Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Special Encore Episode: Carl Reiner

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

In a rebroadcast of a classic episode from 2017, Gilbert and Frank welcome one of their comedy heroes, writer-actor-director Carl Reiner, who looks back on his earliest years in the business, shares his admiration for Steve Allen, Sid Caesar and Dick Van Dyke and discusses his film collaborations ("The Jerk," "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid") with Steve Martin. Also, Gilbert and Carl roast Joan Rivers, Ruth Gordon torments George Segal, Queen Elizabeth praises "The 2000 Year Old Man," and Sheldon Leonard rescues "Head of the Family." PLUS: Iron Balls McGinty! Monty the Talking Dog! Mickey Rooney sends up Ben Turpin! And the legend of Le Petomane!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and at the ripe old age of 98. And it's astounding how many things he conquered. He conquered the Broadway stage with Enter Laughing, comedy albums with The 2,000-Year-Old Man. He conquered films as an actor in things like The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, and other films, and also as a director, as you had said, when Steve Martin started to become a movie star. Yeah, when Steve Martin was becoming a movie star,

he knew the person to go to for the best results would be Carl Reiner. And All of Me, and The Jer Jerk and The Man with Two Brains and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. A great run of films. And Steve Martin said something like he was my biggest mentor both in my personal life and in show business.

About that. Yeah, because he was also a beloved person. But he certainly conquered those fields of endeavor and certainly television. I mean, he created, as I said, what was arguably but is what something a lot of people consider to be the greatest situation comedy ever. And he was one of the top writers. On show of shows. Yeah. It's it's easier. And he was a performer on that show, too. So you certainly have to count that. And then, of course, he created Head of the Family, which he starred in.

Yes. And the network didn't want to do it with him. And then Sheldon Leonard went and saw Bye Bye Birdie and found Dick Van Dyke. And the rest is TV history. And famously, Sheldon Leonard said to Carl Reiner, we're going to do the show, but we need a better person to play you. Right, exactly. And they got it. Yes. And they made history, as we said. When we started this show in 2014, we always had our list of names,

and sometimes, I remember when we got Dick Van Dyke and how excited we were. Amazing. We didn't allow ourselves to dream that big back then, but when we got Dick and then we knew Carl could be in reach and his assistant, Bess, was very kind and helped put it together. And he was happy to come on and he was a fan of yours and he knew comedy bits of yours. Full of praise for you. That to me, you can't get a bigger compliment than have Carl Reiner as a fan. Yes. Yes, it was like when we had Alan Arkin and he came on quoting your jokes. Yes! Yeah, it's nice that you have

such fans in high places. So we got him on the show in 2017. He was great. He was excited. He was happy to be a part of it. We were both thrilled, maybe a little starstruck. And totally alert. Yep. Totally. And totally alert. Yep.

Totally. He remembered everything. He remembered his act from his Army days. Yes. Yeah. And he sang opera for us. Which you will hear on this episode coming up. This episode has a little bit of everything.

There's some Groucho stories. You get to hear the comedy bits that he did before he joined the army, what his old act was like. Much praise for Gilbert. He sings an aria. A little bit of everything. And you can't do a show about the history of show business without this man. I'm so glad we got him. Yeah. I remember Larry Gelbart famously said it. It was either the service of Walter Matthau or Jack Lemmon. He said, the redwoods are falling. And I think that applies here. This is a redwood. Oh, it absolutely is. And he'll definitely be missed.

Yes, terribly. A great contribution to 20th century culture. And I'm so glad that this is preserved and this is part of the podcast archive. So if you've heard it before, it's worth another listen. If you haven't heard it, you're in for a treat. So ladies and gentlemen, call Reiner. Secure the perimeter. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here once again with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're recording once again at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Fertorosa.

Three years ago, we started this podcast in the hopes that we would talk and reminisce with people like this week's guest. To say he needs no introduction is an understatement, but we're going to do our best. He's a writer, actor, director, producer, and one of the most prolific and successful talents to ever step onto a stage or in front of a camera. He's won a Director's Guild Award, an American Comedy Award, a Grammy Award, and nine Emmys for writing, acting, and producing. He's also the recipient of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor and a member of the Television Hall of Fame, among other honors. As an actor, he's appeared in feature films such as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians are coming, and the end. And most recently, the Ocean's Eleven trilogy in the role of the lovable con man, Saul Bloom.

Memorable TV appearances include Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, The Carol Burnett Show, Frasier, Mad About You, over 45 appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and of course as a key cast member on the landmark sketch comedy shows Caesar's Hour and Your Show of Shows, where he worked alongside comedy icon Sid Caesar and longtime friend Mel Brooks. As a director, he's responsible for some of the most popular comedy films of the last five decades, including The Jerk, The Man with Two Brains, All of Me, Oh God, and two favorites of this podcast, The One and Only and Where's Papa. And if all that wasn't enough to

cement his place in entertainment history, back in 1961, he created, wrote, and produced what is arguably the best and most beloved situation comedy in the history of the medium, The Dick Van Dyke Show. His latest books are Carl Reiner, Now You're 94, and Why and When the Dick Van Dyke Show Was Born. We're thrilled to welcome to the show a genuine living legend and a man who, fortunately for us, never realized his childhood dream of becoming an Irish tenor, the great Carl Reiner. Am I on? Okay. I stopped listening to everything you said when you said I won nine Emmys. And I said, I've got to correct that.

I have 12 Emmys. 12 Emmys. 12've got to correct that. I have 12 Emmys. 12 Emmys. 12. Yes. That's my fault. We'll edit that out. It was tiring. I got tired listening to it because I said,

that was a lot of work. Yes. Anyway, Gilbert, it's so nice to chat with you. I remember, hey, were we on the, we did the Joan Rivers show together, didn't we? the, we did the Joan Rivers show together, didn't we? Oh, we did the Joan Rivers roast. Yes, you were hysterical on that roast. Oh, thank you.

As you always are. By the way, are your eyes open yet? Anyway, you're a gem. You're a treasure, as I call you. Oh, thank you. That's nice. Didn't you guys meet on a plane? Yes.

I think the first time we met was on a plane. I think so. Where were we going? Probably either to L.A. or from L.A. to New York. Okay, I'll have to check my old, what do you call it, calendars. We'll find it. And I remember you telling me then, you said, oh, my son's a big fan of yours. He is.

He was and is. And now I became a big fan of his. I just saw a movie he produced and directed and wrote and helped. It's called Shock and Awe. I just saw it a couple days ago. It is something. It is something. And I got to boast on him because Rob was the producer of it and the director.

The last minute, Alec Baldwin was supposed to play the lead of a of the uh editor of the night rider newspaper and he conked out rob took over and did one of the greatest performances i've ever seen him do that kid can do anything wow wonderful what a body of work he has you know as a matter of fact i'm i tweet a lot and last night I got a tweet that said Rob Reiner would be a very good president. And you know, a long, long time ago, they were asking him to run for governor way back. He's one of the brightest humans I know. We follow you on Twitter, Carl. You do.

We do. If I can get totally out of any form we had, can I talk about Rob Reiner's greatest accomplishment? When he was a little boy... I know where you're going. He grabbed Mary Tyler Moore's ass. No, no, here's what happened. He used to come to watch the... grabbed Mary Tyler Moore's ass? No, no. Here's what happened. He used to come to watch the, he and Albert Brooks

came to watch the rehearsals. He was like 14, 13, 14, I guess, 14 or 15. Anyway, and Albert must have said he dared him or something. I don't know what it was. But she was up in the stands where he was there. For some reason, she was up there.

And as she passed by, he patted her on the behind. And Mary came over to me and said, you know, I wasn't upset, but I think you should know your son patted my behind. And I called him in the office. I said, Rob, did you pat Mary's behind? He said, yeah, Dad. I said, don't do it anymore. That's all I said. Everybody wanted to do that.

By the way, 15 years later, we had a revisited, a big show, and Rob was now 25 years, 23 years old. They met, and she reminded him of that. She said, remember Rob when you did that? He was so embarrassed, he apologized again. She said, no, no, no. I want you to give it a good grab. And she put her posterior

out and he gave her a good grab. She said, isn't that better? You reenacted it. That's great. And as we talk about that, I'm so sad. And I see that smiling face in front of me. The girl who turned the world on with a smile is no longer with us. Yes.

Well, I'm barely with you. Tell us about, we just had your friend Bill Persky on the show. Oh, I love Bill. And you guys go way back. A word about Bill. Yeah. For the first three years, I wrote the show called Head of the Family, 13 episodes all written. And when I, it didn't work, I did it as an actor.

It didn't work, and Sheldon Leonard read the scripts and said, this will make a wonderful, I love these scripts. And I said, I don't want to fail with the same material twice. And he says, you won't fail. We'll get a better actor to play you. And that's the great Sheldon Leonard. And he suggested Dick Van Dyke. And Mary, I looked at 23 people before I saw Mary. And when she came in the office, she didn't want to audition that day.

She had like three failures that week, and she was reluctant. But when she walked in and I saw that smile that lit up the room, that hair and those gams, which are called legs these days, I said, this is it. And I remember Sheldon, when I said to Sheldon, you know, I've seen 23 girls. I don't know what I'm looking for. You'll know when you see it. And I made my hand into a claw that you see at the arcade that picks candy out of a machine. I walked across the room, grabbed the top of her head with my claw, walked her down to Sheldon's office and I found her. She's here.

That was my Mary Tyler Moore memory. And now she's gone and it just doesn't seem right. 80 years old is not enough. No, no. There's a good line in one of your books where you say you were always good at picking wives, that you picked a good one for yourself and you picked a good one for Rob Petrie. I did say that, didn't I? Yeah. Well, I sure picked a good one for myself Petrie. I did say that, didn't I? Yeah. Well, I sure picked a good one for myself.

65 years with the right woman. And your wife is famous for, like, a line. Oh, sure. Rob Reiner did a picture called When Harry Met Sally. And he had this one line in it. I look at this. And he called his mother. He said, Ma, you've got to fly out here.

She said, he was in New York at this time. She says, there are a million women in New York who could do that line. He says, nobody can do it like you, Ma. And I tell this story because Estelle did have a way with one line that popped out of her very once in a while. She was the comedian. She was everything else but humorous.

This is a line I love repeating. When my daughter Annie was now, I call inarguably, the world's greatest singing psychoanalyst because she's a psychoanalyst, but she has a voice like a mother and sings in clubs when she can. But I said, what do you want for your 16th birthday? We were talking about, and her brother, three years older, said, why don't you get a nose job like your friends do?

And I said, wait a minute, Annie. Her mother has a bigger nose than Annie's, and look at the handsome guy she got. And then my wife said, yes, it's not the size of your nose that counts. It's what's in it. That's a great line. And I was doing one of the Steve Martin movies, and I told him about it at the time.

Ten years later, he calls Estelle. He says, Estelle, can I use one of your lines? She said, what are you talking about? He says, your husband once told me you said this line. And she said, oh, yes, of course you can use it. And there's Cyrano de Bergerac saying, it's not for size or your nose that counts. It's what's in it.

Oh, and Roxanne. Roxanne, right. You know, as long as we're talking about Estelle and the Van Dyke show, I don't know that people know that she was the inspiration and that she read a pilot that was written for you. You gave it to her to read and she said, I think you can write a better sitcom than this. Oh, yes. Estelle, everything I've ever done, including when I first wrote short stories, I was a teletypist in the Army. And when I came home, I wanted to see if I could still type

so I typed out a short story four pages I gave it to Estelle where'd you get this? I said I wrote it and she said you wrote this? and I wrote a dozen of them and then they were good enough for somebody to send to somebody to read and at a party somebody

said these are wonderful I know it was at a party, somebody said, these are wonderful. I know it was at a party of a friend of mine, Julian Rochelle, who was a textile manufacturer, and there was a guy there who said he read the book, read the book, the short stories. And I said, why did you give the guy the book? He said he wants to have lunch with me. He said, do I have to have lunch with everybody who read these short stories? He says, what is he?

He's in pocketbooks, he said. What, does he buy linings for his pocketbooks? He's not those kind of pocketbooks. Simon and Schuster pocketbooks. And I said to my wife, gee, I don't know how to write a novel. I don't have enough words. I only went to Georgetown University. The Army sent me there for a year. She said, you have something more

than words. You have feeling. And that's when I wrote my first novel, Enter Laughing. She's always told me, you can do it. And I did it. Absolutely. I love the fact that you're not good enough to play the part of Carl Reiner. Oh, and head of the family.

Yeah. Yes. Laura, I've had a hard day. Why is he in the closet again? He spent half of his six years in closets. You know, he's beginning to smell like a camper bowl. Trouble no more. Oh, honey, I get paid to write bad jokes.

That's why the show smells! What was that? You said a wrong thing. What wrong thing? Look, honey, it's almost six o'clock. He should be watching television. I should be eating dinner. Why is he locked in a closet?

Because he's upset. If he got out of the closet, he wouldn't be so upset. That's what's upsetting him, being in a dark closet. You know why he's in there? Yes. Well, are you going to tell me? Robert, your son dislikes you. What are you saying? How can he dislike me? I'm his father. Some children are known to hate their fathers.

He's only six years old. He doesn't know me long enough to hate me. That was a breakthrough, my God, when the Dick Van Dyke Show was the situation comedy at the time. And then came Norman Lear with breaking it open and making Biggest sound like Biggest. He had everything. It was really broken open for the truth, the total truth. We found it difficult to get an African-American in the show.

I was always trying to get an African-American in this white. I was always trying to get an African-American in this white neighborhood. He broke it open for everybody. He did. And how was Dick Van Dyke chosen to be Carl Reiner? Oh, Sheldon mentioned him. I went to New York, saw him in Bye Bye Birdie with Chita Rivera, and there was no hands down. I said, that's the guy. Dick is the most single talented man I know. He can do everything, everything. You know, it's funny, Steve Martin, who I consider a true genius, he's not only an actor, he knows everything about everything, about art, about collections.

He just knows everything. He's one of the brightest men I know. As a matter of fact, his biography, Born Standing Up, you can't put it down. It's just thrilling. And so he said, you know, Dick Van Dyke is the single most talented man that ever was in our business. He can do anything. And he's 90 now, and he's still jumping and dancing and tap dancing. Yeah, we had him on here.

It was a thrill. Gilbert got to sing with him. Oh, yes. We sang Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. And put on a happy face. I did two duets with Dick Van Dyke. Oh, my God. Isn't it amazing, 90, how he still can jump around?

And he dances every day. Hey, how old are you, Gilbert? Oh, God. Physically, I'm older than Dick Van Dyke. No, you're not. I know you're not as tall as him. You're about a few inches shorter. Oh, my God, yes.

Oh, by the way, I didn't finish about Billy Persky. Yeah. Well, those first three years when I did the show, I was a producer, I was a story editor, and I wrote the first 15 or 30, the first 60 episodes. I was all alone. And until Persky and Denhoff, Bill Persky came in, and he wrote a show.

And I use this phrase, Billy saved my life. Because he came and took the burden off me. He wrote some of the best shows we've ever done. Sure did. And I say that all the time. And every time we speak on the phone, I call him the man who saved my life. And Marshall and Belson and Jerry Paris and and jerry paris there's so many people involved yeah marshall and belson i'm so sad about that you know gary just left and

yeah belson who is just a just the darlingest person in the world you surrounded yourself with wonderful people on that show i lucked out when you have a product that people want to work on, it was lovely to attract these people. And I got to ask you just a quick synopsis of your childhood. Yes. Yeah. So just where were you born? I was 179th Street and Belmont Avenue in the Bronx on the first floor in a bedroom. That's where I was born. People were born at home then. And I went back years later. I was doing, New York Magazine was doing about our early days. I went to see my five-story building. It's not there. It's gone,

raised. There was an empty lot with bricks in it, lying around, a few bricks. I took two bricks, brought one for my brother who lived there with me, and I have a brick of that house yet. But that's my early days in the Bronx. And what did your parents do? My father was a watchmaker and an inventor. He invented things. He had patents, and he invented a clock battery,

5,000 amps and one milliamp, and it ran a clock. He said it would run a clock, a pendulum clock, for 100 years, and it ran for 60. Wow. It would have run for 100, but it shorted out. When my mother passed away, he put the clock in his bag to come to California with me. And the two posts were shorting, you know, shorted out. So it lost 40 years of its life. And you know something, this is like the most synchronistic, crazy thing. My nephew was living with, my father was living with my nephew at the time. And the day my father passed away is the day the clock stopped.

Nobody would believe that, but that was true. And your parents were like immigrants. Yeah, my father came in 1900. My mother came at about the same time. And she was, no, she, a few years later. And he came over when he was a 20 year old she came over as a one year old and she was her like a romanian jew yes she uh she was from bucharest she was a very bright woman who was illiterate nobody ever taught her to read and write someplace in this room here i don I found, this is the most incredible thing,

I found a diploma. My mother had graduated from school. You know what she graduated? And the diploma has got all kind of signatures, doctor so-and-so, professor so-and-so. It's a big diploma. It says Bessie Reiner is a graduated student of this and is fit to go out to the world, whatever it is.

All this flowery talk. She was kindergarten. She graduated kindergarten. And she had this graduation paper so she can work in the child labor laws. She was working in a flag factory as a finisher, cutting off little strips of flag when they saw the flag. There was always a little thread hanging. That's what she was doing.

And when the Geary Society came to see if there were child labor working there, they put her in a bin and threw hundreds of flags on and said, don't move. And my mother remembers not moving for an hour sometimes, just under all these flags. Wow. This is my mother's background. And she never learned to read or write. And every time there's something in the paper, she would say, I haven't got my glasses. Read it to me.

But she was so bright. My father said, you know, she handled all the money in the house. He was the watchmaker working the house. She handled everything without knowing how to read or write. We never knew that. My brother and I were 12 or 15 when we said, I don't think mom can read. And it was true. You know, when i wrote my first book enter laughing i sent it to my parents and my mother called and said oh we love the book and i said you you i know she couldn't read and i said you did she said yeah well papa read it and she said but i think we got the wrong book and i said why she said well at the, I think we got Estelle's book. And she didn't know that I dedicated the book to Estelle.

And she figured that the book that was signed to her, she figured it was signed by, you know, she didn't understand. I was so sad to know that she didn't know about a dedication you talk in one of the books carl about that your parents introducing you to comedy by way of the marks brothers yes oh the uh my father and mother always loved comedy and the radio i was always on in our house my father built the first radio that we ever owned. He had a storage battery from the garage that powered the radio. And we still listened to Amos and Andy. It was the only show on. And Lowell Thomas and the News.

But when radio did hit its stride with Eddie Cantor and Jack Benny and Fred Allen and Joe Penner and Fibber McGee and Molly. We listened to the radio all the time, and my folks always took us to see movies, comedies, and the Marx Brothers and the Ritz Brothers were our Bible. Joe Penner. Want to buy a duck. Sure. Now, did you ever work with Groucho? Yes, I did. I when I wrote and performed on the Dinah Shore show, I had a wonderful and I love this.

I worked on the show as a writer with Charlie Isaacs and every other week I'd be on as an actor. And when there was a star on, they say, and our guest star this week is Yves Montand. And when I was on, I was called the, and our not-so-special guest star this week is again, I love that. So that's where I met Groucho. He came on the show, and he lived near me, and we went over to his house often,

and we just chatted, a wonderful time there's a story too about groucho uh was your it was your one of your plays where groucho gave one of the plays that starred gabe dell something different yes something different that's true story uh that was maybe the best thing i've ever written i wrote a play when it basically was interesting too. I was in between projects and my secretary said, we have nothing to type. I used to type it out. She retyped it, retyped the page and she had nothing to type. And I said, and one day I typed out something and I gave it to her. I said, retype it. It was just nothing. She started to laugh. I wrote another page. She started to laugh. And I wrote a thing called Something Different. It's sort nothing. She started to laugh. I wrote another page. She started to laugh.

And I wrote a thing called Something Different. It's sort of a Pirandello-ish thing. And it was maybe the best thing that I've ever written. I sent it to New York. The very first producer who saw it said, we'll do it. And from the time I wrote it to the time I was on stage, it was like, what, two or three months. And I had a wonderful cast. And in Boston, absolutely, you couldn't get a seat. We sold out for a month or two. We got to New York. The sad thing happened. The critic for The Times, Walter Kerr, had left.

And the dance critic, Clive Barnes, took over. And he didn't get it. He didn't get the show all he reported was the audience seemed to be having a great time but I'm not sure why or something like that and so instead of having a real big run we ran for about a hundred performances one of the saddest things and one day near the end of the run, when the audience is applauding, a guy stands up and runs to the, one of the audience members runs toward the stage, turns to the audience and tries to stop them from applauding.

He holds up his hands. Gabe Dell was about to jump off the stage. He's a crazy man. And he heard the voice. He didn't recognize it because it was groucho without his mustache and it was groucho saying don't don't applaud don't applaud well your job is to go back to your neighborhoods tell every friend you know everybody you see that the greatest piece of comedy entertainment is that the theater is called something different at the court theater

come down here buy tickets and keep the show running. That was Groucho. And I never forgot. I thanked him profusely, of course. It's a great story. What an honor that is. Oh, yes. Oh, it was.

It's a funny thing, Carl, that you're a kid listening to the Marx Brothers or watching the Marx Brothers, and then years later, he's jumping up and down in the audience about your play. I know. I met the other brother, Chico, in New York many years ago when I was... We did a show together. He had a show, the

Chico Marx show, and he was so taken with the way we worked together that I called his brother and he said, you know, we did a thing called Flywheel and Revelle. He said to me, two shyster lawyers. He said, I'm going to ask my brother if I can have the rights to it. We can make a television show out of it.

And I wasn't interested in it really. But I was happy that he couldn't sell it because, of course, Groucho said, sure, go, go, please do it. And he couldn't peddle it. Thank goodness. But I knew all of them. And I said to him, Groucho, you never talk about your brother, Harpo. He said, what's there to say about a nice guy? He's just a dear man.

He's quiet and he's sweet. There's nothing to say about him. He's just too good. Too good. There's nothing to say about him. He's just, he's too good. Too good. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this.

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Just answer a few questions and get personalized advice from a TD mortgage specialist. And you can get up to $4,100 with a new TD mortgage. Offer ends October 31st, 2024. Conditions apply. Visit td.com slash tdmortgagedirect. And you started performing, I think, during World War II. Before World War II. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, no, I started performing when I uh working as a machinist helper i i went and i always thank franklin roosevelt and the government we have governments now this guy who works i don't know what his name trump something uh get the you know he wants to take care of their their their obamac. He wants to lower the minimum wage. We had a government during the Depression, the WPA, free acting classes for – my brother found a little article, free acting classes at 100 Center Street. Your brother Charlie. Charlie, yeah. And so I went there, and Mrs. Whitmore, an old English teacher, English professor of drama, taught us. I worked there for almost a half a year.

And at that time, I started auditioning, and I got into a play called the Gilmore Theater, where I worked six days a week doing The Bishop Misbehaves. And I got no money for six days, six nights a week. It cost me 35 cents to eat dinner. I couldn't afford it. I was getting $8 for a machinist helper. And so I came to him after a year, and I said, I can't work anymore for no money. I don't have money for dinner. He's okay. And he shut the door and he said, I will give you a dollar.

I said, a dollar a performance? No, a dollar a week. He says, if you tell anyone, I will rescind it. So I got a dollar a week what what was the that was so the first job kind of showbiz job was was summer theater was it was it i know you were emceeing in the hotels too no no the first job was that one that one okay when i wore i bought a tuxedo for ten dollars and the bishop misbehaves somebody saw me when I went to the bathroom. You're supposed to go backstage.

The backstage was closed when I was going home. I ran to the front and I'm at a urinal and a guy looks over at me and he says, saw you on the show. You're very good. You want to do summer theater. And that's where I got my first summer theater job in the toilet.

And I went to the Rochester Summer Theater and I worked there for two seasons the 24 shows and part of your act was doing impressions you did ronald coleman and no that was later on that was later on okay when i when i went to the army i you know and when i was in the army i started going to rec halls and doing impressions of actors. And I worked up an act. And I finally, when I went overseas, I was a teletype operator on my way to, didn't know it at the time, Iwo Jima.

And Maurice Evans had an entertainment section at the time, and he was doing Hamlet in GI clothes. I went to see it, and it was extraordinary. I went at the University of Hawaii, and Howie Morris, an old friend from the NYA radio workshop, another one of those things that Roosevelt did. We got $23 a week to do three radio shows a week. And Howie said, I said, Howie, you were ladies.

You were wonderful. He says, You have an act. And I said, Yeah, but he says, Come and audition for, it was Alan Ludden was the captain. Yes, that's great. Yeah, and George and, what's his name?

Maury Sevens. Maury Sevens was the commander. And my friend Saul Pomerantz says, go find out if you're any good. So I went down there. I did my act. I did impressions. And they wanted me. And I said, fellas, I'm leaving tomorrow.

I'm going someplace. I don't know, Detachment 18. I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm going someplace. I don't know, Detachment 18. And the next day I hear my voice, a voice on loudspeaker in my barracks report to the office. And they had traded me like a ball player. They called General Richardson of the Pacific Command. And they said, we need this guy.

And there I was. So for the next year and a half, I entertained the troops. I was. So for the next year and a half, I entertained the troops. The act I want to describe, because I did it all over the Pacific for one year. This is like a bad Dan Daly movie. My outfit actually invaded Iwo Jima, which I didn't know I was going there. But what happened is when I entertained, did all the islands in the Pacific, Saipan, Guam, Magma, Ganawitag, Johnson Island, Palau. And one year, I'm entertaining troops all over. VJ Day, we land in Iwo Jima.

And there were 17 different installations. The first installation we hit in Iwo was my old buddies. So there I am starring in a show I had written with all my buddies that I hadn't seen for a year. And thank God every one of them lived. None of them got killed on the invasion. Wow. What were you going to say, Gil? Oh, I was going to say a number of years ago, Frank took me to an autograph signing convention.

Yep. And I was walking around the room and somebody screamed out when they saw me, it's that loud mouth fucking Jew. And I turned around and it was Howard Morris. Uncle Goofy. Yeah, Howie and I had a long time together. We were, as I said, an NYA radio workshop together. And the day he went to the Army, when he was being called up,

I said, I won't take you, Howie. You're only 112 pounds you had to be 115 or something and the next day he came in as they took me is what happened he says i was thirsty in the morning i drank three glasses of water that's how we got in years after when i was in touring or call me mister there was a very tiny part of a two-line part of a general, a young general. It was supposed to look like 12 years old.

And I got Howie at our job, so we toured for a year with Howie and playing that general, which was a tiny part. We had a long history together. What was Monty the Talking Dog, Carl? Do you have any recollection of that? That was the thing that got me in.

I came out on stage with a leash and a little dog jacket. And I put it on like a cage. And I said, I was very sad. I said, gentlemen, sorry, but the act that was going to be here today is no longer possible. I said, this is a sleaze. And this is it's Monty, the talking dog. He did impressions, the greatest impressions ever. Nobody's ever heard impressions like that.

And I said, you know, I said, I can do them for you, but they won't be anywhere near as good as what Monty used to do. And remember, this is a dog. That's what made it interesting. I'm a guy. So many people do impressions. And I did my impressions, got a lot of laughs. And then I said, and there's one impression Monty did that I won't even attempt. He did Roy Rogers' horse, Trigger.

He used to do Trigger. He used to put on a lot of fur. Oh, you got to see it to believe it. So that was the act I did all over the Pacific. And you did impressions. You did Akeem Tamaroff and Charles Boyer. Charles Boyer, yes. Jimmy Stewart.

Do I have this right? Jimmy Stewart, yeah. And Durante and Tamirov. I remember one line. I don't provoke. That's a good one. Kim Tamaroff. He said that.

And what was the name of that movie? A very famous movie, Hemingway. I forget. And a lot of talk, but you can't talk about it enough. And that's the, when you were on your show of shows with Sid Caesar. Yes. And Howie. Yes.

And, yeah, that's right, Howie. Of course. Tell, it was an insane group of writers. We had the best. I considered it my college. That's where I really learned to write, sitting in the writer's room with them. And it was, of course, Mel Brooks. When I came, Mel wasn't even a writer on the show.

He was a friend of Sid's, getting $35 a week. And the first time I saw him, he was a friend of Sid's getting $35 a week and I first time I saw him he was doing his Jewish pirate I walked into the room and this little guy standing there said you know how hard it is to set sail these days is what they're charging for sail

$3.95 a yard I can't afford to pillage and rape anymore that's the first time I heard Mel. The following Monday, I came in, and I remembered him doing that, and I saw We the People speak, a thing on television where they do the news, and I went up, and I said, here's a man who was actually at the scene of the crucifixion 2,000 years ago.

That's when he became the 2,000-year-old man. And the next 10 years, we did it at parties, private affairs, and it was 10 years before Steve Allen convinced us that it was not anti-Semitic. We thought it was only for Jews and non-anti-Semitic Christians, but he made us put it on record, and then it became, you know, a staple of comedy. Now, I heard that among the people who are fans of the 2,000-year-old man was Cary Grant. He was. I gave him one.

We were both at university. We had little bungalows near each other. And one day he came by. He was passing by and I waved at him and I said, I'd like to offer you this. And I gave him an album. And he came back the next day. He says, can I have a dozen?

I said, why? He said, I'm going to England. And I said, you're going to take it to England? He said, yes, they speak English there. And when he came back, and this is true, he came back and she loved it. I said, who? He said, Queen Mother. He said, I took her to Buckingham Palace.

And I said, at that moment, I said, the biggest shicks in the world loved it. We're home free for everybody. What was the thing about Edward G. Robinson? There was something at a party. I know George Burns said if you guys don't record this I'm going to swipe it. Yeah, no. At one of those parties where

the people used to make parties so Mel and I can get up and do this. It was Steve Allen and one by one it, the first one was George Burns said, is there an album on this? And I said, no. He says, you put it on an album, I'm going to swipe it. I'll swipe it. And then Edward G. Robinson said, is there an album?

And I said, no. He says, I'd like to do it on Broadway. I'd like to do that Thousand Year Man on Broadway. I said, it's 2000. He said, I can do any age. And it was Steve Allen who said, fellas, you got to get in. I have World Pacific Jazz Studio. It's a, you take your microphone and just wail and mel and i

went there and he said i don't want to be part of it you saw as you want to burn it score whatever you want to do with it and so we worked for two hours and cut it down to 47 and the rest is thanks thanks to that wonderful man you you've lived so long did you ever have an accident in all this time an accident always an Thanks to that wonderful man. You've lived so long. Did you ever have an accident in all this time? An accident? An accident.

Oh, an accident. Yes. Yes. In the year 61, I was hit. I was run over by seven men fleeing a lion. They ran me over. That's the extent of all the... But they didn't have insurance, I didn't have insurance. There was no such thing then, so you laid there till you got better.

I'm amazed at you. In the 2,000 years you've lived, you've seen a lot of changes. Yes, certainly. What is the biggest change you've seen? In 2,000 years, the greatest thing mankind ever devised, I think, in my humble opinion, is saran wrap. You can put a sandwich in it, you can look through it, you can touch it and put it over your face and fool around and everything.

It's so good and cute, you can wrap it up. You equate this with... I love it. You can put three olives in it and put a little one. You can put ten sandwiches in it and make a big serving. Whatever you want, it clings and it sticks. You equate this with... You can look right through it. You equate this with man's discovery of space.

That was good. Millions of books and CDs sold later. Yeah. No, Steve Aloe is just a dear, dear, dear man. I heard stories about maybe it was Jackie Mason who said it. But like when Jews were afraid of anything too Jewish. And so like Steve Allen would have like Jewish performers on his shows. Oh, yes.

By the way, James Mason, he was the best. I had him in the movie The Jerk. Oh, he's in The Jerk, sure. Oh, yes. The gas station owner. Yeah, I just loved him. He was one of the funniest men in the world. He could really ad-lib funny.

And Maurice Evans is also in The Jerk. You gave him a job. You're old. Yes. You know something? And I didn't want to because I was looking for an English actor to play a butler. And they said, we have a Maurice. I can't ask Maurice Evans. He's my major in the Army. And they said,

but Maurice asked to do it. He wanted to get his card, his screen actor card. And I had him. He wanted to get his card, his Screen Actors Guild card. And I had him. But the day he came in, I stopped everything. And I told every grip and everybody. I said, this is Major Maurice Evans. I said, one of the greatest Shakespearean actors.

I said, the only actor who ever did a complete version, a full-out version of Hamlet, a five-hour version of Hamlet on Broadway. That was brilliant. Anyway, they gave him a big hand. But I felt so bad. It's like we did it on the show of shows where Sid Caesar was a big star, and he had bad times, and he ended up doing radio in Australia

because he couldn't remember a line. That was the sketch, and all I could think of was that sketch. But he's great in the movie. Oh, he's wonderful. Yeah, he's a good comedian. Oh, he's wonderful. And tell us about Sid Caesar.

Sid Caesar was the greatest comic that ever worked on television. There was no doubt about it. Everybody who ever watched television knew that he was the king. And Caesar is the right name for him. No, all that double talk he did. When I came on the show, I knew I'd never do my, I did double talk in the army. And I did in my act, but not anywhere near what he did. As a matter of fact, I knew I'd never do it again.

And as a matter of fact, that's'd never do it again and as a matter of fact that's how i got in the writer's room one day i got an idea for something and uh how i might be able to use my double talk i said why don't we do foreign movies i take off and somebody said what are you talking about and i picked up a pack of cigarettes and i went over to Sid and I started to sell it to him in Double Talk. And he huddled with me, bargained with me. He didn't want too much to pay. And so that became a staple of ours. Every week we'd go to a French movie, an Italian movie, a Japanese movie.

And we'd do takeoffs of silent movies from French movies and farm movies but the double talk was something I could do but not anywhere near what he did my god he was a the master of it and he was a sigh I mean brilliantly talented and funny I was here but he also, but he had like demons, of course. You know, he was. Yeah, he had a drinking problem at one point. And he had another demon. He couldn't be himself.

He never could come out and say, good evening. I'm Sid Caesar. Welcome to your show of shows. He, Fumford is, if he, give him a character, make him the professor, Cesar, welcome to your show of shows. He fumped his, if you give him a character, make him the professor, Jim Richardson, whatever, he could wail for an hour. He did more ad-libbing on the show and got more laughs than were written

just by finding things on the show. Once I had actually bit my lip and was bleeding because I was laughing so hard at something he had found and was continuing to mine. And we had someone on the podcast who told the story. Was it about him accepting the award? He couldn't accept the award as himself? Yes. He was falling all over himself, you know, stammering. He couldn't speak. And someone yelled out in the audience, say it in German.

It might have been Mel who said, do it in German. That's right. That's right. He did. That's right. Absolutely right. So Mel Brooks yelled that? Yeah.

I remember one thing thing one particular sketch we played two barristers in england father and son uh who were going to be opposite each other in a courtroom i was the prosecutor he was the defense attorney and he says uh he's even though you're my father i know i'll fight you tooth and nail or something. I don't know who it was. He was my father. I'll fight you tooth and nail, even though I haven't many of my teeth left or my nails. Anyway, we did this thing where we played pool together.

Well, we played pool together, and we had the pool table scored so that every time he hit a shot, into the felt. He puts it under the felt. He rips it, and then he pulls it up and rips the table. And there's a big felt rip in the table, and I say, good shot. Now he goes to the other side. We don't know there's a warp and a woof to a table. There was a little scoring there so he can get his pool cue in it. When he got it in and pulled it, it didn't rip. What happens is the pool cue broke in half,

and that almost sent me out. He grabbed the hold of that cue, and I knew he was going to do something. He walked around the table looking for his next shot. He had a shillelagh in his hand. And he was looking, and I knew I'm going to bust. And what he did is wind up like it was a polo mallet, and he whacked at one of the balls and knocked the ball off the table,

hit a wall, and I had to say, good shot. And I really bit my lip. I was bleeding. I remember the two of you and it was a later day that you reenacted it where Sid Caesar's a great magician

and you're interviewing him. Yes, and I put my finger under a handkerchief and pulled it away and the finger's gone. Yes. And then I put it in and the finger is gone yes and then i put put it in and it's there again how did you do that yeah yeah he was always the great magician jim richardson he was always jim richardson yeah and i remember since caesar i want to tell you

one that made me that again made me laugh so hard. We were watching a horse race. I was in a foreign country, and he was the shah of something, and he had all this turban on, and he had a sword on his side. No, he had a gun on his side, strapped to his side. And we're watching the mutters going by, and mutters come flying out from the horse's hooves, and we're getting full of mud. But before that, we're watching and hearing, you know,

the sounds from the audience. And he says, before we have that ceremony, we drink of the Gucha Yucha juice. And there's a ram's horn. He's got a ram's horn in his hand with Gucha Yucha juice. And there's a ram's horn. He's got a ram's horn in his hand with Gucha Yucha juice. Now, Sid was always worried that the property master

was going to give him dirty water. So he always hated to drink anything on stage. He always faked drinking from a glass. And I knew this is going to be, he's going to have to drink, we're going to drink from the Gocha Yucha juice. And so he says, wait, I drink first.

And he looked into it a long time and I know it was going through his head. He was saying, oh shit, I hope it's clean. And for some reason this wasn't rehearsed, he took the gun out from his holster and he shot into the ram's horn This wasn't rehearsed. He took the gun out from his holster,

and he shot into the ram's horn. There was a squib in the thing, you know, a real squib, and bang, it made a loud noise. And then he looked, and it killed whatever's in there, and he drank the gukha. Well, I couldn't, I had to turn away. I had to turn away. I had to turn away. And he named it Gokha Yuchajus.

Also a gifted physical comedian, said Caesar. I mean, people talk about the dialects. I'm thinking about the This Is Your Story, which I mentioned before, with Howard Morris as Uncle Goopy. And him and Howard physically peeling themselves off of each other. I know. It's maybe the funniest sketch ever put on television. And by the way, that ran twice as long as it was meant to because it was all ad lib.

When Howie hung on to his leg and he walked around with him, well, even getting him out of the audience when he was said, this is your life. He was supposed to react like, I don't want to go. And he was supposed to pull away. But what he did was take his overcoat and hit the guy in the head, knock him down. And he ran up and down the center theater, which is a tremendous theater. It was a good five minutes of trying to catch him.

They finally caught him and carried him on stage. That wasn't rehearsed. That was Sid not going on stage. Just magnificent. And can you name the writers who worked on that show? Oh, absolutely. Well, the head writer was a guy named mel tolkien a canadian writer and lucille callan also a comedian they were the two original writers um mel brooks came on

a little later it was a friend of his and they max levin oh here somebody handed me a picture of all the writers um at one time or another, Aaron Rubin was a writer. Aaron Rubin, yeah. Yeah. And Joe Stein, who adapted Into Laughing into a book, into a play on Broadway, who wrote Fiddler on the Roof. And then there was Danny and Doc Simon, Neil Simon, who wrote 37 of the great comedy plays of all time.

There was, oh, I said Aaron, oh, who is this guy here? Oh, this is Aaron, Mel Brooks, as I said. Larry Gelbart, did we forget? Oh, Larry Gelbart, yeah, Larry Gelbart. And then years later, when I left the show and Sid was doing a couple specials, this was, we did 50 to 54 and then we did two years of Caesar's Hour.

Then he came back and did a few specials and he said, we got a new young redheaded writer. We always had a redheaded writer. It just happened to have three. And it was Woody Allen. Woody Allen was 16 or 17 at the time. They said he wrote on the show. It shows he couldn't.

He was a baby then. Murderer's row. And with Sid Caesar, with the drinking and his general craziness, I heard he was, what kind of weird things would happen with him off camera? Well, he was very quiet and very, you know, he and Imogene were very friendly, but they couldn't say a word to each other. He thought she was wonderful. She thought he was, they were like, you know, when they did their pantomimes and things,

that's the only time they contacted each other and the sketches. But, no, Sid was, I remember one thing about Sid I'll never forget. He was one of the first millionaire, you know, salaries in the business. And at the very top of his game, he bought a house in Sands Point, and he invited us all to come out. His kid was very young, my daughter, Robbie and his little son. Anyway, and we're out in the pool. We're lying in the pool on a raft, I think.

We're floating on our backs, and Sid is paddling, and he's looking around in the pool on a raft, I think. We're floating on our backs and Sid is paddling, and he's looking around at the pool. He's got a three-hole golf course, which you can see, and the line that came out of him was so brilliant. He looked and said, Huh? Isn't this better? I mean, that is one of the most understated lines. Isn't this better?

We jump around here, Carl, as Gilbert warned you. Let's talk a little bit about the jerk. Okay. Which, again, Maurice Evans, we talked about. We talked about Jackie Mason. Two other wonderful actors, M. Emmett Walsh. Oh, Emmett Walsh was wonderful. And Strother Martin.

Yeah. Two wonderful actors. They were both in The Jerk, yes. Yeah. You know, you mentioned The Jerk. I'm going to have a screening of The Jerk in about two or three weeks. And that's when I get my hands in Grauman's Chinese. They were going to have a screening of The Jerk in about two or three weeks, and that's when I get my hands in Grauman's Chinese.

And The Jerk was one of these happy things that fell into my lap. It was started, and they needed a director. Steve Martin had not done any acting. He was maybe the biggest stand-up comedian in the country. He did a stand-up with no jokes. He made people laugh, but never told a joke. He was doing venues of 46,000 people in the ballpark, and now he's going to do his first movie, and he had never talked to anybody.

He always talked to an audience. But boy, the first day we knew he was he had it he just had it he was steve was you know genius category and he uh he made everything funny and a good director doesn't have to do anything all he has to do is either hire or have somebody hire a great comedian to front the show and all just say, okay, start going. And then after they finish say, that all you got?

I remember there's that part you show up, of course, as Carl Reiner, the director, and Steve Martin had invented these glasses. Yeah, the Opti-Grab. Opti-Grab, yeah.

And it caused people to be cross-eyed. To turn into Ben Turpin. Yeah. Oh, yeah, what happened is that you had a little hook in the front, so instead of pulling on the temple of your grasses and sometimes getting them out of skew, you know, get them askew. If you pull them from the front with a little, it was called optograb, a little ring, you just pull them right off your face.

And so the optograb became very successful. But there was a problem. A lot of people looked at the optGrab and they went cockeyed. And so there it was. They had a picture of me wearing OptiGrab. With my eyes crossed, they didn't even have the sense to try it out on prisoners. You have sense to try it out on prisoners. It seems that an irate group of citizens,

led by the celebrity Mr. Carl Reiner, has filed a class action suit against Mr. Johnson and his OptiGrab. Here's what Mr. Reiner had to say at a press conference. When OptiGrab came out, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. And I bought a pair. and this is the result. This little handle is like a magnet. Your eyes are constantly drawn to it, and you end up cockeyed. Now, as a director, I am constantly using my eyes, and this Opti-Grab device has caused irreparable harm to my career. Let me show you a clip from my latest film where my faulty depth perception kept me from yelling cut at the proper time.

Cut! If I had yelled cut on time, those actors would be alive today. That's why I'm spearheading the $10 million class action suit against Mr. Johnson and his irresponsible selling of a product he didn't even test on prisoners. Thank you. Well, Gilbert loves the gag. Yeah, there's a part. You're saying that a tragedy occurred on your last move?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Because of the optic grab and the tragedy, it could have been avoided. And we got a stock shot of a car going over a hill and crashing. And you hear him say, and as it crashes, he says, cut. He should have said it before he went over the hill. Anyway, so that was, yeah, that was the joke. Do you remember where you guys turned Carl Gottlieb into Iron Balls McGinty? Do you know where that came from?

Right, right. Yeah, where he... He kicks him in the groin. Steve learns karate, and all of these guys come at him, and one afternoon, he hits him with a karate chop, knocks him at the door,

and then McGinty comes at him, and he kicks him in the balls, and you hear clang. Dick breaks his foot. He didn't know. He forgot all about Iron Balls McGinty. It's just great. Oh, and I remember that the way Steve Martin gets the idea for that attachment is because the actor Bill Macy.

Oh, Bill Macy, right. His glasses keep swinging. Still, Bill Macy, right. His glasses keep swinging. Still with us. Yeah, yeah. He invented the, yeah, Steve invented the optogram. Yeah, anyway, it was quite a good movie. Tell us a little bit about Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Carl, which I watched again this week and just fascinating.

That's my favorite thing of doing, a labor of love, labor of love. Myself and Steve and, what's his name? George Geib. Yeah, George Geib. A writer came with a script that I wasn't going to use, and I told him it wasn't quite right for us. But we went to lunch once again, and I got the idea of using old movies

and incorporating a live dick in it. I mean, Steve. What am I saying, Dick? That's another movie. That's the comic. Right. That's another movie. That's the comic.

Right. And so for six, Steve was doing a musical at the time, and we had six months working, myself and George Guy, looking at old movies, black and white movies, and we were going to interstice Stephen, and I remember looking for little lines, like a line. Oh, that could be a line of dialogue. I remember getting his name when Charles Lawton calls a character.

He says, hey, Rigby. I says, hey, he's calling. And we had a, Steve was going to play opposite all of these dead actors, most of them dead, and intercut with them, we'd have a story. And we did work out a story, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. By the way, it's Steve's title, and we never knew what the title was. And at the very end, he says, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.

Never knew what that meant. Stephen, so... Edith Head's last film, by the way. Dead men don't wear a plaid. Never knew what that meant. Edith Head's last film, by the way. Yeah, it was Edith Head's last film, and she came to the set a lot. She brought a hat that had been used by Ever Gardner, and there was no second. They usually have a replacement hat, and she wanted to make sure nobody damaged it so she'd be on

i remember her being very old at the time and and she was i remember saying why don't you lie down on the couch and i covered her let her sleep she was very old and but what a great great woman and credit goes to michael chapman and your old uh your old collaborator bud molin oh yeah bud molin who did all of the Van Dyke shows and did a sensational job of editing. The editing on this show was so much fun. We spent days and days and days editing

and it's seamless. It looks like Steve Martin had to play everybody. We had all these dark-haired actors from Raymour Land who were talking to the other actors. The back of his head had to be black. Oh, it was a real labor of love.

It's my favorite work project. I just love working on it. You watch it and you're trying to figure out how did they do this. I've heard you say it was like solving a crossword puzzle. It was exactly that. Exactly that. And you got to play your Von Stroheim. Yeah.

Yeah, I gave myself a good job. The first of many times that you played Eric Von Stroheim, that you sent up Eric Von Stroheim. No, that's the best version of Stroheim I ever did. I love Rachel Ward in it. Yeah, she's it yeah when she's listening to the two

of us explain how we did it she listens to uh to her lover's explanation with a smile and when i explain she's grimacing at me we we said i have the right to tell how it is done no it's the right of the uh anyway that was one of the funniest endings you mentioned the comic too before in passing which is yes which is also and speaking of aaron rubin and another one of your labors of love well the comic i think and i've said this before if people take a really good look at it, they'll see that Dick Van Dyke, they owe him either a nomination or a winning of Academy Award. That was one of the great performances.

He played a sourpussed man. And by the way, a clear-cut version of many comics of the day who were drunkard and, as a matter of fact, Keaton, there was a guy named Neil Hamilton. They were all sad, sad people. a scene in it where the character goes to a bar, gets drunk with a woman he doesn't know, and they're slobbering on the table. Next thing you know, they wake up in a bed. They're married.

And actually, Buster Keen, somebody actually married somebody he didn't know he'd married the night before. Wow. And that was in there. What about the scene of driving the car up the staircase through the front door? Oh, yes. You And that was in there. What about the scene of driving the car up the staircase through the front door? Oh, yes. You remember that? I remember.

He crashes the car through the door. Yes. And Mickey Rooney has to tell him it's the wrong house. Yeah, he says, they're in the wrong house. He wants to get rid of his wife. He's throwing all the furniture out of the window and all the clothes and then he gets in the car and drives up the wrong driveway.

And by the way, we had to build that interior of our house. It really looked wonderful. And I remember there's a scene where he's watching it like, it's a memory of his that he's watching like a movie. Oh, yeah. Yeah, forget me not. At the very end of the movie, it's like the baker's chocolate

where you see the picture of the chocolate on the box and there's another picture of the chocolate on the box. And he's watching an old movie. I say that because one day I'm watching the movie on the screen here in my house and I'm sitting there and I'm watching the end of the movie on the screen here in my house. And I'm sitting there and I'm watching the end of the movie where he's watching himself, watching a movie.

Dick Van Dyke is watching his own movie and I'm watching the movie I made of a guy watching. And my son Lucas comes in the front door, watching me, watching the movie, watching the laws of parody. Surreal. And,

and I remember there's a scene at the end where he's old and forgotten about and ruined. And he has the alarm set. And he wakes up in the middle of the night to watch one of his old movies. Very touching. Forget me not. That's what he's watching. And I love the end of the picture where she's blind and he goes off down the road and his wife his blind wife touches his face

she's her hands are full of mud she puts mud on this she doesn't know it and she's she waves goodbye and her mother turns her she's waving the wrong way she's going that different road and she turns the blind girl so she's waving correctly yeah that was a lovely moment so it was a composite character carl it was it was a little bit of of stan laurel a little bit of harold lloyd a little bit of yeah right yeah laurel was not an unhappy man but Keaton and Lloyd Hamilton and a few others like that. And his best friend there is also a composite.

Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney was playing. That was the strangest thing ever. I said, there's nobody going to play just the Conklin character who was a cross-eyed comic in those days. They laughed at cross-eyed comic in those days.

They laughed at cross-eyed people. And so I said, there's no but. And I remember the first day I said to Mickey, Mickey, you don't have to keep your eyes crossed. You keep your head down. And I said, only when we do close-ups, you know. So I said, you, so don't. He said, I can't cross my eyes.

And I thought he was joking. He can play every instrument in the band. He can do every accent in the world. He can do every, he's the single most talented human ever at that time. And he said, no, I can't. I said, I could teach it to you. Just put your finger by your nose and look at your finger. He couldn't do it.

We had to get a prosthesis made for his eye, and the prosthesis had to be put in by a doctor because he couldn't stay more than a few seconds. His eye would tear up and get red. So I remember having to say, roll camera, put in the eye, action. The doctor would put in the eye, cut, take the cut, and he'd sit there. It was the most amazing thing. A man who could do anything couldn't wear a glass eye.

I remember an interview someone did with Sammy Davis Jr., and they said, you're the greatest performer in the world. And they said, you're the greatest performer in the world. And Sammy Davis said, no, Mickey Rooney is the greatest performer in the world. Yeah, I think he might be close to something. Of course, Sammy could say that because he probably was the greatest performer in the world. Certainly was the most talented tap dancer, singer. He took into everything.

We got to ask you about Where's Papa, Carl. If you'll indulge us, it's a favorite of Gil's and mine. Okay. And it's just, I've heard it described as ahead of its time. I guess it was. I guess it was in one of your books. You said as of the printing of that book, it still hadn't made its money back. No, no.

Which I find unbelievable. Robert Klain wrote the book, and they said they want to adapt it. I read it, and I said, this can't be done. And they said, but he did it. I said, well, then if he did it, he wrote it. I'll do it. I knew it was going uphill all the way, but it was fun doing it. The people in it were wonderful.

They don't make truly black comedies like that anymore. I know, I know. It didn't do as well as they had hoped. And we had Ron Liebman on our podcast. No kidding. We had Ron here, yeah. And there's a story about you shooting him running naked in the park? Yes.

Under the watch of the police? Yeah, and the police came. We did it early in the morning, like 2, 3, 4 in the morning, and we were crossing the street to go to the building, and the policeman showed up, and I said, where the hell's his underwear? Put his underwear. What is he doing? And he ran into the building

and we got the shot. I said, I don't know what happened. The policeman let us go. I think he knew we had been fighting the law. We did a short episode of this podcast where we just talked about Where's Papa? And I'll say it again

to our listeners. You've got to see this movie. Find it. Yeah. Ruth Gordon, George Segal, Ron Liebman, Trish Vanderveer.

If you like to see Ruth Gordon kissing George Segal's ass. Biting it, I think. Biting him. Yeah. Terrific film. Really terrific.

And Frank and I were talking about your singing. Yes. He's known to sing a song or two. I always wanted to be an opera singer when I was a kid. And actually, when I was very young, I wanted to be an Irish tenor because my father had a friend called Max Kalfas, who was his friend in Austria. But he had a brother called John Calvin,

who used to have a radio program every Sunday morning. And he would sing Irish songs. And he said, my name is John Calvin, and I'd like you to sing a song my mother sang to me when I was a wee lad. And I thought I could be an Irish tenor. And I remember the song I heard. I'm a long way from home And it's there that I roam To old air and far over the sea

Oh, me heart, it is there Where the skies are so fair And old Ireland is calling me Oh, I want to go back To that tumble-down shack Where the bright roses bloom round the door just to feel on my head whether anyway that's the song i still remember it but i but i really want to be an opera singer and the only problem i had is i sing off key and out of rhythm otherwise i i did have a good voice and I haven't done this in a long time and I'm going to try it

from Leon Cavalli's Pagliacci I will now sing for you Vesti la juba, I'll go as far as I can ok you can cut me off anytime no no no, this is a gift to us recitar

mentre presso dal delirio non so poi fice dico singing in Italian I'm getting dizzy. That's enough. Phenomenal. I, you know, hearing your speaking voice, it is so amazing to hear you sing. He's got pipes. Yeah. Yes, no, I'm not in good shape these days.

I'm approaching 95 and you don't, I had a bad day yesterday and today is not much better. This is a good part of the day. And right now I'm about to say goodbye and lie down on my bed and watch the news and see if Trump has trumped himself out of office. Can we get to ask you Billy Persky's question? Yes, yes, yes. I asked Bill, I said, we have Carl on tomorrow,

do you have one question? And he said, ask him about the Royal Air Force exercise scissor kicks. Oh, yeah. Yes. There was a thing called the Royal Air Force exercise scissor kicks. Oh, yeah. Yes. There was a thing called the Royal Force exercise, and I used to do them. I'd get out of bed and do them every morning. And after a number, you work from 10 to 20 to 30.

I was up to like 400 or 300 runs in places. And at one point, they do these scissor kicks. And I did them on some show. I was doing this, always showing. Oh, it's Marty Landau. I said, how the hell do you do these, the hundred of these scissor kicks? I said, I'm done.

The scissor kick was a run in place. It's just to relax. I was doing them up in the air. One way and then the other way. I did 100. I almost had a heart attack. That was the scissor kick, yeah. Can we just throw out names to you before we?

Well, one, of course, Jerry Lewis. Maybe the most talented comedian ever. No question about it. Also, so gifted in many areas, invented the three-camera technique, watching yourself filming a thing. You know, he was the biggest star that ever lived. When he and Lewis Martin were together,

I first met him when he came to see Call Me Mr. in Boston. And he introduced himself. He's wearing the Latin quote, I'd like your cast, bring your cast. You're getting $1,500 a week. And I saw the funniest human being I've ever seen in my life. He was a monkey, but hilarious. The audience was roaring. And from then on, he developed and developed and

developed and at one point he was the biggest star in the world there's a documentary on him my people were dying to to see him he turned into uh he knew everything about everything he was uh he just was a genius category that thing he did when he did that in Florida, that one-man movie where he... Oh, the Bellboy? Bellboy, yeah. Yeah. That was an incredible piece of work. Carl, we could go on for hours.

We're going to plug your books. Okay. We could go on. We didn't get to a lot of stuff and and if you're up for it we'll do another one down the road i'll tell you about these two books that i have with me can you see this yes we can he's holding it up carl reiner now you're 94 a graphic diary a graphic diary i love this book and this one i love because it's about the favorite episodes that I did that were based on my wife and I's experiences. But I have two more books coming out.

That one. Oh, that's called The Why and When of the Dick Van Dyke Show. Then there's one called Too Busy to Die. How many books do you have coming out, Carl? That's one coming out. Amazing. Just been sent to the printers. But one coming out next week is a title that I love.

It's called, You Say God Bless You for Sneezing and Farting. And here's the book. Hold it up so we can see it. So I love the cover. Yeah. That's great. Carl Reiner, Too Busy to Die. And it's a picture of Carl primping his bow tie.

Yes. It's great. I want to plug the other books, too. The ones I bought were I Remember Me, which is great. My Anecdotal Life, which you wrote a bunch of years ago. We have to send you those others. We have two other books called, there's a trilogy that's called I Remember Me,

I Just Remember, and What I Forgot to Remember. Make sure we send Gilbert. Full of great stories. And let me plug the children's books too. Oh, the children's book is called... Well, there's Tell Me a Silly Story and Tell Me a Scary Story.

Oh, Tell Me a Silly Story, Tell Me a Scary Story. But I wrote another children's book called The Treasure of Takapaka, which is illustrated. A beautiful book. But the fart book is going to be... I didn't write the first fart book.

Many books on farting have been written. The first one written in 1760 by Benjamin Franklin called Fart Proudly. Look it up. I have a copy of it at home. You do? Yeah.

I always get a kick that Mel named the governor in Blazing Saddles. Right. What's the connection there? You tell us. Petromaine. Yeah, Petromaine. Yeah, well, he was the famous guy who farted songs with his... That's right.

That's comedy history. Years ago from Canada, there was a thing called a crepitation contest. That was a radio broadcast, maybe the funniest thing of all, where they had a crepitation contest who could fart the loudest and best. And there was a farting post, and they named them theirs. It's a three, another three, and a flutter blast. And the last thing was, I never forgot the ending of that. It was, and he's going to scorn the use of the farting post.

Here he goes. A three. A three. Another three. Two flutter blasts. Another flutter blast. And oh, he's shit. Oh, and I got to ask you something I forgot to ask before when you mentioned him.

We're not letting you go, Carl. That's Max Liebman. Yes. That became Max Bialystock and Mel Brooks' The Producers, didn't he? I don't know that. No, no, not really, because Max Liebman was a really bona fide producer.

Bialystock was a guy who was, no, he invented that, a guy who got, yeah, no. Max Lieben found all these wonderful people we're talking about. He was the only man who could do a weekly show because he worked at Tammerment and he did a new show every week for three weeks. He did a new show every week for three weeks. When he finally got on television, he said, my God, we got a new show every week for 13 to 32 weeks.

And he did it. And he had Sid, who did a monologue every week there. Monologue, after three weeks, you repeat your monologue. Carl, we could go on with you forever. We want to thank Sal Maniaci, who set this up. We want to thank Bess, your assistant. this up we want to thank bess your assistant yes thank you i'll tell them and we want to thank larry and thanks he's right here thanks for doing this and and you talk about being 94 and having bad days and yet you're busier than ever your book yeah i know but you're writing books. You're appearing on TV. Yeah. Oh, yes. And the thing I'm looking forward to in March, they're doing Oceans with Sandra Bullock.

Oh, yeah. They're doing a female. Right. Oceans 8. Yeah, Oceans 8. And they asked me to be in it, so I'm going to have a little bit part in it. Look forward to that. Wonderful.

Well, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And once again, we've been recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Ferdarosa. We have been talking all this time to the great, the legendary Carl Reiner. Goodbye, darling. Carl, thanks for taking the time, Reiner. Goodbye, darling. Carl, thanks for taking the time, buddy.

Oh, thank you, Carl.