Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski Encore

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

GGACP celebrates the 30th anniversary of the classic comedy-drama "Ed Wood" (released September 28, 1994) with this ENCORE of an interview with the film's screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. In this episode, Scott and Larry talk about the Ed Wood-Bela Lugosi relationship, the exuberance of Milos Forman, the bizarro cinema of Rudy Ray Moore and their Eddie Murphy vehicle, “Dolemite is My Name.” Also, Jim Carrey pranks Danny DeVito, Tim Burton befriends Vincent Price, Ray Walston “replaces” Peter Sellers and Scott and Larry remember the late, great Martin Landau. PLUS: Appreciating Robert Morse! The legacy of William Goldman! Mae West seduces 007! The Marx Brothers meet the Master of Disaster! And the boys pick their favorite big-screen biopics! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or have out more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs. And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Casino. Gambling problem call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connexontario.ca. It's a new day. How can you make the most of it with your membership rewards points? Earn points on everyday purchases. Use them for that long awaited vacation. Points never

expire so use them how you want. That's the powerful backing of American Express. On eligible cards terms apply. Learn more at mx.ca. You're listening to Richard Whitmore's Amazing Colossal Podcast. You're listening to Herve Villaches as Paul Williams. You're listening to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm already lying and this is my favorite podcast.

Including my own. Love you. podcast, including my own. Love you. ["The Last Supper"] Hi, this is Gilbert Godfrey, and this is Gilbert Godffried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. Our guests this week are back for a return engagement and Frank and I couldn't be happier

about it. They're producers, film historians, pop culture, obsessive Mocks Brothers and Albert Brooks fanatics, and two of the most prolific and original admired screenwriters in the history of the big and small screen. You know their impressive body of work, including the People vs. Larry Flint, Man on the Moon, Big Eyes, 1408, Scrooge, the Emmy-winning miniseries, American Crime Story, The People vs. O.J. Simpson, and of course a little film celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the wonderful and heartfelt Ed Wood. In a career that started way back at USC Film School, in the early 1980s, they've worked with Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Mylos Forman.

Mylos Forman. Hey! It's my show! Shut the fuck up! Respect the dead. Milosh Forman. Milosh Forman. Hey! It's my show! Shut the fuck up! Respect the dead. If I want to call him Milos, I'll call him Milos. And a dog named Milos.

Yes. Let him get a podcast. He does a podcast, actually. Does he? Tuzzy! Bill Murray, Danny DeVito, Jim Carrey, John Travolta and even Courtney Love and George the Animal Steal. And if all that wasn't impressive enough, they also co-wrote the two greatest motion pictures ever committed to celluloid Problem Child and Problem Child 2. The newest project premiering today on Netflix is the Rudy Raymore biography, Dullamite is my name,

starring my fellow SNL cast member and Beverly Hills Cop II co-star, Eddie Murphy. Please welcome to the podcast, two rat soup, eaten honky motherfuckers our pals Scott Alexander and Larry Karazewski Wow hello Gilbert. Hi. In all fairness I swiped that from Larry's Facebook page today. The rat soup motherfuckers. Hello boys. Hello, boys.

Hello, hello, hello. Hello, gentlemen. I'm going to start printing those in large print, Gil. Yes. Milos. Phonetically now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So. Milos. That's when he was a cartoon character. We had, I was going to save this for the end, but we had Beverly D'Angelo and Treat Williams here a couple of weeks ago talking about Milos. We lost him since you guys were last here, so a couple of things you want to say about him? I mean, he was just an amazing guy.

I mean, just really so giving and just such a great director and such a nice person to us. And he was really full of life. Zest. It's zest. It's Anthony Quinanzorba the Greek. Yeah. He was. Yeah.

Hello, how are you? Come here. This is everything was a big bear hug. I was, we're staying at the Essex house and I was walking past the Hampshire house and I turned the person on and I said, I think Milos used to live here. And the doorman overheard me and said, he was a great man. Oh that's nice. That's lovely. I didn't know he was a he was spying on me. You said every day you

tweeted every day was a unique adventure. Yes because he was open to everybody and that's what you know you said even Courtney Love and things like that I mean he was he really wanted the To know what you felt about things and he cared about your out the input of the crew cast writers You know we never felt like We were pretty young when we made those movies, and we never felt like we were you know Cut out of the process in any way whatsoever He was great and when we did man on the moon and Jim decided to become Andy and Tony just for the hell of it Went along with it. Yeah, which was a bit of a roller coaster. So so that was true that special

Oh, yeah, absolutely. He he definitely believed he was well It's I don't know if he believed it, but he he did it. Yeah committed to it totally and and it was an everyday experience and you know, it definitely You know put the project, you know behind schedule all the time I would say the only thing that that was different in real life than in the movie is that Everyone was kind of in on it Everyone was this beautiful thing that Jim was doing It was like a performance art inside the middle of a movie, the making of a movie, and he was such a big star that he could get away with it.

But it was the idea that you were actually, the shooting of the film was becoming a Kaufman-esque experience and that was kind of cool. My favorite bit, which is not in that doc, was that Tony drove his car up to Danny DeVito's trailer, and Danny was inside it, backed the car against the door locking Danny inside the trailer and then took the key to the car and threw it into the Los Angeles River. Wow. So now Danny is trapped inside there and they can't shoot. So it sounds funny but it's not funny if you have to make your day. Actually no longer even sounds very funny.

And it's probably an expensive gag too. The movie keeps coming up because we had Ed Weinberger here. We had George Shapiro here. What does Ed Weinberger think of the movie? We interviewed him but we never saw him afterwards. I can't remember but I can send you the link to that episode. We had Peter Bonners here who was obviously playing Ed Weinberger. We had Shapiro.

Who else did we have? We had Zamuda. Oh yes. And we're having Mary Lou Henner in a couple of them. Oh, Mary Lou's great. It's a movie sweet. It just keeps coming up, and we have everybody's different perspective. What's funny about Ed Weinberger as a character is Ed's famous because he has a period at

the end of his head. Yes. But you can't do that in final draft. So. Because final draft. So interesting. Final draft thinks it's the end of a sentence. And then it wants to have two spaces after the dot.

Oh. And it was just completely fucking with us as we were trying to type it. So we had to drop the dot and it's like, we knew we were going to get grief from somebody. Like, you don't realize how Ed spells his name It's like we know Gil What's the thing that weirds you out about man on the moon that you talked about that the different occupying the different universes? Yes. Yes Is is anyone involved with the movie aware of the fact that Danny DeVito was in taxi?

It's the Judd Hsch exists in this universe and yes, yes, but everyone nailed it. Carol Kane and Marilyn. Yeah, right, right. Carol Kane and Marilyn. We could have hired an actor. We could have gotten Wally Shawn to play Danny. So couldn't they have had Danny DeVito in a dual role? Also playing himself? You know what?

We honestly didn't think of that. Seriously, that's actually, that would have been in the spirit of the film. Yes it would have. We just said we won't cut to the cage. So we'll just pretend Danny DeVito was not on TV. Louis wasn't in that episode. We were not obligated to show every person who was in taxi. Oh, okay. Could they at least have had one of the other people go,

hey, when's Danny getting here? What we found interesting about that movie nowadays is that for a lot of kids, it was sort of their first R-rated movie. Oh, interesting. Because Jim Carrey was kind of their comedian star at the time, because of Pet Detective and things like that, that this was the first time they got to see an R-rated movie and it was also the first time they they found out about a different style of comedy so it was a

kind of entry entry-level performance art for for for kids so we're meeting people who are like 30 some years old now and they're like writers or producers or directors or something and they all they all say how that movie influenced them in a great way because it was the first time you know they saw certain things. Yeah I mean I've got kids in the early 20s and a lot of their friends sort of discovered it on HBO which you know HBO likes to buy a movie and run it into the ground. Larry Flynn's on HBO a lot. Yeah yeah and it was sort of the introduction to meta. Yeah. Oh interesting. Like you know self-reflexive

storytelling. What did you guys say about Milos last night? Because I saw Larry and Scott last night, I saw a screening of Dolomite last night with the Writers Guild, and you were saying that Milos taught you guys play it real? Yeah, well here's the thing, like we consider ourselves comedy writers. I mean, we write like old-fashioned comedy writers,

and our scripts are always trying to be funny. But what we found, Milos and Tim, I think to a certain extent too, is that if you play ... And Craig on the new movie. Yeah, Craig definitely on the new movie. If you play the stuff that Reed's kind of brought on the page as real, it's not brought at all. It actually feels more like real life.

That's interesting. You know? Cause Treat was telling us, what did he tell us about Milos? That he had to wait till they stopped acting? Yeah. Oh yeah. I've heard that about other directors too. I think, oh, what's his name? Ebert. Ebert said, what's that French filmmaker,

Lou Besson or? Lou Besson. Lou Besson. He said, he mentioned him and said that he's one of those directors who will rehearse you a thousand times so you're not acting anymore. Right. Well, that was the whole Kubrick thing. It was that Kubrick goes for 50 takes because by the time you're on take 50, you're no longer,

you're not longer thinking about the lines anymore. You're just like, come on, anymore. You're just like come on Wendy You know it's this exasperated thing But Mealish was not really that. Mealish was more that he wanted He wanted to feel like real life and he wanted it to feel natural and it was he didn't want to see anybody acting And so a lot of times, you know, he would meet with great actors But they they obviously wanted to do their thing and that wasn't really what he was about. And he had a word he would throw at us a lot in the rewriting of different drafts which

was discombobulate. Yes. It's wonderful. Yes, the pages are wonderful, but perhaps we should discombobulate it. Meaning that Larry and I had written a scene that, the scene starts at A and it's gotta get to D. So we're gonna cover A then B then C then D. And Milos feels like, well, what if you flip B and C?

What if you grab the bottom of the page and you put it at the top, that makes the scene less predictable and more jagged like real life? And so that was sort of a, that was a Milos lesson. Interesting, interesting. I mean there's comedy in all his work. Oh yeah, they're very funny.

Well that's why we actually thought. He's not afraid of jokes. And a lot of fancy directors are afraid of humor. No, that's why we're the ones who thought of him for Flint and it was because of Cuckoo's Nest. Because Cuckoo's Nest is one of those movies that's hysterically funny, but it's also really serious and it's heartbreaking and it's real and it has everything to it. And so a lot of Milos' movies are really funny.

Like Amadeus, which is just another castle picture. But you watch it and it's funny. Absolutely. And it's throwing jokes at the rear balcony. I think Beverly was saying that though, that he would wait, say, okay, I'm going to let the kids stop acting and actually wait for natural moments to happen. Jack Lemmon said, I think when he was working with William Wilder, yeah, Billy Wild less, less, less. And he goes, and Jack Lemon lost it. And he said, if I do it any less, I'm not acting at all.

And he goes, oh God, yes. Yes. That's perfect. That sounds like Wilder. Now, this we found out in the last episode, Problem Child could have been released with a slogan based on a true story. Kind of, sort of.

Yeah. Kind of thing. Inspired by. Inspired by perhaps. Inspired, yes. No, we were, we had seen, it was in the LA Times, I think, there was an article about a couple that were suing an adoption agency because the kid they got, and the kid was a terrible kid.

I mean, the kid was like, he burned down their house, he wrote like, you know, devil stuff and his own shit and the walls and things like this. Like Gilbert does. Kind of like Gilbert. You're going to play the kid now, not the, not the, and so. And what's the problem exactly? And so I think a bunch of people saw that story and they pitched it around No, they had it they had it go on the run

Yeah, like they had to change their names and like going to witness protection from the kid the kid It was like trying to find them and kill them Yeah, and so they they sued the Orange County Adoption Agency and so all the a bunch of Producers and writers around town saw this story in the times it said this is a horror film. Right, the bad seed. And went to pitch it as spooky. And we said this could be a riot. Right.

See, now I can see this picture still being made. Sure. Well, it's not PC. Yeah, definitely. True. Nobody's thought to remake Problem child. Oh, they remade it as a they try to make it as a TV series It was a really it was a crummy pile. Oh, weren't you in the animated series? Yeah I was in the animated one. We give it always comes back for problem shot. He's You got a get don't get that. Yes, exactly

No, that was funny. We saw the pilot. I don't think it was pretty bad. They didn't call him Junior. They didn't call him Junior and they didn't... It felt more like Ferris Bueller's day off. He was more and less of the problem child and more like just a wise ass kid. Was he talking to the camera? He was talking to the camera and he was cool. And the weird thing about problem child is for all its faults, and there are lots of

them. But not Mr. Peabody. But not Mr. Peabody. Solid. Rock solid. And that the weird thing about problem child is for all its faults, and there are lots of them But that's your p-buddy, but not mr. P buddies It's off like there's something from the casting there's something really wrong with it And it's not that's what makes it not home alone because it wasn't it's not just about a smart-ass kid It's about like this thing is fucked up It's a fucked up movie and the Michael Richards thing was bought was torn from the headlines to know that was that was Scott and Larry making up shit. Okay, that the kids the kids hero was a serial killer. Okay. Yeah, that was just as being creepy Okay, what was the one I'm going? You know what's great about Gilbert in those movies is If you watch them very carefully,

you realize that he doesn't need to wear pants. You never see Gilbert from the third button down. Right. Parkman, Park Desk. Like they used to say about Larry Sanders. No matter what set he's on, he never leaves the desk. It's interesting. You know what?

I don't think you get up from behind the desk in Beverly Hills Cop. No. No. I think you're a death actor. Ford Fairlane. I don't think you have pants either. Oh yes. This is a thing.

Yeah, this is something. Well, it's hard to imagine Gilbert in motion. I'm friends with Gilbert and I actually don't think I've ever seen him walk somewhere. No action scenes. No action scenes for Gilbert. He's friends with Gilbert, and I actually don't think I've ever seen him walk somewhere. Move at all. No action scenes. No action scenes for Gilbert. All right, then tell them the story where David Steinberg was directing you, because they probably don't know this.

Yeah, he was once directing me on some show where I had to say something. He was mad about you. What? Mad about you. Yeah. And I had to say something to Paul and then run off. And then David says, could you run a little faster? And I said, yeah, I guess I could run faster.

And he goes, no, no, no, no. I mean, could you run more graceful? Oh, wow. And I said graceful?" And I said, graceful? And he goes, yeah, not so choppy. And then finally he throws his arms in the air and he goes, can you run less Jewish? We love that one. And I knew immediately. Stand up straight, basically. Wow. Wow. Wow. We love that one. And I knew immediately. Yeah.

Stand up straight, basically. Yeah. You're like Bigfoot. Lose the hunch. Lose the hunch. So we'll get to Dolomite. Mm-hmm. But I want to.

We'll talk about a bunch of other things. Yeah. Well. That nobody cares about. I do. But first we'll drive into a ditch. First. I just want to talk for a couple minutes, and this is indulging my co-host again, because

I did some deep research. I did a couple of things. I did a couple of things. I did a couple of things. I did a couple of things drive into a ditch I just want to talk for a couple minutes And this is indulging my co-host again because I did some deep research on Larry on trailers from hell Oh and Larry has to be the only guy that would actually analyze last of the secret agents Yeah, yeah And Gilbert loves we have a Marty Allen fetish here. We have here. Hello there He refused to work blue on the show. He wouldn't tell any of his dirty jokes. Yeah, he was like like a hundred and three

Everybody was afraid of hurting his image and he he still dyed his hair, correct? Yes, that was a terrifying thing about it because he looked he looked pretty dead about it because he looked he looked pretty dead and then he had his hair. Claims to have been a close personal friend of John Lennon's by the way. Sure. Why not? He could have been in that bed with Tony Smothers. Exactly. He's had a love-in with Marty Allen. We can't find it now but there is the Allen and Rossi song. Oh, the Hello, Dare song. We'll play it. We'll put it in a post. But last of the secret agents, which I just want to bring up,

directed by Bud Abbott's nephew, of all people, and written by Mel Tolkien. Mel Tolkien, which is wild. Oh, exactly. Wow. It's not a very good Bond knockoff, but it's got a great theme song. It's got a great theme song. You know, I sort of make fun of it I think on the on the trailers from hell, I mean cuz I once why I say like, you know Used to be trailers from hell meant that the trailers from hell was supposed to be like, you know genre and movies that are that are that are sort of crappy and

And we sort of go away from that now and we try to do classy films And so everyone's why I feel like we have to go back and do some of that. You mix it up on your page. But that being said, that's actually, it's actually a fairly funny movie. Like I watched it again to do that trailer and I felt kind of bad I was making fun of it. Oh really? The guys are funny. The guys are funny and I'm a sucker for those late 60s Bond parodies. Who is this Bud Abbott nephew director? Who is he? Norman Abbott.

Yeah. Did he do anything else? TV. I think that was his only feature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember and I always, always forget his name even though he's been on the show 5,000 times. The writer.

Bill Persky. Bill Persky. Yeah. Bill Persky. He hated them. He hated Alan Rossi. Well, he and Sam Dunoff, his partner were hired as young writers. He hated Alan Rossi. Well, he and Sam Denoff, his partner, were hired as young writers to work for Alan Rossi.

Sam Denoff, who was Andy Kaufman's uncle. There you go. Very good. And then, so Bill Persky said they brought him in to a club to watch them. And then they said- I think it was a bowling alley. Yeah.

And they said to Bill, after it afterwards, so what'd you think? And he said, you know, slapped his hands and goes, that was 45 minutes. He did hate them. Yeah. Wow. All right. This is because it is interesting because Trailers from hell has moved a little bit away from yeah I mean I think I'm sure Joe John wasn't so much tricky

But it was Joe Dante and and John Landis and guys like that talking about monster movies, right? You know my it was really monster movies, right? But you do a lot of classy films on there, but you still have time to analyze But do and Myra Breckenridge exactly, but Joey's gives me hell when I all he's doing a subtitled movie He's doing you know Larry's talking about a subtitled movie. He's doing you know Larry's talking about a subtitled movie today. Wait, come on. You're making Joe sound Like he doesn't get it. No, no, he gets it. He gets it. He's like you're trying to class up the joint We had Joe here. Let's just talk quickly about skidoo skidoo. Yeah, which you called a car crash

It is a car crash. Yeah, and you said this I love this line You said you could sell a movie on Preminger's name and then after skidoo they took the old man's keys yeah, we that's a phrase we use all the time is that a certain point you you have to take away the old guys and Definitely Preminger who's made some great movies that last bunch of movies are just there. They're on another level and yeah, tell me let me Judy moon and Bunny Lake is missing. Yeah, but like is probably the last one that's kind of okay It's gonna do such good friends is obviously mine. It's just like a gun thriller. What is it? Oh, there is like human factor Yeah, yeah, I've never seen it never seen that one. Yeah tonight to go but speaking of horrible movies

They actually had on the story of mankind. Oh wow. Oh my god. Did you watch it? Oh yes. Groucho, Chico and Harpo played separately. And Chico was completely, I mean he- He doesn't even get a part.

He's a supporting monk. Yes. Right. They don't even write a part. He's a supporting monk. Yes. They don't even write in a slight joke for him. Yeah. The Marx Brothers Facebook page is obsessed with Story of Mankind and What's Irwin Allen's Fucking Problem. You're very active on that page, on that Marx Brothers

Society. And so they give Irwin Allen a lot of grief. What kind of a bonehead gets the three marks brothers to all show up in the same movie and then doesn't put them in a frame together. Yeah. But there's sort of like a counter argument which is Irwin and Groucho were friends socially and so Irwin called him up saying, can you do me a favor, show up in this shitty non-all

star extravaganza I'm putting together and I'll overpay you for two days two days of work and then you know then Chico heard about this. Oh okay. It became one of those things and and at that point it's like Groucho probably did not want to do another reunion. Yeah. Sort of like he had shown up at the very end of the Incredible Jewel robbery and it's like all right we're done. We're done with the three with the three-part act and so He there might have been just like backstage pressure like I'm not getting in the frame with my brothers Which is I love them dearly, but that act is finished I'm not you talked about that on Malton's podcast. I mean they'd been they'd been together since what he was 12 11

So crazy age 14. Yeah, he was on the road when he was 14 15 Yeah, and yet Chico kept pulling him back in. And, uh, cause as the classic Groucho line is, Because Chico needed the money. Hahahaha! What, um, uh, somebody just posted the one sheet to the story of mankind, and it is really funny because it's supposed to be an all-star film, it doesn't have any stars in it. Yes. That's funny.

It's like fourth bananas. But Ronald Coleman's in it. Yeah, Ronald Coleman. In the 50s. He's not a star. Well, that happens with a lot of all-star movies. It's basically they, you know, you... Usually there'll be like one Paul Newman or one, know Steve McQueen somebody like hold down the fort it like when time ran out yeah it's your Paul Newman and exactly yeah it's what I notice if it's a movie and it's got a bunch of people then they'll name every

single actor in it and they'll scream their name out to make the names more important. You know, if you have Al Pacino in a movie you go Al Pacino but if you don't have that you name a bunch of them and you scream each one like see they're important. We have Fritz Feld! Did you see his documentary? Yeah. Yeah. I think doesn't it end with a Fritz Feld? Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah You know, I feel sorry for the the the people who make those all-star comedies I mean the Mad Mad World knockoffs are the worst of the of the movies with big casts the Irwin Allen movies You know you sort of accept that that you're gonna have all of these Fred Astaire and and Robert Wagner We're both big fans of who's buying the mint though. Oh, yeah

Yeah, I think who's mining the mint is the good version of mad mad world that could be interesting That's interesting mad mad world is like I Recommend everyone see it, but it's not that good. I've come to, I've grown to love it. It was like, it was like, I initially was very, I thought I was hipper than it's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. And then, and then as I see it more recently, with an audience too, that's the thing. See when an audience, it kills with an audience.

I mean, yeah, we've been spoiled in LA a couple times a year, the Cinerama Dome, which was built to screen Mad, Mad World opening day, runs it on that big, stupidly giant screen, and it sells out every time. And I love the movie, and it's great to fight over that movie with Drew, because Drew just despises it. And I'm the first to admit that it's got so many scenes that just don't work. And it's got whole characters. I don't think Sid Caesar ever works in the movie.

No. I'm not sure if Mickey Rooney ever works in the movie. But Johnny Winters kills every time he's on frame. The scene with Stan. Buddy Hackett kills every time. Phil Silver kills. So for me, the highs outweigh the lows. Yeah. Ethel Merman's funny.

She's an acquired taste. Yeah. I kind of like her and Dick Shawn. Well, Dick Shawn's amazing. He's funny in it. When you were talking about the crappy all-star comedies, what was your mind? Stuff like the Big Boss. Oh, the Big Boss.

Oh, and Scavenger Hunt. Oh, and Scavenger Hunt. The million dollar mystery. The hefty bag one. The million dollar mystery. Oh, that's a great idea. bus and scavenger hunt. The hefty bag one. The million dollar mystery. Oh that's the greatest. You've done that on the show, right?

We talked about it. We gave away garbage. Yes. Okay. What I remember about, I mean, has anyone seen the big bus in a long time? I mean, is there any chance? It's, it has to be awful. I don't even think I've ever hit TBD.

There's also Wan Tonton. Wan Tonton, that's awful. I was a member of a gym, which I'm not anymore. That has to be awful. That has to be awful. There's also Juan Tonton. Juan Tonton, that's awful. I was a member of a gym, which I'm not anymore. Don't worry. Thank God. And I met an old time guy who was just very friendly to me and he's sort of like, what do you do?

I'm a screenwriter. He says, oh, I used to be a screenwriter. He says, I go, what do you do? He says, you wouldn't have heard of me. You wouldn't have heard of my work. I go, try me. He says, the big bus. And I just lit up. I said you're Fred Friedman Wow I he was it was just like how about the happiest day of his life not James Frawley

Directed it. Yeah, he just passed away. We're gonna get him here. There's a joke from a big bus I always I've only saw the movie once like when it came out, but there's a joke I always remember which is the he's got a he's got a broken milk carton because They sit there in a fight and he picks up a milk carton and he hits it on the table He's using it as a weapon Yeah, I remember in mad mad world. The one part made me laugh is They were all arguing can one of those million arguments they have and and Ethel Merman says

something to Buddy Hackett. Buddy Hackett's going, okay, you know, you do this and you'll take this and you book and then he goes, and you lady, you can drop dead. Yes. I sent you guys the trailer. I don't think you had seen it. I sent it to I sent it to Larry Oh with them just cutting up this is oh, yeah, yeah, yeah Stan Freiburg directly. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's cool

That's really cool. I never saw my or a Breckenridge, which is amazing. I thought it would have popped up on TV Yeah, well, it's a weird one. Yeah Larry's breakdown on trail It's um, it's it's just not it doesn't really work Which is a shame because it's like everything about it. Like if you look at the trailer, it's like you I want to see that movie I want to see what that movie were Rack hell Welch Sodom ize is a guy who's tied up and you know, I mean it sounds it's mine. It's my kind of thing But John Houston and Mae West and it's just but it doesn't read Rex Reed in and Mae West and it's just, but it doesn't work. Rex Reed.

Rex Reed. Yeah. So it's not an enjoyably awful movie. Not really. Have you sat through Sextet? Of course. Oh God, you guys want some punishment. Sextet is the end of the world.

Officially. She's so old and I mean the stories were that they built a whole electronic ear wig thing into her wig. It was like early ear technology. So she's got this giant beehive wig and then they're feeding her the lines because she can't remember anything and she doesn't know what scene she's in. And so all these young men, it's Timothy Dalton trying to make love to Mae because she's the most beautiful woman in the world but she's 800 years old and she doesn't even know they're in the room. Right.

I mean, just call on YouTube. She's as old as Marty Allen. Just watch Love Will Keep Us Together with Timothy Dalton and Mae West, which is stunning. There's a Mae West auction going on right now. Like I actually, someone sent it to me because they were selling Mae West's Myra Breckenridge scripts. Yeah. The three things that look, the three things that are up for auction is Mae West's scripts

from Myra Breckenridge, Marilyn Monroe's prescriptions. Oh, you just sent that email. And it's like, I just couched. And it's like, I just couched. And I saw the shrinkage. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and Hailing flowers madame puppet Priceless and was Tom Selleck in six dead also. Ooh

Wow Sounds right. I think he was me. That sounds right someone with a mustache. I think he was Why do I think Alice Cooper was in it or ran or Ringo? Ringo Ringo's ring goes in it. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Wow. Why would you sit and watch this stuff? I mean I know you guys see everything. I saw it when it came out. Yeah. Okay. The old gossip columnist James Bacon. The guy that used to drink with Gleason. Yeah and he had a column in the Herald Examiner and he would whatever, he would plug his friends. And so him and May went way back. And so he did a column every day during the shooting of Sex, Head. So I was just like salivating for like opening days so I

could be the first one there. I mean, I'm not proud. The story you just told where she had the earphones in that at times, cause it was a primitive Structure they built there that like in the middle of the dialogue She she'd say like well, we're gonna we're at our cruising altitude Belt sign is still How about maim speaking of somebody who shouldn't be making movies anymore? Wow. Yeah, that's that's unwatchable. Let's talk Dolomite.

Sure. How did you guys... Segueing from MAME to Dolomite. Well, I don't we don't do we don't do smooth segues. I'll plug one other thing though. That's really bizarre. That's Mae West related. There's probably one of the most obscure weird movies of all time that no one's ever heard of. There's a movie called Dyna East. It's not Mae West, it's ever heard of. There's a movie called Dina East. It's not Mae West, it's Dina East. And it's about a... It's about a... It basically runs with the rumor that Mae West was a man.

And it's basically about... This was a narrative feature? The narrative feature from like 1970 or something. Wow. You guys see everything. I don't know what he's talking about. It stars one of the Warhol superstar people, like Ultraviolet or somebody. One's crazy. You guys see everything. I don't know what he's talking about. It stars one of the Warhols who were star people, like Ultra Violet or somebody. One of those.

One of those people. Reviva or somebody. Yeah. How did you guys become aware of Rudy Ray Moore? Because this is interesting. The sex and violence. Yeah. It was after college, six guys living in a house in Silver Lake and our buddy Dan Waters.

Who wrote Fort Fair Lane? Who wrote Fort Fair Lane? Oh, he's on our buddy Dan Waters. Who wrote Fort Fairlane? Who wrote Fort Fairlane for Mr. Gottfried. He's on Facebook, Dan Waters. Yeah, Dan was managing Video House. Video House was owned by two Chinese brothers who didn't understand anything about America. And so, Dan just had free reign to order any tapes he wanted. Because he didn't know English. Right.

And so, it was basically, it was an entire store of movies that Dan wanted to see. And so he ordered the best of sex and violence, which was two hours of trailers of exploitation films. Hosted by John Carradine. Great. This was a Charles Band joint. Yo, Band of the Hand, what was his company called? Empire.

Empire Pictures. Yeah, but there was something else. There was another company. There was a movie. Full Moon? Band of the Hand. There was a movie called... Empire. Empire. Empire Pictures. Yeah, but there was something else. There was another company. There was a movie. Full Moon? Band of the Hands? There was a movie called Band of the Hands.

That's called Michael Glazer. Yeah. Yeah. Different guy. They had a band and they... Grandpa, it's okay. What? They sing in the band?

Do they want to get the band over there? But he was the guy behind this and then you saw the human tornado trailer and others. It had Dolemite human tornado and Disco Godfather back to back and for all you crazy listeners, it's on YouTube, the human tornado trailer is out of its fucking mind. It's wonderful. It's just three minutes of complete insanity and naked people and screaming and gunshots And we would just watch that trailer over and over and over and because Dan managed to store We never returned the tape. Yeah

Back in the rental days. So you guys were well aware of him when you got the initial call to go meet Eddie No, yeah, yeah, we loved them and after that tape Scott for my birthday, you know It was the days before you actually bought videotapes. Remember they were $100 in the early days? Yes. VHS. So I, it was in the video stores if you want to run it, it was put up by a company called

Xenon Video. So I opened the white pages and I looked up Xenon and they had like a warehouse and I drove out there with cash. And I just showed up saying, I'm here to buy a copy a copy of human tornado and dolomite for my friend for his birthday And they looked at me like we don't have a cash register That's how I got my hands on the DVDs and then we became obsessed with them and we saw all the movies and Rudy Rudy was actually around a little bit back then those days like he played the club lingerie in Los Angeles and I saw him and you know the album covers were so Outrageous and they were great sure you boys you know if you ever you're gonna use your record stop your store

You could find one of his records and they were all so you saw him live before you got involved with Eddie Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. No Eddie Eddie about 16 years ago. We got a phone call Basically Eddie Murphy wanted to meet us and we're like, oh cool Eddie Murphy wants to meet and so we went over there and we Walked in and Eddie just started doing lines from Ed Wood. I mean Larry he was doing Tor Johnson Real you my toes. I mean was Eddie Murphy doing it was like, you know, it was really surreal It is and then he said to us do you guys know who? To Rudy Ray Morris and it was that this Well and think great moment where I was just like holy shit

We get it like you want to make an Edward style movie about Rudy Raymore with Eddie as Rudy and it sounded like an amazing amazing idea and Then you met Rudy. Yeah, yeah, then about a week later. We we got in a room with Rudy and That's funny we saw Eddie this morning and he was acting like Rudy didn't want the movie made. Yeah. Rudy wanted the movie made. Oh, I'm sure. When I was watching it, I couldn't help but thinking throughout the movie that he was kind of like a black Ed Wood.

I mean, here's the thing. We, that's certainly how the movie got initially set up and there's certainly parallels the difference is that that I Think the first hour of Dolomite is really more about the x-rated album business I'm not the chitlin circuit and the whole racial element of Dolomite makes a completely different experience It's about you know The movie is about the fact that these guys can't get through the system because of the gatekeepers you know the movies about the fact that these guys can't get through the system because of the gatekeepers and without being heavy-handed about it is they they have to create their a separate entertainment world and

You know even Rudy in black entertainment circles was not particularly accepted like he couldn't just go out and make black exploitation Movies at American International or something like this So he we found fascinating about was that here's a guy who everybody said no to, all the time, and yet he kept going, kept going. You said he didn't have any money, because he was constantly reinvesting his money. Oh yeah, yeah. He was always spending on himself. But I mean, there was this whole separate

but equal thing going on with black entertainers as late as the 70s. And the chilling circuit sort of exemplified it, where Rudy and his peers couldn't break in past the white gatekeepers and whatever. He wasn't playing the Comedy Store. Of course. But they were playing these black clubs through the South, which were for black performers

to play for black audiences. And so there was this whole world of, you know, actors and writers and singers who couldn't get in. And then Larry and I had lunch with Glenn Turman, the great actor who goes back to Cooley High. Sure, I remember him. And Glenn was telling us stories about this theater called the Inner City Cultural Center where all these, like some famous ones, like like Paul Winfield like black actors and actresses would hone their craft and perform there because they weren't getting jobs they weren't getting cast at the music center and

they weren't getting cast on Rockford Files and and and then one of the guys the guy who ended up direct writing and directing Human Tornado and Petey Wheatstraw Cliff Roeckmore directed a lot of plays there and so And so we put the Interstate Cultural Center into our movie too, because we really wanted to hit this idea of these black artists having to do it themselves because no one was going to do it for them. Well, they're an odd couple too, Rudy and Jerry. Yeah, Rudy and Jerry. Jerry is an artiste.

Well, Jerry took himself very seriously and wrote these. Jerry Jones. Jerry Jones, the character that Keegan Michael Key plays and his plays were very culturally significant and it's a he's a completely odd Person to be mixed up with Rudy Ray Moore because Rudy, you know, Rudy just wants to joke said Someone made a joke to say I did that Rudy's like He's the worst studio executive of all time. he just wants more titties more explosions more kung fu it's like no matter what

the scene is that's that's that's a solution to fix it I mean after Rudy died Larry did a night the cinema attack and then Jerry came down mm-hmm and even as late as whatever year that was 2008 2009 I think he passed in 2008 right yeah I mean Jerry still didn't get the joke. Really? We're still just talking about the films and their social value and we're telling it like it is in the streets. It's just like, pal, have you seen the films?

And Jerry's gone now, I assume, so he can't see this. But you know, Jerry actually had a little bit of a career. I mean, Jerry's in two Robert Altman movies. He's in mash and he's in the long. Goodbye. I recognized him He's you'd be harder. I mean, he's got a real part in long. Goodbye, but in mash if you remember the movie mash the opening scene is a Soldier gets his Jeep stolen and actually it's in the opening scene the closing scene and he's a he's a soldier gets the game So he had some work in legit Hollywood. Yeah, exactly.

Dermot Martin, too. I think it was when Ron Delsner was on the show, he was talking about, well, they'd have black groups perform for free because they were told that this is the way you promote it, even though they were making that. We had Willie Tyler here, too. He told us some stories about the Chitlin Circle.

And they said like a lot of times with the Chitlin Circle is they would have a performer and if they didn't feel like paying them, they wouldn't pay them. It's like the internet. Yeah. A little bit. Like podcasting kind of. Yes. And to give process to Red Fox, when he hit the big money with Sanford and Son,

Lawanda Page and Whitman Mayo, they were chilling pals. That's where they came from. Oh yeah, she's in the documentary about Rudy. She's all over that thing. She loved Rudy. Her, Rudy, and Wildman Steve would occasionally do tours together. And Blowfly would do a show. Blowfly, Blowfly.

Come on, that sounds like a great fucking show that would be. Absolutely. Come on. I could see Gilbert's point about the similarities though because you both films are made with affection Yes, I affection for these two guys who are who are trying who are you know who assemble a team? They really yeah, they're a bunch of misfits who kind of believe in themselves and and and you know Try to try to try to make art they're lovable losers who strive to be so much more. Well, the great thing Eddie always says about Rudy is he was a loser who refused to lose. That's great. You know?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's funny because Eddie's original, what brought you guys to him was Ed Wood. Yeah. And I think this also captures what's one of the things that's special about Ed Wood is that sense of a family? Yes, that comes together and I think one of you I forget which one of you said that Without Rudy Ray Moore there couldn't be an Eddie Murphy. I think Eddie's kind of said those kind of things

I didn't say it. Yeah Well, take credit Frank. Did you say not me? Yeah You just heard but all those guys were influenced. Like they were totally influenced, but they were also, it was more like guys like Snoop says that. Snoop said that. Eddie always talks about how he's fascinated by Rudy because Eddie's life and Rudy's life were, they were totally different. Where Eddie had instant success. Eddie never failed. Eddie never failed. Yeah. Like at 17, you know Eddie's Eddie literally has auditioned once in his entire life and I was a good on SNL and everything, you know Like there there was some sag's

Q&A the other night and and they everyone on the stage was asked like how did you get your sag card? Cuz you're in sag and everyone's you know Keegan and people all I was in this commercial. I did this thing I did I did a walk on and sure it got the hitting is like, um, I think in this commercial. I did this thing. I did a walk-on and sure it got the head. He's like Um, I think it was it was 48 hours But all those guys Paul Mooney and prior and and Chris Rock and and Arsenio I mean they all give they all give Rudy Ray more. Yeah his props You know that Eddie has a as a Paul Mooney ventriloquist doll? That's scary.

Now that's your next movie. Yeah, that's our next movie. I know that Craig Bierko has a Richard Kind doll. Oh, wow. Is that true? Yes. Yes, I'll send you a picture. I'm assuming it was custom.

It was custom. It's not off the shelf. No, definitely not. I'll send it was custom. It was custom. It's not off the shelf. Oh no. Definitely not. I'll send you a picture. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast right after this. That's what you say. Prime Big Deal Days is coming October 8th and 9th with exclusive savings just for Prime members.

Involuntary deal squeals can happen like the deal on new running shoes squeal, the deal on a new blender squeal, or the infamous deal on a new massager squeal. Yeah! Save big on electronics, fashion, and more this Prime Big Deal Days, October 8th and 9th. Upper Canada College inspires boys from senior kindergarten to year 12 to find their passions and realize their potential. An IB World School, UCC offers a supportive environment, cutting

edge facilities, and a best-in-Canada financial assistance program. UCC, a place where tradition, excellence, and innovation meet. Learn more at our open house events on October 15th and 16th. Register now at causeandeffect.ucc.on.ca. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions,

and that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. Hum hum. Ba dee bum bum bum. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum Whap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap- So nobody you guys are even with Eddie attached nobody wants to make this movie. Yeah No, it wasn't it was a really Ray was still ready Rudy was excited

and you know Rudy was always looking for respect and looking looking for some more money and look looking to be You know bow to as the guy who started it all and the idea that you know Eddie's gonna start a big Hollywood move about him was very exciting to Rudy and he told us a bunch of stories And then he ordered a lot of food Which he then made off with in brown bags afterwards Didn't he want to go on tour with Eddie And then he tried to sabotage it by trying to get Eddie just to go on the road instead. Hilarious. Let's go on the road together But you said but you guys felt that you know

His story should be told. oh, yeah, absolutely 100% We were completely fascinated by this guy and petite and and really fascinated with the idea of Eddie doing him Uh-huh, you know, I mean it was it for us. We're gigantic Eddie fans and the idea of Eddie tackling this subject It just became just kind of a irresistible, you know, it was a movie we wanted to see something that's got night very proud of the fact that we kind it was a movie we wanted to see absolutely something that's got night very proud of the fact that we kind of write movies that we want to see and That that just sounded too good But no one would buy it and so it all went away and just went away and we all died on moved on and Everyone's why would hear like so someone's gonna reboot dolemite does always been like, you know

They'll remake dolemite and it would turn up in pop culture on Mad TV and things like that. Sometimes we get phone calls, we want to do the new Dolomite. Yeah. We want to do a Rudy movie and they'd show up in our office and give us their song and dance. We'd say, look, we're not going to work on your project, but we'll be the first ones in line. Yeah. Great. We'll buy a ticket.

And then no one made it. No one did it. No one, it never got developed at all. And so... So I got like, another 15 years goes by, which is just absurd. And then after OJ, um, you know, you know, in this business, you're hot, you're cold, you're hot, you're cold. And so, we were, you know, hot for 10 more minutes. And so, there was this moment where we could go set up the crazy Rudy movie again.

You had a little capital. And we were meeting with John Davis and John Fox. And they, John's worked with Eddie many times, and we started to tell him about it, and he says, well, let's give him a call. And so we called up Eddie, and he says, well, come on over. Let's talk about this. And then the next day, Eddie says, all right, let's do it. Which was great, because we didn't know that, I mean, Eddie, I wouldn't say was semi-retired,

but he was. He was. Yeah, I mean, he really hadn't made a movie in a long time. Amazingly, Eddie hasn't said fuck in a movie for over 20 years. And you said that last night. That's great. You also said he was a little subdued when you were first pitching it to him and then gradually he sort of started Yeah, I mean I mean you know Eddie and that or maybe you you know, you know some comics

You know where when they're not on they're off Yeah, and you know we were sort of like doing our spiel with with Eddie and he's just quiet and just head down and just kind of taking it in and then the light like comes into his eyes and then his shoulders rise and then his body starts like turning into Rudy Ray Moore and then suddenly down in the jungle deep. And then the magic happens and we go okay he's in. I have to say. And that's also that strangely enough that we felt something similar with with Rudy When we had those means of Rudy that Rudy

We were all expecting dolomite to walk in you know with this this this braggart this big guy And when and that was certainly there where Rudy was that but he also was just that quiet guy eating lunch and talking to you know and so it was one of things where we realized that dolomite was a that quiet guy eating lunch and talking to you know and so it was one of those things where we realized that Dolomite was a character he created. In a sense that became almost the thesis of our movie which is why it's called Dolomite is My Name. It's about the creation of this other person that becomes the star. And the real person you know seemed vulnerable and a bit wounded and whatever. He had his ass kicked a lot of times over the years.

Oh sure. But he's a survivor. It's a long road. He's been playing comedy clubs for 50 years and and didn't he and it shows he originally got the idea for the Dolomite character from like Basically a street guy. Why yeah, yeah hobos. Yeah, I mean they were they were they were old hobo stories You know, yeah, they're um, they're these like the african-american toast they go back hundreds of years and the you know It's funny everyone everyone's while someone asks us like well that those guys ever get any royalties from the record And no, no, but it's funny

It's a really different bug some people and I always say it's like if we made a movie about Pete Seeger and Pete Seeger Went out to some like, you know a homeless If we made a movie about Pete Seeger, and Pete Seeger went out to some homeless encampment and they were singing old folk songs, and he took them back and played Carnegie Hall, you wouldn't be like, hey, wait a second, wait a second, Pete Seeger's stealing those ... You know? It was really smart of him to do. Yeah, I mean, he improved, whatever, he worked them, but it's not like Rico the bum invented

signifying monkey. That wasn't Rico's creation. He put dirty spins on it and then Rudy put his dirty spins on it. And there's that weird character in Dolemite that I guess is Creep, what is his name, Creepo? Oh Creeper, the Creeper. In the real Dolemite. In the original Dolemite.

In the original Dolemite movie. What's amazing about that guy, I mean he's just another level, he's unbelievable. But. Was he a real junkie? He's a real junkie. Yes and he's strung out on camera. He's wearing a Rudy Raymore t-shirt. But they reverse it so it's like both white on the outside, but you can totally see Rudy

Raymore's face and his name backwards. The first time you watched Dolemite. There is a recurring theme in Rudy's movies that the product placement of himself. There's some scenes in the movie where he's playing Dolemite, but there'll be a Rudy Raymore album on the wall behind him, which makes no sense. It's sort of like for Set Neck, it's all they got. I think that's...

It's sort of like violating the rules of the universe. I think there's actually a scene in Dolemite where a lot of the movies just stop Cole for nightclub sequences for almost all the movies. Just shut down and you'll see several people have songs and some of them people have dancers come out and at one point later Reed says give it up for mr. Rudy Ray Moore! And that's not who he's playing in the movie! That's not who he's playing! But it's funny because we there's a scene in the movie where Jerry Jones and Rudy are talking about you know writing the screenplay and

you know Jerry says, you've got to write what you know. And when you look at Rudy's movies, he actually did make movies about what he knew. They all revolve around a nightclub. They all revolve around booking problems and gangsters coming into the nightclub. It's crazy. They're all about nightclub cash flow. Which one is it where Skilla and Leroy actually murder an entire church of people just because just because... In slow motion.

In slow motion because Rudy Ray is going to open his, uh, his, uh, his, uh, his... He's competing next week. He's competing next week on a Friday night because they've got another big act coming. That's not, that's not Petey Wheatstraw. That's not Petey Wheatstraw. That's Petey Wheatstraw. Yeah, yeah. That's Pet Petey Weed straw. That's Petey Weed straw. That one is... Petey Weed straw is amazing. That one is out of its mind. Out of its mind? Yeah. I mean, well you could say that about all of them in a way. The Petey Weed straw is surrealism.

Very, very, very strange. I mean we tried to do, even though technically the movie is about the making of Dolomite, there's little bits and pieces of all the movies kind of in there. There's so many great- You snuck the sex scene where the ceiling collapses from Human Tornado. There's so many great things in Human Tornado that we feel like the fans want to see that stuff. And there's things like, put your weight on it, it's from Disco Godfather. He's got the pimp cane in the hands at the end of the thing. That's Petey Weetrow's pimp cane.

Even Disco Godfather, I mean all of them it was it was was the the NAACP was was pushing back at certain point against black exploitation is that why disco got? There was an organization called CORE Congress of Racial Equality. Rudy came in late, he came at the tail end of black exploitation so CORE was already pushing back against studios and theater owners about these bad images of African Americans. And I mean, the people in Hollywood didn't like this pushback because the black actors and actresses were getting jobs.

And so these movies started getting toned down and stopped getting made and that's when Rudy hit. So it started becoming diminishing returns after Human Tornado because the tide had turned and now you've got Cornbread Earl and me. Sure, sure. I mean Disco Godfather, he's almost a responsible character. Well no, he is. He's trying to clean up drugs. He's fighting crime. Disco Godfather is a problematic movie.

Yeah, you don't want to see him fighting crime. You want to see him shooting. Fucking out motherfuckers. Fucking out motherfuckers. It's like one of those movies with old comics who would make a lot of crazy comedies and they become middle-aged and then they become nice. Yeah. And then you kind of turn against them and it was almost they have them prematurely with Disco Godfather where now he has to be the good guy. And nobody wants him to be the good guy. Absolutely not.

Eddie Murphy did his share of like... Kids movies, sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm interested in seeing even the Marsh Brothers where even when they go to MGM, they stop being anarchists. Oh, yes. Oh, don't ask. Thoburg.

They want to help the lady keep the sanitarians. It's awful. They want to help and bring the couples together. Who cares about that couple? Yeah. keep the sanitarians off. You know what I mean? And Harpo goes- And bring the couples together. Who cares about that couple? Yeah. Harpo goes from being an anarchist to a guy being beaten to like a-

Yeah, yeah, no, he's always been beaten by an evil tenor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So all of a sudden he's chaplain. The late Mocks Brothers movies were horrible. No, I do defend Night in Casablanca. Yeah, it's sort of a blip. I think it's terrific.

I need to see it again. Who told you guys back in the day, and this is interesting too, never write for a star. Okay, that was our agent of more than 20 years, Tom Strickler, who said to us, he told us horror stories from CAA back in the 80s and early 90s where people would develop for the biggest movie stars in the world and CAA had more stars than there are in MGM in 1940. And all these stars, these stars would be attached to all these scripts around town and the secret that the writers never knew was that the stars never read the scripts. They might not even be aware of the scripts.

And then the stars would show up for a meeting twice a year and there'd be a big stack and the agent, they'd go, all right, what's that? All right, this one is about a dad who loses his job, so he and his family are going to move to, pass. Oh, all right, pass, fine. Here's a western. All right, this one's a western, pass, I don't like horses. All right, fine, moving on.

And so the writer is unaware that after doing a year of work, he got as far as three seconds into an agent just pitching the cover page of his script. And so our agent said, don't ever write for Star because you do all this work and if the Star, otherwise the Star won't even read it. And then your script is dead. Also, what happens too is, you know, you get really excited when a Star wants to be attached to your project.

But it takes you like six, eight months to write it or whatever it is. So you go off and write it, and in the meantime, they go off to do a Quentin Tarantino movie or they go off to do a Michael Mann movie or something like this, and all of a sudden it's all about like, even if they like it, they're like, oh, I want to do it. I'm going to do it in two years after I do this, and then by the time two years come up, it's on the old script and they don't want to do it anymore. So it's allowed us, by not attaching stars to our thing, it's allowed us to be a little

more, like Big Eyes, for example, took a long time to make and we kept on casting it and uncasting it, but we always owned the script and we always were able to get out of those situations where we weren't just attached to one company or one star. And yet in this case, you were writing for a star. We broke the rule. We broke the rule because this one was special and we sold it to Netflix and Eddie came in the room and they said once you get Eddie in the room, it's a slam dunk.

And Larry and I internally decided we don't care what anyone thinks. We only care about Eddie. I mean, with no disrespect to our employers and our producers, if Eddie loves this, the movie goes. And if Eddie doesn't dig it, why is Netflix going to make this movie? The whole point of it was to bring back Eddie and, you know, full value. Sure. It's reflexive in that way. It's a tribute to both men. It's a Louis Ray tribute and

it's an Eddie Murphy tribute. And so, every day, you know, we would come in and, you know, we would be writing a scene and then we'd say, and then there's a magazine stand and let's see, what can be on the, ooh, player's magazine. That'll be on the magazine stand, which Eddie will get. Oh, you put Easter eggs in there. You put in Easter eggs just for Eddie. We wanted to make him happy.

That's great. I had a question, and this is interesting too. I heard you guys talking at Leonard Moulton. This is like a beautiful mind over here. I have a question and this is going to be interesting. Not like that other stuff you guys have been talking about for 45 minutes. This is actually an interesting one. We're gonna also talk about bad biopics because Gilbert has an issue with bad exposition and biopics. Oh, sure.

Well, like, my favorite is, well, is the Kevin Spacey. Oh, Beyond the Sea. Yeah. Okay. So far, so good. John Goodman's his manager. And Kevin Spacey, as Bobby Darin says, look at me, I'm like whatever years old, and I haven't achieved anything. And then John Goodman has this long speech of, what are you talking about, Bobby? You've had five albums that went platinum.

You've had seven gold albums. You've been picked performer of the year 20 times in a row. Uh, you were nominated for an Academy Award. And I mean, it just gives, reads up a list. That's hysterical. It reads Bobby Darin's Wikipedia page. Yes. It's the clumsy modern day version of spinning newspapers.

Yes. Well, I mean, it's a sign of a bad screenwriting when there's two characters and they're discussing information that they both know already. Yes. Yeah. And that's to be avoided all costs.

It's just for the audience. It's for the audience. Yeah. Like, we've known each other since we were kids. And you're a doctor and I'm a lawyer. And you were married to Brenda, but then you got divorced. Yes. You had an alcohol problem.

But I find it interesting that you guys knew so much about your subject. You're so deep into these movies that it made you harder to replace than typical screenwriters. Well, I think that's one of the reasons we really embrace the true story genre in that on these projects it's harder to replace you. On a family comedy they can just hire anybody else to come write jokes. Any schmuck. Any schmuck. But on these films, it's a little bit, they can definitely decide not to make it.

That's totally fine, but it's harder to, we're sort of the experts on this subject, because these are very obscure people. We're not doing like Abraham Lincoln or something. Of course. And that's also made us much more part of the production because And luckily we've worked with really cool directors like like Craig and things that's who you know We'll invite us in to talk to you know the the said people or the costume people because we have we have pictures We we can we can tell them what you know on that would we you know?

We can show them what tour Johnson's house looked like and so you become a part of the process process. And actors always have those questions about what's real, what's not real. And the craziest thing is legal affairs. We're like the only writers in town who actually have like, you know, on a first name basis with legal affairs people because we always have to have all these clearance issues about, you know, what's real, what's not real, who's real, where does that film come from, where does this go, you know, where does that go? So you're their best friend. Yes. Yeah.

But you said last night you're the opposite of that. You're the enemy of what? Production managers? Production managers because we love pointless locations. We love to have characters drive up to see... Alright, so back to problem child. Gilbert Godfrey played a character named Mr. Peabody. And so... Is that your first name? Igor.

Igor Peabody. Wow. Yes. Good memory. Sorry. And Ben and Flo Healy need to go meet with him. I feel so... So the way Scott and Larry Wright is seen is Ben and Flo drive a car.

And then they pull up to a parking garage. And they have to get their ticket validated. And then they get out of the car and then they walk across a plaza to a building. And then the guy at the bottom says you got to go up to the fourth floor. And then they go up and then they're here to see Mr. Peabody. But first someone has to offer them a beverage. We always have the beverage scene. And then they will finally get into the room with a character. And meanwhile there have been 11 other locations that had to be filmed. And so we're very indulgent that way. For some reason we just love the pointless process of life.

All the junk you have to go do to get to the important thing. What's the one you lost, the scene you lost in Dolomite that you said you were sad about? Because it was a great location, right? Here's a random one. When people see the movie, whatever, this podcast isn't dropping today. So Is it dropping? You mentioned it was coming out today.

No, next week. Next week. All right. So everyone's seen it by now. All right. So when the white boys show up, when the UCLA students show up, we had a driving up scene, which was fun, which was a bunch of these white college kids driving a little VW bug you know looking for a studio looking for a sound stage

and they're lost and whatever there's no ways in 1974 they don't know what's going on and they're all nervous and then they pass a dead body on the sidewalk and they're freaking out and that dead. They're like, is that guy dead or is that guy just passed out? And they're freaking out. And that was the setup. And then they walk onto the set. You know, and at the end of the day, driving scenes are a nightmare to film. Because the director is like riding

the back of a truck and there's walkie-talkies and no one can hear anybody and you have to close down the street with policemen and so driving, all the driving scenes actually got cut out of Dolomite, none of them got filmed. We had a bunch of them and in the movie you watch the film and the kids just walk into the door and it's fine. It was unnecessary. Let's come back to Dolomite but just because it's the 25th anniversary just a couple of quick

things about Ed Wood. Yes sir. We told you we had Rick Baker here and we were talking about and he's obviously a very big fan of the movie and you guys and he was talking about the challenges of turning Martin Landau into Bela because they had very different faces. So I got a question here from a listener Eric Conner. He says, I need to ask the guys, did they pump up the Ed and Bela relationship once Tim Burton expressed interest to reflect his own bond with Vincent Price? I don't know if we pumped it up as much as we, because we always referred to the project

even before Tim got involved as Ed and Bela love story. But knowing Tim's relationship with Vincent Price, I would definitely, we knew that this was, you know, it was going to be even more important. That was a way. We might have added scenes. Yeah, but we had I remember whenever we tried to add something that would that was designed for Tim Didn't when I'm not happening like we wrote a scene where? Bella liked to go to like like run out in cemeteries and then hang out in cemeteries and so we wrote this whole scene where him and hey, he sort of dances around a cemetery with Ed and It was very Tim Burton-esque and

it was like the first thing Tim cut, I think. No Larry, it got shot. It only got shot, I'm saying. I'm saying, but I never saw it in a completed film. Yeah. I mean, we met with Tim before, we wrote the script on spec, but we didn't meet Tim before we wrote it. And so again, you're playing to your audience.

We wanted Tim to love it. And so we suddenly, in modern parlance, leaned into Adam Bellah. Yeah. Because you were coming off of Problem Child and you wrote a couple of projects. No, we're coming off of Problem Child 2. Try, excuse me, Problem Child 2. And you said, you wrote some, I'm trying to remember what the word was you used, some smart alecky scripts or super smart scripts that nobody was buying

into when you guys realized you had to write something on spec. There were pitches really. It was around the time of the David Souter Supreme Court confirmation battle, that's how long ago, and we had the idea for a Supreme Court satire about a fight over a guy being seated. Okay. And we came up with a snazzy, dazzy, smart-ass three-act pitch, and we pitched around town, and people thought it was really impressive and clever, and they said, but you guys aren't good enough to write it.

Yeah, you guys write problem-solving movies. Gilbert had killed our careers, really what happened. You guys write Godfrey vehicles. You write try for Gilbert go back to Godfrey. Yeah, that gets me to another story where Larry there was one time I did a pilot Cinemax called Norman's Corner and Larry David Wrote it. Yeah. Wow, and it was so bad that Years later when they were pitching Seinfeld They said well who's gonna be?

The main writer on this and they said Larry Davin and and one of the execs at NBC said Isn't he the guy that wrote that piece of shit for Gilbert? God? Wow Wow, what a good memory. Yeah. It was toxic. It was toxic. It was so bad, I almost kept Seinfeld from being a series. Exactly.

It's an inspiring story to all writers because you guys, it was a Hail Mary pass. Let's write something that we love. Let's write something that's important to us, even if it's only important to us. Well, we thought, in all fairness, we thought we were going to Rudy Ray Morin in a weird way. I mean, we were writing a... When we came up with the idea, it was to make a Sundance movie. You thought it was going to be fringe.

Yeah, it was going to be super fringe. We thought we were going to go make a $2 million fringe movie. Yeah. That was our goal. That was our goal, because the studio system had made us make Problem Child. When Tim got involved, all of a sudden it became the, you know, the biggest deal that ever happened to us. Big turning point. Yes, very big.

Tell us about Landau too, because we lost him since we last saw you guys. Oh my God. He's such a good guy. What a sweetheart. Yeah. I mean, we were total fanboys with Martin, you know, so we would just, you know, sit at his feet on the set every day and indulge him with, well, he'd tell us Marilyn Monroe stories and James Dean stories.

He was close to Dean. Very close. Hitchcock stories. And that was just so delightful. He was such a piece of history and he had such a warm attitude. And Tim had cast him, Tim was being a little snarky but truthful saying he's had the same career as Lugosi. He was in North by Northwest and he was in the Harlem Globetrotters on New York Inside. He's seen the highs and he's seen the lowest of the lows.

And so he knows what it's like. And Martin was very sort of, he could laugh at all that stuff and he'd have this career that just went back forever sure and he just he loved the process he just loved being on the set and hanging out and we stayed in touch with Mon until he passed away which was really lovely we could not throw a secret screening of Edwood anywhere in Southern California without Martin just showing up that's great yeah it was funny we would book some place like the New Beverly or New Ed Wood anywhere in Southern California without Martin just showing up. That's great. Yeah. It was funny.

We would book some place like the New Beverly or... New Beverly was a double feature of Problem Child and Ed Wood. Yeah. Wow. That was the only time Problem Child has been shown theatrically in the last 20 years. And Martin shows up. We got a phone call from New Beverly. I think Martin Landau wants to come to the thing.

That's great. It's like, does he understand? Is it prom child of it? But here's the thing that happened at that screening. You guys would love this. Martin, we hung out with Martin afterwards and Martin was, I have another idea for you guys. Oh yes. And he started doing Karloff.

He had totally perfected a Karloff imitation. Old Karloff. Old Karloff. And he was like, let's make a movie about targets, about the making of targets. Wow. That's a bad idea. That's a greatloff. Old Karloff. And he was like, let's make a movie about targets, about the making of targets. Wow. That's a bad idea. That's a great idea, actually. Yeah. And so he was like about, you know, an old horror story coming into New Hollywood. And it's like, you know, the old, it's like the theme

of Target, which is old, which is old horror and new horror. And his Karloff was spot on. It was fantastic. It was fantastic. Oh, how about that. Now it kills me that we didn't get him here. Exactly. We tried. His health was just so touch and go, but we tried hard to get was fantastic. Oh. How about that? Now it kills me that we didn't get him here. Exactly. We tried. His health was just so touch and go, but we tried hard to get him here.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's a movie. I'm thinking, oh Christ, why wasn't that movie made? Yeah. That would have been. Yeah. Was anybody, when you guys were writing the script, I mean, that must have been one of

the challenges that popped into your head. Who the fuck's going to play Bela Lugosi convincingly? It't cross our minds didn't you know you're somebody we're just picturing Bela Lugosi Yeah, that's the benefit of writing the true-life movies You kind of just think of the real people until right it becomes and and and the director and we had a certain Cockiness while we were writing it even though we were unemployable Which was that? We'll get someone great because it's that kind of part. He's old, he's Hollywood, he's got an accent, he's got a drug problem and he dies.

So it's a good part for an old guy. Yeah, we knew writing it that it was going to be awards bait for that particular part. And Martin was on a roll at that point. Martin was coming off of Crams and Mr. Weeners and Tucker so he'd gotten two Oscar nominations back to back. Yeah. What a wild Hollywood story this is that you guys just say, we're gonna write this this fringe movie, this Vanity Project, winds up winning an Academy Award. I mean it's crazy, you know, not of us are young but like looking back on it's like,, we made a movie with a guy who's one of the stars of North by Northwest.

Pretty cool. How weird is that? Pretty, pretty goddamn cool. That now you got me thinking about that Targets movie. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 hours of clinically proven odor protection, free of aluminum, parabens, dyes, talc, and baking soda. It's made with pH-balancing minerals and crafted with skin conditioning oils.

So whether you're going for a run or just running late, do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't. Find secret at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. Your teen requested a ride, but this time not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your team to your Uber account today. Here's a question from our mutual pal Michael Weber who you guys were hanging out with last night. Some of my favorite part of Dolomite was, Dolomite is my name, were the recreation scenes. He says this that was the most fun they had making Disaster Artists, was the shot by shot recreations

from the room. So were there any Dolomite scenes you wanted to recreate but didn't? Oh, that's an interesting question. Okay. I mean, we certainly, there were certainly scenes that were in the script that didn't get shot. There was a preacher character who's oh, yes smuggling guns there's a there's a there's a scene where Rudy walks into a church and maybe it shows a spooky joint and

And the people in the caskets are actually got machine guns. She says I'm afraid of seeing ghosts. Oh, yes If you see a ghost cut it Actor is West Gale. Wes Gale, yeah. Right. And uh- He gone too? I'm assuming, yeah. He, yeah.

He was a little mysterious. But when we researched Wes, if you look at his IMDB page, he has a bunch of appearances as jungle native. Yeah. Uh, in like, uh, like Bamba the the jungle boy kind of cereals, you know, like Republic cereals from the 40s and 50s and then early jungle TV shows and they would always have the jungle savages. And we had him as a character and we gave him this whole speech about these young, a couple of young good-looking

young black guys who've been brought in for a day or something and they're kind of making fun of me he says you guys have no idea what it used to be like yeah it's like we would play Savage number one Native number two Spear Chucker number three you know you're living in a more enlightened time so shut the fuck up Wow give any props he's been employing us and we're actually playing people and Rudy I'm sorry. I do that all the time And Eddie yeah time yeah, so so that that was like we try to bring in interesting history lessons

But the scene got cut in the character get cut one of the sweetest things in them in the in the movie is his relationship With with lady Reed yeah, yeah, I mean it's like a platonic love story. It's very sweet. He kind of rescued her from the... Steve McLaughlin We didn't actually know that much about Lady Reid, but we knew of a couple things. She had a son and that Rudy had discovered her on the road. And also just the way he put out her albums, it like Rudy Raymore presents, you know lady read is going be as well

She had a double persona as well as lady read and Queen B And we just there was something about it that just felt like there was an affection between these two characters where they were sort of like She was different than all the other buddies You know, I mean, yeah, she had her own little platform platform. And even in the movies where it's like the movie, Dolomite, it's like Lady Rita is a special friend to Rudy. And so it just became, you know, it just became that character. Well, it's touching too that she's talking about how,

you know, you don't see me on the big screen, that you guys managed to get something of real substance in there too. About, you know, about representation. Representation substance in there too. Yeah about yes, you know about Representation representation Exactly representations. Well, it's funny parts of the movie divine joy Randolph. She was great. Yeah has says um When she did that scene She felt she wasn't really acting but she was literally just expressing how she felt to Eddie

About being in this movie and being, you know, having to play a character like this because she's never seen someone look like her on the big screen. Yeah. It's one of the best parts of the movie. Thank you. I just, and I was talking to you guys about this off mic, but Derville Martin. Derville Martin.

Another fascinating character and I was saying to Scott, he wasn't as Faye as Wesley Snipes plays him in the movie. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. So we wrote this script and it's about rooting a bunch of his wacky wannabe friends and then they hire this one experienced real person, a person with credits.

He has an agent. He worked for Polanski. He's been employed by Paramount Studios. He did Rosemary's Baby. an agent. He's been employed by Paramount Studios. He represents real working actor. And then the casting of this sort of became like Mad, Mad World in that every comic in town wanted to be in the movie. And so every one of the film is a comic except for Durville. And so the idea was let's cast an actor with gravitas who will Be have a different energy than everybody else. He was serious. He was he was a serious guy

He's a real he's a real person. He's not a goof and so we cast Wesley who's whatever. He's a great fucking actor and We like to think that Driving to this set on his first day, he said, what the hell? Everyone gets to be funny about me? Fuck this. Oh. What can I do? And we were there on his first day

when he just suddenly turned into this wacky guy with the pinkies. It kind of works. It's so funny. It works because, and he didn't change the lines, he's just reinterpreting it as, this is what a real Hollywood person looks like. No, that was really made an impression on me in that he didn't really change the lines. No.

He didn't change the lines but completely reinterpreted the part and show you could do and what a different actor can do and he's one of the funniest things in the movie. He really is. He killed. He really is. Yeah. Here's just a generic question for you guys. A generic question.

Best biopic that you guys didn't write in your opinions. We got some bad ones written down here. Yeah, the bad ones are obvious. Yeah. Me and Lush made a good one. Yes, I mean, Amadeus is great. Amadeus is fantastic. That's fantastic.

Capote is quite good. Yes. You know, I'm a big fan of Patton, but Patton goes against my rules about the three hour, you know, great man kind of biopic, but Patton is, Patton, if you can see Patton on the big screen, it's pretty famous. I notice you've got a lot of rules, like you don't like films with punctuation in the titles.

That was a question mark. You don't like question marks? You know, I thought that, but actually I find there's actually a lot of movies that are like, you know, What's Up Doc has a... That's a good one. That's a good one. What's Up Doc is officially my favorite film. That's not a biopic though.

No, but anytime time I like I like Included in an email to somebody about something. It's so hard to write it because it's got a comma and a question mark, right? And so if it's in the middle of a sentence, you don't really know what to do after the question mark What about you Scott? What's a what's a biopic that you? Admire what do I like? I don't know. He doesn't like anything. No, he doesn't.

I have to think slowly. Okay. I know what you like. Would you like? You like, oh shit, the... Tell me out. You know the Beach Boys one was good. Love and Mercy.

That was okay. That was good. The Gary Oldman playwright. Oh, Prick Up Your Ears. Prick Up Your Ears. Oh, Joe Wharton picture. Yeah, the Joe Wharton movie Oh, Pick Up Your Ears. Pick Up Your Ears, yeah. Oh, Joe Wharton picture. Yeah, the Joe Wharton movie. Pick Up Your Ears is terrific.

Good movie. Yes. Yeah, I don't hear Valentino or Gable and Lombard or the Babe Ruth story on your list. Well, there's that period in the mid-70s. The Universal in the 70s. What's that about? They clearly, well, they made a lot,

here's the thing, they made a lot of money with The Sting. Right, Sting broke the rules. And they had all those back catalog titles that were actually probably really doing great on television. So they thought, like, we'll make nostalgic movies. WC Fields and Me. WC Fields and Me, Gable and Lombard, you know. And whatever, they made the movie that we kind of make fun of in Dolomite, which is

The Front Page, which desperately wanted to be The Sting. And we're not really going out. I mean, here's the thing, a bunch of people have come to be the sting, you know? And we're not really going out, I mean, here's the thing, a bunch of people have come up to us like, you know, why are you picking on Billy Wilder? Why are you picking on those guys? And it's not, we're not really picking on that movie. We're not saying that movie's bad. We're saying that it isn't speaking to these guys. Yes, clearly.

When you, it makes the point loud and clear, you know, that everyone, if you just showed a clip of Walter Maltha and Jack Lemmon, it'd be like, oh, what a nice piece of entertainment. But you cut to those people laughing in the theater, and then you get to the row of Rudy and his friends, and they've got a lot of jokes, but before they even say anything, you're like, you're almost, your breath gets taken away.

Like, well, of course this fucking movie is not speaking to these people in any way whatsoever. He does a great line about it Yeah And so there's that thing when he looks up in the light and site it's like wait we should make our own movies great now Just to go into the weeds because that's what your listeners want. Oh, yeah Uh in in our in in our original drafts. It was supposed to be uh I just forgot the title a touch of class of class with Glenna Jackson and George Segal

What about the title? A Touch of Class with Glenna Jackson and George Segal. I know that one. Utterly forgotten film. Nominated for Best Picture. Beloved. One Best Actress. I think it was nominated for five Oscars. Yeah, Glenna Jackson won an Oscar.

Giant, just a middle-brow, middle-class romantic comedy. And we thought, this is so perfect because nobody remembers this film. And it just, it cracked us up. And we wrote drafts where we looked at the movie and we put in you know witty Boulevard comedy dialogue between these two flirting people and you're cutting to you know to you know Rudy and his guys in the audience just like this is like science fiction who are these people? We couldn't get the rights to all of them.

Well the rights were convocated, a touch of class made by Brute, which was owned by Brute Shampoo. My God. And so, he was trying to clear up the rights with a movie owned by a shampoo company. And it became easier to get a movie that was owned by Universal Studios. So, at the last second, we swapped out the front page. I actually think for the point, the front page actually makes the point better. I think Touch of Class would have worked. It would have worked. It would have worked.

It would have worked. And there were a lot of jokes about, let's just say, Rudy's friends really didn't understand the appeal of Glinda Jackson. They really didn't understand how that woman was starring in movies. In terms of theme, I mean, also front page represents the past. Yeah. So, that helps our story. Yeah. Also, the fact that it's like, you know, the Billy Waller movie version is not very good,

but when you think of the front page, it's like the front page, of course, it's that classic Broadway thing, you know, and then putting the context of right there, right at that time, it's wrong. I dispute the idea that audiences were actually laughing at the front page. That's true. 1974, as you depicted in the movie. I think it did actually. Did it really?

It did okay. Did it? Yeah. Boy, that was the beginning of the end for Wilder. I thought it was Hayden. I mean, it didn't get good reviews but I think it was actually. It's after Avanti. Yeah.

Snow Buddy Buddy. Yeah. Last we were talking about Premonjure, we were talking about Wilder. I mean, is that thing where like, you know, there's something to Quentin's theory of like, I'm going to make 10 movies and walk away. I get that though I I watched fedora about a year ago I mean, it's it's not a winner, but it's it's not a loser either it wow okay It's got enough good stuff that it it's not an embarrassment

I want to see the uncut private life of Sherlock Holmes before they got the for the studio was it UA? You'll never got their hands on it and then just and just and mangled it because that's probably his last great Picture and then I even go that far. Yeah Yeah, I don't even like 123. Oh, I like 123. I like 123. It gives me a headache I like I'm with Larry on that one. I do too. I do amazing I'm imagine kiss me stupid with with with sellers though If he hadn't had a heart attack, that's one of those those you yeah, I Ray Walton makes me laugh But it's something where you you watch that movie. It feels unfair. I just watch the movie

It's like oh my god, it could have been Peter Sellers. It could have been Peter Sellers That's all you think of and I'll use that as a segue But before you do your segue that probably isn't really a segue If you announce a segue, it's not really a segue. If you announce a segue it's not really a segue. The first script... It's called changing the topic. You got me. The first script we ever sold was influenced by the fortune cookie.

Which is terrific. Which is a later era Wilder. It was a courtroom comedy about malfeasance. That wasn't Jupiter Needs Parking. No it wasn't. No, it was Homewreckers. I won't ask about that. But on the subject of sellers, because we could do a six hour show, Gilbert's obsessed

with After the Fox and I found that as one of your picks. I am the fox. Great song. Scott is not a lover of After the Fox. No, it's really annoying. That last scene where they all watch the movie. That's fantastic. That's amazing.

That's a great, great scene where they actually, yeah, the plot of the movie is a guy. Here we go. A master thief wants to rob this gold and he pretends to be a film director and he goes into this small town and basically casts the entire town as extras in this movie he's shooting, but what he's really having them do is steal the gold. But all of this is like, it's one of our... It's a smart purpose. It's one of our...

It's a stupid film. But there's a lot of like stupid movie making stuff in it and and the final they get caught and they have a courtroom scene and They actually project The movie that they shot and makes all the jurors start crying Yeah, it's one of those things where they say it's like, you know, you everyone is shown to be the fool that they are And it's a mature is good in it. Yeah, and it's directed by It's written by Neil Simon mean, it's insane. Victoria de Sica. The credits are crazy. It's directed by Victoria de Sica. It's written by Neil Simon.

Music by Burt Bachrach. I know. And it stars Peter Sellers. It should be the best film of all time. Yeah. Well, it really should with us. And there's that part when they show the film and it's awful in the courtroom. And a critic stands up.

Yes. Yeah. One guy. This is a genius. Yes. And they go, he's the movie critic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we stole It's a genius. Yes, and then go, he's the movie card. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And we stole a joke from it. You did? From Problem Child. We did? Oh. That's how... Maybe you stole a joke.

No, no. It's the... It's the... It's the... How he gets out of prison. How the botanical gets out of prison. Oh, Michael Richards escaped. The wrong man has escaped.

Exactly. No, no, no. Right, right. Who is the fox? I am the fox. Who are you? I am me. Who is me? I am a thief. You cause your poor, poor sister grief for after the fox.

After the fox. Wow. That's great. Scott's right. With all that talent, it should have been the best movie ever made. Of course. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So what's happening now? It's on Netflix. It's on Netflix. Does that mean it's no longer in theaters? It's still in a few theaters. It's hanging on. It's hanging in there. It's at the Monica and Santa Monica.

But aren't, I've been saying this for years now, movie theaters are dead. Movie theaters are not dead. Actually, attendance is fine at movie theaters. It's just not for... It's for those blockbuster things, you know what I mean? So it's like... Those movies that Scorsese loves. Exactly. Yeah. And Coppola. And Mike Lee.

But thankfully, you know, some places like Netflix are still in the business of making these mid-budget kind of movies. Well, that's one of the best parts of the story is you go into pitch Netflix and you're thinking you have to tell Ted Sarandos who Rudy Ray Moore is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well-equated. We were so nervous that because of our PTSD from the bad meetings 18 years earlier and then, okay, we've got 10 minutes of explanatory, who the hell is Rudy Ray Moore? And Ted just cut us off.

And he said, guys, I ran video stores in the 80s Rudy kept us in business. Yeah Yeah, everything fell into place. Yeah for movie that took 16 years to make it happen very quickly Can you guys talk about anything else that's in the that's in the planning stage? Okay, let's just we might jinx it if we do. Yeah, okay Yeah, I am gonna hit you up to just talk a little bit about interviewing Robert Morse because he's somebody we've been trying to get here. Oh, he'd be great.

Oh, Bobby's great. He did the front page when he was here in New York. You should have got him when he was doing the front page. Oh yeah, he was here. Yeah. We have a hard time getting to him. And I saw that production on the front page. How was he?

That was funny. That was great. He was great and Nathan was amazing. It was great. He was the first one to play Truman. Yes. Yeah. He's fantastic. He won the Tony for that Yeah, not true. Yeah

Truman yeah, I got Harry Truman Put Whitmore What the Bobby Morris And jumping back to the movie I thought you were gonna say to say he's the first person to play the Wiz. Not the Wiz, because that's a black show from the 70s. Richard Pryor, wasn't it? Oh, Wicked. Wicked, yeah, he played Wiz until it opened on Broadway.

Technically, Frank Morgan was first. True, technically. But no, Bobby was fantastic. I had a screening recently of How to Succeed in Business, and it was packed. We sold out the American Cinematheque. You enjoy doing those things. Oh, I have a good time.

I saw Scott last night at the theater. I don't do it as much as I used to. I used to do it quite a bit, and now it has to be, we're just so busy these days. I enjoy talking about other people's movies, rather than my own movie, but right now we're just so busy these days. I enjoy talking about other people's movies rather than my own movie, but right now we're talking about our own movies. But this is beautiful because, you know, Bobby's so entertaining and that movie plays, that movie is great.

That was a beautiful print. That was a beautiful print. And it's crazy, it was Bobby 50 years later telling war stories. And it's an amazing performance. You know, it is. Oh, he's so good. He's great. He's great in the love one. And it's an amazing performance. You know it is. Oh he's so good. He's great. He's great in the love one. Yeah. Yeah he is. I did the screening with that too. I did him and Haskell Wexler. And I like to show off that I got to see Bobby Morris and Rudy Valli in How to Succeed. They did a revival

in the early 70s that came to LA. Wow. Wow, wow. That was a big deal. I was that kid standing at the dressing room door to get my program autographed. Did you guys do any 25th stuff for Edward? Did we miss anything? We may still do something. Okay. We want to throw something together. Last then there was Bobby Morris and this is a movie of its time. You know It could only be made in that time. And that was Guide to the Married Man. Oh yeah. That's cool.

Can Kelly direct that? Yep. That movie like- Hi Larry, do the Joey Bishop scene. The Joey Bishop scene is the friggin' greatest scene of all time. Guys are like American people. Deny, deny, deny. He knows what's going on.

Joey Bishop is making love to his mistress and his wife comes in and catches them and the mistress and Joey Bishop just get up and shoot and the wife is yelling and yelling and yelling and Joey just puts on his clothes. He makes the bed. He makes the bed. He does everything. The mistress grabs her clothes and she leaves and Joey Bishop goes in the living room and sits down and starts reading the paper and he looks up and he's like, oh, well, honey,

what's going on? Whatever. Completely doesn't say it happened. But that movie is like, I think in the Me what's going on? Whatever, completely doesn't say it happened. But that movie is like, I think in the Me Too era, that's a toxic, toxic film. Because I was actually with- More than How to Murder Your Wife? He likes that one.

Yes, How to Murder Your Wife. I really liked that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, I remember after the Bobby Moore screening at the Cinematheque, I was standing there with a couple people from the American Cinematheque and some person came over to me and said, you guys should show guide for the married man. And they walked away and the Cinematheque person said, no we won't show the guide for the married man.

That's not going to happen. Oh yeah, they'd probably have bombed the city. Can I put in a request to your listeners? Please. Here's a trivia question which we don't know the answer to. Oh, oh. These freaks will know. There we go.

When we were making Dolemite, we knew everything about everything except we don't know the name of the actor who played the warden. Yeah. And he is recreated in our film in that very funny scene where Dolemite's getting out of prison and Lady Reads in the Santa suit and his name has been lost to time. Yeah. So if anyone, if that was somebody's uncle, let Frank and Gil know. I'm confident somebody's going to come up with that. Someone is screaming it.

Yeah. As they get... He's not listed on IMDb. He's not in the credits. No. It's so frustrating. Credits are weird because they've got the director listed like next to third in the opening credits. They don't even know where director've got the director listed like next to next to third right in the opening credits

They don't even know where director You look at 70s Posters and the director will be in the middle of the building block and it'll be like the editor is last Yeah, it's the production designer. What I want to do with our movie We did there's a figure which movie does this of Rudy's but the credits all have the person's zodiac sign. That's human Larry Kierzynski, you know, Scorpio. That's really what I wanted. Speaking of credits, you do like the Harry Nielsen sung credits in Skadoo.

Oh, that's amazing. That's fantastic. It's the only good thing about that. We had Austin Pendleton here, talked about Skadoo. He's got good memories of it. Well, what do you think of Red Clark as the card? Well, Gilbert, what do you think of Groucho and Skadoo? It's kind of like Groucho and those later Marks Brothers movies. It's worse, he's reading.

He's reading cue cards. Yeah. Austin liked them, though. They got along. Okay. Yeah, he said that once they understood it was a piece of shit they were doing, they enjoyed themselves okay so we should tell people if they don't know Rudy Ray Moore's canon that they

should they should watch these things I mean you're not a Petey Whitestra Petey Whitestra I mean I find starting with human tornado is probably the best entry level but if you see the movie Dolomite you're gonna want to start with Dolomite because you're gonna you know they've know we recreate scenes from both films Dolomite is certainly is what she is she cutting off the guys Johnson in the scene and yeah yeah yeah yeah and in the the infamous scene at the end of Dolomite which we recreate yeah where he pulls out Durville Durville Martin's guts yeah actually had a last-minute MPAA meltdown where they got an X rating.

Really? And at the end of the day, you know, whatever, Rudy just went over to Ralph's supermarket and bought some tenderloin. It's not much of a special effect, and so there is a jump cut in the final version of the movie where Rudy starts to reach down and then just like pops up and now he's holding it. You don't actually see it happen. Explain to me how he takes the bullet to the is it supposed to be to his shoulder it looks like a shot to his heart. Who knows it doesn't make any sense. You don't go to Dolmite for realism. I have to say too it was an absolute

pleasure to see Eddie Murphy back in that form again it really it's a star performance. Eddie doing everything he's great at. I mean, he's funny and he's doing stand-up and he's doing singing and he's vulnerable at times. Yeah. No, I remember the first day of shooting, Eddie was doing his stuff and kind of looked at each other and we're like, I just feel like we're making a movie at Humphrey Bogart or something.

You know, something like this great star who just has come back, you know, come back with full power. I can't think of anyone who's come back with full power. And the love comes off the screen that he's playing this guy, that he really loved, that he really admired, that he feels he owes something to. And that comes across too. Great. That it's a passion project.

Before you guys get out of here, one more person we lost this year, I have to ask the Master Screenwriters just about William Goldman. And what in your opinion, because it's also the 50th anniversary of the release of Butch Cassidy. Oh Jesus. This week. It's really that old. Yeah, I know, depressing.

What does he mean to you guys? I mean, he's a great craftsman. He, I mean, Butch Cassidy and all the president's men, they make it look so easy. I mean, all the president's men shouldn't work on any level. It's just not very interesting material for drama and yet it's just completely engrossing. It's just scenes with people dropping off

packages in parking garages and you're on the edge of your seat. They're going through phone books. They're doing process. I mean I think the influence on us is that is like all the President's Man is about process. It's about how you get the story and you're walking through all the steps and it was a little influential on the OJ thing when people would always ask that question Of like, you know, how can you how can you do a thriller where you know the ending? We know we know that we know that OJ gets away with it, you know, and we're always like well and all the President's Men You know, you know, it's what history is but you're at the edge of your seat Through a lot of that film and I mean, I don't know if I'm being a good film historian with Bush...

Cassie, but I feel like, isn't it the first cheeky action film? I'd say Goldfinger, but definitely, you're correct. In terms of the buddy rep from the first buddy movies, isn't it? Yeah, he might have invented that. He might have. I mean, I like to say that, I've said too many times that Freebie and the Bean invented the modern, crazy action comedy buddy film,

but Bush Cassidy did come first. Well, Bush Cassidy, they're playing historical figures, but they're modern dudes. You know what I mean? They are, it's Paul Newman and Robert Redford. It's modern attitude. Yeah, modern attitude. And what has Gilbert meant to you?

One day I want to see his legs. Walk for us, Gilbert, walk for us. Run, Jew, run. You guys going to another screening? Yes. A junket? What? We're going to some British Academy I believe. BAFTA. Thanks for finding time to squeeze this in. We love you guys. Yeah, you guys are great. And I also have to credit you for your hilarious emails. No, that is the greatest thing. But every once in a while I'll go to a movie, turn off my phone, and I come back out and I'm like, oh my god, 20 emails, like who died in my family?

It's like, it's Frank Sandro Padre and Dana Gould showing pictures of like Jerry Lewis. What the hell? You guys put some great stuff up there. Oh thank you. The seven seal parody pictures that you did with Sweden were great. And you found that loose cannons thing with the guy that thought it was a snuff film. That was your discovery. That was me.

That was crazy. Yeah. That was crazy. Wait, wait. We should explain. Let's finish with this. There's an email group with Conan and Drew and Patton and Leonard Maltman.

Okay, but the, was it in Canada? They found it in Canada. The guy found it in the trash and thought it was a snuff film. But it turned out it was a snuff film It's not some of their careers Thanks, all right take care guys You want to sign off? Oh, this has been Gilbert Gottfried amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santo Padre and our guests are the creators of Problem Child 1.

And more importantly, Problem Child 2, Scott Alexander and Larry Karazous. Thank you guys. See the movie, everybody. Thanks. All right, great. Thank you guys. Go the movie, everybody. Thanks. All right, great. Thank you guys. Go to Dolomite. Oh, he's bad.

The man is out of sight. He's the tough son of a gun, y'all. The man's name is Dolomite. I heard of his coming even before his time. And I lied to him. He's the tough son of a gun, y'all. The man's name is Dolomite. I heard of his coming even before his time.

And I lied to him. He's the tough son of a gun, y'all. The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite.

The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite. The man's name is Dolomite. Hey, hey, I heard of his coming even before his time. And I ain't lying. This, on the day that he was born, his papi wore a sign saying, Dolomite is here, and this bad little brother is mine. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Dolomite. Dolomite hey Dolomite, Dolomite, Dolomite Oh, man, you're out of sight Dolomite, Dolomite, Dolomite

Dolomite, Dolomite, Dolomite Yeah, oh, brother, you're right Dolomite, Dolomite, Dolomite He's here to let the whole world know How bad a man is He? Yeah! So won't you stop? Look and listen,

Dolomite is here for you all to see. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre with audio production by Frank Fertorosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to John Fotiades, John Murray and Paul Rayburn.