Episode 359 - Carl Reiner
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fuckenetics?
Marc:What the fuck me's?
Marc:That seemed like an easy one.
Marc:I never got that one.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:If you are just listening for the first time because you heard the Mel Brooks episode on Monday and someone led you there and now you're going to listen to Carl Reiner and perhaps you're somewhere within that age range that doesn't enjoy the F word, I'm sorry I've already offended you.
Marc:But this is the way the show goes.
Marc:It's my choice.
Marc:That is the title of the show.
Marc:Somehow or another, that word doesn't bother me as much as it bothers some people.
Marc:But I'm really just saying this to genuinely set a stage here for some people that may not listen to my show, but are looking forward to listening to Carl Reiner.
Marc:And now we're asking themselves, why would Carl do a show?
Marc:where the gentleman hosting the show has a filthy mouth.
Marc:He's filthy.
Marc:He said the F thing.
Marc:And I don't know why somebody like Carl Reiner would be involved with something like this.
Marc:It's got nothing to do with him.
Marc:I talked to him.
Marc:This is my own choice.
Marc:I was very polite with Mr. Reiner.
Marc:I want to say that.
Marc:And the reason I say this is because my grandma Goldie, who passed away many years ago when I first did my HBO special and had her friends over to her house in Boca to sit around and watch her grandson on television, watched that show.
Marc:And when I called her and asked her what she thought about it, she goes, why did you have to be so filthy?
Marc:And it broke my heart.
Marc:And I'd like to make up for that somehow.
Marc:But clearly, the intro of this show is not the way to do it.
Marc:And anything after that is...
Marc:There's no indicator that I'm making up for it.
Marc:So those of you who listen to my show know that I had Mel Brooks on and it was an amazing conversation.
Marc:And I sort of talked about a story that is unfolding that involves me, Mel Brooks, and Carl Reiner that was one of the most spectacular moments of my life and show business.
Marc:And this is the second part of this story.
Marc:We'll conclude at the end of the Carl Reiner episode.
Marc:I'll give you some more detail.
Marc:But let me set this up a little bit for you.
Marc:So I interview Mel Brooks and we have a good time.
Marc:You heard it.
Marc:We take a liking to each other.
Marc:I always liked him, but he had no idea who I was and he ended up liking me and we had a nice time.
Marc:He walked me out to my car.
Marc:It was all very charming and funny.
Marc:And he says, I'm going to set you up with Carl.
Marc:And as you recall, I said, how is Carl?
Marc:And Mel said, well, he's about 80 percent.
Marc:And I said, oh, well, that's good.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:You know, he's hanging on.
Marc:Everybody's good.
Marc:And you'll hear in the Carl Reiner episode, it's a very different type of conversation.
Marc:You know, Carl is Carl Reiner.
Marc:Mel is Mel Brooks.
Marc:But they're both have a lot of clarity.
Marc:They got all their ducks are still in a row.
Marc:Some of them are a little wobbly, but they're all in a row and they're tight, man.
Marc:Yeah, they're definitely present and coherent and just great.
Marc:Great, agile, comedic minds.
Marc:These guys are the best there ever was, really, the two of them.
Marc:Now, let's set the stage a little bit.
Marc:So after Mel tells me he's going to hook me up with Carl, we set it up.
Marc:A few weeks go by and then I got to drive over to Carl's house.
Marc:Now, I have to really accentuate how familiar this feels to me, not just because I grew up with Mel Brooks's movies or Carl Reiner and Rob Reiner and the 2000 year old man, but
Marc:But there's a Jewishness to this whole adventure that is very familiar to me.
Marc:I drove to Carl's house in Beverly Hills.
Marc:I got out of the car and it was a home in the old part of Beverly Hills.
Marc:So it's a home next to other homes, but it's a big home.
Marc:The door was open.
Marc:There was commotion going on.
Marc:There was people coming in and out.
Marc:There was a woman there who was doing something.
Marc:There was a guy who I think is the publicist for his new book, Carl Reiner, I Remember Me, which is his new book out now.
Marc:and George Shapiro was there.
Marc:Now, George Shapiro, as you know or may not know, is a very big comedy manager.
Marc:He manages Carl.
Marc:He manages Jerry Seinfeld.
Marc:He's got a few writing clients.
Marc:He used to manage Orny Adams, but he's Carl's nephew, and he's in his 70s.
Marc:I'm speculating there, but I would say he's in his 70s.
Marc:So now the familiarity with me is, you know, you drive up to a house, the doors open, there are things going on.
Marc:There's a living, this is a house that looks like it's been lived in.
Marc:I picture Rob Reiner growing up there.
Marc:I picture the family there.
Marc:I picture, you know, in Jewish households, I'm not saying it's specific to Jewish households, but I just, I felt immediately at home.
Marc:You sit in a living room and it looks like people sit in this living room, you know, food's been served in here and just look, old Jews are familiar to me.
Marc:That's all.
Marc:but carl is not i don't know if i can say this how can i say this he's not as uh as overtly jewish or jewy as mel brooks it's a different frequency uh it's a different tone but i walk in and uh george shapiro's there and uh you know he's talking to me about this and that and then we're waiting for carl the publicist is there and then uh we're getting set up and then carl's gonna come down
Marc:And then Carl makes his way down.
Marc:Now, Carl's almost 91.
Marc:And it was a grand entrance.
Marc:He sits down in the chair.
Marc:And I set up the mics.
Marc:And we begin to talk.
Marc:Now, what happens after Carl sits down is he's sitting in a chair.
Marc:I'm sitting in a chair next to him, right next to him, directly across a coffee table from Carl.
Marc:is Mr. George Shapiro, who sits in that chair.
Marc:And I will say this, lovely man, during the interview, I did glance over and there were times where he was napping.
Marc:He was napping a little bit, in and out, no problem.
Marc:The publicist guy, he's sitting on the sofa.
Marc:Now, you gotta understand something.
Marc:I explained this the last time.
Marc:Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks spend almost every evening together just sitting there doing whatever they do.
Marc:And we talk, I talked to Carl a little bit about what they do.
Marc:But this is a lovely, you know,
Marc:Oh, but it's got to be almost a century long friendship.
Marc:And it's very touching to me.
Marc:And just sitting among Jews, old Jews, makes me very comfortable.
Marc:So let's now go to my conversation with Carl Reiner.
Marc:And we will reconvene here after the discussion so I can fill you in on the rest of the story.
Marc:It's beautiful.
Marc:All right, it's beautiful.
Marc:Let's go now to me and Carl talking in Carl's living room.
Marc:The first voice you hear is George Shapiro was there when I was setting up my microphones.
Marc:I might have picked a little bit of that up.
Music
Guest:You do everything yourself.
Guest:You're the whole crew.
Guest:I'm the whole thing.
Marc:I think that's the way to go.
Guest:Very impressive.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Here's Uncle Carl.
Guest:Hello.
Guest:There he is.
Guest:Look, he's the whole crew as well as the stars.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I do the whole thing.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:I'll do whatever the else is left.
Guest:You do whatever Mark says now.
Guest:How are you, sir?
Guest:Nice to see you.
Guest:Mel said he had a good time with you.
Guest:Yeah, Mel has nothing but good things to say about you.
Guest:Oh, well...
Guest:And I will have exactly... Is that the understanding you two have?
Guest:Well, I do more than he does.
Guest:He says he comes over here every night.
Guest:He sits right over there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you guys have the things you do.
Guest:Yes, we do.
Guest:And one of them I might tell you about later because it is so crazy that no other world is going to believe it.
Guest:And I don't even know if I'm going to tell it, but we may.
Guest:We may.
Guest:We'll see.
Guest:It has to do with chicken feathers.
Marc:Chicken feathers.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Well, I mean, if we don't call that back later, people are going to be curious the entire show.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:What the hell was that about?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But the interesting thing about your dynamic, and from what I know about it, I'm a little younger, is that there was definitely a straight man, kooky guy.
Guest:No question about it.
Marc:Did you guys invent that?
Guest:No.
Guest:What happened, and you want the genesis, and I've done this a number of times, but it's good to have in a place like this where it's forever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because this goes into the capsule, doesn't it?
Marc:Sure, I'm sending it out.
Marc:Yeah, I'll put it in a capsule and I'll bury it.
Guest:In 1950, I came to work on the show of shows with Sid Caesar playing his straight man.
Guest:The first day there, there was a young man, a very short young man, who was in Sid's pocket.
Guest:In other words, Sid had hired him personally to be his...
Guest:Sid loved him.
Guest:He was his go-to guy.
Guest:A gag man, right.
Guest:He paid Sid.
Guest:Sid paid him like $35 a week to be around.
Guest:Max Liebman didn't want to have him around because he was too wild and crazy.
Guest:He was kooky.
Guest:He used to slide into the office on the floor and say, safe.
Guest:He hit the wall, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Anyway, so the first day I was there, he stood up.
Guest:I didn't know who he was.
Guest:And he started to complain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a Jewish pirate.
Guest:And he says, I don't know.
Guest:He says, you know something what costs sell clothes today?
Guest:He says, I can't pillage and rape anymore.
Guest:He says, $3.35 for a yard.
Guest:You can't go out and set sail anymore.
Guest:Anyway, he went off for a half hour.
Guest:I was hysterical.
Guest:The following day I came in, it was a Saturday, whatever it was.
Guest:The following, I came in and I remembered something that might make a good sketch.
Guest:It was We the People Speak with Dan Seymour.
Guest:He was a man who was actually in Stalin's toilet and heard Stalin say, going to blob the world Thursdays.
Guest:And I said, that'd be a good thing for a sketch.
Guest:And they didn't think so.
Guest:But from that, I was frustrated.
Guest:I turned to Mel, who was sitting on the couch, very much in the position you're sitting now.
Guest:And I said, here's a man who was actually at the scene of the crucifixion 2,000 years ago.
Guest:Isn't that true, sir?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's him ringing.
Guest:Mel, here.
Guest:Hello?
Guest:Larry, I'm in the middle of a conversation here with a man with a microphone.
Guest:So come over and listen.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Who's that?
Guest:That was Larry Oflahaven, a man who arranged all of this.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Anyway, and I said, the man at the crucifixion 2,000 years ago.
Guest:Isn't that true, sir?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, oh, boy.
Guest:That's his first words.
Guest:I said, you were there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You knew Jesus?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Thin lad, right?
Guest:Always wore sandals, walked with 12 other guys.
Guest:They always came into the store, never bought anything, always asked for water.
Guest:And that started.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For the next half hour, I just asked questions about his days way back then.
Guest:All improvised.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:He didn't know what I was going to ask, and I didn't know what I was going to ask, but he intrigued me.
Guest:It's him again.
Guest:Hold on.
Guest:Hello?
Guest:Paul, I'm in the middle of a...
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I'm being recorded.
Guest:That was Paul Brownstein, another one of these fellows in charge of making me famous.
Guest:It's going to happen, I think, finally.
Guest:So the next one is Obama.
Guest:I expect a call later, but he said he'd hold off.
Guest:I told him I had an important interview.
Guest:So he said, I'll hold off.
Guest:It's only about the Near East.
Guest:So...
Guest:Yeah, so for the next hour, I interviewed him.
Guest:And then, any time where there's a lull in the office, I would just jump up and, not jump up, I would just say, here's a man who, he was either the 2,000-year-old man or a great psychiatrist or...
Guest:Whatever it was.
Guest:That was the premise.
Guest:And he didn't even know what I was going to make him.
Guest:The second I said who he was, he became that person.
Guest:I once did a thing where I said, we're at a psychiatric convention.
Guest:There were six great psychiatrists from all over the world.
Guest:And he was all of them.
Guest:And we gave them names.
Guest:And we couldn't remember what they were.
Guest:I said, I think that was Dr. Haldanis and all.
Guest:He said, check it back.
Guest:Anyway, that was what we did.
Guest:And at parties, there wasn't a party.
Guest:Somebody said, get up and do the 2000.
Guest:They would invite you for that reason.
Guest:Well, we were invited anyway.
Guest:We had friends.
Guest:We would have gone to dinner there anyway.
Guest:But Joe Stein was one of the places.
Guest:And the interesting thing was that we did it for 10 years.
Guest:And people used to say, put that on a record.
Guest:And we said, no, this is only for...
Guest:for Jews and non-anti-Semitic Gentiles.
Guest:I said it was very inside.
Guest:Well, it was five years after the war.
Guest:The Jewish accent was persona non grata in society because the Jews had been, you know, decimated and made fun of for the last, you know,
Marc:Well, that's interesting.
Marc:Did you consciously at some point, because did you have an accent?
Marc:Because Mel seems to embrace it to an extreme.
Guest:No, Mel became a middle European.
Guest:A 2,000-year-old man would have a Jewish accent.
Guest:But he talks like that sort of anyways.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:He's got good language.
Guest:No, but anyway, so for 10 years, we just had parties.
Guest:The one party we went to, there was Joe Fields, who was a big Broadway producer.
Guest:Anytime he was in town, he made a party so that we could come and entertain his friends.
Guest:It was like Mozart did that, too.
Guest:He'd set up chairs.
Guest:Get up and play the piano.
Guest:He'd put chairs out.
Guest:No, wherever it was, a living room.
Guest:And at one particular party out here, at an A-list party, that was Joyce Haber's name for real stars, at an A-list party, after we finished, three people came up to us.
Guest:The first one was George Burns smoking a cigar and saying, you've got that on a record?
Guest:And we said, no.
Guest:He said, well, put it on a record or I'm going to steal it.
Guest:And then Edward G. Robinson said, he said, make a play out of a 1,000-year-old man.
Guest:He said, I want to play that on Broadway.
Guest:And I said, it's 2,000-year-old.
Guest:I can play any age.
Guest:I remember he said that.
Guest:And the last one coming up was the dearest of all was a guy named Steve Allen who cared about handing the world comedy people.
Guest:He would love nothing more than to discover a comedian and say, here he is.
Guest:And so he came over and he says, fellas, he says, you've got to put that on record.
Guest:He says, I'll give you a studio that I use for World Pacific for my jazz recordings.
Guest:And we went into that studio with about 150 friends and we wailed for two, three hours.
Guest:That was the original.
Guest:The original, and we cut it down to 47 minutes.
Guest:And then we still didn't know it was going to work.
Guest:It wasn't for friends.
Guest:And I remember the first edition.
Guest:The interesting thing, I was working at Universal at the time I started writing movies, and Cary Grant was my neighbor.
Guest:And I gave him an album.
Guest:And he came back and he says, Carl, can I have a dozen?
Guest:And I said, what are you going to do?
Guest:He said, I'm going to London.
Guest:I said, are you going to take them to London?
Guest:Yes, they speak English there, you know.
Guest:And he came back and he says, she loved it.
Guest:I said, ooh, he's the Queen Mother.
Guest:I said, you took this to Buckingham Palace.
Guest:He says, yes, and she laughed.
Guest:And I said to Mel, the biggest chicks in the world accepted it.
Guest:And of course, it did take off for that first album.
Guest:And then we made five albums.
Marc:You got the royal stamp of
Marc:approval yes the royal stamp when i was a kid i the first time i saw it was the animated one oh yeah well that was saran wrap yeah right yeah yeah that was great that was like three four years after so that was the first time that you and mel had actually like publicly performed hold on hold one second hello yeah that's fine thank you
Marc:But that was the first time you guys sort of organized as a team.
Marc:It was around that.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:1950.
Guest:And before that, you had done a lot of theater.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Starting at 17, I did.
Guest:Where did you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in the Bronx at 17.
Guest:I was a machinist.
Guest:The Bronx gets a...
Guest:One round of applause.
Guest:At 17, I started to work in the millinery trade, first in the dress trade as a shipping clerk, for which I got $12 an hour.
Guest:Then that company went out of business, reopened, and I got $10 an hour.
Guest:Were your parents from here?
Guest:My parents were from Europe.
Guest:My father came from Chernovitz, Austria-Hungary Empire, my mother from Romania.
Guest:And if you'll read my book, you'll hear all about that.
Marc:This is the book I Remember Me.
Guest:Yeah, it's in there.
Marc:And you do remember?
Guest:Oh, I do remember.
Marc:What was the Bronx like?
Marc:I talked to Mel Brooks about Brooklyn.
Marc:Give me a sense of the Bronx at that time.
Guest:The Bronx was a lower-to-middle-class neighborhood.
Guest:If I tell you the rent of the apartment, you'll know.
Guest:A three-room apartment, when my parents moved in in 1917, was $16 a week.
Guest:When I was born there, it was, I think...
Guest:$35 or $50 a month.
Marc:Have you ever gone back to see if you could?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I went back once.
Guest:The New Yorker magazine wanted to do a piece on my days in the Bronx.
Guest:And I said, let's go see my old building, 179th Street.
Guest:It was a five-story walk-up.
Guest:And there was nothing there.
Guest:It was an empty lot.
Guest:Oh, that's heartbreaking, isn't it?
Guest:They had raised it.
Guest:Across the way were older buildings, but they were three-story buildings, but they were protected by the...
Guest:Because they were mansions.
Guest:Historical?
Guest:Historical mansions.
Guest:Historical buildings.
Guest:And so what I got was a brick.
Guest:I took two bricks that were lying there, and I sent one to my brother in Atlanta.
Guest:I said, here's our ancestral home, what's left of it.
Guest:This is it.
Guest:And how many people in the family?
Guest:My brother and I and my parents.
Marc:Was there relatives around?
Guest:Some relatives, not too close by.
Guest:Yeah, we had a couple of relatives.
Guest:And what was your father's trade?
Guest:A watchmaker by trade, which he made his living at.
Guest:But what he really was doing with his spare time was inventing things.
Guest:He invented the self-winding wristwatch, the battery clock, which is right up there.
Marc:He invented it?
Guest:He got the patent on it?
Guest:Yeah, he got the patent on the battery clock.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:And then he invented a clock that would run 100 years.
Guest:He invented a battery, a dry pile battery, which he made by hand, which I described in another book, hours and hours and hours, cutting out one disc at a time, a little disc the size of a penny, thousands of them, painting them with a...
Guest:with an amalgam of silver and magnesium.
Guest:First he painted 1,000 or 2,000 with the incorrect formula, and it didn't work.
Guest:He did it again.
Guest:It was on a kitchen table on a Sunday.
Guest:It took years.
Guest:He finally got this dry pile, two piles, which had 5,000 volts and a milliamp, just enough to take a pendulum back and forth with a track, rappel, a track, rappel.
Guest:He got a patent on that.
Guest:And did this elevate him out of the Bronx?
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:This clock was not produced until after the war.
Guest:And Germany, and the patent ran out, and Germany flooded the market with him.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah, the other... Was he bitter about that?
Guest:No, never got bitter.
Guest:He was happy to have invented.
Guest:He never said, darn.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:No, as a matter of fact, there's a picture of him over there behind you playing the violin.
Guest:See that?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He was a self-taught violin, flutist, clarinetist.
Guest:Was he good?
Guest:He played in symphony orchestras.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You know, charity symphonies.
Guest:And there is a picture.
Guest:That picture is called Irving Shoots Irving Playing Irving.
Guest:And the reason I call it Shoots Irving...
Guest:He was a photographer, and I still have his daguerreotype plates.
Guest:He took pictures of everybody, my mother nursing, my brother, a hundred-year-old picture on a plate.
Guest:He took a picture of my mother nursing Charlie.
Guest:And he never had a picture of himself until...
Guest:He decided, sat down, and invented a self-timer, which he patented.
Guest:He tried a patent.
Guest:It was patent pending, but a Japanese inventor did it six months before, got a patent on it.
Marc:So that's Irving, and it's shot by Irving.
Guest:He shot himself playing the violin.
Guest:Who was the third Irving?
Guest:The third Irving is my granddaughter, who plays that violin.
Guest:This violin he bought for $500 in 1900.
Guest:When he came to America, his brother played the violin.
Guest:He said, I want to learn to play it.
Guest:He bought himself a violin and learned to play it.
Guest:Got a book on violins and how to read.
Guest:Learned to play the violin.
Guest:And when my mother passed away, he came to live with us and he brought his violin with him.
Guest:He hadn't played it in years.
Guest:And when he picked it up, he could always play it.
Guest:Come right back.
Guest:And then my granddaughter started to play the violin.
Guest:And when she got ready for the full-size violin, we gave her this one.
Guest:And she does.
Guest:She plays the violin and the harp.
Guest:And that violin she played at a concert.
Guest:And we went backstage to congratulate us.
Guest:And she said, wait, I'll be with you in a minute.
Guest:I've got to get Irving.
Guest:I said, who's Irving?
Guest:She named the violin Irving, and she keeps a picture of my father playing it in her violin box.
Guest:That's sweet.
Guest:Violin case.
Guest:So you didn't have the mindset or it wasn't appealing to you to go into the more technical skills?
Guest:Me, I had no musical ability.
Guest:Luckily, my kids didn't get my genes.
Guest:All my kids are musical.
Guest:But I can sing on the key if there's a big orchestra helping.
Guest:I have a good voice.
Guest:I had a good voice.
Guest:I had a three octave range, but no pitch and no timing.
Guest:So I could never have been an opera singer, which is what I wanted to be, or a French or a Irish tenor, which I write about in the book.
Guest:And when did when did the acting thing start with you?
Guest:When I was very young, when I was cast at three, age three, well, at age six or seven, I was in a Christmas, no, not a Christmas play, but the teacher said, who can do something for Christmas?
Guest:A little entertainment in front of the class.
Guest:And I could put both legs behind my head and walk around on my hands or one leg and hop around on it.
Guest:So she took me to all the classes.
Guest:That was my first performance.
Guest:The second one... Can't do that anymore, right?
Guest:Not, no.
Guest:I could, as a matter of fact, until maybe 10, 15 years ago.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But not to... In the third grade, I played the headsman in Six Who Passed While the Lentils Boil, a well-known play at the time.
Guest:And my mother was sitting next to the principal in the...
Guest:auditorium, and he said, he's the best one, that boy there.
Guest:And she said, that's my son.
Guest:He said, well, he's the best one.
Guest:And from that time on, my mother always called me the best one.
Guest:You were the guy.
Guest:And she'd see me in a play.
Guest:But I didn't do any acting again until after high school.
Guest:In high school, when we were asked to learn Shakespearean speeches, I could do them better than anybody, but I was embarrassed that I did them so much better, they'd think I was crazy.
Guest:So I never did them.
Guest:Until later, years later, I was a machinist helper.
Guest:and working on sewing machines as an assistant.
Guest:And my brother sent me a little clipping saying free acting classes at the WPA workshop in Center Street, New York.
Guest:And, you know, as a matter of fact, when I went to Washington to get a Mark Twain prize, they asked me to talk to the Library of Congress about... The WPA?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:about the WPA, and they put it in the archives, because I said, everybody's saying, get the government off the people's back.
Guest:I said, no, we belong on the people's, the people belong on the government's back.
Guest:I said, it wasn't for the government sending me to, allowing me to learn to be an actor.
Guest:I wouldn't be an actor.
Guest:I'm an actor here today because the WPA
Guest:taught kids who wanted to act, got sent them to school, musicians became musicians, artists.
Guest:I said there are murals all over the country and post offices that starving painters.
Marc:And that was FDR, right?
Marc:FDR, right.
Marc:He put it all into place, and that's the big criticism people level against Obama is that it was socialist or that it was... Yes, which is ridiculous.
Marc:It's ridiculous.
Guest:That's what the government's supposed to do, help the people.
Guest:Government of the people, for the people, for the people.
Guest:And what kind of education did you get?
Guest:I mean, what were the classes like?
Guest:No, it was just a small class with Mrs. Whitmore.
Guest:I'll never forget her.
Guest:A little old English lady who gave us assignments.
Guest:My assignment, the only assignment I remember is to learn Queen Gertrude's speech from Hamlet.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, she says, there's a willow grows a slanted brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
Guest:There were fantastic garlands that she come with crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples that liberal shepherds give a grosser name.
Guest:But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
Guest:There, her coronet clamoring to hang, her envious sliver broke.
Guest:And anyway, it goes on like that.
Guest:Very good.
Guest:I remember some of it.
Marc:Look at that.
Guest:That's 70, 80 years later.
Guest:She had quite an impression on you.
Guest:No, Shakespeare did.
Guest:And when you started to work, when did that start?
Guest:I was working as a machinist helper, but at night my brother... I found an ad for...
Guest:And somebody told me, oh, no, while I was going to the class, they said the Gilmore Theater, Paul and Virginia Gilmore had a free theater, came in for free.
Guest:Everybody saw it for free, paid a little tax, 10, 20-cent tax.
Guest:That was his, really.
Guest:And I auditioned for them, and I got my first job.
Guest:And the family upstairs and the bishop misbehaves.
Guest:I was 17.
Guest:I had a fake mustache.
Guest:Not a fake.
Guest:I grew a mustache, but penciled in most of it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I was making love to a 45-year-old actress, Virginia Gilmore.
Guest:But it worked.
Guest:And I had a pair of tails, which I had, which was used on Broadway for Enter Laughing when Alan Arkin played it.
Guest:Those tails were in my mother's trunk.
Guest:How did he get them?
Guest:Yeah, and the sad thing is those tails were, for $10, I had to raise $10 to buy tails.
Guest:And those tales disappeared because when the play was over, they gave it to Eve's costume.
Guest:They thought it was in Eve's costume.
Guest:They didn't know it was a, and it disappeared.
Guest:How did Arkin get him?
Guest:I had him.
Guest:You gave him to him?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:I lent it to him to use for the play.
Marc:You guys were friends?
Guest:Well, no, but I certainly was friendly to a man who was depicting me on stage.
Guest:He won a Tony for it.
Guest:He's an interesting guy.
Guest:He's a funny guy.
Guest:He's brilliant.
Guest:He's one of the most brilliant actors ever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And smart and funny.
Guest:And I saw him in the Second City the first time.
Guest:I never forgot the line, he said.
Guest:He was showing people artwork in a museum.
Guest:And he said, this particular picture depicts man's inhumanity, man, and a woman behind in the crowd says, I don't like it.
Guest:He said, well, madam, you're wrong.
Marc:Well, madam, you're wrong.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So now, did you tour?
Marc:I talked to a friend of mine who's sort of an obsessive comedy researcher, and he gave me, his name's Cliff, and he said there was a play you did called Call Me Master, or Call Me Mister.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That's not a play.
Guest:That was a musical.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:After the war, when the soldiers came home,
Guest:It was done on Broadway, only peopled with...
Guest:With veterans of the war.
Guest:You only could audition for it if you were a veteran.
Guest:Were you a veteran?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:How long were you over there?
Guest:Three and a half years.
Guest:What did you do over there?
Guest:Well, for the first year, I was a radio operator in the Air Force.
Guest:Got pneumonia, went to the hospital.
Guest:After I came out, they sent me to Signal Training School, Signal Corps.
Guest:Trained for that.
Guest:Became a teletype operator.
Guest:On my way...
Guest:to Hawaii, in Hawaii, in a way someplace, to Detachment 18, I went to see a play at the University of Hawaii's Farrington Hall of G.I.
Guest:Hamlet with Maurice Evans.
Guest:And in it was Howard Morris playing Laertes, a guy I had worked on the NYA Radio Workshop, another government-sponsored organization.
Guest:I played in radio when I was 17 for $22 a month.
Guest:Doing playlets, plays on New York radio.
Guest:Howard said, when I said, Howard, you were wonderful.
Guest:He didn't even take it out.
Guest:He says, he was in charge of the section as a sergeant.
Guest:He says, we need a comedian for a show.
Guest:Do you do comedy?
Guest:He knew I was funny.
Guest:But I was a straight actor when he knew me.
Guest:And I said, yeah, I have 20, 30 minutes.
Guest:He says, he pulled me out.
Guest:A stand-up routine?
Guest:Yeah, stand-up.
Guest:But I said, I'm on my way.
Guest:I did it in the rec halls.
Guest:I said, but I'm on my way someplace, Detachment 18.
Guest:And he said, where?
Guest:I said, I don't know, but tomorrow night I'm going.
Guest:He called the general and traded me like a ball player.
Guest:I got into the special service session.
Guest:And I performed in a show called Shoot the Works for almost a half a year.
Guest:It was a variety show?
Guest:A variety show.
Guest:But then I wrote a show with Hal David writing the lyrics and somebody writing the music.
Guest:A show called Shape Ahoy, which I toured the whole Pacific with.
Guest:Saipan, Kwajalein, Tinian, Mog Mog, Palau.
Marc:And what was the structure of that show?
Marc:Also a variety show?
Guest:A variety show.
Guest:No, a review.
Guest:It was a review with myself doing sketches and one.
Guest:What kind of stand-up did you do?
Guest:At that point, I did a—I was a very good—very good—pretty good impersonator.
Guest:I had impersonations, which I did, but I was bored with them, so I was trying to find a new way to do it.
Guest:So my introduction to myself was I came out, and very sadly were the dogs—
Guest:A coat, collar, and leash, and a dog sweater.
Guest:I said, I'm sorry, but the actor was supposed to be here as Monty the Talking Dog.
Guest:I said, he's not here because he passed away yesterday.
Guest:And I said, all I can do is tell you about Monty.
Guest:I said...
Guest:And what he used to do.
Guest:And I said, my impressions of what Monty did is not anywhere near as good.
Guest:And I did my impressions of Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda.
Guest:And they did all my impressions.
Guest:And I said, the only impression I can't do is Monty's impression of Trigger the Horse, Roy Rogers' Trigger.
Guest:He uses loads and loads of makeup for it, but he was so acceptable as a horse.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:And I got a big hand for that.
Guest:People loved it.
Guest:Yeah, but the thing that was interesting about this, it's almost like a bad movie.
Guest:The section, I trained as a teletype operator for a year with my buddies, Saul Pomerantz and a bunch of other guys.
Guest:On VJ Day, I played about 100 installations, or I don't know how many installations throughout the Pacific.
Guest:The day we're in the air, we heard the war is over, VJ Day, we're landing in Iwo Jima.
Guest:17 installations were going to play, a list of them.
Guest:And the first installation on VJ Day was the 3117 Signal Battalion, my group.
Guest:So on the day that we...
Guest:We declared the winner of the war.
Guest:I'm playing as a star of a show.
Guest:I'd written for all my buddies.
Guest:It was like a bad Dan Daly movie, you know.
Guest:Why?
Marc:Because no one cared, right?
Guest:Oh, did they care?
Guest:It was wonderful.
Guest:They loved it.
Guest:They got drunk and it was wonderful.
Guest:It was wonderful.
Marc:So there was a mixture of complete, reckless celebration, and then you're performing.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was just one of those heightened moments in life.
Guest:So tell me about this Call Me Mister review.
Guest:Oh, so when we got back, we auditioned for Call Me Mister.
Guest:There was an interesting, I didn't audition for it.
Guest:It was on Broadway.
Guest:I was auditioning at the MCA, Music Corporation, for a job in the mountains as an MC.
Guest:And I'm doing, I'm in a little booth in that room and there's a window, a glass window.
Guest:You could look in from the, somebody was looking in there and I'm doing, you know, I'm gyrating and making jokes.
Guest:And I got the job, but I got two jobs.
Guest:The guy looking in the window, a stranger was looking and my agent was looking and the guy from
Guest:Lake Spofford, the guy who was going to hire me as a social director, he hired me.
Guest:But the guy looking in the window was... Wait just a moment.
Guest:This is going to be interesting.
Guest:Hello?
Guest:Andy, I'm being interviewed on... Okay.
Guest:That's my daughter.
Guest:So the guy behind the window was Herman Levin, the guy who had produced...
Guest:Call Me Mister on Broadway.
Guest:He saw a doppelganger of Julie Munchen.
Guest:I was very much like him.
Guest:And he saw me moving around.
Guest:He hired me.
Guest:He didn't even know what I did.
Guest:For the road company.
Guest:For the road company.
Guest:What year are we talking?
Guest:1947.
Guest:And my wife had just given birth to my first son, Robbie, when I was in Boston on a Saturday.
Guest:And I remember coming down on Sunday and seeing, and I was on the road, and I have two things I remember about that.
Guest:Herman Levin said, do not send me reviews.
Guest:and saying you want to raise.
Guest:You're getting $250 a week, and that's it.
Guest:I expect you to get good reviews, so don't write me and say you want to raise for reviews.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:I said, okay.
Guest:Now I'm on the road for about three months in Boston.
Guest:We do Cleveland, Detroit, and while we're in Cleveland,
Guest:We're going to Chicago where we're hoping to do two or three months.
Guest:And it's very important that we get good reviews there.
Guest:But in Cleveland, we get an article from the Chicago paper written by Claudia Cassidy, the critic in the Chicago Tribune.
Guest:saying uh i saw call me mister in new york and she mentioned julie munch and he rips the hell out of him she and he was great by the way but she didn't like him for some reason yeah she said if mr whoever's playing his part if uh if he's anything like whatever it is don't come to chicago go out to cleveland we don't need your show here wow yeah anyway that was preemptive
Guest:wow we're going to go there and we were looking for to be there for three months that would be the yeah so we went there she saw the opening night and she wrote an article I think saying what I hated about the show is all changed now because of the brilliance of this year and she gave me a review that could have been for Jesus Christ and of course we stayed there six months and
Guest:We had a six-month run in Chicago.
Marc:Now, there were some other comedians that people know in that show, right?
Guest:Yeah, Buddy Hackett was in there, and, well, I don't know.
Guest:Shelly?
Marc:Shelly Berman?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:He was too young then.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:So Buddy Hackett, before he started doing stand-up?
Guest:Oh, he was doing stand-up.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, he was a funny kid.
Guest:Crazy as a loon, but funny as a lark.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A loon and a lark.
Marc:So when you made the shift to, because it seems that you had relationships with at least four of the funniest people ever.
Marc:being Sid Caesar.
Marc:Oh, Sid Caesar, absolutely.
Marc:And Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks, Steve Martin.
Guest:Hey, I never thought of it that way, but I have had, I stood very close to all of those people.
Marc:Yeah, you had a profound influence on their lives.
Marc:And with Sid, because I talked to Mel Brooks about Sid Caesar, that there's a reverence in Mel Brooks for Sid Caesar that is incredible.
Guest:All of us, everybody who ever did comedy,
Guest:The difference between Sid and every other comedian was Sid was terribly, terribly funny.
Guest:He couldn't make a new joke, but he could do attitudes and things.
Guest:He just made everything that was written funnier than it was written.
Guest:And he's one of the few people who could find things in a live audience, in a live camera, find things to enhance what was done.
Guest:And he had the audience roaring with laughter.
Guest:And I talk about him a lot as far as being an extraordinary actor.
Guest:You know, people went to the actor's studio.
Guest:I've talked about this before.
Guest:As a matter of fact, I'm going to have to talk about it again.
Guest:Poor Sid is so not well now.
Guest:Do you go see him?
Guest:Yeah, I'm going to see him.
Guest:I'm going to see him in a couple of weeks or so having a party.
Guest:But he's out of it.
Guest:He's really out of it.
Guest:It's very sad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I was saying Sid is one of the greatest actors I've ever worked with.
Guest:Everybody goes to the actor's studio, Stanislavski, to learn sense memory and things like that.
Guest:Sense memory is like holding an object and making it have weight, heft, and volume.
Guest:And I remember two incidents where nobody could believe this.
Guest:We were doing a pantomime.
Guest:We were saying, he's having trouble opening a jar of pickles.
Guest:And Sid picked up a fake jar, nothing in his hand.
Guest:And he's struggling to open the jar.
Guest:And he finally opens it.
Guest:And the writer said, well, there's nothing really funny.
Guest:Forget it.
Guest:And all of a sudden, everybody's laughing.
Guest:And Sid said, what are you laughing at?
Guest:He says, you know what you did?
Guest:He says, what did I do?
Guest:I didn't do anything.
Guest:He says, yes, you did.
Guest:You know what Sid did?
Guest:It was so real, this jar of pickles that he had opened when they said it doesn't work.
Guest:Without knowing, he closed the jar and put it down.
Guest:That was one indication that his sense memory was so real.
Guest:Every actor and comedian in the world, when they're smoking a cigarette, they do this.
Guest:They clamp the lips together where the cigarette is, and they hold it like this, or they hold it like this.
Guest:Yeah, you've seen it.
Guest:He didn't do that.
Guest:When he had a cigarette, a fake cigarette in his lips, there was space there, and when he took it out, there was space in his fingers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So is that precise?
Guest:That was sense memory, which they try to teach in Slonislovsky.
Guest:But I've never seen an actor do that.
Guest:I'm standing this close to him.
Guest:I said, oh, my God, look what the fuck he's doing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And there was one other incident where he could conjure up the truth in him.
Guest:We played Bombs Over Bombs.
Guest:No, what was it called?
Guest:It was a submarine picture.
Guest:All you Nazis get in your submarine.
Guest:Anyway, I was the lieutenant or something, and he was a soldier, and I said, put the torpedo, and I dropped the torpedo on his foot.
Guest:And he didn't do anything.
Guest:He just, one eye started to...
Guest:To twitch, and both eyes were twitching, and then within seconds, tears were coming down his eyes.
Guest:He didn't touch his eyes.
Guest:People have always put drops in their eyes to make them look tears, or they blow some nitrate in it, whatever it is, smelling salts, and your eyes tear.
Guest:And here he's doing this, and within seconds, a tear is falling.
Guest:He conjured up a tear.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just like that.
Marc:Yeah, that's... So he's a complete natural.
Guest:He was a great actor.
Guest:He was a great actor and probably greatest comedian ever to work on television.
Marc:Because when you both talk about him, I mean, there are certain people, I haven't met many, but it just seems like that he was so full of energy and life and brilliance that you just wanted to be around it.
Guest:You were just thrilled to be part of it.
Guest:And, you know, he was also very giving, too.
Guest:I mean, I was a straight man...
Guest:from so many years.
Guest:But I remember we did a thing called Blast Video Theater where we're taking off on James Mason, who the week before we saw him do this, where he said, now next week we're going to have that wonderful American play with that great American star, Arlene Dahl.
Guest:Arlene Dahl.
Guest:He actually said that.
Guest:On the air.
Guest:He couldn't believe that.
Guest:He was reading this great American actress, Arlene Dahl.
Guest:Anyway, we're going to do that.
Guest:And Sid was going to play that part.
Guest:And Sid did it.
Guest:And he said, you know,
Guest:Carl does better James Mason than I do.
Guest:You do it.
Guest:And I think that was how I got my first Emmy that year because that was the part that... That and a game show called Break Your Brains.
Guest:The two of them allowed me to really...
Guest:Come into yourself?
Guest:Yeah, come back.
Marc:And it was Sid who handed me it on a platter.
Marc:That's sweet.
Marc:And in terms of like early television and being part of that, was there like a community?
Marc:Did everyone know each other from all the different shows?
Marc:Oh, I think so, sure.
Guest:But we didn't hang out together.
Guest:There was no time to hang out.
Guest:You were busy, yeah.
Guest:It was a live show.
Guest:We came in on a Monday and finished on a Saturday.
Guest:Sunday we're off.
Guest:We came on Monday, 10 o'clock.
Guest:By the way, it's the most amazing thing.
Guest:It was a live show, rehearsed live.
Guest:We went home at 6 o'clock every night to have dinner with our people.
Guest:Today, on half-hour situation comedies, people are working 2, 3 in the morning.
Marc:Yeah, like doctors.
Guest:I can't believe it.
Guest:What do you think that is?
Guest:Why do you think that is?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Say you have all the time, and they'll take it.
Guest:And tell them you have no time.
Guest:You have to be on the air.
Guest:Yeah, it's live television.
Guest:Yeah, if you're going to tape it, you're going to be casual about it.
Guest:But if you know you have to hit the 8 o'clock spot and when the clock hits 8, you've got to be on the air.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:I never thought about that.
Marc:Now there's so many writers and there's so much time and there's so much correcting and there's so many different cooks in the kitchen that they overthink it.
Marc:Sometimes they ruin the immediacy of the humor.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Well, when we did the Van Dyke show, we used to do it.
Guest:It was a half hour show.
Guest:We did it in a half hour.
Marc:How did that relationship start with Dick Van Dyke?
Guest:Dick Van Dyke?
Guest:You mean how did I get?
Marc:Well, how did you meet him?
Guest:Oh, that was one of those fortuitous things.
Guest:Luckily, there was a pilot called Head of the Family.
Guest:I wrote 13 episodes.
Marc:Is it all you?
Guest:When people were offering me situation comedies, they weren't very good.
Guest:And my wife said, why don't you write one?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I wrote one.
Guest:And then I said, well, if I'm going to do the pilot, I might as well have a second or third script.
Guest:In the summer in Fire Island, in about six weeks, I wrote 13 of them.
Guest:I said, here's a Bible for whoever comes after me.
Guest:So with 13 scripts, I did the pilot.
Guest:I was all right.
Guest:It wasn't very good.
Guest:It was for you.
Guest:It was okay.
Guest:I did it with Barbara Britton and Morty Gunthy and Silverman Miles.
Guest:And it was okay.
Guest:It didn't sell.
Guest:That year, Horses and Guns sold a lot.
Guest:You know, a lot of... Westerns.
Guest:Westerns, yeah.
Guest:And so I forgot about it.
Guest:I started doing movies.
Guest:I wrote a couple movies, a thrill of it all.
Guest:But my agent, Harry Kalshaw, bless him, was so upset that these 13 good televisions, and I knew they were good.
Guest:I said, this is the best I'll ever do, and if they don't want it.
Guest:So he called me, and he said, you've got to come in and see Sheldon Leonard.
Guest:I said, I'll see him, but I'm not going to have anything to do with this.
Guest:I don't want to.
Guest:And Sheldon was the guy, and I do a good impression of Sheldon here.
Guest:I said, I don't want to fail with the same material twice.
Guest:I said, this is the best I can do.
Guest:And we did it.
Guest:He said, you won't fail.
Guest:We'll get a better actor to play you.
Guest:And he suggested Dick Van Dyke.
Guest:I went to New York, saw him in Bye Bye Birdie.
Guest:And the rest is, as you say, television history.
Guest:And you did how many seasons?
Guest:We did five seasons.
Marc:I just got the box of them because I'm going to go interview Dick.
Guest:Oh, yeah, 158 shows.
Marc:Yeah, I got them.
Marc:I think they're all in that box.
Guest:Yeah, they are.
Guest:And by the way, they have the Blu-ray because they're really sharp.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:They're neater than when we saw them.
Guest:The plaids look like plaids.
Guest:You can see the hair.
Guest:The hair, each follicle, each hair follicle.
Marc:That's important, the follicles.
Marc:Now, in comparing the comedic talent of somebody like Caesar to Dick Van Dyke, what was his strong suits?
Guest:Well, first of all, Sid was a master comic actor.
Guest:Dick was everything.
Guest:He could do anything and everything you asked him to do.
Guest:He was like a six-course meal.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:First of all, he had the most agile man I've ever known.
Guest:Sid, by the way, was not agile.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this guy could fall.
Guest:He could jump.
Guest:He could do anything.
Guest:He could sing.
Guest:He could dance.
Guest:Well, Sid could also sing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But not dance.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But if you watch Dick and all of his incarnations as, you know—
Guest:From Mary Poppins on, there's always something surprising that he does.
Guest:Right now, you know, he's doing close harmony.
Guest:He's singing before other guys have gone over their countries.
Guest:Really?
Guest:But he loves close harmony.
Marc:And you guys, you still talk?
Marc:All the time.
Marc:I love hearing that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I love that guys stay friends forever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because there's so many, you hear so many stories.
Guest:We have a very close feeling about each other.
Marc:When did you start directing films?
Guest:I directed my first film after I saw that two of the three films that I gave out, they were missing things.
Guest:And I was so upset that the directors were not doing what I thought they should do.
Marc:And they were good directors.
Marc:Movies you were in?
Guest:Huh?
Guest:Movies you were in, you mean?
Guest:No, the movies I'd written.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:That were done, you know.
Guest:Which ones were those?
Guest:Well, the first one was The Thrill of It All.
Guest:And then there was another one called The Art of Love.
Guest:What was it?
Guest:I don't remember.
Guest:Anyway, at one point, I said, what was the first one I directed, George?
Guest:Do you remember?
Guest:Where's Papa?
Guest:Where's Papa?
Guest:No, Where's Papa?
Guest:Yeah, I was called in to direct that.
Guest:Oh, no, Enter Laughing.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I said I might as well.
Guest:Yeah, I was upset with some things that happened.
Guest:I did Enter Laughing.
Guest:Then after that, it was smooth sailing.
Guest:I did Where's Papa?
Guest:And then a couple I had written, which I loved doing, which was...
Guest:There was one of the labor of loves, which was Burt Rigby or a Fool.
Guest:Nobody knows that one, but it's a beauty.
Guest:You love that movie.
Guest:I did four Steve Martin movies that I love doing.
Guest:Right, The Jerk is a great movie.
Marc:They called me in to do that one, yeah.
Marc:Now, in that term, when you shifted into directing, did you feel like, you know, this is what I really want to do?
Guest:Or it was just another thing you did?
Guest:No, I did directing to make sure the stuff I wrote... To honor the writing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't particularly want to be...
Guest:But then I was good at it.
Guest:I'm a good social director.
Guest:I made a very good set, which by the way, Rob has the same ability.
Guest:You make a happy set, you get an awful lot of good out of the people.
Marc:Yeah, and what did it feel like when he first started sort of acting and stuff?
Marc:Went into the family business.
Guest:Well, I loved it.
Guest:I loved the fact he went into the family business.
Guest:And I really loved the fact that he'd outstripped his father by far with the movies that he directed and produced.
Guest:Yeah, great movies.
Guest:Some of the greatest movies.
Guest:What's your favorite one?
Guest:Well, you know, I can't pick, but I cannot turn away from...
Guest:The Prince's Bride.
Guest:Anytime it comes on the air, I just watch it.
Guest:And A Few Good Men just came on the air.
Guest:That's almost the perfect movie.
Guest:Yeah, it's great.
Guest:It's a great play, I guess.
Guest:And The American President, it was on last night.
Guest:And that, again, it's a beautiful movie.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:He's only failed once or twice with movies that, you know, North.
Guest:We all have done those.
Marc:We shudder when we say the word.
Marc:And I think I've got to ask you to tell...
Marc:The Albert Brooks story.
Guest:Albert Brooks, I talk about as being one of the few prodigies.
Guest:His father was an entertainer, right?
Guest:His father was park your carcass on the old Eddie Cantor show.
Guest:He spoke with a mock Greek accent.
Guest:And Albert, of course, he was a comedian.
Guest:He named his kid Albert.
Guest:His name is Einstein.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He has other kids I didn't name Albert, but he named Albert Einstein.
Guest:Now, Albert and Rob were friends when they were 16 years old in school, and they were over here all the time.
Guest:And one story I do remember, he comes over here, he's barefoot.
Guest:I said, what happened?
Guest:He didn't do something his mother wanted him to do, and she was so upset that she said, you can't go out.
Guest:He said, I'm going to go out.
Guest:She took his shoes away.
Guest:So he went out anyway.
Guest:And he's standing in this room.
Guest:He's sitting here without shoes.
Guest:And I said, Albert, I said, I'm a parent.
Guest:I got to call your mother and tell you're okay.
Guest:I called his mother.
Guest:I said...
Guest:Albert's all right.
Guest:He's here with my son.
Guest:He's got no shoes.
Guest:Anyway, he went home and he had no problem with it.
Guest:But I always said he could be, he was the single funniest man I ever met at 16, 17.
Guest:He was a prodigy.
Guest:He made adults laugh so hard that we could not look at him.
Guest:And I'll show you, here's the exact geography.
Guest:See, those drapes were closed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're standing here, and he comes over to me, and he's, Robbie said he's the greatest escape artist in the world.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Took a regular handkerchief.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, you have a handkerchief?
Guest:I said, yes.
Guest:He said, would you fold it?
Guest:You know, fold it.
Guest:So I fold it like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he says, okay.
Guest:And he puts his, now you take that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'll tie my wrist.
Guest:Now that's good enough.
Guest:It's hanging there.
Guest:That's good enough.
Guest:And it's hanging there.
Guest:It's hanging off your wrist.
Guest:Now he says, take two pieces of Kleenex and stuff it in my nose.
Guest:We stuff it in my nose.
Guest:And now he can't breathe.
Guest:He can breathe through his mouth, but he's not.
Guest:He says, no, I will get out of these.
Guest:Don't help me.
Guest:I'm going behind the drapes.
Guest:In two seconds, I'll be out of the thing.
Guest:Don't help me.
Guest:He gets behind the drapes.
Guest:And he starts thrashing and thrashing.
Guest:We hear him breathing.
Guest:He's thrashing.
Guest:The grapes are going.
Guest:I'm looking through this.
Guest:I'm looking through.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:I'm laughing so hard I think I'm going to damage myself.
Guest:I go into the kitchen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I hear everybody laughing.
Guest:I peek in.
Guest:He's still behind his grapes thrashing.
Guest:Screaming.
Guest:He finally falls to the ground.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He falls to the ground.
Guest:Now he calls me.
Guest:I come over.
Guest:Take it off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he does this.
Guest:He just lifts.
Guest:And he takes it.
Guest:He could pull it out.
Guest:Take the things out.
Guest:I can't breathe.
Guest:He can't breathe.
Guest:He's doing this.
Guest:I take it.
Guest:He needs breathing.
Guest:Now that's genius.
Guest:Greatest escape artist in the world.
Guest:He's done most miraculous.
Guest:Some of his movies, my favorite things ever was seeing his very first movie.
Guest:It was just brilliant.
Marc:real life real life yeah it was great and he was like he's another guy that just had it's just interesting to me because you know you look at people like Mel Brooks or Sid Caesar the way you talk about Albert Brooks there are some people that cannot help but be funny if they're just sitting there there's just some part of them that they can't help but be funny and that's what's interesting about because it seems like Dick Van Dyke is a guy who could turn it on and off if he wanted to
Guest:You know, Dick Bang is a, yeah, he doesn't try to be funny ever.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And Steve Martin, also a very serious guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, Steve Martin is, what's the word?
Guest:Mysteriously funny.
Guest:Not mysteriously funny.
Guest:The funniest thing, he did something that was so crazy, but only Steve would do it.
Guest:The Screen Actors Guild gave me some kind of an award, and everybody in the world came.
Guest:And Steve, of course, was invited, but he didn't come, and he...
Guest:And he sent a tape.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the tape was him, just a full head of, says, Carl, I would give anything to have been there.
Guest:I'm so terribly sorry I'm not with you tonight.
Guest:It was a wonderful night.
Guest:He said, but I couldn't because you see it conflicted.
Guest:I'm having dinner next door.
Right.
Guest:He was eating dinner.
Guest:Nobody thinks it's funny.
Guest:And he's also maybe the most exquisite writer.
Guest:He's got the language that is so amazing.
Guest:He's written a few books, including a biography, which I think is the most brilliant.
Guest:People love that book.
Guest:It's the saddest, wonderful book.
Guest:The man who invented himself found.
Guest:He discovered who he was by writing a book almost.
Guest:Almost found himself.
Guest:I mean, he described a life that nobody would ever dream of that he had.
Guest:And then he wrote two books on art that is an extraordinary piece.
Guest:The words that he uses, I don't know where they are.
Guest:when he studied all this, but he's one of these sneaky guys.
Guest:While nobody's looking, he's learning.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So you really had a partnership with him after The Jerk, right?
Guest:Well, I did four movies.
Guest:Yeah, we did The Jerk, Man of Two Brains.
Marc:Did he bring you in on The Jerk, or how did that work?
Guest:Yeah, I was invited to come in on The Jerk.
Marc:And what do you think it is in terms of having worked with all these guys and being a comedy writer yourself?
Marc:I mean, what was the dynamic with Steve Martin, and why did that work so well with the sensibility?
Guest:Well, Steve had never been in a movie before.
Guest:He was a stand-up guy.
Guest:And he hadn't acted with acting, except in one little... He did a little short about the absent-minded way to... That's the only time you work with us.
Guest:And he felt he needed, and he'd seen some of my work.
Guest:And so they invited me to come in.
Guest:I worked a little on the script with him.
Guest:But mainly, he saw how I handled the set, and he was very comfortable with me, and I with him.
Guest:So when he did his second movie, which was...
Guest:What was the second one?
Guest:Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, right.
Guest:He was doing Pennies from Heaven at the time, and I was writing it with George Guipe.
Guest:And that was the most fun we ever had, labor of love.
Guest:For six months, looking at old black-and-white film noir movies and finding a line, a character's name, and pasting it all together.
Guest:It was like doing the most wonderful jigsaw puzzle and overcoming it right.
Guest:That was the most fun I've ever had.
Guest:making a movie.
Marc:And then the other two you did were the Man with Two Brains.
Guest:The Man with Two Brains came apart because Steve wanted to do something silly.
Guest:Let's do a silly move like Donovan's Brain in a Jar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he came up with a brain and we came up with Man with Two Brains which to me everything about that movie is funny.
Guest:From the very first frame when he's being interviewed
Guest:And his name is fine.
Guest:When you have the first laugh, the name of the star is Haferara.
Guest:He says Haferara, H-F-U-H-U-R, U-R-F-A-F-A-R-A.
Guest:He's no, he'll just cut it.
Guest:You're almost there.
Guest:Anyway, but then when he meets the brain, the brain's name is Haferara, U-U-M-A-H-Y-A-Y-E.
Guest:And they know how to spell each other.
Guest:She says, Ophara, U-H-O-F-U-R, O'M-A, U-M-A, yes.
Guest:So, you know, they made it.
Guest:I mean, this is the silliest, wonderful movie ever.
Marc:And when you work with somebody like that, like in the dynamic that you and Mel Brooks have, I mean, it's seamless.
Marc:And you just turn him on and you play off each other.
Guest:Oh, well, it was...
Guest:Yeah, because Steve would come up with things just... Luckily, we rode to work every day together.
Guest:And on the ride, sometimes he would come up with something.
Guest:I remember once this... I wrote about this.
Guest:He...
Guest:He came up with a joke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, shit from Shinola.
Guest:And we said, it was such a great joke.
Guest:I said, hey, we got to do this.
Guest:Before we do this, save that piece of building so we can come around the corner.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:That's shit.
Guest:What is this, Shinola?
Guest:And he was going out into the world.
Guest:And you can't go out into the world unless you know shit from Shinola.
Guest:And I mean, it was.
Marc:So simple.
Marc:On the way to work.
Marc:It's so interesting to me because, like, do you think there's a difference?
Marc:It's a weird question.
Marc:I mean, I'm Jewish, and I resonate with, you know, when I grew up, a lot of the Jewish comics, it's a specific tone to it.
Marc:And Sid was Jewish, right?
Marc:And Mel Brooks was Jewish.
Marc:And they're sort of iconically Jewish.
Guest:By the way, did you see that special about Broadway music?
Uh-uh.
Guest:There wasn't anybody who wrote for Broadway that wasn't Jewish.
Guest:One guy, Cole Porter.
Guest:But there were 1,000 names.
Guest:I wasn't aware of it.
Guest:It was on in Hammerstein and Rodgers and Lerner.
Marc:Why do you think that is?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:They like music.
Guest:But comedy, too.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:No, I think, you know, it's interesting.
Guest:Downtrodden people, you can't take music away from them.
Guest:You can make yourself happy by singing or writing a song.
Guest:You can't take that away from them.
Guest:You can take physical things away from them.
Guest:But you can't take away...
Guest:And a sense of humor is necessary to get through life.
Guest:You kill yourself if you don't have a sense of humor.
Guest:How did people live through the Holocaust?
Guest:They must have found something worth living.
Guest:I'm sure humor might have been underlying everything.
Marc:Save people.
Marc:Yeah, so that's a pretty good analysis.
Marc:Were you ever religious?
Marc:Was your family religious?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:My father never set foot in the synagogue.
Guest:He believed in God, which I don't, but he did.
Guest:He said he did anyway.
Guest:But we never went to a synagogue.
Guest:My friends did.
Guest:Can you do some phony Hebrew?
Guest:Phony Hebrew?
Guest:Yeah, I can.
Guest:No, let's hear it.
Guest:No, I don't want to hear it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:That's the whole service.
Marc:That's all of it.
Marc:Both you and Mel Brooks have an amazing amount of clarity and your brains are on fire still.
Guest:Well, it's enough to do that.
Guest:Do you like that book?
Guest:Oh, by the way, I'm going to say this now.
Guest:You'll be the first one to know this.
Guest:Whoever
Guest:buys retail the I Remember Me book will, if they send in their name, get a free copy.
Marc:The new book.
Guest:This here book.
Marc:The Kark Reiner book.
Guest:The Kark Reiner book.
Guest:Well, that's terrific.
Guest:For one penny, which will go to charity.
Guest:We expect to give the million or $2 million in pennies to some worthy charity.
Marc:Now, what was, in looking back, and as a general question that you probably get before, what were the crowning moments where you really felt like, you know, I can't believe this is happening?
Yeah.
Guest:That happens all the time.
Marc:Every day?
Guest:No, I tell you what, my career has been such a very long, steady, one step after another, and each one either working or not working.
Guest:Most of them worked.
Guest:I've had some dips, but most of the time they were... Got a bunch of awards, got Emmys.
Guest:Oh, yeah, I've got 12 Emmys.
Guest:I've got a Mark Twain Award.
Guest:That must have been phenomenal.
Guest:Oh, it was wonderful.
Guest:No, to be that...
Guest:I forgot who got it before me, but there were only two or three people before me.
Guest:Huh?
Guest:Pryor?
Guest:Pryor was the first one.
Guest:Richie Pryor, right.
Guest:And who was the second one?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Did you know Pryor?
Guest:Yeah, I guess I met him once when he performed.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Loved him?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:And his daughter is so bright.
Guest:Rain.
Guest:Rain, yeah, yeah.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:Gifted.
Guest:Yeah, and who were some of the other guys that you loved watching when you were coming up?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I was honed on the Marx Brothers.
Guest:I waited for their movies, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Guest:And then the Ritz Brothers tickled me a lot.
Guest:But, of course, Buster Keaton, and I appreciate him later.
Guest:I got a little older.
Guest:As a director, probably.
Guest:Yeah, and, of course, Chaplin, of course, was everybody's.
Guest:There's a little chapter on being...
Guest:visiting Chaplin's son in Vevey, France, I was invited there to, and speaking phony French.
Guest:That's a good Chaplin.
Guest:Do you speak French?
Guest:Yes, I do speak French, but when I was invited by Christopher Chaplin to do a benefit of Vevey,
Guest:I went there, and there was a radio interviewer, television interviewer, who spoke French.
Guest:And he said, we can have the interview in French or in English.
Guest:I said, let's do it in French.
Guest:And he asked me questions.
Guest:I said, your questions are too... I need a dictionary.
Guest:And I know you're speaking too fast.
Guest:I said, if somebody will give me your questions in French and English, I will answer you in French.
Guest:And so we did that for a while until the...
Guest:The answers required words that I didn't have in my lexicon.
Guest:I would have to look them up.
Guest:So without breaking strides, I spoke half French and half English with a French accent.
Guest:And I explained what I'm doing.
Guest:I said, I will use, you know.
Guest:How did that go over?
Guest:Well, it was sensational.
Guest:You know, it's funny.
Guest:You never did the mountains, though.
Guest:You didn't end up going to the mountains?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You did?
Guest:That's where I met my wife, in the Adirondacks.
Guest:It was an adult camp.
Guest:It wasn't the Boar Circuit.
Guest:It was an adult camp.
Guest:It was a progressive camp where...
Marc:Is that what Woody Allen referred to as socialist summer camps?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:There were a couple of them.
Guest:There was Tamarment, and this one was called Alabama Acres.
Guest:It was a camp where we lived in bunks, you know, bunk for eight.
Marc:And what was the theme of that?
Marc:Like, why was it called the progressive camp, and what was the idea?
Guest:Because they cared about social justice.
Guest:They cared about the war, the wrong war, going to the wrong wars, and all of those things.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:They were considered, you know, commies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And were you in a review?
Guest:Yeah, I was a neophyte.
Guest:I had no political interest, but somebody had seen me work, and I auditioned, and I went up there for $10 a week, and it was the best training ground in the world because there was a comedian called Bernie Hearn.
Guest:I was his straight man, and he was brilliantly funny.
Guest:There were three comedians at the time, Zero Mostel, Philly Leeds, and Bernie Hearn, who were left-wing comedians.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Brilliantly funny and nice man.
Guest:And I learned a lot from him.
Guest:And I also met my wife there.
Guest:What was she doing?
Guest:She was an assistant scenic designer.
Guest:And I write about that.
Marc:In terms of being a straight man, in terms of being a guy that's known as that, what does that require?
Marc:I mean...
Guest:I've finally figured it out only in the last couple of months what I really am.
Guest:Somebody said, what are you?
Guest:I am the master, master of ceremonies.
Guest:I get a greater kick out of saying, and here is.
Guest:Because I've done hundreds of benefits for the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild.
Guest:And I MC these shows.
Guest:I never prepare because I can't prepare.
Guest:I've had this ability since I'm 18 years old.
Guest:And I found it right there at the Alabama Acres, where I used to do the game shows.
Guest:I used to introduce acts.
Guest:And I would find the fun people.
Guest:By looking out at the audience, I would say what's on their minds or what's on everybody's mind.
Guest:You say the truth, you don't have to be funny.
Guest:You say the absolute truth that everybody's thinking and somebody dares to say it and it becomes terribly funny.
Guest:So I've had this ability and I realized that what I always have done and enjoyed doing was introducing people.
Guest:And when you introduce a funny person and you come out smiling and applauding, you're part of it.
Guest:You are the one who...
Guest:And I realized when I was, I became a fucking bore when Searching for Sugarman came out and I saw it.
Guest:I went so nuts for it.
Guest:I bothered everybody to see it.
Guest:I said, you've got to see this.
Guest:I'll pay for you to see it.
Guest:And I told people, take your wife, take your love, because you're going to, and you know how many thank you letters I got and people calling me saying, I would have never seen this movie.
Guest:I mean, I might not have seen it, but I forced them to go see it.
Guest:That's who I am, a master of ceremonies.
Guest:That's what I do.
Guest:And I get a great pleasure to point to things and say, look at that.
Marc:Look at that.
Marc:And also, do you feel like, look at that, but then when you're sitting up there with the funny guy and you know that there's a beat there where you've got to kind of represent the guy watching and take him to the next level, that you kind of provide momentum.
Right.
Guest:Yeah, well, if I have something funny to say, I'll say it.
Guest:And real good comedians don't figure they're being challenged.
Guest:It keeps the pot boiling.
Guest:They usually, really good comedians feed off funny stuff and get funnier.
Guest:So you like Jimmy Kimmel?
Guest:Jimmy Kimmel's your guy?
Guest:I love Jimmy Kimmel.
Guest:And when I go on his show, which I will do in February, what is it?
Guest:February 11th.
Guest:February 11th.
Guest:I can't wait to tell him
Guest:and mean it, that he, when he emceed the Emmys, he did the single funniest thing I've ever seen any emcee do, including myself, which I've done a lot of funny things.
Guest:But at one point, which very many emcees do when they have a relative in the audience, they point that out to the audience, they say, my mother and father are sitting in the fifth row, and they put the camera on them, and they say, thank you for coming, it was so nice for you to come.
Guest:He said, you know something?
Guest:He said, when I was a kid, my mother or somebody, my father, they gave me a briefcase to take to school.
Guest:I was a little kid.
Guest:He said, I carried that briefcase to school, and everybody made fun of me.
Guest:And for the rest of the year, they were killing me with jokes.
Guest:And he said, and I didn't appreciate that.
Guest:You know, you shouldn't have done that.
Guest:It was really, what were you thinking?
Guest:And he started getting angry at his parents.
Guest:He said, you know something?
Guest:I don't want you here.
Guest:He said, get them out of here.
Guest:And they were laughing.
Guest:He said, no, no, I'm serious.
Guest:Get the ushers.
Guest:And the ushers ushered them out of there.
Guest:And I said, I've never seen anybody throw their parents out of an event.
Guest:Now, that to me was the single funniest emceeing I've ever seen.
Guest:And you've seen them all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you like Carson?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Carson?
Guest:Are you kidding?
Guest:He was the guy everybody wanted to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've done 50 Carsons, but it's a lie.
Guest:I did 47.
Guest:And when I came on, I said, you know, I said...
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:Tony Randall did 63.
Guest:He had the record.
Guest:I said, I did 47, which is good.
Guest:I said, but you know, and even 50 would be nicer in my resume.
Guest:I said, if you'll do this, and he did it.
Guest:I said, if you'll introduce me three times, I'll make three entrances, and I can cut them in.
Guest:And so I made an entrance, the regular entrance, then I took my jacket and put it on backwards, you know, with the sleeves.
Guest:And then I carried it on the third, and I sat down.
Guest:And so we have...
Marc:You made your number.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Well, that's a great way to end.
Marc:Thank you, Mr. Reiner.
Marc:Oh, wait, chicken feathers.
Guest:Oh, chicken feathers.
Guest:Give me one of those.
Marc:This is you and Mel Brooks do this when he comes over here?
Guest:The one you, were you leaning on this one?
Guest:Were you?
Guest:Oh, yeah, then this probably has.
Guest:Wait here.
Guest:Okay, all right.
Guest:Okay, well... There's feathers coming out of there.
Guest:Okay, right here.
Guest:Okay, you see, at night... Yeah.
Guest:I feel around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's a little...
Guest:Something, you feel something sticking out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This started when somebody sat and said, you know.
Guest:Oh, you're pulling feathers coming out.
Guest:Yeah, feathers coming out.
Guest:And we get a bunch of them.
Guest:And I have a plastic bag that I fill with them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know what I'm going to do with them.
Guest:Give one to Mark.
Guest:I mean, that's a souvenir.
Guest:So what's this have to do with you and Mel?
Guest:You both do this?
Guest:Yeah, we both do this.
Guest:But only if there's a show that's on that we don't have to look at the screen.
Guest:You do have to pay attention to what you're doing here or you'll never find it.
Marc:So you guys just sit and hang out for an hour or two?
Guest:Well, about three, four hours.
Guest:Do you talk?
Guest:Of course we talk.
Guest:And sometimes while we're watching something that's not terribly, he'll fall asleep and I won't wake him.
Guest:Because he drives home, and I'm saying he probably, better he sleeps here than falls behind the wheel.
Guest:What is that thing he told me about movies, that you like watching movies with certain phrases in them?
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's true.
Guest:And it's really, it started with the Bourne series.
Guest:And the phrases are...
Guest:Secure the perimeter.
Guest:Lock all doors.
Guest:And if one character in the movie says, get some rest.
Guest:If those words are in the movie, that movie's a good movie.
Guest:We do love Justified.
Guest:And it follows what I read once.
Guest:The best, the greatest heroes are made...
Guest:By the greatest villains.
Guest:In other words, a movie that has a really great villain.
Guest:You never want to see that guy die.
Guest:Maybe at the very end.
Guest:But because they're the ones who make the greatest heroes.
Guest:And we're thinking that Christopher Waltz in...
Guest:In Glorious Bastards.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That one of the best villains.
Guest:I could watch that guy being mean forever.
Guest:That was one of the most brilliant performances.
Guest:So I think you're saying that a hero... Without Basil Rathbone, half the movies we've seen would never have been as good.
Marc:So the hero is the villain Straight Man.
Guest:Yes, right.
Marc:All right, I'm going to take those feathers.
Marc:Thanks for talking to me.
Marc:Okay, hi, it's me.
Marc:I'm back and I just listened.
Marc:This was an amazing couple of interviews for me.
Marc:It was beautiful, beautiful to sit with Carl and listen to him and watch him interact on the phone with people in the room with me.
Marc:But nothing is going to top what happened after I shut the mics off.
Marc:And I will tell you this now.
Marc:We turn off the mics and I'm sitting there.
Marc:And almost immediately, George Shapiro, who, as I said, was napping in the chair across from Carl on and off, was the first to get up and go, what a great interview.
Marc:That was a great interview.
Marc:Wasn't that great?
Marc:And then Carl starts fiddling with remote controls.
Marc:He's like, I got to show you that PBS thing with the Jews in the musical.
Marc:I got to show you that.
Marc:I mentioned it.
Marc:I want to show it to you.
Marc:And I'm like, okay.
Marc:And I'm putting my stuff away.
Marc:And then George Shapiro goes, is there ice cream?
Marc:Is there any ice cream?
Marc:And then he wanders into the kitchen.
Marc:The publicist guy who's there, he wanders into the kitchen.
Marc:And I'm watching Carl.
Marc:He's got the TV on.
Marc:He's looking for it.
Marc:He's like, oh, maybe it's on the other TiVo.
Marc:Maybe this TiVo.
Marc:He's not bumbling, but there's a lot to be done here.
Marc:And clearly he watches a lot of television, has a lot of things recorded.
Marc:So then George Shapiro comes back into the room and starts handing out some kind of low-calorie ice cream sandwich.
Marc:And now we're all eating ice cream.
Marc:And Carl starts the documentary at the beginning.
Marc:So in my mind, I'm like, okay.
Marc:I guess I'm hanging out.
Marc:I guess I'm here for the hour.
Marc:I don't know what happens now.
Marc:Are we going to get to the list that he wanted to show me?
Marc:Look, I don't have a lot to do, and this is an amazing thing.
Marc:So I'm packing up.
Marc:We're watching something on Gershwin.
Marc:We're eating ice cream sandwiches.
Marc:Everything is great.
Marc:And then the phone rings, and Carl picks it up, and I'm packing my bag up.
Marc:And I hear him go, no, it went very well.
Marc:It was very good.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And then he taps me on the shoulder with the phone and he hands me the phone.
Marc:He goes, it's Mel Brooks.
Marc:So I'm like, oh, okay.
Marc:So I pick up the phone and I bring it to my ear and I go, hello?
Marc:And all I hear is 80%, right?
Marc:Right?
And
Marc:And I said, maybe 85.
Marc:And Mel Brooks goes, all right, maybe 85.
Marc:Put Carl back on the phone.
Marc:It was just too much for me to even put it together that for three weeks, this was the beat.
Marc:This was the callback.
Marc:This was the moment.
Marc:That is comic genius.
Marc:Killed me.
Marc:I kept it in because I didn't know.
Marc:Look, they're comedians.
Marc:I just handled it like anyone would.
Marc:Like, oh, my God.
Marc:I just waited for the longest punchline available by Mel Brooks.
Marc:Weeks.
Marc:Weeks.
Marc:So then Carl gets back on the phone.
Marc:And I think from what I could glean, the conversation was Carl was insisting that he was going to roast his own chicken.
Marc:And then everything starts to break up.
Marc:I pack up and I get the PBS thing.
Marc:He didn't seem to be hung up on showing me the list at the end.
Marc:And I say goodbye to Carl and I thank him.
Marc:And then I'm walking out with Shapiro.
Marc:We finish our ice cream sandwiches.
Marc:I'm walking out with George Shapiro and we get outside.
Marc:And he goes, that was great.
Marc:That was a great job.
Marc:He goes, what did Mel say?
Marc:And I said, he said, Carl's about 80%.
Marc:And George Shapiro goes, yeah, he tells the truth.
Marc:Then he walks away, and I got in my car, and I listened to the interview I had just done with one of the great comedy minds of ever, of ever.
Marc:And I drove home listening.
Marc:Look, people, that's the end of the show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed this set of interviews.
Marc:I did.
Marc:Well, look, you know what to do.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Do what you got to do.
Marc:Leave a comment kicking a few shekels.
Marc:Get the premium app.
Marc:Get the free app.
Marc:Check my calendar.
Marc:Check the episode guide.
Marc:Get the first 100 episodes on TV.
Marc:Do whatever you want.
Marc:You know, just...
Marc:Try to be nice.
Marc:And I tell you, all we can hope for is that we have the type of lives that Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner did.
Marc:And we stay as strong in spirit and mind for as long as they did.
Marc:It was just overwhelming.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Shalom.
you