WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Carl Reiner from 2013

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

From 2013, Marc talks with Carl Reiner about his journey from writing to acting to directing, as well as his collaborative relationships with Sid Ceasar, Dick Van Dyke, Steve Martin and, of course, Mel Brooks. Carl died on June 29, 2020 at age 98. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So those of you who listen to my show know that I had Mel Brooks on and it was an amazing conversation and I want to I sort of talked about a story that is unfolding that involves me Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner that was one of the most spectacular moments of my life and show business. And this is the second part of this story. We'll conclude at the end of the Carl Reiner episode. I'll give you some more detail, but let me set this up a little bit for you. So I interview Mel Brooks and we have a good time. You heard it. We take a liking to each other. I always liked him, but he had no idea who I was and he ended up liking me and we had a nice time. He walked me. We take a liking to each other. I always liked him, but he had no idea who I was. And he ended up liking me.

And we had a nice time. He walked me out to my car. It was all very charming and funny. And he says, I'm going to set you up with Carl. And as you recall, I said, how is Carl? And Mel said, well, he's about 80%. And I said, oh, well, that's good. That's good.

You know, he's hanging on. Everybody's good. And you'll hear in the Carl Reiner episode, it's a very different type of conversation uh you know carl is carl reiner mel is mel brooks but they're both uh have a lot of clarity they got all their uh all their ducks are still in a row some of them are a little wobbly but they're all in a row and they're tight man yeah they're they're they're they're definitely present and coherent and just great great. Great, agile, comedic minds. These guys are the best there ever was, really, the two of them. Now, let's set the stage a little bit. So after Mel tells me he's going to hook me up with Carl,

we set it up, a few weeks go by, and then I got to drive over to Carl's house. Now, I have to really accentuate how familiar this feels to me, not just because I grew up with Mel Brooks' movies, accentuate how familiar this feels to me, not just because I grew up with Mel Brooks's movies or Carl Reiner and Rob Reiner and the 2000 year old man. But there's a Jewishness to this whole adventure that is very familiar with to me. You know, I drove to Carl's house in Beverly Hills. I got out of the car and it was a home in the old part of Beverly Hills. So it's a home next to other homes, but it's a big home.

The door was open. There was commotion going on. There was people coming in and out. There was a woman there who was doing something. There was a guy who I think is the publicist for his new book, Carl Reiner, I Remember Me, which is his new book out now. And George Shapiro was there. book out now uh and uh and uh george shapiro was there now george shapiro uh as you know or may not know is a very big uh comedy manager he manages carl uh he manages jerry seinfeld he's got a few writing clients he used to manage ordy adams but uh but he's carl's nephew and he's in his 70s

i i'm speculating there but i would say he's in his 70s so now the familiarity with me is you know you drive up to a house the doors open there are things going on uh there's a living this is a house it looks like it's been lived in I picture Rob Reiner growing up there I picture the family there I picture you know in Jewish households not I'm not saying it's specific to Jewish households but I just I felt immediately at home you sit in the living room and it looks like people sit in this living room you know food's been served in here and and just look old jews are familiar to me that's all but carl is not i don't know if i can say this how can i say this he's not as uh as overtly jewish or jewy as mel brooks it's a different frequency uh it's a different tone but i walk in

and uh george shapiro's there and uh know, he's talking to me about this and that. And then we're waiting for Carl. The publicist is there. And then we're getting set up. And then Carl's going to come down. And then Carl makes his way down. Now, Carl's almost 91. And it was a grand entrance.

He sits down in the chair and I set up the mics and we begin to talk. Now, what happens after Carl sits down is he's sitting in the chair and I set up the mics and we begin to talk. Now, what happens after Carl sits down is he's sitting in a chair. I'm sitting in a chair next to him, right next to him, directly across a coffee table from Carl is Mr. George Shapiro, who sits in that chair. And I will say this, lovely man, during the interview, I did glance over and there were times where he was napping. He was napping a little bit in and out. No problem. The publicist guy, he's sitting on the sofa.

Now, you got to understand something. I explained this the last time. Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks spend almost every evening together just sitting there doing whatever they do. And we talk about, I talked to Carl a little bit about what they do. But this is a lovely, you know, it's got to be almost a, you know, century long friendship. And it's very touching to me. And just sitting among Jews, old Jews makes me very comfortable. So, so let's, let's now go to, uh, to my conversation with Carl Reiner and we will, we will, we will reconvene here after the discussion so I can fill you in on the rest of the story. It's beautiful.

All right? It's beautiful. Let's go now to me and Carl talking in Carl's living room. The first voice you hear is George Shapiro was there when I was setting up my microphones. I might have picked a little bit of that up. George Shapiro was there when I was setting up my microphones. I might have picked a little bit of that up. You do everything yourself.

You're the whole crew. I'm the whole thing. Very impressive. I think that's the way to go. Very impressive. Sure. Here's Uncle Carl. Look, he's the whole crew as well as the star. I love it.

I love it. I do the whole thing. I love that. I'll do whatever the else is left. You do whatever Mel says now. How are you, sir? Nice to see you. Mel said he had a good time with you. Yeah, Mel has

nothing but good things to say about you. Oh, well. And I will have exactly... Is that the understanding you two have? Well, I do more than he does. He says he comes over here every night. He sits right over there. Yeah.

And you guys have the things you do. Yes, we do. And one of them I might tell you about later because it is so crazy that no one in the world is going to believe it. And I don't even know if I'm going to tell it, but we may. We may. We'll see. It has to do with chicken feathers. Chicken feathers. Chicken feathers?

Yes. And does that intrigue you? Well, I mean, if we don't call that back later, people are going to be curious the entire show. What the hell was that about? But the interesting thing about your dynamic, and from what I know about it, I'm a little younger, is that there was definitely a straight man

kooky guy. No question about it. Did you guys invent that? No. What happened, and you want the genesis, and I've done this a number of times, but it's good to have in a place like this where it's forever. Yeah. Because this goes into the capsule, doesn't it? Sure, I'm sending it out.

Yeah, I'll put it in a capsule, and I'll bury it. In 1950, I came to work on. I'll put it in a capsule and I'll bury it. In 1950 I came to work on the show of shows with Sid Caesar playing his straight man. The first day there there was a young man, a very short young man who was in Sid's pocket.

In other words, Sid had hired him personally to be his Sid loved him. A gag man, right. He paid Sid. Sid paid him like $35 a week to be around. Max Liebman didn't want to have him around because he was too wild and crazy. He was kooky.

He used to slide into the office and on the floor and say, safe. He'd hit the wall, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so the first day I was there, he stood up. I didn't know who he was. And he started to complain. He was a Jewish pirate. And he says, I don't know.

He says, you know something what cost sell today? He says, I can't pillage and rape anymore. He says, it's $3.35 for a yard. You can't go out and set sail anymore. Anyway, he went off for a half hour. I was hysterical. The following day I came in. It was a Saturday, whatever it was.

I came in, and I remembered something that might make a good sketch. It was We the People Speak with Dan Seymour. He was a man who was actually in Stalin's toilet and heard Stalin say, going to blow up the world Thursday. And I said, that'd be a good thing for a sketch, and they didn't think so. But from that, I was frustrated. I turned to Mel, who was sitting on the couch,

very much in the position you're sitting now. And I said, here's a man who was actually at the scene of the crucifixion 2,000 years ago. Isn't that true, sir? Yeah. And that's him ringing now. Mel, here. Hello? Larry, I'm in the middle of a conversation here with a man with a microphone.

So come over and listen. Okay. Who's that? That was Larry O'Flahaven, who arranged all of this. Okay. Anyway, and I said, the man at the crucifixion 2,000 years ago. Isn't that true, sir? And he said, oh, boy.

That's his first words. I said, you were there? Yeah. You knew Jesus? Yeah. Thin lad, right? Always wore sandals, walked with 12 other guys. They always came into the store, never bought anything, always asked for water.

And that started. For the next half hour, I just asked questions about his days way back then. All improvised. Of course. He didn't know what I was going to ask, and I didn't know what I was going to ask, but he intrigued me. It's him again.

Hold on. Hello? Paul, I'm in the middle of a interview. Yes, I'm being recorded. That was Paul Brownstein, another one of these fellows who are in charge of making me famous. It's going to happen, I think, finally. So the next one is Obama. I expect a call later, but he said he'd hold off.

I told him I had an important interview. So he said, I'll hold off. It's only about the Near East. So, yeah. So for the next hour, I interviewed him. And then, any time where there's a lull in the office, I would just jump up and, not jump up, I would just say, here's a man who. He was either the 2,000-year-old man or a great psychiatrist or whatever it was. That was the premise.

And he didn't even know what I was going to make him. The second I said who he was, he became that person. I once did a thing where I said, we're at a psychiatric convention. There were six great psychiatrists from all over the world, and he was all of them. And we gave them names, and we couldn't remember what they were. I said, I think that was Dr. Haldane.

He said, no, check it back. Anyway, that was what we did. And at parties, there wasn't a party that somebody said, get up and do the 2,000-year-old. They would invite you for that reason. Well, we were invited anyway. We had friends. We would have gone to dinner there anyway. But Joe Stein was one of the places.

And the interesting thing was that we did it for 10 years. And people used to say, put that on a record. And we said, no, this is only for Jews and non-antisemitic Gentiles. I said, it was very inside. Well, it was five years after the war. The Jewish accent was persona non grata in society because the Jews had been decimated and made fun of for the last, you know. Well, that's interesting. Did you consciously at some point, because did you have an accent?

Because Mel seems to embrace it to an extreme. No, Mel became a middle European. A 2,000-year-old man would have a Jewish accent. But he talks like that sort of anyways. No, no. No? He's got good language. Didn't he?

No, but anyway, so for 10 years we just had parties. The one party we went to, there was Joe Fields, who was a big Broadway producer. Anytime he was in town, he made a party so that we could come and entertain his friends. It was mo that mozart did that too you know he'd set up chairs and play the piano he put chairs out no no there was a living room and at one particular party out here at an a-list party that was joyce haber's name for star real stars at an A-list party. After we finished, three people came up to us. The first one was George Burns smoking a cigar and saying,

you got that on a record? And we said, no. He said, well, put it on a record or I'm going to steal it. And then it was Edward G. Robinson said, he said, make a play out of a 1,000-year-old man. He said, I want to play that on Broadway. And I said, it's 2,000 years. I can play any age.

I remember. And the last one coming up was the dearest of all, was a guy named Steve Allen, who cared about handing the world comedy people. He would love nothing more than to discover a comedian and say, here he is. And so he came over and he says, fellas, you've got to put that on record. He says, I'll give you a studio that I use for World Pacific

for my jazz recordings. And we went into that studio with about 150 friends and we wailed for two, three hours. That was the original. The original. And we cut it down to 47 minutes. And then we still didn't know it was going to work.

It wasn't for friends. And I remember the first edition. The interesting thing, I was working at Universal at the time. I started writing movies, and Cary Grant was my neighbor. And I gave him an album. And he came back, and he says, says Carl can I have a dozen and I said what are you gonna do he's I'm going to London I says are you gonna take him to London yes he says they speak English there you know and and he came back and he says she loved it I said who

he's the queen mother I said you took this to Buckingham Palace oh my god yes and she laughed and I said to Mel the biggest shicks in the world accepted it. And, of course, it did take off for that first album. And then we made five albums after that. You got the royal stamp of approval. Yes, the royal stamp. When I was a kid, the first time I saw it was the animated one. Oh, yeah.

Saran Wrap. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, that was great. That was like three, four years after. So that was the first time that you and Mel had actually, like, publicly performed? Hold on. Hold on a second. Hello?

Yeah, that's fine. Thank you. But that was the first time you guys sort of organized as a team. It was around that. Yeah, right. 15, 1950. And before that, you had done a lot of theater. You had done...

Oh, no. Starting at 17, I did... Where did you grow up? I grew up in the Bronx. At 17, I was a machinist. The Bronx gets one round of applause. At 17, I started to work in the millinery trade. First in the dress trade as a shipping clerk, for which I got $12 an hour.

Then that company went out of business, reopened, and I got $10 an hour. Then that company went out of business, reopened, and I got $10 an hour. Were your parents from here? My parents were from Europe. My father came from Czernovitz, Austria-Hungary Empire. My mother from Romania. And if you'll read my book, you'll hear all about that. This is the book I Remember Me. Yeah, it's in there. And you do remember. Oh, I do remember. What was the Bronx like? I talked to Mel Brooks about Brooklyn. Give me a sense of the Bronx at that time. The Bronx was a lower-to-middle-class neighborhood. If I tell you the rent of the apartment, you'll know, a three-room apartment, when my parents moved in in 1917, was $16 a week. When I was born there, it was, I think, $35 or $50 a month. Have you ever gone back to

see if you could? I did. I went back once on the New York Magazine, wanted to do a piece on my days in the Bronx. And I said, let's go see my old building on 79th Street. It was a five-story walk-up and there was nothing there. It was an empty lot. Oh, that's heartbreaking, isn't it? They had raised it. Across the way were older buildings, but they were three-story buildings, but they were protected because they were mansions. Historical? Historical mansions. Historical buildings. Yeah.

And so what I got was a brick. I took two bricks that were lying there, and I sent one to my brother in Atlanta. I said, here's our ancestral home, what's left of it. This is it. And how many people in the family? My brother and I and my parents. Was there relatives around? Some relatives, not too close by.

Yeah, we had a couple relatives. And what was your father's trade? A watchmaker by trade, which he made his living at. But what he really was doing with his spare time was inventing things. He invented the self-winding wristwatch, the battery clock, which is right up there. He invented it? He got the patent on it? Yeah, he got the patent on the battery clock.

No kidding. And then he invented a clock that would run 100 years. He invented a battery, a dry pile battery, which he made by hand, which I described in another book, hours and hours and hours, cutting out one disc at a time, a little disc the size of a penny, thousands of them, painting them with an amalgam of silver and magnesium. First he painted 1,000 or 2,000 of them with the incorrect formula, and it didn't work.

He did it again. It was on a kitchen table on a Sunday. It took years. He finally got this dry pile, two piles, which had 5,000 volts and a milliamp, just enough to take a pendulum back and forth. It would attract, repel, attract, repel. He got a patent on that. And did this elevate him out of the Bronx?

No, no, no, no. This clock was not produced until after the war. And Germany, and the patent ran out, and then Germany flooded the market with them. No kidding. Yeah, the other, he invented quite a bit. Was he bitter about that? No, never got bitter.

He was happy to have invented. He never said, darn. Yeah, right. No, as a matter of fact, there's a picture of him over there behind you playing the violin. See that? Oh, yeah.

He was a self-taught violin, flutist, clarinetist. Was he good? He played in symphony orchestras. Oh, my God. You know, charity symphonies. And there is a picture. That picture is called Irving Shoots Irving Playing Irving. And the reason I call it Shoots Irving is that he was a photographer,

and I still have his daguerreotype plates. He took pictures of everybody, my mother, nursing mother, And the reason I call it shoot serving is that he was a photographer, and I still have his daguerreotype plates. He took pictures of everybody, my mother nursing my brother, a hundred-year-old picture on a plate. He took a picture of my mother nursing Charlie. And he never had a picture of himself until he decided, sat down and invented a self-timer, which he patented. He tried a patent.

It was patent pending, but a Japanese inventor did it six months before, got a patent on it. But I just- So he's playing, that's Irving and it's shot by Irving and he's playing- He shot himself playing the violin. Who was the third Irving? The third Irving is my granddaughter who plays that violin. This violin he bought for $500 in 1900 when he came to America. His brother played the violin.

He said, I want to learn to play it. He bought himself a violin and learned to play it. Got a book on violins and how to read. Learned to play the violin. And when my mother passed away, he came to live with us and he brought his violin with him. He hadn't played it in years. And when he picked it up, he could always play it. And then my granddaughter started to play the violin. When she got ready for the full-size violin, we gave her this one. And she does, she plays the

violin and the harp. And that violin, she played at a concert. And we went backstage to congratulate. And she said, wait, I'll be with you in a minute. I've got to get Irving. I said, who's Irving? She named the violin Irving. And she keeps a picture of that picture of my father playing it in her violin box. That's sweet. Violin case. So you never was you didn't have the mindset or it wasn't appealing to you to go into the more technical skills? Me, I had no musical ability.

Luckily my kids didn't get my genes. All my kids are musical. But I can sing on key if there's a big orchestra helping. I have a good voice, I had a good voice. I had a three octave range but no pitch and no timing. So I could never have been an opera singer, which is what I wanted to be, or an Irish tenor, which I write about in the book.

And when did the acting thing start with you? When I was very young, when I was cast, at age three. Well, at age six or seven, I was in a Christmas. No, not a Christmas play, but the teacher said, who can do something for Christmas? A little entertainment in front of the class. And I could put both legs behind my head and walk around on my hands

or one leg and hop around on it. So she took me to all the classes. That was my first performance. The second one... You can't do that anymore, right? Not, no. I could, as a matter of fact, until maybe 10, 15 years ago.

Yeah. But not... In the third grade, I played the headsman in Six Who Pass While the Lentils Boil, a well-known play at the time. And my mother was sitting next to the principal in the auditorium and he said, he's the best one, that boy there.

Yeah. And she said, that's my son. He's the best one. And for that time on, my mother always called me the best one. You were the guy. But she'd see me in the play. But I didn't do any acting again until after high school. In high school, when we were asked to learn Shakespearean speeches, I could do them better than anybody, but I was embarrassed that I did them so much better, they'd think I was crazy. So I never did them until later, years later, I was a machinist helper, working on sewing machines as an assistant. And my brother sent me a little clipping saying,

free acting classes at the WPA workshop in Center Street, New York. And, you know, as a matter of fact, when I went to Washington to get a Mark Twain prize, they asked me to talk to the Library of Congress about the WPA. And they put it in the archives because I said, everybody's saying get the government off the people's back. I said, no, we belong on the people's. The people belong on the government's back. I said, if it wasn't for the government allowing me to learn to be an actor,

I wouldn't be an actor. I'm an actor here today because the WPA taught kids who wanted to act, got sent to the school. Musicians became musicians. Artists, I said there are murals all over the country in, you know, post offices that starving painters. And that was FDR, right? FDR, right. He put it all into place, and that's the big criticism people level against Obama is that it was socialist or that it was.

Yes, which is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. That's what the government's supposed to do. Right. Help the people. Government of the people. For the people. For the people.

And what kind of education did you get? I mean, what were the classes like? No, it was just a small class with a Mrs. Whitmore, I'll never forget her, a little old English lady who gave us assignments. My assignment, the only assignment I remember, is to learn Queen Gertrude's speech from Hamlet, where she says, There's a willow grows a slant of brook

That shows its whole leaves in the glassy stream. There were fantastic garlands that she come with crow flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples that liberal shepherds give a grosser name, but our gold maids do dead men's fingers call them. There her coronet clambering to hang her envious sliver broke.

And anyway, it goes on like that. I remember some of it. Look at that. That's 70, 80 years later. She had quite an impression on you. Yes, no, Shakespeare did. And when you started to work, when did that start? I was working as a machinist helper,

but at night my brother, I found an ad for, somebody told me, oh, no, while I was going to the class, they said the Gilmore Theater, Paul and Virginia Gilmore had a free theater, came in for free. Everybody saw it for free, paid a little tax, 10, 20 cent tax. That was his, really. Right. And I auditioned for them, and I got my first job, and the family upstairs and the bishop misbehaves. I was 17. I had a fake mustache.

Not a fake. I grew a mustache but penciled in most of it. Yeah, yeah. And I was making love to a 45-year-old actress, Virginia Gilmore. But it worked. And I had a pair of tails which I had, which was used on Broadway for Enter Laughing when Alan Arkin played it, those tails were in my mother's trunk. How did he get them?

Yeah, and the sad thing is those tails were, for $10, I had to raise $10 to buy tails. And those tails disappeared because when the play was over, they gave it to Eve's costume. They thought it was in Eve's costume. They didn't know it was a, and it disappeared. How did Arkin get them? I, I, I had them.

You gave them to him? Yeah, of course. I said, I, I lent it to him to use for the play. You guys were,

you were friends or? Well, no, but I certainly was friendly to a man who was depicting me on stage. He won,

he won a Tony for it. He's an interesting guy. He's a funny guy. He's brilliant. He's one of guy. He's a funny guy. He's brilliant. He's one of the most brilliant actors ever. Yeah. And smart and funny. And I saw him in the second city the first time.

I never forgot the line he said. He was showing people artwork in a museum. And he said, this particular picture depicts man's inhumanity. And a woman behind in the crowd says, I don't like it. He said, well, madam, you're wrong. Well, madam, you're wrong. Yeah. So now, did you tour?

Like, I talked to a friend of mine who's sort of an obsessive comedy researcher, and he gave me, his name's Cliff, comedy researcher and he gave me his name's cliff and he said there was a a play you did called call me master or call me mister yes that's not a play that was a musical uh-huh after the war uh when the soldiers came home uh-huh it was done on broadway only peopled with with veterans of the war you only could audition for it if you were a veteran. Were you a veteran? Yes, oh, sure. How long were you over there? Three and a half years.

What did you do over there? Well, for the first year, I was a radio operator in the Air Force. Got pneumonia, went to the hospital. After I came out, they sent me to Signal Training School, Signal Corps. Trained for that, became a teletype operator. On my way to Hawaii, in Hawaii, on my way someplace to Detachment 18, I went to see a play at the University of Hawaii's Farrington Hall of G.I. Hamlet with Maurice Evans.

And in it was Howard Morris playing Laertes, a guy I had worked on the N.Y.A. radio workshop, another government-sponsored organization. I played in radio when I was 17 for $22 a month doing playlets, plays, on New York radio. Howard said, when I said, Howard, you were wonderful, he didn't even take it out. He says, he was in charge of the section as a sergeant.

He says, we need a comedian for a show. Do you do comedy? He knew I was funny. But I was a straight actor when he knew me. And I said, yeah, I have 20, 30 minutes. He says, he pulled me out. A stand-up routine? Yeah, stand-up.

But I said, I'm on my way. I did it in the rec halls. I said,, I'm on my way. I did it, you know, in the rec halls. I said, but I'm on my way someplace. Detachment 18. And he said, where? I said, I don't know, but tomorrow night I'm going. He called the general and traded me like a ball player. I got into

the special service session, and I performed in a show called Shoot the Works for almost a half a year. It was a variety show? A variety show. But then I wrote a show with Hal David writing the lyrics and somebody writing the music, a show called Shape Ahoy, which I toured the whole Pacific with.

Saipan, Kwajalein, Tinian, Mog Mog, Palau. And what was the structure of that show? Also a variety show? A variety show. No, a review. Uh-huh. It was a review with myself doing sketches and one. What kind of stand-up did you do?

At that point, I did a... I was a very good, very good, pretty good impersonator. I had impersonations, which I did. But I was bored with them, so I was trying to find a new way to do it. So my introduction to myself was I came out, and very sadly, with a dog's coat collar and leash and a dog sweater, I said, I'm sorry, but the act that was supposed to be here is Monty the Talking Dog. I says, he's not here because he passed away yesterday. And I said, all I can do is tell you about Monty.

I said, what he used to do. And I said, my impressions of what Monty did is not anywhere near as good. And I did my impressions of Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda. As a dog. And I did all my impressions. Hakim Tamirov. And I said, the only impression I can't do is Monty's impression of Trigger the horse

Roy Rogers Trigger he uses loads and loads of makeup for it but he was so acceptable as a horse he was amazing and I got a big hand for that people loved it but the thing that was interesting about this it's almost like a bad movie

the section I trained as a teletype operator for a year with my buddies, Saul Pomerantz and a bunch of other guys. On VJ Day, I played about 100 installations, or I don't know how many installations throughout the Pacific. The day we're in the air, we heard the war is over, VJ Day, we're landing in Iwo Jima. 17 installations we're going to play, a list of them. And the first installation on VJ Day was the 3117th Signal Battalion, my group.

So on the day that we declared the winner of the war, I'm playing, as the star of the show had written, for all my buddies. It was like a bad Dan Daly movie, you know? Why, because no one cared, right? Oh, did they care. It was wonderful. They loved it. They got drunk, and it was wonderful. So there was a mixture of complete reckless celebration,

and then you're performing. No, no. It was just one of those heightened moments in life. So tell me about this Call Me Mister review. Oh, so when we got back, we were auditioned for Call Me Mister. Yeah. There was a, it's interesting, I didn't audition for it. It was on Broadway.

I was auditioning at the MCA, Music Corporation, for a job in the mountains as an MC. And I'm doing, I'm in a little booth room, and there's a window, a glass window. You could look in from the outside. Somebody was looking in there, and I'm doing, you know, I'm gyrating and making jokes. And I got the job, but I got two jobs.

The guy looking in the window, a stranger, was looking, and my agent was looking, and the guy from Lake Spofford, the guy who was going to hire me as a social director, he hired me. But the guy looking in the window was, wait just a moment, this is going to be interesting. Hello? Andy, I'm being interviewed on, okay. That's my daughter. So the guy behind the window was Herman Levin, the guy who had produced Call Me Mister on Broadway. He saw a doppelganger of Julie Munchen.

I was very much like him. I mean, as far as, and he saw me moving around. He hired me sight unseen. He didn't even know what I did. He's tall and he moves around. For the road company. Yeah. For the road company.

What year are we talking? 1947. And my wife had just given birth to my first son, Robbie, when I was in Boston on a Saturday. And I remember coming down on Sunday and seeing. And I was on the road. And two remember coming down on Sunday and seeing, and I was on the road, and two things I remember about that. Herman Levin said, do not send me reviews and saying you want to raise. You're getting $250 a week, and that's it. I expect you to get good reviews. So don't write me and say you want to raise for reviews.'s it i was okay now i'm on the road for a year about we we do three months in in boston we do cleveland uh detroit and while we're in cleveland

we're going to chicago where we're hoping to do two or three months and it's very important that we get good reviews there but in cleveland, we get an article from the Chicago paper written by Claudia Cassidy, the critic in the Chicago Tribune, saying, I saw Call Me Mr. in New York, and she mentions Julie Munch, and it rips the hell out of him. And he was great, by the way. She didn't like him for some reason. She said, whoever's playing his part if uh if he's anything like whatever is don't come to

chicago go on to cleveland we don't need your show here wow yeah anyway it was preemptive wow we're going to go there and we were looking for to be there for three months that would be the yeah so we went there. She saw the opening night, and she wrote an article, I think, saying what I hated about the show has all changed now because of the brilliance of this show. And she gave me a review that could have been for Jesus Christ. And, of course, we stayed there six months. We had a six-month run in Chicago.

Now, there were some other comedians that people know in that show, right? Yeah. Buddy Hackett was in there and well, I don't know. Shelly? Shelly Berman? No, no, no, no, no, no. He was too young then. Yeah. No, no. So Buddy Hackett before he started doing standup? Oh, he was doing standup. Oh yeah? Yeah. He was funny kid. Crazy as a loon, but funny as a lark. Yeah. A loon and a lark. So when you made the shift to, because it seems that you had relationships with, you know, like four, at least four of the funniest people ever. You know, being, you know, Sid Caesar. Oh, Sid Caesar, absolutely. And Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks, Steve Martin. Hey, I didn't ever thought of it that way, but I have had, I stood very close to all of those people.

Yeah, you had a profound influence on their lives and and and with Sid because you know I talked to uh to Mel Brooks about Sid Caesar that there there's there's a reverence in in Mel Brooks for Sid Caesar that all of us everybody who ever did comedy the difference between Sid and every other comedian yeah was Sid was terribly terribly funny he couldn't make a new joke, but he could do attitudes and things. He just made everything that was written funnier than it was written, and he's one of the few people who could find things

in a live audience, in a live camera, find things to enhance what was done and have the audience roaring with laughter. And I talk about him a lot as far as being an extraordinary actor. You know, people went to the actor's studio. I've talked about this before. As a matter of fact, I'm going to have to talk about it again. Poor Sid is so not well now.

Do you go see him? Yeah, I'm going to see him. I'm going to see him in a couple of weeks, a week or so, having a party, but he's out of it. He's really out of it. It's very sad. But I was saying, Sid is one of the greatest actors I've ever worked with.

Everybody goes to the actor's studio, Stanislavski, to learn sense memory and things like that, where sense memory is like holding an object and making it have weight, heft, and volume. And I remember two incidents where nobody could believe this. We were doing a pantomime. We're saying, he's having trouble opening a jar of pickles.

And Sid picked up a fake jar, nothing in his hand, and he's struggling to open the jar, and he finally opens it. And the writer said, well, there's nothing really funny there. Forget it. And all of a sudden, everybody's laughing. And Sid said, what are you laughing at? He says, you know what you did? He said, what did I do?

I didn't do anything. He said, yes, you did. You know what Sid did? It was so real, this jar of pickles that he had opened when they said it doesn't work, without knowing, he closed the jar and put it down. He didn't. That was one indication that his sense memory was so real. Every actor and comedian in the world, when they're smoking a cigarette, they do this.

They clamp the lips together where the cigarette is, comedian in the world when they're smoking a cigarette yeah they do this yeah they they clamp the lips together where the cigarette is and they and they you know they hold it like this or they hold it like this yeah yeah you've seen it yeah he didn't do that when he had a cigarette a fake cigarette his lips there was space there and when he took it out there was space in his fingers right so is that precise that was sense memory which they try to teach in slavsky but i don't never seen an actor do that i'm standing this close to him i said oh my god look what the fuck he's doing yeah yeah and and there was one other incident where he could conjure up the truth in him we played a Bombs Over Bombs. No, what was it

called? It was a submarine picture. All you Nazis get in your submarine. Anyway, I was the lieutenant or something and he was a soldier and I said, put the

torpedo and I dropped the torpedo on his foot yeah and he didn't do anything he just one eye started to to twitch and with both eyes were twitching and then within seconds tears were coming down his eye he didn't touch his eyes people have always put drops in the rice to make them look tears or they put they some nitrate in it, whatever it is, smelling salts, and your eyes tear. And here he's doing this, and within seconds, a tear is falling. He conjured up a tear. Just like that?

Yeah. So he's a complete natural. He was a great actor. He was a great actor and probably the greatest comedian ever to work on television because when you both talk about him i mean there there's certain people i haven't met many but it just seems like that he was so full of energy and life and brilliance that you just wanted to be around it you were just thrilled to be part of it and you know he was also very giving too i mean i was a straight man for so much from so years. But I remember we did a thing called Blast Video Theater where we're taking off on James Mason,

who the week before we saw him do this, where he said, now next week we're going to have that wonderful American play with that great American star, Arlene Dahl. Arlene Dahl. He actually said that. Yeah. On the air.. He actually said that. Yeah.

On the air. He couldn't believe that. He was reading this great American actress, Arlene Dahl. Anyway, we're going to do that. And Sid was going to play that part. And Sid did it. And he said, you know, Carl does better James Mason than I do. You do it and it I think that was I got my first Emmy

that year because that was the part that that and a a game show called Break Your Brains

yeah the two of them allowed me to really come into yourself yeah and it was Sid who handed me it on a platter

that's sweet and in terms of like early television and being part of that, was there like a community? Did everyone know each other from all the different shows? Oh, I think so. Sure. But we didn't hang out together. There was no time to hang out. It was live show. We came in on a Monday and finished on a Saturday. Sunday, we're off. We came on Monday, 10 o'clock. By the way, it's the most amazing thing. It's a live show, rehearsed live.

We went home at 6 o'clock every night to have dinner with our people. Today, on half-hour situation comedies, people are working two, three in the morning. Yeah, like doctors. I can't believe it.

What do you think that is? Why do you think that is? I don't know. Give people, say you have all the time and they'll take it. And tell them you have no time, you have to be on the air.

Yeah, it's right, live television. Yeah, if you're going to tape it, you You have to be on the air. Yeah, it's right. Live television. Yeah, if you're going to tape it, you're going to be casual about it. But if you know you have to hit the 8 o'clock spot and when the clock hits 8, you've got to be on the air. It's interesting.

I never thought about that. Now there's so many writers and there's so much time and there's so much correcting and there's so many different cooks in the kitchen that they overthink it. Sometimes they ruin the immediacy of the humor. Of course. Well, when we did the Van Dyke show, we used to do it.

It was a half-hour show. We did it in a half hour. How did that relationship start with Dick Van Dyke? Dick Van Dyke? You mean how did I get? Well, how did you meet him? Oh, that was one of those fortuitous things. Luckily, there was a pilot

called Head of the Family I wrote 13 episodes is that all you when people were offering me situation comedies they weren't very good and my wife said

why don't you write one yeah so so I wrote one and then I said well if I'm going to do the pilot I might as well have

a second or third script in the summer summer the summer in Fire Island, in about six weeks, I wrote 13 of them. I said, here's a Bible for whoever comes after me. So with 13 scripts, I did the pilot. I was all right. It wasn't very good. It was okay. I did it with Barbara Britton and Morty Gunthe and Sylvan Miles. And it was okay. It didn't sell. That year, Horses and Guns sold a lot, you know, a lot of Westerns. And so I forgot about it. I started doing movies. I wrote a couple

movies, Thrill of It All. But my agent, Harry Calshawn, bless him, was so upset that these 13 good televisions, and I knew they were good. I said, this is the best I'll ever do. And if they don't want it. So he called me and he said, you've got to come in and see Sheldon Leonard. I said, I'll see him, but I'm not going to have anything to do with this. I don't want to. And Sheldon was the guy, and I do a good impression of Sheldon here. I said, I don't want to fail with the same material twice.

I said, this is the best I can do. And we did it. He said, you won't fail. We'll get a better actor to play you. And he suggested Dick Van Dyke. I went to New York, saw him in Bye Bye Birdie. And the rest is, as you say, television history.

And you did how many seasons? We did five seasons. I just got the box of them, because I'm going to go interview Dick. Oh, yeah. 158 shows. Yeah, I got them. I think they're all in that box. Yeah, they are. And by the way, they have the Blu-ray because they're really sharp.

They're neater than when we saw them. The plaids look like plaids. You can see the hair. The hair, each follicle, each hair follicle. That's important. The follicles. Now, in comparing the comedic talent of somebody like Caesar to Dick Van Dyke, what was his strong suit?

Well, first of all, Sid was a master comic actor. Dick was everything. He could do anything and everything you asked him to do. He was like a six-course meal. I mean, first of all, he had the most agile man I've ever known. Sid, by the way, was not agile. Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

But this guy could fall. He could jump. He could do anything. He could sing. He could dance. Well, Sid could also sing. Right. But not dance.

Right. if you watch Dick and all of his incarnations from Mary Poppins on, there's always something surprising that he does. Right now, he's doing close harmony. He's singing before other guys who've gone over their countries, raising money for things, but he loves close harmony. And you guys, you still talk?

All the time. I love hearing that. Yeah. I love that guys stay friends forever. Yeah. Because there's so many, you still talk? All the time. I love hearing that. Yeah. I love that guys stay friends forever. Yeah. Because you hear so many stories. We have a very close feeling about each other. When did you start directing films?

I directed my first film after I saw that two of the three films that I gave out, they were missing things, and I was so upset that the directors were not doing what I thought they should do. And they were good directors. The movies you were in? Huh? The movies you were in, you mean? No, the movies I'd written.

Oh, okay. That were done, you know. Which ones were those? Well, the first one was The Thrill of It All, and then there was another one called The Art of Love. What was it? I don't remember. Anyway, at one point I said,

what was the first one I directed, George? Do you remember? Where's Papa? No, Where's Papa, yeah. I was called in to direct that. Oh, no, Enter Laughing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I said I might as well.

I was upset with some things that happened. I did Enter Laughing. Then after that it was Smooth Sailing. I did Where's Papa. as well yeah i was upset with some things that happened on it i didn't end up laughing then after that it was smooth sailing i did west papa and then a couple i'd written which i love doing which was uh it was one of the labor of loves which was uh burt rigby or a fool nobody knows that one but it's a beauty you love that movie i did four dick steve Steve Martin movies that I love doing. Right, The Jerk is a great movie. They called me in to do that one, yeah. Now, in that term, when you shifted into directing, did you feel like, you know, this is what I really want to do,

or it was just another thing you did? No, I did directing to make sure the stuff I wrote... To honor the writing. Yeah, I didn't particularly want to be... But then, you know, I was good at it. I'm the writing. Yeah. I didn't particularly want to be. But then, you know, I was good at it. I'm a good social director. I made a very good set, which by the way, Rob has the same ability.

You make a happy set, you get an awful lot of good out of the people. Yeah, and what did it feel like when he first started sort of acting and stuff? Went into the family business? Well, I loved it. I loved the fact he went into the family business. And I really loved the fact that he'd outstripped his father by far

with the movies that he directed and produced. Yeah, great movies. Some of the greatest movies. What's your favorite one? Well, you know, I can't pick, but I cannot turn away from The Princess Bride. Anytime it comes on the air, I just watch it. And A Few Good Men just came on the air.

That's one of the, almost the perfect movie. Yeah, it's great. Great play, I guess. And The American President, it was out last night. And that, again, it's a beautiful movie. Oh, my God. He's only failed once or twice with movies that, you know, North. We all have done those where we shudder when we say the word.

And I think I've got to ask you to tell the Albert Brooks story. Albert Brooks I talk about as being one of the few prodigies. His father was an entertainer, right? His father was Parkia Karkas on the old Eddie Cantor show. He spoke with a mock Greek accent. And Albert, of course, he was a comedian. He named his

kid Albert. His name was Einstein. He had another kid. He has other kids that he didn't name Albert, but he named Albert Einstein. Now Albert and Rob were friends when they were 16 years old in school, and they were over here all were 16 years old in school and they were over here all the time and one story I do remember he comes over here he's barefoot I said what happened he didn't do something his mother wanted him to do and she was so upset that she's you can't

go out he said I'm going to go out so she took his shoes away so he went out anyway and he's he's sitting in this room. He's sitting here without shoes. And I said, Albert, I'm a parent. I got to call your mother and tell you you're okay. I called his mother. I said, Albert's all right. He's here with my son. He's got no shoes.

Anyway, he went home and he had no problem. But I always said he could be, he was the single funniest man I ever met. At 16, 17, he was a prodigy. He made adults laugh so hard that we could not look at him. And I'll show you, here's the exact geography. See, those drapes were closed.

And we're standing here, and he comes over to me, and Robbie said he's the greatest escape artist in the world. Yeah. And we're sitting here, and he comes over to me, and Robbie said he's the greatest escape artist in the world. Right. Took a regular handkerchief. Yeah. And he said, you have a handkerchief? I said, yes. He said, would you fold it?

You know, fold it. So I fold it like that. And he says, okay. And he puts his, now you take that. Yeah. And I'll tie my wrist. Right. Now that's good enough.

Right. And it's hanging there. Yeah. That's good enough. Yeah. And it's hanging there. Yeah. It's hanging off your wrist.

Now he says, take two pieces of Kleenex and stuff it in my nose. We stuff it. And now he can't breathe. He can breathe through his mouth, but he's not. He says, no, I will get out of these. Don't help me. I'm going behind the dress in two seconds. I'll be out of the these. Don't help me. I'm going behind the drapes in two seconds. I'll be out of the thing.

Don't help me. I'm bankrupt. He gets behind the drapes, and he starts thrashing and thrashing. We hear him breathing. He's thrashing. The grapes are going. I'm looking through this. I go to, I'm looking through.

I can't. I'm laughing so hard, I think I'm going to damage myself. I go into the kitchen. Yeah. And I hear everybody laughing. I peek in, he's still behind the drapes, thrashing, screaming. He finally falls to the ground. Right.

He falls to the ground. Now he calls me, call, call. I come over and he says, take it off. Yeah. And he does this. He just lifts, and he takes it take he could pull it out take the things out i can't breathe yeah he's got his hands free he's doing it i take he needs breathing now that's that's that's genius greatest escape artist in the world now he's done he's done

most miraculous some of his movies yeah my favorite things ever was seeing his very first movie was just brilliant uh real life real life yeah it was great and he was like he's another guy that just had it's just interesting to me because you know you look at people like mel brooks or sid caesar the way you talk about albert brooks there are some people that cannot help but be funny if they're if they're just sitting there they're just some part of them that they can't help but be funny. If they're just sitting there. There's just some part of them that they can't help but be funny. And that's what's interesting about because it seems like Dick Van Dyke is a guy who could turn it on and off if he wanted to.

You know, Dick Van is a, yeah, he doesn't try to be funny ever. Right. And Steve Martin also, very serious guy. Oh, yeah. Oh, Steve Martin is what's the word? Mysteriously funny.

Not mysteriously funny. The funniest thing, he did something that was so crazy, but only Steve would do it. The Screen Actors Guild gave me some kind of an award. Yeah. And everybody in the world came. And Steve, of course, was invited, but he didn't come. And he sent a tape right and

the tape was him just a full head of says call i would give anything to have been there i'm so terribly sorry i'm not with you tonight it's a wonderful night he said but i couldn't because you see it conflicted i'm i'm I'm having dinner next door. He was eating dinner. Now that is, nobody thinks it's funny. Well, and he's also maybe the most exquisite writer. He's got language that is so amazing. He's written a few books, including a biography, which I think is the most brilliant.

People love that book. It's the saddest, wonderful book. A man who invented himself, found, he discovered who most brilliant. People love that book. It's the saddest, wonderful book a man who invented himself found. He discovered who he was by writing a book almost. Almost found himself. I mean, he described a life that nobody would ever dream of that he had. And then he wrote two books on art that is an extraordinary piece. The words that he uses, I don't know when he studied all this, but he's one of these sneaky guys yeah while nobody's looking he's learning that's right and when so you

you really had a partnership with him after the jerk right well i did four movies yeah we did the jerk a man of two brains did he bring you in on the jerk or how did that work oh yeah i was invited to come in on the jerk and what do you think it is, you know, in terms of, like, having worked with all these guys and being a comedy writer yourself, I mean, what was the dynamic with Steve Martin and why did that work so well with the sensibility? Well, Steve had never been in a movie before. He was a stand-up guy.

Yeah. And he had an actor with acting, except in one little, he did a little short about the absent-minded way to, you know, the time you work with us. And he felt he needed, and he'd seen some of my work, and so they invited me to come in. I worked a little on the script with him,

but mainly he saw how I handled the set, and he was very comfortable with me, and I with him. So when he did his second movie, which was, what was the second one? Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid? Oh, yeah, Dead Men don't wear plaid right he was doing pennies from heaven at the time and I was writing it with George Guipe and that was the most fun we ever had labor of love for six months looking at all black and white film noir movies and finding a line a character's name and pasting it all together it was like doing the most wonderful

jigsaw puzzle and overcoming it right that was the most fun I've ever had making a movie. And then the other two you did were the man with two brains and all of them The man with two brains came apart because Steve wanted to do something silly. Let's do a silly movie like Donovan's brain in a jar and he came up with a

brain and we came up with a man with two brains. To me, everything about that movie is funny. From the very first frame, when he's being interviewed, and his name is funny. When you have the first laugh, the name of the star is Hufferer. He says, Hufferer, H-F-U-H-U-R-U-R-F-H-R-R-R-R.

He's just kind of, you're almost there. Anyway, but then when he meets the brain, the brain's name is O-M-L-M-A-H-Y-A-Y-E. And they know how to spell each other. She says, H-F-U-R-U-H-U-R-F-H-R-R-R-R. O-M-L-M-A-A-U-M-A yes so you know they made it I mean this is the silliest wonderful movie ever

and when you work with somebody like that like in the dynamic that you and Mel Brooks have I mean it's like it's seamless and you just turn him on and you play off each other yeah because Steve would come up with things just luckily we rode to work every day together.

And on the ride, sometimes he would come up with something. I remember once I wrote about this. He came up with a joke. Yeah. You know, a shit from Shinola. And it was such a great joke. I said, hey, we got to do this. Before we do this, save that piece of building so we can come around the corner.

What's that? That's shit. What is this? Shinola. And he was going out into the world. And you can't go out into the world unless you know shit from Shinola. And I mean, it was, but he but he just on the way to work. It's so interesting to me because like

do you think there's a difference? It's a weird question. I mean, I'm Jewish and I resonate with, you know, when I grew up, a lot of Jewish comics, it's a specific tone to it. And Sid was Jewish, right? And Mel Brooks was Jewish. And they're sort of iconically Jewish. By the way, did you see that

special about Broadway Brooks was Jewish. They're sort of iconically Jewish. By the way, did you see that special about Broadway music? There wasn't anybody who wrote for Broadway that wasn't Jewish. One guy, Cole Porter. But there were 1,000 names. It's one of the most...

I wasn't aware of it. It goes on and on. Hammerstein and Rogers and Lerner. Why do you think that is? I don't know. They like music. But comedy, too. I don't know.

No, I think, you know, it's interesting. Downtrodden people, you can't take music away from them. You can make yourself happy by singing or writing a song. You can't take that away from them. You can take physical things away from them song right you can't take that away from you can take physical things away right but you can't take away and a sense of humor is necessary to get through life you'll kill yourself if you don't have a sense of humor things how did people live through the holocaust they must have found something worth living i'm sure there was humor humor might have been underlying everything yeah save people yeah so that i. Yeah, so that's a pretty good analysis.

Were you ever religious? Was your family religious? No, no, no. My father never set foot in a synagogue. He believed in God, which I don't, but he did. He said he did anyway. Yeah. But we never went to a synagogue.

My friends did. Can you do some phony Hebrew? Phony Hebrew? Yeah, I can. No, let's hear it. No, I don't want to hear it. Hebrew? I can. No, let's hear it. No, I don't want to hear it.

Yeah. Okay. That's the whole service. That's all of it. So is this how you, like, you, I mean, both you and Mel Brooks are incredibly, have an amazing amount of clarity and you just, your brains are on fire still.

Well, it's enough to do that. Do you like that book? Yeah, I love it. Oh, by the way, I'm going to say this now. And you'll be the first one to know this. Whoever buys retail the I Remember Me book will, if they send in their name, get a free copy of...

The new book. This here book. The Karkreiner book. The Karkreiner book. Well, that's terrific. For one penny, which will go to charity. We expect to give the million or two million million in pennies to some worthy charity. Now, in looking back, and as a general question that you probably get before,

what were the crowning moments where you really felt like, you know, I can't believe this is happening? That happens all the time. Every day? Yeah. No, I tell you what. That happens all the time. Every day?

Yeah. No, I tell you what. My career has been such a very long, steady, one step after another, and each one either working or not working. Most of them worked. I've had some dips, but most of the time they were— Got a bunch of awards? Got Emmys? Oh, yeah.

I've got 12 Emmys. I got a Mark Twain Award. That must have been phenomenal. Oh, it was wonderful. No, to be that—I forgot who got it before me, but there were only two or three people before me. Richie Pryor. Huh?

Pryor? Pryor was the first. Richie Pryor, right. And who was the second one? I don't know. Did you know Pryor? Yeah, I guess I met him once when he performed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Loved him? Yeah, I I did and his daughter is so bright yeah what's her name? Rain yeah yeah she's great gifted and who were some of the other guys that you loved watching when you were coming up? oh my god I was honed on the Marx brothers I waited for their movies

and I couldn't believe what I was seeing and then the Ritz brothers tickled me a lot but of course the Marx Brothers. Yeah, yeah. I waited for their movies and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And then the Ritz Brothers tickled me a lot. Yeah, yeah. But of course, Buster Keaton. Yeah. And I appreciate him later.

I got a little older. As a director, probably. Yeah, and of course, you know, Chaplin, of course, was everybody's. Yeah, yeah. There's a little chapter

on visiting Chaplin's son in Vevey, France. I was invited there to, and speaking phony French. That's a good chapter. Do you speak French? Yes, I do speak French but when I was invited by Christopher Chaplin to do a

benefit at Vevey I went there and there was a radio interviewer, television interviewer, who spoke French and he said we can have the interview in French or in English. I said let's do it in French. And he asked me questions. I said your questions are too I need a dictionary. And I know you're speaking too fast. I said if somebody will give me your questions in French and English, I will answer you in French.

And so we did that for a while until the answers required words that I didn't have in my lexicon. I would have to look them up in the dictionary. So without breaking strides, I spoke half French and half English with a French accent. And I explained what I'm doing. I said, I will use, you know. How'd that go over?

Well, it was sensational. And I, you know, it's funny. You never did the mountains, though, though. you didn't end up going to the mountains? yes, that's where I met my wife in the Adirondacks it was an adult camp it wasn't the Boer circuit it was an adult camp

it was a progressive camp where what do you refer to as socialist summer camps? exactly, there were a couple of them. There was Tammerment, and there was, this one was called Alabin Acres. It was a camp where we lived in bunks, you know, bunk for eight. And what was the theme of the, like, why was it called the progressive camp? I mean, what was the idea?

Because they cared about social justice. They cared about the war, the wrong war going to the wrong wars and all of those things they were considered you know commies yeah and what's uh were you in a review yeah i was a neophyte i had no political interest but somebody had seen me work and i auditioned and i went up there for ten dollars a week and it was the best best training ground in the world because there was a comedian called Bernie Hearn. I was his straight man, and he was brilliantly funny.

There were three comedians at the time, Zero Mostel, Philly Leeds, and Bernie Hearn, who were left-wing comedians, and they were brilliantly funny and nice men. And I learned a lot from him, and I also met my wife there. What was she doing? She was an assistant scenic designer, and I write about that. In terms of being a straight man, in terms of being a guy that's known as that, what does that require? I mean, it requires, I finally figured it out only in the

last couple of months what I really am. Somebody said, what are you? I am the master master of ceremonies I get a greater kick out of saying and here is because I've done hundreds of benefits for the writers guild the directors yeah and and I am see these shows I never prepare because I can't prepare I've had this ability since I'm 18 years old and I found that right there at the Alabama Acres where I used to do the game shows I used to introduce acts and I would find the fun by looking out at the audience I would say what's on their mind so it's on everybody's mind you say the truth you don't have to be funny right you say the absolute truth that everybody's thinking and somebody dares

to say it and it becomes terribly funny so I had this ability, and I realized that what I always have done and enjoyed doing was introducing people. And when you introduce a funny person, and you come out smiling and applauding, you're part of it. You are the one who, and I realized when I was, I became a fucking bore when Searching for Sugarman came out and I saw it. I went so nuts for it. I bothered everybody to see it. I said, you've got to see this. I'll pay for you to see it. And I told people, take your wives, take your loved ones, because you're going to,

and you know how many thank you letters I got and people calling me saying, I would have never seen this movie. I mean, I might not have seen it, but I force them to go see it. That's who I am. I'm a master of ceremonies. That's what I do. And I get a great pleasure to point to things and say, look at that. Look at that. And also, do you feel like, look at that, but then when you're sitting up there with the funny guy

and you know that there's a beat there where you've got to kind of represent the guy watching and take him to the next level. You kind of provide momentum. Yeah, well, if I have something funny to say, I'll say it. And real good comedians don't figure they're being challenged. It keeps the pot boiling. Really good comedians, feed off funny stuff and get funnier.

So you like Jimmy Kimmel? Jimmy Kimmel's your guy? I love Jimmy Kimmel. And when I go on his show, which I will do in February, what is it? February 11th. February 11th. I can't wait to tell him and mean it that he, when he emceed the Emmys,

he did the single funniest thing I've ever seen any emcee do, including myself, which I've done a lot of funny things. But at one point, which very many emcees do when they have a relative in the audience, they point that out to the audience, they say, my mother and father are sitting in the fifth row, and I want to, and they put the camera on them. Thank you for coming.

It was so nice of you to come. He said, you know something? He said, when I was a kid, my mother or somebody, my father, they gave me a briefcase to take to school. I was a little kid. He said, I carried that briefcase to school. Everybody made fun of me. And for the rest of the year, they were killing me with the jokes.

And he said, and I didn't appreciate that. You know, you shouldn't have done that. It was really, what were you thinking? And he started getting angry at his parents. He said, you know something, I don't want you here. He said, get them out of here. And they were laughing. He said, no, no, I'm serious.

Get the ushers. And the ushers ushered them out of it. And I said, I've never seen anybody throw their parents out of an event. Now, that to me was the single funniest emceeing I've ever seen. And you've seen them all. Yeah. Did you like Carson? Oh, yeah.

Carson, are you kidding? He was the guy everybody wanted to. Yeah. I'd done 50 Carsons, but it's a lie. I did 47 and when when i came on i said you know i said uh what's his name tony randall did 63 he had the record i said i've did 47 which is a good he said i said but you know and even 50 would be nicer in my resume i said if you'll do this and he did it i said if you'll introduce me three times, I'll make three entrances, and I can cut them in.

And so I made an entrance, the regular entrance, and then I took my jacket and put it on backwards, you know, with the sleeves. And then I carried it on the third, and I sat down. And so we have 50 entrances. You made your number. Yeah. That's hilarious.

Right, right. Well, that's a great way to end. Thank you, Mr. Reiner. Oh, wait, chicken feathers. Oh, chicken feathers. Give me one of those. This is you and Mel Brooks do this when he comes over here? The one you, were you leaning on this one? Were you? Oh, yeah, then it's probably has.

Wait here. Okay, all right. Okay, well, I'll. There's feathers coming out of it. Okay, wait here. Okay, you see, at night, I feel around. Yeah. And it's a little something.

You feel something sticking out. Yeah. This started when somebody sat and said, you know. Oh, you're pulling feathers coming out. Yeah, feathers coming out. And we get a bunch of them. And I have a plastic bag that I fill with them. I don't know what I'm going to do with them.

Give one to Mark. I mean, that's a souvenir. So what's this have to do with you and Mel? You both do this? Yeah, we both do this. But only if there's a show that's on that we don't have to look at the screen. But you do have to pay attention to what you're doing here, or you'll never find me.

So you guys just sit and hang out for an hour or two? Well, about three, four hours. Yeah? Do you talk? Of course we talk. We talk. And sometimes while we're watching something that's not terribly, he'll fall asleep, and I won't wake him because he drives home,

and I'm saying he probably better he sleeps here than falls behind the wheel. What was that thing he told me about movies, that you like watching movies with certain phrases in them? Oh, yeah, that's true. And it's really started with the Bourne series. And the phrases are, secure the perimeter, lock all doors. And if one character in the movie says, get some rest. If those words are in the movie, that movie's a good movie.

We do love Justified. Yeah. And it follows what I read once. The best, the greatest heroes are made by the greatest villains. In other words, a movie that has a really great villain, you never want to see that guy die. Maybe at the very end. But because they're the ones

who make the greatest heroes. And we're thinking that Christopher Waltz in Glorious Bastards. That one of the best villains. I could watch that guy being mean forever. That was one of the most brilliant performances.

So I think you're saying that a hero... Without Basil Rathbone, half the movies we've seen would never have been as good. So the hero is the villain straight man. Yes, right. Alright, I'm going to take those feathers. Thanks for talking to me. Okay, hi. It's me. I'm back and I just listened what this was an amazing couple of interviews for me

it was beautiful beautiful to sit with carl and and listen to him and watch him interact on the phone with people in the room with me but nothing is going to top what happened after I shut the mics off. And I will tell you this now, we turn off the mics and I'm sitting there and almost immediately, George Shapiro, who, as I said, was napping in the chair across from Carl on and off, was the first to get up and go, what a great interview. That was a great interview. Wasn't that great? And then Carl starts fiddling with remote controls he's like i gotta show you that pbs thing uh with the jews in the musical i gotta show you that i want to i mentioned it i want to show it to you and i'm like okay and i'm putting my stuff away and then uh and then george shapiro

goes is there ice cream is there any ice? And then he wanders into the kitchen. The publicist guy who's there, he wanders into the kitchen. And I'm watching Carl. He's got the TV on. He's looking for it. He's like, oh, maybe it's on the other TiVo, maybe this TiVo. He's not bumbling, but there's a lot to be done here. And clearly he watches a lot of television, has a lot of things recorded.

So then George Shapiro comes back into the room and starts handing out uh you know sort of some kind of low calorie ice cream sandwich and now we're all eating ice cream and carl starts the um the documentary at the beginning so in my mind i'm like okay i guess i'm hanging out i guess i'm here for the hour i don't know what happens now are we going to get to the list that he wanted to show me look it's it's not i don't have a lot to do and this is an amazing thing so i'm packing up we're watching something on gershwin we're eating ice cream sandwiches everything is great and then the phone rings and carl picks it up and i'm packing my bag up and i hear him go no it went very well it was very good uh yes yes and then he taps me on the shoulder with the phone and he goes he hands me the phone It was very good. Yes, yes.

And then he taps me on the shoulder with the phone and he hands me the phone. He goes, it's Mel Brooks. So I'm like, oh, okay. So I pick up the phone and I bring it to my ear and I go, hello? And all I hear is 80%, right? Right? Right? And all I hear is 80%, right? Right?

And I said, maybe 85. And Mel Brooks goes, all right, maybe 85. Put Carl back on the phone. It was just too much for me to even put it together that for three weeks, this was the beat. This was the beat this was the callback this was the moment that is comic genius killed me i kept it in because i didn't know you know if look they're comedians i just i just handled it like anyone would like oh my god i just waited for the longest punch line available by mel brooks weeks weeks. So then Carl gets back on the phone, and I think from what I could glean, the conversation was Carl was insisting

that he was going to roast his own chicken. And then, like, everything starts to break up. I pack up, and I get the PBS thing. He didn't seem to be hung up on showing me the list at the end, and I say goodbye to Carl, and I thank him. And then I'm walking out to with shapiro you know we finish our ice cream sandwiches i'm walking out with george shapiro and um you know we get outside and he goes that was great that was a great job because what did mel say and i said he said carl's about 80 and And George Shapiro goes, yeah, he tells the truth.

Then he walks away. And I got in my car. And I listened to the interview I had just done with one of the great comedy minds of ever. Of ever. And I drove home listening. Look, people, that's the end of the show. I hope you enjoyed this set of interviews. I did, and I tell you, all we can hope for is that we have the type of lives

that Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner did, and we stay as strong in spirit and mind for as long as they did. It was just overwhelming. Okay. So long.