Episode 358 - Mel Brooks

Episode 358 • Released February 3, 2013 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:12Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:14Marc:What the fuck billies?

00:00:15Marc:What the fucking steens?

00:00:18Marc:You got it.

00:00:18Marc:This is Mark Marin.

00:00:19Marc:This is WTF.

00:00:21Marc:I'm glad to be here.

00:00:22Marc:Thank you to all of you who came out to the shows this last weekend.

00:00:27Marc:I had a great time at the egg in Albany.

00:00:29Marc:It was like performing inside a piece of a very large piece of Danish modern furniture.

00:00:36Marc:Great crowd.

00:00:37Marc:Had a great time.

00:00:39Marc:A lot of good riffs, a lot of good moments that will never be had again.

00:00:43Marc:Moments that were were were only that for that one night into the ether they went.

00:00:50Marc:Thank you, all you people in Washington, D.C., who came to the sixth and I synagogue.

00:00:55Marc:That was harrowing for me.

00:00:56Marc:I had never performed.

00:00:58Marc:at a synagogue, a functioning operating synagogue with a bima that had four Torahs in it, two of them rescued from Germany.

00:01:06Marc:There was some heavy Jewish baggage in the air.

00:01:08Marc:It was a classic old synagogue.

00:01:13Marc:It was a bit overwhelming.

00:01:15Marc:I was a bit fragile.

00:01:16Marc:I'm happy to report that I believe I made more than I actually made on my bar mitzvah.

00:01:21Marc:which was good because it was a longer set.

00:01:24Marc:And it took a lifetime to create what I did there on Saturday and really only took a few months for me to memorize a bunch of stuff in a language I didn't understand back in 1976 when I was 13 years old.

00:01:36Marc:in 1974 when i was 11 years old mel brooks's blazing saddles came out and i remember seeing it i don't know how i saw it or why i saw it or who took me at that age but i i was never the same after that and the reason i'm telling you that is mel brooks is my guest today on the show and i couldn't be more excited uh honored and uh just um blown away and

00:01:59Marc:And I'd like you to hang out throughout my intro here.

00:02:02Marc:I'm going to do a little business, but I'm going to set up the interview a little bit.

00:02:05Marc:Let me do my business because this is a business because I want to make sure people know that I'm touring.

00:02:10Marc:I don't know what I have to do when I tweet on a Friday night that I'm in Albany and people tweet back at me.

00:02:18Marc:Oh, man, why didn't you tell me that you were coming?

00:02:21Marc:I don't know how much I have to tell you.

00:02:24Marc:I can't come door to door here.

00:02:26Marc:I don't have that kind of time.

00:02:28Marc:So let me just give you a quick rundown of what's happening in the next few weeks.

00:02:32Marc:This Friday, February 8th, I will be doing a live WTF and a live standup show at the Wilbur in Boston, Massachusetts.

00:02:40Marc:Saturday, February 9th, I will be in Chicopee, Mass at the Hooky Lao.

00:02:44Marc:I don't know what that is.

00:02:45Marc:I got a feeling it's going to be an interesting one.

00:02:50Marc:But if you live in the Chicopee area out there in Western Mass, I'll be at the Hooky Lao.

00:02:54Marc:Mike Lawrence is going to be with me on all these dates.

00:02:56Marc:On Thursday, February 14th, Bogarts in Cincinnati, Ohio.

00:03:00Marc:Friday, February 15th, the Capitol Theater in Columbus, Ohio.

00:03:05Marc:Saturday, February 16th, I will be at the Vancouver Comedy Festival doing a live WTF.

00:03:10Marc:Sunday, February 17th, I will be doing a live stand-up show at the Vancouver Comedy Festival.

00:03:16Marc:Thursday, February 28th, I will be at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, Oregon.

00:03:20Marc:Friday, March 1st, I will be at the Neptune Theater in Seattle, Washington.

00:03:24Marc:Saturday, March 2nd,

00:03:26Marc:I will be at the McDonald Theater in Eugene, Oregon.

00:03:30Marc:Saturday, April 13th, I will be at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

00:03:34Marc:You might want to get tickets for that.

00:03:35Marc:It's probably going to sell out.

00:03:37Marc:A lot of these West Coast ones might.

00:03:39Marc:And on Friday, April 19th, I will be going back east to Music Fest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

00:03:47Marc:That said...

00:03:49Marc:Mel Brooks.

00:03:51Marc:I can't tell you what an impact this man had on my life growing up.

00:03:54Marc:I thought he was the funniest person alive.

00:03:56Marc:I remember.

00:03:57Marc:Do you remember seeing Blazing Saddles for the first time and just how your brain exploded because you couldn't even handle how fucking funny it was?

00:04:07Marc:Do you remember seeing young Frankenstein for the first time?

00:04:11Marc:That moment for me when he pours hot soup, when Gene Hackman as the blind man pours hot soup in his pants.

00:04:18Marc:Oh, my God.

00:04:20Marc:Oh, my God.

00:04:20Marc:I waited anxiously for silent movie to come out.

00:04:23Marc:I remember like being so thrilled.

00:04:25Marc:And so I was completely, completely enamored and amazed at Mel Brooks.

00:04:32Marc:And I was watching like he was doing he did a lot of media lately.

00:04:36Marc:And I got a box set here.

00:04:38Marc:The Incredible Mel Brooks and Irresistible Collection of Unhinged Comedy.

00:04:42Marc:brought to you by Shout Records, I started watching it because, quite honestly, I needed to do some research.

00:04:49Marc:I needed to do some research on Mel because Mel had been around.

00:04:52Marc:If you look at Mel on television, there was a recent interview with Dick Cavett in, I think, 2010 maybe, and then there was a recent interview with a British guy, and then there was just dozens and dozens of appearances on Dick Cavett, on Johnny Carson.

00:05:07Marc:There's a lot of stuff on here, short films he did, very rare stuff on this box.

00:05:11Marc:but I had to do some research because I knew there was very few things that Mel Brooks had not talked about, about, you know, in terms of himself publicly, it was all out there.

00:05:21Marc:So, you know, I wanted to have my experience with him.

00:05:23Marc:I thought, well, how was I going to get, yeah, I want to get around the public narrative of Mel Brooks, at least a little bit.

00:05:30Marc:I want to connect with the man.

00:05:31Marc:I want to connect with the man.

00:05:33Marc:I want to have a conversation with Mel Brooks.

00:05:35Marc:It hasn't been had.

00:05:38Marc:Not only does he have this amazing box set, but Mel's got some things going on.

00:05:42Marc:His American Masters documentary, Mel Brooks, Make a Noise, premieres Monday, May 20th on PBS.

00:05:49Marc:I would watch that.

00:05:51Marc:And he will be receiving the AFI's Life Achievement Award on June 6th, this year, 2013.

00:05:58Marc:That'll be on TNT.

00:06:01Marc:He's amazing.

00:06:02Marc:And the other thing I realized about interviewing Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, to be quite honest with you, is that these are not stand-ups.

00:06:09Marc:Oh, both of these guys started doing shtick.

00:06:11Marc:They started doing stand-up and then they went into writing and then they went into movies.

00:06:14Marc:Mel Brooks, you know, his entire life, he's made movies, he's directed movies, he's written movies, he's written television, he's produced movies.

00:06:21Marc:And then, you know, later on, they make a musical out of one of his movies.

00:06:25Marc:He's won Oscars, Emmys, everything.

00:06:28Marc:Mel Brooks...

00:06:30Marc:one life and you feel that and it's a very different experience talking to somebody who took their comedic talent and just did everything they possibly could with it and the joy in his being both him and Carl

00:06:46Marc:of the accomplishments and the achievements they were able to do with their senses of humor is tangible and beautiful.

00:06:55Marc:It's beautiful.

00:06:56Marc:So I get this opportunity to interview him and I'm excited, I'm nervous, I'm scared, I'm doing a lot of research, primarily just to know what he's talked about and figure out what's essential, what I know he might talk about and then just try to get into the frame of mind

00:07:10Marc:where I can just engage and have an authentic and present conversation with a comedy icon and a personal hero of mine.

00:07:20Marc:So I'm going over to Culver Studios to interview him.

00:07:23Marc:That's where his office is.

00:07:25Marc:And I get over there.

00:07:27Marc:And it was a little daunting because I brought a boom.

00:07:31Marc:Generally now, and Mel Brooks is very, has a lot of clarity.

00:07:34Marc:He's on the money.

00:07:34Marc:His timing is right there.

00:07:36Marc:His brain is all there.

00:07:37Marc:Everything is great.

00:07:38Marc:He's hilarious.

00:07:40Marc:But I didn't know what I was going to get into.

00:07:41Marc:I bring a boom.

00:07:42Marc:I bring my mics.

00:07:43Marc:I bring the bag.

00:07:44Marc:And I go up to his office.

00:07:45Marc:I see his receptionist there.

00:07:46Marc:The office is empty.

00:07:47Marc:There's two rooms.

00:07:48Marc:And I said, hi, I'm Mark Maron.

00:07:51Marc:I'm here to interview Mel Brooks.

00:07:52Marc:And she says, okay, we just go in the other room and set up.

00:07:55Marc:And I walk in thinking I'm just going to set up.

00:07:58Marc:And there's Mel just there.

00:07:59Marc:He's just there in the room.

00:08:01Marc:And I listened to this moment because I had the mics on.

00:08:04Marc:A lot of times I walk up and put it on before I get there just to capture some environment, some tone.

00:08:11Marc:Something might happen just to get a feel, a place.

00:08:15Marc:some placement.

00:08:16Marc:And I listened to this thing and I'm like, I had no idea he was going to be in there when I walked in there.

00:08:20Marc:And there's a change in my voice that was so immediately reverent,

00:08:27Marc:and respectful and odd it was just a beat and it was literally like i walk you know what let me just play you this little snippet first before i i i begin uh the intro from mel head on in mr brooks is in here and i think we're gonna set you up at this table right here okay good good good oh hello how are you sir nice to see you

00:08:50Guest:You have trouble finding this place?

00:08:52Marc:No, no, no problem at all.

00:08:53Marc:Did you hear it in my voice?

00:08:54Marc:It was almost as if I changed.

00:08:55Marc:Now, what you're going to... It was like, oh, yeah.

00:08:59Marc:Yeah, it would just... I felt it, and usually I'm very candid, and I don't make a lot of differentiation in my tones with guests when I meet them, but it's Mel Brooks.

00:09:10Marc:It's Mel Brooks!

00:09:13Marc:And in my heart, I think in retrospect, what I did in my attempt to connect with Mel as immediately as possible is that we are both Jews.

00:09:22Marc:So I went full Jew.

00:09:24Marc:I went full Jew.

00:09:25Marc:So if there may be points during this conversation where I involuntarily drifted into the voice and intonation of my inner Alta Kaka.

00:09:35Marc:All right.

00:09:36Marc:There are moments where I become an old Jewish man, I believe.

00:09:40Marc:And there was a beautiful moment that I don't think we could put in here because you just couldn't hear it.

00:09:46Marc:It was about in the middle of the interview.

00:09:47Marc:Mel was about to tell me a story about Gene Wilder.

00:09:50Marc:And he he he says he wanted to stay at that hotel.

00:09:54Marc:What's that hotel called?

00:09:56Marc:And I said, I don't know.

00:09:57Marc:You know what?

00:09:58Marc:It's a hotel.

00:09:58Marc:It's in it's it's in Bel Air.

00:10:00Marc:It's what is it?

00:10:02Marc:I'm like, I don't know.

00:10:02Marc:Is it Beverly Hills Hotel?

00:10:03Marc:No, it's not it.

00:10:04Marc:That's not it.

00:10:05Marc:And I'm like, I'm not sure.

00:10:06Marc:Is it the the other one?

00:10:07Marc:The Wilshire?

00:10:08Marc:No, no, it's in Bel Air.

00:10:10Marc:Hang on.

00:10:11Marc:Hold on a minute.

00:10:12Marc:And Mel gets up and he walks over to the door where he looks into the room where his assistant is.

00:10:16Marc:He goes, what's the name of that hotel?

00:10:17Marc:It's up on that street.

00:10:19Marc:It's in Bel Air.

00:10:19Marc:What is it?

00:10:20Marc:She's like, I don't know.

00:10:21Marc:I'm like, oh, come on.

00:10:22Marc:He says it's it's in Bel Air.

00:10:25Marc:She's like, I'm not sure what it is.

00:10:27Marc:Let me Google it.

00:10:29Marc:Come on.

00:10:29Marc:You know what?

00:10:29Marc:It's in Bel Air.

00:10:30Marc:And then she says, is it the Bel Air Hotel?

00:10:32Marc:He goes, that's it.

00:10:33Marc:The Bel Air Hotel.

00:10:35Marc:And he comes back and he continues.

00:10:36Marc:It was beautifully timed, naturally timed and hilarious.

00:10:41Marc:But look, here's what I want to tell you.

00:10:44Marc:Me and Mel hit it off and in a real way, I think he took a liking to me.

00:10:50Marc:And we had a conversation afterwards and something happened after the interview, you know, revolving around, you know, Carl Reiner.

00:10:57Marc:You know, he was, you know, he set me up with Carl Reiner.

00:10:59Marc:And also he, there was a bit of a, there's a very funny thing that happened after the interview.

00:11:05Marc:And I'm going to tell you what happened after the interview.

00:11:08Marc:So let's go now to back to Mel Brooks's office.

00:11:13Marc:And this is my conversation with Mel Brooks.

00:11:31So.

00:11:32Marc:Sometimes I go to other people's places.

00:11:36Marc:The thing got known for me being in the garage.

00:11:39Marc:People would come over and do it.

00:11:40Marc:And I've done like 350 of these things.

00:11:42Marc:But I've traveled a bit.

00:11:44Marc:I traveled up to see Jonathan Winters.

00:11:46Marc:I traveled up to see, I went to Robin Williams' house.

00:11:50Marc:I went to Shelley Berman's house recently.

00:11:52Marc:Oh, great.

00:11:53Guest:Yeah.

00:11:53Guest:All great guys.

00:11:54Guest:Right?

00:11:55Guest:Shelly was like the first of the guys who made records, you know?

00:12:00Guest:Yeah.

00:12:01Guest:He was like number one.

00:12:03Guest:I don't remember anybody before Shelly Berman who made comedy discs.

00:12:07Guest:Maybe Lenny.

00:12:08Guest:Maybe Lenny Bruce.

00:12:09Marc:Yeah, he was the first to win a Grammy.

00:12:13Marc:He was the first comic to play Carnegie Hall.

00:12:15Guest:Yeah.

00:12:16Marc:But you remember Lenny Bruce?

00:12:17Marc:You saw him?

00:12:18Guest:I saw him at the...

00:12:21Guest:someplace in San Francisco.

00:12:23Guest:And he was magnificent.

00:12:25Guest:I'll never forget one of the jokes he said that was really creative and appealing.

00:12:31Guest:He said, if they had killed Jesus,

00:12:37Guest:in an electric chair instead of crucifying it, would we all be wearing little electric chairs on a chain around our neck?

00:12:46Guest:I'll never forget that.

00:12:47Guest:I mean, that was so brilliant and so funny.

00:12:51Marc:I have no sense of what it was like.

00:12:53Marc:When I think about your whole career, because I know you talk to a lot of people,

00:12:56Marc:And you've done a lot of talking lately, which is nice.

00:13:00Marc:And then I'm thinking like, well, how am I going to... Did they ever give you that... I got the box set.

00:13:04Marc:It's terrific.

00:13:05Marc:And I'm watching it.

00:13:06Guest:Did you pay $11?

00:13:07Guest:What did you pay for it?

00:13:08Marc:What do you want me to say?

00:13:08Marc:Yeah, I did.

00:13:09Marc:I paid $11.

00:13:10Marc:Okay.

00:13:11Guest:Because... I don't know.

00:13:12Guest:I got to pay.

00:13:13Guest:You do?

00:13:14Guest:You pay for yours?

00:13:15Guest:They gave me about $50 for nothing.

00:13:17Guest:Right.

00:13:17Guest:And then after that...

00:13:19Guest:The manufacturing's hard cost before shipping, before all the paperwork, before the artwork and everything, just the hard disk, the disk is $11.

00:13:33Guest:That's the cost.

00:13:35Guest:So they cautiously asked.

00:13:36Guest:They said, if you want others, do you mind paying $11?

00:13:39Guest:I said, sure.

00:13:40Guest:Okay.

00:13:42Marc:What's my cut of me paying for it?

00:13:44Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:44Marc:No, I thought it was great because I remember when I first heard the 2,000-year-old man, I was hysterical.

00:13:49Marc:I think I saw the animated version.

00:13:52Marc:And there's something about the timing.

00:13:53Marc:It was all very familiar to me, being a Jewish guy.

00:13:56Marc:And my parents were from Jersey, so they were relocated where I grew up in New Mexico.

00:14:02Marc:But it was always a connection.

00:14:03Marc:Yeah, of course, of course.

00:14:04Marc:Something Jewish.

00:14:05Marc:Yeah, right.

00:14:06Marc:I think I was the only 12-, 13-year-old kid that modeled myself after Mel Brooks.

00:14:10Marc:There was a timing there.

00:14:12Marc:I was an old Jewish man at 15.

00:14:14Guest:Oh, my God.

00:14:16Guest:Let me apologize for that.

00:14:18Guest:Poor kid.

00:14:19Guest:I mean, you were forced to hear that and model yourself after this.

00:14:22Marc:But there's a timing to it.

00:14:24Marc:You know, you have this amazing timing.

00:14:25Marc:I was watching the stuff, the old Cavett stuff, and there's something innate about that timing.

00:14:31Marc:And I believe that with the show shows and everything else, that the Jewish timing dictated most of modern comedy.

00:14:38Guest:Yeah, you know, it has to do with fear.

00:14:41Guest:There's a great energy that fear can create.

00:14:48Guest:Is that guy coming for me?

00:14:51Guest:Is that a fucking swastika?

00:14:55Guest:Fear, it's always lurking.

00:14:57Guest:And it creates a pizzazz, an energy.

00:15:02Guest:It's a fighting fight or flight is right there for every Jew.

00:15:06Marc:Yeah Yeah, and there's also that sort of you know being funny is sort of an acceptable way of being hostile, right?

00:15:12Marc:Which I think is helpful, right?

00:15:13Marc:But the Jewish experience that you know that you come from is so far away from From my experience, but maybe my grandparents experience is something you always hear about but I mean I have no idea it's kind of

00:15:26Guest:Post-immigrant, second-generation immigrant, street corner, dark blue double-breasted coats, slouch hats, white-on-white shirts, bizarre ties.

00:15:40Marc:But your generation was the first to sort of leave the island.

00:15:43Marc:You went to Brooklyn.

00:15:44Marc:You weren't on the Lower East Side selling fish.

00:15:46Guest:We weren't on the Lower East Side, so we went to Brooklyn.

00:15:48Guest:We were...

00:15:49Guest:We were rather sophisticated for immigrants.

00:15:54Marc:And then the next generation after you went to the island and became Alan King.

00:15:58Guest:They went to Jersey or the island.

00:15:59Guest:Either way.

00:16:00Guest:They went to Westchester.

00:16:02Marc:But what was that like?

00:16:03Marc:I mean, what was the situation familial like?

00:16:05Marc:What was your family like?

00:16:07Guest:Well, it was kind of screwed up and wonderful at the same time.

00:16:13Guest:My father passed away.

00:16:14Guest:He died.

00:16:14Guest:I was on a show once, and the announcer who was interviewing me said, so when you were only two and a half or so, you lost your father.

00:16:27Guest:And I took a pause.

00:16:29Guest:I said, no, no, no, no.

00:16:31Guest:He was dead.

00:16:33Guest:He wasn't lost.

00:16:34Guest:We knew just where he was.

00:16:35Guest:He was in the back.

00:16:36Guest:And finally they took him away and they put him in some cemetery.

00:16:40Guest:But we never lost him.

00:16:42Guest:We were never that careless with our father.

00:16:44Guest:We cared about him.

00:16:46Marc:He just finished.

00:16:46Marc:He was done.

00:16:47Guest:How did that happen?

00:16:49Marc:You don't know?

00:16:50Guest:Yes, tuberculosis, which was, I guess, rampant.

00:16:54Guest:He died on January 14, 1929.

00:16:57Marc:I'm very good with dates and things.

00:17:04Guest:My mother...

00:17:06Guest:Kitty.

00:17:07Guest:Yeah.

00:17:07Marc:Kitty Kaminsky.

00:17:08Marc:Kitty Kaminsky.

00:17:09Guest:Yeah.

00:17:09Guest:Kitty Kaminsky.

00:17:10Guest:Yeah.

00:17:11Guest:Uh, raised four boys, you know, those days diapers.

00:17:15Marc:Sure.

00:17:16Guest:You had to wash them.

00:17:17Guest:Yeah.

00:17:17Marc:They brought them and it was cloth.

00:17:18Guest:I'll never forget one, one time I wanted to see, uh,

00:17:22Guest:a movie and i didn't i you know she gave me three deposit bottles each one three cents a milk bottles milk bottles yeah and and so that was nine cents you needed a dime yeah and she went to she this is true she went next door to mrs miller yeah and borrowed a penny yeah so i can make the dime and yet but she was you know

00:17:48Guest:I don't know if she was typical, but she was a wonderful, loving, caring, beautiful mother.

00:17:55Guest:Were you religious?

00:17:56Guest:Not at all.

00:17:58Guest:My grandmother lived next door at one point, and she was very religious.

00:18:02Guest:But my mother, you know, we had ham sandwiches and stuff.

00:18:05Marc:But next door was a kosher kitchen.

00:18:06Guest:Yeah, next door, you know, my...

00:18:08Guest:grandmother would walk in there'd be a lot of skelting you know thank god tenements had a long walkway from the door to the kitchen it was like a yeah a hallway yeah yeah railroad department and and it took my grandmother a little while to get to the kitchen so we had about 40 seconds to get everything kosher cleaned you know and then put the ham away but you know it was great yeah

00:18:30Marc:So there were a lot of people, like I always get the feeling that in those days, you know, family was sort of, it was a community.

00:18:39Marc:So your grandmother was next door.

00:18:40Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:18:41Guest:Uncle Joe was somewhere in the building on the fourth floor.

00:18:46Guest:Yeah.

00:18:46Guest:And around the corner, we were on South 3rd Street.

00:18:50Guest:So on South 4th Street, there was, you know, my Aunt Minnie.

00:18:55Guest:Everybody was around.

00:18:57Guest:There was just...

00:18:57Guest:People were all around.

00:18:58Marc:And you could just go down the block and go to someone else's house and hang out and eat.

00:19:03Marc:You'd always get caught in trouble by someone you knew.

00:19:05Marc:Exactly.

00:19:06Guest:You couldn't get away with anything.

00:19:08Guest:You were told on.

00:19:10Guest:Mel was in Rooney's pool room.

00:19:12Guest:I was just looking.

00:19:15Guest:We were caught.

00:19:17Guest:My mother was cute.

00:19:19Guest:She was a redhead.

00:19:21Guest:She said that Eddie Cantor wanted to marry her.

00:19:25Guest:She married Ida.

00:19:26Guest:They all grew up on Henry Street in the Lower East Side.

00:19:32Guest:I have a grandson.

00:19:34Guest:My son Max named him Henry.

00:19:36Marc:Was she serious about Eddie Cantor?

00:19:38Guest:No, no, she was serious about it, really.

00:19:40Guest:So I met, you know, I was writing for Sid Caesar.

00:19:44Guest:And there was a, I guess there was a big, I don't know, benefit.

00:19:49Guest:And Eddie Cantor was at the benefit.

00:19:51Guest:And I went into his dressing room, and, you know, one of the writers of the show of shows, so it was okay.

00:19:56Guest:It was in 49 or something, 50.

00:19:59Guest:And I said, you knew my mother, you know, Kitty Kaminsky.

00:20:04Guest:And he looked blank.

00:20:05Guest:Oh, really?

00:20:06Guest:Blankly.

00:20:07Guest:And I said, yeah, she said, you really loved her, that you really were interested, you know, going to marry her.

00:20:12Guest:Yeah.

00:20:12Guest:And he said, I hate that, you know, to tell you this, but, you know, I don't I don't remember.

00:20:20Guest:Oh, I don't remember.

00:20:22Guest:Yeah.

00:20:22Guest:And I said, oh, well, OK, you know, well, look, maybe maybe it was a fantasy, an idle fantasy.

00:20:28Marc:Did you mention it?

00:20:30Guest:No.

00:20:30Guest:So I was leaving.

00:20:31Guest:I was leaving and I stopped at the door and I said, wait a minute.

00:20:37Guest:Katie, Kate, Katie Brookman.

00:20:42Guest:Oh, he said, I wanted to marry her.

00:20:46Guest:I mean, it's true.

00:20:46Guest:I mean, it was so, you know, she just gave me the wrong name, you know.

00:20:51Guest:She gave me her husband's name, you know, my father's name.

00:20:54Marc:That's a panicky moment to wonder whether your mother was delusionary.

00:20:59Guest:And here he said, oh, I wanted to marry her.

00:21:01Guest:You know, I was crazy about it.

00:21:02Guest:She was a red-edged, freckled face, blue eyes.

00:21:05Guest:Yeah, that's my mother, yeah.

00:21:06Marc:That's rare in a Jewish woman, all of those things.

00:21:09Marc:Yeah.

00:21:09Marc:Red hair, blue eyes.

00:21:11Guest:Right.

00:21:11Marc:Yeah.

00:21:11Marc:She could have been Woody Allen's mother.

00:21:13Marc:And how many brothers do you have?

00:21:15Marc:I have three.

00:21:16Marc:I had three older brothers.

00:21:18Marc:Yeah.

00:21:18Guest:You know, I was the baby.

00:21:20Marc:So you had people looking out for you.

00:21:21Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:21:22Guest:No, no.

00:21:23Guest:There was a lot of my brother Lenny used to give me a half a buck on Saturday night.

00:21:27Guest:I mean, that was a veritable fortune, literally.

00:21:31Guest:I mean, a half a buck.

00:21:32Guest:You could go, you could start in a delicatessen.

00:21:36Guest:You could have two frankfurters with sauerkraut.

00:21:39Guest:You could have it with beans and with French fries.

00:21:43Guest:With a Dr. Brown cream or celery soda.

00:21:46Guest:Yeah, for a quarter.

00:21:48Guest:That whole thing was about a quarter.

00:21:51Guest:And then...

00:21:52Guest:Then you could go to the movies, and I think that was about 20 cents.

00:21:55Guest:Yeah.

00:21:55Guest:You know?

00:21:57Guest:Yeah.

00:21:57Guest:Or 15 cents.

00:21:58Guest:I don't know.

00:21:59Guest:The movie wasn't much.

00:22:00Guest:And after it, you had a dime left for the ice cream parlor.

00:22:04Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:22:04Guest:For a scoop with a little chocolate.

00:22:06Guest:50 cents.

00:22:06Guest:Yeah.

00:22:07Guest:A whole night out.

00:22:08Guest:Half a buck.

00:22:08Guest:A whole night out.

00:22:10Guest:I mean, it was... I was deliriously happy.

00:22:14Guest:Living in Williamsburg and, you know.

00:22:16Marc:The absence of your father, did that play heavy on you?

00:22:18Marc:I mean, like, in growing up?

00:22:20Marc:I didn't know.

00:22:21Guest:Frankly, my brothers loved me.

00:22:23Guest:My older brother, Irving, was literally a father figure.

00:22:27Guest:He was a kind of a saint.

00:22:29Guest:He went...

00:22:30Guest:to Brooklyn College for eight years to become a pharmacist and chemist because he was working eight hours a day at Rosenthal and Slotnik in the garment center.

00:22:43Guest:And he was great.

00:22:46Guest:He was sweet and good and kind.

00:22:48Guest:He'd come home.

00:22:50Guest:He'd get it.

00:22:51Guest:put a mouse in a bag.

00:22:53Guest:It would rattle around.

00:22:54Guest:He would put it in over the gas stove and gas it.

00:22:58Guest:Oh, right.

00:22:59Guest:That's very humane.

00:23:00Guest:Yeah, he would gas the mouse and then he would dissect it.

00:23:04Guest:For school.

00:23:05Guest:For school.

00:23:05Guest:He was a biologist.

00:23:07Guest:And I thought it was both bizarre, brutal, and wonderful.

00:23:12Guest:He was great.

00:23:13Guest:He was like early Quentin Tarantino or something.

00:23:16Guest:He really knew how to go all the way.

00:23:19Marc:That's sweet.

00:23:20Marc:So when did the, like, when did you start getting a sense that, like Eddie Cantor, he's a good, because a weird question with you is that you seem to have a very strong attraction to musical comedy.

00:23:32Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:23:32Marc:And music.

00:23:33Marc:And it's part of your being.

00:23:35Guest:I can give you the, like, the minute it happened, 10 seconds, it burst, you know, in my brain.

00:23:43Guest:And I said, no, I don't want to be a shipping clerk at Rosenthal and Slotnick.

00:23:48Guest:No, I don't even want to be a cutter or a lace salesman, which is really hard.

00:23:53Guest:Those were the three jobs?

00:23:54Guest:Oh, that was big stuff in the garment center.

00:23:58Guest:Everybody at 365 South 3rd Street was headed for 7th Avenue for the garment center.

00:24:04Marc:That was the whole business.

00:24:05Guest:We were all designed to end up in the garment center.

00:24:08Marc:To work machines, but not to sell schmatas, but to actually cut.

00:24:11Guest:To cut machines or to be a shipping clerk.

00:24:14Guest:Right.

00:24:14Guest:Or if you had...

00:24:16Guest:some, I don't know, personality, you could be a salesman.

00:24:19Marc:Right.

00:24:20Guest:You know, or.

00:24:20Marc:Could have done that.

00:24:21Guest:I could have done that.

00:24:22Marc:Yeah.

00:24:23Guest:I think I would have been a terrific salesman.

00:24:25Guest:Yeah.

00:24:26Guest:I would have sold.

00:24:27Marc:Right, and part of you is, right?

00:24:29Guest:I said to my, I did work there, you know, occasionally, and I said to Mr. Slotnick, Rosenthal and Slotnick,

00:24:38Guest:How did you come to do this?

00:24:41Guest:He said, my parents were farmers.

00:24:43Guest:This is big stuff.

00:24:44Guest:This is.

00:24:45Guest:In like where?

00:24:45Guest:In Poland or Russia?

00:24:47Guest:Yeah, in Poland.

00:24:47Guest:In Vilna.

00:24:48Guest:He said, this is big stuff.

00:24:50Guest:This is, you know, look, machines, factories, people, you know, luncheonette.

00:24:55Marc:So, all right.

00:24:55Marc:So you got out of that.

00:24:56Marc:So what was the moment, the musical moment?

00:24:58Guest:My uncle Joe drove a cab.

00:25:00Guest:If a big Parmalee cab, Parmalee was the name of the

00:25:03Marc:I love these names because you only hear these names in your bits and Woody Allen's bits.

00:25:08Marc:Yeah.

00:25:08Marc:Rosen's all.

00:25:10Marc:Classic.

00:25:10Guest:But that was all Jews.

00:25:11Guest:But there was an enormous taxi company in New York that had like, it had nothing in the front but the driver and a place for trunks, for steamer trunks.

00:25:22Guest:Right, right.

00:25:23Guest:And in the back, sometimes, you know, they could sit somehow four or five.

00:25:27Marc:Like a checker cab.

00:25:28Guest:Yeah, checker.

00:25:29Guest:Right, the big back.

00:25:30Guest:Parmalee was the beginning of checker cab.

00:25:31Marc:And the driver was like in a box.

00:25:33Marc:Exactly.

00:25:34Marc:Right.

00:25:34Marc:Exactly.

00:25:35Guest:And so Uncle Joe drove one of those.

00:25:37Guest:And when you saw one of those cabs coming down the street without a driver, just driving by itself, you know, miraculously, it was Joe because he was incredibly short.

00:25:47Guest:My whole family was short.

00:25:49Guest:Just a hat?

00:25:50Guest:You're lucky if you saw just a hat.

00:25:52Guest:Yeah.

00:25:52Guest:And, you know, my mother was very short.

00:25:55Guest:She was about 4'3 or something.

00:25:59Guest:In my routine, I'd say my mother could walk under a coffee table with a high hat on.

00:26:04Guest:Get a big leg.

00:26:06Guest:But what is amazing when I think about it, I'll go back to Uncle Jim in one second.

00:26:10Guest:I reached for the sky when I was out to grab my mother's hand across the street.

00:26:16Guest:I reached as high as I could reach.

00:26:17Guest:And I got her hand, and she took me across the street safely.

00:26:22Guest:And I was thinking, so if she was about 4'2", what was I, a foot?

00:26:27Guest:Very small.

00:26:28Guest:How small was I?

00:26:29Guest:I must have been incredibly small.

00:26:32Guest:Anyway, Joe would come down the street.

00:26:35Guest:And as a favor to the doorman on Broadway, he would, the ones especially that lived in Williamsburg, and a lot of people live in Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Brooklyn, he would...

00:26:49Guest:As a cab driver, he owned his own cab.

00:26:52Guest:He would take it home.

00:26:53Guest:So going back over the Williamsburg Bridge, he would ask the doorman at the various theaters, like the Alvin happened to be the theater I went to.

00:27:03Guest:He would take the guy home for nothing.

00:27:06Guest:He wouldn't throw the flag.

00:27:10Guest:The guy at the Alvin, I'm pretty sure it was the Alvin, gave my Uncle Joe two tickets to a show that just opened.

00:27:18Guest:Now, we're talking, I'm pretty good with the dates.

00:27:23Guest:I'm pretty sure it was 1935.

00:27:25Guest:Yeah.

00:27:26Guest:Could be 36, but I think it was 35.

00:27:28Marc:So you're like 11?

00:27:30Yeah.

00:27:30Guest:No, I'm like nine.

00:27:31Marc:Yeah.

00:27:32Guest:And I'm like nine years old, and the show is a Cole Porter show called Anything Goes, which is playing right here now.

00:27:40Marc:Yeah, everything comes back.

00:27:41Guest:Yeah, everything comes back.

00:27:43Guest:And a wonderful show, Anything Goes.

00:27:45Guest:And so Joe got two tickets to a matinee, and he said, okay, get down on the floor, because the flag was up, and you're supposed to have a passenger.

00:27:55Guest:If the flag is down, if the flag is up, you're supposed to be empty.

00:27:59Guest:So he's supposed to be empty, and so I lay on the floor, and I saw the Chrysler building,

00:28:04Guest:So the Empire Building first, Empire State.

00:28:08Guest:So that was 34.

00:28:09Guest:There's the Chrysler Building.

00:28:11Guest:We're at 42nd.

00:28:12Guest:We're approaching 54th Street, where the Albin Theater is.

00:28:16Guest:52, actually.

00:28:17Guest:And we go up all the way to the second balcony, and we got the last row in the second.

00:28:23Guest:These are free tickets.

00:28:26Guest:Although the theater was crowded.

00:28:28Guest:And there they are.

00:28:29Guest:There's Ethel Merman and William Gaxton.

00:28:32Guest:And they're singing and they're dancing.

00:28:34Guest:And it's Anything Goes.

00:28:35Guest:And I'm listening to You're the Top and All Through the Night.

00:28:41Guest:I mean, these incredible songs, you know?

00:28:44Guest:And I'm just one goose bump.

00:28:45Guest:I'm just so thrilled.

00:28:48Guest:And I said to myself, I've said, Melvin, yeah?

00:28:51Guest:I said, is there any way...

00:28:53Guest:Any way where you could live in some part of this world, if you could just mop the floor, carry posters, anything where you could be part of that.

00:29:03Guest:And I was determined at nine to set my cap for this world of musical comedy.

00:29:10Guest:And it only took 60 years to get there because, you know, there was a little bit of a bypass going into movies.

00:29:20Guest:But I started in theater.

00:29:22Marc:But that was the first love.

00:29:23Guest:Oh, that was my first and deepest love.

00:29:26Marc:You can feel that, too.

00:29:28Marc:Especially when you sing a song, it's crazy.

00:29:30Marc:You just lock into that.

00:29:31Marc:Even if you're in some of the footage of you singing, even if it's a small crowd, I feel like you picture yourself

00:29:37Marc:In front of a full audience.

00:29:39Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:29:39Guest:No, I always do.

00:29:42Guest:Red velvet seats filled with Jews and New Yorkers, you know.

00:29:46Guest:And I'm singing or I'm dancing.

00:29:48Marc:Yeah.

00:29:49Marc:But when did, so you finish up high school, you just worked odd jobs?

00:29:56Guest:I did a lot of odd jobs.

00:29:58Marc:In the garment district and whatnot.

00:30:00Yeah.

00:30:02Guest:My real jobs were summer jobs in the Borscht.

00:30:06Marc:When you were a kid?

00:30:06Guest:Yeah, in the Borscht.

00:30:07Marc:You were going to the mountains?

00:30:08Guest:In the mountains.

00:30:09Guest:First as a busboy, a rowboat tender.

00:30:12Guest:How does that happen?

00:30:12Marc:Why is it that there are certain Jewish people?

00:30:14Guest:People know people.

00:30:16Guest:There was a guy...

00:30:17Guest:There was one really famous guy, truly famous in our neighborhood in Williamsburg.

00:30:21Guest:His name was Don Appel.

00:30:24Guest:Yeah.

00:30:24Guest:Who wrote a play, a very good play called This Too Shall Pass.

00:30:28Guest:And was the, later was the director of the Vaughan Monroe.

00:30:34Guest:You've never heard of that guy.

00:30:37Guest:He was a singer with his own orchestra.

00:30:40Guest:Television show.

00:30:42Guest:And...

00:30:44Guest:But he was always a social director in the summer when he started.

00:30:48Marc:So he's from a neighborhood guy.

00:30:49Guest:Neighborhood guy.

00:30:50Marc:Yeah.

00:30:51Guest:He was in a play called Native Son with Canada Lee based on a wonderful book by William Wright.

00:30:58Guest:And...

00:31:00Guest:He knew the mountains, and he thought I would wait for him to come home, me and another guy called Joe Gavanter.

00:31:07Guest:We'd wait for him.

00:31:08Guest:We'd sit on Mr. Shanice's grocery box to fill it up with ice and put milk in it in the morning.

00:31:17Guest:But at night it was closed, so we sat on it.

00:31:20Guest:It was empty.

00:31:21Guest:And he would come and he would perform the whole show for us.

00:31:26Marc:On the street?

00:31:26Guest:On the street.

00:31:27Marc:Yeah.

00:31:27Guest:You know, right after.

00:31:28Guest:How many kids?

00:31:29Guest:1130.

00:31:30Guest:There were about three or four of us, but Joe and I would stay to the end.

00:31:34Guest:And then we would do our stuff.

00:31:36Guest:I would tap dance.

00:31:37Guest:I would sing.

00:31:37Guest:I would do, you know.

00:31:38Guest:And then he sent me away.

00:31:41Guest:to the Butler Lodge in Hurleyville, New York.

00:31:45Guest:And they liked me.

00:31:48Marc:What was it like up there?

00:31:48Marc:You know, you hear about these... I don't even... When did the Catskills happen?

00:31:51Marc:Who were the... I mean, it seems to be always... For years, you just hear talking about middle-class Jews go up there.

00:31:57Guest:It happened in the 30s.

00:31:58Marc:Right.

00:31:58Guest:You know, in the late 20s, early 30s, there were these...

00:32:03Guest:places where they rented cabins.

00:32:08Guest:And then they began building hotels to house them.

00:32:12Guest:Browns Hotel, Grossinger's, Concord.

00:32:15Guest:I mean, really, really immense hotels with gyms and swimming pools and beautiful rooms.

00:32:22Marc:And when you went up there, you were doing what?

00:32:24Marc:Just anything?

00:32:25Guest:Cleaning up tables?

00:32:25Guest:When I was up there, I started as a busboy, and then I graduated to a waiter.

00:32:30Guest:And then I always...

00:32:32Guest:Don Appel always made sure that I met the social director up there and I would be an alternate if they needed somebody in the chorus.

00:32:43Guest:They were mostly reviews?

00:32:45Guest:Mostly reviews.

00:32:46Guest:Sketches and songs.

00:32:49Guest:Once in a while, there would be a play.

00:32:52Guest:No stand-up yet?

00:32:54Guest:No.

00:32:55Guest:A lot of guys, yeah, reviews with stand-up comics.

00:32:58Marc:I have a guy, yeah.

00:32:59Guest:yeah there was there was always did you speak yiddish very little i remember once i was sent to uh the king david hotel up in jerusalem you know no in ellenville okay and i said good evening ladies and gentlemen i met a girl who was so thin i tell you this girl was so skinny i took her to a restaurant the head waiter said check your umbrella i usually get a laugh yeah but i got yeah

00:33:25Guest:It's very strange.

00:33:27Guest:I told those jokes.

00:33:29Guest:And I began to listen.

00:33:30Guest:And what I heard, really, when I listened was, oh, English.

00:33:35Guest:English.

00:33:36Guest:Because, you know, they wanted Yiddish.

00:33:38Marc:It's interesting, though, isn't it?

00:33:39Marc:There must have been a lot of Yiddish-speaking people around in your neighborhood.

00:33:42Guest:Oh, yeah, there were plenty.

00:33:43Guest:And I did understand a lot.

00:33:46Guest:But...

00:33:46Guest:But it was difficult for a little kid, you know?

00:33:51Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:51Guest:I wasn't talking to my grandmother.

00:33:53Guest:I was talking to my mother.

00:33:54Guest:I was talking to my brothers.

00:33:55Guest:I was talking to my schoolmates.

00:33:56Marc:So, like, your mother would probably talk to your grandmother.

00:33:58Marc:Absolutely.

00:33:59Marc:They didn't want you to hear what they were talking about.

00:34:01Marc:Perfect.

00:34:01Guest:Exactly, you know?

00:34:02Guest:Yeah, you grew up with that.

00:34:07Guest:I had to.

00:34:08Guest:You'd sit there and go, what happened, Ma?

00:34:11Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:11Guest:What's going on?

00:34:12Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:13Marc:I'll tell you later.

00:34:14Guest:Everything was I'll tell you later.

00:34:15Marc:it was interesting i was watching an interview with you and the thing that really and for some reason the thing that stuck with me i i don't remember what the hell the question was who was it was cavett or somebody about uh about uh bathroom humor and then you know and you say you grew up with that because everyone's always like did you make did you make right exactly but you know no one says did you make except for jews

00:34:34Guest:Yeah, I don't know why.

00:34:35Marc:But I grew up with it.

00:34:36Marc:It was so unique to me that I never hear that outside of my grandmother's house or outside of my mother's house.

00:34:42Marc:Did you make?

00:34:43Marc:I don't know what other people say.

00:34:47Guest:It's true.

00:34:48Guest:They either said, did you make or did you go?

00:34:51Marc:But did you make was such a weird thing.

00:34:53Marc:I remember it being weird when I was a kid, but it's what they said.

00:34:56Marc:That's what they said.

00:34:57Guest:My mother would say to me every day, did you make?

00:34:59Marc:Yeah.

00:34:59Marc:Or go schluffy.

00:35:01Marc:That was another one.

00:35:02Marc:Go to sleep.

00:35:03Marc:It's all very familiar to me.

00:35:06Marc:So you're up there at these rooms.

00:35:08Marc:It doesn't seem like you seem to embrace what had become sort of a stereotypical Jewish type.

00:35:15Marc:Like my generation, when we would talk like that, hey, here we go with this, there's a slight annoyance to it.

00:35:23Guest:Yeah.

00:35:23Marc:But you didn't seem to ever get annoyed with it.

00:35:25Guest:No, I never did.

00:35:26Guest:I always liked it.

00:35:28Guest:You know, everybody assumed my mother had a Yiddish accent or a Jewish accent because of me.

00:35:35Guest:But she didn't.

00:35:37Guest:She had an Irish accent.

00:35:39Guest:Because she came over here when she was three or three and a half.

00:35:44Guest:She went to school when she was five.

00:35:47Guest:And all the teachers were Irish.

00:35:49Guest:She learned her English from Irish.

00:35:53Marc:Did she talk with a brogue?

00:35:54Guest:She'd say flush the turlet.

00:35:56Guest:It was Irish.

00:35:57Guest:I mean, she had an Irish accent, you know.

00:36:00Guest:Anyway, Donna Pell finally got me... I went to one place that... There was a guy called Joe Dolphin who was a very good writer-director.

00:36:15Guest:And he used me... I was a waiter who was used as an alternative actor.

00:36:24Guest:And sure enough...

00:36:26Guest:Uncle Harry, a play called Uncle Harry.

00:36:32Guest:There was a guy who was supposed to be the district attorney.

00:36:34Guest:I was about 16.

00:36:35Guest:The guy playing the district attorney in Uncle Harry got sick and he couldn't go on.

00:36:43Guest:So Joe Dolphin said,

00:36:45Guest:You're up.

00:36:46Guest:Yeah.

00:36:47Guest:I said, I know.

00:36:48Guest:I can do it.

00:36:49Guest:Yeah.

00:36:49Guest:I said, I know everybody's lines in everybody's play, just in case.

00:36:52Guest:I know everybody's lines in every single play, review, sketch, whatever, song.

00:37:00Guest:I just knew it all just in case.

00:37:02Guest:Yeah.

00:37:02Guest:I was called, you know.

00:37:04Guest:So he said, Uncle Harry.

00:37:06Guest:I said, there, there, Harry.

00:37:11Guest:Have a seat.

00:37:12Guest:Relax.

00:37:13Guest:And tell me in your own words,

00:37:15Guest:What do you think happened on that night?

00:37:17Guest:He said, my God, he knows the line.

00:37:20Guest:And I was playing it older, you know, like 14.

00:37:23Guest:So they made me up.

00:37:26Guest:They gave me a wig, a white wig.

00:37:28Guest:They gave me a little bit of a beard.

00:37:29Guest:They put these crude lines to make wrinkles on my face.

00:37:35Guest:And they patted my jacket, humped it up, and, you know, I think it was almost the hunchback of Notre Dame.

00:37:42Guest:And anyway, I limped and humped out there with my beard and with my knee.

00:37:46Guest:And I said, there, there, Harry.

00:37:51Guest:I'm sure everything is fine.

00:37:55Guest:Just please relax and tell me in your own words exactly what happened.

00:38:00Guest:And as I was doing, I was pouring a glass of water.

00:38:03Guest:I was supposed to pour a glass of water from a glass pitcher into a glass.

00:38:06Guest:And I hand it to him.

00:38:07Guest:Exactly what happened.

00:38:08Guest:And as I got to exactly what happened, things were wet.

00:38:12Guest:Things were slippery.

00:38:13Guest:Things were not perfect.

00:38:14Guest:And the glass fell on this tray and shattered.

00:38:19Guest:Water, glass, shards everywhere.

00:38:22Guest:You could hear the orders go, ah.

00:38:24Guest:I mean, it was an audible, ah, ah.

00:38:27Guest:And he jumped back.

00:38:28Guest:He was getting all wet.

00:38:30Guest:And I didn't know what to do.

00:38:32Guest:There was just silence.

00:38:34Guest:Yeah.

00:38:34Guest:And so I walked down to the footlights and I took off my wig and my beard and I said, look, I'm 14.

00:38:39Guest:I've never done this before.

00:38:41Guest:And I got an incredible, I knew I was meant to be a comic.

00:38:43Guest:I made an incredible laugh.

00:38:45Guest:And Joe Dolphin picked up a half a scissor and chased me through, you know, he wanted to kill me.

00:38:51Marc:It's an interesting instinct, that instinct.

00:38:53Guest:I knew, I knew I had to do something.

00:38:55Marc:Yeah, I was on stage doing Don't Drink the Water, that Woody Allen play, you know that?

00:38:59Guest:Absolutely.

00:38:59Marc:And I was playing the Mel Brooks part.

00:39:02Marc:I was the old Jewish guy, the father.

00:39:04Marc:I was in college.

00:39:05Marc:And there's that scene where a bomb comes through the window.

00:39:09Marc:Exactly.

00:39:10Marc:Right?

00:39:11Marc:And the young guy's line is, you know, what is that?

00:39:14Marc:And I go, it's a bomb.

00:39:15Marc:But this night, the bomb came through the window, slid right off the stage into the audience.

00:39:19Marc:Just went right into the audience.

00:39:21Marc:And there's that moment, what the hell?

00:39:24Marc:So the guy does his line.

00:39:26Marc:He goes, what was that?

00:39:27Marc:And I go, I don't know.

00:39:28Marc:I didn't see it.

00:39:29Guest:That's brilliant.

00:39:31Marc:That's instinct.

00:39:33Marc:But there's that moment, what the hell you do?

00:39:34Marc:You're going to lose the whole scene.

00:39:36Marc:So eventually, I went to the lip of the stage.

00:39:39Marc:I go, give me the bomb.

00:39:40Marc:And I pick it up.

00:39:41Marc:It's a bomb.

00:39:42Marc:Yeah, that was brilliant.

00:39:43Marc:What else are you going to do?

00:39:44Marc:You can't ditch it.

00:39:45Guest:So how come you never became an actor?

00:39:48Marc:Well, I'm trying.

00:39:49Marc:I mean, I just did 10 episodes of an IFC thing that's sort of based on my life, a half-hour TV thing.

00:39:55Guest:Based on your life?

00:39:56Guest:You wrote it?

00:39:57Marc:Well, yeah, it's all my stories.

00:39:59Marc:As a guy who sort of hit the wall and ended up doing an interview show in his garage,

00:40:03Guest:Oh, I love it.

00:40:04Marc:Yeah, and I did a little acting.

00:40:06Marc:I was in a little movie this last year.

00:40:08Guest:But you're doing, now you are doing what you want, right?

00:40:12Marc:Well, I finally got a little bit of an audience.

00:40:14Marc:I was a very sort of specific, kind of heavy-hearted, too much information type of comic.

00:40:19Marc:I had a marginal amount of respect, but I never was big mainstream.

00:40:24Marc:So now I'm building a little bit of a fan base.

00:40:25Marc:Of course you are.

00:40:26Marc:Feels good.

00:40:27Marc:Feels good.

00:40:28Guest:When the Shout Factory, who are the producers of my box set, they used to be Rhino Records.

00:40:34Guest:And they sold Rhino Records to Warner Brothers.

00:40:37Guest:And then they only bought back one item from the whole Rhino Records, and that's what made me endear them to me, and that was the 2,000-year-old man.

00:40:46Guest:All those discs.

00:40:48Guest:They bought those back.

00:40:49Guest:They wanted to start their new company, the Shout Factory.

00:40:52Guest:So I love them for that.

00:40:55Guest:When they said, you want to do a Mel Brooks?

00:40:56Guest:I said, sure, Mike.

00:40:57Marc:So it was their idea, and you were like, why not?

00:40:59Guest:Yeah, it was their idea.

00:41:00Guest:I said, you know, look, I said, I want nothing to do with it.

00:41:05Guest:What I want you to do is go to the internet.

00:41:09Marc:Put it together.

00:41:10Guest:Put it together.

00:41:11Guest:You know, and something's embarrassing.

00:41:13Guest:I'll say, take that out.

00:41:15Marc:Was there anything?

00:41:16Guest:No.

00:41:17Guest:There was only one, and I said, it's okay.

00:41:21Guest:But there were emblazing saddles.

00:41:23Yeah.

00:41:25Guest:I cut.

00:41:26Guest:They wanted me to cut a lot of stuff, and I cut nothing.

00:41:30Guest:But there was one thing I cut myself.

00:41:33Guest:Talk about, you know, and I never cut anything.

00:41:36Guest:But in Blazing Saddles, there was a scene with Madeline Kahn and Cleavon Little, God bless them, both of them, in the dark.

00:41:43Guest:And she said...

00:41:47Marc:It's a very large... She said, is it true?

00:41:49Guest:Is it true?

00:41:51Guest:Is it true what they say about how you black people are gifted?

00:41:58Guest:And then you heard slobbering.

00:42:01Guest:Oh, my God, it's true.

00:42:03Guest:It's true, it's true.

00:42:06Guest:And then Cleavon says...

00:42:08Guest:I hate to disillusion you, Ms.

00:42:10Guest:Von Stub, but you're sucking on my arm.

00:42:13Marc:That was the bit.

00:42:14Guest:Yeah, and I had to cut it.

00:42:15Marc:You took it out.

00:42:16Marc:I took it out.

00:42:17Guest:I would have left it in now.

00:42:19Marc:All right, so they do the box set.

00:42:21Marc:I wasn't going to ask you about that.

00:42:24Marc:When you don't hear from somebody for a while, you wonder, because this is an important archive, though.

00:42:30Marc:It's a smart thing to do, to remind the culture.

00:42:32Marc:I'm Mel Brooks.

00:42:34Marc:Look how long I've been here.

00:42:36Marc:I did all these things.

00:42:38Guest:I did a lot of stuff.

00:42:39Guest:It's true.

00:42:40Guest:It's true.

00:42:41Guest:I did a lot of stuff.

00:42:42Guest:And why not remind him of it?

00:42:44Guest:Like the Hitler rap.

00:42:45Marc:It's still funny.

00:42:46Marc:Yeah.

00:42:47Marc:Now, let's get back to the Hitler thing.

00:42:50Marc:Because you went to war.

00:42:51Marc:Yeah, I did.

00:42:52Marc:I did.

00:42:53Marc:So you were doing the work in the Catskills, but at some point somebody talked you into it?

00:42:58Guest:Well, you know, there was a thing called the Army Specialized Training Reserve, keyword reserve program.

00:43:06Guest:And I was 17, and I took a test, and they sent me to Virginia Military Institute, VMI, and I studied electrical engineering.

00:43:14Guest:I figured if the Army was going to make me an electrical engineer...

00:43:21Guest:I wouldn't be blown up.

00:43:23Marc:Right.

00:43:23Guest:You know, I would be worried.

00:43:25Marc:And you might not have gone at all, right?

00:43:26Guest:I might not.

00:43:27Guest:You know, I would have.

00:43:28Guest:No, no, you go.

00:43:29Marc:What was the pitch?

00:43:30Marc:Are you going to pay for college?

00:43:31Marc:Yeah, yeah, they pay for your college.

00:43:33Guest:They do a lot of wonderful stuff.

00:43:35Guest:But anyway, when I got to Fort Dix after VMI and after all of that, they saw engineers.

00:43:41Guest:So they put me in the combat engineers.

00:43:42Guest:You're ahead of the infantry.

00:43:44Guest:Jesus Christ.

00:43:45Guest:You're ahead of the infantry.

00:43:46Guest:You're clearing minefields.

00:43:48Guest:You're building Bailey Bridges.

00:43:50Guest:So you saw action?

00:43:51Guest:Not much.

00:43:52Guest:I mean, I was only in the actual combat for only three months.

00:43:58Guest:I got over in...

00:44:02Guest:At the end of February.

00:44:04Marc:Forty what?

00:44:05Marc:Four?

00:44:06Marc:Three?

00:44:06Marc:Forty-five.

00:44:07Marc:Forty-five.

00:44:07Marc:So it was almost over.

00:44:08Guest:It was almost over.

00:44:09Guest:And then there was March.

00:44:12Guest:End of February.

00:44:12Guest:There was March.

00:44:13Guest:There was April.

00:44:14Guest:And May 8th it was over.

00:44:17Guest:Did you see Nazis?

00:44:18Guest:Plenty.

00:44:19Guest:Plenty.

00:44:20Guest:There were plenty.

00:44:20Guest:They didn't wear their swastikas anymore.

00:44:22Marc:No?

00:44:23Marc:No, no.

00:44:23Marc:New look?

00:44:24Guest:No, no.

00:44:25Guest:They were wearing tweeds at that point.

00:44:27Guest:They were very careful.

00:44:29Guest:But, I mean, there was a guy called Richard Goldman and myself.

00:44:32Guest:He turned out to be a wonderful lawyer and everything.

00:44:35Guest:But we hid in the basement in a town called Baumgarten when the war was over on May 8th because the GIs would just fire their weapons in joy in the air.

00:44:45Guest:And you can, that was the most dangerous day I had in the war.

00:44:49Marc:Falling bullets.

00:44:50Guest:Yeah, falling bullets.

00:44:51Guest:So we went into the basement of the school.

00:44:54Marc:That was Iraq.

00:44:55Marc:You didn't want to be caught in secondary friendly fire from the sky.

00:44:59Guest:From the sky, right.

00:45:00Guest:It was raining, literally raining bullets.

00:45:02Guest:We said, let's go.

00:45:03Guest:We went down to the basement of the schoolhouse.

00:45:07Marc:So where did this sort of, because the fascination with Hitler is throughout the career here, right?

00:45:14Right.

00:45:14Guest:I don't know.

00:45:16Guest:It came from the fact that every time I did some fake German and put my comb under my nose, I'd get a laugh.

00:45:25Marc:Right.

00:45:27Marc:After the war.

00:45:28Marc:Yeah.

00:45:29Marc:A couple years after, probably.

00:45:30Guest:But you know, it was still dangerous to do the producers when I was filming it in 65 and 66.

00:45:37Guest:Because...

00:45:39Guest:I mean, that was a big thing, you know, Hitler and the Holocaust.

00:45:43Guest:I'll never forget opening night of the producers.

00:45:45Guest:It's true.

00:45:46Guest:It was a big guy who was drunk, a big Jew, storming up the aisles during the production of Springtime for Hitler.

00:45:55Guest:He was storming up.

00:45:56Guest:This is a disgrace.

00:45:58Guest:This is a horror.

00:46:00Guest:This is the terrible Jews died.

00:46:03Guest:And as I caught him at the end of the aisle, you know, I wanted to just get rid of him, get him out of that.

00:46:07Guest:You know, it's opening night.

00:46:09Marc:It's misunderstanding.

00:46:10Guest:Yeah.

00:46:10Guest:The fun.

00:46:10Guest:Yeah.

00:46:11Guest:And he said, he said, I was in World War II.

00:46:15Guest:I risked my life.

00:46:17Guest:And here, I said, I was in World War II.

00:46:19Guest:I didn't see you.

00:46:20Guest:Yeah.

00:46:20Guest:I just tried to... He was in the basement of another place.

00:46:24Guest:Anyway, I got him out, but he made a lot of noise.

00:46:29Marc:So it wasn't really any sort of deeper fascination other than the sort of dramatic nature of Hitler and the mustache and the thing.

00:46:38Marc:You didn't have an agenda.

00:46:39Guest:No, I didn't have an agenda, but I guess I was incredibly...

00:46:45Guest:drawn to the phenomenon that one man could control the destiny of so many others.

00:46:53Marc:Did you have family in the Holocaust or anything like that?

00:46:56Guest:No, we didn't.

00:46:57Guest:I don't remember if we had.

00:46:58Guest:I don't think we did.

00:46:59I don't think we did.

00:47:00Guest:I didn't know about it even though I was overseas near those camps.

00:47:03Guest:I really didn't know about it.

00:47:04Guest:I don't think anyone knew about it for a little while.

00:47:07Guest:Yeah, I don't think that came to... But, you know, it was... I'm glad I didn't know about it because I don't know.

00:47:14Guest:I might have gone berserk or I might have, you know...

00:47:16Marc:Yeah, I don't know how you could process it.

00:47:18Guest:How does one process that?

00:47:20Marc:You can't even really process it now.

00:47:22Guest:It's an amazing, incredible phenomenon that human beings could do that to other human beings.

00:47:29Marc:So you come back from the war.

00:47:30Marc:You weren't shell-shocked.

00:47:32Marc:You were just done.

00:47:34Marc:You weren't injured.

00:47:35Guest:Well, no.

00:47:36Marc:I don't know a year I was kind of searching but it didn't have any effect on you like in the sense of like you weren't shattered in any way or I don't think so you were just 19 and what you were just 19 resilient rubbery were you happy to be home did you feel a sense of patriotism when you were there or you were just there

00:47:55Guest:That's a good question.

00:47:59Marc:I mean, everybody talks about that war as like, you know, it meant something.

00:48:02Marc:It had definition.

00:48:03Guest:You know, there was a... Well, I think it did because I was Jewish.

00:48:08Marc:Yeah.

00:48:08Guest:And because of what had happened to Jews all over the world.

00:48:13Guest:Specifically, how the Germans...

00:48:16Guest:had treated the Jews and I was in the German area.

00:48:19Marc:But you knew that going in.

00:48:20Marc:You didn't know about the camps necessarily, the reality, but you knew that Hitler didn't like Jews.

00:48:25Guest:Right.

00:48:26Guest:I knew they didn't like Jews.

00:48:27Marc:Right.

00:48:28Guest:I knew there was a lot of anti-Semitic

00:48:31Guest:Propaganda.

00:48:32Guest:I don't know.

00:48:33Guest:In a sense, there was a lot of patriotic fervor.

00:48:38Guest:You get kind of caught up in it.

00:48:41Guest:Not as much as World War I in Irving Berlin and that kind of stuff.

00:48:45Guest:But pretty good.

00:48:46Guest:I became a corporal.

00:48:48Guest:I felt a great sense of achievement.

00:48:50Guest:Two stripes.

00:48:51Marc:Nice uniform.

00:48:52Guest:Yeah, nice uniform.

00:48:55Marc:Heroes return.

00:48:55Marc:Did you kiss anybody in Times Square?

00:48:57Marc:How did that go?

00:48:58Guest:No, there was one gay guy kissed me.

00:49:01Guest:It was okay.

00:49:03Guest:He grabbed me and kissed me.

00:49:04Guest:I said, all right.

00:49:05Guest:It's okay with me, pal.

00:49:06Guest:It's good for you.

00:49:07Marc:Yeah.

00:49:07Marc:You're ahead of the curve here.

00:49:09Marc:Yeah.

00:49:09Guest:I still have my uniform.

00:49:10Marc:You have it now?

00:49:11Guest:Yeah, I have it at home.

00:49:12Guest:I have my ribbons.

00:49:13Guest:Just in case I have to go in, at least I have some rank.

00:49:16Guest:You already suited up?

00:49:19Guest:Yeah.

00:49:19Guest:If they need you again?

00:49:21Guest:If they need me, at least I'm a corporal.

00:49:23Marc:Yeah, we're in trouble.

00:49:25Marc:Get Mel Brooks in here.

00:49:25Guest:They'll give me back my rank, maybe.

00:49:27Sure.

00:49:28Guest:I'm sure they will.

00:49:30Guest:Anyway, you're asking good questions.

00:49:33Guest:The war was a, on the surface, it was a patriotic and exciting phenomenon.

00:49:40Guest:Unconsciously, the idea of maybe dying is very complicated.

00:49:49Guest:You thought about it.

00:49:50Guest:What I did, you know, when you're a soldier and there's any kind of shooting or any kind of, you know, Germans were very good artillery.

00:49:57Guest:They had a thing called an 88.

00:49:59Guest:Yeah.

00:49:59Guest:We broadcast and I'd be on the radio.

00:50:02Guest:Yeah.

00:50:03Guest:And I'd say, I'd give them coordinates.

00:50:05Guest:I'd start with Y, Tango, you know, Dodge, Easy, Over.

00:50:12Guest:And then I'd say, can you see the White Church?

00:50:15Guest:I'd end up, I really would.

00:50:16Guest:I'd say, can you see the steeple of the White Church?

00:50:19Guest:a little to the left of it there were Germans go shoot them you know I would end up talking like that a minute less than a minute after we broadcast we were in a command car or a jeep very highly mobile

00:50:35Guest:When we left, the road could be straddled with 88 fire.

00:50:41Guest:Bing, bang, bang, bang.

00:50:43Guest:Big 88 shell.

00:50:46Guest:We'd be a half a mile away, but if you look back, they'd get radio coordinates.

00:50:51Marc:They'd hear you, and then they'd take the shot, and you'd be out of there.

00:50:54Guest:One of the great things was I was across a creek.

00:50:56Guest:We were building a Bailey Bridge to get on the other side.

00:50:59Guest:I swear to God, I thought I heard, yeah, yeah.

00:51:02Guest:German singing, you know.

00:51:11Guest:Couldn't see it.

00:51:11Guest:They didn't like campfire because they don't get their position.

00:51:14Guest:But I heard them.

00:51:16Guest:And I picked up a big megaphone and I shouted across.

00:51:20Guest:Toot, toot, tootsie, goodbye.

00:51:24Guest:Don't cry, tootie, don't cry.

00:51:26Guest:And I said, that choo-choo trainer take me away on you.

00:51:29Guest:You never know how's that a man.

00:51:31Guest:Got a tootie, and then I'll be better.

00:51:34Guest:Wait for the mail.

00:51:35Guest:I'll never fail.

00:51:36Guest:You don't get a letter.

00:51:37Guest:You know I'm in jail.

00:51:38Guest:La, la, la.

00:51:39Guest:Goodbye, tootie, goodbye.

00:51:41Guest:Don't cry, tootie, don't cry.

00:51:44Guest:I stopped, and I swear to God I heard, Yeah, bye, bye.

00:51:50Marc:I thought I heard it.

00:51:51Marc:But the thought of that, that really dealing day to day with the idea that you could get blown up, it must have drove you nuts.

00:51:57Marc:It did.

00:51:59Guest:It did.

00:51:59Guest:But I didn't.

00:52:00Guest:We talked to each other.

00:52:03Guest:Soldiers would talk to each other.

00:52:04Guest:Yeah.

00:52:05Guest:There was a guy called Liberty from Jersey City.

00:52:08Guest:He said, you know, Mel, it's like a newsreel.

00:52:11Guest:We're in a newsreel.

00:52:12Guest:I said, you're right.

00:52:13Guest:I never figured it.

00:52:14Guest:But you're right.

00:52:14Guest:We think we're in a newsreel.

00:52:16Marc:Yeah.

00:52:16Guest:We don't pay attention to body bags.

00:52:19Marc:So you figured out a way to get through it without... Exactly.

00:52:22Marc:You put your... Yeah, you put your blinders on.

00:52:24Marc:But you saw all that shit nonetheless.

00:52:27Guest:Enough.

00:52:28Marc:Yeah, so how are you going to... I guess, did you see guys lose it?

00:52:32Guest:Once in a while.

00:52:33Marc:But it was a different war then.

00:52:34Marc:Once in a while.

00:52:35Guest:No, very rarely, no.

00:52:37Guest:We had it together.

00:52:39Guest:But I wasn't in the Battle of the Bulge.

00:52:42Guest:I just missed that by a month.

00:52:44Guest:I was very lucky.

00:52:45Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:46Marc:Well, good.

00:52:47Marc:And when you came home, your mother was happy?

00:52:49Marc:Yeah.

00:52:49Marc:Were you the only one to go?

00:52:50Marc:Your brothers didn't go?

00:52:51Guest:My brother Irving went to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

00:52:56Marc:I know where that is.

00:52:56Guest:He was working in radar.

00:52:57Marc:My aunt's down here.

00:52:58Guest:But my brother Lenny was a hero, prisoner of war for 18 months.

00:53:02Marc:Really?

00:53:03Guest:Shot down.

00:53:03Guest:He was a gunner.

00:53:04Marc:Russian or?

00:53:05Guest:Engineer gunner.

00:53:05Guest:No, prisoner of war and the Germans had him in Stalag Luft.

00:53:10Marc:Oh, my God.

00:53:10Marc:He got lucky.

00:53:11Marc:Prison camp.

00:53:12Marc:If he made it out of there.

00:53:13Guest:He made it out.

00:53:14Guest:And then my brother Bernie fought the Japanese in New Guinea.

00:53:19Guest:I don't think anybody ever won that war in New Guinea, anyway.

00:53:24Marc:Was that the one where there were Japanese soldiers fighting the war long after the war had gone?

00:53:30Marc:They were in the woods.

00:53:31Guest:My brother Bernie tried to explain to me that

00:53:33Guest:His enemy was a thing called sawgrass that would cut his legs.

00:53:38Guest:You know, no matter how he wrapped them.

00:53:41Guest:And dengue fever and all kinds of stuff.

00:53:43Guest:He says, we very rarely fought the Japanese.

00:53:46Guest:They had their own dysentery and their own starvation.

00:53:49Marc:Everyone was fighting nature.

00:53:50Marc:Yeah, everyone was fighting nature.

00:53:51Marc:But all of you came home.

00:53:52Marc:That's pretty amazing.

00:53:53Marc:We all came home.

00:53:54Marc:That's unbelievable.

00:53:55Marc:Your mother must have been thrilled.

00:53:57Marc:Yeah.

00:53:59Guest:Well, she had four blue stars.

00:54:01Guest:Blue, not gold.

00:54:02Guest:Yeah.

00:54:02Guest:She had four blue stars in the window.

00:54:05Guest:And people would come to visit her, you know, relatives and cheer her up.

00:54:10Guest:My brother Lenny did a stupid thing.

00:54:12Guest:He was in a German prison camp, like I said, and he made a record.

00:54:16Guest:And he sent the record home.

00:54:17Guest:I miss you.

00:54:19Guest:Since I went away, dear.

00:54:20Guest:My mother would play it every night.

00:54:21Guest:And I said, don't put it on.

00:54:24Yeah.

00:54:24Guest:Don't put it on.

00:54:26Guest:You'll cry again.

00:54:30Guest:Miss you.

00:54:32Marc:And you come home and what happens?

00:54:34Marc:Time for comedy or you didn't know what the hell?

00:54:36Guest:No, I didn't know what I was going to do.

00:54:37Guest:I didn't want to go back to the Garment Center.

00:54:39Guest:Comedy was only in the summer in the mountains.

00:54:42Guest:And what could I do?

00:54:43Guest:Okay, Donna Pell comes to the rescue again.

00:54:47Guest:Who was working for him at the Avon Lodge playing lead tenor sax, using him as a kind of utility comic?

00:54:56Guest:Yeah.

00:54:56Guest:Sid Caesar.

00:54:57Guest:Right.

00:54:57Guest:So Don is working with Sid Caesar, and he says, believe it or not, this kid that I worked with in the mountains made a movie for the Coast Guard, and it's called Tarz and Spar.

00:55:11Guest:So we went to see the movie, and there's Sid Caesar, Alfred Drake, Janet Blair, and Sid is the comedy relief.

00:55:16Guest:And I said,

00:55:17Guest:This guy is terrific.

00:55:21Guest:He says, believe it or not, he's just got a gig.

00:55:24Guest:He's going to be working.

00:55:26Guest:I was a drummer.

00:55:27Guest:I learned to play drums.

00:55:29Marc:How did you learn how to play drums?

00:55:32Guest:We moved to Brighton Beach for two years.

00:55:36Guest:And we lived on Brighton 6th Street between Ocean View and Brighton Beach Avenue.

00:55:40Guest:And on Brighton Court, which was on 10th Street, my schoolmate lived, Vicki Rich.

00:55:46Guest:Me not knowing, Mickey said, come on home.

00:55:49Guest:I want to show you something.

00:55:50Guest:So Mickey takes me back.

00:55:51Guest:He played alto sax.

00:55:52Guest:I played drums in the band.

00:55:55Guest:And Mickey said, look.

00:55:58Guest:And I said, I want to show you a great drum set.

00:56:01Guest:And I saw the greatest drum set I've seen in my life.

00:56:03Guest:There it was.

00:56:05Guest:A big A.S.

00:56:08Guest:and a little...

00:56:10Guest:BR and a shield.

00:56:12Guest:And as a drummer, I knew, I said, my God, Mickey Rich, your brother, your brother's Buddy Rich.

00:56:18Guest:Buddy Rich was the greatest drummer who ever lived.

00:56:20Guest:I mean, next to Gene Krupa, I mean, there was nobody bigger.

00:56:26Guest:So,

00:56:27Guest:I sat down.

00:56:28Guest:No, no, I came back again.

00:56:31Guest:I said, I came back, it was a Saturday morning about 10 o'clock.

00:56:36Guest:I said, do you mind if Buddy, you know, if I fooled around on the drums a little bit, you know, I'll be careful.

00:56:42Marc:Was Buddy there or he wasn't?

00:56:43Guest:No, no, he wasn't.

00:56:44Guest:So I started.

00:56:48Guest:Yeah.

00:56:50Guest:I'm doing little drum shtick.

00:56:56Guest:And I hear from the door, not good, not too bad.

00:56:59Guest:And then he says to me, can you do this?

00:57:02Guest:And he claps his hand, and it's Buddy Rich, and I turn white.

00:57:06Guest:He says, can you do this?

00:57:11Guest:You hear what I'm doing?

00:57:13Guest:I'm putting my bass...

00:57:16Guest:in between two snare hits.

00:57:23Guest:I said, yeah, I think so, and I did that.

00:57:25Guest:And then he said, here, sit over here.

00:57:27Guest:No, don't hold the stick so hard.

00:57:31Guest:I mean, he was very tough.

00:57:33Guest:And he taught me a little bit, and I came, that summer I came every Saturday for about an hour and a half, and he'd put on some of his records, and he would,

00:57:44Marc:He was still living at home?

00:57:45Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:57:46Guest:Huh.

00:57:46Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:57:47Marc:And who was the big band he was with then?

00:57:49Guest:Artie Shaw.

00:57:50Guest:Oh, Artie Shaw.

00:57:50Guest:And then he moved.

00:57:52Guest:While I was still there on Brighton Beach, he moved over to Tommy Dorsey.

00:57:55Marc:Artie Shaw was a character, huh?

00:57:56Guest:Did you know him?

00:57:57Guest:I got to know Artie.

00:57:59Guest:Artie used to come to my office all the time.

00:58:00Marc:Because he lived a long time, right?

00:58:02Marc:He lived out here.

00:58:02Marc:He lived into his early 90s, yeah.

00:58:04Marc:I became sort of fascinated with him.

00:58:06Guest:Really?

00:58:06Guest:How come?

00:58:07Guest:Why and how did you become fascinated?

00:58:09Guest:Nobody knows Artie Shore.

00:58:11Guest:Mark, nobody knows who Artie Shore is.

00:58:13Marc:Traffic Jam.

00:58:15Guest:Yeah.

00:58:19Marc:Yeah, the way I got into him is, my friend of mine, I read the autobiography of Art Pepper.

00:58:24Guest:How do you know Traffic Jam?

00:58:26Marc:I have such new...

00:58:28Marc:Found respect for you.

00:58:29Marc:I went on this thing where I read a couple of books about bebop and about Big Band.

00:58:34Marc:And I read Art Pepper's autobiography, which is a crazy book.

00:58:38Marc:It's like 50 pages of sacks and 450 pages of drug addiction in prison.

00:58:44Marc:But...

00:58:46Marc:but ostensibly about music yeah but you know he a lot of people started to talk i heard people talking about arty shaw as this like sort of possessed kind of angry-ish uh jewish guy oh yeah yeah he was a little crazy yeah yeah and so i bought i bought like when i get into something i buy all the records and i was i became sort of good for you i became fascinated with the idea that that that was uh you go out for an evening

00:59:11Marc:And it wasn't like four guys in drum and guitar and bass.

00:59:15Marc:You saw 20 guys up there.

00:59:16Guest:Oh, no.

00:59:17Guest:It was a big band.

00:59:17Guest:It's a big deal.

00:59:19Guest:We called them big bands.

00:59:20Marc:Right.

00:59:21Marc:And I couldn't even imagine what that sounded like.

00:59:22Marc:So I tried to place myself like what it would be like as you as a kid or in your teens, you go out and swing at whatever you do to that.

00:59:29Marc:I mean, the sound must have been unbelievable.

00:59:32Marc:I sort of got in.

00:59:33Guest:You couldn't help dance.

00:59:34Guest:I mean, everybody Lindy'd, you know.

00:59:35Marc:Yeah.

00:59:36Marc:But it just seemed like that was popular music then.

00:59:38Marc:That's how it was done, if you went out.

00:59:40Guest:It was called Swing.

00:59:41Marc:Yeah.

00:59:41Guest:And it was big, big bands, and it was incredible.

00:59:44Marc:Yeah, so that's how I got to know Artie Shaw.

00:59:46Marc:But Buddy Rich, is he living at home when he's playing with Artie Shaw?

00:59:48Marc:How is that?

00:59:49Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:59:49Guest:Well, Artie Shaw would play the...

00:59:53Guest:Listen to me.

00:59:54Guest:Lincoln Hotel, the blue room at the Lincoln Hotel.

00:59:56Marc:Yeah.

00:59:57Guest:For six months at a time.

00:59:58Marc:Right.

00:59:59Marc:All right.

01:00:00Guest:So why not live at home?

01:00:01Marc:Right.

01:00:02Guest:Was Buddy Rich a Jewish guy?

01:00:04Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:00:04Guest:Absolutely.

01:00:05Guest:Buddy was crazy.

01:00:06Guest:Buddy would wear a Jewish star and walk into the Italian neighborhoods on the beach.

01:00:10Guest:Yeah.

01:00:10Guest:You know, there was like Bay 16th of it.

01:00:13Guest:We lived in Brighton Beach.

01:00:14Guest:Right.

01:00:14Guest:So I'd go with Buddy on the beach.

01:00:16Guest:I'd say, and he had a big Jewish star.

01:00:17Guest:Yeah.

01:00:19Guest:Looking for trouble.

01:00:20Marc:Yeah, he's notoriously angry.

01:00:23Guest:Looking for trouble.

01:00:24Marc:Did he get it?

01:00:25Guest:Once in a while, he got it.

01:00:26Guest:He never lost.

01:00:27Guest:He beat the shit out of anybody.

01:00:29Guest:I tell you, he beat anybody.

01:00:31Guest:Big guy, big Italian guy.

01:00:32Guest:He was just that kind of guy.

01:00:33Guest:He was a great fighter.

01:00:34Guest:Yeah.

01:00:35Guest:You?

01:00:35Yeah.

01:00:36Guest:I wasn't such a, I mean, you know, I was very fast.

01:00:41Guest:I mean, I was fast in a fight and I was fast running away.

01:00:43Guest:I mean, I was fast, you know, either way.

01:00:46Guest:But Buddy taught me some, you know, I mean.

01:00:48Marc:Some drumming.

01:00:49Guest:Some drumming, he taught me.

01:00:50Guest:And to be gallant.

01:00:52Marc:Did you remain friends?

01:00:54Guest:For a while.

01:00:55Marc:Because there's famous tapes of him yelling at his band.

01:00:58Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:00:58Guest:There is one really famous one on the bus.

01:01:01Guest:Yeah.

01:01:02Guest:On the bus.

01:01:02Guest:You know, there's a place in New York called Patsy's on 8th Avenue.

01:01:10Guest:Yeah.

01:01:11Guest:And I went there.

01:01:15Guest:There was a dinner party upstairs for the opening of Blazing Saddles.

01:01:21Guest:It was a big hit.

01:01:22Guest:Saddles was a big hit.

01:01:24Guest:And down below, Buddy always ate there.

01:01:27Guest:So I was on my way up and I heard Mel, and there was Buddy.

01:01:31Guest:And he hugged me, and there were tears in his eyes.

01:01:34Guest:I said, oh, Buddy, that's so, you know.

01:01:37Guest:He was like...

01:01:39Guest:celebrating my success.

01:01:43Guest:That's what I thought.

01:01:44Guest:And he said, you could have been a good drummer.

01:01:49Guest:He didn't even say great.

01:01:52Guest:I swear, he didn't even say great or anything like him.

01:01:55Guest:You could be good.

01:01:57Guest:I mean, he wanted everybody to be a good drummer.

01:02:01Marc:But not great.

01:02:02Guest:Not great, no.

01:02:03Guest:He was the great drummer.

01:02:04Marc:So you took the drums and that's when he started doing schtick?

01:02:06Guest:Yeah, and the mountains, once at the Butler Lodge, I was Mel Brooks and his five wife Peters.

01:02:13Guest:I swear to God, that was the name of her.

01:02:15Guest:Five wife Peters.

01:02:16Guest:And the comic got sick, and I...

01:02:22Guest:He said, Melvin, M-E-L-B-M-N-N-N, Pincus Cohen.

01:02:29Guest:I said, Mr. Cohen, you have a redundant name.

01:02:32Guest:You could be the Pincus or Coen, but it's too much, Pincus Cohen.

01:02:37Guest:Anyway, so Pincus Cohen said, Melvin, you know, Murray, every comic was named Murray.

01:02:44Guest:He said, Murray's sick, he's not working.

01:02:46Guest:So I took over.

01:02:49Marc:So would you do his act?

01:02:50Guest:I did his act.

01:02:51Guest:I did every, you know, I did every joke, every bad, lousy joke he did.

01:02:56Guest:And then, let's get back to Donna Pell.

01:02:59Guest:And he said to me, Sid Caesar, we saw Sid Caesar at the Roxy.

01:03:05Guest:He said he's working, he says there's a picture coming in called Forever Amber.

01:03:10Guest:Remember Forever Amber was a big picture.

01:03:13Guest:Linda Darnell.

01:03:14Marc:I've seen pictures of her.

01:03:17Marc:Pretty.

01:03:18Guest:So he was a comic.

01:03:20Guest:He thought the picture would be there six weeks.

01:03:22Guest:It was there six months or so.

01:03:24Guest:So he sharpened his act.

01:03:26Guest:And then he went to the Copacabana.

01:03:30Guest:I went backstage.

01:03:31Marc:What was that like, the Copa on a good night?

01:03:34Marc:It was great.

01:03:36Marc:You read about the mob.

01:03:40Guest:You're sitting next to gangsters.

01:03:42Guest:You know that.

01:03:43Guest:The whole front row.

01:03:45Guest:Two tables of opposing gangsters.

01:03:47Guest:You never know if they'd shoot each other.

01:03:49Guest:You're in the middle.

01:03:51Guest:It was great.

01:03:54Guest:Beautiful girls and the drinks.

01:03:57Guest:And so I was backstage at Tacopa, and Sid said, you know, we get along.

01:04:03Guest:We hang out.

01:04:05Guest:We're funny.

01:04:06Guest:He said, this guy, Max Liebman, is coming to me.

01:04:09Guest:There's a show called the Admiral Broadway Review.

01:04:14Guest:It's going to be on a thing called television.

01:04:16Guest:I said, wrestling.

01:04:17Guest:He said, no.

01:04:18Marc:Is that all that was on television initially?

01:04:21Guest:No, that was Milton Berle.

01:04:22Guest:Milton Berle and wrestling?

01:04:23Marc:And wrestling.

01:04:24Guest:That was all that was on.

01:04:26Guest:And Sid said...

01:04:28Guest:I'll give you 40 bucks a week.

01:04:30Guest:I said, great.

01:04:31Guest:He says, just write whatever comes into your head.

01:04:34Guest:Write jokes.

01:04:34Guest:Give me the monologues.

01:04:36Guest:I have to do them.

01:04:37Guest:And I did.

01:04:39Guest:We hung out together.

01:04:39Guest:It was a pleasure.

01:04:41Marc:But was that a decision for you?

01:04:42Marc:Did you realize at some point, this stand-up shit's not for me?

01:04:45Marc:I don't want to be stuck in this lounge act life.

01:04:49Guest:No, I put it on the side.

01:04:51Guest:I knew I was going to come back to it.

01:04:53Guest:But I said, Melvin, yes.

01:04:56Guest:I always talk to him.

01:04:58Guest:I said, this guy's better.

01:05:00Guest:This guy's really good.

01:05:01Guest:This guy may be a genius.

01:05:05Guest:And so it was a pleasure to write for him.

01:05:08Guest:Usually, you hope, in my career as a comedy writer, and I've written for a lot of comics,

01:05:15Guest:You hope any and all of them can meet the comedy.

01:05:21Guest:Don't kill it.

01:05:22Guest:Don't worry.

01:05:24Guest:And Sid Caesar was amazing.

01:05:26Guest:He raised the comedy by his emotions, by his acting, by his physical, you know, a lot of physicality he put into it.

01:05:36Marc:He can inhabit.

01:05:36Guest:Yeah.

01:05:38Guest:There was nobody like him.

01:05:39Marc:Yeah, I hear you speak in reverence about him in a way that I wish.

01:05:43Marc:It's one of those things where I've seen a couple of guys in my life do amazing things, but the way you talk about him, it doesn't seem like anyone's ever.

01:05:51Guest:He's still alive.

01:05:51Guest:He's up on Loma Vista.

01:05:54Guest:How much older than you is he?

01:05:58Guest:Let's see, I'm 86, he's 91.

01:06:03Guest:Not much.

01:06:05Marc:Not much.

01:06:06Marc:You go over there?

01:06:07Guest:I go, Friday nights, Friday afternoon, if I can make it, I go up and hold his hand, talk.

01:06:12Guest:He's kind of in his own world until I will say things like, remember when you were in Make My Manhattan and you were doing a number on stage all by yourself called...

01:06:24Guest:I've got $5 and it's burning a hole in my pocket.

01:06:28Guest:And that would raise him, trigger him.

01:06:31Guest:I'd say, can you sing a little?

01:06:33Guest:And he would sing some of it for me in a raspy, crazy, silly voice.

01:06:37Guest:But at least he'd be alive.

01:06:40Guest:And I'd always come up to wake him up and remind him how truly talented he was.

01:06:47Marc:And does he have a lot of people going up there or no?

01:06:49Guest:Yeah, Rudy DeLuca and me, usually.

01:06:51Guest:And sometimes Carl Reiner.

01:06:53Marc:Yeah.

01:06:54Guest:I get Carl to come up.

01:06:56Marc:You spend a lot of time with him still, right?

01:06:58Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:07:00Guest:Almost every other night.

01:07:01Guest:Yeah.

01:07:01Guest:Three nights a week, I'll be at Carl's house.

01:07:04Guest:Yeah.

01:07:04Guest:Carl loves...

01:07:06Guest:more than anything what he calls really's that we do and carl is so proud that we do them only for ourselves we don't do them for an audience we don't do them for another because you try to one-up each other yeah we well we we try to really amaze each other with where we're going with our minds yeah yeah and uh we're still pretty good at it is it how are you handling the aging thing

01:07:32Guest:I'm doing pretty well.

01:07:34Marc:You think about it?

01:07:35Guest:I do.

01:07:37Guest:You say, well, shuffle off this mortal coil.

01:07:39Guest:The table is needed for somebody else.

01:07:44Guest:We need that table.

01:07:48Guest:As long as I feel okay, you know.

01:07:50Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:07:50Guest:As long as I have energy.

01:07:52Guest:Yeah.

01:07:52Guest:And as long as I still love singing and comedy and, you know, entertainment.

01:08:01Guest:Food.

01:08:02Guest:And people and food and some food as long as I still have an appetite.

01:08:05Guest:Yeah.

01:08:05Guest:It's great.

01:08:06Guest:I mean, I'm not complaining, you know.

01:08:07Guest:Yeah, and you stay busy.

01:08:08Guest:I do stay.

01:08:09Guest:And look, I'm pushing my box set with Marc Maron right now.

01:08:13Marc:Yeah, it's great.

01:08:14Guest:I have a box set.

01:08:16Guest:You'll see things on it like the Hitler rap.

01:08:18Marc:Yeah, the Hitler rap and the short film The Critic and a bunch of stuff with you and Cavett.

01:08:23Marc:And then you and Cavett through the years, actually.

01:08:25Guest:Yeah, it was great.

01:08:27Guest:Cavett was always good with me.

01:08:28Guest:I was always good with

01:08:29Marc:It's very interesting to watch those shows now when they feed the audience.

01:08:34Marc:The audience is like a rioted amusement park now, so everything is so hot.

01:08:38Marc:But with Cabot, you guys would sit there.

01:08:40Marc:It didn't necessarily hinge on a laugh every three seconds.

01:08:43Guest:No, no, it didn't.

01:08:44Guest:We'd get stuck kind of reminiscing, and out of it would come something glorious.

01:08:50Marc:He was an interesting guy.

01:08:51Marc:He's an interesting straight man.

01:08:52Guest:He's such a bright guy, and he has...

01:08:55Guest:He loves show business so much, and he tells such great stories about Jack Benny and Bob Hope.

01:09:04Guest:He knew all these guys and interviewed them.

01:09:07Marc:Now, the guys you work with, I know it's pretty well documented, the process of making the 12 chairs and then the producers, working with Sid Caesar and the Simon Brothers and Galbart.

01:09:20Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:09:21Marc:I took a writing class with Danny Simon

01:09:24Marc:Really?

01:09:25Marc:When I was in, like, I was living in Boston.

01:09:27Marc:It must have been in the 80s.

01:09:30Marc:No, there were posters around.

01:09:31Marc:You know, Danny Simon, Neil Simon's brother, writer from our show of shows.

01:09:37Marc:And I remember going because I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do and I had nothing to do and I paid for the class.

01:09:41Marc:It was one of these intensive two-day weekend things.

01:09:44Yeah.

01:09:45Marc:You did it?

01:09:46Marc:Yeah, I went.

01:09:47Marc:What happened?

01:09:48Marc:It was weird.

01:09:49Marc:You know, he seemed to have a chip on his shoulder.

01:09:52Guest:Oh, yeah, he always did.

01:09:54Marc:And, you know, I'm Neil Simon's brother.

01:09:57Marc:That was clearly a chip on his shoulder.

01:10:00Marc:And he had put together some system.

01:10:01Marc:You know, there's always a system.

01:10:03Marc:And he was making sketches, and there were arrows about story and umbrellas and this and that.

01:10:08Marc:And I couldn't fucking follow it.

01:10:09Marc:And eventually, I just, you know, the only thing I remember is that he had bought some sort of Irish soda bread

01:10:14Marc:And he didn't like it.

01:10:15Marc:And he said, you want this?

01:10:16Marc:I'm not going to eat it.

01:10:17Marc:And I took the bread and I didn't go back the second day.

01:10:21Guest:That's a great story.

01:10:23Marc:Tell me, was the Irish soda bread good?

01:10:25Marc:It was great.

01:10:26Guest:I don't know what the hell his problem was.

01:10:28Guest:He always had a chip on his shoulder.

01:10:29Guest:He always had a chip on his shoulder.

01:10:30Guest:Because he said, you know, I taught Neil everything, you know, Doc was his name.

01:10:36Guest:I taught Doc everything he knew.

01:10:38Marc:He didn't.

01:10:39Marc:Of course not.

01:10:39Marc:I mean, clearly that was a narrative he took right to the class that I went to.

01:10:43Guest:Carl and I just had dinner with Doc who happens to be out here.

01:10:46Guest:He lives in New York.

01:10:47Guest:But he happened to be out here for a week, so we just had dinner with him.

01:10:52Guest:We reminisce.

01:10:53Guest:It's wonderful.

01:10:54Guest:We talk about Sid and how crazy Sid was and

01:10:58Guest:Sid was really strong.

01:11:01Guest:If he didn't like a joke, you know, those gray desks made of metal.

01:11:04Guest:Yeah.

01:11:04Guest:With a typewriter.

01:11:06Guest:Yeah.

01:11:07Guest:And maybe Mike Stewart attached to it in a chair.

01:11:10Guest:He could lift it to make a point.

01:11:12Guest:He'd lift it and bang the floor with the desk.

01:11:15Guest:He'd say, no good.

01:11:16Guest:We can do better.

01:11:18Yeah.

01:11:18Guest:and Mel Tolkien would immediately say, well, we're not married to the joke.

01:11:23Marc:Diplomatic.

01:11:24Guest:We'll come up with, you know.

01:11:26Marc:There's so many of you guys in there, and Woody Allen didn't even do anything, right?

01:11:29Marc:He was just a guy.

01:11:29Guest:He was on two specials, and yeah.

01:11:32Marc:But he was a little, he's younger than you by 10 years or so.

01:11:34Marc:By 10 years.

01:11:36Marc:Now, what's interesting that I noticed when I was watching this stuff is that, in a way, you guys, you know, in your era, were sort of competing with each other, you know, film-wise.

01:11:45Guest:Yeah.

01:11:46Marc:That, you know, the early Woody Allen films were just as ridiculous and, you know, over the top as yours were.

01:11:53Marc:Was there, did you feel a competition?

01:11:55Yeah.

01:11:56Guest:I didn't really feel any competition.

01:11:58Guest:I enjoyed his movies, and I thought we were on completely different tracks.

01:12:03Guest:Basically, I thought, well, philosophically, Woody is dealing with...

01:12:14Guest:With the psychology, you know, what makes people tick inside.

01:12:22Guest:And I'm dealing with world masses.

01:12:24Guest:I'm dealing with, you know, with glacial movements of mankind, you know.

01:12:31Guest:And, you know, I'm just different.

01:12:34Guest:I think I'm a little more...

01:12:40Guest:I don't know, more people, a lot of people in groups I am.

01:12:47Guest:I'm more people in groups.

01:12:48Guest:And he's very microscopic, you know?

01:12:54Guest:He gets down to kind of this...

01:12:59Guest:the cliches and secrets of human behavior yeah yeah yeah it's wonderful yeah do you are you friendly with him no nobody is listen he's working now with uh he's doing god bless him he's doing uh uh bullets over broadway as a musical oh is he so you set a precedent this is what happened yeah yeah yeah he's like if brooks can get this over

01:13:23Guest:Yeah, I think so.

01:13:24Guest:I think I may have at least awakened him to that.

01:13:28Guest:Yeah.

01:13:28Guest:But he's not writing any songs.

01:13:30Guest:He's using, wisely so, I think.

01:13:34Marc:Songs of the era?

01:13:35Marc:Songs of the period, yeah.

01:13:36Marc:Oh, that's a smart thing.

01:13:37Marc:So let's talk about these guys that you work with because you seem to have a very acute sense of comedic people.

01:13:45Marc:They're very specific to you, like Gene Wilder, obviously.

01:13:49Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:13:49Yeah.

01:13:49Marc:I'm doing a joke on stage now where I actually do a bit of an impression of him.

01:13:53Marc:You're kidding.

01:13:54Marc:No, no, no.

01:13:55Guest:What do you do with... How do you do Gene?

01:13:57Guest:He's impossible.

01:13:57Marc:No, he's impossible.

01:13:58Marc:It's more of a tone thing.

01:13:59Marc:I talk about being on an airplane.

01:14:01Marc:I almost did it... I didn't do it on that Conan you watched.

01:14:04Marc:I didn't get to it.

01:14:06Marc:You didn't get to it.

01:14:07Marc:About the helicopter.

01:14:08Marc:About going up in a helicopter with my second wife.

01:14:11Marc:And the...

01:14:13Marc:In Kauai.

01:14:14Marc:In Kauai.

01:14:15Marc:And I don't know if you know what it's like to see the most beautiful stuff you've ever seen in your life and be more terrified than you've ever been in your life at the same time.

01:14:22Marc:You know, my foot was, my leg was hanging out of the door of the helicopter.

01:14:27Marc:And the pilot says, it's very nice, isn't it?

01:14:29Marc:And I say, yes, it's very nice.

01:14:33Marc:Please land the machine.

01:14:35Marc:Yeah.

01:14:37Marc:And I say, I guess when I'm terrified, I turned into Gene Wilder.

01:14:40Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:14:41Marc:There was a pacing to it.

01:14:42Marc:There was this build.

01:14:44Marc:You know, it's a very interesting thing.

01:14:45Guest:It is a build.

01:14:45Marc:It is a build.

01:14:46Marc:And he's like a volcano.

01:14:48Marc:Yeah.

01:14:49Marc:Well, you know who Sam Kennison was?

01:14:50Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:14:51Marc:Well, like I knew that guy when I was starting doing stand-up.

01:14:54Marc:I loved Sam Kennison.

01:14:56Marc:One night, because we used to sit around and do drugs.

01:14:59Marc:And I haven't done that stuff in over 13 years now.

01:15:04Marc:But I was a kid, 21, 22, and he'd sit there and hold court, which I imagine you've experienced before.

01:15:10Guest:Absolutely.

01:15:11Marc:There was those guys.

01:15:13Marc:We'd all be sitting around listening to him.

01:15:15Marc:And one night, we'd been up all night and there wasn't anybody else around.

01:15:18Marc:I said, well, how'd you do it?

01:15:19Marc:How'd you figure it out?

01:15:21Marc:How'd you crack it?

01:15:22Marc:Become this great stand-up.

01:15:24Marc:And he looks at me and goes, Gene Wilder.

01:15:26Marc:And what he had done, if you watch Kennison's bill, the oh, oh, oh, that he had that very deliberate bill.

01:15:34Guest:I never put that together until now.

01:15:36Marc:But I was amazed that he put it together.

01:15:38Marc:This was an intentional conscious decision that he was like, that's it.

01:15:41Guest:It's like something hits Gene and it grows and it grows and it grows and it explodes.

01:15:46Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:15:47Guest:And Kennison was doing the same thing.

01:15:50Marc:Right.

01:15:50Marc:And he was aware of it.

01:15:51Marc:I love that.

01:15:52Marc:That was it.

01:15:53Marc:Because with Kennison, you're like, oh, it must be some dark.

01:15:55Marc:Where are you?

01:15:56Marc:Coming from the guts.

01:15:57Marc:What is that?

01:15:59Guest:Who knew that Kennison had an awareness of the technical aspects of how to produce?

01:16:05Guest:That's amazing.

01:16:06Guest:This is a revelation.

01:16:07Guest:I'm glad you came today.

01:16:10Guest:He died on the road.

01:16:11Guest:Yes.

01:16:12Guest:You know, the steering wheel hit him and he thought he'd made, but he didn't.

01:16:18Guest:He didn't make it.

01:16:18Guest:He was lying there.

01:16:20Marc:He was a preacher.

01:16:21Marc:I think he, like in his mind, he knew that if he had a second, he'd get in under the wire, you know, and say, you know, Jesus, I'm sorry.

01:16:28Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:16:29Marc:Let me into the big room, so.

01:16:30Marc:Maybe he made it.

01:16:32Marc:I think he made it.

01:16:33Marc:If you believe that kind of thing.

01:16:35Guest:But I'm glad I saw you because you know people that I love and a lot of different aspects of this business.

01:16:42Guest:I didn't know you were so well acquainted.

01:16:45Guest:You're a kid.

01:16:45Guest:For me, you're just a little kid.

01:16:47Marc:Oh, that's very nice to hear.

01:16:49Marc:You're a smart child.

01:16:52Marc:Well, thank you very much, Mr. Brooks.

01:16:55Marc:What is it about Wilder?

01:16:57Marc:Because these guys, if you think about them, Corman, Wilder, Feldman,

01:17:00Marc:Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars.

01:17:03Marc:These are very extraordinary, very specific comedy performers.

01:17:07Marc:And they're your guys.

01:17:08Guest:I wasn't such a genius.

01:17:11Guest:They came to me and I recognized their talent.

01:17:14Guest:I mean, I didn't seek them out and find, you know.

01:17:21Guest:For instance, Wilder was in a play on Broadway called...

01:17:33Guest:Mother Courage.

01:17:35Marc:That's an important play.

01:17:36Marc:Who is that play?

01:17:37Guest:That's Brecht.

01:17:38Guest:Right.

01:17:38Guest:Bertolt Brecht.

01:17:39Guest:Yeah.

01:17:40Guest:There's something of Mother Courage.

01:17:41Guest:Yeah.

01:17:42Guest:And he played a chaplain, and my wife was in it.

01:17:46Guest:Anne was a star.

01:17:48Marc:Were you married at that time?

01:17:51Guest:I don't know if we were going together.

01:17:52Guest:I think we were going together.

01:17:53Marc:You got yourself a very beautiful woman.

01:17:55Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:17:55Guest:She was the best.

01:17:56Guest:The best.

01:17:56Guest:I mean, you know, I have no complaints.

01:17:58Marc:Being funny helps you out in that area, right?

01:18:00Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:18:01Yeah.

01:18:02Guest:I won her over with comedy.

01:18:04Guest:I mean, tall, good-looking guys couldn't do it.

01:18:07Marc:Uh-huh.

01:18:07Marc:That must have been a great day.

01:18:09Guest:So he was in the play, and we all got to be friends.

01:18:14Guest:He kept saying, why are they laughing at me?

01:18:17Guest:I said, well...

01:18:19Guest:You know, he said, sometimes I don't want to be funny.

01:18:21Guest:I said, it's not up to you.

01:18:23Guest:I mean, you know, God decided that you would be funny and you're funny.

01:18:30Guest:And then he came out to Fire Island.

01:18:32Guest:We had a house on Fire Island.

01:18:34Guest:And I was writing the outline of the producers.

01:18:38Guest:And I said, I said, you're Leo Bloom.

01:18:42Guest:You smell like Leo Bloom.

01:18:44Guest:You look like Leo Bloom.

01:18:46Guest:Everything you do is you're fearful and tentative or you're a volcano exploding.

01:18:55Guest:You're Leo Bloom.

01:18:57Guest:And I said, when, I promise, when, if I ever get it made into a movie, you're going to be Leo Bloom.

01:19:05Guest:He said, but I have no name.

01:19:06Guest:I said, if we ever get it, you're going to... So a year, close to a year went by, and through fits and starts, I...

01:19:15Guest:Sidney Glazer believed in me, this guy.

01:19:18Guest:He had produced the Eleanor Roosevelt story.

01:19:22Guest:Hilarious.

01:19:23Guest:Yeah, yeah, hilarious.

01:19:25Guest:And for some reason, he got a hold of this script, and he loved it, and he wanted to make... It was called Springtime for Hitler, and he wanted to make Springtime for Hitler...

01:19:35Guest:And anyway, we went to everybody.

01:19:39Guest:Every studio said, don't be ridiculous.

01:19:42Guest:We went to Joe Levine.

01:19:43Guest:He said, I love it.

01:19:44Guest:Joseph F. Levine of AFCO Embassy.

01:19:46Guest:I love it.

01:19:47Guest:I'll put in half the money.

01:19:49Guest:Half the money was $500,000.

01:19:50Guest:And Sidney said, I'll raise the money from Louis Wolfson down in Florida, Universal Marion Corporation.

01:19:58Guest:I'll get $500,000.

01:19:59Guest:And they decided to do it.

01:20:01Guest:And then Joe Levine said...

01:20:05Guest:Who's going to direct it?

01:20:08Guest:I said, I will.

01:20:09Guest:And then he said, you're not a director.

01:20:10Guest:I said, but I am.

01:20:11Guest:I used to direct the floor comedy on The Sid Caesar Show.

01:20:15Guest:Like a segment producer.

01:20:16Guest:Yeah, the segment, the physical comedy.

01:20:21Guest:So I said, look, you save a lot of money.

01:20:23Guest:I'll do it for scale because I've never directed and I want the credit.

01:20:28Guest:And also, I have the pictures in my head.

01:20:31Guest:Joe, Joe, I have the pictures in my head.

01:20:35Guest:A guy comes in, he doesn't have the pictures.

01:20:37Guest:He got his own pictures.

01:20:40Guest:Maybe they're not the right pictures.

01:20:43Guest:Yeah, they're your pictures.

01:20:44Guest:They're my pictures.

01:20:45Guest:I know just who should go where and what, who should fall over the couch, who should come in, who slams the door when there's a close-up.

01:20:52Guest:I know, I got the pictures.

01:20:54Guest:It's storyboarded in my head.

01:20:56Guest:See, you are a salesman.

01:20:58Guest:And he said, okay, you can be.

01:21:00Guest:He said, one thing I'll never forget, he said, were you serious about scale?

01:21:07Guest:After your pitch?

01:21:07Guest:Never forget that.

01:21:10Guest:So I did it for scale.

01:21:13Guest:That was the beat after you sold him?

01:21:15Guest:Yeah, after I sold him.

01:21:16Guest:Were you serious about scale?

01:21:19Guest:So anyway, we did the movie.

01:21:21Guest:And...

01:21:23Guest:But before we did the movie, Gene had replaced Alan Arkin in a play by Murray Shiskell on Broadway called LUV.

01:21:33Marc:He's another guy.

01:21:33Marc:Arkin's another guy.

01:21:34Marc:Very similar, huh?

01:21:36Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:21:36Guest:Very close to Gene in terms of the volcano exploding.

01:21:39Marc:But darker as a... Yeah.

01:21:41Marc:He's got a little more range in the dark.

01:21:43Marc:In the dark side.

01:21:44Guest:Yeah.

01:21:45Guest:Gene's a fabulous actor.

01:21:46Marc:Yeah.

01:21:46Guest:Oh, I know.

01:21:47Guest:Gene can go anywhere.

01:21:48Guest:Yeah.

01:21:48Guest:So...

01:21:49Guest:He was getting ready to do his matinee performance.

01:21:52Guest:It was about 1.30.

01:21:54Guest:He was putting on his makeup.

01:21:56Guest:I came into his dressing room.

01:21:58Guest:I threw the script on his table, and I said, De Leo Bloom, we start shooting, and I gave him a day.

01:22:03Guest:He burst into tears.

01:22:05Guest:Really, just burst into tears.

01:22:07Guest:He couldn't look at me.

01:22:07Guest:He couldn't.

01:22:09Guest:And then he did this job.

01:22:14Guest:The next movie I did, I wanted him to be Vorobyaninov, an aristocrat who was... Ron Moody finally played it.

01:22:29Guest:In 12 Chairs?

01:22:30Guest:In 12 Chairs.

01:22:31Guest:And he didn't want to do it.

01:22:32Guest:He didn't want to do it.

01:22:33Guest:He said, I don't want to play that part.

01:22:36Guest:He said, I want to be the other guy.

01:22:41Guest:I didn't want to tell him.

01:22:43Guest:Dr. Kine has to be devilishly good-looking.

01:22:46Guest:How's that bender, you know?

01:22:48Guest:And it says in the Ilfin Petrov thing, he's devilishly good-looking.

01:22:54Guest:And so I saw Frank Langella, who's a terrific actor and devilishly good-looking.

01:22:59Marc:He's still a great actor.

01:23:01Guest:So I said, you know, anyway, but we kept in touch.

01:23:08Guest:then i'm ready to do blazing saddles sure and you know and i'm i'm i'm there's too much hubris and too much arrogance in me really i admit it there was not now now i'm now i'm humble no rage no now i've lost height yeah you know you get older i'm shrinking so i'm not such a big shot anymore

01:23:30Guest:You're going to be reaching for your mother's hand again soon.

01:23:34Guest:Right.

01:23:34Guest:Literally, I'm afraid.

01:23:36Guest:So anyway, it's a very complicated story.

01:23:39Guest:I called Dan Daly.

01:23:40Guest:You wouldn't know him.

01:23:40Guest:He was a song and dance man at 20th Century Fox, usually in a Betty Grable movie.

01:23:47Guest:And he was terrific.

01:23:49Guest:But I heard he was the best horse rider.

01:23:52Guest:He was a great horseman.

01:23:55Guest:And he had a leather face.

01:23:56Guest:And he was a good actor.

01:23:58Guest:He could be the Waco kid.

01:24:00Guest:First I asked John Wayne, he read it, and John Wayne said, I was at Warner's, I was having lunch, and I gave him this guy, I said, this is ridiculous, he saw the producers, he loved the producers, he said, sure, I'm glad to read it.

01:24:12Guest:He read it, and he gave it to me back, and he said,

01:24:15Guest:I couldn't do this.

01:24:18Guest:My fans wouldn't allow it.

01:24:19Guest:But I swear to God, Mel, I'll be the first one online to see it.

01:24:23Guest:It's hysterical.

01:24:25Guest:He was just a sweet guy.

01:24:26Guest:So anyway, Dan Daley, I called him.

01:24:30Guest:He said, I'm wearing Coke bottles.

01:24:32Guest:I said, what?

01:24:32Guest:He said, I'm wearing the bottom of Coke bottles.

01:24:35Guest:I can't see.

01:24:36Guest:My eyes are so, you know.

01:24:38Guest:So he's done.

01:24:39Guest:Yeah, I'm done.

01:24:40Guest:So I said, okay.

01:24:42Guest:Then I had a brilliant idea.

01:24:45Guest:I'd just seen a movie called They Shoot Horses, Don't They, with a guy who was supposed to be a comic, and he was brilliant, and he won the Academy Award.

01:24:54Guest:Gig Young, who later went crazy, shot himself, shot his young wife.

01:24:58Marc:Did he?

01:24:59Marc:Yeah.

01:25:00Marc:Yeah.

01:25:01Marc:I saw him in the Peckinpah movie.

01:25:03Marc:Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

01:25:05Guest:Yes, yeah.

01:25:06Guest:So he was a great actor, really.

01:25:08Guest:So I asked him to do it, and he said, fine.

01:25:10Guest:And his agent brought him, and I said, action.

01:25:12Guest:We got on the set.

01:25:13Guest:You know, he rehearsed for a week or two.

01:25:16Guest:We got on the set.

01:25:17Guest:He's upside down in the jail.

01:25:18Guest:I say, action.

01:25:20Guest:He says, Black Sheriff comes over.

01:25:25Guest:Cleavon comes over and says...

01:25:28Guest:are we awake?

01:25:31Guest:And he says, are we black?

01:25:35Guest:You know, it's in 1974, you know?

01:25:39Guest:Are we black?

01:25:41Guest:And then he starts spitting a little green stuff.

01:25:46Guest:And I said to my assistant director, this fucking guy is incredible.

01:25:52Guest:Look, he's playing a recovered alcoholic.

01:25:55Guest:Look, look.

01:25:56Guest:And then it became the exorcist.

01:25:59Guest:He never stopped.

01:26:00Guest:He's spewing green stuff all over Cleveland, all over the jail.

01:26:04Guest:I mean, it's just a lot of green stuff.

01:26:06Guest:It's like spewing.

01:26:08Guest:What the hell was it?

01:26:09Guest:He was having the DTs or something.

01:26:11Guest:So he was a real alcoholic.

01:26:14Guest:He had cleaned up for one day to come in and do the part.

01:26:19Guest:And they took him away in an ambulance and I was crushed.

01:26:22Guest:Then...

01:26:23Guest:I go right to the phone.

01:26:25Guest:As soon as the ambulance took him away, I went to my office.

01:26:30Guest:I said, oh, my God.

01:26:32Guest:And I called Gene.

01:26:33Guest:I told him what happened.

01:26:34Guest:He was hysterical.

01:26:35Guest:He said, you're kidding.

01:26:38Guest:I said, no, I thought I was getting Academy Award acting, and I was just getting green vomit.

01:26:45Guest:And Gene said, all right, all right, relax.

01:26:49Guest:I was kind of half crying, half laughing, laughing and crying at the same time, I swear to you.

01:26:53Guest:And Gene Wilder says, I'll see you at noon tomorrow.

01:26:59Guest:He was in New York.

01:27:00Guest:And he flew out.

01:27:04Marc:And he killed it.

01:27:06Guest:He was the only one to do it.

01:27:07Marc:Right.

01:27:07Marc:That's interesting.

01:27:08Guest:What a bounce.

01:27:09Guest:And the same thing happened with Cleavon.

01:27:11Guest:So I took two great bounces.

01:27:15Guest:I lost Richard Pryor, but I got Cleavon Little.

01:27:18Guest:who is a fantastic talent.

01:27:23Guest:And I got Gene Wilder, my buddy and my soul mate and the true genius of my career.

01:27:31Marc:You lucked out.

01:27:34Marc:I lucked out.

01:27:35Marc:The picture was great.

01:27:36Marc:Are you still friends with Gene?

01:27:37Marc:What's up with him?

01:27:38Guest:Are you kidding?

01:27:39Guest:Of course I am.

01:27:40Marc:What's up with him?

01:27:41Guest:Is he alright?

01:27:42Guest:He's great.

01:27:43Guest:He's in Connecticut.

01:27:44Guest:He'll be out here in a couple of weeks because he has a house somewhere near San Diego that he rents for two months every year in the winter and sometime in the middle of January to April 1st.

01:28:01Marc:And then you did Young Frankenstein.

01:28:03Marc:I mean, it's hard to go through other movies.

01:28:05Guest:And then when we were doing it, I'll tell you the story.

01:28:08Guest:You're the only one who knows this.

01:28:09Guest:You want to hear the story?

01:28:10Guest:Yes, that's the setup.

01:28:12Guest:He's writing.

01:28:13Guest:He's got a legal pad.

01:28:14Guest:Yeah.

01:28:16Guest:And he's eating by himself in the commissary.

01:28:18Guest:I couldn't get there.

01:28:19Guest:Who, Gene?

01:28:20Guest:Gene.

01:28:20Guest:Yeah.

01:28:21Guest:Where?

01:28:22Guest:At the studio?

01:28:22Guest:Yeah, in the studio, you know, in Warner Brothers.

01:28:26Guest:So I said, are you busy?

01:28:29Guest:Can I sit down?

01:28:29Guest:He said, sure, sure.

01:28:31Guest:So I brought my tray, you know, and I'm eating.

01:28:36Guest:He's writing, he's making notes.

01:28:37Guest:I said, okay, I am prying.

01:28:41Guest:What the hell?

01:28:42Guest:What are you writing?

01:28:42Guest:What are you doing?

01:28:44Guest:And he said, I have an idea for a movie, and I'm laying it out.

01:28:49Guest:I said, what is it called?

01:28:51Guest:He said, Young Frankenstein.

01:28:54Guest:I said, I like that title.

01:28:57Guest:He said, would you join me?

01:29:01Guest:I said, well...

01:29:03Guest:Tell me the idea.

01:29:03Guest:He said, well, it's very simple.

01:29:06Guest:It's a guy that calls himself Frankenstein because he's ashamed of his grandfather.

01:29:09Guest:He's ashamed of the Frankensteins.

01:29:11Guest:He thinks they're all nuts.

01:29:12Guest:He's a scientist.

01:29:13Guest:He don't want to go along with these.

01:29:16Guest:He says, you know, dead is dead.

01:29:18Guest:You can't reanimate that tissue.

01:29:21Guest:He's a great, you know, and I want to play him.

01:29:24Guest:I said, okay, let's do it.

01:29:26Guest:So he said, all right, I'll...

01:29:31Guest:Can you get me to stay out here?

01:29:33Guest:I said, yeah, I will.

01:29:34Guest:I can.

01:29:34Guest:I'll pay for it.

01:29:36Guest:And he said, okay, I want a bungalow.

01:29:38Guest:Son of a bitch.

01:29:40Guest:He said, I want a bungalow.

01:29:43Guest:He wants a bungalow at the Bel Air.

01:29:46Guest:Give me a tea, an English tea.

01:29:48Guest:Earl Grey?

01:29:49Guest:He wants Earl Grey.

01:29:50Guest:Yeah.

01:29:51Guest:He wants a stash of Earl Grey.

01:29:53Guest:Yeah.

01:29:53Guest:And he wants a big bunch of digestive biscuits.

01:29:58Guest:Yeah.

01:29:59Guest:Every night.

01:30:00Guest:This is the deal.

01:30:01Guest:This is his writer.

01:30:02Guest:And his own bungalow at the Bel Air Hotel.

01:30:07Guest:Okay.

01:30:08Guest:Okay?

01:30:08Guest:Yeah.

01:30:09Guest:I said, okay, I'll arrange it.

01:30:11Guest:And every night for...

01:30:16Guest:About three and a half weeks, every night, we met and we wrote Young Frankenstein.

01:30:24Guest:At the bungalow?

01:30:25Guest:At the bungalow.

01:30:27Guest:We met.

01:30:28Guest:He had his... I had my dinner at home.

01:30:31Guest:He had his dinner at the Bel Air.

01:30:34Guest:And then in the dining room.

01:30:37Guest:And who knows, with people, with friends.

01:30:39Guest:And then he would go to his bungalow and he'd have...

01:30:46Guest:Earl Grey, you know.

01:30:49Guest:And digestive biscuits, whatever.

01:30:52Guest:Ginger, they're kind of a ginger, you know.

01:30:54Guest:They're a wheat kind of ginger.

01:30:56Marc:I know what they are, yeah.

01:30:56Marc:They're like a circle and they're kind of grainy.

01:30:59Guest:Grainy, exactly.

01:31:00Guest:You got it.

01:31:02Guest:And we'd munch on those.

01:31:04Guest:Him more than me.

01:31:07Guest:And we would come up with characters.

01:31:10Guest:And he had an agent called Mike Medavoy who later became an important movie kind of executive and ran TriStar.

01:31:22Guest:He ran studios.

01:31:24Guest:But anyway, at that point, Mike, this is amazing.

01:31:27Guest:So Medavoy handled as an agent Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman,

01:31:35Guest:And Gene Wilder.

01:31:37Guest:The only one he didn't handle, I think, was like Terry Garr, Madeleine Kahn.

01:31:43Guest:I mean, he handled all the important players.

01:31:46Guest:Hackman?

01:31:47Guest:No.

01:31:47Guest:Hackman was a tennis friend of Gene Wilder's.

01:31:51Guest:That scene is like he... I know.

01:31:53Guest:And he said, is there anything for me... Incredibly large, man.

01:31:57Guest:Yeah.

01:32:00Guest:Yeah, and he just volunteered to do it.

01:32:04Guest:He just wanted to do it, yeah.

01:32:05Guest:He volunteered to do it.

01:32:06Guest:He wanted to do it.

01:32:07Guest:So, you know, he was great.

01:32:10Guest:You know, one take.

01:32:11Guest:I mean, he was incredible.

01:32:14Marc:So that's the writing process.

01:32:16Guest:That's the writing process.

01:32:17Guest:Now, so Gene and I, I said, we're kind of bonded.

01:32:23Guest:So we go with Mike Gruskopf, who's the producer, to Columbia.

01:32:27Guest:We made a deal at Columbia, and we made it for $1.750, not yet, not $2 million.

01:32:36Guest:And we went over.

01:32:37Guest:I said, let's go over it carefully.

01:32:39Guest:I'm very good with budgets, very good with making a movie for a given budget.

01:32:43Guest:And so is Gene.

01:32:44Guest:He can do things in one take.

01:32:46Guest:So we said, now we're going to need two, maybe two-two, maybe even two-four to really make this right.

01:32:53Guest:He said, why?

01:32:54Guest:I said, the sets, the gadgetry, the sweating stone, it's got to be big.

01:33:01Guest:So the comedy works against hard stuff.

01:33:05Guest:So we tell Columbia this.

01:33:10Guest:The truth is we're going to need.

01:33:12Guest:So there's big fighting, and we have a big meeting with the Schneiders, with all the people running Columbia at that time.

01:33:18Guest:And they said, OK, OK, we'll consider two million tops.

01:33:25Guest:We'll consider.

01:33:26Guest:We can't let you know now.

01:33:28Guest:And then we got to the door.

01:33:30Guest:And I turned back to the, these are the big shots running Columbia.

01:33:35Guest:I said, oh, by the way, we're going to make it in black and white.

01:33:38Guest:And then I left.

01:33:41Guest:They all screamed, chased me down the hall and got me back in.

01:33:45Guest:They said, it's impossible.

01:33:46Guest:Peru just got color.

01:33:47Guest:What are you talking about?

01:33:50Guest:What are you, crazy?

01:33:51Guest:What are you, nuts?

01:33:53Marc:No one had really done that, right?

01:33:54Guest:No, no, no.

01:33:55Guest:Nobody made anything in black and white.

01:33:57Marc:When did Bogdanovich do that thing?

01:33:59Guest:I don't know, maybe some, you know, but it was still, it was still.

01:34:03Marc:It was experimental.

01:34:04Guest:It was bizarre.

01:34:05Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:34:05Guest:They didn't want to do it.

01:34:06Marc:Right.

01:34:07Guest:And so, you know, we were there for another hour and they, you know, and they said, Columbia said, you know, you know, this might be a deal breaker.

01:34:21Guest:Yeah.

01:34:21Guest:Okay, well, meet us again tomorrow at noon, you know, we'll get sandwiches, we'll talk.

01:34:27Guest:So, you know,

01:34:29Guest:That night, Michael Gruskopf called Alan Ladd Jr., who has just taken over 20th Century Fox as the studio chief.

01:34:39Marc:Right.

01:34:40Marc:Did you know his father?

01:34:42Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:34:42Marc:I mean... As an actor.

01:34:44Guest:Just to salute him and say hello.

01:34:46Right.

01:34:47Guest:Shane, Shane.

01:34:49Marc:So anyway.

01:34:51Marc:Was he dead riding away or was he not?

01:34:53Guest:No.

01:34:54Marc:All right.

01:34:55Guest:Not at all.

01:34:56Marc:Some people speculate about that.

01:34:58Guest:No, he was fine.

01:34:59Marc:Okay.

01:35:00Guest:So I got that for the end of Blazing Saddles.

01:35:05Guest:I have other bad guys to conquer.

01:35:08Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:35:09Guest:So anyway...

01:35:12Guest:Laddie reads it.

01:35:14Guest:Something like 2 or 3 in the morning, he calls Kroskow and he says, we got to make this.

01:35:20Guest:Kroskow says it might be 2-2, 2-4.

01:35:22Guest:He's fine.

01:35:24Guest:It's going to be black and white.

01:35:25Guest:Laddie says it should be black and white.

01:35:27Guest:It should be in black and white.

01:35:29Guest:If you're going to do a satire.

01:35:29Guest:Did they not get it?

01:35:31Marc:What you were trying to do?

01:35:32Guest:No.

01:35:33Marc:It's like the movie's a satire of that.

01:35:36Guest:So...

01:35:39Guest:We waited patiently.

01:35:40Guest:Columbia finally said it's a deal, but they couldn't do it in black and white.

01:35:45Guest:They would have to pass on the movie.

01:35:49Guest:And the next day we set up a 20th Century Fox.

01:35:52Guest:I started auditioning set designers, costume designers, wranglers.

01:36:02Marc:Of course, Weichmann.

01:36:03Guest:Not wranglers, but we actually went to a garage in Santa Monica where the guy who had done

01:36:14Guest:The James Whale Frankenstein still had his... All his equipment, all that crazy... All that shit from the original set?

01:36:25Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:36:26Guest:And he gave it to us.

01:36:29Marc:That's all from the original Frankenstein?

01:36:30Marc:He gave it to us.

01:36:31Marc:That's hilarious.

01:36:33Marc:And you guys, you directed it, but you both wrote it, and you fought a little bit?

01:36:38Guest:We fought desperately on... I didn't want to do... I was so wrong.

01:36:43Guest:I said, no, if we do putting on the wrist... A musical number.

01:36:46Guest:If we do a musical, we'll tear it.

01:36:48Guest:It's beautiful.

01:36:49Guest:It's pristine.

01:36:50Marc:I had that the other way.

01:36:51Marc:I thought you would have been the one that... No, no.

01:36:53Guest:It was Gene.

01:36:54Guest:And he said... And finally one day I came in and said, I'll shoot it.

01:37:00Guest:I'll shoot it.

01:37:01Guest:We'll see.

01:37:02Guest:And he said, well, why did you...

01:37:05Guest:I said, because you were so passionate, so insistent, and you so saw it that I said, there must be something.

01:37:15Guest:So I said, okay, I'll shoot it.

01:37:16Marc:I can't imagine.

01:37:18Marc:Was he volcanic?

01:37:21Guest:Everybody gave me.

01:37:23Guest:He was volcanic.

01:37:24Guest:He was nuts.

01:37:25Guest:But everybody gave me credit.

01:37:27Guest:And the truth is, it was Gene Wilder all the while, who is crazier than I am.

01:37:33Marc:Is he?

01:37:33Marc:He's crazier than I am.

01:37:35Marc:Did the relationship between him and Pryor happen on Blazing Saddles, you know, between Gene and Richard?

01:37:40Marc:I mean, because they did several movies together.

01:37:43Marc:No, I don't think they ever met each other.

01:37:46Marc:What was your relationship with Richard?

01:37:48Marc:I mean, did it go back?

01:37:49Guest:I knew Richard when he was a kid, and I was a kid at the Village Vanguard.

01:37:54Marc:What were you doing there?

01:37:55Marc:You were doing stand-up there?

01:37:56Guest:He was doing stand-up.

01:37:58Guest:I was writing the show of shows.

01:38:00Guest:So you'd go down there and watch... So I'd go down there, and, you know, I'd encourage them, and, you know...

01:38:04Marc:That was when he was, before he became... I told him how beautiful he was.

01:38:08Guest:When I asked him to write Blazing Saddles, he did it immediately.

01:38:11Guest:We all had bagels and lox for breakfast.

01:38:13Guest:He had Remy Martin.

01:38:14Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:38:14Guest:Drink Remy Martin.

01:38:15Marc:Yeah, were you concerned about him?

01:38:17Marc:I always wonder about that.

01:38:18Marc:Always.

01:38:18Marc:Yeah.

01:38:19Guest:I always knew there was... I used to say to him, Richard...

01:38:26Guest:too many blondes, too much coke.

01:38:31Guest:Find another path.

01:38:33Guest:Really, I would say, let's find another path.

01:38:36Guest:I said, maybe I can turn you into a gambler.

01:38:39Guest:I'll take you to Vegas.

01:38:40Guest:It's a different path.

01:38:41Marc:Didn't take.

01:38:45Guest:I loved him.

01:38:46Guest:He was the best stand-up guy that ever lived.

01:38:47Marc:I think that's true.

01:38:48Guest:I don't think anybody who's funnier would stand up because he was almighty truth.

01:38:53Guest:Everything was...

01:38:55Marc:It's just stretching the truth.

01:38:57Marc:And the vulnerability of it.

01:38:59Marc:Jesus, I mean, you know, he felt so present and so, like, you know, like, really kind of wrong.

01:39:05Guest:You're right.

01:39:05Guest:Mark, you're right.

01:39:06Guest:That's a good word, the vulnerability.

01:39:09Guest:You know, like, he was so super sensitive about... Yeah.

01:39:12Guest:About...

01:39:13Guest:love and human behavior and what people are to each other and what they mean and how important caring about each other is.

01:39:22Guest:It's all in his monologues.

01:39:24Marc:Yeah, fascinating.

01:39:26Marc:So you did all these movies.

01:39:29Marc:Those are all the awards over there.

01:39:32Guest:My son, I have a son who's famous.

01:39:35Marc:Max.

01:39:36Guest:Yeah.

01:39:37Guest:He likes the one I got for science fiction.

01:39:44Marc:So what's up there?

01:39:45Guest:This is called the Saturn, by the way.

01:39:46Marc:The Saturn.

01:39:47Guest:Saturn, very important.

01:39:48Marc:Yeah.

01:39:48High five.

01:39:49Marc:There's what, three Emmys up there?

01:39:52Well, just a few.

01:39:53Marc:Yeah, there's three Emmys up here.

01:39:54Guest:Grammys.

01:39:54There's three Grammys up here.

01:39:56Marc:Where's the Oscars?

01:39:58Marc:The Oscars are home.

01:40:00Marc:They're dangerous.

01:40:01Oh, okay, yeah.

01:40:01Marc:I got two Oscars, but they could... They could hurt somebody.

01:40:04Marc:Yeah, they could disappear.

01:40:07Marc:Yeah.

01:40:07Marc:Oh, you mean they could... They're worth some money, huh?

01:40:09Marc:You don't know who comes in and out of here.

01:40:11Guest:Right.

01:40:11Marc:You know.

01:40:11Marc:Your production company, you know, you did some interesting movies that you didn't put your name on originally.

01:40:17Marc:And I was curious about... What, you got something over there from that?

01:40:21Marc:Yeah, yeah, The Elephant Man.

01:40:23Marc:And you did The Fly.

01:40:24Marc:Did you do The Fly?

01:40:25Marc:Yeah, I did The Fly.

01:40:25Marc:And you did Francis.

01:40:27Guest:Story of Francis Farmer.

01:40:29Marc:Yeah, but what... Because, like, I can't imagine that you looked at The Elephant Man.

01:40:33Marc:See, I was trying to think, like, what in your heart is, you know, I imagine that David Lynch had to sit with you and tell you what he wanted to do.

01:40:43Guest:Right?

01:40:43Marc:Not at all.

01:40:44Marc:He didn't.

01:40:45Guest:He was...

01:40:48Guest:We had finished one draft of it before I even thought of David Lynch.

01:40:54Guest:David Lynch, there's a guy called Stuart Kornfeld that was my assistant.

01:40:59Guest:I know that guy.

01:41:00Marc:Was he become a big executive or something?

01:41:02Guest:He became a big executive.

01:41:04Guest:He works for Ben Stiller.

01:41:06Guest:And he creates movies for Ben and works with Ben.

01:41:08Guest:Right, right, that's right.

01:41:09Marc:That's how I know him, yeah.

01:41:10Guest:He's a great guy.

01:41:11Guest:Yeah.

01:41:12Guest:He's really a great guy.

01:41:14Guest:And he said, and he was working for me,

01:41:16Marc:As a kid?

01:41:17Guest:Yeah, as a kid.

01:41:18Guest:Yeah.

01:41:18Guest:You know, and he said, I said, well, I'm thinking, you know.

01:41:24Marc:What attracted you to it?

01:41:27Guest:I read the script and I was... I got all teary.

01:41:30Guest:It was very touchy.

01:41:32Guest:Yeah.

01:41:32Guest:That he was so... That this elephant man, so afflicted and yet so saluting life and the theater and so thinking that life was grand and yet on the verge of dying every day and being the most...

01:41:53Guest:horrendous looking and grotesque looking human being in the world and still having such love of good things, of lovely things.

01:42:10Guest:It was just heartbreaking.

01:42:12Guest:And I thought I could see it.

01:42:14Guest:I said, this could be a wonderful movie.

01:42:17Marc:But you didn't want to direct it.

01:42:18Guest:No, I couldn't direct it because if I put the name Mel Brooks there, they'd say, oh, the alpha man, let's see the trunk.

01:42:24Guest:There's no way.

01:42:27Guest:I had painted myself into a corner.

01:42:30Guest:I became a very famous comedy guy.

01:42:34Guest:And I couldn't, there's no way to shake it.

01:42:37Guest:Yeah.

01:42:38Guest:No way to shake it.

01:42:39Guest:Yeah.

01:42:39Guest:You know, had I done it after 12 chairs, I could have done it.

01:42:42Guest:Right.

01:42:43Guest:I still was on a good track.

01:42:46Guest:Right.

01:42:47Guest:But then it turned out to be, you know, John Hurt was incredibly good and talented.

01:42:58Guest:He was really.

01:42:59Guest:And then Stuart, the aforementioned Stuart Kornfeld said, I want you to see a movie.

01:43:05Guest:And he took me to the new art.

01:43:07Guest:Yeah.

01:43:10Guest:And there was a movie playing called Eraserhead.

01:43:12Guest:Eraserhead, yeah.

01:43:13Guest:The weird movie.

01:43:14Marc:It's a weird movie, yeah.

01:43:15Guest:And I said, Stuart, this is a good movie.

01:43:18Guest:This is a good director.

01:43:20Marc:You liked the way it looked.

01:43:21Guest:I really loved the way it looked.

01:43:22Marc:Yeah.

01:43:23Guest:And I loved the philosophy of it.

01:43:25Uh-huh.

01:43:26Guest:I said it's symbolism that is very understandable, even though it's symbolic.

01:43:35Guest:It's completely clear and understandable that baby is a monster.

01:43:40Guest:A baby will toss you into hell.

01:43:44Guest:And I know it.

01:43:44Guest:I've had three babies, four babies altogether.

01:43:47Guest:So...

01:43:49Marc:You have that many kids?

01:43:50Marc:I have four kids.

01:43:52Guest:Three wonderful kids in the New York area.

01:43:56Guest:One up in Ithaca.

01:43:58Guest:One here.

01:43:59Guest:And one here.

01:43:59Guest:Max is here.

01:44:01Guest:And anyway...

01:44:04Guest:We worked diligently on the script, and then I could only meet David Lynch at Bob's Big Boy in Burbank.

01:44:14Guest:It was crazy.

01:44:15Marc:That's what he wanted.

01:44:16Guest:That's what he wanted.

01:44:17Guest:He said, I'm comfortable, and that's what I eat.

01:44:20Guest:So he had a hamburger and a maltard and a milkshake.

01:44:24Marc:Did you ever say, why are we here?

01:44:29Guest:I did.

01:44:30Guest:He said, I don't eat lunch.

01:44:32Guest:He said, if it's going to be lunch, this is where I eat.

01:44:38Guest:I'm not making that up.

01:44:39Guest:I don't know if he's ever changed.

01:44:41Guest:I think maybe he lives in Maine or something.

01:44:43Guest:He lives in different places.

01:44:45Guest:He just got an award from AFI the same day I did.

01:44:49Guest:We gained doctorates.

01:44:52Guest:I came out with a stethoscope thinking I could really be a doctor.

01:44:56Marc:Finally.

01:44:56Guest:And they said, no, you're not really a doctor, you're a doctorate.

01:45:03Guest:Anyway, so David, I bought David a blue coat because it was chilly in London when he was rehearsing before he shot the first day.

01:45:11Guest:It was all done in London.

01:45:14Guest:He never took the coat off.

01:45:16Guest:Double breasted, dark blue coat.

01:45:19Marc:Maybe it was his magic coat.

01:45:20Guest:Blue coat, it was his magic coat.

01:45:22Guest:He never took it off.

01:45:23Guest:He directed in that, every day, in that blue coat.

01:45:29Guest:I had no qualms.

01:45:30Guest:I knew he would.

01:45:32Guest:The only thing he did that scared me, he said he wanted to make.

01:45:35Marc:He said he wanted to do it in black and white.

01:45:37Guest:No, he said he wanted to make the mask.

01:45:40Guest:The molding from the death mask of the alpha man.

01:45:44Guest:He wanted to put it on.

01:45:46Guest:He wanted to do it for John Hurt.

01:45:49Guest:And I said, no, it's three and a half hours of makeup.

01:45:52Guest:You don't have time for that.

01:45:54Guest:You don't have time for that.

01:45:55Guest:It was more.

01:45:56Guest:It was six hours of makeup.

01:45:58Marc:And he talked you into it.

01:45:59Marc:and I know I wouldn't let him do it but he did sketch it oh so he you got what the facsimile yeah yeah I think it's a masterpiece really don't you it's a great great movie and what what attracted you to the fly I mean that's another sort of heartbreaking that was Stuart Stuart all the way oh yeah Kornfeld said look

01:46:21Guest:We're here at Fox.

01:46:22Guest:Yeah.

01:46:23Guest:They own the Vincent Price, you know.

01:46:25Guest:I said, it's a joke, Stuart.

01:46:27Guest:The fly, I mean, he actually says, the fly says, hip me, hip me, in a southern accent.

01:46:34Guest:I mean, it's ridiculous, you know.

01:46:36Guest:I said, you can't, we can't.

01:46:37Guest:He said, well... He wanted to remake this seriously.

01:46:41Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:46:42Guest:And I said, he said one word, Stuart said.

01:46:46Guest:He said, let's...

01:46:49Guest:He already had a director for me.

01:46:53Guest:David Cronenberg.

01:46:55Guest:He had David in the wings.

01:46:58Guest:He said, I've been talking to David.

01:47:00Guest:And he said...

01:47:05Guest:Metamorphosis.

01:47:06Guest:Mm-hmm.

01:47:08Guest:I said, oh.

01:47:10Guest:Kafka?

01:47:11Guest:Kafka.

01:47:12Guest:Yeah.

01:47:13Guest:I said, oh, my God.

01:47:15Guest:Metamorphosis.

01:47:18Guest:We can do the fly.

01:47:20Guest:It won't be silly as a guy walking into a chamber and walking out with the head of a fly.

01:47:26Guest:Yeah.

01:47:26Guest:You know?

01:47:28Guest:It'll be a slow process that we will see evolve little by little.

01:47:35Guest:Mm-hmm.

01:47:35Guest:until he's no longer a human being, until the genes go the fly way instead of the human way.

01:47:44Guest:I said, I think now we have to work on the script and we have to, you know, so Cronenberg, we all met and Goldblum says, I want you to do me a favor.

01:47:54Guest:I want you to audition a girl, my girlfriend.

01:47:57Guest:So he said she's tall, she's beautiful, she's a good actress.

01:48:02Guest:I think she'd be very good for the leading lady, you know, the girl.

01:48:09Guest:And the fly.

01:48:12Guest:So I said, okay.

01:48:13Guest:I said to Cronenberg, let's look at her.

01:48:15Guest:Come on.

01:48:16Guest:We got Jeff to play the lead.

01:48:18Guest:Yeah.

01:48:20Guest:So she auditions, Geena Davis.

01:48:22Guest:Yeah.

01:48:22Guest:And we said, gee, she's beautiful and she's touching and, you know.

01:48:26Marc:And she's having sex with him.

01:48:27Guest:It's a win-win.

01:48:28Guest:Yeah, it'll be a win-win and we can pay her scale.

01:48:30Guest:Everything is scale.

01:48:32Guest:Yeah.

01:48:32Guest:Why not?

01:48:33Guest:So we hired Geena Davis.

01:48:34Guest:She was wonderful.

01:48:35Marc:And then Francis, I'm just curious about these movies, a thematic struggle.

01:48:39Guest:Francis came from Christopher DeVore and Eric Berggren.

01:48:42Guest:They just swept along.

01:48:44Guest:It was their next script.

01:48:46Marc:So this is just a circumstance.

01:48:47Guest:Story of Francis Farmer.

01:48:48Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:48:49Guest:And I said, I love it.

01:48:50Guest:I read the script and I said, this is horrible and wonderful.

01:48:54Marc:Did you know her?

01:48:55Marc:No.

01:48:56Guest:I only knew her from... From movies?

01:48:58Marc:From legend, you know.

01:48:59Marc:movies and then you did the other one with uh with your wife the other big movie 84 chairing crossroads with anthony hopkins and it was a beautiful yeah well it's based on a book yeah yeah and you know the book was good and the movie was good and you know

01:49:16Marc:So when you sit there, like you did the... I mean, like you had the producers with the play.

01:49:20Marc:That was big.

01:49:21Marc:That was surprising, huh?

01:49:23Marc:For you?

01:49:23Marc:Yeah.

01:49:24Marc:You had no idea, right?

01:49:25Guest:No.

01:49:26Guest:You know, I was having fun.

01:49:27Guest:Yeah.

01:49:27Guest:I was really just having... I didn't... You know, I had no idea it would be a hit.

01:49:31Guest:Yeah.

01:49:31Guest:I thought, well, maybe it'll run for... You know?

01:49:34Guest:Yeah.

01:49:35Guest:It'll be fun.

01:49:36Guest:Yeah.

01:49:37Guest:And you... You know, what do you live for?

01:49:39Guest:Yeah.

01:49:40Guest:You know, you live... Occasionally, you live for a grilled cheese sandwich and fun.

01:49:44Marc:Yep.

01:49:44Guest:You know?

01:49:45Guest:Yeah.

01:49:45Marc:Hell of a career there, Mr. Brooks.

01:49:48Guest:Yeah, so far.

01:49:50Guest:I may go in another direction.

01:49:52Marc:Yeah, take your time.

01:49:53Marc:Think it through.

01:49:53Guest:Yeah, I may go in another direction.

01:49:55Guest:You know, I'm thinking, you know, maybe, you know, I haven't done anything personally in sports.

01:50:03Guest:Oh.

01:50:04Guest:So I was thinking maybe I should own a team.

01:50:09Guest:Yeah.

01:50:11Marc:Why don't you put together a team of all Jewish somethings?

01:50:13Marc:Yeah, right.

01:50:14Right.

01:50:14Marc:You know, oh, good, we'll call them the Maccabees and we'll see what happens, you know?

01:50:18Marc:But what do you think about now?

01:50:19Marc:I mean, like, when you look back at the whole thing or in the moments where you're just sort of nostalgic, what are the things that sort of, you know, I mean, I know you lost your wife and that's hard.

01:50:29Guest:That's difficult.

01:50:29Guest:So I don't really indulge myself in thinking of yesteryear because, you know, I think about my wife.

01:50:38Guest:You know, frankly, it's a little...

01:50:41Guest:a little too painful, you know, to get down to details.

01:50:45Guest:I go on and, you know, and try to, you know, I have friends, comics, you know, I talk comedy, I see Carl, I go up, I visit with Sid once in a while, even though that is very painful, but still he was a giant, you know, and I want to salute him and I want to keep him, give him some measure of respect and happiness, you know, anything I could do.

01:51:11Guest:And I see people like... I'm working on a horror film with Rudy DeLuca and Haberman.

01:51:23Guest:Haberman and DeLuca are... It's a real one.

01:51:26Guest:It's a real horror film for Brooks Films.

01:51:29Guest:And it's called Pizza Man.

01:51:31Guest:And it's very good.

01:51:32Guest:Scary?

01:51:33Guest:It's very scary.

01:51:35Guest:So I'm busy.

01:51:36Guest:I'll produce... And you got the grandkids?

01:51:38Marc:How many grandkids you got?

01:51:40Guest:Two.

01:51:40Guest:I have a beautiful granddaughter, my son Eddie's daughter.

01:51:44Guest:Her name is Samantha.

01:51:46Guest:And she does, she plays and stuff.

01:51:50Guest:She goes to children's professional school in New York.

01:51:53Guest:And she's very talented.

01:51:55Guest:That's good.

01:51:55Guest:She can dance.

01:51:55Guest:She can sing.

01:51:56Guest:She's 14.

01:51:57Marc:Have you found yourself getting Jewy?

01:51:59Guest:No, not particularly.

01:52:03Guest:I was never too Jewy.

01:52:04Guest:Everybody thinks of me as one of the prominent Jews in show business, and yet my mother got us ham sandwiches when we were kids, and I was very happily married to an Italian for 45 years.

01:52:22Marc:But you don't find yourself spiritual as time goes?

01:52:25Guest:No, not particularly, but I do admire and love Jews.

01:52:28Guest:I do.

01:52:30Guest:They're very brave people.

01:52:33Guest:I'm not that religious, but as...

01:52:38Guest:A Jew in a tribe or something, I really admire their gallantry, their courage, their contributions.

01:52:49Guest:I mean, how they survived.

01:52:53Guest:And I always mention it in my movies.

01:52:55Guest:I'll always bring up something like the Inquisition.

01:52:58Guest:The Inquisition, what a show.

01:53:01Guest:I'm ready to bring these things up.

01:53:03Marc:I think most of American Judaism is cultural more than religious.

01:53:08Marc:It's a fascinating thing to me.

01:53:10Guest:I've never hit it.

01:53:12Guest:I'm not ashamed.

01:53:13Guest:I'm very proud.

01:53:15Guest:I would say you're the opposite of ashamed.

01:53:19Guest:It's a little too flagrant.

01:53:22Marc:No, it's great.

01:53:24Marc:I appreciate you doing this with me.

01:53:26Marc:You're good.

01:53:27Marc:I appreciate that.

01:53:28Guest:I watch your stuff.

01:53:28Guest:I listen to you.

01:53:30Guest:I checked up on you.

01:53:31Guest:Yeah, I passed.

01:53:32Guest:You passed.

01:53:34Guest:You're good.

01:53:35Guest:Thank you.

01:53:36Guest:You're in the 90s.

01:53:37Guest:You're smart.

01:53:38Guest:You're talented.

01:53:39Guest:You're with it.

01:53:40Marc:Well, thank you, Mr. Brooks.

01:53:42Guest:It wasn't easy being on Conan.

01:53:43Guest:He's smart.

01:53:44Guest:He's quick.

01:53:45Marc:We develop a rapport, you know.

01:53:46Marc:I always appreciate, you know, when I watch the guys like you on Carson or whatever, that, like, early on with Conan, I'd established a panel presence.

01:53:56Marc:I did stand-up maybe twice the first year he was on.

01:53:59Marc:And then from then, it was three or four times, but I'd come sit, and we've developed the dynamic, you know, like how you had... Yeah, exactly.

01:54:06Guest:You're wonderful.

01:54:07Marc:Where he's like, oh, here goes, what's... Yeah.

01:54:10Marc:That kind of thing.

01:54:11Marc:I love that.

01:54:11Marc:Yeah, me too.

01:54:12Guest:It's fun.

01:54:12Guest:I was the most comfortable...

01:54:14Guest:with anybody, with Johnny Carson, I mean.

01:54:18Guest:Johnny Carson was an incredible, Johnny Carson was an ordii.

01:54:22Guest:He was not playing vocal ping pong with you.

01:54:27Guest:He was like a deer in the headlight.

01:54:29Guest:You were on, he was fixated.

01:54:31Guest:He couldn't get enough of you.

01:54:34Guest:That doesn't happen anymore.

01:54:35Guest:And he laughed, he'd fall down, I'd lose him.

01:54:38Guest:Suddenly he wasn't behind his desk anymore.

01:54:40Guest:He'd be on the floor.

01:54:42Guest:Isn't that great?

01:54:43Guest:It was so, I mean, you know, you can't get more appreciation and love than that.

01:54:49Marc:But just to have a connected host who was selfless enough to not steal the stage and also listen enough to laugh.

01:54:57Guest:Yeah, really laugh.

01:54:58Guest:Right.

01:54:58Guest:Really, you know.

01:55:00Guest:It's a different thing.

01:55:01Guest:I could do anything.

01:55:02Guest:One day I was on talking to him, and for some reason he had a pair of scissors on the desk.

01:55:07Guest:Yeah.

01:55:09Guest:So I cut his tie off.

01:55:11Yeah.

01:55:12Guest:And then he took the scissors.

01:55:14Guest:He cut the flap off my pocket.

01:55:19Guest:And then we turned each other into shreds.

01:55:22Guest:And that was the whole thing?

01:55:24Guest:That was the whole thing.

01:55:24Guest:And we were hysterical.

01:55:25Guest:You like Albert Brooks?

01:55:27Guest:I love Albert Brooks.

01:55:28Guest:He's brave.

01:55:30Marc:He's brave.

01:55:31Marc:You are too.

01:55:32Marc:Take it over the top.

01:55:33Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:55:35Marc:But do you remember him when he was a kid?

01:55:37Marc:Yeah.

01:55:38Guest:Carl, you ought to interview Carl Reiner.

01:55:40Marc:I should have already, I should have.

01:55:41Guest:Carl remembers him when he was a kid and all the crazy, Carl remembers all the crazy things he did because he was Carl's son's best friend and they used to hang out and do things together.

01:55:51Guest:Was his father an entertainer too?

01:55:53Guest:Or was that like... Yes, his father was Parky Karkis.

01:55:56Guest:Yeah.

01:55:57Guest:That's a Greek name, you know.

01:55:59Marc:Yeah.

01:56:00Guest:On the Eddie Cantor show, Eddie Cantor radio show.

01:56:03Marc:All right, so what happens now?

01:56:05Marc:What do you do the rest of the day?

01:56:07Guest:I've got to make some calls.

01:56:08Guest:I stopped everything because I could be with you.

01:56:13Guest:Thank you very much.

01:56:14Guest:I've got a dozen calls I've got to make and get back.

01:56:17Marc:Well, thanks again, and I'll let you know when we put this up, and you can try to figure out how to listen to it.

01:56:22Marc:When are you going to put it up?

01:56:24Marc:I don't know.

01:56:24Marc:I've got to ask my guy.

01:56:25Guest:What do you mean your guy?

01:56:27Guest:You mean the Gentile who knows how to work the machine?

01:56:30Marc:Exactly.

01:56:31Guest:Yeah.

01:56:32Marc:I'll let you know when I talk to my guy.

01:56:34Guest:Yeah.

01:56:35Guest:My guy.

01:56:35Guest:I like that.

01:56:36Guest:My guy.

01:56:37Guest:He's got a power screwdriver.

01:56:38Guest:Zip.

01:56:39Guest:The screw is in.

01:56:39Guest:Bang.

01:56:40Guest:It's amazing.

01:56:40Guest:It's a miracle.

01:56:41Guest:Yeah.

01:56:41Guest:Look, he takes screws out.

01:56:42Guest:Zip.

01:56:42Guest:They come out.

01:56:43Guest:Yeah.

01:56:43Guest:I'll let you know.

01:56:44Guest:I'll talk to my guy.

01:56:45Guest:All right.

01:56:46Guest:All right.

01:56:54All right.

01:56:58Marc:I mean, I mean, I was look, I was I was beside myself, but I was very comfortable.

01:57:04Marc:I don't know if you know, when you grow up a Jew and you grow up around Jews, there's something very familiar about being around Jewish people.

01:57:12Marc:But it's very interesting to be as familiar as I felt with Mel, not only because of his his movies, but just because of some sort of, you know, heritage thing, but also being completely in awe and overwhelmed and ecstatic and having to manage that.

01:57:27Marc:At the same time, simultaneously.

01:57:29Marc:So listen, a couple of things you should know.

01:57:33Marc:After the interview, he goes, you're good.

01:57:35Marc:You're very good.

01:57:35Marc:You should have a show on late night television.

01:57:37Marc:And I said, that'd be great.

01:57:39Marc:Maybe you should make some phone calls.

01:57:40Marc:He says, you got to talk to Carl.

01:57:42Marc:And I'm like, I would love to talk to Carl.

01:57:44Marc:He says, Carl, you have to.

01:57:46Marc:I'm going to set it up.

01:57:47Marc:You're going to talk to Carl.

01:57:48Marc:And I go, okay, how is Carl?

01:57:50Marc:And Mel Brooks looks at me and he goes, he's about 80%.

01:57:54Marc:I said, he's all right.

01:57:55Marc:He said, yeah, he's 80%.

01:57:57Marc:And I'm like, okay, that sounds good.

01:57:59Marc:You know, we'll set it up.

01:58:00Marc:That'd be great.

01:58:02Marc:And then I'm walking out.

01:58:03Marc:I go, thank you, Mr. Brooks.

01:58:04Marc:I appreciate it.

01:58:05Marc:He goes, let me walk you out.

01:58:06Marc:And I'm like, okay.

01:58:07Marc:So we were on the second floor.

01:58:09Marc:He walks me out of the office and walks me down the hallway.

01:58:11Marc:And I'm like, okay, thank you.

01:58:12Marc:He goes, yeah, you know what?

01:58:13Marc:I'm going to walk you down.

01:58:15Marc:So then he walks me downstairs and I'm about to walk out of the building.

01:58:18Marc:Goes, you know what?

01:58:19Marc:I'll walk you outside.

01:58:20Marc:Okay.

01:58:21Marc:And I'm like, great, okay.

01:58:22Marc:So we walk outside and we're standing there.

01:58:23Marc:I'm like, all right, well, thank you.

01:58:24Marc:He goes, where are you parked?

01:58:26Marc:I go, I'm in the parking lot.

01:58:28Marc:He goes, yeah, you know what?

01:58:29Marc:I'll walk you to your car.

01:58:31Marc:And we walk out to the parking lot and I'm standing there with Mel Brooks and he says, which car is yours?

01:58:37Marc:And I go, it's a Camry.

01:58:39Marc:He goes, oh, I thought it was this one.

01:58:41Marc:And he points at this Bentley he's standing next to.

01:58:43Marc:I thought it was this one.

01:58:44Marc:I wouldn't have walked you out for a Camry.

01:58:47Marc:And then he goes, which Camry is it?

01:58:49Marc:Is that one over there?

01:58:50Marc:I go, no.

01:58:50Marc:And he goes, I said, it's this one here.

01:58:52Marc:And I point at my car.

01:58:54Marc:And I go, all right, thank you.

01:58:56Marc:All right, it's nice to see you.

01:58:57Marc:I had a great time.

01:58:57Marc:I appreciate you taking the time.

01:58:59Marc:And he goes, what do you think?

01:59:00Marc:I'm going to watch you put your stuff in your car.

01:59:02Marc:Put your stuff in your car.

01:59:04Marc:So I put my boom in, I put my bag in and I go, okay.

01:59:07Marc:He goes, good.

01:59:08Marc:That's all.

01:59:09Marc:I just wanted to, you know, I wanted to make sure you got in your car.

01:59:12Marc:All right.

01:59:12Marc:And I'm like, all right.

01:59:13Marc:Okay.

01:59:13Marc:Well, thank you very much.

01:59:14Marc:He goes, you should be on television late night talk show.

01:59:17Marc:I said, okay, you make some calls.

01:59:19Marc:Are you going to set this up with Carl?

01:59:22Marc:And he goes, yes, I will.

01:59:23Marc:I'm going to set it up with Carl.

01:59:25Marc:He's about 80%.

01:59:26Marc:I'm like, okay, I'm good.

01:59:28Marc:I'm good with that.

01:59:29Marc:I'm looking forward to it.

01:59:31Marc:So stay tuned for Thursday, and I will give you the other side.

01:59:35Marc:There's more to this story, people, and I think you'll enjoy it.

01:59:40Marc:In the meantime, you go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.

01:59:43Marc:Get on the mailing list.

01:59:44Marc:Get the app.

01:59:45Marc:Upgrade to the premium app.

01:59:47Marc:Kick in a few shekels if you want.

01:59:49Marc:Leave some comments.

01:59:50Marc:Buy some merch.

01:59:52Marc:Look around.

01:59:52Marc:Check my calendar wherever you are to see if I'm coming near you.

01:59:56Marc:And thank you again, Mel Brooks.

01:59:58Marc:OK, so I'm just going to leave you with that.

02:00:00Marc:OK, I'm going to leave you with that stuff.

02:00:02Marc:And, you know, of course, Boomer lives and no guitar today.

02:00:06Marc:Look forward to having you back for the Carl Reiner talk.

02:00:09Marc:OK, thank you again, Mr. Brooks.