Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts Encore

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

GGACP celebrates the 50th anniversary of "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts" (first aired October 31, 1974) with this ENCORE of a fun and informative 2016 mini-show as the boys look back at the best -- and WORST -- of the "classic" NBC specials that ran from 1974 to 1984. In this episode: Ruth Buzzi! The comedy of Foster Brooks! Orson Welles recites "That's Amore"! Ed Norton roasts...Jackie Gleason!? Gilbert meets Uncle Miltie! And the comedy stylings of Stanley Kramer! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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agreement with iGaming Ontario. The Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast Producer of the Month is Steve Corey. Thank you Steve. Be just like Steve and get rewarded for supporting our podcast. Head over to Patreon.com slash Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert and Frank's amazing colossal obsessions. I just stumbled a little bit and I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. My money was on you losing that. Yes. Not coming out with that correctly at all.

Yeah. So we got a lot of wonderful responses to the Bob Hope. Yeah. Which is interesting in that we were in the booth at Nutmeg and you weren't even going to to the Bob Hope. Yeah. Which is interesting in that we were in the booth at Nutmeg and you weren't even going to talk about Bob Hope. Yes, but it just got me on that subject because that last Bob Hope special works as one of the greatest horror films ever made.

The Jack Frost. Yes. We got a lot of mail. Oh my God. We got a lot of tweets. It kind of struck me when I was watching that special, like this is Dolores getting back at Bob for all the times he's cheating on her.

She dresses him up when he should be. He should be six feet under. And she keeps him alive. She won't let him die. And she dresses him in funny outfits. And icicles hanging off his chest. Yes, yes. Dresses him in funny outfits for the world to laugh at.

It's so scary. If you guys didn't hear that episode, check out. Go and Google Bob Hope slash Jack Frost. And you'll thank us or hate us. Now this week, along those lines, something that involved the participation of Bob Hope. And it's kind of a train wreck in its own right, maybe not quite as bad a train wreck.

And it's something we've talked about on the show before. So this is a colossal obsession, but not a recommendation. So it's a negative obsession. Yo, okay. Those are even better. But it has its moments. As was proven with the Bob Hope spin.

Well, we've talked about these before, and these are the Dean Martin celebrity roasts. Oh yes, yes. From the 70s, which I've been watching on YouTube and I gotta tell ya, and there I sound like Bob. Oh yeah, I gotta tell ya. Yeah, I gotta tell ya, that brick egg clean. Ah, I see something in there.

These things are surreal. Have you seen them recently? I've seen them, I see them in the commercials. Yeah, they sell the, there's a box set. Yeah, very peculiar. Well, there were 54 of them made. I did a little research. Between 1974, they started out as part of the old Dean Martin show. And then they became kind of a spin-off. They became standalones. Between 74 and 84, they made 54 of these things.

And as we've talked about before, they were shot in Burbank and in the MGM Grand in Vegas, and many times the same people weren't in the room. They were reacting to... I remember, I met Milton Berle a handful of times, and one time he said he had just shot a roast and and he said how he sometimes he'd be by himself and the director would just point the camera at him and say okay Now you've just heard a real shocking joke.

Like you're shocked, you laugh, but ooh, how did they get away with that? And now like somebody really zinged you, okay, get a little offended. And so he wasn't even there. Often the people they were reacting to were shot in Cal or in a different state. Yeah at a different time I knew that and we've discussed that what I didn't know is that they would they got so lazy that they would use the same reaction shots in different specials. Oh geez Apparently there's like a Michael Landon roast

Where they just kept they kept using the same shot of Dean in the tux from from previous roasts Oh, yeah, Because who would know? Yeah, because he's wearing the same tux. No VCRs in those days. People weren't recording them and going back and looking at them. Once it was done, it was done. He could have been wearing an entirely different suit. You wouldn't even remember it.

And the laugh track is ridiculous. Oh yeah. I mean, you've got to listen to these things and then two on those roasts that used to bother me Was when the actors would come on sometimes as their Just wrote that down. Yeah, like Peter Falk shows us God it was that was horrible terrible and and art carny Gleason. Yeah, he shows up as Ed Norton. Right, right. And Ruth Buzzi would come on as the research I also found that Rickles was the one person, I think it was Rickles and Jonathan Winters, were the two people that didn't use writers.

Wow. The writers couldn't write for Rickles. He would basically do his own thing. And they would just give them, there were 10, 12 writers, led by this writer Harry Crane that Bill Persky talked about. Oh, okay. With us, remember that name? Yes.

And they would just give these guys just reams of jokes. And anybody could use them or not use them You know and and the thing was to it's like um back then before the Dean Martin Roast started which was primetime roast right Thursday nights. Yeah. Yeah, so you couldn't do what a roast what happens at a roast No, but before that they would have like the Friars Club roasts that weren't televised. Right, going back to the 20s. Yeah, and all these major stars would be filthy. Yep.

And they'd be bombed out of their skulls and cursing each other out. Yeah, these were sanitized versions of those, but you'd be surprised I was watching a bunch of them on YouTube doing research. I mean First of all before PC times. I mean there's gay jokes. Oh, yeah There's a lot mean Orson Welles is doing the very very strange gay stuff as he's reading the lyrics of that's a moray Oh, yeah, dramatic reading. There's a lot of racial racial stuff. Oh, yeah There's a lot of jokes about. Oh, yeah. There's all these jokes about Sammy. At Sammy's Roast, they open with a joke about the NBC Peacock

having an afro. Jan Murray does a joke about Sammy saying, if you keep closing your show with My Way and Frank finds out about it, you're going to wake up with a watermelon in your bed. It's like, I mean, it's unbelievably politically incorrect stuff. Oh yeah and now like the station would close down. Absolutely. There's a joke I wrote down. Daman Wilson shows up from San Francisco and he says he's they're roasting

Jack Benny and he calls Benny a visionary. He says he hired a black actor to play Rochester but he did it because he knew television was coming and it was going to cost him a fortune and Burt Cork. I'm watching this and I'm thinking, well, it's not as bawdy as an old Friar's roast, but they're getting away with a lot. Oh, yes. So apparently they did. Yeah, because it was a weird thing that back then it was generally accepted.

You know, you could do jokes like that. And you see everybody. You see everybody on these things. And it's that weird mixture. Yeah. Like you said, people in character. Yeah. Oh, the people in character I couldn't take.

Yeah, hard to take. That was embarrassing. Like, LaWanda Page, I think, would show up as Ann Esther. Oh, yes, yes. And I mean, I wrote down, down you know Foster Brooks, we talked about Ruth Buzzi, Angie Dickinson, Nipsey Russell, Barry Goldwater, and they would get these old actors, these legends like Gene Kelly and Orson Welles and John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart and then new comics they would break in. Oh yes! You know it was like Billy

Crystal and Gabe Kaplan. Oh and Freddie Prinze. And Freddie Prinze and Tony Orlando. And they're really dreadful. Oh, yeah. I don't know if it's not a recommendation, but it's sort of an obsession. And I read too that Red Fox apparently, and I don't know if this is true, there's not a lot of information about these.

I did a lot of research that Red Fox had a fight with Rickles supposedly and also, and I don't know why this is true, Red Fox, Michael Landon, Joe Namath, and Jack Klugman were the only people roasted twice, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Yeah. So, and it just, I just got to thinking about all the roasts and the roasts you've done and the Comedy Central roasts you've done and and the Comedy Central roasts you've done, and the fryer's roasts, and... I remember hearing a story that happened, they said they saw it at a restaurant. Don Rickles was in a restaurant, and while he was sitting there, Morgan Freeman walked by. Okay.

And Don Rickles said, oh, Morgan, they let you out of the kitchen. Unbelievable. But he's still doing that shit. And he got in trouble, Don Rickles, of all people, and they cut it out when they finally televised it, where Don Rickles said, he did a joke about the president, and he said, but I don't mean anything against Obama, he's a friend of mine, he was over the house yesterday, but then his mom broke.

Unbelievable. Ha ha ha ha ha. I have to say too that Dean Martin's biographer Nick Toshis, did you read that book? No, I never read that. He called it, he was not a fan of the roasts. He called it a dais of despair. Yeah. And I think he captured some of the feeling of those things. Oh yeah, they're very uncomfortable. Yeah.

All these things that they sell on those infomercials Yeah, you can buy them on guthy ranker. Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, it's got the ranker. Yeah Yeah, you can still buy them. Yeah those like all of them. None of them hold up No, like the Carol Burnett show. No, no, no, they're all dated. Yeah. This was the exact quote, It's a dais of despair, They sat at banquet tables at either side of the podium,

the undead of dreamland, and the fleeting stars of the television seasons. Ooh. Which really kind of captures the, that's what I mean, I mean they're great time capsules and it's great to see all these people,

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podcast $100 off go to Selfiestationpodcast.com and support our show by entering promo code Gilbert. That's Selfiestationpodcast.com promo code Gilbert. It's kind of like, um's a mad mad mad mad world. Yeah, same feeling. It's like, it's great in that you just have all these people on film, but none of them are at their best in it. No. A handful of people come off well. Yeah. Dick Shawn's funny. Yeah, but... And Winters is funny.

For the most part, the film's a mess. It's a mess. Well, Stanley Kramer. Yeah, yes. The guy who made Judgment at Nuremberg, turns around and makes an all-star comedy. Yeah, Mr. Comedy himself. Defiant ones, he wasn't a funny guy. Yeah.

Inherit the wind. And it looked like it was directed by like 50 different directors. Yeah, it's a mess. But you love it because it's, again, because all those people are in it. Yeah, and oh, and... And it's a historical document. And it's like Spencer Tracy is basically stuck with explaining it, trying to make it into a coherent thing.

The exposition, like every now and then it'll go back to the station house and Spencer Tracy's pointing at the map on the wall going, well right now Henderson is stuck in this abandoned building and he's going to try to dynamite it. He's charting it with William Demarest. Yes, yes.

Aloysius. Ha ha ha ha ha. It's great. I watched it recently with my wife, I guess it was on TCM, and it's a mess. Oh, yeah. But there are moments. Caesar's funny when he's trapped in the hardware store

and he's trying to blow his way out of there. I mean, he plays it. Terry Thomas is funny. You know, it's hard to fuck these guys up. They're all naturally funny. But I remember getting back to Peter Falk, who was also a Madman. Right, he's the cab driver in the third act.

And he says that when he was doing that movie, how fun it was coming to the set, and they'd all be hanging out together Oh each one of them trying to be out to the other one joking and insulting each other and I thought you know the making of Mad Mad World would have been a better film. Would have been. Yeah. Would have been. I wonder if no one's made a documentary about it but also just like I, just the fact that all of those guys are on film together. Yeah, I said another time capsule film.

Keaton and Jerry Lewis and the Stooges and Uncle Milton. And Jack Benny pops up. And Benny pops up and they're all in there, even though they're not all, and Durante, who you love. Oh yeah. But they're not all well-serviced. And Arnold Stang and Marvin Kitman. Arnold Stang and Marvin, yeah.

Marvin Kitman. Marvin Kaplan. Marvin Kitman. Marvin Kitman. Marvin Kaplan. Marvin Kitman was the film critic at Newsday. It's not the Maleshko Theater, it's the Marashko Theater. So quickly getting back to jokes and then we'll sign off. You've done a million roasts. Do you remember your favorite roast jokes? Oh, God. Do you remember the ones you're proud of?

Because I love your Cloris Leachman one from the Saget roast. Oh, well, in the Cloris Leachman one, or, oh, that was from the, was that the Saget roast, like, Cloris Leachman one? Yeah, when you did the whole thing about Bob Saget raped a girl. Oh, yeah, I said Bob Saget raped and killed a girl in 1990. Right, but then you did the Cloris thing, where the, uh, she's so old. Oh, I thought, wasn't that about, that wasn't Joan Rivers, that was about Cloris?

Cloris Leachman. Yeah. Yeah, I said... That's my favorite. Her, uh, Cloris Leachman is so old, her breasts say colored and white so much. Right, but then you add, but then you add lips. Then I, yeah, then I added on, and it was a shameful moment in this country's history when I saw them push nipsey rocks. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Away from Clarence Leachman's tit. Yes, yes. Yes. Oh, God. Three that I liked were, one was Belzer and two were Jeff Ross.

Just as long as we're talking about roasts, these were at Friar's Roast at the Hilton, which they don't televise. And if you can get a ticket, if anybody's listening to this and wants to get a ticket to a Friar's Roast, it's really well, it's well worth it. But at the Jerry Lewis roast, Jeff Ross said, he was following Nathan Lane, and he said, Nathan and Jerry have a lot in common, they both started sucking in the 70s.

Which is one I liked. And I liked Jeff saying about Betty White that she was so old, the first game show she was on, the prize was fire. I think that's a phenomenal joke. It reminds me of a joke and I forget who said it, but it was at one of the roasts and Debbie Harry was on the dais and someone said Debbie Harry was going to sing tonight but she lost her voice in 1975. I love that. And Belzer at the, I guess it was at the Tom Cruise roast or the, not Tom Cruise roast,

at the Matt Lauer roast Tom Cruise showed up but Belzer was following Freddie Roman. I've told you this one million times and he and he looks down at Freddie and he says Poor Freddie Roman never made it to the big time said Jack Ruby had a longer TV career Oh, and I remember, oh, I remember at the Joan Riffish roast, after I did my whole roast of her, then she went up and said, oh, after watching Gilbert Gottfried, it makes me want to drive to Malibu and blow Mel Gibson So anyway, unfortunately none of those things will ever be seen no they're in-house Yeah, Friars tapes them and keeps them under wraps But they'll never be but if you can if if you can ever get to a Friars roast or buy a ticket there but they'll never be, but if you can ever get to a Friars Roast or buy a ticket, they're worth going to. There's some great, some of the hardest laughs I've ever had in my life.

Anyway, so do you have an obsession or are we just going to talk about the roast and it's a mad mad world? I think we'll just keep talking about the roast. We'll wrap it up. Okay. So this has been, if I can remember, we were talking about the roast and we went back a little to the Bob Hope specials again and the roast and Mad, Mad World. You know, we should get whoever's alive from the roasts just to ask them about it. Because there's not a lot of information. I don't know if on the special editions, on the disks, there's information.

Ruth Buzzy's alive. Oh, that's right. the special editions, on the discs, there's information. Ruth Buzzi's alive. Oh, that's right. Daman Wilson, Gabe Kaplan, not too many people. Artie Johnson. Artie Johnson's around. Not too many people, but we really should do that. And oh, we should say another goodbye and farewell to Abe Vagoda. Yes.

The great Abe Vagoda. Yes, we're recording this the day after you performed at Abe's service. Yes. And made the cover of the New York Post. Yeah. So, yeah, so I'm glad you brought that up. I even wound up in a paper in England. I'm glad you brought that up.

I'm sorry we never got Abe on the show. He was a dollop. Oh, yeah. We both got to work with him numerous times. Yeah, that was a shame. In the next life. We loved you Abe. Okay, so this has been Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. That's it. Give me that fact, colossal obsessions!

Give me that fact, colossal obsessions! Give me that fact, colossal obsessions! Give it up, Rats! Colossal Obsessions