The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie and Katya - Bruce Vilanch's New Hyundai Has a Blind Spot with Trixie

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

If one were to print out all of Bruce Vilanch's writing, acting, and producing credits on a dot-matrix printer and lay that continuous piece of paper on the ground, it would encircle the world approximately one hundred and eighty seven times. From The Brady Bunch Variety Hour to the famously infamous Star Wars Holiday Special starring Bea Arthur and Harvey Korman to too many awards shows to count, two-time Emmy-Winner Bruce Vilanch is a walking, talking encyclopedia of Hollywood history. Come join us for an exceedingly charming chat with a true living legend. To pre-order Bruce's brand-new book, "It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time," click HERE. Save on the perfect gift by visiting https://AuraFrames.com to get $35-off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames by using promo code BALD at checkout. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays! Terms and conditions apply. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://BetterHelp.com/BALD and get on your way to being your best self! Need a website? Head to https://www.SquareSpace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to https://www.SquareSpace.com/BALD to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain! Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to https://Zocdoc.com/BALD to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today! Follow Bruce: @BruceVilanch Follow Trixie: @TrixieMattel Follow Katya: @Katya_Zamo To watch the podcast on YouTube: http://bit.ly/TrixieKatyaYT Don’t forget to follow the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: http://bit.ly/baldandthebeautifulpodcast If you want to support the show, and get all the episodes ad-free go to: https://thebaldandthebeautiful.supercast.com If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: http://bit.ly/baldandthebeautifulpodcast To check out future Live Podcast Shows, go to: https://trixieandkatyalive.com To order your copy of our book, "Working Girls", go to: workinggirlsbook.com To check out the Trixie Motel in Palm Springs, CA: https://www.trixiemotel.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is sponsored by the digital picture frame that will literally change your entire perception of what a digital picture frame can be. Aura Frames. It's December, dear listeners. That big holiday where the bearded gentleman descends from your rooftop to bring joy and cheer via beautifully wrapped presents is mere weeks away. And when you give an aura frame as a gift, you can personalize and preload it with a thoughtful message and photos using the Aura app, making it an ideal present for long-distance loved ones who you don't get to see very often. It's got unlimited storage so I can share my collection of daily photos I took in 2024 to capture the evolution of my rock-hard abdominal muscles. Save on the

perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames by using promo code BALD at checkout. That's A-U-R-A, frames.com using promo code bald at checkout. That's A U R A frames.com promo code bald. This deal is exclusive to listeners so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. If you've been in a coma for the past 30 years, you might not know what a website is or that we now eat entire salads from that green leafy thing that used to be a decoration on the Sizzler salad bar. First off, I'd like to welcome you to 2024, where everything is wonderful and the earth is fine.

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with after pay and clear pay. So go ahead and check out squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash bald to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Again, that's squarespace.com slash bald to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Today's episode of Bald in the Beautiful sponsored by Airbnb. Y'all, the holidays are upon us. I have to tell you guys, I had not been to Wasaki, Wisconsin in so many years since pre COVID.

And I went up there last month. And of course my whole family moved to Milwaukee. You guys know, I bought my mama house and so everyone lives in Milwaukee now. So I had nowhere to stay and there's not even, um, like hotels in that area. It's such a small area. So I got on Airbnb and my host Jodi. Hi Jodi. She probably doesn't listen to this or know who I am. But she made it so easy.

Her cabin was beautiful. It was like right in the middle of my small town so I knew exactly where it was. The wifi, the heating, and it was like a family cabin so it had a bunch of like, you know, DVDs. You know when you go on vacation and just like watch, you know, movies with your family. It was perfect for staying a couple days.

It had everything for cooking. It had knives. Like because it's a real family's cabin, I didn't have to bring anything. In my suitcase, I packed a pan. I packed like a spatula because I thought it'd be cooking breakfast and they had all of that. It was so nice. You know, it was just perfect for me and it slept eight, but honestly it was so affordable that I just got it anyway. So instead of a bunch of kids beds being used and stuff, it was just like, I had a full bedroom. It was like perfect, perfect for me. I could have never achieved like that experience of like relaxed

and everything kind of provided for me if I had stayed in a hotel. I mean a hotel in rural Wisconsin. So check out airbnb.com or check out the Airbnb app, download it. I cannot recommend it enough. Trips are always better with Airbnb. You guys, we're in the studio today. Oh my gosh. Obviously we have Bruce Fulanch here.

Clap, clap, clap. Oh, thank you. That's one pair of hands. Sorry, I'm better looking at the microphone. That's one person clapping, but you know that's 100% of the. Sorry, I'm very busy looking at the microphone. That's one person clapping, but, you know, that's 100% of the people in the room. But a ferocious clapper. A ferocious clap. Big time.

Today we have with us legendary comedy writer, today we have with us legendary comedy writer, actor, singer, he's won Emmys for writing for the Academy Awards and was a judge on Drag Race. It is Bruce Valanche. Hello, thankanche. Hello. Thank you. Hello, my camera.

This is you. This is me. I know. This is a fabulous profile shot of me, which is amazing. I do kind of look like Alfred Hitchcock. What do you think about this? Everybody hates our new set. We just painted it blue.

What do you think? It's not gay enough. You think? And it's very self-referential, we just painted it blue, what do you think? It's not gay enough. You think? No, and it's very self-referential, so I suppose it should be, but why not? And these flowers are even, these are, oh well, they're plastic, but. They're plastic, they are.

They're not, it's a gay touch, sort of. Yeah. But it's lovely, what's not to love? And you got color-coded pink and purple microphones. Isn't that nice? Red and, they all look like, you know, I mean horses when they're happy.

Studs at least. Well, you're kind of like, you know, when we have Katya, she's worn wigs like your hair in her career. So it kind of feels like we have her here today. She's worn a Bruce wig. Yes. Do people go as you for Halloween? Do I Yes. Do people go as you for Halloween? Do I what?

Do people go as you for Halloween? Oh yeah, they do actually. Yes. I mean, I have, I wasn't, when I was living in West Hollywood and I had both tender, tender queens a restaurant there and I would, on Halloween would come and I'd be on my balcony and I would watch the Bruce's go by. There was a period where there was, there was, you know

it was an easy thing for a fat guy to do. Just, you know, just put on a blonde wig and a t-shirt that said something obscene, and it was me. The eyewear also. The eyewear, the red glasses, yeah. Yeah. It's easy to find, that's true. And, you know, I always wore glasses,

but when I was on Hollywood Squares, I had different glasses every night, but then the prescription changed. And I would have to take a second mortgage to get them all. So it happened that week on the show, we had Sally Jessie Raphael. I was just, we're so psychic. Who was, for those of you who are too young to remember,

a talk show host who did a kind of Oprah sort of show in the daytime and she had two blonde with red glasses and we had the same lawyer actually. So I said, I said, I have to get all these glasses changed. She said, she said, she said, well, you can have red ones if you want. I said, no, but that's your brand. And she said, I'm retiring.

I said, oh, may I? So I took the red glasses and that's all I wear now. I was listening to you talk and I was like, it's Sally Jessie, it really is. And so it's like crazy that you to you talk and I was like, it's Sally Jessie, it really is. And so it's like crazy that you brought that up because I was like, it is kind of Sally Jessie. It's Sally Jessie if she shaved, but. It's also a little bit Ghostbusters, what do you want?

Remember her in Ghostbusters, she has like fun glasses. No, actually. Remember their receptionist in Ghostbusters? Oh yeah, yeah. I'm gonna say Carole Kane, but it it wasn't Carol Kane. It was someone like that. She's so gorgeous. Like Annie Potts or somebody like that. Yeah, like a character actress much. Very pretty though. A cute character actress, yes. Why do you think, do you think the character actress means unattractive? Generally. I hate that. Well, you know, it

means it's old school and it's not leading lady. Right. It's a supporting part and it's, so she's not the romantic interest in the picture. Right. So she's the character actress she becomes. And it just, it's bled down from the studio system is one of those things that remains. I do think it can be probably kind of difficult for women to do comedy when,

well, when they're excessively gorgeous. I feel like, don't you feel like entertainment loves like, you have to be like either like the hot slut in everything? Yeah, it's very difficult, I think, to be gorgeous and funny. I mean, that's why Lisa LaValle was such a huge star because she was spectacular. I mean, she was a show girl,

but yet she did all this physical stuff and she was funny. I mean, she had intense, amazing timing. And you find people who have that. Julia Roberts is very funny. And Renee Zellweger and Reese Witherspoon, I mean, they've got comic chops, so they can carry that stuff, the romantic stuff as well.

Rom-coms, if they ever come back. Rom-coms. I just watched Pretty Woman for the very first time. Really? I'd never seen it. I watched it last week. My god did I cry. Yeah. They really get you at the end there. Well, yes, Gary Marshall, he knew what he was up to. When he shows up in the limo, like her story about the white horse, I was watching it like, oh my god. And because it's so, even then it was kind of like really does this does this really happen? It was a fairy tale. It was you know, it was kind of fun

I mean, I want to find a rich guy who's gonna let me loose on Rodeo Drive Well, she did kind of have like a bob like yours in the beginning. Oh, really? I didn't notice remember when she's like in her prostitute outfit. She's like that little she's gonna have a bob Is this a bob? I didn't even know. It's just a blob is what I think. Well, I watched your documentary in preparation for this. By the way, to do homework about Bruce Vellanche is only opening a Pandora's box of how much there is to know. I was like, I felt like I was preparing for LSAT.

I was like, every time I found somebody that you knew, it was attached to another project that I knew, attached to another thing I've seen. You really, when people have you on things, your bio is like a scroll that hits the floor. I've been around, and when you do award shows, you meet a lot of people. But I had an agent once who said, you know, I went on your IMBD,

you can lose the last few pages. You can just, because it makes you seem much older than you are. I said, I'm exactly as old as I am. And I have nothing to hide. And I mean, I've written a book about that, so. Oh yeah, you have a new book. Tell us what the book is.

I have a book because I would do podcasts like this with people your age and younger, and they would ask me about these pieces of crap that I wrote in the 70s. Oh no, I'm gonna ask about some of those pieces of crap. I'm wearing one right now, the Paul Lind Halloween special because I refuse to let go of Halloween. I don't care how early Mariah Carey makes us love Christmas,

I am hanging on to Halloween. This was one of them, Star Wars Holiday Special, the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, I mean, and they kept, and they saw them all on YouTube. And the question to a of them was How did this happen? Yeah, who said yes to this and I thought there's a book here So I've written a book about how I wrote the worst TV shows of all time and lived and it's called it seemed like a bad idea at the time

And I've extended it to movies like can't stop the music which I wrote the village people movie I wrote the first draft of, and Broadway and other places where I've had disasters. So. You wrote a song for the Village People. I wrote, yes I did, I did an album for the Village People, which was actually banned by the BBC. Why?

Because we had a song called Sex Over the Phone that became a big hit in England. And the BBC said it was not to their standard. Don't you feel like that's almost like a safe sex PSA? Nobody can get an STI on the phone. I think exactly. It predated all of that. This is in the 80s. Right. So so well, it was actually in the middle of all of that.

But I so it was a sex positive message as they think about it. But yeah, they they they they banned it. And as a result, we positive message as they think about it. But yeah, they banned it and as a result we made a lot of money on it. So I always recommend getting banned because that wants to the flame. You know, I remember hearing that Lady Bunny would sometimes pay like a church lady, a church lady, someone to dress up like a church lady and pick at her show. That's funny. I didn't know that. You get good attention.

I'd never heard that. But yeah, I mean, people who, you know, that mean a lot, it's a traditional thing to do. It's a, you know, I mean, there's a word for it now. It's like, I don't know, not, not, I can't think of the word, but it's, it's what people often do just, you know, fake. It's just fake news.

It's a, they plant stuff to draw attention to whatever the thing they want to have attention drawn to. And then the fake stuff kind of goes away. And yeah. When did you start? I mean, you kind of know also know all the drag queens. I do. Well, I started in Chicago when I was

at the Chicago Tribune writing for the old school legendary drag queens who came through town. Charles Pierce, Lynn Carter, Jim Bailey, Craig Russell. I wrote for all four of them at once at the same time, which was strange because I, if one, if one didn't like the Mae West joke, I would give it to the other one. And who did the Mae West joke? That's just economical. We know I knew it worked.

I didn't, you know. It was all personal taste. And then it just kind of extended, although this whole new drag phenomenon came much later than that. I mean, there were certain people who broke through, like Jim Bailey was a Vegas headliner. But mostly it was drag queens and drag bars. And it slowly crept in. RuPaul came along and it transformed the whole thing. but mostly it was drag queens and drag bars and it slowly crept in. RuPaul came along and it transformed the whole thing. My God, yeah, you were.

And I wrote for him, her, them. They, that, she, I think she says you can call me he or she or Kathie Lee as long as you call me. I mean, but I think Ru's approach to like whatever you call her in drag is very inclusive. I don't think you can really offend RuPaul. I don't think you can offend RuPaul. No, well, the brand is love.

And if you're not gonna love yourself, who else are you gonna love? So I mean, it's all framed in that. And from the very beginning, from the moment that he was noticed, in the first book, he would talk about the ritual of getting into this character. And it is just all about love. So it comes from a different place. Drag was traditionally satirical.

Can I ask, I mean, I didn't find this in my research, but when did you meet RuPaul? Do you remember when that was? Yeah. He was doing his VH1 show. Oh, the RuPaul show. The RuPaul show. And I met him and he came up to me and he said, Bruce Ville Lange, you're in mahogany. Yeah.

32 minutes in. Yeah. So I raced home and put the VHS in the tape and 32 minutes in and there I am. I thought, not for nothing is this guy report. This guy's going to go places. This is a precision instrument. Well, he's obsessed with Diana Ross as we all know. Well, yeah, of course.

You work with Diana so much too. Well, I think, you know, a lot of black gay guys were obsessed with Dionne Warwick and Diana Ross because they were, and Diane Carroll, because they were glamorous, old school glamor. And there wasn't much of that, you know, for black guys to emulate. And so they latched on that because that's what they wanted to be when they got into their drag personas.

They wanted to be glamorous people. And they are. ["Dreams of a New World"] This episode is sponsored by the digital picture frame that will literally change your entire perception of what a digital picture frame can be. Aura Frames. It's December, dear listeners. That big holiday where the bearded gentleman descends from your rooftop to bring joy and cheer via beautifully wrapped presents is mere weeks away.

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The gray skies, the shorter days, the frigid temperatures that wreak havoc in nudist colonies. The changing of the seasons is always disruptive, but the arrival of winter seems to always be the harshest transition. Gone are the bright fiery colors of autumn and in their place come the monochromatic grays that seem to be the antithesis to vibrance and positivity. As we all fight the doldrums of winter, there is one weapon everyone must have in their arsenal,

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash bald. And that's also like with Vanessa Williams of the world, who I think you also know too, right? I know Vanessa, yeah. I met Vanessa when she was Miss America. Oh my gosh. You know, I did a couple seasons of a show with her, so I knew that she knew you, and I texted her about it, but I think she's in the UK right now, so the time zone. Yeah, she's doing Devil Wears Prada, the musical.

But I know that you knew her, and one time she told me her whole story. We were at dinner, and I was fortunate enough for her to tell me, basically. I was with, who was I with me, basically, I was with, who was I with? I forget who I was with, but someone asked, someone had the audacity to ask like, how did that all happen? And I was like, oh my god, I get to hear firsthand like how that all happened. And it's wild what happened to her. Oh yeah. So unfair, so crazy. I know, nuts. It was nuts. But you know, the unfortunate thing is so much is branding. Miss America is a brand.

Right. And she was the first black Miss America and it was a big deal. And then, of course, art studies surfaced, as they do for many gorgeous girls who need to put bread on the table. Right. And not bread, because when you bread, that's too fattening. But other things on the table. The suggestion of bread.

The suggestion. suggestion of bread. The suggestion, mock bread. So it was a gigantic scandal because the brand was so lily white and wholesome, and here she comes along and we discover that she has a sordid past. So back then that was quite a big deal. Of course, now it's, you know, Miss America is kind of like, it's been duplicated by so many other pageants. And also the whole idea of Miss America is, I'm gorgeous in a bathing suit,

but I really wanna be a nuclear scientist. Right. You know, and so I need a scholarship. I mean, it's kind of like. I think it was hard for Vanessa because she was a serious like musical theater actress, like dancer singer. Yeah. And she wasn't a pageant girl.

So then after the Miss America thing, when she would go into auditions, she said it was difficult for her to get taken seriously because these casting agents immediately placed her attached to the scandal. So they're like, great, beautiful singing, we loved your monologue, we don't know if we can put you in this.

And that was probably heartbreaking for her because I don't think she cared about. If it's, when this was happening to her, television was still a sponsored medium right not like there are no streamers today i mean and mostly they were concerned about Kraft cheese not wanting to be associated with her and therefore not doing the show so they would get rid of the problem because they didn't want to get rid of the money. And that also morphed as more different channels began showing up that were not, uh, that were not supported by advertising.

But on a movie, on the studio level, then it becomes an ethical decision. It's like, uh, how hurt we think we're going to be by this. And, uh, it's because they don't have sponsors to concern themselves. But they have stockholders, but that's not the story. But also for Vanessa, like everyone who was remotely racist, who followed pageants, was waiting for her to make any mistake. Well, that's true. Absolutely. She accidentally ended up being responsible for like the perception of, you know, You know, it's like Wanda Sykes hosted the White House Correspondents' Dinner

the first year that Obama was president. And she says, it's so exciting to have a black president. She said, but you know, we're all sitting here waiting to see what the verdict will be. If it will be, we had a black president, wasn't he wonderful? Who was that half black guy who fucked everything up right I know it's wild yeah that's Wanda but yeah well that's how you thought watching there's so much

on her shoulders because you know I mean it's the Lena Horne story right you know it's it's you're the one yeah so you have to be perfect to be perfect yeah that was like you watching Sally Jesse. You were like, this bitch in the red glasses better not ruin this. That's right. Get contacts. Your IMDb and your Wikipedia. I mean, it was you really have just done every single thing with everything. But I have to tell you, I went on your Twitter.

Have you been on your Twitter for a while? Have I? I have a I have a Twitter, a twat like I have a twat account, but I never post. I read other things. So there are a lot of good naked people on there, so that's fun. I'm gonna tell you that your first post was in July 2011, and your last post was in November 2011.

I think so, yeah. You lasted about five months on Twitter. I did, you know, I probably didn't get laid, that's the problem. I was only on there to get laid. And like your first tweet, I believe, was, my hyena, Alantra has a blind spot. And I was like, I guess he didn't get the automotive help

he wanted, and he left. That was me, or that could have been fake me. There are a lot of fake me's out there. Oh my god, yeah, people could really like Andy Warhol you. Yeah, they could go to a red carpet event and be like, hello, it's me. Yeah, exactly. Here's the hair, here's the blessings.

There's one reason why I don't do it. But also it's too soul draining. I'm on Facebook, which I call sit on my Facebook because I also am looking to get laid there because I can't go on Grindr. Why? Because they don't want to have sex with me. I mean, the ones who do do I'm not interested in and the

They'd want to meet me or something else But they there and not not on I wouldn't be on grinder for that Right, so I find it doesn't work for me to be to be real or you get reported I know it needs kind of age out and then you get into people who are like Too kinky for me, you know, I'm In Los Angeles people are, I'm very vanilla. In Los Angeles, people are like, I'm not meeting up unless like the bone collector level,

like violence and like kink that has to occur for someone to get in their car and come over. Whatever happened to just little, let's just kiss and touch it and go home. Right, yeah. But now it's like, oh, well, I'm obviously gonna have to urinate on you. And then I'm gonna punch you in the face. There's one of my favorite old jokes.

This is from George Slaughter who created Laugh Inland. Favorite. Who I worked with on a million different things. It's hysterically funny. He said, it's a guy picks up a girl at the bar and they go home. And she says, do you want to get kinky? And he says, yeah. And she says, hang on, I'll change.

She goes upstairs and she comes down about five minutes later and he's on his way out the door. She's in her full dominatrix outfit. And she says, where are you going? I thought you wanted to be kinky. He says, yeah, I did. I shit in your hat and fucked your cat. I'm outta here.

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so be sure to check their site for details. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. If you've been in a coma for the past 30 years, you might not know what a website is or that we now eat entire salads from that green leafy thing that used to be a decoration on the Sizzler salad bar. First off, I'd like to welcome you to 2024

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Squarespace has so many features to help drive sales and engage your audience with creative email campaigns that you'll be filing that lawsuit in no time. And if you have some extra knowledge that you think you can turn into some extra cash, say some detailed information about the netherworld that you inhabited for the past 30 years, Squarespace can help you post online courses. That's right. Squarespace has all the tools you need to create and sell your very own course and even set it up to be a one-time payment and or subscription. After you write a book about your insane experience over the last three decades, you can make

checkout seamless for your customers with simple but powerful payment tools. Accept credit cards, PayPal, and Apple Pay and offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with Afterpay and Clearpay. So go ahead and check out squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash bald to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Again, that's squarespace.com slash bald to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Oh, I also have, okay. And we're back. That was that break. That was a perfect segue for our sponsor.

Do we have sponsors? Am I not allowed to say those? No, no, no, it's perfectly allowed. Because I would think, I mean, what's podcast for? Right. Our sponsors today are not aligned with the words, but given by Bruce Blanch, LLC. Thank you. Thank you.

There you go. Can I ask you to, I mean, you were a child model? I was, briefly, for Lynn Bryant, which was no longer among us, but it was like plus size fashions for the Forgotten Woman. For children. But they decided there were not enough fat women in the country, so they were looking for fat kids.

And what was it? It was called chubby something? It was charming chubs. Charming chubs. For cute little child models. Yes, stylish stouts. And then I became a husky, my career ended ended because husky, you're neither man nor boy and nothing fits.

Not a girl, not yet a woman. Anything that does fit is sincere sucker. So, you know, you just, it's a fool's errand. Yeah. I know you get to the last and I can't find the photos. And I think that's probably a good thing. That could be merch. That could be amazing merch.

It could be, I may have to. And if Lane Bryant is gone, they can't sue you. They can, they'd be dead. I have to ask, I know you said people my age ask about it, but I watched all that Brady content on YouTube during COVID because I'm obsessed with the Brady Bunch. I was a Brady Bunch watcher. When I was little, they had Brady Bunch on, and this summer they'd have marathons.

It's the only thing my brother could agree on, so we'd sit and watch marathons. It's the only thing my brother could agree on, so we'd sit and watch marathons. I watched all the holiday movies. What was it like working with the God damn Bradys? What is it with them? What was it like working with them? Oh, what was it like working with them?

Well, I did the Brady Bunch variety hour, which was after the Sherwood Schwartz empire. He created the Brady Bunch. And it was after the series was off the air on ABC, but it was in reruns all over the place. And as a result. It's the one with the pool, right? It's the one with the pool.

Yeah, that show's wild, girl. Fred Silgram, who was running ABC at the time and believed in teams for variety shows. Donnie and Marie, he came up with, Tony and Cher, that was, Tony and Andy Wendone, all of those things were his ideas and he was looking for the Partridge family to do, because they were a singing act on their show and it would make sense for them to do a variety show. But Shirley Jones and David Cassidy didn't want to do that and Susan Day, they were all out of there already.

So he went he said oh well the Brady Bunch because the Brady kids had an act which they would do like the state fairs and stuff like that. Is this the one with the fake the fake Jan? Wasn't there a fake Jan? This was well yes we got fake Jan. Eventually you got fake Jan or you started with fake Jan? No no we we Eve Plum wouldn't do it Eve Plum had gone broken away and become a TV movie star in a movie called Dawn portrait of a teenage runaway Right, right. Yeah, and so she was she was Brady free. So we got we organized with auditioned for a Jan a fake you in the fake were you in the fake general editions? I was the fake general additions and came down to two girls

two girls. Two girls, one was Jerry Reichel who got the part and the other was a girl who became Kathy Hilton, mother of Paris. Shut up! And we joke about it whenever I run into her cause you know, she's there on the very most of the Beverly Hills. She was the almost fake Jan. She was the almost fake Jan. I think she turned out okay.

She did very well. She's that every time she says, I'm so glad I didn't get that part. She was the almost she turned out. Okay. Yeah, she did very well She she thought every time she's I'm so glad I didn't get that part. Yeah, I think Jerry is Jerry is now riding the fake Jan gravy train I mean, you know, she's came out and said I am fake Jan and of course with the internet, you know She's become a little star which is great. She's a lovely woman But so they we had to concoct this variety series that had a storyline with the family and also had big production numbers and Florence of course Florence Henderson was a Broadway star and Vegas star and could do

anything. My daughter is singing. And the kids you know some of them are better than others but they could all kind of clump around singing dance. Robert Reid was the only you know the one who was like alien, in alien turf. Well, and that's all in the book, by the way, because that's one of my favorite disasters. Well, I've seen a bunch of the episodes. I watched them all on YouTube. They're available on YouTube.

I don't know if it's okay to promote people to steal a show on YouTube, but I don't think- They were available when the Brady movie came out, which was a satire of the Brady Bunch. Incredible Nickelodeon discovered that, which is owned by Paramount, discovered that they owned the Brady Bunch variety hour. And so they programmed it on Nickelodeon Nick at night. And I got a call one night from this guy stoned out of his mind saying, dude,

dude, I'm watching this thing on TV and it's Bob Reed, Robert Reed, the dad from the Brady Bunch and he's doing Carmen Miranda and your name is on it. Dude, how did this happen? Precursor to my book, basically. Well, I believe isn't the first episode about how the dad isn't sure that he can do it. Yes, that we wrote that in.

Because he's not a singer dancer. Yeah. Exactly right. Yes. And also in there we had Farrah Fawcett and Lee Majors who were a couple at the time and Donnie and Marie showed up. The way it was shot too, it was like a proscenium with a huge swimming pool in front of it. Well, you know, they had, it was produced by Sid and Marty Croft who had produced the Donnie Marie show. And Donnie Marie opened with an ice rink. And what they call the ice angels, but the Mormons didn't like that. So they became the Croftettes, I think.

So, and that worked great. And so Sid thought, well, let's do it with water ballet on this one. So we had the Croft water ballerinas and it was hysterical because it was supposed to be the pool at their house at the beach. So there's this gigantic pool and beyond it is the Pacific Ocean. Which sort of like... I'm gonna say as a viewer I never got that. No, but we were we were shrieking up on the set watching the whole thing and all that.

And of course it was always a bonus. The crew loved it because there was a tank and the tank had portholes so they could put the cameras in the portholes and shoot the underwater stuff on the ballet. So the crew loved to come to rehearsals to watch the Croftets swimming from underneath. All this stuff would be going swimming by

and we used to have to peel some of the kids off of the Because they're glued to it like the TV Oh, yeah because it was like softcore porn watching watching all these women kicking and doing you know doing breaststrokes and But weren't there's these moments for like, okay There's you know, there's the Brady's singing and then there's the girls jumping in the water And then the weird thing was they would talk to the camera like we're doing a show,

but they would still pretend they were a family. Yes, it was, the template for that was the Jack Benny show, which was Jack Benny was a comedian, and his show was about him and his life in Beverly Hills, and he puts on a show. And that's, so part of the show was his his show with an audience and part of it was preparing for the show in Beverly Hills so and he would have a guest he had Marilyn Monroe and so he and

Marilyn Monroe comes for tea or something with his wife and then they do the show where Marilyn's on the show so that was the template for it and it was the Brady Bunch do a television show. They have a variety show and they open it with the swimming number at their home. And then they go in. But there was always a backstory about, you know, what they did on the show, around the show. There was just a through line.

It was like show within a show. It would be like, what are we gonna do? Like we haven't prepared enough. Like it was very like, we didn't know we were doing the show today. Well, no, kind of. I mean, they knew because they would show up in the opening number in spangly Pete Menafee costumes.

The costumes are fucking great. Yeah, they're great. They're fucking beautiful. I hate to jump around, but we have so much to cover. Go for it. I texted Kathy Griffin and I was like, I know you know Bruce. I was like, what should I talk to him about?

And she said, well, you gotta ask about the squares. Well, she was on the, Yeah, she was on the squares I knew she was on squares with you and is that where you maybe met her for the first time? No No, I think I'd met her before then but I don't actually remember where I first met I think I met her with Brooke Shields when she was doing the sitcom. Oh Yeah, I think I met her there. Yeah, I wasn't working on it, but I was there for something. I think Brooke was doing the American Comedy Awards or something like that. You were auditioning for the new Brooke.

I was auditioning. Yeah. And Kathy was there and I met Kathy. I think that's where I actually met her. But do you got any fucking wild Hollywood Square stories, obviously, right? It's bizarre because I was a head writer and I was, I always say I was a square I was to the left of Whoopi if that's possible. Right.

But it was a very efficient organization and the fun of it was the nine people showing up and doing five shows on a Saturday and five shows on a Sunday. So we only worked 36 days a year because we would do a week in a day. Oh my God. Now we were writing. Life to tape. Yeah, so we tried to keep it as close to the air date as possible so it was topical.

But basically, people were on good behavior most of the time. Because if you weren't, there were like eight other people going, girl. Yeah. Girl. I mean, Roseanne was in a foul mood. And so she kind of-

I think she still is. Oh, well, she's one of her 43 people. And I've worked with her and I keep saying, I would say to her, would you please ask number 16 to start talking to number 32? Because we're not getting any work done. Right. But I mean, she's, you know, she's, she's her own case study. I love her. She's on a journey.

She's her own case study. She's, you know, now she's a crazy Trumper and you know, yeah, I mean, I still love her, but what other kind is there? Exactly. Exactly. There you go. That's why I can still, still stand. Can I guess like a logistic thing?

So the way Hollywood squares is like, I mean, we have a lot, maybe a lot of young viewers who maybe have never seen it. It's set up like a grid. young viewers who maybe have never seen it. It's set up like a grid. It's a tic-tac-toe board. Yeah, and so you guys really couldn't, I mean, you couldn't see each other under a top. No, we couldn't see each other once we were in our squares.

Uh-huh. But there were monitors that facing us so that we could see big, like teleprompter monitors, but so that we could see what was happening, we could see what the shot was. Right, oh right. And so we could we could we could see what other people were up to and all that as it went to that. And once there was cross-talking, they would be going back and forth and that was of course, you know, my favorite moment when I guess the YouTube thing that gets a lot of comment is, you fool,

which was a woman was, she needed one square to get the win and she could not get the right answer. And it started with Gilbert Gottfried, who when she didn't agree with him said, you fool. And it went on like that Penn Penn and Teller were on there. It became, this woman liked about six times and finally she won the thing. So it's a very funny clip on YouTube watching

because everybody kind of begins to lose it because it's so insane. It's like things you never expected would happen. Do these squares would ever come back? It is coming back. It is? It's coming back in January on CBS with Drew Barrymore in the center square and Nate Burleson,

who if you don't know, if you watch CBS mornings with Gayle King, he's the black guy. Are you gonna go back? Tony DeCoppo is the white guy and Nate Burleson is the black guy. Are you gonna go back? I don't think so.

Be a guest at least. So far, I'd love to, but no one's called. This is an official casting call. That's right, if you're watching, I'm happy to go back. Sometimes, I think it's gauche, but sometimes then when I'm on something, I'll just ask to be on something, and then sometimes it does work out.

Yeah, well this is gonna be one of those prime time hours, probably after like two FBI shows on CBS, like 10 o'clock on a Wednesday. But so it'll only be once a week like Alec Baldwin doing a match game and name that tune with Jane Krasinski. So it's Jane Krasinski. I think I've made just- Krakowski?

Krakowski, I just made a child of her and Emily Blunt. Yeah, you have an enemy now. That's right, Jane Krakowski, sorry. Can I ask, if I get to do it and you don't, I will wear like a Bruce Wig and glasses in honorarium? Well, okay. Did you think you would win in a Bruce lookalike contest? You know what?

They just said the Timothy Gell-Made contest. I mean, there's a famous story about Carol Channing going to an impersonator contest in San Francisco and losing. And Dolly. Oh, well, Dolly said that she went to, she had one and she lost two, yeah. I kind. And Dolly. Oh, well, Dolly said that she had one and she lost two, yeah. I kind of believe Dolly. I believe Dolly. I don't think Dolly would ever lie.

You have a new project coming out with Dolly. I do. I wrote a musical with Dolly during COVID. It's called, Here You Come Again. Sounds like a porno, but it isn't. And it's about a 40-year-old- I think you tweeted that too. I think I saw that on your Twitter too.

That's true, yes. It's about a 40-year- old gay comic who's never happened, who's working in the comedy club as a waiter in New York. COVID hits, the club closes down, he has to isolate, quarantine in the attic of his parents' home in Longview, Texas, where he has an intimate relationship with his imaginary friend, Dolly Parton.

Shut the fuck up. She steps out of a poster and she basically, in 12 Easy Songs, fixes him up. Does she play? Is she in it? No, no. Somebody's going to play her. An actress named Tricia Paelluccio, who has played her in various 9 to 5s and Patsy Cline shows.

She's franchising. Franchising. She's 3D printing Dolly's. We wrote it together with her husband, Gabriel Barry, who's the director who directed it. And we got a grant and we did a Zoom. And I had to go to Dolly for the rights and I didn't think she would go for it, but she loves it. She's our partner.

And we did five regional productions and now we're doing a six month tour of the UK and we will be going into London after the first of the year. You gotta go see the girls. You gotta go see the permanent Dolly understudy. There are, what? I mean, this actress. Is this an act?

No, this actress who's playing her is kinda like, oh, the permanent new Dolly in this show. Oh yeah. Suspend disbelief, if you will. Well, a lot of people have. Megan Hilty played her in nine to five. I got to see I got to see her at the Hollywood Bowl once and I just like, yeah, I saw her at the ball and she was kind of she got slightly political.

You know, it was Trump was running, I think the first time and she and she indicated her her displeasure with the the gist of the campaign. It was a very dolllly kind of thing. She kind of has a way of touching on it without touching on it. Yeah, exactly. I mean, she goes for basic human issues because she's never really political.

No. But she's incredibly philanthropic. Instead of saying, I love the gays, she might say something like, I think everyone deserves the right to love who they love. She has a way of saying it without ever being too yeah exactly and she always saying for years of if if I were a man I'd be a drag queen yeah I said the same thing and look at me now what happened

one time when I started the bull she had this amazing like I don't know it was kind of a joke but the wind was blowing because you know the glow not the globe the um the bulls outside yes wig hair was blowing in her face and she grabbed it and pulled it she went ow I think it's so funny to pull wig hair out and say oh do you have any memories of doing drag race yeah I was Santa Claus once that's right in an early one and then I was a comedy mentor and the kind of judge four or five times and the what's interesting to me about it is when I started, it was the early days of Drag Race.

And they said, well, we want you to mentor the comedy. And people at that time were either gorgeous, lip syncing replicas of- Of stars. You know, Boderic or something like that. Or they were people like Bianca who had worked clubs every night of their life and knew how to work a room. And I said, it's not fair, it's apples and oranges.

I mean, you can't hit them in comedy. Okay, so now Laptisov, to the last time I was on, where all of the little queens at home watching discovered that to win the thing, they have to be everything. You do. They to win the thing, they have to be everything. You do. They have to be funny, they have to be able to sing, they have to do the split,

they have to make their own clothes, they have to live with each other in a motel. So they've learned how to do that. So now they're all like mega queens. It's crazy. They're all like lab created diamonds. Exactly. It's really amazing.

But they all have comedy chops. They've all figured out what they can do that will get them through that part of it. Even the ones who aren't funny, obviously have got people coming in with, advising them when they create this persona that they're gonna use on the show. So it's a whole different ball game now.

Well, you've done drag before. You did hairspray, didn't you? I did hairspray for two years. God, in New York? On Broadway, yeah. I did a year, the the first national tour and then on Broadway for a year. Do you like touring like that? I loved it. Well, I was touring in the first class Broadway show when I was a star. So I was like, you know, limos, sweets, diamonds, movie stars. Did you like doing the drag? Well, yeah, I mean, it's, uh, it's not like

something I would do. I would, but we had it down to a sign. So I would come in like an, uh, an hour before and we would get it all done. Yeah. We'd had to do the wig, the wig hair every night. And I wore a 35 pound fat suit, which was basically, uh, on top of my own God given fat suit, which was kind of like, it was a corset and with huge jugs and it weighed 35 pounds. And then in the last scene of the show is she's in this fabulous red beaded gown.

Oh yeah, for the reveal. Which was another 40 pounds of beading. So I was carrying around 75 pounds and wearing what we used to call at Lane Bryant fat lady shoes, which were two and three quarter inch heels. Lady bunny shoes? Could be, I don't know. I never examined her feet.

My shoes? That's not my fetish. But so your whole center of gravity changes. Right. Which is why I have my foot in the brace now. I'm convinced. I never missed a show, but it's because your body is used to carrying your weight around

a certain way. And when you change that, all your joints say, hold on, we're going to realign you now. And without you knowing it, but suddenly it begins to happen. So those are the perils of drag. But I was doing that kind of drag. I was doing a plus size broad. And also, it wasn't a drag performance in the sense of a woman in quotes. It was this woman.

Yeah, she's pretty much a woman, really. John Waters invented it for Divine, so she was doing a certain kind of woman that you were doing, a working class woman from Baltimore. Right. And so she wasn't commenting on anything. She was real and warm and in a real marriage and with a real love for her daughter and all of those things. She just was extreme in the way she expressed herself.

Right. So it was you were acting a role. You weren't just being a woman, being in drag for the to be in drag. Of course, it's unfortunately part of the whole of woke culture has been to downgrade all of that because they're they're drag queens. And then there are there are characters like Mrs. Doubtfire and Tootsie who are men who put on dresses. For a purpose.

For a purpose and they learn something as a result. Right. And somehow that's become square and old fashioned that when a man is a woman, he suddenly realizes that there are other things in the world besides what he's always liked as a man. Didn't you do a film kind of about this, like a body switch film? I did a documentary about it. Oh, was I in a body switch film?

No, didn't you write a movie about somebody who's in a Freaky Friday situation? I don't think I wrote one. I don't remember. Was I in one? Maybe I'm starting to add things to your career that didn't happen. Pile them on. I know I gotta let you go, but I don't know if the kids at home know that you obviously have all these Emmys

from writing all these awards programs. Yeah, I wrote 25 Oscar shows. I am the EGOT of award shows. You are. Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony's, I've written them all. I'm not the only one. Several people who've written all four of them. That must be a madhouse.

But I hate using that word multiple because it's everywhere now. Multiple. But yeah, but I have written and I did do 25. And we won two Emmys for two of the Oscar shows which confused my mother until her dying day. You won an Emmy for the Oscars. Yeah, right.

Wow. Two Emmys for the Oscars. Yeah, right. Wow. Right, two Emmys for the... What's the most chaotic one, like leading up to, what's the most chaotic one of all the types of word shows? What's the one where you're like, oh girl, here we go. That's a very good question. I think it's probably the Grammys because it's all musicians.

Right. And also of course, it's become a concert show. And it always was, but it had a host who was more hosty. Billy Crystal, those kinds of hosts. Whoopi. It wasn't, now they have LL Cool J. Well, now they have Trevor Noah, so it's more of a host thing than they used to have.

But the real clusterfucks were like the People's Choice Awards. The American Comedy Awards was hilarious because every category was funny and everybody had to be funny. And it was comics playing for an audience of comics, which you're in danger of people, you say something and they go, funny, funny.

That's, honestly that is it. If somebody's in comics or in the audience, they go, funny, funny. That's, honestly that is if somebody, if we're in comics or in the audience, they go, that's funny. That's funny. They won't clap. They'll go, that's funny. That's funny. Yeah.

I'm assuming the Tonys goes the smoothest because it's a bunch of people who are everyday live performers. They are, and they are at the top of their game. They're doing these numbers eight times a week. That they do all the time. Yeah, and so they, and they're all stage performers. So they, when they get up on stage in front of an audience,

they know what to do. Right. You know, in the movies, you get movie stars who only work for a camera. Right. You know, no one's ever done Johnny Depp at residency at Caesars. Yeah.

You know, you never saw Keanu Reeves live in Central Park. Right. I mean, these are movie stars and they get, and so this is not their comfort zone. So even the ones who came from theater originally kind of sometimes forgot they came from theater. Right. I find it's interesting when like the, I mean, the people who play for camera,

the people who play characters, they get up there and they, this maybe is the first time we see if some of these people speak from the heart or like not as a character. You can tell they get nervous when they're not. Oh yeah. You know, when they're not playing that character. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very much. So that's when they're accepting an award, you know, well, Bruce, I can't thank you enough for coming down here and talking to me. It was great. It was, you know, let the girls know where to find you. Maybe not your Twitter. Not exactly active.

You can, you know, there's a cycle. We gotuce.com, and it's run by a fan, and he knows what I'm doing. I check up every morning to see what I'm up to. Love that. Because he knows more than I, and he publishes all the rumors, and you know, all that kind of stuff, and it's not true about me and Zac Efron, I'm sorry. It's just not true.

I couldn't, with anybody that muscular who's Jewish, I couldn't. It's not true. I couldn't, as a Jew, I couldn't do that. Unless he was Israel. Maybe, okay, nevermind. It's not true they got married first, so it was in wedlock. So it's okay.

Everybody say bye, Bruce. Bye. Bye. Bye. This podcast is brought to you by Aura, the most complete online safety toolkit. 2024 has seen a massive surge in high profile data breaches, raising serious concerns about the security of your personal information. Dell's breach exposed 3.9 million customer records

and Ticketmaster also faced a massive breach compromising over 560 million records. And most alarming of all, this past summer, national public data reported a breach potentially affecting every single American. 2.9 billion records used for background checks were stolen and released to the public for free. If this all sounds pretty scary, it's because it is. You've never been more vulnerable in the digital world

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and your loved ones. Once more, that's aura.com slash defense. Certain terms apply, so be sure to check their site for details. Today's episode of Ballin all the beautiful sponsored by Airbnb. Y'all the holidays are upon us. I have to tell you guys, I had not been to Wasaki, Wisconsin in so many years since pre COVID and I went up there last month.

And of course my whole family moved to Milwaukee. You guys know, I bought my mama house and so everyone lives in Milwaukee now, so I had nowhere to stay. And there's not even like hotels in that area. It's such a small area. So I got on Airbnb and my host Jodi, hi Jodi. She probably doesn't listen to this or know who I am, but she made it so easy.

Her cabin was beautiful. It was like right in the middle of my small town, so exactly where it was. The wifi, the heating, and it was like a family cabin. So it had a bunch of like, you know, DVDs, you know when you go on vacation, you just like watch, you know, movies with your family. It was perfect for staying a couple of days.

It had everything for cooking. It had knives, like because it's a real family's cabin, I didn't have to bring anything. In my suitcase, I packed a pan. I packed like a spatula because I thought it'd be cooking breakfast. And they had all of that. It was so nice.

You know, it was just perfect for me and it slept eight, but honestly it was so affordable that I just got it anyway. So instead of a bunch of kids beds being used and stuff, it was just like, I had a full bedroom. It was like perfect, perfect for me. I could have never achieved like that experience of like relaxed and everything kind of provided for me if I had stayed in a hotel, I mean a hotel in rural Wisconsin.

So check out airbnb.com or check out the Airbnb app, download it, I cannot recommend it enough. Trips are always better with Airbnb.