Episode 1229 - Gabe Kaplan

Episode 1229 • Released May 24, 2021 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuck stirs today we talked to i talked to who's we me gabe kaplan gabe kaplan welcome back cotter gabe kaplan out of nowhere is pitched to me you know would you like to talk to gabe kaplan sure i would like to talk to gabe kaplan of course

00:00:33Marc:I remember Gabe Kaplan.

00:00:34Marc:Gabe Kaplan holds a big part of my brain somehow.

00:00:36Marc:Just that hair and that mustache and that delivery.

00:00:39Marc:I remember him from when I was a kid.

00:00:40Marc:I was young enough to watch Welcome Back Cotter when I was a kid.

00:00:44Marc:I remember him as a stand-up, but I don't know anything about him or what he's been doing.

00:00:47Marc:I know that he played professional poker for a while, but I was excited to talk to him about where he's been, what he's been doing, how he started.

00:00:56Marc:He was a big comic.

00:00:58Marc:He's the real deal, man.

00:01:00Marc:But what was funny is that, you know, he hasn't been in the game for a long time.

00:01:03Marc:And we talked for a while.

00:01:04Marc:And he asked me, I told him I was still at the comedy store.

00:01:07Marc:We talked about the comedy store a bit.

00:01:08Marc:And he started when he was like 18.

00:01:11Marc:But he asked me if his picture was still up there.

00:01:14Marc:I said, probably.

00:01:15Marc:And that night I went and I found his picture.

00:01:17Marc:I took a picture of it and I texted it to him.

00:01:19Marc:And that was a nice moment, a nice text moment with Gabe Kaplan.

00:01:24Marc:But I was excited to talk to him.

00:01:26Marc:I think his daughter is a big fan of the show.

00:01:28Marc:I'm not exactly sure what brought him around, but it might have been that.

00:01:32Marc:But he was like a huge standup in the 70s.

00:01:34Marc:And then he just kind of changed.

00:01:36Marc:Don't you remember when you heard Gabe Kaplan's professional poker player?

00:01:41Marc:It was like, really?

00:01:42Marc:Wasn't he a comic?

00:01:44Marc:What happened?

00:01:46Marc:Well, we'll talk to him.

00:01:48Marc:You'll learn.

00:01:49Marc:You'll learn what happened.

00:01:51Marc:It was a thrill to talk to him, to be honest with you.

00:01:56Marc:I've got club dates booked, and if everything works out well...

00:02:00Marc:I'm going to do them and I'll have the time and I'll be ready to do them when they come.

00:02:04Marc:But I have dates that are available.

00:02:07Marc:Denver at the Comedy Works, August 5th through 7th.

00:02:09Marc:Phoenix at Stand Up Live on August 12th.

00:02:11Marc:Salt Lake City at Wise Guys, August 19th through 21st.

00:02:16Marc:St.

00:02:16Marc:Louis at Helium, September 16th through 18th.

00:02:19Marc:You can go to the websites of these venues to get tickets or click on the tour button at WTF pod.com.

00:02:25Marc:Also, I want to let you know that I signed some more copies of waiting for the punch, the WTF book.

00:02:31Marc:These never seem to stay in stock.

00:02:32Marc:So I want to give listeners a heads up before they're all gone.

00:02:37Marc:But you can get them at pod swag.com slash WTF or click on the merch button at WTF pod.com for the signed book.

00:02:47Marc:What I'm noticing about performing is and just noticing about being out in the world in general, like the other night, night before last, me and Jerry Stahl and his girlfriend Zoe went to I took them out to the comedy store and they hung out and did a main room set.

00:03:02Marc:And then we went to Cantor's, which is distance and, you know, had a Cantor's thing.

00:03:07Marc:But it's all weird.

00:03:08Marc:It's all there's there is a weird energy in the air.

00:03:11Marc:There's still a kind of mildly apocalyptic tone to where this city is at economically and where we're all at culturally and where we are all at environmentally.

00:03:21Marc:It's still sort of.

00:03:23Marc:You know, sizzling in the air that that that kind of like vibrating frequency of being on the edge of something awful is still around.

00:03:31Marc:But what I've noticed mostly in, you know, after going to the store, the comedy store a few days and people all of a sudden started to, you know, you haven't seen I haven't seen these people in a year and you don't even know because you're just at the store and you it all feels familiar.

00:03:45Marc:You're kind of like, hey, what's up?

00:03:46Marc:It's almost like no time went by.

00:03:48Marc:in a way, except that we're all sort of half scared and wondering about masks and a little weird on stage because we don't know our footing.

00:03:55Marc:The audiences are still small and tentative and everybody's weird.

00:03:59Marc:It kind of reminded me of doing standup in New York just after 9-11, that there is definitely, that was much more intense because you could smell the burning and many people were killed.

00:04:10Marc:But let's not underestimate, even on a broad level,

00:04:14Marc:that over half a million people died of this disease in this country.

00:04:18Marc:We've all been through a year of lockdown.

00:04:21Marc:And during that year, most of us were terrified on a day to day basis.

00:04:26Marc:Most of us lost people one way or the other.

00:04:29Marc:During this pandemic, we had a president that wouldn't leave and was causing complete divisive political strife and fucking with our heads on a day to day basis.

00:04:38Marc:If you were out here in L.A., the sky was orange and the air was unbreathable from fire.

00:04:43Marc:And we left our groceries on the goddamn stoop.

00:04:46Marc:because we were terrified of a bag of groceries.

00:04:49Marc:This was day-to-day life.

00:04:52Marc:Now, I don't think that we can just jump out of that.

00:04:56Marc:For me, in terms of dealing with what to deal with comedically, it's acknowledging.

00:05:01Marc:acknowledging that PTSD is real and that we all fucking have it I know we all want to get out there and do what's next and get back to normal but to disregard what we all went through over the last year even if you're a belligerent fucking idiot who insisted on you know that they didn't feel that I don't know you're a minority but the truth of the matter is most of us were terrified and brain fucked every day one way or the other in for a year and

00:05:29Marc:And to think that that much fear and that much panic does not impact your brain.

00:05:35Marc:What does trauma do?

00:05:36Marc:Like if we don't really deal with what we've all been through and somehow move through it or process it or feel it or laugh about it or cry about it or whatever, it's going to break our brains in that we won't remember anything.

00:05:51Marc:which is really fertile ground for fascism and for mindfucking, is that trauma, you know, makes you repress memories.

00:06:00Marc:And we've already got a lot of momentum in certain states and with certain parties to forget an insurrection, to try to...

00:06:10Marc:Forget what happened in reality on purpose through propaganda.

00:06:15Marc:So I'm just saying that for me in dealing with what I feel and how I'm going to handle stand up, it's moving through this.

00:06:25Marc:Moving through and acknowledging the fucking trauma so we don't forget everything.

00:06:31Marc:You know why during the pandemic and even now this morning feels like a month ago?

00:06:36Marc:It's because we're brain fucked.

00:06:37Marc:You know, we've let our phones shatter our minds with information.

00:06:42Marc:And also we just we all we thought we were going to die if we touched an apple at the supermarket.

00:06:48Marc:If we forgot to sanitize our hands after we touched a handle or a button.

00:06:53Marc:That was every day.

00:06:55Marc:You don't think that brain fucks you?

00:06:56Marc:You don't think trauma is going to fuck you?

00:06:58Marc:If you don't remember this stuff, you're not going to be able to use your memory properly.

00:07:03Marc:And you're going to be somebody in trauma.

00:07:06Marc:So it's just important for me to acknowledge that and to sort of think about it on stage and to see how we can all move through that.

00:07:13Marc:Because I feel it.

00:07:15Marc:It feels like a big sort of electric world of PTSD out there right now.

00:07:22Marc:Consider it or else nothing will take precedence in your mind appropriately.

00:07:32Marc:Your memory will be shattered.

00:07:34Marc:We're all almost halfway there.

00:07:37Marc:Scary.

00:07:39Marc:But we got to consider it.

00:07:41Marc:Gabe Kaplan.

00:07:44Marc:What sort of got him on my radar was this essay he wrote for the new issue of Emmy magazine about his time on Battle of the Network Stars and a situation that happened on there with Robert Conrad.

00:07:54Marc:We'll talk about that a little bit.

00:07:56Marc:And the magazine is available now.

00:07:58Marc:But it was it was really kind of an interesting eulogy, not just for for Robert Conrad, but for that era.

00:08:06Marc:I mean, obviously it's been dead a while, but there was something for me profoundly nostalgic about it because I remember it.

00:08:14Marc:It was my childhood and it was very nice to to talk to Gabe Kaplan.

00:08:19Marc:So I'll share that with you now.

00:08:30Marc:You look great, buddy.

00:08:31Guest:Well, thank you.

00:08:32Marc:How are you feeling?

00:08:34Guest:I'm feeling like I'm 77.

00:08:37Marc:Really?

00:08:38Marc:Yeah.

00:08:38Marc:When did that start?

00:08:39Marc:When did you start feeling like that?

00:08:40Marc:At 77?

00:08:41Guest:March 31st, yeah.

00:08:42Guest:I don't know, man.

00:08:46Marc:I mean, I think you look better than most 77-year-olds.

00:08:50Marc:Thank you.

00:08:50Marc:Do you exercise?

00:08:51Marc:Do you take care of yourself?

00:08:52Marc:Yes, I exercise.

00:08:53Marc:What do you do?

00:08:53Guest:I do treadmill almost every day.

00:08:55Marc:At home?

00:08:56Guest:At home.

00:08:56Guest:Yeah.

00:08:56Guest:And I have like a little combination gym deal.

00:09:00Marc:Is your health like good?

00:09:01Marc:Yeah.

00:09:01Marc:Yeah?

00:09:02Marc:Not bad.

00:09:02Marc:Yeah?

00:09:03Marc:Yeah.

00:09:03Marc:Yeah, a couple of little pills, you know.

00:09:06Marc:Yeah.

00:09:06Marc:You got to take pills.

00:09:07Marc:I take one pill already.

00:09:08Marc:I'm 57.

00:09:09Marc:I'm taking a pill.

00:09:10Guest:That's when I started.

00:09:11Marc:Yeah?

00:09:11Marc:That was my first pill.

00:09:13Marc:Wait, what'd you start with?

00:09:16Marc:What was your first pill?

00:09:17Marc:Lipitor.

00:09:18Marc:Yeah, that's mine.

00:09:19Marc:That was my first pill.

00:09:21Marc:Yeah, that's where you learn.

00:09:22Marc:Like, you know, my genes aren't that good.

00:09:25Marc:No.

00:09:25Marc:I'm eating well and I still have a cholesterol issue.

00:09:27Guest:Me too.

00:09:27Guest:I eat pretty good.

00:09:29Guest:Fish.

00:09:29Marc:Yeah.

00:09:30Guest:You know, very, very rarely meat.

00:09:33Marc:Yeah.

00:09:34Marc:And still, right?

00:09:35Marc:Still.

00:09:36Marc:Yeah.

00:09:36Marc:It's ridiculous.

00:09:37Marc:All right.

00:09:37Guest:Listen, we got all the numbers on.

00:09:38Guest:It's scary a little bit.

00:09:39Guest:You know, nothing to really be worried about, but- We got to keep an eye on it.

00:09:43Guest:We're going to put you on a small dose of Lipitor.

00:09:45Marc:Yeah.

00:09:46Marc:And the dose stayed the same?

00:09:47Marc:No.

00:09:48Marc:Went up.

00:09:49Marc:Why?

00:09:49Marc:Because the numbers kept- Numbers- Really?

00:09:52Guest:So I'm up to 40 mils- A day.

00:09:55Guest:A day.

00:09:55Marc:Any side effects?

00:09:57Guest:No.

00:09:58Marc:No.

00:09:58Marc:Do you get obsessed with side effects?

00:10:00Marc:I really haven't had any.

00:10:01Marc:But when you look at the label, do you like, oh, fuck.

00:10:04Guest:No.

00:10:04Guest:I mean, you read the internet, you're done.

00:10:08Marc:People tell you, don't take them.

00:10:09Marc:They're evil.

00:10:10Marc:Yeah, you just got to drink some apple cider vinegar.

00:10:13Marc:And also, how about those people that say that meat doesn't cause it?

00:10:18Marc:All these people that have these ideas about health don't really take into mind that everybody's different.

00:10:27Guest:Yeah, everybody's body chemistry is different.

00:10:29Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:10:30Guest:But my numbers are good with all the pills.

00:10:32Guest:I take five pills.

00:10:33Marc:Yeah.

00:10:34Marc:When did you like – I remember – I read that thing you wrote about Robert Conrad.

00:10:39Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:10:40Marc:Because it seemed like that was what was out in the world.

00:10:42Marc:He seemed to be like pushing that out in the world.

00:10:44Marc:Out of nowhere, you dispatch a bit of business to get some – it felt like a eulogy to me a little bit.

00:10:52Guest:It was.

00:10:52Guest:It was –

00:10:54Guest:A personal relationship that never really happened, and I wondered what happened.

00:10:59Marc:With Robert Conrad.

00:11:00Guest:With Robert Conrad.

00:11:01Guest:Like, why did this happen?

00:11:02Guest:Why were we not talking to each other for 40 years?

00:11:05Marc:But you weren't really friends before.

00:11:07Marc:You just did the Battle of the Network Stars together, and you felt that somehow or another in your brain that it was a resentment, a deep-seated resentment over you beating him in a race.

00:11:18Yes.

00:11:18Guest:I think, yeah, I think he thought I kind of sucker punched him.

00:11:22Guest:And he carried that with him for 40 years.

00:11:25Guest:I think so, because I met members of his family, and there was always a little hesitancy, a little coldness, like, you know, why'd you do that to dad?

00:11:34Guest:Really?

00:11:35Guest:Yeah.

00:11:35Guest:And I think it was, because that was his thing to be a macho guy, to be, you know, and he sort of fell right into that.

00:11:43Guest:Yeah.

00:11:43Guest:I felt like I wanted to patch that up.

00:11:46Guest:I didn't want that hanging.

00:11:47Marc:But in the piece, it didn't seem like it was really outstanding there.

00:11:53Marc:Like when you tried to connect with them around that, it was like not really the issue.

00:11:57Guest:Well, it wasn't the issue anymore because of his age.

00:12:00Guest:He hardly remembered anything.

00:12:02Guest:It was like an interview.

00:12:04Guest:It was competition with my peers, and I enjoyed that.

00:12:08Guest:So he wasn't really getting to the issue.

00:12:10Guest:My thing was, why did he blame me?

00:12:13Guest:I didn't do anything.

00:12:14Guest:I was just there.

00:12:15Marc:But it's weird.

00:12:16Marc:Out of nowhere, you decide to sort of rehash just Battle of the Network Stars.

00:12:19Marc:It was the first Battle of the Network Stars.

00:12:21Marc:You were team captain for what, ABC?

00:12:24Marc:Yes.

00:12:25Marc:He was team captain for NBC.

00:12:26Marc:Telly Savalas, CBS.

00:12:29Marc:The funny thing about reading that, being 57, is that all of those people that were involved in that, I remember when I was a little kid.

00:12:37Marc:What year was that?

00:12:38Marc:1976.

00:12:39Marc:Right.

00:12:39Marc:So I'm 13 years old.

00:12:40Marc:So watching Welcome Back, Cotter, seeing Robert Conrad on things, Telly Savalas, Kojak, my mother watched that.

00:12:48Marc:It was almost a eulogy for another time in television.

00:12:51Guest:yes i mean that's what it felt like also felt like hey i want to revisit that era yeah nobody really knows much about it or the reality of what it was like to be a big television star when there was three networks yeah when that was it yeah and you talk about your relationship with penny marshall yeah yeah for some reason i thought when it was three networks everybody knew each other

00:13:14Guest:You knew a lot of people on your network, so I knew most of those people that were on my team.

00:13:19Marc:Yeah.

00:13:21Marc:Who were they?

00:13:22Marc:Let's reel them off.

00:13:23Guest:Let's reel them off.

00:13:25Guest:You want the statistics?

00:13:26Marc:No, I just want the people, because I want to know what my relationship was with them.

00:13:29Guest:Okay.

00:13:30Marc:uh linda carter sure wonder woman wonder woman yeah okay ron howard sure ron howard before he was ron howard when he was ron howard he was on happy days but he was happy days ron howard the biggest director in the world no right right so this was this was when he this was richie cunningham ron howard richie cunningham post op days yeah got it

00:13:50Guest:And then there was Hal Linden.

00:13:53Guest:Sure.

00:13:54Guest:Barney Miller.

00:13:55Marc:Barney Miller.

00:13:55Marc:Just talking about Barney Miller the other day.

00:13:57Marc:What a great fucking show that was.

00:13:58Guest:Right.

00:13:59Marc:Huh?

00:13:59Guest:I love Barney Miller.

00:14:00Marc:Yeah.

00:14:02Marc:Did you know those other guys on Barney Miller?

00:14:05Marc:Did you know Landisberg?

00:14:06Marc:Sure.

00:14:07Marc:Yeah.

00:14:07Marc:Funny guy, right?

00:14:08Marc:Started the improv together.

00:14:10Guest:In New York?

00:14:10Guest:In New York, yeah.

00:14:11Marc:Really?

00:14:12Marc:Yeah.

00:14:14Marc:Because I always thought he was hilarious, and then I was... Okay, go ahead.

00:14:18Marc:Who else?

00:14:18Marc:He would kill at the improv.

00:14:20Guest:He had these routines that he would just kill with.

00:14:24Marc:Yeah?

00:14:25Marc:What was his style?

00:14:26Marc:Because there's not a lot of him doing stand-up around, you know what I mean?

00:14:29Marc:In terms of footage.

00:14:31Guest:And I don't know if those... I think he did those routines on the Carson show, but there was one I remember about...

00:14:36Guest:His name was Ludwig Bay von Stuckmacher, an expert on music, baseball, and psychiatry.

00:14:45Guest:So it was a character.

00:14:46Guest:It was a character, yeah.

00:14:48Guest:It was acting.

00:14:48Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:14:50Guest:And really kill.

00:14:53Guest:So these were the people.

00:14:54Guest:And Telly Savalas was the other captain?

00:14:57Guest:Telly Savalas, I knew him because he had done a nightclub act in Vegas.

00:15:02Guest:Yeah.

00:15:03Guest:And I was his opening comic.

00:15:05Guest:What year was that?

00:15:06Guest:I'd say 1974.

00:15:07Guest:Wow.

00:15:07Guest:He was that popular.

00:15:12Marc:So you really started before there were legit comedy clubs at all.

00:15:16Marc:Yes.

00:15:17Marc:Where'd you grow up?

00:15:18Marc:I grew up in Brooklyn.

00:15:19Marc:And you got brothers and sisters?

00:15:22Marc:Oldest sister, about nine years older.

00:15:23Marc:Still around?

00:15:24Marc:Yeah.

00:15:24Marc:Nice.

00:15:25Marc:And very Jewish, little Jewish, middle Jewish?

00:15:29Guest:My father was really...

00:15:31Guest:religious yeah he would go every saturday every saturday morning was a fight uh-huh to get me to go to temple with him yeah yeah everybody has their son going why doesn't my son come come let's go let's go be a jew come to shul be a juke and it's what he said it was a fight sometimes he'd win sometimes i'd win

00:15:51Marc:And what was your aversion?

00:15:53Guest:I just didn't like it.

00:15:55Guest:I didn't believe it.

00:15:56Guest:I just, you know, old men bowing and I just didn't go.

00:16:04Guest:Once I started, you know, I was like 10, 11, everything was fine.

00:16:07Guest:And I started to think and I said, I don't believe this.

00:16:11Guest:But you got the bar mitzvah or no?

00:16:12Guest:Yeah.

00:16:13Guest:Well, that was it.

00:16:14Guest:Then he didn't bother me anymore.

00:16:16Marc:That was it?

00:16:16Marc:Yeah.

00:16:17Marc:You did your bit?

00:16:17Guest:I did my thing.

00:16:19Guest:I put in 13 years, and then he left me alone.

00:16:22Guest:But he had his own form.

00:16:24Guest:We had separate dishes.

00:16:26Guest:The kosher thing.

00:16:27Guest:The kosher thing.

00:16:28Guest:You did.

00:16:29Guest:And then I had friends who had separate dishes.

00:16:32Guest:But they would eat out and they would eat Chinese food.

00:16:36Guest:Right.

00:16:36Guest:And that was okay.

00:16:37Guest:Right.

00:16:38Guest:So there's like different versions of what's okay to eat.

00:16:42Guest:Yeah.

00:16:42Guest:I think the last thing, if you do the last thing is if you eat a pork chop.

00:16:46Marc:Right.

00:16:47Marc:That's it.

00:16:47Marc:Then you're out.

00:16:48Marc:But you can eat pork and Chinese food.

00:16:50Marc:You can eat pork fried rice.

00:16:52Marc:Right.

00:16:52Marc:But you can't eat a pork chop.

00:16:54Marc:A whole pork chop.

00:16:55Marc:Because you can't rationalize that.

00:16:56Marc:You can't.

00:16:56Marc:Like, I didn't know it was in there.

00:16:58Guest:Right, right, right.

00:16:59Yeah.

00:16:59Marc:God said Morris Feldman.

00:17:01Marc:He ate a pork.

00:17:01Marc:That's it.

00:17:02Marc:Yeah.

00:17:02Marc:I saw you eat the pork chop.

00:17:04Marc:You're out.

00:17:05Marc:Yeah.

00:17:05Marc:I didn't see it in the rice.

00:17:06Marc:Saw it on the plate with the pork chop.

00:17:09Marc:So what was the original idea for you?

00:17:13Marc:It wasn't always to do comedy, right?

00:17:15Marc:What were you going to do?

00:17:16Marc:What was the plan?

00:17:17Guest:I want to be a baseball player.

00:17:19Marc:Oh, really?

00:17:19Marc:Could you play?

00:17:20Guest:Yeah, it was good.

00:17:21Guest:In high school, I was small and I was okay, but I wasn't really that good.

00:17:28Guest:But when I became like 16, 17, I started to grow and I became a really good baseball player.

00:17:33Guest:And I tried out for a couple of minor league teams.

00:17:36Guest:Yeah.

00:17:36Guest:And I didn't make it.

00:17:37Guest:I almost made it one year.

00:17:39Guest:Yeah.

00:17:39Guest:In Amarillo, Texas.

00:17:41Guest:You went to Texas?

00:17:42Guest:I went to Texas.

00:17:43Guest:It was a Yankee farm.

00:17:44Guest:I think it was the Gold Sox.

00:17:45Guest:Uh-huh.

00:17:46Guest:It was a Yankee farm team at that time.

00:17:48Guest:Yeah.

00:17:49Guest:And I made, I think, the last cut.

00:17:51Guest:And then hung around in Texas.

00:17:53Guest:Because they said hang around for a little while.

00:17:54Guest:Maybe someone will drop out.

00:17:56Guest:Maybe we can use you.

00:17:58Guest:And I went to a few strip clubs with these guys that were also hanging around.

00:18:02Guest:But they were from New York?

00:18:04Guest:Yeah.

00:18:04Guest:No.

00:18:05Marc:From all over.

00:18:05Marc:From Texas?

00:18:06Guest:From Texas.

00:18:07Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:18:07Guest:And I saw comedians.

00:18:09Guest:You know, strip clubs were different than where it was like a show.

00:18:12Marc:Right.

00:18:13Marc:Like it was a burlesque show in a way, right?

00:18:15Marc:They had the comedian emcee and a little band, a little combo.

00:18:19Guest:Right.

00:18:19Guest:A band.

00:18:20Guest:And each girl had like a theme.

00:18:22Guest:Oh, really?

00:18:22Guest:You know, like.

00:18:23Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, mermaid.

00:18:24Marc:Mermaid, something like that, right.

00:18:26Marc:Waitress.

00:18:27Guest:Right.

00:18:28Marc:And they would take all their clothes off.

00:18:31Marc:That pasties on, right?

00:18:32Guest:Pasties and G-string.

00:18:34Guest:Yeah.

00:18:35Guest:But it was a comedian, and the comedian would do these jokes, and we went back to the same clubs a few times, and the comedians were always doing the same jokes.

00:18:44Guest:And I started thinking, I think this was like in 1962, and I started thinking, well, maybe I can do that.

00:18:49Guest:Did you remember the comic?

00:18:51Guest:Yeah.

00:18:51Guest:Robert J. Oh, really?

00:18:52Guest:Was the comic in Houston in 1962.

00:18:55Marc:Really?

00:18:56Marc:Yeah.

00:18:56Marc:Was he a guy?

00:18:57Marc:I mean, was he a national act?

00:18:59Marc:No.

00:19:01Guest:No.

00:19:02Guest:These were guys that just... There was a whole breed of comedians that just did this.

00:19:06Guest:They might have been ex-burlesque comics.

00:19:10Guest:Yeah.

00:19:10Guest:And they got into stand-up and they got...

00:19:12Marc:Robert J. Yeah.

00:19:15Marc:What was the shtick?

00:19:17Marc:Just old jokes?

00:19:18Guest:Old jokes.

00:19:18Marc:Yeah.

00:19:19Guest:Just old dirty jokes.

00:19:20Guest:Right.

00:19:20Guest:One right after the other.

00:19:21Guest:Yeah.

00:19:22Guest:And you had to fill in time.

00:19:24Guest:Uh-huh.

00:19:25Guest:And I actually worked in strip clubs.

00:19:27Guest:Really?

00:19:27Guest:Later.

00:19:28Guest:Not right away.

00:19:29Marc:So you think the seed was planted when you were there to try out for a minor league team.

00:19:33Marc:You went to a strip club.

00:19:34Marc:You saw Robert J. Yeah.

00:19:35Marc:And you thought, I could do that.

00:19:37Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:19:38Marc:You thought I could do that.

00:19:40Marc:But there was no real precedent for...

00:19:42Guest:i mean who were you i guess you had comic heroes there were definitely comedians at that time yeah but i never i wanted to be an actor i never grew up i want to be an actor a baseball player i never grew up thinking uh i was gonna be a comedian because there was no place to work then you know there's no comedy clubs it didn't seem like a possible thing

00:20:03Guest:No.

00:20:03Guest:Most comedians, I think, were comedy writers that got into stand-up or some musicians that got into stand-up.

00:20:09Guest:They just saw what the art form was when they kept on watching it day after day.

00:20:14Marc:But when you were at that time, what was it, 1962?

00:20:17Marc:I mean, there was television and there were definitely a bunch of comedians that were on TV all the time, right?

00:20:25Marc:Right.

00:20:26Marc:Right, but it never hit me that I wanted to do that.

00:20:28Marc:And it must have seemed like also, it seemed like a set crew, didn't it?

00:20:32Marc:Back then, there was like a dozen guys that were on all the time.

00:20:35Guest:Right.

00:20:36Guest:It was a dozen guys that were on all the time that had been on for, you know... Since you were a kid.

00:20:40Guest:Yeah, and they were all...

00:20:42Guest:From one show to the other, from Sullivan, it's Sullivan Show.

00:20:46Guest:Did you have favorites?

00:20:47Guest:I liked Alan King.

00:20:49Guest:I thought Alan King was like hip.

00:20:50Marc:Yeah, well, that was his whole presentation.

00:20:52Marc:He was like, you know, it was like when the Jews moved to the island.

00:20:57Marc:Like he was there to represent the middle class Jew.

00:20:59Marc:Yeah, right, right.

00:21:00Marc:And he was different than the older.

00:21:02Marc:Right, right.

00:21:03Marc:He was the next generation.

00:21:05Marc:Half his act wasn't in Yiddish.

00:21:07Marc:Right.

00:21:07Marc:He wasn't Myron Cohen.

00:21:09Guest:Right.

00:21:09Marc:Yeah.

00:21:10Yeah.

00:21:10Guest:And Myron Cohen, he was, you know, he was just... Do you remember Myron Cohen?

00:21:15Guest:Sure, I remember Myron Cohen.

00:21:16Guest:Really?

00:21:17Guest:Yeah, I played craps with Myron Cohen, shot craps with Myron Cohen.

00:21:21Guest:You did where?

00:21:22Guest:I think at the MGM Grand.

00:21:24Guest:He was a real crapshooter.

00:21:25Marc:Oh, really?

00:21:26Marc:He was around that long for that hotel?

00:21:28Marc:Yeah.

00:21:29Marc:Was he playing?

00:21:29Guest:I don't know if he was working there.

00:21:31Guest:I think I was working there, and he was just there.

00:21:33Guest:In Vegas.

00:21:34Guest:In Vegas.

00:21:35Guest:And I went up and said hello to him.

00:21:36Guest:Hello, how are you?

00:21:37Guest:I've seen you.

00:21:38Guest:I said, hi, Myron.

00:21:40Guest:I said...

00:21:40Guest:How you doing?

00:21:42Guest:Losing, as usual.

00:21:46Marc:He's a big gambler.

00:21:48Marc:Yeah.

00:21:49Marc:So, Alan King, though, he seems like... He must have been not that... I mean, he must have been pretty young when you were seeing him then.

00:21:55Marc:But what about some of the older guys?

00:21:58Marc:I mean, you seem to...

00:22:00Marc:have a similarity in style to Groucho?

00:22:04Marc:I mean, were they important to you?

00:22:06Marc:Yeah, I loved Groucho.

00:22:07Guest:I loved the movies, but I also loved his television show.

00:22:10Guest:Right, right, right.

00:22:11Guest:My father liked his show, so he used to watch it all the time.

00:22:13Marc:You Bet Your Life?

00:22:14Marc:You Bet Your Life, right.

00:22:15Marc:Well, he was so quick on that.

00:22:16Marc:I mean, that was really where you saw the organic personality of his mind.

00:22:19Guest:Yes.

00:22:20Marc:Yeah.

00:22:20Guest:Yeah.

00:22:21Guest:And I remember he took over The Tonight Show.

00:22:24Marc:Yeah.

00:22:25Guest:For a week.

00:22:27Guest:From Johnny.

00:22:28Guest:Yeah.

00:22:28Guest:You know, he's one of the interim hosts.

00:22:29Guest:Right.

00:22:30Guest:Just like now they have interim hosts on Jeopardy.

00:22:32Guest:Yeah.

00:22:34Guest:So it was between Jack Parr and- And Johnny Carson.

00:22:36Guest:And who was Steve Allen before Jack Parr?

00:22:38Guest:He was before Jack Parr.

00:22:39Marc:Jack Parr was good, wasn't he?

00:22:41Guest:Jack Parr was good, yeah.

00:22:42Guest:He was a really good interviewer and he was kind of controversial.

00:22:44Guest:He would do little things that- He was odd.

00:22:47Guest:Yeah.

00:22:48Guest:Yeah.

00:22:49Marc:So he got fired.

00:22:50Yeah.

00:22:50Guest:He got fired.

00:22:52Guest:And Groucho was- And Groucho was one of the interim hosts.

00:22:55Guest:Oh, who else was?

00:22:55Guest:Do you remember?

00:22:56Guest:I don't remember.

00:22:57Guest:But Groucho, okay.

00:22:58Guest:But Groucho wasn't that great at that point.

00:23:00Guest:No.

00:23:01Guest:So 1962, and they expected him to be as funny as he was on You Bet Your Life, but he wasn't.

00:23:06Guest:Because he had to talk to people.

00:23:09Guest:You bet your life he was talking to civilians.

00:23:11Guest:He was talking to civilians, but the material was written.

00:23:13Guest:Right, right, right.

00:23:14Guest:A lot of it was prepared.

00:23:16Guest:Yeah.

00:23:16Guest:And then they could edit.

00:23:17Guest:Yeah.

00:23:17Guest:And there was no edit on The Tonight Show.

00:23:19Guest:Right.

00:23:20Guest:So it wasn't his thing at that point.

00:23:22Marc:Did you get to meet Groucho?

00:23:24Guest:Yeah.

00:23:24Marc:Yeah?

00:23:25Guest:I got to meet him.

00:23:27Guest:First time I met him was in Nate and Al's.

00:23:30Guest:And I had just been on The Merv Griffin Show and he had seen me.

00:23:33Guest:And he was sitting with some guy.

00:23:35Guest:The guy looked like a writer.

00:23:37Guest:Yeah.

00:23:38Guest:And he said, this is...

00:23:39Guest:This is Gene Kaplan.

00:23:41Guest:I saw him last night on Merv Griffin, and he was very funny.

00:23:44Guest:I said, thank you, Gratso.

00:23:45Guest:It's just an honor for you to say that, but my name is Gabe Kaplan.

00:23:49Guest:He said, I'm going to call you Gene.

00:23:52Guest:I said, okay, I'm going to call you Zeppo.

00:23:54Guest:LAUGHTER

00:23:54Guest:Did he laugh?

00:23:55Guest:Yeah, he laughed.

00:23:57Guest:And then he came to Welcome Back Cotter when we were taping a show.

00:24:02Guest:And I used to do these jokes at the beginning and the end of the show.

00:24:06Guest:And I thought it would be a great idea if I told the last joke to him, if he was sitting outside the school on a bench, like we were waiting for a bus or something.

00:24:15Guest:And I said, sir, as long as we're waiting for the bus together...

00:24:18Guest:I'd like to tell you about my uncle.

00:24:20Guest:And then I tell you the joke.

00:24:22Guest:And you turn around and you say, well, that's the worst joke I ever heard in my life.

00:24:28Guest:And he says, all right, what joke are you going to tell me?

00:24:31Guest:And I told him the joke.

00:24:32Guest:He said, that is the worst joke I ever heard in my life.

00:24:35Guest:But Aaron Fleming was with him, and she wouldn't let him do it.

00:24:39Guest:She asked for like $10,000 for him to do the show.

00:24:42Marc:To do the appearance on the show.

00:24:44Marc:Yeah.

00:24:44Guest:Over the credits.

00:24:45Guest:Over the credits, right.

00:24:46Marc:Oh, Jesus.

00:24:47Guest:But that would have been priceless.

00:24:48Guest:Yeah, it would have been great to have him there.

00:24:51Marc:So, after you get back from Texas, you realize what?

00:24:54Marc:Baseball's not for you.

00:24:56Guest:Yeah.

00:24:57Guest:Well, I didn't realize yet, but I had interest in comedy.

00:25:01Guest:And this is like between the Mrs. Maisel era and before the improv opened.

00:25:07Marc:Right.

00:25:07Guest:So, there was no place to work.

00:25:09Guest:There was a place called the Comedy Workshop.

00:25:11Guest:Have you ever heard of that?

00:25:12Marc:And where was that?

00:25:13Guest:That was like on 44th Street.

00:25:15Marc:Okay.

00:25:16Marc:There was one in Texas years later, but the Comedy Workshop.

00:25:19Marc:Never heard of it, huh?

00:25:20Marc:No, I don't know that one.

00:25:21Marc:I've talked to a lot of people.

00:25:22Marc:Maybe someone mentioned it.

00:25:24Marc:What was the story there?

00:25:25Guest:It was run by this guy.

00:25:26Guest:His name was George Q. Lewis.

00:25:28Guest:Yeah.

00:25:28Guest:And he was a publicist.

00:25:30Guest:He might have been a teacher, some sort of a college professor, and he liked to do humor seminars and...

00:25:37Guest:And he would also send out press releases.

00:25:41Guest:And he ran this place called the Comedy Workshop.

00:25:43Guest:Yeah.

00:25:45Guest:Like two nights a week.

00:25:46Guest:And comedians would go there.

00:25:48Guest:And you'd get on stage.

00:25:50Guest:Yeah.

00:25:51Guest:And then after you got on stage, it wasn't a hostile environment.

00:25:54Guest:It was like people would try and tell you, give you pointers.

00:25:57Guest:Sure.

00:25:58Guest:The only problem was that nobody in the Comedy Workshop ever worked.

00:26:01Guest:Right.

00:26:02Guest:You know, it was like guys that wanted to be comedians.

00:26:04Guest:Sure, sure.

00:26:04Guest:Except Ron Carey.

00:26:06Guest:Ron Carey, right?

00:26:07Guest:Yeah.

00:26:07Guest:Now, you're talking about Jack Parr.

00:26:08Guest:This is interesting because Ron Carey had been on the Jack Parr show.

00:26:13Guest:Yeah.

00:26:13Guest:And he did great.

00:26:14Guest:The little guy.

00:26:15Guest:Little guy, you know, from Bonnie Miller.

00:26:16Guest:Right.

00:26:17Guest:And he did great.

00:26:18Marc:He was so funny.

00:26:19Guest:Yeah.

00:26:20Guest:And he was really funny as a comic.

00:26:22Guest:Yeah.

00:26:22Guest:And then he went back on about two months later and he bombed.

00:26:27Guest:on the tonight show yeah it really fucked it with his head you know he didn't know what to do or why he bombed the second time yeah and he went into a depression uh-huh and then he would go to the comedy workshop and he was a guy who was actually on jack par show yeah a real working comedian who had done tv and was a hit and he became like the uh the guru the wizard of the comedy workshop and

00:26:52Guest:And then when I went in there, I heard about it.

00:26:55Guest:I went in there and he was really a nice guy.

00:26:58Guest:We would go to the Automat afterwards.

00:27:02Guest:And then I was too scared to get up at the comedy workshop.

00:27:06Guest:So there was another place called the Mid-Manhattan Club, which was a social club.

00:27:11Guest:People played cars there.

00:27:13Guest:They played games, Marjan, and they had lectures.

00:27:18Guest:And once a week, they have a talent show.

00:27:19Guest:Right.

00:27:20Guest:And comedians just go up, and they had the 60, 70 people in the audience.

00:27:23Guest:Yeah.

00:27:24Guest:And they said, well, Ron said, go to the Manhattan Club.

00:27:27Guest:I went there, and I bombed.

00:27:29Guest:What kind of audience?

00:27:30Guest:West Side, 75% Jewish audience.

00:27:33Marc:This was their social club.

00:27:35Marc:And they just had social clubs where you'd go sit there and play cards?

00:27:39Marc:They had this one.

00:27:41Marc:But it's not a retirement thing, right?

00:27:43Marc:No, it wasn't a retirement thing.

00:27:44Guest:It was people that lived in Upper West Side.

00:27:45Guest:And that's where they had a community center.

00:27:47Guest:Community center.

00:27:48Guest:I wanted someplace to go at night.

00:27:49Guest:You bombed, huh?

00:27:50Guest:I bombed.

00:27:51Guest:Terrible.

00:27:52Guest:And I went back to the comedy workshop.

00:27:53Guest:Did you have bits?

00:27:54Guest:Yeah, I had one bit.

00:27:55Guest:One bit.

00:27:56Guest:I had a bit about...

00:27:58Guest:No backup.

00:28:00Guest:No backup.

00:28:01Guest:I had one five-minute bit.

00:28:03Guest:It was like- Oh, five minutes, so you're in.

00:28:05Marc:If it's bad, no way out.

00:28:07Guest:No way out.

00:28:08Marc:I had to do the whole bit.

00:28:10Guest:And it was a bit about overprotected 17-year-old boy telling his mother he wasn't coming home for dinner, and he bought a pair of black shoes.

00:28:20Guest:And that was like a big deal in the 60s where-

00:28:23Guest:Some mothers would think, well, black shoes means you're a tough guy.

00:28:27Marc:Oh, really?

00:28:27Guest:Yeah.

00:28:29Guest:So that was the whole- Are you sure everybody knew that?

00:28:31Guest:Yeah, at that point.

00:28:32Guest:Now it sounds ridiculous.

00:28:34Guest:But at that point- Black shoes.

00:28:35Guest:Black shoes was a big deal.

00:28:37Guest:So I did it, bombed.

00:28:39Guest:And then I went back to the comedy workshop to say goodbye.

00:28:42Guest:You were done.

00:28:42Guest:I was done.

00:28:43Guest:You were retiring.

00:28:44Guest:I was retiring.

00:28:45Guest:If I couldn't be a baseball player, I was going to look- My career was over.

00:28:49Marc:The black shoe bit.

00:28:50Guest:The black shoe back tank, my number one bit.

00:28:53Guest:And then Ron Carey got up on stage and he said, hey, Gabe Kaplan, we all met him, you know, he wants to be a comic, and he bombed at the Mid-Manhattan Club, and let's get him up here.

00:29:04Guest:And I did the black shoe base, and it killed.

00:29:08Guest:You got the sympathy intro.

00:29:11Guest:I got the sympathy intro, and the comedians felt empathy, and they laughed.

00:29:16Guest:And then I would get up at the comedy workshop, and they would laugh.

00:29:20Guest:I'd do new versions of the bit, come up with some other jokes.

00:29:23Guest:Oh, really?

00:29:24Guest:You didn't just keep revising the black shoe bit?

00:29:26Guest:I did.

00:29:27Marc:I did.

00:29:27Guest:And they would give me advice.

00:29:31Marc:It must have been pretty tight after a few weeks.

00:29:33Guest:It was.

00:29:34Guest:It was tight.

00:29:36Guest:And Ron was always my cheerleader.

00:29:39Guest:He would applaud and laugh.

00:29:41Guest:Yeah.

00:29:41Guest:And then one time about, I guess, about four weeks later, I got up and I did a new bit and it went over really well when he wasn't laughing.

00:29:48Guest:And I said, how come you didn't laugh?

00:29:51Guest:Yeah.

00:29:52Guest:He said, well, tonight you were really funny.

00:29:55Yeah.

00:29:55Marc:You crossed it.

00:30:00Marc:You didn't have to pretend anymore.

00:30:03Guest:Yeah, I crossed the Rubicon.

00:30:04Marc:Yeah, now he just could be another comic going, oh, shit.

00:30:07Marc:Yeah, right, right, right.

00:30:10Marc:So that was that.

00:30:11Marc:And then you got more comfortable.

00:30:13Marc:I got more comfortable.

00:30:15Marc:But wasn't the Borscht Belt alive and well at that time?

00:30:18Yeah.

00:30:18Guest:Yeah.

00:30:18Guest:I mean, you could go up there.

00:30:21Guest:A lot of young comedians became social directors, and you'd go on stage.

00:30:26Marc:You mean you'd have to corral the old people or the Jews into different activities?

00:30:31Marc:Into different activities.

00:30:32Marc:And you kind of schmooze them and do the funny during the day, but then you get a little stage time?

00:30:36Marc:A little stage time, exactly.

00:30:37Marc:For opening for the main guy or what?

00:30:39Guest:No, you went over for the main guy.

00:30:40Guest:You just...

00:30:42Guest:Well, you would open because you were the MC.

00:30:45Guest:Right.

00:30:45Guest:All right.

00:30:45Guest:Yeah.

00:30:46Guest:So who are the other guys at the workshop?

00:30:47Guest:There was any other guys we know at that time?

00:30:50Guest:I saw Willard and Greco.

00:30:53Guest:Fred Willard and his partner.

00:30:54Guest:Oh, really?

00:30:55Guest:Way back then.

00:30:56Guest:Yeah.

00:30:56Guest:They got up and they did a bit.

00:30:58Guest:They came to just try out a bit.

00:31:00Guest:There was one guy who worked in the subways.

00:31:02Guest:Yeah.

00:31:03Guest:His name was Kenny Burke.

00:31:05Guest:Doing stand-up.

00:31:05Guest:Doing stand-up in the subway.

00:31:06Guest:Yeah.

00:31:07Guest:You go on the subway.

00:31:07Guest:And this is 62?

00:31:08Guest:62, yeah.

00:31:10Guest:Wow.

00:31:10Guest:Uh, and most of the people was one guy, his name was Dave Kent.

00:31:15Guest:Uh-huh.

00:31:15Guest:He was, uh, his whole bit was that he was Superman's younger brother, Clark Kent's younger brother.

00:31:20Guest:Right.

00:31:21Guest:And he looked a little like him and he did a whole routine on that.

00:31:23Marc:Yeah, that was the whole thing.

00:31:24Guest:That was it.

00:31:25Guest:That was Superman's younger brother.

00:31:27Guest:Uh-huh.

00:31:27Guest:And then George Q. Lewis would put out these press releases.

00:31:30Guest:And when I started to get real laughs, he said, the human society of America has named Gabe Kaplan America's youngest comedian.

00:31:39Uh-huh.

00:31:39Guest:How old were you?

00:31:40Guest:18.

00:31:40Guest:Oh, wow.

00:31:42Guest:So I showed to my parents.

00:31:44Guest:Yeah.

00:31:44Guest:Look, I did it.

00:31:45Guest:Hey, you think I'm getting around with this?

00:31:47Guest:Here, look at this.

00:31:49Guest:So, you know, it gave some validity for what I was trying to do.

00:31:53Guest:So you were just getting out of high school.

00:31:56Guest:No, I quit high school.

00:31:58Marc:Oh, you did?

00:31:58Guest:Yeah, Mr. Cotter quit high school.

00:32:00Marc:No kidding?

00:32:00Marc:Yeah.

00:32:01Marc:When did you do that?

00:32:02Marc:To do comedy?

00:32:04Marc:No.

00:32:04Marc:You just quit high school?

00:32:05Marc:I just quit high school.

00:32:06Marc:Why?

00:32:06Guest:I wasn't doing well.

00:32:08Guest:Yeah.

00:32:09Guest:I wanted to play baseball.

00:32:10Guest:Yeah.

00:32:10Guest:I wasn't on the baseball team in high school.

00:32:12Guest:I went to the coach.

00:32:13Guest:He said, can you hit as good as Duke Schneider and field as good as Pee Wee Reese?

00:32:17Guest:Yeah.

00:32:17Guest:And I said, no.

00:32:18Guest:He said, oh, I can't use you.

00:32:20Marc:So what did your dad think about quitting high school?

00:32:22Guest:Hated it.

00:32:23Guest:Yeah?

00:32:24Guest:He hated it.

00:32:24Guest:He just didn't know what to do.

00:32:26Guest:He didn't know how to cope with it.

00:32:28Guest:Yeah.

00:32:28Guest:And I said, well, maybe I'll go back, you know.

00:32:31Guest:And he just...

00:32:33Guest:really didn't know who to turn to what did he do not much yeah he was religious he was a gambler he was religious he he would dabble in real estate uh-huh where he'd go and he didn't have an office but he'd hang around and once in a while downtown brooklyn and once in a while he'd make a deal uh-huh and then they would fuck him out of the deal and he'd wind up getting something wow so he was just sort of like uh always hustling well always trying what was his gambling what did he like to do

00:33:02Guest:He liked to play cards.

00:33:03Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:33:03Guest:He liked to bet on baseball.

00:33:05Marc:Yeah.

00:33:05Guest:So he had these two elements going where he was religious.

00:33:09Guest:Yeah.

00:33:10Guest:And then he was also a gambler.

00:33:11Guest:So did he have, like, who was he booking?

00:33:15Guest:He had a bookie?

00:33:16Guest:Yeah.

00:33:17Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:18Guest:He would call up and he would say, this is glasses for Phil.

00:33:21Guest:Yeah.

00:33:21Guest:And then he would give his, one time I called up and made bets for him.

00:33:24Guest:Yeah.

00:33:25Guest:But he didn't know.

00:33:27Guest:And he won.

00:33:27Guest:And he didn't notice.

00:33:29Marc:I call it, this is glasses for Phil.

00:33:31Yeah.

00:33:31Marc:Were there shady characters around or he was once removed from that?

00:33:36Guest:No.

00:33:37Marc:Really removed from that.

00:33:38Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:38Guest:It was like a neighborhood book he bet $5 on a baseball game.

00:33:42Guest:Right, right.

00:33:42Guest:Play numbers?

00:33:43Guest:No.

00:33:44Guest:No numbers?

00:33:44Guest:No numbers.

00:33:45Guest:And what about your mom?

00:33:46Guest:I mean, who was working?

00:33:47Guest:She was working.

00:33:48Guest:Oh, she was the one.

00:33:49Guest:She was the rock.

00:33:49Guest:Yeah.

00:33:50Guest:She worked.

00:33:50Guest:She was a beautician.

00:33:52Guest:Uh-huh.

00:33:52Guest:She went to work every day.

00:33:53Guest:Huh.

00:33:55Marc:Were they yelling at each other all the time?

00:33:56Marc:Yeah.

00:33:58Yeah.

00:33:58Marc:Get a job.

00:34:01Marc:That was what you grew up with, huh?

00:34:03Marc:Yeah.

00:34:03Marc:The religious man.

00:34:04Guest:The man of God.

00:34:05Guest:The man of God.

00:34:06Guest:Get a job, man of God.

00:34:08Guest:Right.

00:34:08Guest:Enough with the shul.

00:34:10Guest:Get a job.

00:34:13Guest:I think that was the basis of conservative Judaism.

00:34:17Guest:And the whole neighborhood knew.

00:34:18Guest:Yeah.

00:34:18Guest:Because this wasn't like...

00:34:20Guest:the 30s when there was a depression everybody worked it was a lower middle class neighborhood and this guy was just and this guy didn't work he was hanging around the real estate office hanging around once in a while we go downtown hang around for a while come back so oh my god it was uh it was known it was a known fact and your sister was much older she was older so she was gone already yeah she got married when she was like 20.

00:34:40Marc:Oh, really?

00:34:41Marc:Got out.

00:34:42Marc:Escaped.

00:34:43Marc:So now you're 18, college, high school dropout, no baseball future.

00:34:47Marc:No baseball future.

00:34:48Marc:Doing these, like, no-pay stand-up gigs.

00:34:51Marc:So when do things start to turn?

00:34:55Guest:There was an agent called, his name was Irving Shonoff, and he booked these lower-class clubs in New England, mostly in New England, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine.

00:35:08Guest:Dinner clubs?

00:35:09Guest:No.

00:35:10Guest:Mostly drink clubs.

00:35:11Guest:Some of them were dinner clubs, but they usually had a comedian and a stripper or a comedian and a belly dancer.

00:35:18Guest:And he had this huge office in the Brill Building.

00:35:22Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:35:23Guest:And he had a big outer office and a little inner office to where he couldn't see the door.

00:35:28Guest:And when you walked in his office, he would scream, who's out there?

00:35:33Yeah.

00:35:33Guest:And you'd have to tell him who's out there.

00:35:36Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:35:37Guest:And he finally got me a job at a place in Springfield, Massachusetts.

00:35:43Marc:Oh, way out there.

00:35:44Marc:Drive.

00:35:44Marc:So you drove?

00:35:45Guest:I drove, which was important.

00:35:46Marc:Yeah, you had to have a car.

00:35:48Guest:You had to drive the stripper or the belly dancer.

00:35:50Marc:obviously you had to take the the headliner right yeah yeah yeah i i know i started in a similar way but it was comics all right you guys take the other comics these one-nighters yeah the main guy a lot of times you'd have to drive them because they'd be from out of town and i when i was living in boston where i started that's how we started it was like these one-nighters at little bars people would sub they'd have a comedy night they'd they'd sort of uh book a comedy night through these subcontractors

00:36:15Marc:And a lot of times touring acts would come in, and if you were local, you'd go out, you'd drive them, you'd do a half hour, they'd do 45, then you'd get out.

00:36:22Guest:Well, I guess comics are a little less crazy than strippers.

00:36:25Marc:Yeah, sometimes.

00:36:27Marc:But that's a long run to Springfield with a stripper.

00:36:31Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:36:32Guest:They were long runs.

00:36:34Guest:There was a few, one time coming back, this girl was drunk and she grabbed the wheel and tried to kill herself and kill me too.

00:36:42Guest:Really?

00:36:42Guest:Yeah.

00:36:42Guest:Oh my God.

00:36:43Guest:She was just really depressed.

00:36:45Guest:I'm not, my life is not worth it.

00:36:47Marc:And then she kept on doing it.

00:36:48Marc:She kept grabbing the wheel drunk?

00:36:50Marc:Yeah.

00:36:50Guest:Yeah.

00:36:50Guest:So I had to stop and have her arrested.

00:36:53Marc:Really?

00:36:54Marc:Yeah.

00:36:55Marc:Oh my God.

00:36:55Marc:She was going to kill us.

00:36:56Marc:And she, oh, what happened to her?

00:36:58Marc:uh she's now my wife and elizabeth well we're uh we've been married for 25 it's 46 years but usually they were just quiet usually they didn't say anything did you ever get in did you have to like watch the girls back i mean like did you ever get have to you know protect them no oh okay

00:37:20Guest:No.

00:37:21Guest:But then I actually worked in clubs, strip clubs, for, like, weeks.

00:37:29Marc:In the city?

00:37:30Guest:Not in the city, no.

00:37:31Guest:Like, outside?

00:37:32Marc:This guy, Charnoff, would book you at strip clubs for weeks.

00:37:36Guest:For weeks.

00:37:36Guest:And other agents.

00:37:39Marc:Then I got other agents, too.

00:37:40Marc:So that was the gig, huh?

00:37:41Marc:So you would go to one club and...

00:37:44Marc:So that's what they would turn over.

00:37:45Marc:They have the same girls, but they give new MCs or new girls all the time?

00:37:49Marc:Was there a tour?

00:37:49Guest:No, new girls.

00:37:50Guest:No kidding.

00:37:51Guest:Girls, it was a week or two, and the MC was the same.

00:37:55Guest:Oh, wow.

00:37:56Marc:Okay.

00:37:56Guest:That's why they called you, the MC.

00:37:57Guest:It was not comic.

00:37:58Marc:So were you getting chops?

00:37:59Marc:Were you doing the thing?

00:38:00Marc:I mean, what was it like working at those places?

00:38:02Marc:Could you get laughs?

00:38:03Guest:Sometimes.

00:38:04Guest:Sometimes.

00:38:04Guest:You know, the audience were pretty good.

00:38:07Guest:First show was pretty good.

00:38:08Guest:Yeah.

00:38:08Guest:Second show was, you know, I was always working on material, trying to pretend that it was- You got like bachelor parties and crazy people and, you know.

00:38:16Guest:Yeah, you got a few of those.

00:38:17Marc:Yeah.

00:38:17Guest:And then you get mixed crowds on the weekend.

00:38:20Guest:You get men and women on the weekend.

00:38:21Guest:Uh-huh.

00:38:21Guest:In generally most places.

00:38:23Guest:Uh-huh.

00:38:23Guest:During the week was mostly guys.

00:38:25Guest:Uh-huh.

00:38:25Guest:But there are too many comedians around who experienced that.

00:38:29Guest:Right.

00:38:29Guest:No, I know.

00:38:29Guest:Who worked in that form of show.

00:38:30Marc:I think you're the first one I've really talked to that actually had extensive experience in being booked at those places.

00:38:36Marc:Yeah.

00:38:37Marc:Were there other guys doing it?

00:38:39Marc:Pryor did it.

00:38:40Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:38:41Guest:That was what we had to talk about.

00:38:43Guest:Oh, really?

00:38:43Guest:Yeah, because he had done that.

00:38:47Guest:And he was at the Café Roy around 63, 64.

00:38:50Guest:Oh, you hung out with him?

00:38:53Guest:Not really, but we talked to him at the Café Roi, and that's what we would talk about.

00:38:58Marc:Manny Roth was around.

00:38:59Guest:Manny Roth was his manager.

00:39:01Guest:His manager, yeah.

00:39:02Guest:Because he related to that.

00:39:04Guest:Yeah.

00:39:05Guest:He knew nobody else who had done that.

00:39:06Guest:No kidding.

00:39:07Guest:None of the New York comics had done that.

00:39:09Guest:Right.

00:39:10Guest:How many girls were there?

00:39:11Guest:How many girls?

00:39:11Guest:I said, three.

00:39:12Guest:You fuck any?

00:39:13Guest:You fuck any?

00:39:15Guest:Did you?

00:39:17Marc:Once in a while.

00:39:20Yeah.

00:39:20Guest:so when does it become like so the cafe was started doing comedy when well they would have um i think nights when comics could get up and and perform you know he would pry was the comic yeah richie havens was working there yeah so i remember prior richie havens and then they would let comics get up occasionally and i don't think every night yeah and then there's a place right across the street the champagne gallery uh-huh no i don't know that one

00:39:49Guest:That was like in the basement, and it was a really plush type of thing with a piano player, and then you would have to tell a piano player to take a break, and you would go up, and then after a while, when the comics found out about it, the piano player was never playing.

00:40:05Guest:You'd play one song, and the comic would go up and say, hey, can I do something?

00:40:09Marc:Yeah.

00:40:09Marc:The Cafe Wall was later bought by Manny Dorman, who owns the Comedy Cellar, the whole building.

00:40:16Marc:And they, you know, so they had music there.

00:40:18Marc:I don't know if it was actually the original location of the Cafe Wall, but it's still around.

00:40:22Marc:Yeah, it's still there.

00:40:23Marc:So when do you start, you know, getting more high profile gigs in the city?

00:40:29Marc:Did you do the stripper thing for years?

00:40:31Guest:I did the stripper thing probably till like 1967 and I would go back to the improv in between.

00:40:39Marc:When did the improv open?

00:40:41Marc:I think it's 63.

00:40:42Marc:Really?

00:40:43Guest:I remember the improv opening.

00:40:45Guest:Bud and Silver.

00:40:46Guest:Yeah, in 1963, because when I first went there, it wasn't a comedy club.

00:40:51Guest:It's like a variety show, right?

00:40:53Guest:Or no?

00:40:54Guest:It was, well, singers and comics, not a variety show.

00:40:57Guest:I mean, people would just get up, as many singers as comics.

00:41:00Guest:But what they did have was actual improvs.

00:41:03Guest:People would get up and do improvs.

00:41:06Guest:Really?

00:41:07Guest:J.J.

00:41:07Guest:Barry, Richard Pryor, Robert Klein.

00:41:10Guest:There was a comedian, Dave Astor.

00:41:13Guest:Ron Carey would do improvs.

00:41:15Guest:And that was like every night.

00:41:18Guest:That was before Rodney came there.

00:41:19Marc:It was like after the theater, right?

00:41:21Marc:People would come hang out.

00:41:22Guest:Right.

00:41:23Guest:It started around midnight.

00:41:25Guest:And then all the guys would come from their gigs.

00:41:28Guest:And they would do improvs.

00:41:30Guest:That must have been kind of amazing.

00:41:31Marc:Yeah, it was.

00:41:32Marc:It was great.

00:41:32Marc:I actually, when I started, that club was still around.

00:41:35Marc:Silver, in the settlement, she got that one, the original one.

00:41:40Marc:And it was sort of like, it wasn't that crowded anymore, but I got to work there quite a bit.

00:41:46Marc:It was one of the few clubs that would let me work, but it was a shell of its former self.

00:41:50Marc:But those pictures, it was always there.

00:41:52Marc:Like those old black and white pictures in the frames of Richard on stage and Robert, but very young, Rick Overton.

00:41:58Marc:And a couple others that I kind of knew from later.

00:42:03Marc:But I didn't know what they were doing, but that was the deal.

00:42:05Marc:They just fuck around, huh?

00:42:08Guest:Well, that was in the really early years.

00:42:10Guest:I think that stopped and it started gradually to become a comedy club to where the main thing was comedy.

00:42:17Guest:And still, you have an occasional singer, but it was improvs as I remember it.

00:42:22Guest:And then Rodney came.

00:42:23Guest:Dangerfield?

00:42:24Guest:Yeah, and then he would do a long time every night.

00:42:28Guest:So that was him when he started again?

00:42:30Guest:When he started again, before he got Dangerfields.

00:42:33Marc:And before he did the hook.

00:42:36Marc:He was sort of a long-form guy.

00:42:38Marc:It was always the brunt of the joke, but it wasn't like, I got no risk.

00:42:43Marc:It wasn't one-liners, right?

00:42:44Marc:Yeah.

00:42:44Guest:No, it wasn't one line.

00:42:46Guest:I remember him in the bar saying, you know, I got to have a hook.

00:42:51Guest:Jackie Vernon, you know.

00:42:52Guest:Jackie Vernon's got a hook.

00:42:54Guest:You know, Jackie Vernon with the dull guy.

00:42:56Marc:The slide machine.

00:42:58Marc:The vacation, right?

00:42:59Marc:Right.

00:42:59Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:43:00Guest:I love Jackie Vernon.

00:43:02Guest:Yeah, he was great.

00:43:02Guest:His whole thing was he would come out and say, to look at me, you'd never believe that I used to be a dull guy.

00:43:09Yeah.

00:43:10Guest:so there you go and that was that was his hook and then he did the slide machine which is one of his routines but Rodney was very aware and he knew Jackie Vernon you know there were comics back in the day and Jackie Vernon got this hook yeah this old guy yeah and he became a sensation

00:43:28Guest:Yeah.

00:43:29Marc:So Rodney, looking for the hook.

00:43:32Marc:I loved Jackie Vernon when I was a little kid.

00:43:34Marc:And I saw it.

00:43:35Marc:My parents took me to see him when I was 11 or 12 in New Mexico.

00:43:38Marc:I grew up in Albuquerque from Jersey, right?

00:43:40Marc:And he did the nightclub at the Hilton Hotel.

00:43:43Marc:And they let me in if I went with my parents.

00:43:45Marc:And I was thrilled.

00:43:47Marc:But I just remember my sense of what show business was like.

00:43:51Marc:You're sitting up close.

00:43:52Marc:He's older then.

00:43:53Marc:He's sweating.

00:43:54Marc:And it's in this little club.

00:43:55Marc:And there was something terrifying about it, but it was great.

00:43:59Guest:Yeah, he was the first guy that I think that came up with this hook concept.

00:44:04Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:44:05Guest:Because he was just a comics comic.

00:44:07Guest:You know, he just worked and wasn't getting any more work.

00:44:10Guest:Yeah.

00:44:11Guest:And then he paid somebody, some comedy writer.

00:44:14Guest:Oh, really?

00:44:14Guest:And he said, you got to get something to where I'm unique.

00:44:18Guest:I have an identification.

00:44:19Guest:And the guy came up with that.

00:44:21Marc:The loser.

00:44:21Guest:The dull guy.

00:44:23Guest:The dull guy.

00:44:24Guest:And that was it.

00:44:26Marc:The slideshow was huge.

00:44:27Marc:I think he had a couple of different slideshow bits.

00:44:30Marc:The vacation one.

00:44:31Marc:Yeah.

00:44:32Guest:This is a bear.

00:44:33Guest:Here's me and the bear.

00:44:34Guest:I took the picture.

00:44:35Guest:Here's me and the bear and my wife.

00:44:38Guest:I don't know who took the picture.

00:44:40Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:44:42Marc:It was funny, man.

00:44:43Marc:He was funny.

00:44:44Marc:And so Rodney, you just saw him.

00:44:46Marc:Because Rodney was so hard on himself, right?

00:44:48Marc:Yeah.

00:44:48Guest:Yeah.

00:44:50Guest:He questioned that thing for a long time, for weeks and weeks.

00:44:53Guest:Is this working?

00:44:54Guest:Is this working?

00:44:55Marc:Yeah, because he was out for a long time.

00:44:57Marc:He went and was selling siding with Joe Ansis.

00:45:00Guest:Yeah.

00:45:01Guest:And then, like, I guess Joe Ansis was around, too?

00:45:03Guest:I met Joe Ansis one time.

00:45:05Guest:I was working in Vegas, and he introduced himself.

00:45:08Guest:When we hung out for, like, a week, he was there.

00:45:12Guest:With Rodney?

00:45:12Guest:Yeah.

00:45:12Guest:No, no, no, no.

00:45:14Guest:He was there by himself.

00:45:15Guest:And we just talked and he told me a lot of Lenny stories.

00:45:18Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:45:19Guest:Did you ever see Lenny?

00:45:21Guest:No, he was working at the Go-Go across from the Bitter End.

00:45:24Guest:Yeah.

00:45:25Guest:I think sometime in 64.

00:45:27Guest:Right.

00:45:28Guest:And I wanted to go, but I couldn't afford it.

00:45:29Marc:And then he moved out here.

00:45:32Yeah.

00:45:32Guest:yeah then he moved i don't know if he ever worked again after that huh because i think he died 66 yeah so you're doing spots at the improv then or are you just hanging out no i'm hanging out i didn't have the kind of material i had this material that i've been doing a combination of strip clubs and these weekend jobs uh in new england i just didn't have the right material were you just getting by doing old jokes or were you yeah

00:45:56Guest:doing mostly mostly old jokes like the jokes that became the uncle jokes on on cotter you know those jokes that i had done right for years in clubs and then i finally i guess late 60s uh started to write material that i was happy with and it was kind of cutting edge material and then i started to really do good then i started to work at the improv and i did very well at the improv

00:46:24Guest:And I did college tours.

00:46:26Guest:I did a tour with Dave Mason.

00:46:28Guest:And I had all this new material.

00:46:29Guest:Late 60s?

00:46:30Guest:Late 60s, yeah.

00:46:32Guest:I had one bit of Howard Cosell broadcasting the crucifixion, which really rubbed people the wrong way.

00:46:42Marc:Good, though.

00:46:42Marc:That's good, right?

00:46:43Marc:You're doing your Lenny bit.

00:46:45Guest:Yeah.

00:46:46Guest:I did a Cosell impression.

00:46:48Guest:I said, well, what's going to be the ultimate Cosell impression?

00:46:50Guest:Right, right.

00:46:51Guest:And I did this.

00:46:52Guest:That's good.

00:46:53Guest:But it got some really bad reactions.

00:46:57Guest:Sure, of course.

00:46:58Guest:Making fun of Jesus.

00:47:00Guest:It wasn't really making fun, but it was just- Trivializing.

00:47:02Marc:It was the event.

00:47:03Guest:Yeah, trivializing the event.

00:47:05Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:05Guest:And the improv, somebody threw a coffee cup at me, splattered it all.

00:47:09Guest:I opened for the Righteous Brothers.

00:47:11Guest:And it went, go Jew.

00:47:13Yeah.

00:47:13Guest:You know, it wasn't too much of that, although I expected that, but I didn't really get too much of that.

00:47:17Guest:Just generally people being offended at the concept of doing that in that time, in that era.

00:47:25Marc:When you could still offend.

00:47:26Marc:Yeah.

00:47:27Marc:Well, that's back.

00:47:28Marc:I think people would be offended today.

00:47:30Marc:Sure.

00:47:31Marc:It's back.

00:47:32Marc:It's different, but there was definitely a line then that was throughout the culture.

00:47:39Marc:Now it's in pockets.

00:47:41Marc:There's less of a line with religion.

00:47:46Marc:It's not hackneyed, but it's like, I mean, I did a pretty profane joke about Jesus coming back in my last special, and I think it still upsets people, the believers, but I think they've gotten used to it a bit.

00:48:01Guest:Yeah, they've gotten used to it, but they don't like it.

00:48:04Guest:And if they have the license to say something, if the opportunity... Sure.

00:48:09Guest:Because they just don't see it as humor.

00:48:13Guest:They see it as an offense.

00:48:16Marc:An attack, yeah.

00:48:17Marc:An attack.

00:48:17Marc:So now, that was the gig, though, right?

00:48:19Marc:Opening for musical acts.

00:48:21Marc:And there still wasn't a lot of money in club work in the city, right?

00:48:26Marc:You just worked out.

00:48:27Marc:No.

00:48:27Guest:Well, now that I got the college deal and I worked in coffee houses, I did a whole string of coffee.

00:48:36Guest:There was a place called The Flick in Miami that I did a lot.

00:48:39Guest:There's a place called The Bistro in Atlanta.

00:48:41Guest:The whole coffee house circuit.

00:48:43Marc:What was that, like pre-hippie, kind of beat-nicky or what?

00:48:47Marc:Yeah.

00:48:49Marc:It wasn't like old Jews.

00:48:51Yeah.

00:48:51Guest:No, no, no.

00:48:52Guest:There was no old Jews.

00:48:53Guest:Old Jews weren't allowed.

00:48:55Marc:Just young Jews.

00:48:56Marc:Young Jews.

00:48:57Marc:Smoking.

00:48:57Guest:Yeah.

00:48:58Guest:The flick, huh?

00:48:59Guest:The flick.

00:49:00Guest:It was like all... I worked with Joni Mitchell one week.

00:49:03Guest:Oh, wow.

00:49:04Marc:Okay.

00:49:04Marc:So all the... So you're kind of latching on to the counterculture entertainment.

00:49:09Marc:Yeah.

00:49:09Guest:And the material that I was doing at the time was good in those clubs.

00:49:13Guest:They liked it.

00:49:14Guest:That's great.

00:49:14Guest:Most of the time.

00:49:15Guest:Yeah.

00:49:15Guest:You know, still people could get upset.

00:49:17Guest:But you're pushing the envelope a little bit.

00:49:19Guest:I was pushing the envelope.

00:49:21Guest:I decided, hey, you know, this is what I want to do.

00:49:24Guest:And then I did my first shot on The Tonight Show.

00:49:28Guest:I auditioned for The Tonight Show.

00:49:29Marc:In New York?

00:49:30Marc:Yeah.

00:49:30Marc:Yes.

00:49:31Marc:Before it moved out here?

00:49:32Guest:No, it moved out here, but they used to go back to New York.

00:49:34Marc:To book?

00:49:36Guest:No, for like a couple of weeks, twice a year.

00:49:39Guest:Yeah.

00:49:39Guest:Like Carson still had an affinity for New York.

00:49:42Guest:Right.

00:49:42Guest:He had been in New York for a long time.

00:49:43Guest:Yeah.

00:49:44Guest:And he wanted to go back.

00:49:45Guest:Yeah.

00:49:45Guest:Go to some of his old hangouts and spend some time with some of the people.

00:49:49Guest:Uh-huh.

00:49:49Guest:So he would have them come back to New York.

00:49:52Guest:And they had moved out already.

00:49:53Guest:So I think this is a 72.

00:49:54Guest:Yeah.

00:49:55Guest:And the talent coordinator was Craig Tennis.

00:50:01Guest:Uh-huh.

00:50:02Guest:And he had seen me at the Playboy Club.

00:50:05Marc:Where?

00:50:05Guest:New York?

00:50:06Guest:In New York.

00:50:06Guest:Uh-huh.

00:50:07Guest:And he seen me at the Ice House in Pasadena twice.

00:50:11Marc:So you were going back and forth?

00:50:12Marc:I was going back and forth.

00:50:14Marc:Why?

00:50:14Marc:What were you doing out here?

00:50:15Marc:I was working in the Ice House.

00:50:17Marc:Oh, so they fly you out?

00:50:18Marc:Yeah.

00:50:19Marc:Yeah, man.

00:50:20Marc:No, they wouldn't fly me out.

00:50:20Marc:But you'd go work for a week or two?

00:50:22Marc:Yeah.

00:50:23Marc:72, the Ice House was around, huh?

00:50:25Marc:Yeah.

00:50:25Marc:So that was one of the oldest ones out here.

00:50:28Guest:Yeah.

00:50:29Guest:There was always a great audience at the Ice House.

00:50:31Marc:It's still like, it's a very hot room.

00:50:33Marc:Yeah.

00:50:33Marc:You can't even explain it.

00:50:34Marc:No, it's hard to bomb at the Ice House.

00:50:36Guest:Exactly.

00:50:36Guest:Yeah.

00:50:37Guest:It was like that in 72, huh?

00:50:38Guest:Yeah, always.

00:50:39Guest:Wow.

00:50:40Guest:And I did a great set.

00:50:42Guest:And this guy from The Tonight Show, I got it made.

00:50:46Guest:And I did, though, what I thought would be right for television.

00:50:50Guest:I had some material that I wouldn't do.

00:50:52Guest:That was selling the crucifixion?

00:50:53Guest:No, that wasn't going to.

00:50:55Guest:So then he didn't like me.

00:50:58Guest:And then he came into the improv.

00:51:01Yeah.

00:51:01Guest:And I was going on and they said, Craig Tennis is here to see somebody else.

00:51:05Guest:And I said, fuck it.

00:51:06Guest:You know, I'm just going to do my Cosell the Crucifixion and all my other material.

00:51:10Guest:And I did it.

00:51:12Guest:He came up to me after the show.

00:51:14Guest:He said, can you do the Tonight Show Thursday?

00:51:16Guest:I said, I can't do any of this stuff.

00:51:17Guest:He said, I don't care what you do.

00:51:18Guest:You got through.

00:51:23Marc:The fuck you worked.

00:51:24Marc:Yeah.

00:51:28Marc:But you knew what you needed to do?

00:51:29Guest:He didn't go over your set?

00:51:32Guest:No.

00:51:32Guest:He said, what are you going to do?

00:51:34Guest:And I said, I'm going to do this routine about old people on the dating game for old people.

00:51:38Guest:Yeah.

00:51:39Guest:It was a routine, the geriatric dating game.

00:51:42Guest:And he said, fine.

00:51:43Guest:Yeah, I went over it with him and he said, yeah, it's fine.

00:51:47Guest:And that routine was, Mike Douglas didn't want me to do that on his show because he had a lot of old people that watched him.

00:51:56Guest:So you did it?

00:51:57Guest:Killed?

00:51:57Guest:I did it great.

00:51:58Guest:Yeah, it was great.

00:52:00Guest:Johnny liked it?

00:52:01Guest:Johnny really liked it.

00:52:02Guest:And then they had me come out.

00:52:04Guest:And the good thing that a lot of comedians... See, I just couldn't get on television.

00:52:09Guest:I was a little lazy.

00:52:10Guest:I was happy working as a comic.

00:52:14Guest:Yeah.

00:52:14Guest:I was doing Playboy clubs.

00:52:16Guest:I was doing the coffee houses.

00:52:17Guest:I was doing a combination of both.

00:52:20Guest:Yeah.

00:52:20Guest:And it was a great life.

00:52:21Marc:Making money.

00:52:22Guest:I was making money.

00:52:22Guest:I was doing what I wanted to do.

00:52:24Guest:So I didn't really push the TV thing.

00:52:27Guest:Yeah.

00:52:28Guest:When I did get on, I had all this backlog of material.

00:52:31Guest:Right.

00:52:31Guest:Accidentally.

00:52:32Guest:Yeah.

00:52:33Guest:Just because I wasn't really that ambitious.

00:52:36Guest:But you were doing the job.

00:52:37Guest:I was doing the job.

00:52:38Guest:I was working.

00:52:39Guest:I had been working for like by 72.

00:52:40Guest:It was 10 years already.

00:52:42Guest:So you had a bunch of stuff.

00:52:43Guest:I had a bunch of shit that I could do.

00:52:45Guest:Yeah.

00:52:45Guest:I had like six, seven routines that I could do.

00:52:48Guest:And when I finally got the opportunity, then I wasn't going to bomb my second or third time.

00:52:55Guest:Right.

00:52:55Guest:Well, back then they'd ask you back pretty quickly, right?

00:52:58Guest:Yeah, it's back like in two months probably.

00:53:01Guest:And then the first routine was the old dating game.

00:53:05Guest:And then I had this Ed Sullivan routine about Ed Sullivan saying what he wanted to say, having a few drinks before his final show, and saying what he really wanted to say all the years after 20-something years.

00:53:16Guest:Johnny liked that one?

00:53:17Guest:Loved it.

00:53:18Guest:And I had polished that routine for five years.

00:53:21Guest:I'd been doing that routine.

00:53:22Guest:So it was wonderful.

00:53:23Guest:It was ready to go.

00:53:25Guest:Yeah.

00:53:25Guest:And then I had other routines.

00:53:27Guest:And then I also had this stuff to talk about the kids I grew up with.

00:53:30Guest:Right.

00:53:30Guest:You know, which became Welcome Back, Connor.

00:53:32Guest:So I had all this material.

00:53:34Guest:And just accidentally, it just worked out great.

00:53:37Guest:Your lack of ambition helped you.

00:53:40Guest:Yeah.

00:53:41Yeah.

00:53:41Guest:Because everybody was, what am I going to get on TV?

00:53:43Marc:What am I going to get on TV?

00:53:44Marc:And then they had the panic about the second set.

00:53:46Marc:But you had an hour under your belt.

00:53:48Marc:That was good stuff.

00:53:49Marc:And it was polished.

00:53:51Marc:Yeah.

00:53:51Marc:It was polished from work.

00:53:52Marc:And I think I kind of remember you doing Ed Sullivan.

00:53:55Marc:Did you do it on Cotter sometimes?

00:53:57Marc:No.

00:53:58Marc:Maybe I saw that bit.

00:53:59Guest:No, but I did it all over.

00:54:01Guest:I even did it on the Emmy Awards.

00:54:02Guest:Oh, okay.

00:54:03Guest:I did a stand-up on the Emmy Awards doing Ed Sullivan.

00:54:06Marc:Okay, yeah, yeah.

00:54:07Marc:I remember you doing it.

00:54:09Marc:Yeah.

00:54:09Marc:Seeing it somewhere in my past.

00:54:11Marc:Yeah.

00:54:12Marc:I did a lot.

00:54:13Marc:So you did The Tonight Show how many times?

00:54:16Marc:No idea.

00:54:17Marc:I would say at least 20.

00:54:19Guest:Oh, really?

00:54:20Marc:Yeah.

00:54:20Marc:Before you got Cotter?

00:54:22Guest:Yeah.

00:54:24Guest:Wow.

00:54:24Guest:Not 20 times before I got caught.

00:54:25Guest:I did the first one in 72.

00:54:27Guest:Yeah.

00:54:27Guest:I was 75, so I probably had done it 10 times.

00:54:31Marc:So how did that... And that must have brought you more tickets.

00:54:34Marc:I mean, you must have built a following.

00:54:37Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:54:37Marc:From The Tonight Show, right?

00:54:38Marc:Yeah.

00:54:39Marc:You could sell out the club or whatever.

00:54:40Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:54:40Guest:Everything was different.

00:54:41Marc:Yeah.

00:54:42Marc:After that.

00:54:42Guest:After the first Tonight Show, everything was different.

00:54:44Guest:Really?

00:54:45Guest:People would come.

00:54:46Guest:I think I was working in a club in Miami, and I was used to getting, you know...

00:54:51Guest:30, 40 people.

00:54:52Guest:The place is sold out.

00:54:54Guest:Yeah.

00:54:54Guest:One appearance.

00:54:55Guest:Right.

00:54:55Guest:On the Johnny Carson show.

00:54:56Guest:Well, that was the three network thing, buddy.

00:54:58Marc:Right.

00:54:59Marc:You know?

00:55:00Marc:Everybody watched the Tonight Show.

00:55:01Marc:That's right.

00:55:02Marc:So then you're a big comedy star.

00:55:06Marc:Yeah.

00:55:07Marc:Kind of.

00:55:07Marc:You're like- Kind of, yeah.

00:55:08Marc:You're a headliner.

00:55:09Marc:Yeah.

00:55:09Marc:You're making money, pulling people in.

00:55:11Guest:I'm a headliner in coffee houses, and I stopped working at Playboy Clubs, didn't do that anymore.

00:55:17Guest:Why?

00:55:18Guest:Because it was like a set fee that you would get, and you would set time, you'd do like 25, 30 minutes, and that was it.

00:55:25Guest:And I was getting better gigs.

00:55:27Guest:So when did you start playing Vegas, then?

00:55:30Guest:Yeah.

00:55:30Guest:I think my first gig in Vegas was opening for Ann Margaret probably around 73.

00:55:36Guest:And Roger Smith would always get whoever was a hot young comedian on TV to open for her.

00:55:41Guest:Yeah.

00:55:42Guest:And they were really the nicest people.

00:55:44Guest:Yeah.

00:55:44Guest:They made sure everybody who was in the show felt good.

00:55:49Guest:And they invite you into a dressing room.

00:55:52Guest:They had a big dressing room with a big bar area.

00:55:54Guest:And everybody from the show would go there.

00:55:57Guest:Was she something else?

00:55:58Guest:She was really a nice person.

00:56:00Guest:She was, you know, concerned about everybody being happy in the show.

00:56:04Guest:Yeah.

00:56:05Guest:Well, that's nice.

00:56:07Guest:And I opened for, I thought this was going to be the norm.

00:56:11Guest:Right.

00:56:11Guest:You know, when you open for somebody, you open for 12 more people, and they were all pretty nice, but nobody wanted to make sure that you were happy.

00:56:18Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:56:18Marc:Who else did you open for?

00:56:19Marc:Whew.

00:56:20Guest:Diana Ross, Paul Anka, Mac Davis, Helen Reddy.

00:56:27Marc:One hotel, different hotels?

00:56:28Marc:All different hotels.

00:56:30Marc:And so you had a different agent now.

00:56:31Marc:Charnoff's gone, right?

00:56:33Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:56:33Marc:It was with William Morris.

00:56:34Marc:Okay.

00:56:37Guest:Charnoff was gone.

00:56:39Guest:Who's out there was gone.

00:56:41Marc:Yeah.

00:56:44Marc:And that was the gig.

00:56:44Marc:That was a good gig, right?

00:56:45Marc:You open for these people, what, for a couple weeks for a run or what?

00:56:48Guest:Yeah, a couple weeks.

00:56:50Guest:Go to Vegas, go to Tahoe.

00:56:53Guest:Open for a couple weeks.

00:56:54Guest:Is that when you start playing cards?

00:56:57Yeah.

00:56:57Guest:Yeah, pretty much.

00:56:59Guest:Well, I started losing in Vegas.

00:57:02Guest:I'm making like $5,000 a week opening, and I'm losing it.

00:57:08Guest:Playing blackjack.

00:57:09Guest:You're your father's son.

00:57:10Guest:Right.

00:57:11Guest:And I said, I'm going to fall into this trap.

00:57:16Guest:Yeah.

00:57:16Guest:And then I noticed that there was poker, and I had always been a pretty good poker player.

00:57:22Guest:So I said, instead of playing blackjack, I'm like, should I play poker?

00:57:25Guest:And then I wound up winning.

00:57:27Guest:So it was great.

00:57:30Guest:And I was in the 70s.

00:57:31Marc:I was in the 70s, yeah.

00:57:33Marc:Not professional, but you were able to not lose all your money.

00:57:37Guest:Right.

00:57:38Guest:If I broke out even, that was great.

00:57:42Guest:When I worked with Telly Savalas, we shot craps a few times together, but I didn't really want to.

00:57:48Marc:Did he win?

00:57:49Guest:No.

00:57:50Guest:He would take all these small chips and pile them up real high, like he was betting a lot.

00:57:56Guest:He loved to gamble.

00:57:57Guest:He also loved to play poker.

00:57:58Marc:The illusion of the big spend.

00:58:01Marc:So when how do you get caught?

00:58:03Marc:How does that like what was the process back then?

00:58:06Marc:Did you pitch it?

00:58:07Marc:Did your agent put it together?

00:58:08Marc:I mean, because like by the time we get in my generation, you go in, you meet somebody and you pitch the idea and they decide whether you want it.

00:58:15Marc:They want to do it or not.

00:58:16Marc:And then you hook up with writers that they have on contract.

00:58:20Guest:Yeah, it was pretty similar.

00:58:22Guest:I had talked to a few producers about a possible television show, but I never thought about doing it based on my act because no one had ever done that.

00:58:30Marc:Were you doing bits on TV shows?

00:58:32Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:58:33Marc:Were you doing roasts?

00:58:34Marc:Were you doing Dean Martin and whatever?

00:58:36Marc:Yeah.

00:58:36Guest:Yeah, I was doing Dean Martin.

00:58:37Guest:I did Muhammad Ali roast.

00:58:40Guest:I think that was the first roast.

00:58:42Guest:He thought that I was this guy he was fighting in six months.

00:58:49Guest:I think Belgian guy, Koopman.

00:58:52Guest:Gene Pierre Koopman.

00:58:55Marc:Ali thought it was you?

00:58:56Guest:Yeah, because the guy looked a little like me.

00:58:59Guest:And he said, Koopman, what are you doing here?

00:59:01Guest:You ain't supposed to be here, Koopman.

00:59:02Guest:Get your ass out of here, Koopman.

00:59:03Guest:I said, I'm not Koopman, I'm a comedian.

00:59:06Guest:He gave me that look like he was mad, but he wasn't really mad.

00:59:10Guest:He just thought that they were pulling a surprise on him and that they're going to bring Koopman out.

00:59:15Marc:Oh, that's funny.

00:59:16Marc:So Dean was a nice guy or no?

00:59:18Guest:Yeah, pretty much.

00:59:20Guest:Hard to know.

00:59:21Guest:Right.

00:59:21Guest:Yeah.

00:59:22Marc:Yeah.

00:59:22Marc:That's what I heard.

00:59:23Marc:Yeah.

00:59:23Guest:It was like, you know, I got a feeling that there was a really nice guy in there.

00:59:28Guest:Yeah.

00:59:29Guest:That this was his act and he did it and everything was so easy.

00:59:33Guest:They structured things so he didn't have to do any work.

00:59:36Guest:He just went out there and read the cards.

00:59:38Marc:Were there comics that you were friends with?

00:59:40Guest:yeah i i one of the things i did before you know before this happened before i got on tv but i wrote a lot of material for david fry he was i don't know if you remember him he was an impressionist yeah he did the political impressions right right yeah and i wrote a lot of his material and wrote a couple comedy albums for him and you were friends with him who else came up with you that you who are your contemporaries brenner

01:00:04Marc:Brenna was a little after me.

01:00:07Guest:That was really early.

01:00:08Guest:Brenna, I think it was a few years after me.

01:00:10Marc:Klein was coming into it.

01:00:11Guest:Klein was about the same time.

01:00:13Guest:Then he started doing improv and working in theater.

01:00:19Guest:But I saw him at the cafe while probably

01:00:22Guest:like really 1963, get up.

01:00:24Guest:And I think he had just graduated.

01:00:26Guest:Yale?

01:00:27Guest:Yeah, and he was doing... Funny?

01:00:30Guest:Yeah, he was always funny.

01:00:31Guest:Yeah.

01:00:32Guest:He was always really a step above the kind of comedy that was happening at that point.

01:00:38Guest:Uh-huh, uh-huh.

01:00:39Marc:You see Woody Allen?

01:00:40Guest:I saw him not doing stand-up.

01:00:43Marc:Oh, no.

01:00:43Guest:But I saw him at Bitter End a lot.

01:00:46Guest:He would go there for the talent shows sometimes, and he would be encouraging to comedians.

01:00:51Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:00:53Guest:But my mother wrote him a letter.

01:00:55Guest:Because he was like the main comic on TV.

01:00:59Guest:And she said, my son wants to be a comedian.

01:01:01Guest:Can you help out?

01:01:02Guest:And he wrote back a letter.

01:01:04Guest:Oh, did he?

01:01:04Guest:He said, I'm just Kaplan.

01:01:06Guest:I can't meet your son, but I want to encourage him if he thinks he's got to try it and see if he can succeed at it.

01:01:15Guest:And don't discourage him.

01:01:17Guest:Let him try his thing.

01:01:19Guest:And then I wrote Woody Allen's mother a letter.

01:01:23Guest:Yeah.

01:01:23Guest:but he actually answered he actually answered did you ever meet frank sinatra yeah yeah he worked at caesar's palace for a while yeah and i never actually met him and he was playing baccarat uh-huh and i went up to him and said how you doing he had the whole table by himself yeah i said how you doing he said i'm losing and

01:01:46Marc:Everyone's losing into stories.

01:01:48Guest:Right, right.

01:01:48Guest:Nobody wins.

01:01:50Guest:And he said, plus, this is my last night here.

01:01:53Guest:I'm looking for a new job.

01:01:54Guest:It was his last night at Caesar's Palace.

01:01:56Guest:And I said, I could just get you a weekend at the Club 802 in Brooklyn.

01:02:01Guest:And he said, well, let me know about that.

01:02:04Guest:I think that was the only time I ever met him.

01:02:06Guest:He knew you from?

01:02:07Guest:Yeah.

01:02:07Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:02:08Guest:They let me approach the table because they knew who I was.

01:02:11Guest:Otherwise, you couldn't get close to him.

01:02:13Marc:So you go in with Cotter.

01:02:15Marc:How does that work?

01:02:16Guest:Well, the producer, Alan Sachs, of Chico and the Man, saw me at the comedy store.

01:02:24Marc:So you were at the store?

01:02:25Marc:Yeah.

01:02:26Marc:When you were out here?

01:02:27Marc:When I was out here.

01:02:28Marc:Early on, 73?

01:02:29Marc:At the beginning?

01:02:30Guest:Yeah, at the beginning.

01:02:31Guest:Well, I moved here.

01:02:32Guest:The Tonight Show came back to Los Angeles, and I moved here to do my second one.

01:02:38Marc:In 70 what?

01:02:39Guest:Like late 72, early 73.

01:02:42Marc:So you were at the store at the beginning?

01:02:44Marc:Yeah.

01:02:44Marc:Were you there before Mitzi took it over?

01:02:47Marc:Yes.

01:02:47Marc:No kidding.

01:02:48Guest:I was there, I think, two weeks into it.

01:02:50Guest:I was sitting with Sammy and Rudy DeLuca, and Sammy was not sure if it was going to work.

01:02:56Marc:And it was just that front room?

01:02:59Guest:Just the front room.

01:03:01Guest:And I would go up until Carter got on the air.

01:03:05Guest:I didn't go that much after that, but for those three years, I was there a lot.

01:03:10Guest:Even after Mitzi took over?

01:03:12Guest:Yeah.

01:03:12Marc:Oh, so you got along with her.

01:03:14Guest:Yeah.

01:03:14Guest:Well, I was already doing well.

01:03:17Guest:You know, I was on a tonight show.

01:03:18Marc:So she didn't have much effect on you, right?

01:03:19Guest:She didn't have much effect.

01:03:20Guest:Yeah.

01:03:20Guest:She didn't try to.

01:03:21Guest:you know i gave one yeah yeah you're gonna go on tonight yeah you know so it was kind of easy i don't know she couldn't with you no you were made guy no i was a guy yeah i got my button already so you're telling me this the first time they built a show sort of specifically around an act is that that's what i'm telling you that's what i think yeah

01:03:44Guest:Alan came up and he said, you know, we want to do a show.

01:03:47Guest:And then we started to talk about it.

01:03:49Guest:He said, those guys you talk about in your act, they're really funny.

01:03:51Guest:And the first concept was these guys are like, we're all buddies in high school and they're the group of guys that never grew up.

01:03:59Guest:They're like 27, 28, they still all live at home and they still hang out together.

01:04:05Guest:and they're still looking for girls, and there was Barbarino, Horshack, Epstein, and they're still the same crew.

01:04:13Guest:And we couldn't figure out where the sets would be, where did they hang out together.

01:04:20Guest:And then just came up with the concept.

01:04:23Guest:Well, what if they're still in high school and instead of me being their contemporary, I'm the teacher?

01:04:29Guest:Yeah.

01:04:30Guest:And that seemed to work well.

01:04:32Guest:And we took it to the network and they said, write a treatment.

01:04:34Guest:I wrote a treatment.

01:04:35Guest:Yeah.

01:04:36Guest:And then they bought it and they had someone else write the pilot based on the treatment.

01:04:40Marc:So you had production created by credit the whole time.

01:04:44Guest:Created by credit, right.

01:04:46Guest:Yeah.

01:04:46Guest:And that was that, huh?

01:04:47Guest:That was that.

01:04:48Guest:But I almost got kicked off the show.

01:04:50Marc:Why?

01:04:51Marc:Before it even started?

01:04:51Guest:Because Comac was a producer.

01:04:53Guest:He was kind of a controlling guy.

01:04:56Guest:And we didn't really get along that well.

01:04:59Guest:He tried to get involved in people's lives.

01:05:02Guest:And he wanted to be the guru.

01:05:04Guest:Uh-huh.

01:05:05Guest:Which guy is this?

01:05:06Guest:James Comack.

01:05:07Guest:He was the producer?

01:05:07Guest:He was the producer.

01:05:08Guest:I was kind of independent, and the network had bought the show, and we were doing the pilot, and I didn't know it at the time, but we did a run-through like a week before it was taped, and they had a whole list of guys to replace me.

01:05:23Marc:No kidding.

01:05:24Guest:If I didn't knock it out of the park in that run-through.

01:05:27Guest:Yeah.

01:05:28Guest:And the run-through went really great, and then we were stuck together for like three, four years.

01:05:33Marc:Yeah, all of you.

01:05:34Marc:Yeah.

01:05:35Marc:Did you enjoy it?

01:05:36Guest:I enjoyed it.

01:05:38Guest:I mean, I loved working.

01:05:40Guest:It was kind of cathartic.

01:05:42Guest:You know, this is my life.

01:05:44Guest:These are people that I grew up with, forms of them, not exactly, but they were forms of them.

01:05:49Guest:And some things that happened to me, some of the people on the show were actual names of people that I knew.

01:05:56Guest:And I wanted to do...

01:05:59Guest:More of that these guys were the best of friends and they had all different ethnic backgrounds.

01:06:05Guest:And I want to have one show where a couple of black kids go up to Freddie Washington and say, how come your best friends are white?

01:06:13Guest:Yeah.

01:06:13Guest:But he didn't want to do any of that.

01:06:16Guest:So it was a combination, a give and take about what he wanted and what I wanted.

01:06:20Guest:Comstock or whatever his name is.

01:06:21Guest:Comstock, yeah.

01:06:22Guest:Yeah.

01:06:22Guest:Comstock Lode.

01:06:24Guest:Yeah.

01:06:25Guest:Is that his name?

01:06:26Guest:Comac.

01:06:29Guest:Yeah.

01:06:29Guest:So we sort of... Navigated it.

01:06:32Guest:Navigated it.

01:06:33Marc:Like I think all television shows... And did the guys that these characters were based on ever... Did you tell them?

01:06:38Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:06:38Marc:They knew.

01:06:39Marc:Yeah.

01:06:40Guest:They all knew.

01:06:41Guest:And we got together one time in New York, like three of us.

01:06:45Guest:I think only one of them is still alive.

01:06:47Marc:Oh, right now.

01:06:48Marc:Yeah.

01:06:48Marc:And that was Travolta's first gig, right?

01:06:52Guest:His first major gig.

01:06:54Guest:He had done a couple of commercials, and I think he'd been on a couple of small parts of movies.

01:06:59Guest:That was his first major thing.

01:07:01Marc:Vinnie Barberino.

01:07:03Guest:Vinnie Barbarino.

01:07:05Guest:This is my place and these are my people.

01:07:07Guest:I'm Vinnie Barbarino.

01:07:10Marc:And Horschach and Epstein and Washington, was that?

01:07:14Marc:Washington, right.

01:07:16Marc:I remember all of them.

01:07:19Marc:The Sweathogs, right?

01:07:20Marc:The Sweathogs.

01:07:21Marc:Yeah.

01:07:22Marc:Like, I remember from my childhood, I remember you.

01:07:25Marc:I remember, like, it's weird that they, like, that was what was interesting, really, as I started, when we started talking about it.

01:07:30Marc:Like, when I read that article, it was, like, deeply ingrained stuff.

01:07:34Marc:Yeah.

01:07:34Marc:Because I'm, I guess I'm, like, 20 years younger than you.

01:07:37Marc:So, you know, I'm seeing that when I'm, you know, in elementary school and then entering junior high.

01:07:41Marc:It was a big show.

01:07:43Guest:Yeah.

01:07:43Guest:I think it's sort of...

01:07:46Guest:And not only here, but all over the world, everybody knew someone like that in their school.

01:07:52Marc:Yeah, it was a common experience, right.

01:07:54Guest:Yeah, Horshack and Epstein, Barbarino, the guy who was good-looking, and Epstein, a tough guy.

01:07:59Guest:Everybody sort of related to it.

01:08:02Marc:But you guys really thought of the angle, the shtick of each one.

01:08:05Marc:Barbarino was the sort of cocky kind of guy, right?

01:08:09Marc:And then Horshack was the desperate kind of guy.

01:08:11Marc:Yeah.

01:08:12Marc:And Epstein was always late, right?

01:08:14Marc:And, you know, borderline.

01:08:15Marc:The notes.

01:08:15Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:08:16Marc:Yeah.

01:08:19Marc:Signed Epstein's mother.

01:08:20Marc:Was that the bit?

01:08:21Guest:Yeah.

01:08:24Guest:Please excuse Juan from coming late today.

01:08:27Guest:I had something urgent he had to do for me.

01:08:30Guest:Signed Epstein's mother.

01:08:33Guest:And he would mouth along to a note as I was reading it.

01:08:37Guest:What happened to that guy?

01:08:38Guest:Died.

01:08:39Marc:Oh, did he?

01:08:39Guest:Yeah, young, like 60 years old.

01:08:41Guest:And Horshack too, right?

01:08:43Guest:Horshack died too.

01:08:45Guest:And Marsha died, Marsha Strassman.

01:08:48Guest:She died a few years ago.

01:08:49Marc:Yeah, and Travolta plows on.

01:08:53Guest:Travolta keeps going.

01:08:54Guest:Keeps going.

01:08:54Guest:Yeah.

01:08:55Guest:Did you ever talk to him?

01:08:56Guest:Not too often.

01:08:58Guest:We got along really well when we did the show.

01:09:00Guest:He's a funny guy to work with.

01:09:01Guest:He's really funny, but just haven't kept in touch that much.

01:09:06Marc:I know.

01:09:06Marc:It's like things get weird, right?

01:09:07Marc:You get older, and it's like when you do shows, because I've done a couple, it's like everyone goes their own way.

01:09:12Marc:It's like a theater production, even if it goes on forever.

01:09:16Guest:It's like anything.

01:09:17Guest:I mean, if you work in an office with six people, you know, people won't ask you 20 years later, hey, you talk to people you work with?

01:09:23Marc:Sometimes you're friends with them.

01:09:24Marc:You don't know.

01:09:25Marc:Sometimes.

01:09:25Guest:Sometimes you have one person that you're friends with.

01:09:27Marc:You're still friends with the guy who wrote it with you?

01:09:30Guest:Alan Sachs?

01:09:30Guest:Yeah, Sachs.

01:09:31Guest:Yeah, we talk every once in a while.

01:09:32Guest:I'm still, I see Larry Jacobs who played Freddie Washington.

01:09:37Guest:We still see each other.

01:09:38Marc:Oh, yeah?

01:09:38Marc:That's good.

01:09:39Marc:That's good.

01:09:39Marc:That's nice.

01:09:40Marc:Yeah.

01:09:40Marc:So you do that for what, four years?

01:09:42Marc:How many, like how many did you do?

01:09:43Marc:How many episodes?

01:09:45Marc:100?

01:09:45Guest:I did about 100.

01:09:46Guest:I did three years.

01:09:47Guest:I was on like maybe four or five shows in the last season.

01:09:53Guest:Comac took over.

01:09:55Guest:Pushed you out?

01:09:56Guest:Yeah.

01:09:56Guest:And he had like Marsha was in the school as a teacher.

01:09:59Guest:He brought in Della Reese as a teacher.

01:10:02Guest:Right.

01:10:03Guest:It didn't make any sense.

01:10:05Guest:It was like Cotter in the Twilight Zone.

01:10:07Marc:Did it hurt your feelings?

01:10:08No.

01:10:08Guest:Yeah.

01:10:09Guest:It was my show, my life, you know, so it did hurt my feelings.

01:10:13Marc:So that relationship got worse.

01:10:16Guest:Well, you know, it was always bad.

01:10:19Guest:Yeah.

01:10:20Guest:So it didn't get any worse.

01:10:21Guest:He just was able... You know, the rating slipped by the third season.

01:10:24Guest:And I always thought, hey, you know, these guys are... They were 20-something to begin with when we started the show.

01:10:30Guest:Yeah.

01:10:31Guest:So now, how far are you going to push this?

01:10:33Guest:Yeah, right.

01:10:34Guest:We need new kids or something.

01:10:35Guest:We need new kids or maybe move them to a junior college.

01:10:38Guest:Yeah.

01:10:39Guest:And I become a teacher at junior college.

01:10:40Guest:I walk in and who's there?

01:10:41Guest:Right, right.

01:10:42Guest:You know, so let's...

01:10:43Guest:Let's do something.

01:10:44Guest:We can't have them, you know, at 27 years old, we can't have them playing 16 anymore.

01:10:49Guest:And they didn't agree.

01:10:51Guest:They just wanted to milk it for all it was worth.

01:10:53Marc:Ah, that's sad.

01:10:54Marc:So when that ended, I mean, did you decide at some point you were done with show business?

01:11:02Guest:Kind of.

01:11:04Guest:I wasn't really getting any offers, any good offers.

01:11:07Guest:Yeah.

01:11:09Guest:After Cotter.

01:11:10Guest:Well, after Cotter, I was still headlining in Vegas, still doing that.

01:11:16Guest:And then nothing good was coming along, and I didn't want to do whatever was offered me.

01:11:22Guest:So I sort of did other things.

01:11:24Guest:I got involved in financial things and gambling, playing a lot of poker, being a poker announcer.

01:11:35Marc:But you were a world champion, weren't you?

01:11:37Marc:No.

01:11:38Oh.

01:11:38Guest:But thanks.

01:11:41Guest:I thought you were like the King Pupa, the poker people.

01:11:45Guest:I'm like, you know, I came in second once in the championship.

01:11:49Guest:But you did all right.

01:11:50Guest:You were making money.

01:11:51Guest:Yeah, I was making money.

01:11:52Guest:Yeah.

01:11:52Guest:And done all right gambling.

01:11:55Guest:Yeah.

01:11:57Guest:But more investing.

01:11:58Guest:And I didn't have the, I guess I'd done so much comedy at such a young age that I didn't really have a real need to continue to do it.

01:12:08Marc:And also, I don't know, there was a time, it's a generational thing.

01:12:15Marc:Ultimately, your audience is going to be your age after a certain point if they still want to come see you.

01:12:20Marc:It's hard to remain relevant.

01:12:22Marc:So it would be difficult to kind of continue to, I mean, I guess you could update your act, but it's still going to be this Vegas thing.

01:12:29Marc:And how could you not get tired of it, I think, eventually?

01:12:33Guest:Yeah, you're going to get tired of it.

01:12:35Guest:And I still worked in Vegas occasionally.

01:12:39Guest:But you loved it.

01:12:40Guest:Yeah, I loved doing comedy.

01:12:41Guest:And I tried to do it again.

01:12:44Guest:Like about 20 years ago, I went to New York.

01:12:46Guest:Yeah.

01:12:47Guest:Like I first started.

01:12:47Guest:I went down to the comedy cellar.

01:12:51Marc:So like my age, like 57, 58?

01:12:53Marc:Yeah, or it was your age.

01:12:55Guest:I came up with a couple of good bits.

01:12:56Guest:How'd it go?

01:12:57Guest:It went good.

01:12:58Guest:Yeah.

01:12:59Guest:Except nobody wanted me.

01:13:01Guest:I did the Montreal Comedy Festival.

01:13:03Guest:Yeah.

01:13:04Guest:I did really good there.

01:13:05Marc:20 years ago.

01:13:05Guest:20 years ago.

01:13:07Marc:The resurgence.

01:13:08Guest:He's back.

01:13:09Guest:That's what I thought.

01:13:10Guest:Gabe is back.

01:13:10Guest:That's what I thought.

01:13:11Marc:Yeah.

01:13:11Guest:But nobody gave a shit.

01:13:13Guest:That's sad.

01:13:13Guest:Yeah.

01:13:14Marc:They treated you like a nostalgia act.

01:13:18Guest:Not a nostalgia act, but I guess the people who booked the shows, they weren't interested in having me on the show.

01:13:24Guest:It was yesterday's news.

01:13:26Guest:And I didn't really go out and push.

01:13:29Guest:I didn't get an agent and try to get on.

01:13:31Guest:I thought, just like before, someone was going to say, hey...

01:13:35Guest:Right.

01:13:35Guest:We want you back.

01:13:36Guest:Please come back.

01:13:37Guest:Yeah, come on.

01:13:38Marc:We want you back.

01:13:38Marc:And you didn't stay engaged with it like Richard, you know, where you maintained a sort of audience like Richard Lewis.

01:13:46Marc:No.

01:13:46Marc:Who just kept going.

01:13:48Marc:You were sort of gone for a while.

01:13:50Guest:Yeah, I was gone and didn't seem like anybody wanted me back.

01:13:55Guest:So I said, okay.

01:13:57Marc:Play cards.

01:13:57Guest:Yeah, I'll play cards.

01:13:58Guest:I'll do other things.

01:14:00Marc:And you did all right.

01:14:00Marc:You're all right.

01:14:01Guest:Make a nice living.

01:14:02Guest:Oh, good.

01:14:03Guest:I'm all right.

01:14:04Guest:That's good.

01:14:04Guest:Yeah.

01:14:05Guest:But I still have that need, you know, like why I wrote this article.

01:14:08Guest:Yeah.

01:14:09Guest:And I've written a movie about, you know, my family, my father not working and coming of age in the 1950s with some gambling, gambling.

01:14:19Guest:Yeah.

01:14:19Guest:So I've written a movie like that.

01:14:21Guest:So like in the last year, you know, since COVID, I sat down, I started to write again.

01:14:25Guest:And it felt really good writing that article, going over those memories of what happened.

01:14:33Guest:And it felt really good going to see Robert Conrad and talking it out and sort of saying, okay, why did this happen to us?

01:14:43Marc:Why were we enemies?

01:14:45Marc:It's interesting, though, because it still seems to me that even after talking to you and then talking about this article again, that a lot of that was in your head.

01:14:54Marc:Could be.

01:14:56Marc:You know what I mean?

01:14:57Marc:He was nice to you.

01:14:58Marc:He was nice to me.

01:14:59Marc:But I do that all the time where I'm like, you know, that guy.

01:15:02Marc:And then you see him, they're like, what are you talking about?

01:15:04Guest:Yeah.

01:15:05Guest:Yeah.

01:15:05Guest:That's sort of like an OCD process where your neurotransmitters make you feel the worst thing is everyone feels the worst.

01:15:12Marc:Well, everyone's thinking about you.

01:15:14Marc:No one's thinking about you.

01:15:14Marc:No one cares.

01:15:17Marc:I don't know if no one cares, but, you know.

01:15:20Marc:No, they care about their own shit.

01:15:21Marc:Of course, right.

01:15:22Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:15:23Marc:Yeah, I mean, but I really did get locked into that, you know, that nostalgia of that, you know, that the different media landscape that, you know, you were part of this thing that it's just that it's gone.

01:15:35Marc:It's all gone, you know, and my buddy Tom Sharpling, you know, him and I were talking about Rickles the other night, you know, and he'll.

01:15:41Marc:You can go on YouTube and watch an entire.

01:15:44Marc:You can watch all of Rickles Letterman appearances or you can watch all of somebody's, you know, stand like you just someone makes it, puts it all together.

01:15:52Marc:It's kind of fascinating just how how great and how big the personalities were in your day, you know, and now, you know, it's hard to lock on to anybody.

01:16:01Guest:Yeah.

01:16:02Guest:It's a new era.

01:16:05Guest:It's, you know, people are- Everything's very temporary.

01:16:08Guest:Everything changes.

01:16:09Marc:Fleeting.

01:16:10Marc:Things change.

01:16:10Marc:I guess so.

01:16:11Marc:There's too much.

01:16:11Guest:I worked at, I went to this casino in Mississippi to do a promotional event where-

01:16:21Guest:No, I also did speaking, you know, like, you know, public speaking.

01:16:28Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:16:29Guest:Where I do comedy, you know.

01:16:30Guest:Like TED Talks?

01:16:31Guest:What?

01:16:31Marc:Like a TED Talk?

01:16:33Guest:Yeah.

01:16:33Marc:Uh-huh.

01:16:34Guest:But not really a TED Talk.

01:16:35Marc:Yeah.

01:16:35Guest:I was the comedy.

01:16:36Guest:Like, they would have a couple of political people.

01:16:38Guest:Like, they have a convention for four days.

01:16:40Guest:Uh-huh.

01:16:40Guest:They have a few political people.

01:16:42Marc:Oh, you do the comedy keynote?

01:16:44Guest:I was the comedy relief.

01:16:45Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:16:45Guest:Sometimes it was the keynote.

01:16:46Marc:So, you'd write things for it specifically?

01:16:49Marc:Yes.

01:16:49Guest:Write things specifically.

01:16:50Guest:Okay, okay.

01:16:50Guest:And then have...

01:16:51Guest:occupations that you never knew existed yeah you know yeah and you find out about them yeah and write and write stuff about them right but i went to this casino in mississippi and had a comedy club there and they had like hundreds of pictures of every comedian yeah and i'm looking at it i don't see my picture it's like 200 comedians i never heard of yeah

01:17:16Guest:And then I went to the poker room and they have like six characters and I'm one of the characters.

01:17:20Guest:Well, this is where my life is going.

01:17:23Guest:You're the poker guy.

01:17:24Guest:Yeah.

01:17:24Guest:I can't make the top 200.

01:17:25Guest:Isn't that wild?

01:17:28Marc:Yeah.

01:17:28Marc:It's still at the comedy store, I believe.

01:17:30Marc:Yeah.

01:17:30Marc:That's good.

01:17:31Marc:I was just there.

01:17:32Marc:I'll double check for you.

01:17:33Marc:That's good.

01:17:34Marc:All those pictures are still up.

01:17:35Marc:In the doorway, in the back hall, most of them are up.

01:17:38Marc:I still think you're in the front hallway.

01:17:41Marc:I'm still in the front hallway.

01:17:42Marc:I think so.

01:17:43Marc:I think so.

01:17:44Marc:I'll double check.

01:17:45Guest:Yeah, let me know.

01:17:47Marc:It was great talking to you, man.

01:17:49Guest:Great talking to you.

01:17:49Guest:I really enjoyed it.

01:17:53Marc:Gabe Kaplan, real deal.

01:17:58Marc:That was a unique stand-up story in terms of how he started.

01:18:02Marc:I had not had that conversation about the sort of doing comedy on the road at one-nighters with strippers.

01:18:12Marc:That was a real treat.

01:18:14Marc:And now, guitar.

01:18:27so

01:19:48Marc:Boomer lives, monkey in La Fonda.

01:20:16Marc:Cat angels everywhere.

01:20:18Marc:They're in the room.

01:20:19Marc:They're in the fucking room, man.