Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Kliph Nesteroff

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

Show business historian and New York Times bestselling author KLIPH NESTEROFF returns to the podcast for an entertaining and (as always) educational discussion about banned cartoons, politically incorrect mascots, the history of Hollywood stereotypes and his new book on Native Americans and comedy, "We Had a Little Real Estate Problem." Also, Buddy Hackett pulls a knife, Howard Hawks disses Rowan & Martin, Peter Sellers sends up Charlie Chan and Frank Sinatra's goons rough up Shecky Greene. PLUS: "Go Go Gophers"! Alan Hale's Lobster Barrel! Allen & Rossi "inspire" Charlie Hill! Jack Carter feuds with Al Jolson! And "F-Troop" rips off a Redd Foxx routine! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. because the skip app saves you so much time by delivering stuff like your favorite cool treats groceries and bevies you get more time to have the best summer ever like riding roller coasters, learning to water ski, applying sunscreen to your dad's back. Yep, definitely the best summer ever. Squeeze more summer out of summer with Skip. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre.

Our guest this week is making his fourth appearance on this show, and I swear that one of these times I'm going to get his name right. He's a writer, producer, curator, an occasional podcaster, a cultural historian, and a New York Times bestselling author. has conducted live on stage interviews with everyone from Mel Brooks to Buck Henry to Fred Willard to Triumph the Insult comic dog, just to name a few. He served as the host of a TV series, Funny How, and was a consulting producer on the popular CNN series, The History of Comedy. His best-selling, critically acclaimed 2015 book, The Comedians, Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy, was selected as the book of the year on the LA Weekly and Los Angeles Times.

That book, as well as his terrific blog of interviews with golden age comedians, classic showbiz, are essential reading for listeners of this podcast or anyone interested in 20th century popular entertainment. His latest book from Simon & Schuster is called We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, is called We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy. And he's here to talk about it as well as other subjects we'll throw at him. Please welcome back to the show a man who could personally verify that Jack Carter was the angriest man in showbiz. Kliss Nesterov.

What was that? Is it Nesterov? You got it. What was the first word? You got the last name right, the first name wrong. Wait. It's. Wait. Okay right, the first name wrong. Wait. It's... Wait. Okay.

Say your first name. Cliff. Cliff. I said Cliff. I heard Kliss. I heard Kliss, too. It's fine. I said Cliff.

Cliff. I've had other people introduce me accidentally as Klit. So I'll take Kliss. So I'll take Kliss. I'll take, clip. I've had other people introduce me accidentally as clit. So I'll take clits. So I'll take clits. I'll take clits. That's a character in a movie. Oh, Lord. Before we move on to this wonderful new book, Cliff,

and because it's baked into the intro, quickly a little bit about Jack Carter being the angriest man in show business. Oh, man. You know, I was so delighted to hear your John Biner episode and hear John Biner do an impression of Jack Carter, the elderly, angry Jack Carter, because when I do an impression of Jack Carter, I'm not, I didn't think, really impersonate his voice.

I just impersonated his anger, like his essence. And when Biner did it, I was like, hey, that is the same voice. But to refresh your guys' memory, Jack Carter, I would interview him in his home many, many times, and I would ask him things like, Jack, tell me about the Carol Burnett show.

What was it like working with Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Vicki Lawrence, and the rest? And Jack would sort of breathe heavily before saying anything vicky lawrence was a nazi to refresh and i've said this one on the show many times for that refresher yeah and he he agreed to do this podcast and then died like two days later oh man that's that's a drag that happened to me with uh don rickles i was uh hired to do a show in las vegas on stage it was going to

be about las vegas comedians and the mafia and it was going to be about Las Vegas comedians and the mafia. And it was going to be me interviewing Rickles. I have the contract framed in my house. He died before we got to do the show. I still got paid in an act of God clause. I got paid, but it was, yeah, it was a drag because we were that close to doing it and then it didn't happen.

Jack Carter would have been the best guest for this podcast. Jack Carter was like one of those people I heard, you mention anybody or anything, and he'd like go off in a tangent. Yeah. How horrible. And he actually had an incredible memory. Like sometimes when I was talking to Jack, and I had this with George Slaughter as well,

they tell you this great story, but you kind of felt like it's bullshit. Like there's no way that what they're saying is true. That's 80% of this show, Cliff. But then I would look it up and I'd go, why was Jack so mad about getting stranded on a boat with Maury Amsterdam outside of Olympia, Washington in 1943. And I'd look it up and there'd be a news article about it.

Exactly as Jack had told it to me, you know, like 60, 70 years after the fact, his memory was absolutely incredible. And he had, you know, he knew Al Jolson. He got into like an argument with Jolson. Oh, man. Amazing. Lindy's had you know he knew al jolson he got into like an argument with jolson man amazing lindy's you know so what was what was the argument about i think jack was doing an impression of jolson and i don't remember the details but it was just you know it was just more of jack carter venting it wasn't even really a story it's like ah jolson jolson was an asshole jolson i did the best jolson there was this other guy who did jolson but i did like ah jolson jolson was an asshole jolson i did the best jolson there was

this other guy who did jolson but i did the best jolson i should have done the one man show you know he would just rant and rave like you say no matter who you mentioned um and then every time now and then he would surprise you by not getting angry you'd say like tell me about maury amstrad and go darling man wonderful oh wow like really and actually since the last time i was on this show you know what i've really enjoyed exploring if you really want to see jack carter angry because when he was on tv on talk shows or on stage he was never angry he was always smiling and genial and pretending to be this happy guy and when he got off stage that's when he would start calling everybody a cocksucker.

But if you go on YouTube, watch all the episodes of Tattletales with Jack Carter and watch him get furious when his wife gets the answer wrong. I love it. He's like pounding the table with his fist. He's like storming. And if you watch that game show, if you remember Tattletales hosted by Bert Convy, at the act break, they would switch.

So the wives would be backstage and the husbands would be up front. And when they went to commercial, you know, Bert Convy said, okay, now we're going to switch. The wives are going to come out to the stage. The husbands are going to go backstage. and as they're throwing to commercial you see the set revolve and all the couples sort of meet halfway and like embrace hug or kiss and when you watch the jack carter episodes and they're supposed to embrace and kiss he just ignores his wife and just like i'm like storms pastor in this rage while the other celebrity couples are like you know you know what's funny just today on tv i'm switching around the stations and i saw jack carter on living single there you go oh wow yeah he was on everything it used to be like a running gag in my life oh we work constantly yeah i'd see like a mod squad or a rock and Files or a bad made-for-TV movie,

and I'd go, huh, I wonder if Jack Carter will be in this. And then he was, you know, like nine times out of ten. He worked all the time. Oh, here's a story that I brought up a few times on this show. It doesn't have to do with comedians, but everyone acted like they didn't know, and I think they were bullshitting. I think they were trying to be nice. I'll give you the names involved and see if you know.

Frank and Dean and the chairman of Hunt's Foods. You know this story, Cliff? Does it take place at the Beverly Hills Hotel? I think so, yeah. Where he smashed somebody in the side of the head with a telephone yes sounds right yeah yeah tell us that story well as i understand it i don't remember why sinatra smashed him in the face with a telephone i think it was you know i was making too much noise at his table right supposedly i think i maybe also heard that, you know, like a lot of times like business people or people that are big in the business world, they think they deserve to know famous celebrities just because they're powerful.

And so I think also there was a degree where he felt like a level of familiarity with Sinatra and Sinatra didn't want anything to do with him. My understanding is that in those days they had the telephone right on your table. They would bring you a phone for, to take a call like a rotary phone. And my understanding is that Sinatra, I heard that it was, um,

Heinz, but maybe I have it wrong. You say it was Hunts or I think it was, I think it was Hunts food. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, like Hunts,

Hunts tomato paste. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, like Hunt's tomato paste? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. I'm getting it confused with Heinz tomato catsup. Okay, I got it. Yeah. So I think he picked up the rotary phone and smashed the guy in the side of his head. Like he had to have reconstructive surgery.

The guy was going to sue Sinatra. And I think instead of going through with the lawsuit, Sinatra and I think instead of going through with the lawsuit Sinatra paid um like out of court for the guy's plastic surgery to reconstruct his face that's the story that I heard yeah and I believe it and it took place at the Beverly Hills Hotel in the uh in the lounge there the sounds right well you don't miss a trick Cliff that's the scariest part of that story is that he didn't press charges is uh and see yeah i had heard that dean and frank were really loud and drunk and he asked if they could hold it down and frank right like that yeah that sounds about right i think i read that story in a book by earl, Earl Wilson, the columnist,

the showbiz columnist, he used to write these very salacious books that were sort of like, they're kind of disgusting to read because you don't really want to hear graphic sexual stories from Earl Wilson. He was this little gross mole looking guy. But I think he tells that story in one of his books, or maybe it was Jim Bacon, one of those newspaper columnists from that era. They all came out with books that, you know, just recounted various showbiz stories about Sinatra and Jackie Gleason and stuff like that. And I heard he crashed when he hit him with the phone. He crashed through like a glass table he got a skull fracture yeah oh my god it was like in a coma for a while oh my god it's a guy named uh

frederick weissman and it happened at beverly hills yeah polo lounge i'm pretty sure that's right polo lounge very good yeah the guy knows his stuff and this guy this guy weisman aside from just being the chairman of uh hunts food so you know he's not a tough guy yeah he was also retired so he wasn't that young either and sinatra sinatra was a big tough guy here around them. Wow. Was Stu Gillum implicated in any way? God bless Stu Gillum. I refer to a previous episode with Cliff. Yes, yes. Alan Hale's Lobster Barrel, the scene of the crime.

It's hard to go down La Cienega Boulevard without saluting the address of Alan Hale's Lobster Barrel, which was on the same street as the Red Fox nightclub, which had previously been the Slate Brothers nightclub, where Don Rickles got his start after replacing Restaurant Row, they called it. There was a lot of celebrity-themed restaurants. There's one artifact remaining that I know of from alan hale's lobster barrel here in hollywood uh the frolic room which is an old tavern next to the pantages theater which uh is probably most famous for being in one of the establishing shots in la confidential that

movie um the frolic room is a really old bar and behind the bar they have an autographed The Frolic Room is a really old bar, and behind the bar, they have an autographed drawing, not even a photo, of Alan Hale Jr. And he didn't like to drink in his own establishment because he liked to get drunk. And he didn't, I guess it was bad optics, tourists coming to see Alan Hale Jr. at the Lobster Barrel and him being drunk. So he would go to the Frolic Room and get wasted. and him being drunk. So he would go to the frolic room and get wasted. And so they have this autographed drawing of him that is like the logo from Alan Hill's lobster barrel up on the wall, autographed behind the bar,

still to this day at the frolic room on Hollywood Boulevard. Fantastic. Next to Stu Gillum's booking sheet. Yeah. And there was also in the village, Grandpa's. Yeah, in New York. That was Al Grandpa's. Yeah, in New York. That was Al Lewis's. Yeah, there were a lot of celebrity restaurants that went under.

We did a lot of that on a previous episode. It wasn't just a restaurant. It was like a restaurante. Correct. It was like a bistro. And did any of these celebrities really do anything except occasionally show up? I don't think so. But the cool thing about Al Lewis's Restaurante is that the logo and the menu was drawn and designed by Fred Gwynn.

Yes, Bella Restaurante. Oh, wow. That's right. Fred Gwynn was a talented cartoonist, just like Dick Gauthier also was a talented cartoonist. They really knew how to draw. And so Grandpa Munster hired Herman Munster to design the logo for the Ristorante Bistro there in the village. So they were good friends. I guess.

I guess. I mean, I don't really know how much they stayed in contact al lewis is such a bizarre character yeah and much and unlike jack carter when al lewis told you a story and it sounded like bullshit it was bullshit certified bullshit yeah al lewis um claimed that he donated all of his royalties or his residuals from the monsters to the black panther party in the in the late 60s i don't know if that's true or not but he said i don't need the money and he like believed in you know the the cause of the black man he was a radical political radical but very political very political guy yeah yeah yeah yeah what made him think he was like some kind of cowboy late in life oh yeah string ties yeah the bolo and would talk like this yeah that's weird isn't it a lot of elderly

you know who else does that is uh doesn't talk like that but the cowboy hat thing is uh well two people steve steve rossi when he got old was always wearing a cowboy hat tony curtis tony curtis did that he did a cowboy hat and um and still to this day alive who does that and he also wears a shirt with no sleeves is uh robert blake cowboy hat shirt with no sleeves i see him at the farmer's market sometime, and I'm just like, what is going on there with Robert Blake? Have you ever seen the episode of Dr. Phil with Robert Blake? I have not had the pleasure.

I have to now. It has one of the funniest teasers that I've ever seen. It's the only episode of Dr. Phil I've ever seen. They have this teaser where it's like, coming up next.'s this is like after the trial i guess or whatever and uh dr phil looks at robert blake and and goes robert blake are you crazy and robert blake gets those like wide eyes and he goes, am I crazy? Am I crazy? I'm fucking certifiable. Great.

I used to love Robert Blake on the Tom Snyder show. Remember Gil? Oh yes. Such, such great meltdown interviews. See, uh, Robert Blake eventually, he said he eventually caught on that like shows like that and and The Tonight Show were using him as a freak. Right. It was like they it was like fun. It's not who would come on. Yeah, well, him and Buddy Rich were the two on Carson that were like both crazy, would roast everybody, would be like

these chain smoking assholes and so entertaining, so entertaining. Like it still holds up to watch Buddy Rich or Robert Blake on Carson because most people I think kind of were deferential to Johnny Carson or maybe even like feared him a little bit and didn't want to top him and robert blake and buddy rich didn't care they would roast carson and he would roast them back and it was just it was a great dynamic that they had why don't you go up to uh to robert blake in the farmer's market and tell him you want to do an interview for the blog you know i triple dog dare you well i i would i would do it i mean he's a loose cannon he's a loose cannon, but I mean, I was in Jack Carter's house a foot away from him many times. He only turned on me once.

George Schlatter used to say to me, he'd go, how do you handle it? How do you deal with Jack Carter? If you could deal with Jack Carter, you could deal with anybody. You intentionally deal with Jack Carter? He just couldn't believe that I would put myself in this situation. And I said, George, Jack Carter is nice to me. He goes, he's going to turn on you. One of these days he's going to turn on you. And I probably told you this before. After like three years, he finally did turn on me. I'm sure I told this story the first time that I was on your show.

Go ahead, tell it again. It's good. I had interviewed him for the internet and published transcripts of our many conversations about jolson and mori amsterdam and then all of a sudden i get this phone call like three years after the fact and uh i go hello he goes cliff it's jack carter you're dead to me we're we're finished we're through it's over i go what are you talking about? Because I was at somebody's house the other day. They brought out the laptops. They showed us the computer. And there on the computer is every fucking word I ever said to you. You're making

money off of me. I don't know who you sold this to i said jack i didn't sell it to anybody the whole reason we know each other is because i asked if i could interview you for my website he goes oh your website your website i go yeah it's my website he goes if it's your website how did it get on my wife's computer. Wow. Jack Carter once, once, uh, I guess honored me with,

with an angry insult. Uh, somebody mentioned my name to him and Jack Carter said, Oh, him. He's a rebate. That's right. He used to say.

Yeah, and I don't understand what that means, but it's a great, great insult. He did have great insults, and none of them really made sense. Rebate was one of them. I think he maybe meant like reject or something knows but he knows and the other disordered mind the other insult of his that i loved was uh i would say i'm trying to think of somebody he hated uh i'd say what did you think far ah jamie far is a human garbage pail gill we met we missed out by not having him oh my god we got pat cooper the second angriest comedian oh yeah in showbiz history but uh i wonder if those two guys knew each other and

i wonder if they ever occupied the same space. Oh, they very much did know each other because they were playing opposing Vegas hotels in the same era. I think Cooper was playing the Flamingo while Carter was playing the Riviera or something like that. And Pat Cooper, I never really heard Jack Carter talk too much

about Pat Cooper, but Pat Cooper praised Jack Carter, said he was the best comedian of his era, the most powerful, the most potent, the most competent. And I do respect Jack Carter, even though I didn't really his act was not for me. You know, it was a little bit too corny for my tastes. But he could go into any city in North America and do two hours specifically for that city. any city in North America and do two hours specifically for that city. And usually I don't like road comics that like go from city to city and they just change the name of the mayor and do the same joke and get laughs because

it's a local reference. But Jack Carter, when he would play the cave nightclub in Vancouver would do two hours just about Vancouver. And for that reason, he was invited back year after year after year and they loved him. He would do Montreal and do two hours just about Montreal. He would do Toronto, two hours just about Toronto.

Miami Beach, two hours just about Miami Beach. And I think that's really impressive that he wasn't doing the same 45 minutes everywhere he went. He was constantly doing different acts for different places. Same in England. He would do London, two hours just about England stuff. And he had a great memory, which I know from interviewing him, but his material, it was amazing that he could remember all of these jokes as angry as he was and as difficult as he was. And as sometimes corny as the material was, it takes a great ability to be able to know and retain that much. to be able to know and retain that much.

Now, speaking of angry and difficult, and this is one of those people I spoke to a handful of times, and I could use the classic line, well, he was always nice to me. Yeah. And that said, you must have had dealings with jerry lewis yes yeah well only only once and it was uh uh through drew friedman who gave me his phone number it was very brief i can't really say that he was nice or not nice it was disappointing to be sure because i had a whole page of notes i

wanted to ask him about the rio bomba 1945, you know, all these obscure nightclubs from the forties. I wanted to interview him about his lip sync act. And I think Jerry had no patience for people who didn't really do their research. And I had really done my research. So I was ready to impress him in that, or at least bond with him by not doing the same bullshit interview. And he just didn't give me the time of day. got he goes uh i phoned him drew set it up yeah and i phoned him i said drew uh told me to call he goes yeah i know and i said uh well um can we do an interview he goes no i never do interviews i go oh well drew said that you would do an interview with me he goes yeah i know like it was just this weird Kafka-esque circle.

You caught him on the wrong day. Yeah. I never really had that experience with too many other people other than Paul Mazursky, who, God rest his soul, was a real jerk to me over the phone. Oh, I'm sorry. And cut me off and, like, I don't know. It was really weird and insulted me.

And Marty Allen was the other one, which I know know. It was really weird and insulted me. And, uh, that didn't, and Marty Allen was the other one who, which I know you guys had a good experience. That would shock me. I knew that. I knew that story. I knew your experience with Marty.

I've never met anyone. Yeah, it was weird. I think because I, I think I was hitting some sort of sore nerve with the references I was making without knowing it because, because I was asking him about all the things that he did before Steve Rossi. So I was like,

what can you tell me about your early comedy team with this guy, tiny wolf? And he'd go, it's just a guy. I go, what does that mean? And then I go, what you were in a comedy team with a guy named Mitch DeWood.

He goes, yeah, Mitch. I go, what can you, what can named Mitch DeWood. He goes, yeah, Mitch. I go, what can you tell me about him? He goes, nothing, just a guy. I go, you performed with him for 10 years. You headlined in Vegas with him before Steve Rossi. He goes, it's the past.

It's the past. Like, he didn't want to talk about it. Wow. And then I spoke with a, I think, I can't remember who, but somebody told me, oh, yeah, he had a bad breakup with that other comedy team. Like there was bad blood. So he didn't want to get into it, but he was very curt with me and it was too bad. At least he didn't call you a rebate.

He didn't call me a rebate. Yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Baseball is finally back. Get in on Major League action and swing for the fences with BetMGM, the king of sportsbooks. Log in or sign up to play along as BetMGM brings the real-time action. Embrace a season's worth of swings with BetMGM,

your one-stop shop for all things baseball. BetMGM.com for Ts and Cs. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call Conax Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history.

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and I remember TV from like the 60s and 70s, you could get away with an act where you said, especially comedy teams, you could get away with an act like, hey, is your refrigerator running? Well well why don't you go catch it yeah i was gonna say i kind of write about this in the new book there was a specific circuit in nevada called uh the silver circle and the silver circle the silver circle circuit was every sort of small town in ne and nightclub that wasn't Las Vegas. All the other places, the big ones were Reno and Lake Tahoe, but there was also like Sparks,

Nevada and Elko. And there were like hundreds, I'm not even using hyperbole, literally hundreds of comedy teams who you never heard of before before or since who just played that circuit and they were doing that style of like 1940s or 50s comedy team style right through the 1970s and it was partially inspired by rowan and martin because that was the circuit that they played and when they became famous it it made all these other sort of two-bit comedy teams want to be the next uh rowan and martin can you imagine wanting to be the next rowan and martin no but and rowan and martin i mean dan rowan was always doing a dean martin imitation up there totally even the way he held his cigarette and the drink it was a fairly good

straight man though i mean they were they were good at what they did uh i actually just read a book uh uh this big long interview with howard hawks the filmmaker and he somebody told him in the 50s uh one of the people that worked for him said howard i just saw the funniest comedy team of all time you gotta go up to reno and see rowan and martin and howard hawks said i was expecting to see somebody hilarious i didn't see anything funny at all like he just hated rowan and martin the great howard hawks of all people i can't even picture it him early and early in persky and denoff's career i think they were they were told to go right for rowan and martan and Martin and went and saw them perform in a bowling alley.

Oh, weird. Yeah, and I remember Billy saying, this is the bottom. This is the bottom of show business. But I'm going to use Marty Allen as a segue here to the new book, Cliff. Sure, sure. Was it Charlie Hill, Native American comedian that Gilbert also crossed paths with in the comedy story days, wasn't it Charlie Hill who said, you quote him in the book saying that one of the things that inspired him to go into comedy was how bad Alan and Rossi were? Yes. Yeah. He saw them on the

Ed Sullivan show. And up to that point, he'd wanted to do comedy, but he was a little bit insecure. He was just a kid, but he saw Alan and Rossi on the Ed Sullivan show, and he said, if these guys can do it, then I can do it. Yeah, because he thought they were so bad. And to be fair to everybody who ever did the Ed Sullivan show, sometimes the quote-unquote bad acts on Ed Sullivan were told to cut three minutes from their act right before they went on the last minute. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of the time they bombed and maybe it wasn't really their fault

because Alan and Rossi also often killed on Ed Sullivan. So maybe he saw them on one of those bad ones because, you know, it's not if you're doing a comedy team and you're asked to cut three minutes from like a five minute set, you sometimes see it there's a there's a ed sullivan segment with rodney dangerfield and you can see it in rodney's eyes that he's editing as he goes along where he's sort of like stalling for time where he goes yeah yeah but like longer than he normally would and you can just see his mind grappling because he probably had been told cut out uh one or two minutes by the way the people that uh own the copyright on all the ed sullivan material have been uploading dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of comedy sets recently

onto youtube full sets of all these comedians they just uploaded a dick capri set oh gotta watch love dick yeah yeah so everybody should check that out. I well, we had Neil Sadaka on the show and Neil Sadaka said he was on Sullivan and he was going to sing My Yiddish Mama and he rehearsed it. And Sullivan said to Jewish. Hilarious. Well, Biner, too, if you read John Biner's new book, you know, stories about Sullivan's people cutting material at the last minute. Yeah. They were infamous for it.

And you can see it on YouTube. Like, comedians probably bombed more often than not on the Ed Sullivan show. It was very hard to not bomb on that show. It was such a great showcase, but the audience was sort of tough. In those days, people were still sort of mesmerized by being at a live taping, so they're looking at the crew, they're looking at the cameras, they're not really looking

at the community, or they're looking at Ed, who's standing just offside of the camera, so they're kind of looking at his response before they respond. So it was a tough, tough gig. When Fred Willard passed away, the Ed Sullivan people,

they uploaded his four appearances on the Ed Sullivan show. A lot of people don't realize that Fred Willard had appeared on the Ed Sullivan show four times in a comedy team called Greco and Willard. Oh, yeah Ed Sullivan show four times in a comedy team called Greco and Willard. And I had not seen it before, even though I had researched it.

And what I did not realize was that Willard was really the straight man. And it was this guy Greco who was doing the comedy in the act. I would have assumed that Fred Willard would have been the one doing more of the shtick, but he was really more of the straight man. Gil, what do you remember about Charlie Hill, who you worked with at the, that Fred Willard would have been the one doing more of the shtick, but he was really more of the straight man. Gil, what do you remember about Charlie Hill, who you worked with at the, was it the store? The comedy store?

Yeah. Back in the day? Yeah, not much. Oh, but I do remember a story, not having to do with Charlie Hill. When I was on Saturday Night Live, the producer was friends with woody allen so she invited him to watch all the i i think it's when i auditioned she invited him to watch all of the auditions on film and he's sitting there in the screening room this i heard he's sitting there in the screening room. This I heard. He's sitting in the screening room, stone-faced at everybody. And when I go on, he finally speaks and says,

is he a Navajo Indian? How did you never tell that story before? That's hilarious. Well, tell us about Charlie Hill and how prominently he factors in the book, Cliff, which is about the Native American experience and comedy, or in comedy. Yeah, well, I mean, for decades, there were very few Native American comedians because comedy has become so popular in the past 10, 15 years, podcasts, Netflix, this comedy boom. Suddenly, there's actually a fairly large, compared to the, you know, previous generation,

a fairly large Native American comedy scene, over 100 indigenous stand-up comics, improv comics, and sketch comics, almost all of them told me that the reason they got into stand-up is because they saw Charlie Hill when they were young, either on TV or he played at their college. And the fact that there was this Native American guy doing stand-up comedy and not doing stereotypes really inspired them. So everybody in indigenous communities all over North America consider Charlie Hill a major celebrity, a major star, a major inspiration. But in like non-native circles, he's sort of obscure today.

But he was the very first Native American comedian to appear on network television on the Richard Pryor show in 1977, the sketch show. Yeah, that's on YouTube. People can see that. Yeah, and that show was all sketch comedy, even though it was all comedy stand-ups that made up the cast, like Paul Mooney and Sandra Bernhardt, Robin Williams and Tim Reed. They were all in the cast, and Charlie Hill was the only guy who did stand up on that show. Richard Pryor had seen him at the comedy store. He liked the way Charlie Hill sort of ridiculed white people the way Richard Pryor himself often did. And it was Richard Pryor himself who got Charlie Hill on TV. And he had been doing stand-up, Charlie, for about three years by that point. He

started at the Comedy Store in 1974 before David Letterman. Did a lot of open mics with Letterman. Became good friends with that era of Comedy Store comics like Michael Keaton and Jay Leno and whoever else. Did the Richard Pryor Show in 1977. It was a smash success, and it gave him a whole career. In 1978, he became the first and last, up to this point, Native American comedian to do The Tonight Show. Did Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, killed. And from there, he was just perfectly positioned because the comedy boom was just about to start.

So then he starts doing The Mike Douglas Show, The Merv Griffin Show. He did a program. I wonder if you guys remember it. It only lasted 11 weeks. The big show? The big show. Oh, sure. I remember it. It was directed by your former guest. Steve Bender. Yeah. Yeah. You bet. And it had an interesting cast. It had Graham Chapman from monty python steve allen was a regular uh edie mcclurg was in the cast the the company of players yeah rickles was on it rickles hervey velochez hervey velochez gill you know nobody remembers the big show yeah but but was that a fred silverman thing

it was it was it debuted the same week and was canceled the same week as pink lady and jeff there you go so a blow to two guys at the comedy store right charlie and charlie yeah and on the subject i always think if i were born a few years earlier, I would have definitely have been an Indian chief on F Troop. That would have made Woody Allen happy. Yes. Yeah, it was almost,

there was a guy named Don Diamond who played one of those characters on F Troop. He was Crazy Cat. And he was from the Yiddish theater. Yeah.

Like he was a star in the Yiddish theater. And who else? Well, I mean, obviously, Edward Everett Horton in the first few episodes. Milton Berle. Was Wise Owl. Yeah. Well, they were the guest stars, Milton Berle, Don Rickles. You know, they were really hamming it up.

But the regulars were Don Diamond and... Oh, Frank DeCova. Frank DeCova, of course. But he was Italian oh Frank Decova Frank Decova of course he was Italian Frank Decova well Frank Decova was one of those guys like Jay Carroll Nash whose entire career was playing other ethnicities so sometimes he's an Irish guy sometimes he's it's always a stereotype like it's always the most uh uh common stereotype it's never meant to be a believable irish guy or a believable native american dude or you know it's always the organ grinder or the yeah you you talked in the book about life with luigi which was jake jake harrell nash who's a who's an irish guy gilbert yeah played a guy named luigi who talk like this and then they replaced him with Vito Scotti in an attempt to actually be more accurate.

Well, the irony is everybody always talks about that era's big controversy being the Amos and Andy show. And it was. But what a lot of people don't realize, some people who apologize for the racial stereotypes of that era will say, well, the Irish never complained. The Italians never complained, but they did. And that's why a lot of these shows were taken off the air. Life with Luigi was protested by the Italian Anti-Defamation League. And rightly so. And it was canceled the same year as Amos and Andy. So these two concurrent campaigns,

one against Amos and Andy and one against Life with Luigi. But nobody remembers that Life with Luigi was canceled because people considered it a old fashioned, outmoded and insulting stereotype. Yeah, I remember he was in I always called him Nash, J. Carol Nash, but whatever whatever maybe it is he was also in that peter lorry movie beasts with five fingers oh yeah where where it's like an out now chico imitation yeah i looked it up he played sitting bull in a movie oh yeah j carol nash yeah i mean he was an irish dude from new york i think yeah was bizarre. Like, these guys were all purpose. Sort of the last era of the dudes like that were people like Bernie Capel, you know, who were still, or like you said, the Vito Scotties.

And even Bernie Capel, who's still around, concedes, you know, it was that era. He wouldn't do that today. You know, it had its time, blah, blah, blah, blah. that uh today you know it had its time blah blah blah um you know these guys were talented actors but they their specialty was not accuracy their specialty was the the stereotype which is what all the films and tv shows wanted like there were many many instances of native american actors being hired to play native american parts and then being told by the producer or the makeup department, you don't look Indian enough.

So then they would put makeup on them, but they were Native American. Or Dick Miller was getting that part. Yeah. Or same thing with black actors in radio. The Red Skelton show in the 40s had a black actor who called himself Wonderful Smith.

And Wonderful Smith was sort of like the Rochester for Red Skelton. And he actually appears as a stagehand in This Is Spinal Tap. Decades later, that scene in Spinal Tap where they're lost backstage. I know it is. Yeah, he gives them directions. That's Wonderful Smith. Anyways, he was coached and expected to do like an Amos and Andy dialect. Even though he was a black dude, he wasn't allowed to use his real voice.

They said, you have to do like the drawl. And so he did. Then in World War II, he was in the service and he was on Armed Forces Radio. And Armed Forces Radio, to boost morale for Black servicemen, allowed Black content on the radio that wasn't stereotypical. They would be regular, talking in their regular voice about Black issues. And so Wonderful Smith got to do that and he loved that. When he got out of the service and returned to the Red Skelton program in the late 40s, they said, now you got to go back to doing that Amos and Andy style dialect. And he said, no, I'm not going to do that. You know, I don't do

that anymore. And so they fired him. And that was basically the end of his career. Wow. He was considered difficult because he refused to do a fake version of what they the producers felt a black person should sound like. Am I crazy or was I, was I, did Ice Gilbert, was Amos and Andy on New York television well into the 60s? I think so. Because I, I, I, I remember seeing it when I was a kid. Well, yeah, it was in syndication.

65, 66 even. It went through several different periods. So it got pulled from being a network show in the early 50s because of the campaign. This is the weird irony of the Amos and Andy TV show. Well, there's several ironies. One, the stigma, you know, you've seen the show. There's all these talented Chitlin Circuit legends in the show. And the sad story is they were all put out of work right yeah the thing is the show wasn't canceled because the tv show was racist the tv show was canceled

because of the stigma attached to the name amos and andy because of the radio show i see so it wasn't really the content of the tv show that was considered defamatory. It was the fact that they had tried to take the radio show off as early as 1930 for the same reason. So they just felt that the name alone was a stigma. But the weird thing is the sponsors and the networks were kind of happy to see the NAACP get the blame for it being purged from the network because they were getting trouble from Southern sponsors in the South who didn't want black actors on TV. So instead of having to admit that they had kowtowed, kowtowed, however you say that to bigoted sponsors, they could just say, well, it was the NAACP and wash their hands of it.

But it went into syndication and it remained on radio throughout the rest of the 50s. And I remember as a kid, there was a cartoon called Calvin and the Colonel. That's right. And it was Freeman Gustin and Charles Gorel. The original name is San Andy. Very good. It was like a bear and a fox. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. It's got a really nice sort of mid-century design to it. It sort of looks like Tennessee Tuxedo, the same style animation. And one of the co-voice actors is June Foray. But yeah, it was basically just Amos and Andy, but as a bear and a fox. It didn't last that long. And it was prime time.

It was actually a show that was inspired by the success of the Flintstones. It was made for prime time, not Saturday morning or weekday afternoons. But it sure didn't last very long. But there's an even weirder aspect to Amos and Andy. The radio show, the TV show gets canceled, I guess, in 53 or something. It was still on radio and nobody complained so it remained new episodes of the amos andy program on radio weird with gosden and correll 53 54 55 56 57 and then cbs changed the format and amos and andy became disc jockeys and actually played records so it'd be like whatever

i'm not going to do the dialect, but they would be like, now here's the latest from Connie Francis. And then they would play Where the Boys Are, and then it would go back to Amos and Andy bantering with each other, and now here's Johnny Mathis. And that was like for three years until 1963. I remember seeing the show in syndication in New York, I want to say, Gilbert, on Channel 11 or Channel 9, well into the 60s.

Because it's the only place I would have really seen it. And I remember seeing it in regular rotation. And I remember watching the early Flintstones where the theme music was da-dastones meet the Flintstones came later. Yeah, it was a song called Rise and Shine. And Rise and Shine, if you listen to that original Flintstones theme song before it had, you know, lyrics, it sounds exactly like the theme song to the Bugs Bunny show where it's damn the lights. Oh, on with the show, yeah.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It also sounds a little bit like that Art Metrano song. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Talk about, too, we're talking about F troop and, and specifically you go in, in the book, you go into detail about native American stereotypes in, in, in popular culture. And there's a list and we were just talking about cartoons and you, you singled out Tom and Jerry and Gumby and Betty Boop and Popeye and, and Bugs Bunny cartoons for, uh, uh, really obvious and crass stereotypes of indigenous characters. Oh, yeah. They're all racist.

I mean, I love animation. I love cartoons. And they always jockeyed in stereotypes. It's just kind of interesting that, you know, there's the famous notorious Looney Tunes censored 11 that are all the blackface Bugs Bunny cartoons and Chuck Jones cartoons. And they've been pulled from syndication for years and they're not available on DVD and you can only get them on bootlegs. But when it was another race, it was like fair game. So I always found that unusual. And a lot of it had to do with the fact that the civil rights movement and the black power

movement became very prominent but not as uh other minority movements were not as prominent so their requests were not heated one of the very last looney tunes cartoons ever made is basically in essence, a Roadrunner coyote cartoon. But instead of Roadrunner, it's this guy Merlin the Mouse. And instead of Wile E. Coyote, it's just a generic Native American character who's getting smashed in the face with a hammer, thrown off a cliff, you know. And if that was a blackface character,

we would think it was the most abominable thing you'd ever seen but because it's a native american character it didn't get treated the same way so my argument in the book is that these are basically the same and a lot of people get very very defensive you know they don't want to confess or or say that yeah it is racist i think because they're terrified that that means that they're not allowed to watch it or enjoy it or it'll be taken away from them. But you can enjoy things like F Troop.

You can enjoy things like Life with Luigi. You can enjoy things with Amos and Andy. I mean, there's no harm in confessing that these are racial stereotypes that are unnecessary today and yet still appreciate the talent of some of these character actors involved or the design of the animation. But I still feel that they're definitely racist. Now, I heard that Chinese people actually like the Charlie Chan movies.

Well, Charlie Chan is a fascinating... The thing is, all of these movies, you can say the same thing about Hollywood westerns with Native American stereotypes, Stagecoach. They are designed to be entertaining, and they succeeded in that design. That's what Hollywood was good at, was how to enamor you with entertainment.

And Charlie Chan, you know, there are minority actors in there. Key Luke is, you know, is actually Asian and Mantan Moreland is a great black comic, but I'm sure even, uh, uh,

Chinese or Asian people would say that Sidney told her looks and sounds, uh, ridiculous or Warner all and looks and sounds ridiculous. One ofer olin looks and sounds one of them was swedish i think warner warner olin warner olin was swedish and he made a living uh playing these sort of fu manchu characters even before he even before he was cast as a werewolf of london that's right yeah he's also in shanghai express with marlena dietrich and again he's playing the word then quote-unquote chinaman that's what he's playing on a train with marlena dietrich. And again, he's playing the word then, quote unquote, Chinaman. That's what he's playing on a train

with Marlena Dietrich. Sidney Toler, who took over for Warner Olin, because Warner Olin died, I guess in the late 30s, right in the middle of the Charlie Chan, not in the middle of making one of those movies, but the series was still in production and they had to replace him immediately

and they replaced him with Sidney Toler. And I always thought that Sidney Toler, you know, did this terrible pigeon English, you know, he'd do the Confucius sayings and Charlie Chan and he would say, number one son, don't forget. And I always thought he was just doing bad pigeon English. Then I saw him in the Jack Benny, Fred Allen movie. It's in the bag. And he still just talks like this, even when he's playing a white guy. He wasn't doing all of the way spoke. That's fascinating. The funny thing is, is although it's offensive to have white actors.

And this always got me in movies like that. And this always got me in movies like that. It would be a white actor and in Asian makeup playing the main character. But Asians, actual Asians would be around. Yeah. Isn't that so weird? It's such a bizarre sort of fuck you. All these Asian actors and the really sad thing and also sort of fascinating. Asian actors. And the really sad thing and also sort of fascinating, you know, the most prominent Asian actors of the 30s and early 40s were people like Key Luke, Philip Ahn. He was Korean, but he always played Japanese villains. There's two good stories about Philip Ahn. The first one is the sad

one. A lot of these act, there wasn't a lot of work for an Asian actor unless you were doing one of these stereotype movies where it was like a sinister, foggy Chinatown. And the guy has long fingernails and he's smoking opium. And then they get Boris Karloff. Yeah. Yeah, right. Of course. Or Myrna Loy. Or Peter Lorre.

Yes. And Louise Rayner won the Academy Award for doing Yellow Face. That's right. She did, in The Good Earth. But because a lot of the actual Asian actors would go much of the year without working, to subsidize their income, they worked as what they called eye models in like the MGM makeup department.

They would do like a plaster cast of Key Luke's face. And then when they wanted Louise Rainer to star as an Asian or Katharine Hepburn in The Good Earth, In the MGM makeup department, they would do a plaster cast of Key Luke's face. And then when they wanted Louise Rayner to star as an Asian or Catherine Hepburn in The Good Earth, they would put the mold of Key Luke over the white person's face and then paint around it. And then they would play the Asian. I can't remember the name of that movie, the Catherine Hepburn, where she wore fake eyelids. I think it's, is it The Good Earth? No, that's Louise Renier.

But Catherine Hepburn played an Asian character. Yeah, and Gene Tierney in the Shanghai Jester. So many. I always think, like, it's interesting because it's, you know, it might be offensive, a white actor playing Asian, but then you'd have to say but it's this brilliant asian character who's on the side of the law so he's like a good person and a brilliant person yeah he's a hero and charlie chan is the smart guy He's not like a step and fetch it dumb guy. That's true.

It is fascinating to watch. And really, if you like, like we're all fans here of like, you know, shock theater and universal horror. Of course. And the Charlie Chan movies and those Chinatown tropes are sort of like the cousin of those movies. Like they're mysterious. They're moody. They go into a wax museum or a haunted house. And so it's hard not to derive enormous pleasure from those movies if you're

a fan of that genre, as I am. I got a Charlie Chan movie poster in my house. This is what I'm saying. You can acknowledge that this stuff is sort of racist and stereotypical and still enjoy it on its own level. You know what I mean? I'm not saying a lot of people get defensive because I think they think, oh, you're advocating to walk it in a vault or something. And I'm not advocating that. Just acknowledge that it is what it is. One of the shames was that you didn't have Asian actors who had attained the prominence of somebody like Karloff playing, I guess, Mr. Wong and Peter Lorre playing Mr. Moto.

Philip Ahn worked so much during World War II playing Japanese villains, and he was Korean. And one of the really funny things, a lot of movies were pulled from circulation during World War II because at the time, Korea was subjugated by Japan. And so they were enemies of each other. And so Philip Ahn hated the Japanese and he was constantly asked to play Japanese villains. And directors would say, OK, we need you to speak Japanese here. And Philip Ahn would say, I'm not Japanese. I don't know Japanese. I'm Korean. They're like, well, nobody will know the difference. Just speak Korean. So he would speak Korean as a Japanese villain. But if you understood Korean as people in Korea who saw the movie did, he would say subversive things in Korea, sometimes swear words condemning the Japanese. I love it. Hollywood film moguls didn't know this until they exported the movie,

and the movie is banned all throughout Asia, and they didn't understand why. And Richard Liu was Chinese. Dick Cavett's favorite. Yeah, and he, oh, aircraft carrier. You know, this stuff was still going on in the 60s. Gilbert, you have Joseph Wiseman playing Dr. No with Asian makeup. Oh, it went much longer than that.

The 80s, you have Jerry Lewis and Harley working. Jerry Lewis. Gilbert and I were talking about Joel Grey today in the Remo Williams movie with Fred Ward. Joel Grey was a sensei, a key loop kind of a character. And Tony Randall in the... Tony Randall! Seven Faces of Dr. Lowe. Yeah. Don't forget Brando in the Tea House of the August Moon.

Everybody, Mickey Rooney, obviously, in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Mickey Rooney is the worst offender. And then the worst and last Peter Sellers movie, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu or something like that. An unwatchable movie

even without the yellow face. He also did a Charlie Chan knockoff in Murder by Death a couple of years earlier. Right. I remember there's a line in one of the Charlie Chan movies where like a New York cop is talking to him and he goes,

he goes, Charlie, you're like chop suey, strange, but good. We're talking about yellow face here, but because your book is about the Native American experience and comedy here, here's a short list of, of examples of red face, I guess is what it's called. Chuck Connors played Geronimo. Oh, yeah. Blue-eyed, blonde hair. Elvis as a Navajo in Stay Away Joe. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that one is bad. Victor Mature, Gilbert, played Crazy Horse. Oh, yeah. is uh that one's bad victor mature gilbert played crazy horse oh yeah rock hudson famously in winchester 73 which is good a good movie yeah uh burt lancaster playing an apache in apache yeah and uh j carol nesh we mentioned as as sitting bull gilbert your favorite Lon Chaney Jr. played Chinkajkuk in Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans in 1957. And my personal favorite, the mascot from the Don't Litter spots, Iron Eyes Cody, was an Italian guy from Brooklyn, Espera De Corti. And he was only crying because Gilbert had made yet another slur about Italian-Americans. Yeah.

And he was at that time the symbol. Yes. Of Native Americans. Yeah. That one's so weird. I mean, it's a weird thing. It still happens today. White people pretending that they're Native American or part Native American.

I don't know what the psychology is, why you would do that. Very weird. But Jonathan Winters did it for a few years. He claimed to have been Cherokee. He wasn't. I actually asked his family because people kept asking me when I was researching this book, are you going to write about Jonathan Winters? And he was, like, interested in Native American issues and he donated money to the people when

they occupied Alcatraz in the early 70s. But he did an interview with People Magazine in 1978 and Jonathan Winters claimed that he was Native American. And so still to this day, you'll sometimes find on the internet references to him being part Native American, but he wasn't at all. And he just made it up and asked his family or asked somebody to ask me, ask them for me. And they said, no, he just, you know, he sympathized with certain causes. And for some reason he, he said that he was Native American, but he wasn't. So I don't understand why anybody would do that. It's Elizabeth Warren. Cultural appropriation, right? Is that what they're calling, what they call what they call it yeah well it's even more than that i don't know it's it's just a weird thing and i don't understand why you would do that getting back to uh you know uh white actors playingre is an Asian, he interrogates this Mexican antique dealer.

And the Mexican is John Carradine. Wow. And I'm thinking if ever there was someone who's not Mexican. I love it. Yeah. It's John Carradine. You know, Cliff, we talked about, in our little pre-interview that we did, about the progress that's being made.

I mean, you mentioned in sports, the Redskins have dropped their offensive nickname. The Cleveland Indians baseball team recently also made that decision. So we're seeing signs of progress all over the place. It makes me ask a question like, could you have somebody like Bill Dana doing a character like Jose Jimenez today? I don't think so. Bill Dana himself retired Jose Jimenez of his own volition around 1970. At the time, the phrase, it's very much of its era, it was called the chicano power movement and he actually publicly retired jose jimenez at an event um and said i'm gonna you know retire this it's not right to keep doing it anymore we should hire you know latino actors to do this instead of a polish jewish

comedian you know and um you know jose jimenez there's always two sides to all of these conversations i'm sure there's lots of latino fans who appreciated jose jimenez it was this charming impish kind of cute uh a character my name jose jimenez yeah but it was you know of its era and i know i don't think you could do that today or you shouldn't, there's no reason to, you know, we have that stuff from the past. We can watch it if we want, but really, um, why, why, uh, not just hire like a Latino comedian or somebody who, you know, you don't want to push somebody out of a job and stereotypes. The problem in those days, especially there were no native americans on tv playing a regular human being they were always playing a stereotype of course or portrayed as a stereotype

because some people will say well otis the drunk on the andy griffith show is negative and a white person didn't complain but it's like yeah but andy griffith is a white, like positive character. And Don Knotts is this bumbling idiot. You have thousands of different types of white characters portrayed where you only had one type of Latino character. Usually some sort of we don't need no stinking badges. Right. Alfonso Bedoya. Yeah, something like that. So that's the thinking behind it. A stereotype is only at its most damaging when you have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them compounded on top of each other to the degree that people who do not belong to that ethnicity start to think that that's what it is. If it's all going to be Fagan in an Oliver of course then that's a serious problem if it's like one fagin and

thousands of other uh positive or realistic examples it's not as damning so for native americans for decades and decades it was only uh the stereotype there are people of course who will say that they're wary of the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction so that you can't have a film like Blazing Saddles nowadays. You couldn't have Mel Brooks playing a Sioux Indian chief. You couldn't even have a show like All in the Family today in primetime on a network. Yeah, but you have Blazing Saddles on Blu-ray. You have All in the Family on DVD. So why would you want a new Blazing Saddles? If there was a new Blazing Saddles, I'm sure it would you want a new Blazing Saddles? If there was a new Blazing Saddles, I'm sure it would pale in comparison to Blazing Saddles, you know, like how could you

make it better? It is, you know, it's perfect for its time period. And I think any thinking person understands the context. You know, there's nobody parading in front of the TCM headquarters in Atlanta because they show a mr moto movie you know you get what it is as soon as you see it or mickey rooney and judy garland in blackface we get it was you know so um it's not you know as long as you understand the context it's fine but a lot of the time the context isn isn't provided, especially about Native American stuff. Very seldom. And it deserves to be provided and understood in a sort of reasonable tone of voice. You know, you can't teach people anything if you're screaming at them.

If you had a school teacher in elementary school or high school that screamed at you, you didn't like that teacher and you didn't learn anything. But if somebody was like reasonable and took time with you to explain something. So I kind of feel that's how the conversation around, you know, racist stuff in the history of show business has to go. And like I say, I'm a fan of the Charlie Chan movies and Mr. Moto movies and, you know, Larry Storch and Bernie Capel. Like, I love those guys. The Hakaui. Yeah, I love those guys. So,aui. Yeah, I love those guys. But it doesn't mean you can't have a reasonable assessment

of what that is and what that means. Mark Arnold, who's a listener of the show, writes, my apologies in advance, but here's another one. The cartoon show Go Go Gophers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Go Go Gophers. Remember Go Go Gophers, Gilbert? Oh, I remember the title.

Racist Native American characters. Yeah. go go gophers gilbert oh i remember the title racist native american characters yeah go go go go gophers is definitely very racist it's made by the same company that made underdog underdog yeah yeah and it it aired for a few years there was a protest movement in the late 60s as you know regarding all things like this inspired initially by the civil rights movement you had you know had people who were tired of Latino stereotypes, Native American stereotypes. Well, they got jujitsu kicked off of Dick Tracy's.

Dick Tracy's. And also the Pillsbury's funny drink mix. Do you remember those? They had like racist... Oh, oh my god. Oh my god. There was... There was... What was the famous powder drink? Well, there's one called Injun Orange.

Oh, okay. Yes. It was Injun Orange. Goofy grape, yeah. And Cherry Chinese. Cherry Chinese. Yes, with the buck teeth and everything. And then, oh, God, they're so...

I one time put it up there. Because what was the original, the more respected powder drink? Oh, God, what the fuck was the name of that? What, Kool-Aid? No, no, it was another one. But I remember when they came out with this one, that was the cheap one. And I said something like, I put a bunch of those up and I said,

it's like if Kool-Aid was really racist. Well, there was Goofy Grape and Jolly Ollie Orange and Rootin' Tootin' Raspberry. Ku Klux Kool-Aid. No, but they had these. It reminds me of Ku Klux Klan on The Simpsons. They were a couple in that powdered drink that were out and out racist. Yes, and what people don't realize, because a lot of people who think this is new, they'll go, well, they had those drink mixes.

Then nobody complained. It's the opposite. Those were pulled from the market in 1970 because of pressure. Same with the Frito Bandito. He was pulled. The Frito Bandito. Yep. That's another example.

Did that powder drink. I think they had Injun Orange. That's the one we said yes yes engine orange and uh and the chinese guy was what again cherry chinese cherry with the the eyes and the teeth and the whole thing so we were talking about or i was talking about this circuit of nightclubs in nevada called the silver circle all the sort of fringe places outside of Las Vegas. And one of the teams that I talk about in my book are Williams and Ree, also a guy named Jackie Curtis, who was in a comedy team called Antonin Curtis.

Still going strong, Jackie Curtis. He's still alive. He's not performing, but yeah, he's still around. He did an episode of Adam 12 in the early 70s, if you ever want to seek that out but um i'm curious if you guys have ever heard of any of these comedy teams i'll just rattle them off but these were comedy teams that uh they only performed in nevada occasionally they would get hired to do like a summer replacement like dean martin's gold diggers or uh you know a show like that alan ludden's gallery you know these sort of obscure summer replacements where they... Oh, man.

These are deep cuts. But here, let me just read you the passage. To patronize the Silver Circle venues from the Holiday Hotel in Reno to the Thunderbird Motel in Elko was to be exposed to comedians whom you'd never heard of before and whom you'd never hear from again.

Blackie Hunt, Rummy Bishop, Red Coffee, Frankie Ross, Lou Moscone, Antonin Curtis, Davis and Reese, Tepper and Nelson, Nelson and Palmer, Crandall and Charles, Skiles and Henderson, Deedee and Bill, Sherman and Lee, Stanton and Petty, Romer and Howard, Ford and Mercer, and now Sherman and Lee Stanton and Petty Romer and Howard Ford and Mercer and now Williams and Reed and so that's when I go into the Williams and Reed chapter but wow I got one Skiles and Henderson remember them yes how about do you remember Rummy Bishop was Rummy Bishop related to Joey Bishop well sort of he was related. He was related, but not related. He was a member of that trio, the Bishop Brothers, with Joey Bishop in the late 40s. But my understanding is that none of them were actually brothers.

They just called themselves the Bishop Brothers. And, of course, Joey Bishop's real name is Gottlieb. So I think they just all adopted Bishop. But Rummy Bishop lived in Toronto and lived a very long life, but real and obscure comedian. And he's the, he's one of these fun guys for me to research because the only thing you can find are bad reviews. Gilbert, how many of those names did you recognize? Boy, Skiles and Henderson. You don't remember? No. That was amazing.

I remember a team from the 80s. I remember Mac and Jamie. Oh, yes, of course. Yeah. And I remember fake teams like Joey Fay and Mac and Meyer for hire. Oh, yeah, yeah. But they were a manufactured team for television. Just for TV.

As far as ethnic comics, I mean, but ethnic being their own group. Right. I find it interesting. Sometimes I'll go to an event. If it's a Jewish event, there'll be these comics that get hired out for Jewish events. They know how to work an audience, a Jewish audience. And I'm thinking all these great TV comics started out like that, but they were able to branch out like like I'm sure, you know, Jack Carter was, oh, you know,

and and Uncle Morty comes over and but they were able to branch out. Some don't branch out. Yeah. You know, Myron Cohen was lambasted by some Jewish organizations back in the late 50s. They didn't like his portrayal on The Ed Sullivan Show. Again, that controversy between some people really care. Some people don't give a shit. You know, they felt that he was a harmful stereotype, which I never really saw. But there were like rabbis that were protesting Myron Cohen. I found an article in Winnipeg where they were writing letters like, keep this guy off of TV. Myron Cohen is a bad example. We don't want the goyim to see us in this light, you know. And it's just that that is a constant thing in the history of show business and comedy, this sort of tug of war, this push and pull. How do we want to be portrayed?

Like when Amos and Andy first came to radio, you always hear the story. It was the most popular show in America. Everybody loved it, but it really was white people that loved it and in black communities it was 50 50 50 percent loved it 50 percent despised it and so there was this internal dialogue within the black community about amos and andy who some who loved it and some who uh despised it that just seems to be a constant no matter what um throughout the whole history of show business we will will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. A reimagined exterior features compelling proportions and precise detailing. Built with integrity and purpose, the interior boasts robust, durable materials. Whether it's the all-terrain capability, ample cargo capacity, or innovative camera technology, the Defender 110 lets you go further and do more.

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Offer ends October 31, 2024. Conditions apply. Visit td.com slash tdmortgagedirect. I want to tie this conversation, too, into your first book, into the other book, the Comedian's Book, because in there you have a section about how Groucho, at a certain point, used his fame, used his power, to try to erase some of these more offensive ethnic stereotypes.

Yeah. Well, I mean, that movement went all the way back before Groucho was even alive. In the 1890s, there were movements to purge Irish stereotypes from vaudeville, Italian stereotypes from vaudeville. Every time a group came to america and became more integrated over the course of 10 or 15 or 20 years a protest a protest movement would spring up saying okay we no longer want to see our ethnicity uh defamed or exaggerated on the stage and there was a group called the clan nagel i guess it's galic c-l-a-A-N-N-A-G-A-E-L. And they organized to stop Irish stereotypes on the vaudeville stage. Comedians doing, you know, a penurious character or a drunk character or a policeman.

And they would organize and literally pelt comedians with eggs. Like they would make a date. They'd go, this guy's playing here at 8 p.m. in this vaudeville house. Let's all be there and pelt him with eggs if he doesn't stop doing Irish stereotypes. To the extent that a lot of vaudeville houses started to ban those things as early as 1903, 1904. Stereotypes of Native Americans were protested for the first time on a wide scale in the year 1904. Stereotypes of Native Americans were protested for the first time on a wide scale in the year 1911. And blackface, believe it or not, was banned by the Schubert-Vaudeville circuit and a couple other vaudeville circuits in 1922. We don't think of blackface as ever

being banned in vaudeville, but it was for a while. And then it kind of had a resurrection when radio became popular so every time new media is created this old stereotypes tend to return for a while so they left vaudeville they were resurrected in radio and silent film then they were resurrected on tv when old movies started getting played on tv yeah um you know if there's these cycles and these controversies have been going on since the 1800s it's nothing new but groucho did want to eliminate um racial stereotypes and he got into a feud with some as some of his fellow comedians this guy harry hirschfeld um who was on the show can you top this which was a radio show in the late 40s, in which they would tell jokes. It was like a game show.

They would give you a subject, and each of the four comedians would have to come up with a joke on the subject and try and top the other. And a lot of the jokes were delivered in dialect. And so there was a push to cancel that show, and Groucho was one of the people speaking out against these guys. And they pushed back because their whole livelihood as comedians

was based on doing dialect. So if they couldn't do dialect, they didn't have an act. And if they didn't have an act, they didn't have a career. So it was a huge controversy in show business. Not only are these guys doing ethnic stereotypes, if they're not allowed to do those ethnic stereotypes,

then they can't work for a living. So it was a bizarre and interesting kind of compelling controversy. And, you know, it's funny, like blackface at one point was so popular that black performers would put on blackface. In the pre-Civil War era, there were black blackface performers who would wear blackface in the pre-civil war era there were black blackface performers who would wear blackface and then do routines that agitated for the end of slavery like political acts likewise as slavery uh as the civil war ended there were blackface acts that were in celebration of the South defaming African-Americans. So different people were doing blackface for different reasons. Blackface pretty much was done by the end of World War II.

It's very rare to see a movie after 1945 with blackface. One of the reasons was it was felt that people like the Tuskegee Airmen and other black soldiers were fighting racism and fascism overseas. Out of respect, they would eliminate those racial stereotypes from Hollywood. But they got away with it whenever they would do a movie about old show business, like the Jolson story or Jolson Sings Again or the Eddie Cantor story. There was a context. They would put some blackface in there. Oh, you mentioned jolson sings again or the eddie canter story there was a context they would put some blackface in there oh you mentioned jolson sings again yeah and what i love about that movie it's larry parks as larry parks meets larry parks as jolson that's right it violates the Gilbert universe. Yes. Yeah. Well, I always think that I always think like if, you know, Frank Sinatra shows up in a movie as Frank Sinatra. It's like, well, it's like there was a movie with Robert De Niro.

And this girl says, why can't there be more guys like Harrison Ford and Jack Nicholson? And I always think, OK, so this is a universe where Harrison Ford and Jack Nicholson exist, but Robert De Niro does not exist. Well, one of the prime examples of that, we broke Scott and Larry's balls about it, is Man on the Moon. Because Mary Lou Henner exists and Judd Hirsch exists. examples of that we broke scott and larry's balls about it is is man on the moon because because mary lou henner exists and and judd hirsch exists but danny devito doesn't exist yes danny devito is one of the stars of the movie but according to this movie he was never on taxi because he's busy being george shapiro in that movie. No, no. Well, George Shapiro also, I thought George Shapiro plays a part in Man on the Moon as well. Doesn't he play like a pimp, like in a bar?

He's got a big butterfly collar. That movie is so confusing because you've got Peter Bonners is playing Jim Burrows. It's headache inducing. People who've been on this podcast. You know, I learned so much every time I read. Boners. Boners. I believe the preferred pronunciation is Boners. Isers. Boners. I believe the preferred pronunciation.

Is it Peter Boners? It better be. Please. On this show. He's not a porn star. He's an actor director. I learned so much reading this book. And it's not just about comedy.

But of course, your books always delve so deeply into history that I learned about the Buffalo Bill Wild West shows and what distinguishes a Wild West show from a medicine show. And there's a great section on Will Rogers. It's really wonderful history. People need to get the book. Very, very few books talk about both Geronimo and Mitzi Shore. And I think this is... I also learned that the Hakaui on F Troop was a ripoff of a Red Fox bit.

Oh, yes. George Schlatter, who had nothing to do with F Troop, told me this story. And I had heard the joke. You know, I'll capsize the joke. I'm not really going to do a good job of telling it. But the Red Fox version is there's a tribe fictional tribe called the focawi and these two white guys are searching for them they're trying to find them they're traversing through the woods and the guy is like uh i know where we are don't worry

don't worry and the punch line is well then where the focawi right so it was a red fox play on words there you go so that's why the heck how we on the f troop are the heck how we instead of the fuck how it's based on that joke george schlatter told me that the f in f troop represents the missing fuck from the fuck how we there you go g Gil. Oh, wow. Now, this is going back to the other comedy book, but real quick, and then we'll plug the new book again. But why the hell, you know, what we love on this show, and we started to talk about it, we love unhinged people.

We love the Jack Carters and the Pat Coopers of the world, but also Shecky and Buddy Hackett. Why the hell do we know why Buddy Hackett would throw a knife at a wonderful guy like Marvin Kaplan? Oh, yeah, that's right. That was during the filming. It's in your other book. Yeah, that was during the... In the comedians.

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad book. Did you guys get to interview Marvin Kaplan? We had him. Yeah. The sweet guy. Yeah, I remember. I just love that voice. Oh, we loved him.

I remember when he agreed to do the show, I was talking to him on the phone, and Marvin Kaplan said, do I have to dress up for it? But I went back to these great stories, like Hackett pulling a gun and shooting Toadie Field's picture off the wall. I also loved the course of the story where Hackett pulls the gun on

Shecky in the desert. Yes, of course. In the middle of the night. Who shot up Jackie Mason's hotel room? It's assumed that it was somebody connected to Frank Sinatra, a mafioso. That has never been verified. Yikes. It was really fun researching Jackie Mason's career in the 60s

because he's constantly getting beat up, shot at, attacked. Somebody tried to run him over with a car? Somebody tried to run him over. Why did Sinatra have Shecky beaten beaten up do we know the circumstances of that well shecky as shecky tells it it's because frank sinatra wanted shecky to be a member of the rat pack before joey bishop was established as the comedian of the rat pack sinatra was like i want you to be part of the gang and shecky said i don't want to be part of your gang. He goes, come on, be part of my gang. Sinatra didn't take rejection well, you know, he didn't want anything to do with him. And apparently, you know, Shecky,

sort of like that, we're talking about Buddy Rich and Robert Blake on Carson, how they would kind of insult him to his face, but nobody else would. Shecky would insult or roast sinatra to his face he didn't care and so when he was beat up on the set of uh not on the set but during the filming of tony rome um apparently it was because shecky was telling him to fuck off i don't want to be a part of your gang i don't want to go out and eat with you i don't like you i don't like italians you know and and shecky was a loose cannon in those days because he was drinking, so he was mouthy. But if you ever watch the movie Tony Rome, it's not a very good movie. It's sort of boring, but it's really interesting because the continuity is all fucked up. Without explaining it, there are scenes where you see Shecky with his nice full head of gelled hair.

Next scene, Shecky's got a big bandage on his head. Next scene, his hair. Next scene, a bandage. They never explain the bandage, but it's because he was beaten up by Sinatra's goons halfway through the filming one night. So there's evidence of him being beaten by, Shecky says it was the Fischetti brothers from Chicago who beat the hell out of him with a blackjack over the head and drew blood on orders from Frank Sinatra. I love these stories so much. I love that Shecky used to get bombed and walk through Caesar's Palace pushing statues over. Oh yeah, he would knock down those statues.

is pushing statues over. Oh, yeah, he would knock down those statues. See, Gilbert, you're not the only one that Shecky ran afoul of. Yeah. Although, you might be the only one that ran afoul of him when he was sober. You know, I don't think he's... He hasn't been drinking for, like, 30 years,

so he was really riled up. But the funny thing about Shecky is he got mad at you because you used like uh profane language or something yeah shecky shecky's words were uh i was in the navy i never heard talk like that but look i was talking to him on the phone he goes uh these kids these days bill ma with his dirty fucking mouth every other word word is cock suck. This dirty son of a bitch. These kids, they think they need to use the F word. Well, fuck them.

Why do you use the fucking F word? I'm like, Shecky, every other word out of your mouth is fuck. And he's complaining about, you know, other people swearing. I always find that hysterical. These old comedians who hate young comedians for swearing. And meanwhile, every other word is a cuss word. He hates young comics like Gil. Yes.

Young upstarts. I remember hearing a story. This comic I know saw George Burns in a restaurant. And he talked to him and he said, what's the difference between comedy in your time and comedy now? And he said, well, you know, they're dirty now. We never spoke like that. We respected the people we spoke to. And then right after saying that, the waiter comes over. Because Burns is putting his jacket on. The waiter walks over and goes, burns is putting his jacket on the waiter walks over and

goes uh mr burns are you leaving and burns goes ah yeah i gotta get home i hired i hired a teenage faggot to fuck me up the ass the edge. The beloved George Burns. Oh, my God. I got one last question from a listener, Reed Hawkins. Please, will Cliff write a book on comedic Asian models? Gilbert should write the foreword. Oh, yeah, because according to these writers I spoke to on the schedule on the Cosby show, he would take out an hour and that hour was to teach comedy to Asian models. Bill Cosby?

Yes. Supposedly. Oh, my God. Supposedly. Oh, my God. Supposedly. Oh, my God. You know, you know the story about Tommy Smothers sucker punching Bill Cosby. Oh, yes. Oh, I heard that Bill Cosby punched him. What happened? Oh, no. Yeah, you're right. You're right. It is the other way around.

It is the other way around because they were on The Tonight Show. And I guess Bill Cosby was the guest host. And Tommy Smothers made some sort of comment about how Bill Cosby was the guest host and Tommy Smothers made some sort of comment about how Bill Cosby was not very active like in the civil rights or black power and he felt he should because he had a platform and apparently Bill Cosby was really smug and dismissive on the Tonight Show of Tommy Smothers yeah they were at the Playboy Mansion where Bill Cosby was busy raping people and took a break and he walked up behind Tommy Smothers and cold cocked him from behind. I think he knocked him on conscience.

And I remember talking to Smothers back in like 2007. And I said, have you talked to him since? And he said, I've never talked to Bill Cosby in like 35 years. But I kind of love the stories of the feuds, especially these dudes that are considered sort of squeaky clean. And you find out there's all this sort of scandalous stuff going on behind. I interviewed a woman named Mickey Marlowe, who was sort of a pinch hitter on The Tonight Show. Like when Steve and Edie weren't available, she would come on and sing.

And she told me that she toured with Alan King and that he had a foot fetish and that he was obsessed with strippers. And then, you know, I just. Great. You know, we have to do another show with you where we just do scandal from top to bottom. And feuds. We love feuds and we love celebrity meltdowns. They make us so happy, don't they, Gilbert?

Yes. Anytime. Anytime. Anytime, anytime. I love that. I would really like somebody, maybe it has to be me, to write the story of Johnny Carson's drinking days in New York when he was considered a real loose cannon before he came to Burbank and maybe even before he had The Tonight Show.

There's a story about him ruining uh i think it was jerry vale's opening at the copacabana do you know that story no no where johnny was seated ringside for jerry vale's big opening at the copacabana i think it's jerry vale could have been vic damone or somebody like that but i think it's jerry vale and he just starts heckling him like fuck you fuck you get off the stage and he was johnny carson was drunk just wasted they had to pull him physically out in front of this whole crowd that was there for jerry vale's opening night at the copa and there's an episode of the tonight show that i saw on decades or one of those cable channels from like 78 or 79 and johnny and ed after the monologue are sitting there and doing their little banter and johnny says to ed i hear you've got a

big thing coming up and ed mcmahon says yes i'm opening at whatever the name of the nightclub is i'm going to be singing and i hope you'll be there and johnny says, oh yeah, I'll come. And Ed says, just don't do what you did to Jerry Vale. Wow, that's great. This is like 15 years later and the audience doesn't say anything because they don't know what he's talking about. And Johnny goes, doesn't say anything. He just takes like a sip of water.

And Ed McMahon goes, you remember Jerry Vale? And Johnny goes, I remember, I remember, I remember. Our first guest tonight and just like brushes him off but it was this beautiful moment where i was like oh i know what that's a reference to um so obviously there was some wild days john john some of them are in bushkin's book yeah some unflattering stories this book goes into such detail like i said there's the the history of of Will Rogers, his fascinating life and his death, and not the mythologized Will Rogers. We get the Will Rogers. The story's about Paul Littlechief,

and that was fascinating, too. And Alexander Posey, who was almost the first Native American stand-up comic, and Pete Redjacket and his cowboy donkey. You know I love the vaudeville acts. Yeah, that was weird to discover. I did not realize, like I knew Will Rogers had worked with a horse in his act, doing like lasso tricks with a horse.

Yeah, toured with a horse, right? Gilbert, can you imagine if you got booked at Caroline's and had to bring a horse with you, like do an act with a giant? I was in Hot to Trot. Oh, that's true. So I did work with a horse. But you didn't get on a train and go city to city with a 2,000-pound horse. The book comes out when, Cliff?

February the 16th. Okay. And it's We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, the unheralded story of Native Americans and comedy. Really fantastic. And again, I always learn so much. I told you I go Google crazy when I start reading a Cliff book. Oh, that's good.

Well, that's by design, you know. Oh, it's great. I want people to go and find the supplementary material on YouTube or wherever. This is a good era, even though nobody reads anything anymore. It's a good era to read a book because you can supplement it with shit that's on YouTube. Whereas, you know, in the old days, if you read a book about music and you didn't have access to any of the songs, it was like kind of a pointless exercise. So, you know, all those obscure comedy teams I rattled off, you might be able to find a clip here or there of them appearing

on Alan Ludden's gallery. I love it. You're like a, no one yet has called you the human time machine, but you are that too. Are you in touch with our pal Kelly Carlin?

Yes, I know Kelly, yeah. Give Kelly our best if you talk to her. Sure. Well, Gilbert, let this man get back to his life. Oh. The book comes out in February. Again, I'm going to say the title,

inspired by a Charlie Hill joke. We had a little real estate problem, the unheralded story of Native Americans and comedy. And as always, it is a history lesson. Yes, sir. But a grandly entertaining one. And this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And let's see if I could say his name again correctly. Oh, God.

Cliff Nesterov. Wow. See, it only took like 20 appearances on this show, but I eventually. It's a first. I am honored. I am honored. Wow. Nice work, Gilbert. Now say Akeem Tamaroff. Cliff, thank you for this as always.

The book is great. Cliff, we could do hours with you. You are so entertaining. My pleasure. And come back and bring more Scandal. Okay, thanks guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, pal.