Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Mini Ep #127: Bad 70s/80s Superhero Shows (with Dylan Brody)
Episode Date: August 31, 2017This week: Little Dot! Desi Arnaz, Jr! "The Man from Atlantis"! Carl Reiner sings again! And Gilbert disses "Night Gallery"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Transcript
Discussion (0)
At Bet365, we don't do ordinary.
We believe that every sport should be epic.
Every goal, every game, every point, every play.
From the moments that are remembered forever
to the ones you've already forgotten.
Whether it's a game-winning goal in the final seconds of overtime
or a shot-on goal in the first period.
So whatever the sport, whatever the moment,
it's never ordinary.
At Bet365.
Must be 19 or older. Ontario only. Please pay responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit's never ordinary. At bet 365. Must be 19 or older.
Ontario only.
Please pay responsibly.
If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca.
FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling,
winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do.
Who wants this last parachute?
I do.
Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio,
exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated.
19 plus and physically located in Ontario.
Gambling problem?
Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca.
Please play responsibly.
Here we go boys.
1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2. hi this is gilbert gottfried and i'm here with my co-host frank santopopadre, and this is Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions.
It's like Orson Welles.
Yes.
You're so silky smooth.
The Martians are coming.
The Martians are coming.
Colossal Obsessions.
We just had the legendary Buck Henry on the show telling us a very funny Orson Welles story.
And the helicopter story.
Oh, yes.
Which we'll talk about.
Finally, someone who was there.
In a future episode.
Oh, and can we talk about.
We'll do that with Paul.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
We'll do that in our housekeeping.
Paul Schofield is coming in next.
Really?
Yes.
He died a few years ago.
That's a hell of a booking but he he likes this podcast so much
our guest is actually humorous dylan brody who is a fan of yours and a fan of the show
i'll be playing the part of dylan brody and he'll be playing this podcast welcome dylan well thank
you for coming in i will tell you i should tell you how much of a fan I am of Gilbert's.
Go ahead, he likes that.
When I was 17, I was starting to do stand-up comedy at open mics.
I had learned from the movie Fame that if you want to be a comic, what you do is you write five minutes and you go to the Catch Rising Star and you showcase and then you are a professional stand-up comic.
Yes.
Because that's how it works in the real world.
And I went into Catch Rising Star just to see a show
before I was going to showcase there.
And it was, you know, the lineup of comics and a few singers,
and Gilbert, you were on the lineup.
And you were having a bit of a difficult time on stage.
This is shocking.
And you did a thing that the audience was not,
you were annoyed with them,
and you began to do what was clearly
a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Persig reference,
in which you were saying,
okay, jokes about the city are too big,
I'll do jokes about just this building,
I will do jokes about just this one brick on the wall,
and I will do that until you laugh.
And nobody was coming with you.
And abruptly you did something which I'm guessing was not wholly improvised,
but I was young enough not to know the difference yet.
You grabbed one of the open-backed chairs, draped it over your shoulders
so that the legs of the chair were sticking up from your back.
And you said, one day Gregory woke up and found he was a brontosaurus.
A Kafka reference.
How would he tell his wife?
What would his friends think?
Where would he buy suits?
And I could not stop laughing for the remainder of the evening.
It didn't matter what you said.
You left the stage.
Other people were up.
I was still laughing at Kafka.
Wow.
And I have been quoting it ever since.
And now my wife quotes it.
Anytime we feel entirely out of place and alienated from the world,
she will turn to me and say, one day Gregory woke up.
Isn't that nice?
And you did that at me.
Although it was Tyrannosaurus.
Those are the ones with the spikes sticking up.
No, no, you mean a Stegosaurus.
Oh, it could have been either one.
It could have been, but I'm pretty sure you said Brontosaurus at the time.
But what do I know?
Does the T-Rex have spikes?
The T-Rex, no.
No, the T-Rex has the little tiny short arms.
But the Stegosaurus would have spikes.
Triceratops had three horns.
Yes.
And the Stegosaurus had...
That's where you look up synonyms.
Yeah.
In the Stegosaurus.
Right.
So you have the only comedy act in the world that freely references not only Kafka, but Norman Fell.
That, my friends, is diversity.
And you know what someone reminded
me of? Wouldn't it be weird if we
knew what someone reminded you of? Yes!
That would be bizarre. Someone
reminded me
that when I
would do my Ben Gazzara
bit,
that I
would mention Tony
LoBianco. Yes, I saw that.
And I didn't bring that up to him.
We should have. Now you're going to kick yourself.
I got to get Tony back for a mini episode.
Yeah, just to have him sit in for that.
That's very funny. Because I
finally got John
Amos to go
damn, damn, damn. A Good Times reference. We had John Amos to go, damn, damn, damn.
A good times reference.
We had John Amos.
Very nicely done.
The other night.
But my question for you, and I do want to know this.
Yes.
What were your first showcases like when it was the beginning of comedy in New York as we knew it in the 80s?
Do you remember your early showcases at the main clubs?
I forget the first one I went to.
I always thought it was Bitter End,
but then I found out it wasn't that one.
And I forget the name, but there was some club
that you just went in and you wrote your name down.
Right, the open mics.
Yeah, and they would have back then, just went in and you wrote your name down. Right, the open mics. Yeah.
And they would have back then, it was not just later on it became just comedians.
Back then it used to be comedians and singers.
Right.
And most of the real comedy clubs even did a comic and then a singer and then a comic and a singer and then.
Yeah.
And like Pat Benatar started there, Patty Smythe.
Oh, well, Pat Benatar was a waitress at Catch.
Oh, yeah.
And she was living in my old building on 81st Street.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, and Rick Newman was managing her, I believe.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Weird.
And interestingly, also managing your old building.
That's strange.
She was the janitor.
Dylan is a humorist. He doesn't like She was the janitor. Dylan is
a humorist. He doesn't like to be called a comic.
Or he made the journey
from a comic. I made the journey from comic to humorist
and now when I'm performing places, I tell the MC
please say that I'm a humorist and
storyteller. Don't mention the word comic. Don't mention the word
comedian. And they inevitably then go on stage and say
okay, so this next guy isn't a comic.
He's, no, don't
just don't tell him what I'm not.
That's not a helpful intro at all.
You open for David Sedaris on occasion.
I do, I love him.
You do all kinds of things.
He's a very kind man.
And I think I saw you with the George Carlin tribute in 2010.
Yes, you would have seen me.
I was talking to Whoopi about that today.
Did she host that event?
She hosted it.
I will tell you a thing.
I've been trying to actually get in touch with her because I want her to come to my show while I'm in town.
She won't.
But I came off stage.
I did a story that I've been doing for a long time about my brief interaction with George Carlin and my immortal dog of my childhood who still roams upstate New York ownerless.
And I came off stage.
And as I was walking off stage, Whoopi shook my hand and said, that was brilliant.
That was fantastic.
And then went on stage and did a callback to my story and went on with the show.
I had a very weird and surreal night that night.
I was friends with Ben Stiller when we were children.
We both went to the same summer camp.
He does not remember this.
But his mom came up to visit at one point and mira
and he said she said i would like to take you out to dinner invite a friend and he said oh i'd like
to bring dylan and i was nine or ten and i confused her by insistently asking questions about the
compass players and she was going how do you know how do you know anything about the compass players
what is wrong with you you should be asking me questions about baseball cards and comic books.
This is not right.
But you were a comedy nerd.
But I was a comedy nerd, and I knew Compass players.
Right.
Shelly Berman and all those people.
Yeah, and Paul Dooley.
Paul Dooley, we had him on the show.
Paul Dooley, I've worked with a bunch.
Was Paul Sand in the Compass players?
I think he was.
I think he was.
He may not have come in until Second City.
But Paul Dooley and I worked together on the David Feldman show for a long time.
David Feldman.
There's a name.
Oh, geez.
Yeah.
You did a memorable episode of his podcast.
Yes.
Yes.
David is a friend and a fan of his show.
He's a friend.
I don't know if he would approve of you declaring him a fan.
He's a fan of Gilbert's.
Oh, okay.
Possibly not mine. I love David. a fan. He's a fan of Gilbert's, possibly not mine.
I love David.
And Carl Reiner is a fan of yours.
Carl Reiner, what a sweetheart of a human.
Isn't he?
He gave me a blurb for my novel.
I accidentally got him a copy of my novel.
I had a manager who was deep in a midlife crisis spiral,
and I did not yet know that's what was happening.
He was playing make-believe with my career in very dangerous ways.
And I got him my novel, and I said, please read this.
I know you don't read a lot of prose.
Pretend it's a screenplay.
Imagine that Carl Reiner plays the grandfather.
And three weeks later, I called him, and I said,
hey, did you read the novel?
He said, what novel?
And I said, the one I told you to read.
He said, oh, yeah, yeah, I got that to Carl Reiner like you wanted me to. And I said, okay, that's not what I said at all.
What did he say? And he said, I don't know. I'll check in. And three days later, I get a postcard
from Carl Reiner with a totally usable blurb written on it. But I don't know if I'm allowed
to use the blurb. So I call his office and I lie. And I say, I'm going to be in Beverly Hills tomorrow.
Can I take you out to lunch after a meeting?
And he said, no, come by the house.
So suddenly I'm in Carl Reiner's house, sitting in his living room, talking to him about, at one point in this conversation, I it's always a relief as it is today when i
meet one of my heroes and they turn out not to be a disappointment oh you're welcome because he is
like everybody else in show business yeah let's go with both of you you're my hero just for the
socks i appreciate that uh he said uh oh who was a disappointment and i said well i i worked for
steve allen for a while in his office and that was he was the first
person to make me laugh at television and he was old and angry and crazy this was three or four
years ago and Carl said oh he was so nice to me and Mel he made our first uh that's right he got
them to do a two thousand year old man produced it he didn't take a piece of it he just said it
needed to be recorded boy I hope when I get old, I'm not crazy and angry.
Like, Carl, you're 114.
You're going to be fine.
But he was good to you.
He was very good to me.
And then he had galleys of his children's book,
and he sat down on the couch with me,
and he read me his children's book and pointed things out in the picture.
That's nice.
It was like having my grandfather back for a minute.
Yeah, he's a gentleman.
He sang us an aria.
Yeah.
Oh.
He sang an aria and
then he sang some irish folks he wanted to be an irish tenor when he was a kid oh that's sweet and
he was surprisingly good i i would not i'm not surprised by that he comes from an era in show
business because he was a performer as well as a writer you know he was on your show of shows as a
performer and that was a time in show business where you didn't go in just because you were funny or just because you could act.
You had to learn how to sing and you had to do a little soft show.
He did impressions, too.
Did he really?
Yeah, he did impressions when he was in the Army.
Back then, they did everything.
Yeah.
So any performer you watched, you knew they could dance.
You knew they could sing have you ever
seen the movie damsel in distress no fred astaire ginger rogers uh i don't know it's not it's fred
astaire and some other woman i don't remember who it is and then george burns and gracie allen oh
yes and they dance together yeah it's the only movie with f Fred Astaire dancing where you're not watching him. Yeah.
Because George dancing next to Fred is so relaxed.
You know, Fred is dancing with absolute precision and perfection,
and George is dancing like it's a conversation.
Well, he was a hoofer.
Yeah.
You know, they did all that stuff in vaudeville.
Yeah.
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this.
FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning.
Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do.
Who wants this last parachute?
I do.
Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio.
Exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated.
19 plus and physically located in Ontario.
Gambling problem?
Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca.
Please play responsibly.
And now back to the show.
So here's a strange turn in direction.
Oh, good.
Danny Duraney, our mutual pal.
Yes.
Who put us together.
Yes.
A fine man who told me that I should say hello to you, by the way,
both. He is a fine man. He came
in here and we talked about Bob Hope's
decrepitude
with him for
a good half an hour.
The classic Christmas special. Have you seen the
Bob Hope Christmas special, the Jack Frost that we
discussed with Danny? No.
Oh, you're in for a treat.
Is that the one that Dana Gould was on?
No, no, no.
You'll see.
Okay.
They dress him up as Frost, as Jack Frost.
I was about to say David Frost.
That's a very different special.
Totally different.
That's a very different special. Totally different.
They dress him up in this scary outfit as Jack Frost,
and Bob Hope looks like he died 10 years before.
Right.
Yeah.
We'll send it to you.
It's horrifying.
It's life-changing.
Oh, I look forward to this.
We'll send it to you.
With eager anticipation and bated breath.
But he said you had a strange obsession with bad superhero stuff from the 1970s.
There was a thing that had, yes.
Like Six Million Dollar Man, or what are we talking about?
Just post.
Gemini Man.
Yes.
Gemini Man, Man from Atlantis.
You remember these, Gil?
With Patrick Duffy, the Man from Atlantis.
Oh.
Ben Murphy, I believe, was Gemini Man.
Ben Murphy from Elliot Smith and Jones.
Oh, Elliot Smith and Jones, I loved.
Yeah, with Pete Doole.
But only for like two seasons.
Well, Pete Doole shot himself.
Oh, is that what happened?
He shot himself.
He was just playing around.
Yeah.
And I think it was a blank, but blanks are dangerous.
Yeah.
And he put it right against his head and said, oh, this shows too much.
I'm going to kill myself.
And he did.
Pull the trigger.
And yeah, blanks are dangerous.
Wow.
It's not like in the movies where they shoot at each other with blanks and it's okay.
Wow.
I did not know that.
All I knew was that as a kid, suddenly there was a different guy in the role.
What happened? Oh, right. that's right they had well yeah the show was
still on and they had to replace him so you watched the the 70s these sort of cheeseball
70s I had been a comic book reader from the time I was very young us too I yeah you that's what you
did you read comic books and imagine DC guy you a DC guy or a Marvel guy?
First I was DC and then I grew into Marvel.
And there was a point at which I realized,
although I didn't have this language for it yet,
I realized that all the superhero comics were ultimately fascist fantasy.
That all you needed was to be able to be stronger and more violent than the evil people and then you could work your will and that upset me dreadfully and then six million dollar
man came out and also there was another one that wasn't exactly a superhero show called it takes a
thief oh yeah well that was in the 60s with robert wagner but they were somehow rerunning it, I think. At a certain... Oh, that's right!
And what was her name?
The actress.
On It Takes a Thief?
It Takes a Thief had an actress?
Yes, didn't they have an actress? Oh, gosh.
I'm only thinking
Amalekai Throne was on it.
I think they had
a different actress every week
because he was a...
I could be wrong, though.
And I should...
Before I forget,
I used to jerk off
to Betty and Veronica.
Oh, who among us didn't?
Wait, what does that have to do with anything?
Well, it's comic books.
We were talking about comic books, and before we got too far away from it.
Yeah, you want to touch on that, so to speak.
I don't want to leave out important information.
Not Little Dot?
She didn't do it for you?
I don't want to bury the headline.
She didn't do it for you?
I don't want to bury the headline.
Little Dot was for... Remember Little Dot?
Yeah, Barbie comics.
Everything had to have dots on it.
Yeah.
So you went from comic books to the $6 million man.
I realized that the comics were all inherently fascist,
that there was just something wrong with them.
But because of the way television was evolving
into a sort of a liberal media you
know what was a fascist comic book little hitler little hitler i believe it was i believe it was
lil hitler yeah hitler and the mussolini kids k-i-D-Z. Will Hitler. Very funny. Nice.
The TV shows were all ultimately nonviolent.
You know, even Steve Austin, whose thing was strength, he would throw a person, rendering them unconscious.
He wouldn't actually punch them.
Okay.
Did you watch the Six Million Dollar Man?
Yes.
Now, here's something that
gets me in every movie and TV
show. If the good
guy is facing a bad guy
and the bad guy's a big Hulk
who could kill him with
one finger by snapping his neck.
Yes. He won't
kill him. He'll pick him up
and throw him. Yes and and this bothers you
and yes and if you're a good guy you could get thrown a hundred feet up in the air smack against
the wall hit the ground shake your head and then he lumbers over to you again and picks you up and
throws you again yes and you're and throws you again. Yes.
And you're still fine.
And you don't do anything until you have wiped your lip and seen blood on your hand.
Yeah.
And then you are incredibly strong.
Right.
That's correct.
And it's like these are guys who could kill the good guy with no effort at all.
Well, that's what that turn is in Indiana Jones when he waits for the propeller to take the guy out.
Because that movie is all about messing with all of those cliches, all those fight cliches from television and movies of the 70s and 80s.
Do you know Dusty Springfield recorded a theme song for the $6 million man that wasn't used?
I did not know that.
Isn't that good trivia?
Is it possible to find it somewhere?
I don't know.
But we're going to—
Anyone can find it, we can.
Can we somehow put that music under the footage of Bob Hope doing—
Yes, sure.
That would be good.
Now, and who was the bionic woman?
Lindsay Wagner.
Lindsay Wagner as Jamie Sars.
She's still with us.
Very cute. She was very cute.
And my understanding is she's a genuinely decent human.
That's nice to hear.
Everybody I hear about who's ever worked with her says, oh, she's wonderful.
We'll call her up.
Please do.
So you watch the $6 million man.
And then send her to me and something distracting for my wife.
And you watched Man from Atlantis.
Did you watch all of these things?
Oh, Man from Atlantis, yeah.
And Gemini Man,
Gemini Man was essentially the invisible man.
He was a motorcycle riding secret agent.
Yes, but he could turn invisible.
Who could turn invisible?
Gilbert loves this premise.
For a very specific,
I think it was 20 minutes per 24 hour period.
Never any specificity on whether it somehow resets at midnight.
Or he would die.
Or he would, no, or he would remain invisible forever.
Oh, that's right, that's right.
And he had the first ever we had seen digital watch.
That's right.
Which in itself made him very, very interesting to me.
And they had, in this desperate attempt to create suspense where there genuinely was none,
they would have a woman always who was his partner with a watch that was counting down his 20 minutes
because he was in the office while the cleaning lady was there
and he had three minutes left to be invisible before.
But, you know, the first digital clock I ever saw was in a movie from the 30s
and it was uh bale legosi and boris karloff and david manners in the black cat impressive yeah
they had a digital clock there but was it a the kind where the numbers turn? The type where the wheel turned around.
I love that movie, by the way.
That movie is pure camp.
I have no memory of the clock in it.
And it's one of those movies
makes no sense
at all, and it just
makes it better. Did you know
that The Man from Atlantis was produced
by the live-action arm of Hanna-Barbera?
I did not know that.
Also good trivia.
I wonder if they were planning to do a spinoff cartoon if it worked well.
Possibly.
Now, where would the fall guy fall into any of this?
Not a superhero.
No.
It came, also it was later.
It was, you know, 10 years later maybe.
you know 10 years later maybe uh but it had the feel of the 70s superhero shows because it had that same sense of people who are doing something other than actually committing violence they're
faking violence to solve the problem same thing the hulk the hulk caught a villain. That's a good example. He'd throw him in the air, and there was always conveniently either a hay loft there, or there'd be a lake.
A bouncy house.
Yes, a bouncy house.
Or for no apparent reason, a business establishment that had a huge collection of empty cardboard boxes behind it.
Yes, in the alleyway that popped up in every single TV show.
Stack some boxes here.
The Hulk's going to throw somebody.
Loads of empty cardboard boxes.
I loved, and this is a little off topic, but on Mission Impossible, and then they did it sometimes, I think, on Six Million Dollar Man as well,
that he would be in Western European, Eastern European countries,
and they would have signs written in English, but with K's where there should be C's.
Oh, yes, yes.
Or a backward R, just to make it look a little bit as though we're not even bothering to pretend that we're in a different country.
We should get Lee Majors and also Richard Anderson, who played Oscar Goldman.
Oh, yeah, you should.
We should do a $6 million man.
Did you watch these other ones?
Did you watch Man from Atlantis, which was on NBC?
Oh, yeah.
My favorite thing about Man from Atlantis is that there was, even as a kid, I wondered,
do they just keep using the same footage?
Because there was always a scene in which he's underwater looking at the woman who's the liaison to him through a glass panel.
And so she's talking and he's just underwater doing this through the whole scene because he can't talk.
Did they just shoot that once or did they go back every week and make him go underwater and do the same thing?
He had to shave his body.
He had to shave his entire body, Patrick.
Who was the guy who played Christ?
Was that Jeffrey Hunter?
Jeffrey Hunter.
Yeah.
Or Max von Sydow.
Yeah.
This was Jeffrey Hunter.
He had to shave his body and especially shave his armpits for the crucifixion scene.
Because we know Jesus was in fact
hairless.
No armpit hair.
Yeah.
On the cross.
Did you know the Gemini Man,
which was on in 1976,
only five episodes aired.
So I'm surprised you remember it
so vividly.
The Invisible Man with David McCallum
was on at the same time.
It was on at the same time and it was equally at the same time, and it was equally bad.
Yeah.
Or maybe they were a couple of months apart.
And I remember when that Invisible Man was coming on,
in the TV guide they were saying,
oh, the special effects are so much more advanced.
And the special effects in the Claude Rains version
was so much better
than the ones in the TV show.
In 1935.
Yes.
All the television special effects
from the 70s and 80s
were just awful.
And it's part of why
I never really enjoyed
the Marvel Comics TV series.
Oh, they were so horrible.
Terrible.
There was a Spider-Man version
done with the grown-up kid from Sound of Music.
Nicholas Hammond.
Nicholas Hammond, good call.
They could never get the costume right on Spider-Man.
They couldn't get the costume right.
And then it was just they'd show the bad guy, and then they'd show Spider-Man,
and he'd do the hand gesture, and then they'd cut to the bad guy
and throw a net made of nylon rope at him.
That's right.
That's not how it's supposed to work. I showed, I was watching it through the eyes of somebody who didn't grow up in that generation.
I showed it to my nephew.
My nephew was 10 at the time.
And I was showing him that bad Spider-Man for the 70s.
He couldn't believe it.
He thought it was a comedy sketch.
Yeah.
He said, people took this seriously?
It was so absurd.
And I remember at the same time, like, I don't know if it was like Sesame Street or something,
would do like throwing a Spider-Man character.
And it was so much better than the TV show.
The costume, the movements.
Now, do you remember any of these, Dylan?
We're going to quiz you.
Do you remember Manimal? Yes, I had Manimal in the very first
the night that I got in at the improv. I'm 17 years
old, auditioning at the improv, and I opened by
saying, good evening. I'm so glad to be here, and I'm so glad you guys had
the courage to come out here on a night when you could be at home
watching Manimal.
Oh, that's a good joke. It was my opening line.
Good punchline.
Narration by William Conrad.
Oh, my God.
Do you remember Manimal?
Yes.
Starring the immortal Simon McCorkindale.
He could turn.
His special talent was that he could turn into any animal.
He was a shapeshifter.
He could turn into any animal by having a close-up of his eye.
Oh, yeah.
That is correct.
Yeah.
Only eight episodes of Manimal aired.
Really?
Now, there was also a TV show called Werewolf.
Was there?
I don't remember.
Yeah, there was.
What era are we talking about?
Not Lucan, not the boy who was raised by the wolves.
Oh, Lucan.
Remember Lucan?
There was a show called Werewolf.
You got me.
Oh, we'll put our listeners on it.
How about this one, Dylan?
The powers of Matthew Starr.
Does this mean anything to you?
Was he the son of Starman?
He was a high school student.
He was from another planet.
Gilbert loves these premises.
Yes.
I do remember this.
He lived with a school janitor who was played by Lou
Gaughton. I believe, I
may be wrong, there was a movie that I think
was called Starman
about an alien and I think
Well, Starman is a good Jeff Bridges
John Carpenter movie. Yes, that's
the one. I think this
was the TV series that
was made because that movie
had come out. I may be wrong now starman
if we're talking about the jeff bridge jeff bridges and karen allen good flick and i remember a
deuce chill video that they put out at the time with uh jeff bridge to tie in with the movie, Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen singing to each other romantically.
Dream, dream, dream, dream, dream.
And you got douche chills from this?
Yes.
You got to look this up.
Okay.
You got to look it up.
Okay.
And I want you all the time and I need you.
You know, it's a B movie, but he gives a brilliant performance.
He is good.
He is a terrific actor.
Even though he hates me.
Well, we'll get into that another time.
Do you know who was on the Powers of Matthews star?
Who?
James Caron.
Oh, my God.
You're a buddy.
He was, I love James Caron.
Has he done the show?
Yes.
He has done the show.
You'd know James Caron if you saw him.
We'll show him to you.
He was the Pathmark Man years ago.
He's a poltergeist.
He's the guy that sells them the house.
He's the realtor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's like, there was a time period where there wasn't a movie,
where he wasn't there in a business suit.
Right.
He was in Sunday.
In the Park with George.
Oh, Any Given Sunday.
That's a very different movie.
With Al Pacino.
That's right.
That's right.
Here's one more for you.
One more for me.
Dylan, and if you know this one, I'll be really impressed.
Auto Man.
This is the 80s now.
I've jumped.
Auto Man, yes.
Another Glenn Larson show.
Yeah, I believe he turned into a car.
He was a cop's partner.
Well, something like that.
Something like that.
There was Tron-like glowing.
There was a Tron knockoff.
Yes.
Speaking of Jeff Bridges.
He had a lot of pinstriping.
Starring Desi Arnaz Jr.
Desi Arnaz Jr., that's what it was, yeah.
Because if you want to spin off Tron, get me Desi Arnaz Jr. Desi Arnaz Jr. That's what it was, yeah. Because if you want to spin off Tron, get me Desi Arnaz Jr.
Yeah, he was an android who was connected to his car.
He was an AI.
He was an artificial intelligence being.
Well, the premise is Desi Arnaz creates an AI crime-fighting program that generates a hologram.
And he leaves the computer at night to fight crime.
Right.
Right.
It had to be at night because it was all about how he glowed.
Correct.
The whole show.
Remember Auto Man?
You don't remember any of these shows, do you?
Not Auto Man.
That was in 1983.
It aired 13 times.
I don't think I watched more than two episodes of it,
but it's the kind of show that I would have been so excited about
that I would have seen it
and then been disappointed.
And if it was 83,
then I was already old enough
to have at least some sense
of taste and decorum.
Well, I cheated
because you said 70s,
but I jumped.
You know what?
It wasn't a superhero show.
Yes, I do.
Yes.
Petticoat Junction.
He's right.
I got you there.
In mid-70s.
More clues.
Night Gallery.
Oh, yeah.
Night Gallery to me was one of those shows that had, if you wanted to know everything that was wrong with 70s television.
See, I liked Night Gallery.
Yeah.
Maybe I was too young.
They had a handful of them that were good, but boy.
Some of them were moody.
Yeah.
Some of them were so bad.
It was trying so hard to be noir.
Yes.
And failing so badly to do so.
And to walk in the Twilight Zone's footsteps, which was impossible.
As long as we're on that kind of thing, do you remember
Harry O? Sure, with David
Jansen. Came out the same year
as Rockford Files.
That was trying to be like,
yeah, that was definitely a film
noir. It was, yeah,
and I loved it. I watched it
and then
Rockford Files stayed on and
Harry O went away.
And the rumor about David Jansen all those years was... Is this like a Danny Thomas thing?
No, no, no.
David Jansen...
He wouldn't do that to you.
...would lie under a glass chair.
And for some reason they played Danny Boy.
Well, he was like, no.
But there was the belief going around at that time that David Jansen was the illegitimate son of Clark Gable.
Oh, yes.
I've heard that.
We talked about this on a previous show.
Oh, I love this rumor.
Not sure it's true.
I would like to spread a rumor that I am the illegitimate son of David Jansen.
Go for it.
Go for it.
And I'm the illegitimate son of Chuck Connors.
Yes.
I've heard that.
I see the resemblance between you and Chuck Connors.
And what they used to do on Night Gallery, they'd have these blackouts that were like of Love American style.
And they would, I don't know how many times they would pull the gag of a guy dressed up as Dracula and he'd be at the blood bank.
And that was like the big joke.
Blood Bank.
And that was like the big joke.
We got to get Arnold Margolin, who wrote the Love American style theme and created the show.
Yeah.
I love American style. I ran into him at a party.
One of the things that makes me feel most loved on a podcast is when the hosts discuss throughout it who else they should get on the show.
We do that on every show.
This is vaguely interesting, but you know who we should really get is somebody. We do that on every show, though. This is vaguely interesting, but you know who we should
really get is somebody...
We do that on every show.
I would like to see some of those old
Love American styles.
They're not holding up.
No, they do not hold up.
There is so much television that does not hold up.
You watch and you go,
what were we as a society?
Have you ever tried to watch an
episode of welcome back cotter no sir oh my god i had trouble watching it when it was me too
i'm i think four years five years younger than you are i think and i was young enough
that when it came on i was just pleased to see someone doing Marx Brothers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, he was a big Groucho guy.
Yeah.
And the show was structured as Marx Brothers.
And Robert Hedges was doing Chico.
Yeah.
Only he talked and laughed.
And no, Ron Polillo.
Oh, no, no.
Robert Hedges.
Epstein.
Epstein.
Oh, Epstein.
Oh, right.
Epstein was doing Chico. Right. Ron Pol. Oh, Epstein. Oh, right. Epstein was doing Chico.
Ron Palillo was doing Harpo.
That's right.
Yeah.
Ron Palillo was doing a Harpo thing all the time.
And what I love, both of them, both those actors died in the same year.
Yep.
And the Emmys was able to save time and money by showing one clip from Welcome Back, Carter, and it covered
both of them.
They were both in the clip.
By the way, Josh Gibaldon's Margaret Dumont was underrated on that show.
Where can people find out about you?
Go to DylanBrody.com.
You can follow me at Twitter at Dylan Brody.
You can go to my Facebook page at TheDylanBrody.com. You can follow me at Twitter at Dylan Brody. You can go to my Facebook page at The Dylan Brody. You can buy all of my five CDs from Stand Up Records at Amazon.
And you do a lot. You write novels and you open for David Sedaris and you do a lot of cool shit.
Just find me. Come see me. I enjoy people.
Good.
You guys are fun.
Thank you for coming and talking to us about a bunch of nonsense.
Thank you for sitting in a small room with me on a sweaty day in New York.
We've enjoyed it.
Give our love to Danny.
I will indeed.
I'm going to call him right after this
and say that I don't think they hated me.
And this has been Gilbert and Frank's
amazing, colossal obsessions
once again recorded at Nutmeg
with our engineer, Frank Bertorosi.
Thank you, Frank Bertorosi.
I'd be glad I didn't bring up Electra Woman and Dinah Girl.
Oh, yeah.
She was a retired alcoholic superhero,
and Dinah Girl worshipped her
and wanted her to get back into the business.
It was kinky and weird.
Yeah.
Thanks, Dylan.
Thank you.
Colossal Obsessions.