years. There's a Chesney, Jake Owen.

He wrote, writes for Keith Urban. And he wrote a song for a guy named Uncle Cracker with other guys too called Smile, which was like kind of the happy of its time. And a buddy of his from high school became a guy named Peter Zinn, became a producer and a writer. And he took all of his music plus a bunch of new ones, and they wrote a southern Iraq army meth addict musical. And it's playing at this festival on 42nd Street. It's called Somewhere With You.

It's a musical festival, and it's the lead of the festival. And they hired me to play three small parts. I play the dad of the lead. I play a guy that owns a club and I play an Iraqi insurgent at the end of the play. It starts as a comedy and becomes

a drama and I believe it's either going to go to an off-Broadway house or go to Broadway. I mean, think about it. It's a country musical with hit songs in it. You know, you do a play, you don't know what it's going to it. It's a country musical with hit songs in it. You do a play. You don't know what it's going to be.

It's really good. And if you guys are in New York, but it's called Somewhere With You, and I think it'll go on from there. Somewhere With You. And again, what theater? Right now it's at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box. It's a little 200-seat theater, but it's fun. Yeah. So that's it.

And then I'm doing Ray Donovan. I have another couple of episodes. Ray Donovan with Lev Schre couple of episodes. I play Marty Goldman or whatever, but I'm really playing the guy from TMZ. Oh, Harvey Levin. Yeah, I'm playing Harvey. I'm gay and I have gay boyfriends and

Donovan runs over him every week, runs another one of my boyfriends over and threatens me. I'm always getting crap on his clients. You know, so that's cool. It's cool. Good. I play a good gay asshole.

Unbelievable. And if they said for 10 grand, suck a dick, I would do it. 10 grand still the number? It's the number. Well, it used to not be. Now it's back to that number again. All right. I got to go.

This was great. Okay. Thanks, Jack. To make Gilbert Godfrey laugh is, like, unbelievable to me. This has been Gilbert Godfrey's Amazing Colossal podcast with my sidekick, Frank Santopadre, and a man who's a success in radio, movies, TV. Stand up. Stand up.

Game shows, reality shows. You'll have to still tell people, who is he again? Jay Thomas. Who's taken a few shows off the air too.