Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Mini-Ep #103: Marx Brothers Blu-ray Review with Steve Stoliar

Episode Date: March 16, 2017

This week: Zeppo opts out! Groucho holds a grudge! Woody Allen offers advice! And the "genius" of Irving Thalberg!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Tennessee sounds perfect. hi this is gilbert godfrey this is gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast i'm here with my co-host frank santopadre We're once again recording at Nutmeg You said the wrong title And thank you And our guest was Steve Stoller Thanks, it was great, I had a great time Thank you, you'll have to come back And you know, the time just flew by

The time just, it's like I just sat down Wow See, when you have a great interview just flew by. It's like I just sat down. Wow. See, when you have a great interview, it goes so quick. It just melts away. The leaves of the calendar blowing away. Thanks for making the schlep, by the way, Steve. We appreciate it. Here we go again.

Hi, I'm Gilbert Godfrey and this is take 47 of trying to introduce this one short recording hi i'm gilbert godfrey and i'm here with my co-host frank Santopadre, and this is Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. Indeed it is. And we have a return guest, someone who stayed at the home of legendary comedian Yakov Smirnoff. No, you've got the wrong comedian. In my country, the legendary comedians stay at your house. Nice ad lib. Now, we have Steve Stoliar.

Yes. Who wrote the book Raised Eyebrows, My Years Inside Groucho's House, where he lived with the legendary comedian Groucho Marx. He did. Steve, welcome back. Thanks, yes, by popular demand. As Dick Cavett would say, a letter poured in requesting Stolyar. Well, we got letters from the young people

demanding more Nat Perrin. More Nat Perrin. Okay. Okay. This is only going to take about eight minutes. Okay, go. I came out to California in 1931, and Groucho took me to a party where George Gershwin was appearing. a party where George Gershwin was appearing.

And he said, George, this is Nat Perrin, the only fellow I know who can whistle the entire Rhapsody in blue. And I was afraid I was going to have to whistle for 17 minutes, but Mr. Gershwin didn't put me through that. That is a stunning. If you closed your eyes, you'd see where. Yeah, I thought he was in the room. I thought Nat Perrin was in the booth. Can you do a Nat Pendleton?

Nat Pendleton's in Horse Feathers. Yes. He's one of the kidnappers. No, I'm sorry. I can't do Nat Pendleton. I will tell you, I went back and listened to the previous episode. Your Burgess Meredith was also something to behold. Oh, thank you.

Yes. Well, we got into all sorts of things dealing with of mice and men. You remember that? You were Lenny and I was Squiggy. I mean, I was George. Tell me again how we're going to have a farm with rabbits on it. That's right. That's right.

Rabbits. And we'll have our own place. And when people come to visit us, if we don't want them there, we tell them to leave. And they have to leave. He does both parts. He doesn't need you. You ever notice that Chaney Jr. is like a car that won't turn over? I get to tend him.

And you can tell him from me. Anyway. You're Nat Perrin, you're Burgess Meredith, and you're Zeppo. Yes. I live for. People stop me on the street and say, come on, do your Grady Sutton impression. Do that. Oh, Mr. Sousay, you made me buy a beefsteak, man. I should never have listened to you.

So. Yes. Back to raised eyebrows for a minute. Yes, sir. There's an audio version now since last week. So I hear. Yes, I recorded it a while ago, and it's finally available on disc on Amazon. And on it, I not only do all the narration, but I do all of the voices of the people that I talk about.

So you get to hear the aforementioned Mr. Perrin and S.J. Perelman and George Burns and Bob Hope. And you do Aaron. You have to do Aaron's voice too. I have to do Aaron's voice too. Groucho, this is Steve Stoliar. He started the committee to get Animal Crackers re-released. Did you get it yet? Not, not, he hasn't started working for you yet.

Did, did, can you do her when she found out Groucho had a stroke? That crazy reaction she had. Oh, Lord. Well, that, yes. What happened, it was, I showed up for work and I had just gotten used to the fact that I was working inside Groucho Marx's house and was feeling really comfortable and up. And the maid answered the door and said, please be quiet. Mr. Marx has had a stroke. And I thought, oh, man, it's going to – it's all coming to an end. And they led me into his bedroom, and I expected him to be lying there near death.

And instead he was propped up in bed in his PJs and mucklucks reading the paper. He said, is the ambulance here yet? I said, not yet. It figures. And then not long after that, Aaron Fleming came in and checked the scene out and stormed off screening. Fuck! And slammed the door. And she was angry because it was her birthday.

Oh, that's right. And there was supposed to be a party at Groucho's house because of Aaron's birthday, and she accused him of having the stroke on purpose to upstage her birthday party. And after the ambulance left, she came into my little office at the house, and I said, you think he's going to be okay? Do I think he's going to be okay? He does this for attention. And I said, Aaron, are you saying that he had his stroke on purpose? And it was like, how could you be so naive? He does this.

He does this just to get attention. And she got exasperated with me and left, which was fine with me. And he bounced back from that, and I ended up working there for another, like, two and a half years. But I thought, you know, the jig was up. So if we should also remind our listeners, too, that there's a movie in the works based on your book, Raised Eyebrows. There is. And first of all, give us the update on that. It just suddenly occurred to me that I'm picturing the day that

you have auditions and you have to audition actresses to play Erin and how interesting that's going to be for you. But tell us what's happening. Well, let's see. It's going to be directed by Rob Zombie, even though that seems like a strange choice. In fact, he read the book when it first came out and he loved it and he said this is just the kind of thing i've been looking for to get away from horror for a while and ours has been just the the most remarkably smooth collaboration uh i've ever encountered uh this the long and winding road through development and finding a home for it but we we hope to start the casting process in the very near future, and Rob would like to film it this year.

So it's going to be surreal. Oh, it's exciting. It is. It is. It's frustrating how long things take to reach fruition. I was complaining about it in a letter to Woody Allen, and he wrote back and said, don't gripe about the time element. That'll take care of itself. Be grateful that your story hasn't been taken from you and given to imbeciles to destroy. And he's right. He's right. The time thing that ends up not mattering, and I'm very grateful that they've remained true to the story and haven't said, oh, here's what we could do with it.

We could just use this as a launching point and then have Groucho and then do all sorts of wild, crazy stuff. But instead, they've really cared about remaining true to my book, which is very flattering. So the screenplay is completed and – The screenplay is completed. I wrote the initial draft and then Oren Moverman, who worked on that Brian Wilson film. Oh, Love and Mercy. Right. That's terrific.

And a number of other excellent motion pictures. a number of other excellent motion pictures. He worked on it, and it still remains true to the initial story that I hammered out on my little machine. So the script is done, and it moves forward, which is better than not moving forward or moving backward. And it's going to be very, very strange to see someone playing me when I was 20. Yeah, I can imagine. No one, I mean, no one but my, you know, my sister and a few friends will be able to say, he didn't look exactly like that when he was 20. But it's going to be very strange because it's the three main characters are the old Groucho and ambitious younger Aaron and then Steve, naive, young, 20-year-old Steve.

And it's mostly what the going's on inside the house. It's not a biography of Groucho. Right, sure. Any more than Ed Wood was a biography of Bela Lugosi. Speaking of Ed Wood, Scott and Larry – did you know, Gil? Oh, yeah. You remember we had Scott and Larry on the show? And they've got a Marx Brothers biopic that – you know about this, Steve? I do, yeah.

They wrote it some years ago. Yeah. And weren't able to get all the elements assembled for it. Right. But, yeah, they were heavily into that and had high hopes for it. Right. But yeah, they were heavily into that and had high hopes for it. But this is, you know, this is completely different because this is only about Groucho's twilight years and it doesn't pretend to be any kind of comprehensive story of his life. Gil, are you here? What? Yeah. Can you do an imitation? I forget her name. Gloria. Gloria Stewart?

Gloria Stewart. Oh, my gosh. She was the old lady in Titanic. Who was she married to? Was she married to? She was married to Arthur Sheikman, who was one of Groucho's oldest friends and who worked on Monkey Business and Duck Soup. And she would come to lunch there, and Groucho would say, Gloria Sheikman's coming to lunch today. And I didn't realize at the time that that was the same woman who co-starred with-

The Invisible Man. In The Invisible Man and with Karloff in The Old Dark House. Oh, she's in The Old Dark House, right. And a couple of Shirley Temple films. Yeah, I wish I had realized that at the time because I would have asked her about James Whale and Karloff and Claude Rains and all those wonderful Universal people. Let's talk a little bit about the new Blu-ray.

You and I were talking, and we wanted to do another episode with you. The Paramount films, the five Paramount films were released. You were, of course, involved in the resurgence and the rescue of Animal Crackers. Right. But the five Paramount films were just released on Blu-ray. They looked horrific. I was watching them this weekend. A couple of our friends are on there, Leonard Maltin and Dick Cavett and Larry and Scott. I'm learning so much about the Marx Brothers. I thought I knew everything about the Marx Brothers. I didn't know that Zeppo, for instance, did not really get a say in the decision-making, that he was not an equal partner, which I found interesting. Yeah, and I used to have a contract from the mid-'20s that renewed the coconuts stage version for another year. renewed the coconuts stage version for another year. And even in that, he was getting less money and it talked about if he were to not be part of it. So even early on, there were rumblings that,

you know, he wasn't seen as an equal Marx brother, even though he was on Broadway and in the five Paramount films. Did that have something to do with him stepping aside? I mean, the story that you get is that Minnie kind of forced him into it, that Zeppo got into it because it was a family obligation, and when Minnie and Frenchie were gone, he felt no obligation to continue. Well, yeah. I mean, Gummo was the straight man in vaudeville, and then he left to be in World War I. So they needed someone to play the younger juvenile straight role. So Zepa was – Gummo was drafted into the army and Zepa was drafted into the act.

I don't think he was ever happy doing it. I don't think he was ever comfortable in front of the camera. And then once he left after Duck Soup, he became really one of the top-notch agents in Hollywood and represented Gable and Lombard and Lana Turner and Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor. So he did okay. He always seemed in the movies like perfectly likable. Yes. But even as a kid, I would think, well, what is he actually doing here? It's only when he's subtracted from the quartet that you miss him. Absolutely.

He's replaced by Kenny Baker and Tony Martin and Alan Jones, that you start wishing that Zepa were still there, if only to say, you know, I represent the captain who insists on my informing you of these conditions under which he comes here. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. And now back to the show. Yeah, there is a story, though. It's funny. Maybe it foreshadows him becoming an agent. There's a story in the documentary on the Blu-ray about Zeppo going to the suits at

Paramount and actually getting them more money. You know this story? I do because I'm in the documentary. I should mention that in addition to the five Paramount films all looking better than they have. They look great. Including Animal Crackers having some footage restored that had been edited out for the reissue after the Hayes office had made things tougher on suggestive dialogue and that sort of thing. They found a print of it in a British film archive and were able to include that. But in addition to the films, there's a really nice documentary called The Marx Brothers, Hollywood's Kings of Chaos. And Cavett and Moulton and Larry and Scott Bill and Andy Marx and myself. Oh, I didn't watch the whole thing, so I didn't see you. I apologize. I only watched the first 30 minutes think i think that brings us to the end of this this interview i'm terribly no i am towards the end chronologically because uh that's how they

did the thing so i'm brought in to talk about groucho's last years which i witnessed now what it's what's your opinion on on animal crackers my opinion yeah because i mean i i i saw it when it was re-released and it's got great moments hysterical a little stagey and classic but i well i kind of felt like it could be cut down to a half hour or something of the really great stuff in it. Well, with coconuts and animal crackers, you're dealing with the film versions of stage plays. You're also dealing with sound films before the boom was used. So they had to have stationary microphones and the brothers had to be near the microphones in order to be picked up. And they

couldn't they weren't really free to race around the stage until monkey business and horse feathers. And it's true. There's some wonderful material in Animal Crackers. There's some great routines, but it does feel a bit stiff. And, you know, the cameras following people as they walk downstairs or walk into another room or something like that. And you feel a little bit like get on with it. And there are moments where like there's the plot of, you know, whatever, the jewel robbery. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's a love scene. And then following that with like a duet between the two lovers and they'd be long moments

of no Marx Brothers well but also you have to bear in mind that in in musical comedies on Broadway in the 20s that was it was expected that there would be these interludes where the lovers would look at each other and sing about how much they love each other and then they would walk off and then the Marx Brothers would come back and tear the place up. So it's tough retroactively to think, here's what we'd like to do with this

because the movie came out in 1930 and so it's easy to get impatient with the pace. And it does, as you said, it picks up markedly when they come to Hollywood and do monkey business, horse feathers, and duck soup, which is like that golden trio of them at their best. Just mana from heaven. What's amazing is that they were shooting coconuts in Astoria by day and doing animal crackers on stage at night, driving into the city. I noticed that in the Wyaduck routine,

there's several times when Groucho starts to call Chico Ravelli. He does. He stops himself. He goes, now look, now look, now look here. Yeah. And, you know, he's pointing at the map and showing him where the jewels are buried and all that. And it's because the Wyaduck routine is essentially, it was essentially redone as the left-handed moths routine in Animal Crackers. And it must have been very easy for Groucho to shift into that dialogue since he was doing one during the day and then another show at night for the camera. when they did the wire duck because of those old mics, that when they moved the map around, it would make so much noise that they eventually soaked the map in water. It's true. Right.

You can see it. It looks really limp. And when Groucho takes the map out to show him where the jewels are buried, it's a weird thing because it doesn't behave like normal paper. And yes, it's because when they tried doing it initially and then listened to it, you get – I'm trying to look for a valley. And they realized all this rustling of paper was drowning out the dialogue. So they had to improvise and wetted down the paper so that it wouldn't upstage the Marx Brothers. It's interesting, too, that they changed Groucho's character's name slightly. I think was it Schlammer?

And then he became Mr. Hammer in Coconuts. But Gilbert, you'll appreciate this. Chico's name in the stage production was Willie the Wop. Oh, my God. Chico's name in the stage production was Willie the Wop. Oh, my God. I can't imagine why anyone would have a problem. I can't imagine.

And you know – Even at 29, they knew to change it. You know the scenes where Groucho makes jokes about the titles of songs like Somewhere My Love Lies Sleeping with a Male Chorus. In the stage version, he also says, Play I'm looking at the world through colored Rosie's glasses and all I see are black specks. I can't imagine that anyone would have a problem with colored Rosie's glasses either. So, yeah, they made modifications. And in Duck Soup, Chico was Gary

the Guinea. No, he was not. Yeah. They do look good. I apologize for not staying with the doc. I fell asleep, Steve, because it was two in the morning. Yeah, but that's only 11 o'clock my time. Yeah, exactly. What's my excuse excuse they do look terrific

yeah yeah people who feel like they it's like well i've already got it on dvd i don't need to get that there is a substantial difference in the quality plus the restored footage to animal crackers and then uh the documentary by constantine nazar, who's done a lot of documentaries. He did a wonderful one on Val Luton about the horror film, KO, that Val Luton did. It's terrific. There's also two segments on the Today Show that I have never seen. There's Harpo on the Today Show in, I believe, 61. I think so.

Two years before it passed. And then Groucho's on there in 63. Very, very strange. Have you seen these? It's Groucho with you downs and the host of the Today Show. It's a very short snippet, but it's fascinating, Curio. Now, what do you think? You know, I think, like, after Day at the Races,

they really dropped tremendously in quality. Well, the purists – and I consider myself one of those. The purists maintain that any given Paramount film is better than their best MGM film. No question. Which would mean – Oh, yes. You can put Coconuts and Animal Crackers up against Night at the Opera, which is a lot of people's favorite Marx Brothers movie. But I feel that they really became tamed when they went over to MGM.

And they were sort of – they weren't as crazy and they really seemed to care a lot about getting the lovers together. I mean there was love interest in Coconuts and Animal Crackers, but you got the feeling that they didn't really give a shit, that it was going on in a parallel story to them tearing the place up. Yes. But in the MGM films, gosh, they're really concerned about making sure that justice prevails and he gets the girl. And even though there's a lot to love about A Night at the Opera,

there's just something about that, that sort of homogenization of the craziness of the Marx brothers. I was very disappointed when I first saw A Night at the Opera. Because of that? Yeah, I felt like there was that. They were t were tamed yeah they were put on a leash they made harpo into a victim they made harpo they bullied harpo so harpo went from being an anarchist into having to pay for his anarchy and as joe adamson pointed out in his excellent groucho harpo chico and sometimes zeppo examination of the films. Wonderful book. He said, you know, instead of Harpo just pulling a pair of shears out of his pocket for no reason, he has to find them sitting on a shelf somewhere. It has to make sense.

It can't just be this crazy. How could he pull a steaming cup of coffee out of his pocket? He has to see it sitting somewhere. And so it loses the craziness. But Groucho was very pleased with the fact that Night at the Opera and Day at the Races were their biggest moneymakers. And there was enormous prestige with going over from Paramount to MGM at the time, because that was just the Rolls Royce of movie studios. But in retrospect, in terms of the anarchy that the baby boomers

embraced in the 60s and 70s, the Paramount films just seem so much fresher, even with the staginess of the first two. The material is looser and they're just a lot more fun and less, instead of having one foot stapled to the ground. And the surrealism was lost. I think of the dog coming out of the doghouse and Harpo's tattoo and duck soup. Yeah, something the MGM would never have allowed. And I also thought, like, in opera and races, there were pauses where you could put a laugh track in after each line that was said. Well, see, some people look at that as the genius of Irving Thalberg and others look at it as the beginning of the end because Thalberg, when Irving

Thalberg, the head of production at MGM, signed the Marx Brothers, he said, I'm going to make a picture with you guys that's going to have half as many laughs and make twice as much money. guys that's going to have half as many laughs and make twice as much money. And he was right. And the way they did that was by taking certain scenes out on the road and doing them in front of live audiences so they could time how long to allow before the dialogue starts up again. Because Thalberg's complaint was in the Paramount films, you miss half the jokes because the audience is laughing over them because the things that – those movies are like 72 minutes long. You forget how short Paramount comedies were. Same with Fields. Same with Mae West.

But MGM built in those gaps, those beats for the audience to laugh. those beats for the audience to laugh. But if you're looking at it at home or there's no one else in the theater for some strange reason, you wonder why. It's like, come on, get on with it. And that was it. It was because they had scientifically timed those sequences to allow for audience laughter. And assumedly, if Thalberg didn't die, if he didn't suffer an untimely death, they would have continued at MGM?

I think. Because the two films were so profitable profitable even though Mayer had it out for them. Right. And I don't know to what degree they would have been making wonderful films because I still think that Opera and Races already shows the downhill slide. Sure, sure. Plus it's also after The Hays office, the Hays Code kicked in. So I think a lot – you know, you couldn't – a lot of the things that Groucho joked about in the Paramount films were frowned upon after 34. So you're also fighting against that homogenization of material. But it would have been better for them if Thalberg hadn't died and it probably would have been better for Thalberg if he hadn't died. Are there any,

are there any of the post MGM films, be it go West or a night in Casablanca or at the circus? So are there any of them that you can, that you can get through? I mean, there are moments at the circus. That's the thing is right. There's moments in, in all of them.

There's none that are a complete washout. Although Love Happy – Yeah, pretty comes close. A case could be made. Plus they're getting older and you're looking at Marx Brothers in their 60s trying to be impish childlike creatures and it kind of doesn't work. But you could excerpt – going back to what Gilbert said about let's just edit it down to a half hour and have a really slick thing. You could take sequences from the later films from Room Service and At the Circus and Go West and Big Store and Night

in Casablanca and put it together and show it to someone such that they say, there's a lot of funny stuff in that. How come people don't like the movie? And it's like, well, because I cut out Tony Martin singing Tenement Symphony. And I cut out Kenny Baker singing Two Blind Loves. You just want to reach through the TV and strangle it. Agreed. When I was 12 and you would just watch them all together, I didn't know the difference.

I mean, of course, I knew, you know, the Hackenbush, Lydia the Tattooed Lady, there was always something there. Except for Love Happy. Even as a kid, I knew Love Happy was shit. Love Happy is surreal. Yeah. It's just... Well, Groucho's talking in this Today Show clip about how bad it was. Yeah. He's talking about Marilyn Monroe. Well, he was no fool. I this Today Show clip about how bad it was. Yeah.

He's talking about Marilyn Monroe. He was no fool. I mean he knew which the good ones and the bad. I mean I mentioned in Raised Eyebrows, I talk about how he came to the lunch table one day just looking a little bit upset. And he said, whatever made Bazell think he could direct pictures? That was still pissed off about Go West. And it was like he had just come from the set of Go West in 1940. And Eddie Bazell was the director of At the Circus and Go West,

and he had been a vaudevillian song and dance man that then became kind of a, I don't know, a workman-like director at MGM doing musicals and comedies. But Groucho, it was just like it just all over again upset him. It's funny. That Bazel was put in charge of those things. And Harpo was starting to look like a homeless person.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He – in The Night in Casablanca, he has an even shorter kind of white-haired wig, which somehow emphasizes the fact that he's 60-ish. And it's just – that's why Groucho had the wisdom to grow old in front of the camera. He ditched the grease paint mustache and eyebrows and grew his own mustache and had that whole second career as the host of You Bet Your Life. And as – basically as himself for the rest of his career, Harpo and Chico went on the road in Vegas and different countries doing their zany jackanapery for audiences that love seeing them in person. But, yeah, there is something I think kind of at best bittersweet or poignant when you see photos or clips of them from the 50s. You see that in that box set on the Marx Brothers on TV. There's a lot of wonderful stuff in there. But the clock is ticking on Harpo and Chico. But Groucho, he was just sort of hitting his stride as a solo act when the other two were

still clinging to the characters that they'd been doing since the 20s. Well, people forget too, they made their film debut in their 40s. Essentially, yeah. Groucho was 39, Zippo was only in his 30s, but yeah. Essentially, yeah. Groucho was 39. Zippo was only in his 30s. But yeah. Yes, Gilbert. I remember in –

I see there's a – Mr. Gottfried has a question in the back. And in Day at the Races where they break into, it's Gabriel. Who dat man? Yeah, that's weird. Who dat man? Yeah, that's weird. Who dat man? Boop-a-da-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop. But in all the films they made, which is 13, which isn't that many, All God's Chillin' Got Rhythm is the only thing that was ever nominated

for an Academy Award. Bizarre. It was nominated for Best Dance Director. Yeah, of all the things the Marx Brothers did, you think about the brilliance of Duck Soup and all those other great sequences and great performances. The only thing that the Academy ever paid any attention to was the Who Dat Man, Gabriel sequence with all the happy dancing black people in the barnyard, which for some reason people these days have a problem with. I can't understand that. And I heard that the great Nat Hyken wanted to write a movie for the Marx Brothers.

Oh, yes. Nat Hyken of Phil Silver's. Of Car 54 and Sojourn Bilko. And Bilko, yeah. He at one point wanted to write a Marx Brothers movie. I didn't know about that, so I can't speak to that. How can you make something up? Oh, sure. Well, Nat Hyken figured if Nat Perrin could write for him,

that the names are so similar, you got two Nats and an E-N at the end, you're halfway there. Just how much of a completist are you, Steve? Have you watched the story of mankind? Yes, I've watched the story of mankind where Irwin Allen didn't have the wisdom to put the three of them, Marx Brothers, in the same thing. But Irwin Allen was a longtime friend of Groucho's, and I met him at a couple of Groucho's parties. And I remember finding a copy of Groucho's deposition from his last divorce from Eden Marks. And in it, Eden's attorney says,

are you familiar with a man named Irwin Allen? Yes, I am. And what is his profession? He's a pimp. I am. And what is his profession? He's a pimp. He just puts that in there. I mean, that wasn't going to be heard by anyone or seen by anyone, but that was his answer. That's fantastic. Do you guys want to do a little crooning, a little duet? Like the old days? What the old days? Yeah. Yes. What were you thinking? Well, does the song from Horse Feathers mean anything to you? Because I have some lyrics here for Gilbert. And you guys did such a wonderful job with Hello, I Must Be Going

the last time we got together. Right. Not to be confused with Hello, I Must Be Garing. That's right. Which was a completely different vibe to that. time we got together. Right. Not to be confused with Hello, I Must Be Garing. That's right. Completely different vibe to that. They sang that at the Nuremberg trials. They did. Yeah, Spencer Tracy and Montgomery

Clift in and around saying, they said my mother was feeble-minded. She doesn't look feeble-minded, does she? What if we did a little duet here and each one of you guys took a different section of this? All right. And we did your various grouchos at various stages. Did I tell you that when Bob Whitey and Joe Adamson, after they interviewed Riskin

for Marx Brothers in a nutshell, they were wrapping up the equipment and Riskin said, Brothers in a nutshell. They were wrapping up the equipment and Riskin said, I don't understand these kids with their protest songs. I don't like war. I don't need war. I hate war. Nobody likes war, Bob. And Bob is thinking, it's 1981. No one is singing protest songs, Mr. Riskin. You've been harboring this grudge since the mid-1960s. I don't like war. I don't want it. So he does Maury Riskin. He does Nat Perrin.

And he does Zeppo. and he does Perelman. And you do Rondo Hatton. Sure, just don't scream. She's so pretty, don't hurt her. You're my friend, and I don't want you to hurt the girl. So, Steve, you'll start us off as slightly younger Groucho, and each one of you can do a stanza.

Everyone says I love you, but just what they say it for I never knew. It's just inviting trouble for the poor sucker who says I love you. Take a pair of rabbits who get stuck on each other and begin to woo.

And pretty soon you'll find a million more rabbits who say I love you. When the lion gets feeling frisky and begins to roar, there's another lion who knows just what he's roaring for. Every stink that ever grew. The goose and the gator and the gosling too. The duck upon the water when he feels that way too. Says, I love you. Says I love you.

He even gave you the duck ending from Horse Feathers. Terrific. Nice work, guys. Hey, Steve, is it true, and Gilbert will love this, is it true that Gilbert danced on Hitler's, on the site of Hitler's bunker in 1964? Gilbert? Yes. Gilbert danced on it.

I'm telling you, I'm aging beautifully. Is it true that Julius did it? What kind of a dance did – Gil, what kind of a dance did you do on Hitler's grave? Did I say Gilbert? Yes, you did. Oh, God, I'm tired. Is it true that Groucho did it? It's true that Groucho danced a jig on Hitler's grave. Isn't that comforting?

So great was his ill feeling. And I heard he said something about it. He goes like, I was never much of a dancer, but I was great that day. Well, sure, it's fair to credit. Go and knock hitler when the man's not here to defend himself steve this was fun tell us again uh the book the audio book the audio book is available uh also the kindle floor mat on amazon and if someone wants to buy a signed or inscribed copy of the paperback, they can go to my website, www.stevestolier.com, and I'll be more than happy to accommodate you. Fantastic. And now one part of the book that we didn't get to, you said that Sig Ruman paid money to Margaret Dumont to shit on him.

That's correct. He said, Margaret Dumont, you drive me crazy with your shapeliness. How much money would it take for you to take a dump on my cough, which is my head? Oh, Lord. This is called, this is coprophagia, which we discussed previous to that. And she would not accommodate my perverse request for some reason. I don't know what it was. I don't know why she didn't do that, because I heard that she was, you know, a real sport. But not that night.

Someone asked Groucho why Margaret Duvman should unsink Roman, And he said, because Chico needed the money. There we go. It's not true that Chico needed the money. He doesn't need it now because he's dead. Show me one other podcast giving you people the sick Roman impressions and the Nat Perrin impressions. We deliver for our fans. Steve, thank you, buddy.

My pleasure, guys. This was a treat. We'll talk again. Keep us posted on everything. I shall. Well, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here Amazing Colossal Obsessions with Steve Stoliar. Thank you, Steve. My pleasure.

You are the best. Oh, hell. Talk to you soon. Gilbert and Frank's Colossal Obsessions. Gilbert and Frank's Colossal Obsessions.