Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Mini-Ep #46: Bob Hope's Joys and Irwin Allen

Episode Date: February 11, 2016

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And this is very brief, I think. Go ahead, lay it on me. We were talking about Bob Hope in the last two. This is becoming an obsession on top of an obsession. Yes, I'm obsessed with Bob Hope at his worst. in that Groucho book,

Steve Stolier says that they once hired Groucho and Groucho was at his least hireable. Uh-huh. When Groucho should not have been on camera. That this was the year that Jaws came out. 75 out 75 yeah and everyone was obsessed

with jaws it was the biggest hit of all time at that point and that so bob hope oh god uh and and And his wonderful TV writers came up with a special called, that was a takeoff on Jaws called Joys. Wait a minute. Did you talk about this on a previous show? I don't know. Wow, this is like I'm having deja vu. Go on. And they came up with, I want to get a copy of this. I want to get a copy of it.

How do you do that? It sounds frightening. Yeah. And this Steve, who was Groucho's secretary at the time, went there when they filmed Groucho for it. And he said to the producer or director, oh, that wasn't so bad. And the guy looked at him angrily and he said, what, have you never seen? He goes, if you've never seen Groucho Marx before in your entire life, that looks good. Two years from death.

Yes. Died in 77. Yeah. Joys? Joys. Who else was in this? Oh, I don't know. It was a bunch of comedians. Landmark production. Yeah, we gotta find, we gotta look that one up.

J-O-Y-S? Just the word joys? I think so. Okay. We gotta call Stoliar and see if he's got a copy of this. It sounds truly, truly horrible. Our researcher, Paul Rayburn, is writing it down, is typing it feverishly as we speak. Yeah, maybe you could find out. Maybe he'll Google it.

Did it air? Was it shelved, or did it actually air? I think it aired. He was just there for one small part of it. Well, I told you Gene Parrott, who I've mentioned before when we were making fun of Bob two episodes ago. Gene is alive and well and living in L.A. and wrote, if you go to his IMDb page, I mean, he did so much stuff for Hope. Maybe he's got a copy of this. Oh, that would be good.

I will have to look up Gene Parrott, P-E-R-R-E-T. Joyce, just look up Bob Hope, Joyce. Oh, that reminds me of a roast joke. Also, I don't remember who said it. Amy Schumer was on the dais, and somebody said, you know, in this day and age when girls are, like, taking dangerous pills and starving themselves just to be thin. And then he turns to Amy Schumer and goes, just making a suggestion.

Oh, oh, oh, wait. Wait, we found it. Gilbert's putting his glasses on. I got to get my glasses. Hang on. Paul Rayburn has found something on, what is it, IMDb? In a spoof of Jaws, 1975,

nearly 50 comedians are mysteriously attacked and swallowed up by a great white shark. Wow. Bob Hope, Don Adams, Jack Albertson, Marty Allen.

Uh-oh. Former podcast guest. Oh, yeah. Is there any way to see who else? Let's see. This, oh, God. Yeah. What else you got, Paul?

Oh. Who else is on that list? Steve Allen. Wow. Desi Arnaz. You're just in the A's. A favorite from my act, Billy Barty. Oh, God.

We've got to get our hands on this. Rona Barrett, Milton Berle, Foster Brooks, Les Brown. Les Brown is a band of renown. Yes, George Burns, Red Buttons. Wow. Pat Buchanan. Pat Buchanan? He was funny.

Nixon speechwriter? Wait, wait. Pat, it wasn't Pat. Pat Butcher. Pat Butcher. Mr. Douglas. Butcher from Green Acre. Pat Buchanan. Mr. Douglas. Butcher from Green Acres.

Pat Buchanan. Oh, Lord. Oh, John Beiner. Oh, right. Still alive. We got to get him. Sammy Kahn. Glenn Campbell.

Jack Cotter. Charo. Wow. Jerry Colonna. Mike Connors. He was always funny. Scatman Crothers, Bill Dana. Still with us. Angie Dickinson, Phyllis Diller, Jamie Farr, George Goebel.

Oh, you don't have to read the whole list. I think we got the idea. Oh, well, the very funny David Jansen was in it. David Jansen. And they have Arnie Johnson there and his old man, his dirty old man.

We got to find who's ever alive from this joys and talk to them. And we'll put out an APB now to anybody listening who has any connection

to Bob Hope or any of these people to find this. Happy on Susu. Happy on Susu was in it. Abe Vigoda. Oh, my God. Paul just found Abe Vigoda. We fucked up majorly not having Abe on. Wow.

Oh, wow. Joys. Joys. It sounds scary. I'm going to make this my mission in life, not only tracking that down, but tracking down, and you can't find them on YouTube. I don't know why they're not there. We have the Jack Frost one, thankfully,

but some of those latter-day Hope specials that are so bad, so awful, and so painful to watch. Well, just like— And I want to get my hands on them. What was Lucille Ball's last series called? Oh, Life with Lucy. Life with Lucy. I'd like to get a box set of those.

Well, then there was I Buried Lucy. That was the actual last one. Yes, because those were dreadful. Well, and The Stone Pillow, where she was the homeless woman. We talked about that with Billy West. Comedians always have to do their dramatic thing. Well, just like Jackie Gleason in Gigo. Gigo.

Gigo. That was dreadful stuff. Oh, yeah. I think Gene Kelly directed that. Oh, yeah. If I'm not mistaken. That was Jackie Gleason trying to be Charlie Chaplin. Or Jacques Tati.

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Today is Billy Moomy's birthday. Okay. Who's a Jew? I was happy to announce. Former podcast guest, Billy Moomy. Terrific guest. Yeah, great guest. And so I got to thinking about, because we're always scrambling to come up with these colossal obsessions,

I got to thinking about Billy's old boss, the legendary Irwin Allen. Yes. Who was a New Yorker, born in New York, which I didn't know, went to Hollywood in the 30s, and he knocked around, he edited magazines, he wrote a gossip column. Did you know he produced Double Dynamite? Speaking of Groucho. Do you remember that thing with Groucho and Sinatra?

And Jane Russell? Yes, yes! And we were talking before we turned the mics on about how Irwin Allen also, I think he directed it too, he certainly produced it, The Awful Story of Mankind. Yes.

That was just a disastrous movie. Old star cast. Yeah. A big, big budget for its day. Ronald Coleman, Vincent Price, and Hedy Lamarr. And it's the Marx Brothers, but not together. Correct. Brilliant.

Yeah. A Chico is in one scene later on. There's a Groucho scene later. I think Harpo's Isaac Newton. Yeah. They're all historical figures. And it's like, they're the Marx Brothers. Put them together.

Right, right. Well, they're not together in Love, Happy either. No, because that was supposed to be just a Harpo film. Right, right. And then the thing that he became known for was television. Yeah. In the 60s. It was Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

But, oh, this I found interesting. You were talking with, I think it was Bobby Slayton, about horror films. Was it specifically The Lost World? The horror film that pissed you off by using real lizards? Oh, yes. There were a bunch of those. One of them was the Lost World. Oh, yes.

Which Irwin Allen made. They would get lizards and turtles and glue horns on them. That's correct. And that's what he did. And then force them to fight each other. Those were horrible. Yeah. Animal cruelty. But then Voyage to the

Bottom of the Sea. Oh, and then I saw in one special, they had a clip of the making of one of those fight scenes, and they were actually burning the lizards. Oh, God. With hot poles to get them to move. You couldn't do that today at all. Oh, God. No, you couldn't do that today at all. Oh, God. No, you couldn't do that. But he became known as this kind of TV, science fiction and fantasy TV producer.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in 64, Lost in Space in 65, The Time Tunnel, which we've talked about. Oh, yeah. And you hung out with James Darin at the Con in New Jersey. We've got to get James Darin on the show. Oh, yes, yes.

And Land of the Giants in 68. And the shows where they would use different costumes and reuse props. Oh, yes. And reuse sets because he wouldn't spend any money. The master of disaster, Irwin Allen. And he did all those films. And, you know, anyone who's seen Airplane, you understand the erwin allen movie the mentality of yeah yeah even though that was based on a film called zero hours yeah but it also touched upon so much yeah

of the erwin allen disasters well his his career his highlight of his career was the poseidon adventure in 72 and the towering inferno in 74 and those were his big successes. And then he did one. It was Paul Newman and Jacqueline Bissett. Yeah, I know the one you mean. Yeah. It's called When Time Ran Out. Yes. Yeah.

And I think, well, there was that. Oh, oh, and Red Buttons and. I think Burgess Meredith is in that. Oh, yeah. Red Buttons and also the other guy, favorite, Ernest Borgnine. Ernest Borgnine. Was in that. Oh, yeah. Red Buttons and also the other guy, favorite, Ernest Borgnine. Ernest Borgnine. Oh, I also remember in Towering Inferno,

those Irwin Allen movies always would hire athletes too. Right. Whoever was in the Towering Inferno. O.J. But there's another big football player in there. I can't remember. And he's a big guy. And at one point, very realistically, there are people stuck in an elevator,

and he grabs the cable and is yanking up the elevator by himself. Interesting. I think Don Gordon, who you're obsessed with, shows up in the Towering Inferno. Oh, probably. Because he was friends Inferno. Oh, probably. Because he was friends with McQueen. Oh, yeah. And he showed up in a lot of the stuff that McQueen was in. And then he's repeating himself, and there's the swarm with Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland,

which we've talked about. That was- That's a Gloria Swanson, one of them. See, this too, before Fantasy Island and Murder, She Wrote, Irwin Allen would dig up these people you swore would did. Yep, yep. The all-star cast of actors. Well, yeah.

Oh, Fred Astaire is in one of them. I think, oh, Fred Astaire is in The Towering Inferno. Yes, yes. And Fred McMurray, I think, turns up in The Swarm. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and then there was Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. Yes. With Michael Caine and Sally Field.

And wasn't Gene Hackman? No, he wasn't. He was dead. His character was dead from the first Poseidon Adventure. Oh. Reverend Scott. Oh, okay. This was Michael Caine cashing a check.

Wait, wait. Gene Hackman was in the original Poseidon? Yeah, he's the star. He's Reverend Scott. And he sacrifices himself at the original. Yeah, he's the star. He's Reverend Scott. And he sacrifices himself at the end to turn off the steam valve. And he falls to his death in the flames. The other big scene is watching Shelley Winters go swimming. Yeah, of course.

And climbing the Christmas tree. And Mario Cantone has been dining out on that for 40 years. I'm not positive if Ernest Bogdane smacks red buttons. I don't know, but we got to get Stella Stevens. Oh, well, that. Yeah. That. I remember back then seeing that movie, and Stella Stevens.

In her panties. Yeah. That was a big deal. Yeah, theies, yeah. That was a big deal. Yeah, the white panties. That was a big deal. She was climbing up and down ropes. That's some fun trivia on Irwin Allen. Apparently he used to fire a gun on the set to get natural reactions out of actors.

Oh, jeez. And this is another interesting thing I found. Part of his legacy is something called the Irwin Allen rock and roll. And that's a camera technique. It's when the camera is rocked as the actors rush from side to side in the frame to make it look like they're being tossed around. See, this is what I love about movies. Before computerization, you actually had to have an imagination. Yes.

And create stuff. Yeah, yeah. They did it on the cheap. Yeah. Irwin Allen was not only the master of disaster, he was a master of doing things for $1.49. And last but not least, I'd like to point out that Cesar Romero shows up in the story of mankind. Oh my God.

So Irwin Allen. And I think one of Groucho's ex-wives. Oh my God. Is there as like Pocahontas. Oh my God. We got to look that up. Maybe we'll do a show about the story of mankind. So the master of disaster, Irwin Allen.

Kind of a negative obsession, but an obsession nonetheless. I think we started off with Bob Hope's classic special, Joys. Wow. These things are getting more and more obscure

and ridiculous. So this has been Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal obsession. Thank you, Billy Moomy. Here we go, boys. Colossal Obsessions Colossal Obsessions