Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Memories of "Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast!" w/ Dara Gottfried, Gino Salomone and Alan Zweibel

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

In the premiere episode of Fun for All Ages with Frank Santopadre, Frank kicks off this new adventure with a heartfelt and hilarious tribute to "Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast!" Joining Frank for an hour of stories, memories and laughs are GGACP producing partner Dara Gottfried, entertainment reporter Gino Salomone, and comedy legend Alan Zweibel. Also in this episode: Bob Costas almost tanks his career, Gino runs afoul of Robert Wagner, Dara shares a priceless voicemail from Bill Macy, and everyone recalls their favorite Gilbert moments. PLUS: Dick Cavett saves the day! Gino remembers Ruth Buzzi! Alan reports from SNL’s 50th! And Frank lays out his next chapter in podcasting! Be sure to subscribe now on  Apple ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fun-for-all-ages-with-frank-santopadre/id1824012922⁠ Spotify ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/18EQJNDwlYMUSh2uXD6Mu6?si=97966f6f8c474bc9⁠ Amazon ⁠https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/13b5ed88-d28d-4f0c-a65e-8b32eecd80f6/fun-for-all-ages-with-frank-santopadre⁠ YouTube ⁠https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgvlbF41NLLPvsrcZ9XIsYKkH_HvUXHSG⁠ iHeart ⁠https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-fun-for-all-ages-with-fran-283612643/⁠ TuneIn ⁠http://tun.in/pxOWO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay, we'll do it. Hi, this is Frank Santopadre and welcome to Fun for All Ages, the podcast for pop culture obsessives like me and like the three wonderful people we're going to be talking to on this very first show. We're here at Fabulous Poem and Sound in Midtown with our talented and helpful engineer, D. David. And if you listened to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, and you know you did, I think you might be familiar with the people who've been kind enough to join me on this

maiden voyage. Gino Salomon is a film critic, an entertainment reporter, a radio and TV personality, a talent booker, a beloved guest on the previous podcast, and the best friend that show ever had. Alan Zweibel is another loyal friend of the original show as well as a frequent guest. He's also a multiple Emmy winner, a recipient of the Thurber Prize for humor and an original writer on NBC Saturday Night Live

among other achievements. Oh, there's so many. So many, we'll talk about it. Countless. And last but not least, never least, Dara Gottfried, the person who got me into this podcasting game in the first place, and the producer and the creator of the Amazing Colossal podcast.

She also happens to be the best thing that ever happened to Gilbert Gottfried. I'm telling you, it's the only thing that ever happened to Gilbert Gottfried. You guys insist it's the best. What else happened? It's the only thing. I love you all. I love you all. Alan, she humanized him. She tamed the savage beast.

I remember him in the improv when he had the trays, the bar trays, and he's like, hindsight and all that. Wow. And we're also trying something new for this premiere episode. We're gonna be joined at various points throughout the show by an experimental artificial intelligence program, which we're calling the Gilbot 3000. Gilbot, I almost said Gilbert. Gilbot, it's that lifelike. You wanna say hello to the listeners? Oh yes, hi.

It's great to be here. Yeah, unlike the real Gilbert, I can write new jokes. That's part of my programming. But I do steal Geno's stories still. Fantastic. That's a big part of my greedy Jewish circuitry. Yes. We look forward to that. And Gilbot, Gilbot, can I ask you a question?

No. Did you do any prep for the show today? Oh, oh, tons of prep. Yeah, look at all my cards. Absolutely. It's so lifelike, isn't it? It's not Gilbert, but it's an incredible simulation. Oh, God. Well, guys, they said it couldn't be done,

or maybe that it shouldn't be done, but here I am. I'm back with another show. There just weren't enough podcasts in the world. I was feeling the urge to fill that vacuum. And I wanted to be surrounded in the first episode by people I liked and trusted. And so I have three wonderful people and an AI program to get us through this.

I'll tell you a little bit about the show, which is called Fun For All Ages, which you caught on to. It's gonna be like the Amazing Colossal podcast, but different, and different in the sense that I plan to focus on topics things guests are passionate about, things guests never get to talk about or are never interviewed about.

Like in Alan's case, we would be talking about, what have you never been interviewed about? Something in popular culture that you love we talked about this on the phone. Yeah baseball you said Superman Yeah, Superman. You said you could do a whole episode about duck soup. I can do duck soup I can assume with the old dick Van Dyke show. Come on. We should do that We should get persky into a whole episode about the dick Van Dyke show. Absolutely. Let's do that You can also get dick Van Dyke, but you better hurry. Also get Dick Van Dyke. So movies, TV comedy, novelty records, drive-in theaters, toys, collectibles, theme parks, songwriters, a little bit of everything will be included.

If you guys know the Kirk Hammett episode that Gilbert and I did with the Metallica guitarist, that's sort of a backdoor pilot. Oh yeah, I remember the prep I did for that. Yes. It was extensive. I'm not talking about research. I took prep. In order to do the show, I thought it would be helpful. My God. Isn't that crazy? No, it's nuts. It's like somebody took Gilbert and shoved him into that body.

Yes. It's so weird. They fisted me into this body. And then the little boy came in. He started jerking off the dog. And the daughter started sucking the father's dick while the mother... Oh sorry, I'm getting lost here. It's okay.

I see you cleaned Gilbert up during your whole thing. Yes. Oh my god. It is amazing, this technology. There's no room for vulgarity in the robot afterlife. I can't imagine what it's like for you. I'm getting all sorts of, oh we used to call it in fourth grade sissy shivers okay I'm 74 I just said sissy shivers about myself but this is nuts you know it's like that show small wonder but this would be small dick wonder the audience can't see Alan's face Alan is looking at the Gilbot and stunned You're going to use all your. Go ahead. The audience can't see Alan's face.

Alan is looking at the Gilbot and stunned. Are you sure Gilbert's dead? I'm serious because this is insane. Is this the first podcast you've ever used the term sissy shivers? Oh yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. This is groundbreaking.

This is it. This is. And when someone dies, you sit sissy shiver. That's really good. Yeah. That's really good. This Gilbot is it. This is and when someone dies you sit sissy shiver But is quick is he's really Gilbert gave Gilbert did give Gilbert a stamp of approval Yes, he did Would you like me to extrapolate? It's not Gilbert because he used me to extrapolate on that? Go for it. Go ahead, Gilbert. Okay, now I know it's not Gilbert because he used the word extrapolate. Yeah. Extrapolate.

And ask for permission. Well, you know, Artie Lang was actually a creative consultant on the design of my robot. It's true. He said, he said, well, what you gotta do when you make a robot is you gotta give it two legs so it can walk. And you gotta give it two arms so it can hold things, and a head so it can talk. Oh, yes. Oh, God. Oh, man. All right, let's power down the Gilbot just long enough for me to ask a question.

Dara. Yes, I am here. We're gonna start with you. Dara Gottfried is here, folks. This is so cool. This is so fun. I'm so happy for you, Frank. Thank you all for coming out in the rain,

by the way, on a crappy New York day. Lorraine. This means so much to me. Do you recall first having the idea, and let's give people, because not everybody knows the context of the original show, and from whence it came,

but it has to do with Gilbert desperately needing new material for his act. Correct. Yeah. You want to talk about it? Sure, sure. Well, I guess he had just gotten let go from the famous Aflac Duck in- I thought you weren't gonna say the name, but go ahead.

Fuck Aflac, sorry. Anyway, can I say it? They're my first sponsor. Is that gonna be a problem? Sorry. No, this is the Ben Aflac Duck. It's a totally different thing. Great. Fantastic.

He had just gotten let go and his agent said, Gilbert, you really need to update your act because he was still doing jokes, as you know, about Molly Ringwald. I still love Molly Ringwald. Joyce DeWitt. He was doing jokes about Joyce DeWitt in 2015. You know, O.J. Simpson, blah, blah, blah. So, I, he, I, oh my God, I was trying so hard to get him to update his act. And I would go on the computer and I'd make lists of topics.

And I went online and I just, I tried so hard and whatever I said, he just would not listen to me. Because I thought, you know, he's going to have to like lean now more on standup. So I had this idea because I was friends with you, Frank, and I thought maybe if you just talk to him, you guys could inspire him to write new material. Not write for him, but inspire him to write new material. So you agreed, you thought it was a terrible idea, as far as I remember. But you agreed, and I told you that I would pay you. You know, we just wouldn't tell Gilbert. And... And... I knew I'd never see a check with his signature on it.

So you guys got on the phone, and all I remember was it was hours and hours and hours of talking about the most obscure movie references and actors. And I thought, you know what? This is... Maybe there's something here. And there was, there was nothing that Gilbert enjoyed talking about or was capable of talking about more than old Hollywood. True, true.

So I thought, you know what? Why don't we use this as an excuse for him to talk to his heroes? And if no one listens, don't listen, at least you guys would have a good time. And that was it. I knew it wasn't gonna, you guys weren't gonna write a new act.

No, no. That was established in the first phone call, that there was no way knew it wasn't gonna, you guys weren't gonna write a new act. No, no. That was established in the first phone call, that there was no way that I was actually gonna, and you know this as a writer, Alan, you cannot write, really write a Gilbert routine, because it's so specific to his voice and his sensibility. And it comes from Mars, okay?

How do you write the Ben Guzzara UFO bit? Well, see, that's what I'm saying. We were talking earlier about what Gilbert had aside from everything he would take one thing put it with a thing it doesn't belong with and make it a thing that yes from Mars yes okay yes and I just would marvel at the couplings that he did. Me too. He was a surrealist. Yes he was. Yeah but you know how could I ever come up with I got on the phone with him first of all I knew he wasn't gonna he was. Yeah. But, you know, how could I ever come up with, I got on the phone with him. First of all, I knew he wasn't going to pay me. Yeah. And he was frustrated. The more,

Yen, you know this better than anyone, the more you told him to do something, the more he rebelled against it. That's right. So he resented the fact that anybody wanted him to freshen up his act and that he couldn't still do Charles Nelson Riley references in 2014. But you're leaving something out, by the way go something that i don't know if you made public there you hired a writer to follow him around to kind of help them and he ignored the guy that for guys probably an institution after that experience i didn't know this story well you're talking about the book

no no he said that did there are higher the writer for me to to freshen up my act and he said and i i haven't I haven't said one word to him I haven't talked to him. I think that might have been for the book not for his ass for Dan Oh Dan Paisner Dan Paisner, maybe yeah bless his heart Because Dan Dan right exactly Dan Paisner has a podcast. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He's a good guy He's a good guy. He goes for a Gilbert's rubber's a great guy. He ghost wrote Gilbert's Rubber Balls and Liquor, as well as a baseball book with Ron Darling

and some other case. Really? OK, because I didn't know who he was. Oh, you love him. I'm doing a favor to Eugene Paak, who I know Eugene. Who produces Celebrity Autobiography. He asked me if I would go on Dan Paisner's podcast.

He's a great guy. Great guy. Great. We're giving a plug for Dan Paisner. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him.

Fuck him. We got giving a plug for Dan Pasner. Fuck him. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. We got on the phone, I think we spent five minutes trying to work on his act. Okay. And I just knew, I knew he wouldn't listen to me and I also knew that I couldn't do it. Right. It was too challenging to come up with a joke like, I wonder if in the Middle Ages people

walked around going, wow, this is a really long time ago. Right. I'm not, it's so brilliant. And I can't, I couldn't make my brain work like that. Well, you know, Gilbert and I, I would, we would go out to dinner with other couples or whatever and he wouldn't say a word and it was always so awkward and his social skills sucked and the only way I could get him to talk is I would play this game, the six degrees of separation game. And I'd stop everything and I'd say,

okay, to the other couple, you pick one name, you pick another name, and then Gilbert would try to connect them. John Benet Ramsey. John Benet Ramsey. John Benet Ramsey. John Benet Ramsey. John Benet Ramsey.

Like that. John Benet Ramsey. Just like that. John Benet Ramsey. And then all of a sudden, and then you couldn't shut him up because this one's connected to this one, this one's connected to this one. Wait a second, let's go with that. Try, try, try. Okay, Governor Rockefeller.

No, it has to be two people from like Hollywood. Oh, Hollywood, okay. George Reeves. George Reeves. Speaking of Superman, right? There you go. George Reeves. Speaking of Superman, right? There you go. George Reeves and Marilyn Monroe. Okay, listen, George Reeves and Marilyn Monroe walk into a talent agent's office.

The talent agent says, oh hi, George Reeves and Marilyn Monroe. What kind of an act do you do? So George Reeves starts taking off Marilyn Monroe's dress and she squats down and starts blowing. All right, Gilbaugh. Sorry, I malfunctioned. Can you do it, Greg?

Just like silencing the real thing on the old show. Just like it. Where were we? Somebody was blowing someone. I forgot who. Marilyn Monroe with George. What I love now is you can come clean. You talked about paying Frank, you said under the table.

When you go out to dinner, you went out to dinner with Dick Van Dyke, you had to suddenly go out and pay. Oh, I forgot about that, that's right. Oh, that's a good one. That's right, I forgot about that. Thank you, that's true. You wanna share it?

Oh, we went and I set up a dinner with the four of us, with Arlene and Dick and myself. But yeah, I had to like, Gilbert went to the bathroom and I had to slip Arlene the money for us because I didn't want Gilbert to. Gino, did he ever once pay even the tip? No, but something that Alan, that's where I met Alan, the first time was his birthday party

that he had to pay for. And do you remember he was just walking around miserable and I'm like, Gilbert, enjoy yourself. Your friends are all here to celebrate you. And I'm here because this is the only time you're ever gonna pay for anything I eat. Oh, that was such a fun party. 60th. It was great.

60th. That was a 60th. That was great. That's where you and I met, G. Yes, Frank, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, that's wild. So you were listening to our phone conversations and it dawned on you that somehow,

and podcasting was in its infancy, we should say. This was 2014. 2014. There were not six million podcasts. No, 2014. There were not six million podcasts. There were maybe six thousand. And so when you when you approached me with the idea, I had no idea what you were talking about. Gilbert knew even less. Yeah. I don't think he ever understood it. No. And while he was doing it. And I thought, well, this will be fun. I'll get to hang out with Gilbert and it'll be well, we'll do 10 of these things and it'll be an experiment and, you know, we'll call it a day and it'll look fun on a resume. And 639 shows later.

My God. Isn't that wild? Yeah, it's nuts. Wow. The first one we went to, I was like obsessed with Professor Erwin Corey. Oh, so he was the first? He was not the official first. I mean, he was the official first. He was the first, not your first.

He wasn't the first that we put out. Let's be clear about that. Yeah. Right, right, right, right right so we went to his house and we set up there and afterwards we went to the pizza shop the pizza store the pizza store we all had it seems like yesterday yeah he gave up on the show immediately right exactly took about an hour he'll he just had too much charisma. I said, there's no way we can release this episode. The guy is just oozing charisma. We'll never be able to follow it up.

He was oozing. He was 102? He died at 104, and I think he was 102 when we did it. He was part man, part recliner. He was under a blanket. So he was a hyphenate. He was a man, part recliner. He was under a blanket. So he was a hyphenate. He was a hyphenate. And we got through.

There was about 15 usable minutes. And we went to the pizzeria and said, this is a bust. And then Darren and I got on the phone and said, what if we came up with somebody who was automatic, almost a self-interviewing guest, somebody that just walks in the door, instant show. And so we called Dick Cavett to the apartment almost 10 years ago to the day.

Wild. And we had a show. What a great guy, Dick Cavett. A great guy, a wonderful guy. And Gilbert tortured Dick Cavett. Do you remember that story? Tortured him. What did he do to him?

What did he do to Dick Cavett? He saw him at a hotel and he followed him around doing old groucho That's right finally Javit got on the elevator went up to his room Gilbert called the room as We'll see if you're on an elevator Back in my day, you know Was a little box that would take you to different floors. And so if you wanted to go to the sixth floor, you would press six. And if you wanted to go to the next one, you would press eight.

This Gilbot has such range. It's amazing the times we're living in. Gino, how did you find out about the podcast? He told me, he said he was thinking about it, and then he called me after Professor Erwin Corey and said, ah, it didn't work, we're not going to do it. But then, Cavett, you couldn't have made a better pick than that because he appealed to Gilbert on so many levels, actually took the time to come to your apartment, Dara. Who does that? What kind of guest does that? And then I think he saw the merit of it. And then just he would then start suggesting guests because I started helping you out with guests. And some of the names he came up with Frank. Oh, fantastic guests. Yeah. Like for example, who? What kind of names? The little girl from, was it Bride of Frankenstein?

No, no, no, we got her on the show. Yeah, we did. Shana Dan Gallo. That made me happy. Yeah, but no, he would suggest people that were so dry. Saul Rubenek, he was obsessed with Saul Rubenek. Why was he obsessed with Saul Rubenek? Well, I don't know.

He begged me, he said, please, I think we should get Saul Rubenek. He gave no reason, He just had her name. The other one. No. The other one he had to have was Richard Dysart. Okay, yeah. Jeez.

What? Then he wanted the woman from Full Metal Jacket who had one line. Happy on Susu. Oh, yeah. Yes, and Frank's point was, okay, Gilbert, shall we talk about that line? Then what do we talk about with her for an hour?

Miso horny. Me so horny in full metal jacket? Absolutely. I think she speaks about 35 words of English. I think I found her. She was living in London. So did you ever have anybody like Frank Bank, you know, played Lumpy Rutherford? Did you have anybody from old TV shows like that? We had a few people from old TV shows.

About 250. Don Wells. Don Wells. Don Wells. Don Wells. Don Wells. Thanks to Gino, I mean Gino rolled them in. We had Don Wells, Butch Patrick, Billy Moomy, George Takei. Who am I forgetting?

Adam West and Burt Ward. And one that I sure- You had both of them in the same show? No, two different shows. We only had one citizen. Quickly drop into the Batmobile. We haven't a moment to lose. Hey, how about give it up for the Gilbot. Oh thank you. Just other impressions. Did you ever hear my John MacGyver? I programmed to do impressions for the Gen Z audience.

I see that. I got one for you. Can you do Sam Kinison? Oh yes. Just give me a lot of drugs. Oh no. I mean, let's see. Ow!

Ow! Ow! I guess that was more nipsey. Listen, the robot bombs too. Did you just say that was more Nipsey, Russell? More Nipsey than Kenison. I got some poems for ya! Nipsey's a little like his Timmy Rogers. Yes, yes.

By the way, this is why anyone who doubts what a good parent Gilbert is, his son Max still does Timmy Rogers to me on the phone. Oh yeah! So far we've mentioned about four regulars on Match Game. Yes! Yes! I didn't get to Bob Melvin yet. Bob Melvin!

I wrote for Bob Melvin. I know. I wrote for all guys who had two first names. Gene, right. Right. As well as, well, you mentioned this on another episode that I was just listening to. Morty Gunty, Bob Melvin, Gene Balos. Oh, God, yeah. All of these wonderful people. Yeah, Gene Balos. Did I tell you my Gene Balos story? Now's a good time.

Well, here we go, okay? Gene Balos, for you youngsters out there, let's say who are younger than 90, okay? Don't remember. Gene Balos was this sad sack, kind of jolly comedian, and he would also be an actor. He was on an episode of Dick Van Dyke, where he played a bum in a park. Correct. Very good. Very good.

And Dick Van Dyke left that week's script there and he brought it. He found it, Gene Bayless did, and he, for ransom, okay, he wanted money. So Morty Gunty takes me to the Friars Club. The first time I'm ever in the Friars Club. I used to hang out at the bar and write jokes for those Catskill comics for $7 a joke, okay? So he introduces me to Dick Capri, Freddie Roman, Bob Melvin. Sure.

Now we go into the dining room and you guys remember the dining room, this big dining room. Gene Balos, who's sitting at a big table with a bunch of people. Morty comes up to him and says, uh, Gene, I want to introduce you to a very funny young man. This is Alan. So Gene stands up. He goes, you're funny, huh? Morty comes up to him and says, Gene, I want to introduce you to a very funny young man. This is Alan.

So Gene stands up, he goes, you're funny, huh? I go, I guess so. He says, you know who's also funny? My dentist. And he opened his mouth and out came about 30 chicklets, okay, as if they were his teeth. And now to this very day, as I sit here right now, I don't know if he sat there with chicklets,

waiting for somebody to introduce him so he can do the joke, or he saw me coming and he just put chicklets in his mouth so he can spit them out. I thought maybe I had told you that. Tom Leopold loved to talk about how he went up to, he was with Paul and they went up to Gene Balos in the lunchroom at the, in the, in the cafe at the Friars.

And they said, how you doing, Gene? And Gene said, not too good. I got a glass tube in my prick. Oh, Jesus. Oh, man. He's dined out on that one for a while. Alan, I want to know who are those guys like that, that you first, before you even started writing,

that you knew you'd wanna work with, that you would also recognize all these guys? Well, you know what it was? We used to go there, we lived on Long Island, that's where you spent holiday weekends. My dad and mom would take the four kids and we'd go up there. So I'd see Freddie Roman, I'd see Morty Gunty,

a guy named Dick Lord, another guy named Dick Capri, another guy named Billy Baxter. They all played up there. And then a few years later, when I graduated college, when all the law school said, no, no, no, no, you wanna be a comedy writer, you don't wanna come here, we saw your board scores. I started writing for them.

And it was really a kick because when I was a young kid, I would sneak into the nightclub because I wasn't 18 years old. Okay, and see those same comedians. And now I was allowed in the nightclub. I was 21, 22, and they're doing my jokes, you know? Wow. So cool. But it was really an interesting experience

because some of them, $7 a joke, that was the going rate, and some of them would only pay you if it got a laugh. So I would sit in the back of, let's say, of the nightclub at Grossingers, right? And I'd see a comic, do my joke, and then he'd come off and he goes, well, boy, that joke about paving the driveway just really went into the toilet.

And I go, you know, I heard a lot of laughs, so we would bargain and I'd go home with $4. Oh my God. You'd bargain based on the number of laughs you think you heard. Yeah, so I started running through the aisles laughing so it sounded like more people were doing. Bittersweet too that you mentioned the Friars

because it's gone now. And we did so many episodes there. Well, we did the Bob Costas one, I remember. We did the famous Bob Costas episode, which is one of my 10, probably 10 if not five, favorite moments on the show. And thanks to you, you brought us Bob Costas. Can I tell you a Bob Costas story,

or are you gonna have Bob Costas so he can tell his story? No, I'll have him on eventually, but go ahead. Bob Costas told me this a few months ago. We were at a party together, and he came under a lot of attack during the baseball playoffs last season. A lot of negative reviews that he was old fashioned to arcane and all of that. And he said, you want to hear arcane? He's talking about himself.

I go, okay, tell me arcane. I don't know what year Aaron Judge's rookie year was. He said, but he was doing the playoffs and Aaron Judge was in the on deck circle. Okay. And the camera was shooting his back that had the big 99 on the back. That's his number. And Aaron Judge was really good. And Bob Costas said, he says, that's Aaron Judge,

and if he keeps up these kind of numbers, he's gonna end up being one of the three most famous 99s, along with Wayne Gretzky and Barbara Felden. Fantastic. Yeah. And that's why I love him. Okay, and I'm going, wow, I lived to be a thousand, I can't write that, yeah.

That's amazing. That's great. To me, him and Scully are the best that ever did it. Yeah. And I've told him that. Oh, he must have taken it as a high compliment. I mean, Scully is the... To me, he's the best. The episode you referenced was Gilbert.

Gilbert told one of his filthiest jokes with Bob attempting to do play by play. Or, no, Gilbert was telling the joke and Bob was doing color commentary. On the joke? Yeah, on the joke. And Gilbert got about 30 seconds into the joke and Bob just waved to us, got on his hands and knees, you remember, Dara, and crawled under the table. I have video of it.

We have video, which I guess we'll put up somewhere, and crawled out of the room and decided his career was over then and there. One of the great memories. Clear under the tables, the conference room tables, across the room in the Friars Club on all fours. He crawled the length of the room along the walls. So funny. And he basically said something about this being

the end of his career. The end of his career, yeah. Crawling under tables seems to be a recurring theme on the show. And he basically said something about this being the end of his career. The end of his career. Yeah. Crawling under tables seems to be a recurring theme on the show. Yeah, we've had a few people under the table, you're right. A little of that. But I thought I lost my career because of Gilbert.

Go. Really? In a very famous clip from this show. So, Alan, I don't know if you know, I do these celebrity interviews and I always had fun with Sandra Bullock. I would always pull a practical joke on her. So we were doing the interview in New York and I said to Gilbert, come on, we have this thing

where Sandra and I pretend to be engaged. Why don't you come in and tell her that she should marry me? Now, what was I thinking? Because you could never tell Gilbert what to do or trust him. So he walks in, he said, will you just marry him? Just marry him. I mean, you'll make it a sexless marriage.

Look at him. And then he says, you make it a sexless marriage and I'll fuck you. All I could think of was she has a tough publicist. I'm dead. The studio is never going to have me back. And then the worst part of all, he comes back in and she said, you're a genius. I will fuck you. And after it was over, I see her publicist walking up and I'm thinking, this is it. She's going to say, you're never going to talk

to her again. No, she said, that was the best. That was, can we get a copy of that? That was the book, the grant. It's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. People can find it. No end to your suffering, Gino. No, but you know what? Not only my- From that friendship. Anybody trusting him to do the right thing, and there was no ill motive, he was going to shove it up your ass if he could.

100%. What do Henry Winkler and Paul Williams say to you about when they see you Whenever you run into them and and my impression is not as good as Gilbert's Paul Williams said, you know Gilbert can be very inappropriate and Really and Henry Winkler the nicest man in the world said, you know Gilbert wants me to go down streets I don't want to go and I'm not going down those streets with Gilbert. And Henry is the nicest person. The nicest person. Yes, absolutely.

In show business and out of show business. Dara, do you remember those days when we were nomads, when we were just go, we didn't have a studio. This is before Nutmeg and Verda Rosa came into our lives. Dara was our engineer in those days. And to her credit, she bought the rig, she taught herself how to do it. We recorded at Gilbert's kitchen table. That's right. Dick Cavett came, Richard Kine came, Bierko, Judd Apatow, the late Jay Thomas.

And I had to figure out how to get people on Zoom and do that. Remember we had Ed Asner and Gilbert got up and tripped over the wire and disconnected Ed Asner? Oh my God. Great days. And we went to- He had no technical ability whatsoever.

No, the fans know that. When he would FaceTime me, this is what I'd see. Oh my God. He would never, I would get maybe one of his teeth or something, but he did, could not get the concept. Did you ever have Shanling? No, you know, he had passed. He had already passed?

Right around the time we started, which broke my heart because he would have been so wonderful with us. Yeah, I'll ever tell you how I met Gary. We had Tambor. I don't think so. We co-created It's Gary Shanling show together. We were both managed by Bernie Brillstein and Brad Gray. So Bernie calls me and I'm at the Friars Club. This is after SNL. I'm at the Friars Club. Bernie Brillstein

calls me. He goes, you know who Gary Shanley is? I said, yeah, I've seen him on Letterman. He's really funny. He said, he says, well, he's doing it. This is Bernie Big. You know, if you know, if Kenny Rogers and Santa Claus had a kid he says well he's doing a special for Showtime is going right into the shithouse get I'll send you the script send me the script I said I think I could help this I like this they fly me out to LA I go right to a restaurant right from the airport and I meet Gary at a restaurant. We're in a restaurant at night. He's wearing dark glasses, okay?

So, I'm telling him my ideas for the special, and I don't, I can't read the guy. His eyes are covered with dark glasses, and he doesn't talk really. And I have no idea if he likes my ideas, if he likes me. Alright, so we leave. I go to the hotel. And now it's one

o'clock in the morning. I'm in bed. It's four o'clock in the morning for my body because I just woke up from LA the same night. Phone rings in the hotel room. Alan, it's Gary. I go, hey man, what's doing? Alan, my dog's penis tastes bitter. You think it's his diet or what? I call my wife Rob and I said, I think I found the writing part. That's it. What's the other phone call that you got from him about the date?

Well, he would call, he had no private life, you know, so he had no boundaries, okay? And he didn't respect the fact that other people had other things going on in their world, aside from him. So we're doing the show, and he would call on a Sunday morning, six o'clock in the morning, right? And then those days it was before caller ID

and the phone was on Robin's side of the bed. And if you're a Jew and somebody calls at six in the morning, either somebody's dead or it's Shandling, okay? And Robin and I would debate, which was worse news, you know, if it was dead person or Shandling, but she would wake up, just answer the phone and hand it over to me. I'd go, hello?

Alan, it's Gary. Hey man. Alan, I had a date last night. Okay. How did it go, Gary? He says, well, we were in bed, and the girl said, no fingers in the ass. And I said, listen, it's my finger, and it's my ass,

and if that's what I wanna put it, you don't have a vote. Once again, I live to a thousand. I can't write that joke. So good. No, it's another joke you can't write. Yeah. It's too good. Or the Ronnie, or the Ronnie Shakes joke that we both admire so much. Ronnie Shakes was this, and he died many, many years ago. Yeah, he died young.

Young guy who was sort of a hapless character on stage. And he did this joke. He said, I've been going to the Shrink three times a week for seven years now. And he just listens to me and listens to me. I tell him all my foibles or my fears or my neuroses. And finally today, finally he spoke. He said three words that brought tears to my eyes. He said, no, hablo ingles.

That's a great joke. Now this is 50 years ago. We remember this joke. Yes. You're never going to forget that joke. Wow. Gino, let's talk about, I introduced you as the best friend the show ever had and talk about some of the wonderful people you helped book or you'd book directly without help. Like Richard Marks and Billy Saluga

and Richard Donner and the Arkans and Ron Friedman. And Gilbert. I think you just nailed them all. And Michelle Lee and Dennis DeYoung. And of course, Gilbert gave you no credit whatsoever. No, and Gino Conforti, who I thought was one of the great treasures, a character actor. I don't know if you remember from Therese Company. He was in everything.

And he has turned out to be an amazing friend. I love this man like he's my family. And they all had this reverence for Gilbert. And it was so nice to see that. Richard Marx, who would have thought, right? Yeah. That he would connect with him. Perfect. yeah well I think one of the things that brought such joy to me and I think to you as well Darra was that he got to see that people he loved like Karl Reiner and Norman Lear were fans of his that he was on their radar he I remember when he interviewed

who was it that said that he would have made a great, from that way, Adam West. Adam West said he would have made a great Riddler. Riddler. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that- No, Penguin.

Oh, a great Penguin. Penguin, not that one. Look at you, Geno. I knew that was right. The Geno bot. Yeah. That made him so happy. And whenever anyone complimented it, he just wanted them to just keep saying it over and

over and over. Right? I don't think he had... Well, first of all, when Carl Reinder told him he was a fan of Gilbert's comedy, he lit up. And I also, I would say about the Dick Van Dyke episode where you guys went to Dick and Arlene's house, I don't think I ever saw him starstruck as he was in Dick Van Dyke's presence and singing supercalifragilistic with him. He was like a 10-year-old.

Yep. And Gilbott, what would he say when he would get a compliment? What would Gilbert always say? I think it was something like, and don't quote me, Oh, thank you. Don't quote me saying thank you? Close enough. Oh saying thank you. Close enough. Thank you.

Nice work. Nice work, Gino. The boy goes home to his father. He says, Dad, I had my first blow job today. The father says, That's great, son. How was it? The son says, Tasted awful. Because he had a dick in his face.

I said yes. The Gilbert also explains the punch lines. This is a full-service chatbot. No, the Gilbert would not do that. That was my favorite thing watching him on stage when he would completely lose the crowd on purpose and take such joy in it. I saw him do Milton Berle singing his closing theme of his variety show, and he emptied out a 2,000 seater.

And there were just a few people left. That was a badge of honor for him. This is Bela Lugosi doing Who's On First. What's the name of the man on second base? I don't know, Sontarad. Unbelievable. Oh, man. That's going viral on TikTok, right?

Well, the young kids. Oh, yes. Yeah. Amazing. Dara, highlights. I think if I ask you your favorite night or your favorite experience that we had doing the show, let's see if we're on the same page here. Okay, this is going to be fun. Was it a sing-al experience that we had doing the show? Let's see if we're on the same page here. Okay, this is gonna be fun.

Was it a sing-along that took place at Nutmeg? Oh, yes. With Tony Orlando? Oh, yes, that was definitely a highlight. Wasn't that a night? Oh, that was so much fun. Do you remember how happy that made him? Oh, that was so much fun.

And he said, I know why you're married to him, you sing like him. He was such a nice guy too. In those days, like I was saying before, we did not have a home and we went everywhere. you sing like him. He was such a nice guy too. In those days, like I was saying before, we did not have a home and we went everywhere. We recorded at Larry Storch's house, we went to Barbara Felden's house and she made us lunch which was wonderful. We went to Lee Grant's house and we got to hold her Oscar.

And in those days, Gilbert cared a little bit. He cared enough to maybe write three or four notes on the back of a CVS receipt. Correct. Correct. Correct. Or toilet paper. Yeah. And I'm also thinking about the time we went to Jeff Ross's apartment to interview Jeff, which is noteworthy because I was coming from the courthouse where I had just gotten married. Oh, man.

It was his wedding day. I want you to know how dedicated to the show I was. I left just gotten married. Oh man! It was his wedding day. It was his wedding day. I want you to know how dedicated to the show I was. I left my wife in a cab and went to Jeff Ross's apartment. Oh man! On the day of my wedding. I was like, what? You just got married and you're here?

Isn't that wild? I'm stunned. Absolute dedication. Alan. Yes sir. Slightly off topic. Tell us about SNL 50. Itute dedication. Alan. Yes, sir. Slightly off topic. Tell us about SNL 50. It was great.

I loved it. I loved it. Friday night was a big, it was Radio City. Yeah. It was all music. And I had met my wife on the show. I met Robin on the show. She was a production assistant.

I was a writer. And she's dancing in the aisles in Radio City, okay? And it was really fun. Sunday night was the big show in 8H, and there were no plus ones. So we sat in 8H, but Robin, who had been my plus one, they opened Seth Meyers' studio, okay? And that's where the plus ones went.

Robin had a better time than me because they had a big video screen, they had a bar, they had food, they had little cocktail tables and all of that. That's what it was like when I went also. When I went to the 40th and the 25th. Well, we have a picture of you and Gilbert behind us. Because you called me in and said,

come, come, come. Oh, that's right. And you're the one that said, come, come, come. There's room, come, come. At that one you're the one that said come come come there's room come come at that one at the 40th in front of I don't know if you remember should pardon expression Donald Trump was with the Reverend Al Sharpton Oh perfect pair the two of them okay can you do six degrees of Okay, hold on. Okay, hold on. Didn't they tour in the odd couple? They did. They did. Al Sharpton and Donald Trump walk into an off. I'm sorry, I'm getting... Was it a little strange? On previous episodes, and you referenced when you went to the 40th, you said it was a great experience, but there were some ghosts in the room.

Well, you walk into the studio, you know, you see Gildy, you see Belushi, you know, the people from my era, some of the writers. Herb Sargent. Herb Sargent. I can't remember if Parder was dead at the 40th or somewhere between the 40th. I think he was around.

He might have been around. Yeah. But, yeah, so it's nostalgic, but it's like a high school reunion, you go back to the gym, and you become that person that you were. You know what I mean? Back then, no matter what you've done. As a matter of fact, for the very, very first episode,

it didn't make it to air. One of the writers, great writer Michael O'Donoghue, had written a sketch, Alexander the Great, his 10 year high school reunion, okay? And supposedly he was a nerd in high school. So he goes to the reunion, he goes, oh Alexander, what are you doing? He goes, I just conquered half of the known world,

you know, yeah sure you did. Okay, so it was, you become that person again, it doesn't matter what you've done since. So I just had the attitude where, look what we had this great opportunity to be a part of. Caroline Kennedy was sitting like ahead of me and over to the left somewhere. And there were some of the current cast members

seated around me, okay? Sarah Sherman, okay? And Bowen, okay? Sarah Sherman? Mm-hmm. Okay, and Bowen? Yeah. Okay, they're next to me, and any time any current member of SNL meets me, it's almost like, oh, Grandpa, tell us what it was like

before you had light bulbs, okay? How did you read at night? So, I was, you know, I'm older, a lot older, and I would tell them know, I'm older, a lot older, and I would tell them my experiences on the show. And they said, wow, Lorne did that back then? And then he told me their experience. I said, Lorne's still doing that now? Okay, so that was the dynamic of it.

And I just told them to enjoy every second of it. Good advice. Because yeah, you're gonna have some heartaches, it's gonna be ups and downs, the emotional rollercoaster, I said, but when you leave it, you'll look back at it as the best time you've ever had. Wow. And if people don't remember from the listeners who are listening to this, who listen to your

episodes with us, it came down to that show or Hollywood Squares for you. What a dilemma I had. I'm writing jokes for those guys in the Catskills for $7 a joke. I'm living at home, sleeping in my old bed, okay, in the house on Long Island, and I meet Lorne and I get this job for this new show that will air in the fall called SNL.

As luck would have it, I got a job offer a day later, two days later, to write the questions and bluff answers for Paul Lind on the Hollywood Squares. Oh my God. Okay? And how I got it was, remember, Toti Fields? Of course. Yes. I wrote for her. And she had a manager who managed, you remember Burt Convy? Of course.

Well, Burt Convy and Tony Fields, they sound like two muppets, don't they, Burt and Tony? They used to be on the Hollywood Squares every so often. He had me write things for Paul Lin, questions and bluff answers. I got a job. So for about half a second I'm going all right Hollywood Squares, Prime Time and it's an established brand ninth season right LA with a whole industry is all those stars have their own variety shows their own Las Vegas X this is an entree into show business this Saturday Night Live 1130

to 1 on Saturday. Who's watching TV? Angry people, because they're not getting laid, so they'll turn on Channel 4, okay? Who's Gilda Radner? And it's late night East Coast, which was, wow, it was a fraction of what the money would be. And then I remember speaking to my mom and dad about it,

and they said, where would you have a better time? I said, well, obviously're this crazy SNL thing, and that's what I did. Wow. I would have given my right leg to work with Tony Field. I had to tell you. Oh God. Oh God.

Alan, to be a part of history like that, when you see the Jason Reitman film, what are your feelings when you're watching that? You know, there's a part of history like that, when you see the Jason Reitman film, what are your feelings when you're watching that? You know, there's a guy playing me. Okay, so I'm seeing Josh. Josh Brenner. Yeah. Yeah.

And then I wrote to him afterwards. I got his email address and we exchanged some emails. And I said, boy, you really captured me well, you know? And, you know, Robin said, we were sitting in a screening room here in New York, and Chevy was sitting next to us. And the whole time, Robin ended up with a black and blue leg, okay, why? Because she's sitting next to Chevy, and he's going,

I never said that, okay, that's horse shit, that's horse shit, okay? And with each, but you know what he did, what Jason did is he interviewed all of us and he made it into something coherent. It's very fictitious, but what he did do was capture, I felt, the tension and the chaos of that very first evening, okay?

But did Lorne go for a walk a half hour before the show aired with blood on his shirt and walked into a bar and found me there. No! I was hired six months before with everybody else, you know. So, but if you just sat back and enjoyed the ride, you know, you went, okay. Creative license. Creative license. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen it yet. I saw it twice. I took the kids. Really? Yeah. What they think? They loved it, but I had them take all their friends and the other friends, they didn't really know what was going on.

Yeah, I bet, I bet. It's a part of- My kids loved it, but my kids enjoyed it. How much of the movie is devoted to the Dominion years? Yeah, I can't wait to see who's playing Danny Dillon in this scene. Zero. Zero.

Oh God, Danny would've been great as Toadie. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. She would've made a great Toadie. Gino. I wrote one great as Toadie. Oh, yeah. She would have made a great Toadie. Ha ha ha ha ha. Chino. I wrote one joke for Toadie Fields. Did you?

Let's hear it. She'd be on stage, and if somebody got up, and you know, to go to the bathroom, let's say, wash your hands because we're having potato chips later. Ha ha ha ha. Love it. That was my Toadie Fields joke. Have you been to Toad Tony Fields in Central Park?

By the way, it's quite beautiful. Oh, yes. It's quite beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Yoko did a great job with that. It's beautiful. Yeah. No trees.

Yoko did that one too? Oh, yes. Gino. Yes. I'm going to play a clip. Dee has been nice enough to cue up some clips of the old show. Dee, we're gonna jump to clip two here. You know which one it is. And this will bring back a memory and then

you can shed some additional light on it. Okay. Here we go. Do you, I understand you want to set the story straight, set the record straight about Robert Wagner. Yes, Robert Wagner was here and Gilbert brought up the story that I had told him. Yes. And I can tell you. No, no, I had gotten it from him. Okay. He used your name though. Yes, he did.

I was shocked. So I go out for drinks with Robert Wagner and Jill St. John. Okay, this is the story. This is the backstory. Yes, this is the backstory. And we're sitting there and I can tell you, I know what the temperature felt like. I know where we were sitting in the cocktail lounge where we had these drinks.

And you know, when I think of Robert Wagner, I think of the prim and proper gentleman, you know, and then I hear him swearing and I love it because he's just a real guy. So he tells me, he said, you know, one time, and Jill St. John's sitting right there, one of my, I loved her in Batman in the Bond movies And he said you know once she she broke her Her pelvis area and she had a cast up beneath her breasts, and he said you know she's got great tits anyway They looked so spectacular, so he denies that he told me that story. I know He acted like totally like, no,

I've never met Jill St. John. Well, we have a clip of what he said. You're in luck. I have a clip. Great. Now a friend of ours, Gino, told me a story you told him. I think Jill St. John got into some accident

where she had to have a body cast. Like, yeah, accident where she had a body cast. Like, yeah, she had some kind of body cast, Jill St. John, and you liked the way she looked. I haven't heard this one. Gilbert, did you dream of this? Let me hear the rest. Let me hear the rest. This is a dream Gilbert has, Robert.

Let me hear the rest, she was in a body, wait a minute, she was in a body cast and I did what? Who is who is Gina No, you were you were complimenting the way her breasts No, you were complimenting the way her breasts looked in his cast. You know, I think Gino is maybe dicking around with that. That goes on the blooper reel, Robert. What an honor! That to me is a great honor.

I'll send you a preview of it. R.J. Wagner says you a dick in our ass. It doesn't get better than that. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. That's a great moment. You know, and I hear Gilbert, and that's why I thank you guys so much. Look, he's been gone, what, three years coming up?

Just past three. Best past three. Yeah, he's been gone what? Three years coming up? It just passed. Best past three. Yeah, he's still with us. I listened to those episodes of him talking with you, Frank, and it just, he doesn't, he's never gonna die. He's always gonna be around. I love that. I believe that. Six hundred some episodes. Wow. Yep. It's a great gift. I mean, what I said at the, when I was at the service and Dara, you

know, it's nice to be able to say this to your face in front of all these people. I've said it before. I mean, you both gave me a wonderful gift. Not only the gift of being able to be in the room with 400 pop culture figures and including all those heroes, but to get to sit side by side with my comedy hero and experience all that joy. It wasn't always easy, as we both know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There were nights he fell asleep, literally, once. Yeah, pretty much.

I remember Norman, Norman fell. I remember Norman Lear opening a show by telling a story about how he was one of the first people inducted into the television hall of fame. Did you know this? No. It was him, uh, Edward R. Murrow and, and William Paley.

Wow. And I think Lucy, I think it was four people. And he brought, he excitedly brought the news to his mother. He said, mom, I'm, I'm going to be one of the first inductees into the television hall of fame. And his mother said, well, if that's what they want to do. He tells the story to open the show. And about 20 minutes later, Gilbert says, now you have a story about being inducted. And 99 year old Norman Lear says, I just told it.

says, I just told it. Oh my God. Alan, Alan, that was another thing that Gilbert did. They're laughing the funniest time in the podcast and Gilbert would come out with a line and say, you lost your sister in a boating accident. He would bring the room down. He would bring the room down. For some reason, and that's a good, I'm glad you brought that up, Gino. Darryl, he had this, I don't know if he thought

he was Barbara Walters. He never prepared. But if there was something serious or somber about the guest, he wanted to talk to Peter Bogdanovich about Dorothy Stratton. And I said, you are not qualified. I just wanted to add some levity to the show. So it was not always easy,

but it was such a wonderful wild ride. I wonder if that's why he loved to watch the obituaries on the Emmys or whatever, the Oscars. Well, what would he do, Gino, when, when, as soon as a celebrity died, he would- He would call me and it's, because, because I'd always say to him, let's go off to lunch with Don Rickles. And he would just, Hamman Hall, we would, we never ended up doing it. And then whenever a celebrity would die, he would call me and say, oh, we should have lunch with so-and-so. And I said, Gilbert, he died five minutes ago. He said, I know. He never took advantage of those opportunities that I know he would have loved.

That was strange. Yeah, because George Carlin gave him his number on a plane and said, call me. And he never did. He never did. Why? What do we think? I don't know.

He was shy. He was shy. He was scared that they would say no. He was... Traverted. He was nervous to ask. That wasn't it. That wasn't it. He was afraid he'd. That wasn't it. That wasn't it.

He was afraid he'd have to pay the bill. That's what I'm saying. I think he was maybe afraid of rejection. I think he never seemed to me to be somebody who accepted or acknowledged that he was in, that he was a legitimate celebrity and in the club. That it was- But the Mark Michael story from the 40th

when he came up to Gilbert and said, you belong here, you are part of the bricks and the wall of this place. That meant so much to him, you could tell. Oh, that's nice. That's great. I didn't know that. Geno, somebody just passed, speaking of celebrities who just passed away, somebody who factors into a particular Geno Salomon anecdote just passed away.

I think you know who I'm talking about. Ruth Bussey. Yes. You want to favor us? We're going to work as long as we're doing the greatest hits here. Alan, I hope you don't think ill of me for sharing this story. Oh man. If you speak ill of Ruth Busby, I am out of here.

I had Grandpa Al Lewis and Butch Patrick at the Hollywood Autograph Show. And I look over and by the way, Charlton Heston is there. He's charging $15, all the money going to charity per autograph. And there's Ruth Buzzi by herself sitting there. Nobody's talking to her and I feel so bad. So I walk over and I say, hi Ruth.

And she said, are you Italian? I said, yeah. She said, so am I., hi Ruth. And she said, are you Italian? I said, yeah. She said, so am I. My name is Ruth Babese. We have this great chat. And then I feel bad. So I said, you know what? I'll take one of those pictures.

And she writes this beautiful thing on there. And she looks up at me and she says $40. Oh man. And I was stunned and Gilbert loved it. He would say to me all the time, talk about the time Ruth Buzzi fucked you. What about the time your friend John died and you made the mistake of sharing it with Gilbert?

Okay. John dies very tragic, very young and for a moment Gilbert's very sensitive and kind. It was, I, it was a, he didn't show that side often. For a moment. And then he started doing Signor Wences talking to my friend in the coffin. John, do you like the coffin?

I like the coffin. Do you want to take you out of the coffin? No, leave me in the coffin. It's all right? It's all right. Oh man. I have to ask my wife here to tell the story of your mother. Oh, when my grandmother passed away, you're saying, or my mother.

Which story? Your mother on the couch. Oh. Pick the more tasteless one and tell us. The more tasteless was definitely my mother. Boy, oh boy. Okay, so here I am dating Gilbert. My mom comes to visit. My mom's standing behind the couch and no, no, my mom's sitting on

the couch and Gilbert is standing behind my mom behind the couch. And Gilbert goes and pulls his unzips his pants and pulls his penis out. Right behind my mother's head and I'm screaming to my mom, do not turn around. Maybe the Gilbot, maybe your parents would like the Gilbot better than the actual Gilbert. For Father's Day, the first year we were dating, all my dad wanted was a receipt from a restaurant that Gilbert took me to dinner. So I actually had to- He's still waiting. I had to find a restaurant with an early bird special

that he wouldn't like freak out. And then I sent it to my dad and he kept it on his bulletin board forever. Do you remember what I made him do at your anniversary dinner that was just the three of us? Pay for dinner? Now what? No, I made him grab your hands, look you in the eye and say, I love you. It was probably hard for him, right?

It was hard for him. It was hard for him, but he did it. But he was so shy. I know. You have specific favorite moments because I don't want to put words in your mouth. I know you like the Tony Orlando episode. Were there? Well, the Howie Mandel was one of my favorites. When we wound up in Howie's dressing room. That was one of my favorites.

When he like completely understood Gilbert's handwriting, he completely understood. Gilbert's notes were like basically on toilet paper. And you were totally prepared. And he took Gilbert's notes and was like I completely understand what this Gilbert would have like one word and how he understood what that meant. Gilbert loved that yeah love that that was so much fun. Did anyone ever enjoy doing this show

more than Bill Macy? Oh God did I love Bill Macy. And we ended up going out there to LA and we had, we had Herring with him. He bought us Herring. We had, oh my God, I still have, I actually, I have it on my voicemail right now. I could play it for you. Go ahead, play Bill Macy. You got it? Can you access it quickly? I can access it right now. I saved Bill Macy. You had Herring with Maud's husband? Yes. Alan, you have no idea how happy this man was to do the show. When he went into the hospital, he told, he made every nurse listen to the episode on his phone.

That's right. That's right. It was sweet. It was sweet to be able to give that as a gift to older performers. Okay. Let's see. I have two. I'm not sure which is which. Let's see. Go ahead. You might have to edit this. You're gonna have to edit this. It's okay. I think it's great. I got one more. Here we go. Dara, this is Bill Macy. I just gave the number of the podcast, 172, and the name of the podcast to a fellow in Philadelphia, New York.

And I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this.

I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. I'm gonna have to edit this. the number of the podcast 172 and the name of the podcast to a fellow in Philadelphia,

a fan who sent me cookies for Christmas. So I told him to listen to Hubert Gottfried's amazing Colossal Podcast and to have more fun and he's gonna come to California and pepper with his mother I said I gave me a dress with my house so you can come and visit and the character next time that you and Gilbert are out my address One, oh, one, three, oh, Angelo. That won't matter anymore. L-E-O, California, nine, oh, two, one, oh. So if you want to visit Bill Macy, you can. This is all...

I've got so many of those. That's sweet. That's sweet. He loved being on the show. It meant so much to him. Oh my God, I have so many. You know, one of the great things was that you were interviewing older people, people in their 90s, people in their 80s who didn't have social media, who didn't understand Twitter, who didn't understand Facebook. And I realized that one of the things we could do was do screen captures of the pages, things that fans would write about them and send them to the guests. Oh, great.

And I have to share that Mac Davis did the show probably in our last, I think it was a pandemic episode, so it was probably our last year that we did it. And he'd been out of the public eye for a long time. We posted the episode on Facebook, 70, 80, 90 people wrote on my page about how they loved Mac Davis. Women were writing that they had crushes on Mac Davis. I took the screen caps, I emailed them to his wife, Lisa, and I called later in the week, and she said,

I'm sitting here reading them to him. And he's tearing up. And he passed away about a month later. And so- You killed Mac Davis. Yeah, you killed Mac Davis, Gilbott. I'm sorry. So it was a nice byproduct. It was something that we were able to do for these people.

And that was just an accidental discovery. We really just thought we were going to get into the room and talk to these people and have a couple of laughs. We didn't know that people who were out of the public eye were going to get such a jolt and a shot in the arm from getting all this newfound attention. I got mail from people in their twenties who said, I had no idea who Barbara Felden was until I listened to the episode. So that... They had so much fun. Dill was like, oh my God, he would listen over and over. Over and over. I had to send it to him on CD so he could listen to it in the car.

He would stop and like, he used to go gambling all the time and he would stop and he'd like pull in someone from the casino into his car and play them the episode sitting in the car. Oh man, what a gift you gave these people. It was over and over and over. It was a very, very nice gift.

I remember Peter Fonda getting choked up when I asked him about his favorite Henry Fonda movie, and he just started bawling. And he just started talking about my darling Clementine, and they had a strained relationship. So it was, you know, it was something that started out as a lark, and then became... A bigger lark!

Thank you, Gilbot. Well, how about David McCallum, Frank, started out as a lark and then became a bigger lark. Thank you, Gilbot. Well, how about David McCallum, Frank, when he told you you're the safety of writing a book and he didn't have to write a book because he did it all on the show. He got up from the table and said, now I don't have to write a memoir.

And I remember Bob Einstein not wanting to do the show and having to be dragged into the mic. That was one of the best episodes. By be dragged into the mic by his manager. And I won't play it. I couldn't put it up. Jimmy Webb, same thing. And then he had the best time. And then they came in and they realized they were on this kind of, you know,

fecacct version of This Is Your Life, where we were giving that we were going through their entire career, soup to nuts. And it was a nice thing to be able to give people as we wind down here let's play that last clip if you have it queued up this is somebody we lost recently late great John Amos who was on the show and this is just one of my favorite little moments from seven years at GGACP. We have something here that you've also talked about.

This is scary. What's this? Frankie, speaking of McDonald's. Oh yes. He was in the commercial. There is nothing so clean, adding a burger machine. With a broom and a brush, clean it up for the rush. Before you open the door, or to shine on the floor. When we finish what then? Tell me what does it mean? And the Donald is singing. finish what then? You start all over again. You tell me what does it mean?

And McDonald is free. You deserve a break today. So get up and get away to McDonald's, McDonald's, McDonald's! That's priceless. Holy shit. Okay? Fantastic! You still remember that? Oh yeah, absolutely! Absolutely! Here's the killer. I walk into Tom Hanks' dressing room. I go to see him in Broadway. I walk into his dressing room and he breaks into that song of all the things in the world. What was that? 1971, I think? What, when we did the commercial?

Yeah, 70-71. Oh, it might have been earlier than that. Yeah, it could have been 70-71. And talk about being an athlete. You're like leaping over the counter. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm like, oh. Thanks, Steve. That was great.

Man. Yeah. Another clip, I'll put it in later. But we also have Carl Reiner singing an Italian aria. Oh, wow. That's absolutely wonderful. And he had a great voice, didn't he? And he had a terrific voice.

And he was 95, 96 when he was doing this for us. How about Brother Can You Spare a Dime? That is haunting me still. That's another great one. That was so great, Dominic. Dominic Eanesi came and we gave him a guitar. Oh man. He played Yip Harberg's Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

His daughter just died or something. No, he's with us. His daughter. Oh, his daughter died. Yeah, now he's alive. No, I didn't know that. His daughter. Oh, his daughter died. Yeah, he's alive. No, I didn't know that. Yeah, there was, I read it about a week or two ago. I didn't know that.

No, he's a very nice man. Very, very nice man. He was incredible, I loved that. Before we wrap up. Johnny Ola. Yeah, that's right, Johnny Ola. He was first Johnny Ola before Mrs. Brannos. I will thank you guys extensively

for coming and doing this, but I wanna see what you're all up to now. Gino, let's start with you. Where can people hear and see you? Fox 6 in Milwaukee. Exactly, there or on my YouTube channel, watch GinoTV, I put a lot of the interviews up, including the interview I did with Gilbert

that could not be aired on TV promoting Aladdin. And why couldn't it be aired? Why do you think? Oh, okay. Okay. Say no more. Yes. Alan, new projects.

Yes, two. One is a Broadway effort, the life and comedy of Rodney Dangerfield. I'm writing that. That's exciting. Yeah, it's very, very exciting. Given that you wrote for him 100 years ago. I was the guy who said,

as an infant they never got any respect. My mother wouldn't breastfeed me. She said she liked me as a friend. Okay, I wrote that. Great joke. No one in my family ever got any respect. During the Civil War, I had an uncle who fought for the West, okay?

So come full circle. Amazing. And I've also written a script with Barry Levinson that looks like it may go that Barry will direct, okay? That's wonderful. So we're waiting for, it's like a blinking green light, you know, so, but hopefully it will. And no details, but thank you for having me

to your recent reading. Oh, that was, that's an off, probably would be an off-Broadway play that I will direct. That's exciting too, and I appreciated being invited to it. And you also, you had a role in it, you were brilliant. Thank you, you're too kind. I think I was okay. You were good.

Thank you, you're sweet. Dara. Gilbert's sister Arlene Gottfried was an amazing street photographer and left us with thousands of vintage prints. Thousands. Thousands. And we have a new gallery, Clamp Art, and if you go to arlenegotfried.com you could

learn more. Gilbert, I put out, Gilbert never had a comedy album of his original material. Yes, talk about that. So I had a big show in the Comedy Festival last October, and we put that out so Gilbert has a new, there's a new comedy album called Still Screaming, which is great. And you could go to clownjewels.com and buy that.

And then on gilbertgodfrey.com, Gilbert was an artist, and no one knew he was an artist, and I made limited edition prints of some of his artwork that you could get there and then my daughter made a documentary about him. Let's talk about Lily Stock. Lily, if you go to lillygodfried.com, you could see the documentary and she's going to college soon and got a lot going on. Are you allowed to say anything about Max's role in a movie? Oh, yes. My son, Max Godfried, is going to be playing one of Adam Sandler's sons in Happy Gilmore 2 that comes out July 25.

I can't wait. How about that? Is that crazy? Yeah, so he's doing great. That's great. And the kids are good. And I'm keeping real busy. It's great.

Now let's check with Frank. Frank, tell us about the new podcast. What can people expect? What can we look forward to? Pretty much. And why did it take so long? I'll tell you the truth. You want me to tell you the God's honest truth? Sure.

Because it's a goddamn hard act to follow. Right. And, well, also, that's one reason. And also, I know how much work it is. And I know how much the last show kind of took over my life and I will be honest. I mean I I recorded one. This is actually the second one that I'm Recording and I recorded one last week Professor Erwin Corey. Yes with professor the son of Erwin Corey Kip Corey

It's it's daunting to say the least to launch a show when you have been the yin to a yang. Understood. Yeah, which is irrelevant because people think I'm Chinese. Yes. Well, it was Gene Dumanian did the, well, it was Woody Allen, right? Thought you were a Navajo Indian. Oh, yes, that's true. Yeah. And I missed so much about it, but I missed the community that it created. Yes.

And Dara has to take, you know, a lion's share of the credit because it wouldn't have happened without her. Or with you. We were a team. Yes. and the fact that two guys called me up one day from West Virginia and said, "'Do you mind if we get on a plane and fly to New York and take you to lunch?' Wow. And because they wanted, they loved the show that much.

Oh, I thought they wanted to reenact the deliverance scene. Yes, there was that. Yes, there was some of that. It created such, it changed my life in so many ways what a wonderful thing and I have friends now all over the world some that I'll never meet so many that I talk to all the time someone named their dog after me it was insanity it's it it created this world that we never thought right could have could have come from this this humble little world that we never thought could have come from this humble little thing that we really just threw together to freshen up Gilbert's act.

So I guess sometimes in life the best things happen accidentally. Well, this is great. All right, but the new podcast, how did you come up with the idea and what kind of things are we doing? Well, as I said, the Kirk Hammett episode, I realized that when we booked him, Gilbert and I knew nothing about Metallica and nothing about heavy metal music, but he was passionate about horror films and Lugosi and Karloff and all of that stuff. And I realized we could do a great 90-minute show with somebody just about their passions.

And so I thought I'd have some of the same people back to this show, but I've already done deep dive career interviews. I don't want to do the same interviews again. This time we'll find topics and things that people are excited about, like you and me and Billy talking about the Dick Van Dyke show for 90 minutes, or you and me and Costas talking about baseball movies or whatever the case may be. And if the Gilbot behaves himself, he may get an invitation to co-host.

And Dara hopefully will co-host. I'd love to come on. I think it's a good hook and I did some research. There really is no show quite like it. And I've also floated it to a couple of celebrities and they're excited by the idea of getting a chance to come on and talk about something that they're thrilled about that they never get to be interviewed about. That's right. And that's

that's the hook. And again I'm speaking from the heart when I say it will be a little bit weird without him. There really is only one Gilbert and I may take a little time to find my footing, but I hope that listeners will take the ride with me. They will. Because I miss the community, and I'll tell you, I die a little every time a celebrity passes away that we didn't get on the show. When a Norman Jewison dies, a Linda Lavin,

Jimmy Buffett, Lou Gossett, Bob Newhart, and my wife has to listen to this, me kicking myself and saying, oh, we didn't get to tell their story. So, you know, I'm going to see it as an opportunity to expand that wonderful community and give a victory lap to people that we didn't get to last time. And that's kind of it. And I want to thank all of you guys, not only for what you, you know, meant to the last show, which is everything, but also, except for you,

Gilbott. I'm not thanking you. Oh, fuck you. But, but, uh. I love that, I love that you could still listen also. I love that they're, that, you know, thanks to you, we're still putting them out on Mondays. We still put two out a week and there are still people supporting the show on patreon and there are still people out there who? Who love what we do and I I and they're discovering it now and now they'll be able to listen to that and yours I mean, it's great and I'd like you know, I'd like to think of this I'd like to think of them as sister shows, you know

So, you know, we're not putting a firewall in any sense between the two shows. We'll still put the old show out and make it available for people. Yep. You know, we've got to leave a paper trail while we're here on the planet. I think so. And what better thing, you know, the John Amis thing, and everything he's saying, it's a beautiful gift he're giving people. It's something that we don't think about, but when they get the opportunity to be recognized

and to be spoken to, and then all of a sudden people post stuff on them, it revives their lives. Yes, I witnessed that so many times. And by the way, That's what kept us going. How thankful am I that I sit there on road trips with the kids, and when they're not

with their faces and their phones, I put on an old episode of one of our podcast interviews and it's such a great education for them. How lucky am I that I have that for them? Well, I think what Gino said before, I think you can sit and listen to us and to Gil 619 times. And Dara and I were contacted by the Library of Congress a little while ago with some interest in the show, which we have not yet pursued. But the fact that it had that kind of impact, and it really was, we really did not have those kind of lofty aspirations when we left the pizza place. So it turned out to be a beautiful thing and

I want to see how much of it I can keep going. It's amazing. And thank you guys all for being here and should we let the Gilbot have the last word or should we just pull his plug? I'll let him have the last word. An old man goes to the doctor for an examination. The doctor looks at him. He says, I've got terrible news. You've got cancer and Alzheimer's. The old man says, thank God I don't have cancer. See, cause his memory is going. Yes, okay. Oh man.

Thank you, Guildbot. Thank you, Guildbot. What should we call the Guildbot? Should the Guildbot have a number? You know, am I breaking character? Yes. Oh, I forgot to introduce Barrett. This is Barrett Letty, everybody. This is Barrett Letty.

Hi. Where are my manners? That's okay. My friend, Barrett Letty. Barrett Letty everybody. This is Barrett Letty. Hi. Where are my manners? That's okay. My friend Barrett Letty. Barrett Letty is a voice over artist extraordinaire. He's also the programmer of the Gilbot. Yes.

3000. Barrett, what do you have coming up? Well, you can find me at Barrett Letty all over the internet. And right now I'm in a video game called Storm Gate, which is very cool. Sort of an online, kind of like a Warcraft game. I also am in a bunch of stuff coming out for Audible. I'm always doing some sort of crazy voiceover thing, but when I get to do Gilbert, that's the most fun. And you do, you did Iago or you-

I did Iago. There's a, you can see it now. It's on Disney Plus It's called Lego Disney Princess the castle quest. It's got all the original prince princesses in it as Jodie Benson and Linda Larkin the atlanta and and I come in as a yago and it was I have to say just from my Me being here is so crazy because I used to I was doing a traveling children's show when I was 21 And I would listen to I was miserable and I was listening to the Gilbert Podcast like I was listening to the show like in my dressing room before we would go on and do like this show called Harry the dirty dog and I would I would just be like oh, I just want to go back and listen to that weird Al interview I want to go and so it's very surreal to be

here and I really appreciate it. Wow great story. Yeah well you are also officially sanctioned a chatbot. Yes. Gilbert gave his blessing. I met him at I met him at the Tribeca Film Festival when he had his documentary when he went up on stage and did Paul Williams fucking Shirley Temple and and I met him at the Afterparty and Dara introduced me to him and I did hi This is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host Frank Santo Padre and he looked at me and he went, will you take over for me when I die?

Well I think it's come full circle. So I injected him with it. No, sorry. I had a needle. He wanted desperately to replace me with a Scarlett Johansson robot. So I think the whole thing's kind of come full circle. Yes. Uh, thank you all. Gino, I love you. Congratulations Frank. Thank you. Thank you Gino. Nice to see you Gino.

Nice to see you. Thank you Alan. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you Gilbot. Thank you Barrett. Of course. Thank you Poman Sound. Thank you Dara. I owe you for life. Thank you D. Good luck. Good luck.

Much love to you. Break a leg. See you next week, kids. I always wanted to be an opera singer when I was a kid. And actually when I was very young I wanted to be an Irish tenor because my father had a friend called Max Kalfus, who was his friend in Austria, but he had a brother called John Calvin who used to have a radio program every Sunday morning, and he would sing Irish songs, and he said,

my name is John Calvin, and I like to sing a song my mother sang to me when I was a wee lad, and I thought I could be an Irish tenor. And I remember the song I heard, I'm a long way from home home and it's there that I roam to all hell and far over the sea. Oh, me heart it is there where the skies are so fair and old Ireland is calling me. Oh, I want to go back to that tumble down shack where the bright roses bloom round the door Just to feel on my head

Anyway, that's the song But I but I really want there to be an opera singer and the only problem I had is I sing off-key and out of rhythm Otherwise, I I did had a voice. And I haven't done this in a long time and I'm going to try it. From Leon Cavalli's Vesti La Giubba. I will now sing for you. Vesti La Giubba. I'll go as far as I can. Okay. And you can cut me off anytime. No, no, no. this is a gift to us. Come to say Pagliacci.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Vesti la giubba e la faccia. In Farina la gente paga e ride vuole qua. E sei la leggin, ti involo columbina. Ridi Pagliacci. I'm getting dizzy. That's enough. you