- 2 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:12Hey Adam are you around? Adam? Yeah. Hey can you come in here buddy? Yeah. Hey what's up?
00:19Listen Adam I have something to talk to you of a sort of a delicate nature. All right. You know
00:25Dylan? Dylan? Yeah your son? Yes. Have you noticed anything about his work ethic
00:30around here lately? No not really. You're telling me you haven't noticed anything
00:36about my son Dylan's work ethic around here lately? Yeah I mean just didn't
00:41really think it was my place to say. You're telling me you haven't noticed he's
00:45a lazy uninspired bum? Well I mean yeah he's he's pretty bad. Really bad?
00:55I think he's the worst. He's never gotten a single joke on this show. He's
01:01terrible. Yes he is. Adam, I've decided something. What's up? I'm gonna fire him.
01:07Give him the boot. Really? Uh-huh. Can't say he'll be missed.
01:22But listen here now. He's a very sensitive kid you know and he's just young. You know last time he
01:30got fired he really took it hard. He was a cashier.
01:33He got fired from a cashier's job? Yeah. Seems pretty hard to do. He was embezzling a lot of money.
01:40Oh that'll do it. Yeah I still remember it. He cried for seven days straight. Sounds kind of like a
01:50baby.
02:02I have no job. Wait a minute. The point is I want to fire him but I don't want to
02:09break his spirit. You understand?
02:11You know what you should try? What's that? Compliment sandwich. Never heard of it. What is it?
02:14No Norm. A compliment sandwich it's a criticism. It's sandwiched between two compliments. Hence the
02:21phrase compliment sandwich. I think maybe I understand. So I would it'd be like if I said to
02:26you you're a tall man you're not a funny man but I like your tie. Well now I feel like
02:31you're just
02:32trying to compliment sandwich me and this isn't about me it's about your son Norm. Just take a compliment
02:37sandwich would you? Jeez. It's like a guy's never had a compliment sandwich before. Okay scram.
02:45Hey if you see Dylan would you tell him to come in here? Gotta fire him. Dylan! Your father wants
02:54you.
02:56Hey pops uh Adam told me to come out. Oh yeah Dylan well listen I uh I gotta talk to
03:03you all right?
03:04All right uh try to make it quick though cuz I'm taking off pretty soon. You're taking off?
03:08Yeah. The podcast is beginning in 10 minutes. Yeah I've been working hard all day probably gonna head
03:16on out. All day? You've been here 30 minutes? Well you know what they say last to come first to
03:22leave.
03:22Nobody says that. Oh I say it all the time almost every day. Okay now listen. All right. This is
03:31hard
03:31for me to do but uh I gotta do it okay? Now uh well first of all I really like
03:39your hat the way you have
03:40it backwards. This old thing? Yep. Oh my goodness. I just grabbed this you'll never believe it. Walking out of
03:45the
03:45house today. Just grabbed it. Wasn't even gonna wear it. And look at that. Changed my whole day.
03:50Your work sucks. Dylan. Sorry I was I was thinking about the hat. It was just such a nice thing
03:57to say. I really
03:58appreciate it. And you know what? It is a great hat. I'm just I'm happy now. I like your sweater.
04:07Ah! The sweater too? Wow. Same story. Walking out. Felt a little breeze. Went in. Grabbed it.
04:15Okay let me try this again. All right? All right. You're a good dresser. Yeah. Your work is absolutely abysmal.
04:23Do you think I could be a model? Do I? What? I mean I'm a good dresser. The hat. I
04:29mean it really says it all
04:30and it means so much coming from you. I like your shirt that's underneath the sweater.
04:38Ah! Yeah. No it's good. It really brings the outfit together. Okay listen. Are those your jokes
04:44that you wrote today? Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Been cracking them out. Okay. I am going to prove
04:49something right now. Read the jokes to me. All right. I think you'll like these. Been working
04:54pretty hard. Remember kids. A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet. Unless he has candy in
05:02which case he's probably a pedophile. So maybe not that one. I'm on a seafood diet. I see food and
05:15if
05:15it's a fish I eat it. Metta. Yeah. I hate meta. Well someone once told me that today is not
05:25opposite day. But that's exactly what they told me last opposite day. Math. I crack myself up.
05:34I think that's what's important in life. A journey of a thousand miles begins with your first step
05:40but ends with you collapsing a thousand miles away probably in some desert somewhere.
05:47It's not that bad. Well okay let me see these.
05:51Here you go. You're going to use them on the show?
05:53I'm going to use them on the show. Well let me start by saying that you're a wonderful dresser.
06:00Oh my gosh. That's it. You know what? I have a reputation to uphold now.
06:06You've really inspired me. The hat compliment. The shirt compliment. The undershirt compliment.
06:12People are going to start expecting me to look this good every day. And you know what?
06:18I'm going to go shopping. What?
06:20Yep. I'm taking off. But I will need your credit card.
06:24You'll need mine.
06:24What? Yeah. So I'm going to buy probably a lot more clothes. All right. Cool. Thanks.
06:37And I'll be back later this week. And I'll bring you some more of those gems.
06:48Adam Eget. Yeah. Would you come in please? What's up? How'd it go? I just wanted to compliment you.
07:01Yes. You have a very nice tie. And I like your shirt.
07:18I just bought it. I like my shirt. I go to Zara more often.
07:29It's chilly in here.
07:34Hey, can I get some more water?
07:40Our guest tonight for the full hour, Hollywood legend Carl Reiner won nine Emmys and won Grammy Award.
07:47My mother would be so upset because I won 12 and she always used to get upset.
07:52Somebody wrote nine and she used to argue with the people in the park and said, you know, I won
07:5612.
07:57He has won a dozen Emmy Awards during his career as a stand-up actor, director, producer, and writer.
08:02Worked on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows.
08:04Also, the Steve Allen Show, the Dick Van Dyke Show. Directed and co-wrote The Jerk and Dead Men Don't
08:09Wear Plaid.
08:10Played Saul Bloom in Ocean's 11, 12, and 13.
08:13His books, I Remember Me and I Just Remembered, are on Amazon.
08:20It winded me that-
08:22You did very well.
08:24That's more work than I've ever done and it's just what you've done.
08:28By the way, when somebody asked me about you, I said, I always remember you as the man with the
08:34perfect perpetual smile.
08:37You are a smiling person and it's true.
08:39That's not good for comedy, is it?
08:41No, it's wonderful.
08:42It is?
08:43It's wonderful, yeah.
08:44Because I'm here to have fun.
08:45I'm happy.
08:46And you know, people go, comedians are miserable.
08:49I know.
08:50Were you miserable?
08:51Did that come from a place of misery?
08:52No, no, I'm a happy comedian.
08:53Yeah, what about you?
08:54Well, you're not a comedian.
08:55No, I'm pretty miserable.
08:57He is a filthy bum.
09:01Oh.
09:02Now, you know what he is?
09:04He's a comedy manager at the world-famous comedy store.
09:08Oh, more people were discovered at that comedy store.
09:11Now they have the world-famous comedy store.
09:13They have comedy clubs everywhere.
09:15Whew.
09:16But now a person can go into comedy as a life choice, a career, a business.
09:23Right.
09:23When you started, such was not the case, I measured.
09:27Well, I didn't start in comedy.
09:29I started as an actor.
09:31Huh?
09:31No, I was 17 years old.
09:33And my, this is interesting, my brother found a little ad in the New York Daily News, free
09:39acting classes for would-be actors, the WPA, Works Progress.
09:46You know, they say, get the government off the people's backs.
09:49No, that's where the people belong.
09:51When they need help, the government wants you.
09:53Franklin Roosevelt gave us help.
09:56Artists learned to paint, not learned to paint, but made money painting murals on post offices.
10:03Musicians became musicians, and I went to an acting school where I was 17 years old, and it's 100 Center
10:11Street in New York.
10:12I remember, because I got married in the same place years later.
10:14But there was Mrs. Whitmore, an old English actress, who gave us acting lessons for free, post the WPA, the
10:22government paid for it.
10:23The NYA Radio Workshop, also government sponsored.
10:27I learned $22 a month they gave us as a salary to do radio shows.
10:33Now, how did your parents respond to such a wild idea?
10:37My parents were all for it.
10:40Really?
10:40They were so proud of it.
10:42What year was this?
10:441939.
10:441939.
10:451939.
10:47A war about to break out in Europe.
10:49Yes.
10:49You know, it's funny when I mention Mrs. Whitmore, an old English actress.
10:54I never forget the first day there.
10:55She said, we're going to learn a soliloquy from Hamlet, but we're not going to do the sub-regular soliloquies.
11:03We want everyone in the class to learn Queen Gertrude's speech at the death of Ophelia.
11:10And boys and girls will learn that.
11:14You can wake me up in the middle of the night.
11:16There is a willow grows a slender brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
11:21There were fantastic garlands that she come with crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long
11:26purples that liberal shepherds give a grosser name.
11:29But our cold maids, too, dead men's fingers call them.
11:32There upon the cotton had clambered to hang, an envious sliver broke.
11:37When down her weedy trophies in herself fell into the weeping brook, her clothes spread
11:41wide and mermaid-like, at which time she chanted snatches of old tunes as one incapable of her
11:47own distress.
11:48But then the poor wretch was pulled from a melodious sleigh to muddy death.
11:53Now, look at that.
11:54Oh, my goodness.
11:55No, I'm not kidding.
11:56And I haven't said that in days.
11:59No.
12:01It makes me want to wake you up tonight.
12:06Now, this is what I was wondering, because I was telling you earlier, you know, my son and
12:10I watched the Dick Van Dyke show, and I don't know where I'll go with this.
12:15No, you know what?
12:16Something, you said something that when I wrote this book, I remember me.
12:21I'm often, when I asked which of the theatrical projects I'm most proud I answered, creating
12:27the Dick Van Dyke show, hands down.
12:29And I put that in, because I didn't write anything about the show, but that show is the
12:33thing that informs who I am.
12:35And, you know, it was about me.
12:38As a matter of fact, one of the things about that show that thrills me more than anything,
12:42writers, young people come up to me.
12:45It happened then when I first wrote it, and it happens now with reruns.
12:49People say, you know, I wouldn't be a writer if it wasn't for the Dick Van Dyke show.
12:52These young kids were funny.
12:53And they never thought of getting up.
12:55They thought comedians are, you know, make it up themselves.
13:00Somebody writes it for them.
13:01And maybe dozens and dozens of kids said it back then and now.
13:05Same thing.
13:06There were three runs.
13:07There's a number of wonderful things about Dick Van Dyke, but one thing I noticed once
13:10I got into show business was how true it was to the backstage of show business.
13:14You had Mel Cooley, the bum, Alan Brady's brother-in-law, had the job for no reason.
13:20And that really exists.
13:22And the star was an egotist, you know.
13:27And what I really loved was that the neighbors made fun.
13:31Millie and Jerry helped.
13:32Millie and Jerry helped.
13:33Millie and Jerry.
13:33And they all made fun of the show.
13:35They didn't really like the show.
13:36Yeah, it's funny.
13:37Millie and Jerry were my dearest friends.
13:39They were Millie and Jerry Schoenbaum.
13:40I named them after them, from New Rochelle.
13:42It was all based on my life, living in New Rochelle and working in show business.
13:47So did you have times when you had to write the school play and that sort of thing?
13:50No, but I was always called upon to do those kind of things.
13:54Yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:54But it's an amazing show.
13:56But about the Dick Van Dyke show also, it was, this is an argument I always have with
14:01my friends, because nowadays it's all young kids on TV.
14:04Now, when I was a young kid, I watched older people.
14:08I'd watch the Dick Van Dyke show, Get Smart.
14:10Right, right.
14:10The Beverly Hillbillies, which my high-tone friends tell me was not a good show, but I loved.
14:16And they were all old people, you see?
14:18I know.
14:18And my son, I brought him up on those shows.
14:20He didn't want to see an 18-year-old.
14:23Oh, the world has changed.
14:25There's no question about it.
14:27So you don't think that it would still work with experienced actors, comic actors?
14:33Of course.
14:34Yeah.
14:34Anything that is quality always works.
14:38Real quality gets in there somehow.
14:39But if you take young actors and young writers compared to experienced actors and experienced
14:45writers, which would be the better show?
14:46I imagine experienced writers.
14:49I imagine so, huh?
14:50Oh, young, brilliant writers.
14:52There are young, brilliant writers who have watched what has happened before.
14:57You know?
14:58That's a copy machine.
14:59I cannot not mention this.
15:02Yes.
15:03The J.C. in your tie.
15:05Now, Jesus Christ did not wear a tie.
15:07We know that.
15:07No, he wore sandals.
15:09So who else was J.C.?
15:10Who else other than Jesus Christ?
15:12Yes.
15:13Jimmy Conn.
15:14How about Johnny?
15:16Johnny Carson.
15:17That's right.
15:17This is his tie.
15:19No, it's not.
15:20Yes.
15:20In honor of him, I wore it for your show because...
15:22Because I'm the new Johnny Carson?
15:24That's exactly right.
15:25Holy cow.
15:27Wow, have you read the book by Bombastic Bushkin?
15:30No, I haven't.
15:31It's lying on my bed.
15:33I'm going to read it.
15:33Did you read it?
15:34It was amazing.
15:35Yeah.
15:35But it makes you want to never have a lawyer.
15:40Because his contention was, well, he's dead.
15:42Now I can write whatever I want.
15:44No, Johnny, I love Johnny.
15:45We played poker together, and I just loved him.
15:48Yeah, yeah.
15:49Who was older?
15:50He was probably...
15:52Well, I don't know.
15:52How old was he when he died?
15:53He must have been a little older.
15:55Yeah.
15:55I'm 92 now.
15:56I don't know.
15:57But, you know, Johnny, I wrote a thing about Johnny.
16:01I was on his show 47 times as his show.
16:04Yeah.
16:05And that little chapter about him is funny because Tony Randall, who lived in New York, was on
16:09the show 79 times.
16:11That was a record.
16:12Nobody will ever touch that.
16:13Yeah, yeah.
16:13Because he would go on when he was 90.
16:15Yeah.
16:16And do sketches.
16:16But I remember in his last weeks, he was going on.
16:19He invited me to be one of the last.
16:20You know, Mel was the last, I think.
16:22Yeah.
16:22And he was the very first one, and always the last one.
16:24But about the last week, I went on, and I said, gee, you know, 47 times I've been on
16:29your show.
16:30I said, I know I'll never touch Randall, but I said, 47 times?
16:34It's not a round number.
16:35I want to be able to say, I was on Johnny's 50 times.
16:38Yes.
16:38So I said, would you do me a favor?
16:39I really swung it on him.
16:41I said, will you introduce me three times?
16:43I'll come out three times, and I'll just show the week.
16:46So he did.
16:47Here he is, and I did my little dance.
16:49I came out and sat down, and he asked me a question, and I ran off, took my jacket
16:53off, and put it on backwards, you know, inside out.
16:57And he introduced me again.
16:58I did a different dance, and we did it three times.
17:01The last time it came, we're like Sinatra carrying it on my shoulder.
17:04So I looked at him, but he was so sweet about it.
17:06That's awesome.
17:07You know, it's funny.
17:09You mentioned Mel.
17:11You were talking about Mel Brooks and Tony Randall and yourself, all older now but still hysterically
17:18funny, others not so.
17:21Like, for instance, Dick Van Dyke.
17:24Tony is not funny anymore.
17:26Tony Randall's dead.
17:27Yes.
17:29You'll lose so much humor after you die.
17:32It's just lazier.
17:34That's true.
17:35But what are you going to say?
17:37I was going to say, guys like Dick Van Dyke or Sid Caesar, they don't seem funny.
17:43You know, I know Sid Caesar's also dead.
17:46But, you know, they somehow lost it for some reason.
17:50Or maybe they chose not to do it.
17:52Well, no.
17:53Sid was on.
17:55Well, Sid set the template for everybody.
17:57I mean, there would be no comedy without Sid.
17:59Greatest sketch comedian that ever lived.
18:01What about Nora Dunn?
18:04Now you're talking.
18:05But offstage, none of these guys.
18:07Dick is very serious.
18:09I'm talking about onstage.
18:10I've seen Sid Caesar interviewed.
18:12Oh, yeah.
18:13Nothing.
18:14If Sid had to say his name, he could fumble.
18:17Tell him he was a German astronaut.
18:21He was very shy about who he was.
18:24He and Imogen never spoke.
18:26They were both so shy.
18:27Wow.
18:28You wouldn't think that, huh?
18:29But if you said, here he is, the greatest so-and-so, he would come up with a character.
18:33And Dick Van Dyke, I suppose, was never really a comedian, but more of an actor.
18:37Dick Van Dyke is the most gifted actor I've ever met in my life.
18:42That's why it always made me laugh when I'd see the Dick Van Dyke show, and Dick Van Dyke would
18:46be pitching, or I mean, Rob Petrie would be pitching something for Alan to do.
18:52And you'd be going, oh, he'll be a bowling pin.
18:55And you'd go, Alan Brady could never do that.
18:58I know.
18:58I know.
18:59By the way, everybody thought that Alan Brady was Sid Caesar.
19:03He wasn't.
19:03Sid Caesar was a pussycat.
19:04Alan Brady was a combination of three guys.
19:07Jackie Gleason, who never spoke to his writers.
19:10They wrote the show and put it under his doorstep.
19:12Oh, real son of a bitch.
19:14Never spoke to his writers.
19:16Then there was a guy named Phil Silvers who played.
19:18I love Phil Silvers.
19:19Yeah, but he played a character called Top Banana.
19:22He played a combination of Milton Berle and those guys.
19:26So he gave it the template.
19:28But Milton Berle was a guy who whistled, yelled at everybody.
19:30Son of a bitch.
19:31But everybody thought it was Sid.
19:33Sid was a pussycat.
19:34But wait a minute, because Phil Silvers, you never get rich.
19:38I love Phil Silvers.
19:39Are you telling me he was a bad guy?
19:41No, no.
19:41He was playing a bad guy.
19:43He played a bad guy.
19:43I got you.
19:44He made, he, so that's the guy who became Alan Brady.
19:48Alan was nuts.
19:49Everybody said, Sid was, we went to lunch together for nine years.
19:52So, you know, he had to be a nice man.
19:55Now, I saw Nick at Night at one of those things.
19:59They showed the first episode where you were the star of the show.
20:05Well, when I finished doing the show, somebody came to me and said,
20:09situation comedy is king now.
20:11Horses and guns were in.
20:13And so they offered me some of them.
20:18They weren't very good.
20:19And my wife, in her infinite wisdom, said, why don't you write one?
20:22And I said, I don't know.
20:23And I remember this.
20:25I've told the story before, but it's worth telling again.
20:3096th Street and West End Avenue, I talk to myself.
20:34I recommend that highly.
20:35I say, Reiner, I never used my first name.
20:38Reiner, what piece of ground do you stand on?
20:40You're not a formal.
20:41No, no, no.
20:42What piece of ground do you stand on?
20:43Nobody else stands on it.
20:44Well, I live in New Shell.
20:45I work in New York as an actor, writer on the show.
20:49I write about that.
20:50So I wrote a show called Head of the Family.
20:52Oh, and I got it picked up.
20:54I said, Peter Lawford put up the money for the pilot.
20:57And so I said, well, if I'm going to do a pilot, I better have 13.
21:00I better have more episodes.
21:02Peter Lawford?
21:02Peter Lawford, yeah.
21:03He put up the money for the original pilot.
21:05So I said, but other writers are going to come after me.
21:08I better have a template for them.
21:09So I wrote 13 shows in Fire Island in about six weeks.
21:14I came and I did the first show.
21:15It was okay with Morty Gunty and Sylvia Miles and a girl named Barbara Britton,
21:20who played my wife.
21:20It didn't work.
21:21Put it aside.
21:22Started writing movies, Doris Day movie.
21:24And Sheldon Leonard and Danny Thomas saw these scripts.
21:28My agent was killing him.
21:30The gold was lying on his desk.
21:32Yeah, yeah.
21:32So he offered it to them.
21:33And they called me in.
21:34You knew it was good.
21:35Oh, yes.
21:36I said, it's classic.
21:39I poured my heart into it.
21:40But I was so angry.
21:41I said, if they don't want it, they don't deserve it.
21:44And so Sheldon called me in.
21:45He said, well, you read the scripts.
21:47I said, Sheldon, I don't want to fail with the same material twice.
21:50And there's a good impression.
21:51He said, you won't fail.
21:52We'll get a better actor to play you.
21:56And he suggested Dick Van Dyke.
21:58Sheldon Leonard.
21:59Do you remember him?
21:59I don't.
22:00He was a tough old guy.
22:01He was a race track tout.
22:04He played on.
22:05Kind of a Runyon-esque character.
22:06Yeah, Runyon-esque.
22:07Brilliant guy.
22:08Brilliant.
22:08This is what I was going to ask you.
22:09Can I ask you a question, Carl?
22:11Yes.
22:12Can I give you an answer?
22:14I didn't know if questions were allowed.
22:16Yes, yes.
22:17But you have to put it in the form of a question.
22:19Okay.
22:21No, forget that.
22:22I want to ask you about your affiliation with Steve Martin.
22:25Because people, you know, Steve Martin was such a moment of his generation.
22:29And you were of a previous generation.
22:32I don't know how you guys hooked up.
22:33It was one of those great marriages.
22:35Steve was maybe the best stand-up ever.
22:37He was now playing for 46,000 people.
22:40And he said, this is, he had it.
22:43He had it.
22:43He had it.
22:44And he didn't know what to do with himself.
22:45So somebody offered him this thing called The Jerk.
22:50And they came to me because they didn't have a director.
22:53And it needed a little work.
22:54And he had never acted with an actress.
22:58But boy, this guy, he's no question about it.
23:01First of all, he's a genius writer.
23:03The book he wrote, Born Standing Up, may be the best biography ever written.
23:07It's brilliant and so sad.
23:09So far.
23:09Anyway, but the first day on the thing, he fell into it so quickly.
23:15Nothing needed to be said.
23:16It was co-written by the two.
23:18By him and Mike Elias and another, Carl Gottlieb.
23:22And I put my three cents in.
23:24The directors have to do that.
23:26You'll have to write 75, 25% to get a credit.
23:30But I didn't need a credit.
23:32The credit was that I was so happy to be with that jerk.
23:35Did you like the anarchy of the film?
23:36Oh, my God.
23:37I loved everything about the film.
23:38I knew we were doing something special.
23:40Do you know Where's Papa?
23:41I haven't seen it.
23:43Oh, I love that movie.
23:44Where's Papa?
23:44That was Robert Klain wrote that.
23:47Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:47That was a brilliant piece of writing.
23:49When you were making The Jerk?
23:50Favorite line from The Jerk.
23:53It's probably, God, there's so many.
23:56They're shooting at the cans.
23:57That whole scene.
23:58Shooting at the cans.
23:59They hate those cans.
24:00And Emmett Walsh.
24:03And when his name is in the telephone book, I'm somebody.
24:06That's the greatest.
24:08This is just the kind of spontaneous publicity I need.
24:16This is all Steve.
24:17He's this guy.
24:19He is just brilliant.
24:20He is absolutely brilliant.
24:21Unbelievable.
24:21If you want to read brilliance, he did a book on art.
24:27He's an absolute genius.
24:29Oh, yeah.
24:29I hate art.
24:30I don't know anything about it.
24:31Well, you should look at a picture.
24:33Yeah?
24:34There's art behind you.
24:35That's photographic art.
24:37Are you a connoisseur of art?
24:39Well, my wife was a very fine artist.
24:42My son, Lucas, is a fine artist.
24:44Oh, is he?
24:44And an established artist.
24:46So you understand art?
24:47I love art.
24:48I don't understand it.
24:49I do understand the people who do it.
24:52They just throw me.
24:54Well, let me ask you this.
24:56You know, they say, like, oh, this is comedy subjective, whatever.
24:59I don't really believe that.
25:00I don't think comedy is subjective.
25:02Because, for instance, art.
25:04You could show me an abstract painting, and then you could show me dogs playing poker.
25:09I would pick dogs playing poker.
25:11Yes.
25:11But I'm wrong, obviously, clearly.
25:15That's a very punchline of a sketch where Alan Arkin and the old, when they did the Second
25:23City, one of the sketches they did was an art deal of showing people.
25:28And that is, she says, there's so-and-so, man's inhumanity to man.
25:32And a woman behind says, I don't like it.
25:36He says, well, madam, you're wrong.
25:39Well, sir, you're wrong.
25:42You don't think that there's any merit to that belief?
25:45What?
25:46That art is objective.
25:48Of course.
25:50Not subjective.
25:52Objective.
25:53In other words, something can be funnier than something else, no matter anybody's opinion.
26:01It's always in the eye of the beholder.
26:04But what if the beholder's an idiot?
26:06Then his eye is an idiot, too.
26:10Wouldn't you trust your opinion of what's funny over his?
26:13Trust your own.
26:14You know the best opinion?
26:16There's one way you can find out if something's funny.
26:18Are you laughing?
26:20There was a show called, a movie that came out after the show of shows was done called
26:26Ten from Your Show of Shows.
26:27I went to see it at a theater.
26:29I remember the theater I was seeing it at.
26:30And one sketch, which is considered one of the funniest sketches ever done since then.
26:36Anyway, I heard laughter in that theater like I'd never heard before.
26:40One was a high-pitched, screaming woman.
26:44Tackling.
26:45And I realized that woman was me.
26:49I was laughing with a laugh I'd never heard before.
26:51I'd never seen it.
26:52I was in it.
26:53I was part of it.
26:54But we never looked at the kinescopes.
26:56We did the shows.
26:56We did 39 shows a season.
26:59And then went 13 weeks off.
27:01Came back and did 39 for seven years.
27:04Yeah, seven years.
27:05Unbelievable.
27:06We'll be back.
27:07Hey, what about this, though?
27:09Why does some comedy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, hold up for generations and others do not?
27:16That's a good question.
27:17I have a good answer for that.
27:18I really do.
27:19You want me to answer that now?
27:20Yes, of course.
27:20Yes.
27:21When we did that show, I knew we had something very special.
27:24I said, this is classic.
27:25I told the writers, I said, this is a classic show.
27:28It's going to go on way past us.
27:30And I said, so I want no slang in this show.
27:33Because a guy came in with a McMinnville and, you know, from the story about the same name.
27:38I said, no slang.
27:39I said, a gun is not a gun.
27:41It's not a gat or a rod.
27:42It's a gun.
27:43I said, we knew no slang.
27:45This show will last a longer time.
27:47Well, that's interesting.
27:48And I was assiduous about that.
27:50And I knew.
27:50And you didn't know who the president was?
27:51I knew we had something special.
27:53You didn't know the governor or the president or anything like that?
27:55No.
27:56Yeah.
27:56And we stayed out of that, too.
27:59Because look at Murphy Brown.
28:01Can't be showing anymore.
28:03Is that right?
28:04Well, because every second joke's about Ed Mies.
28:06Oh.
28:07Or Dan Quayle.
28:09Yes.
28:09No one's interested in that.
28:11Mies in Jewish means ugly.
28:14Mieskeit means funny looking.
28:15Oh, yeah?
28:16It's true.
28:18Really?
28:18Yeah.
28:19You knew that?
28:19I did.
28:20That's why I looked at you.
28:21What's a humorous call for four years?
28:22Funny.
28:22It don't look Jewish.
28:23Oh, yeah.
28:24Yeah.
28:25He's a half a Jew and a half a self-hating Jew.
28:30That's called anti-Semite.
28:32An anti-Semite, yeah.
28:33He's a half a proud Jew and half a virulent anti-Semite.
28:39Disagree.
28:39He's conflicted.
28:40Does he like the 2,000-year-old man?
28:43Oh, both parts of me.
28:46I'm going to ask you one question about the 2,000-year-old man, then we're going to go to
28:49a break.
28:49Okay.
28:50Would not have been easier to make him a 10,000-year-old man?
28:55As a matter of fact, I was wrong making him a 2,000-year-old man because I asked him
28:59questions
28:59that happened before 2000.
29:01I asked him about Moses, and I realized, well, that was my mistake.
29:06Anyway, that's my fault.
29:08We'll be back with the great Carl Reiner momentarily.
29:16Back with the only Carl Reiner.
29:21How do we know that?
29:26That's true.
29:27Well, there's others with your name, but none with your body of work.
29:30Oh, I have a thing.
29:31For your body of work, it's best body.
29:35That's all I could get.
29:36I couldn't get best body of work.
29:38I love this, and it's so light.
29:40I can carry it with me anywhere.
29:43I have this.
29:44It's going to go right next to my nine, 12 Emmys.
29:4712?
29:48It's a dozen Emmys?
29:49It's my first best body.
29:5012 Emmys and Johnny Carson's tie.
29:53Yes.
29:53And you've got, looks like Douglas Edwards' tie.
29:56How old that thing is.
29:57Remember Douglas Edwards?
29:59What's he holding there?
30:00What's he holding there?
30:02I think he's holding some sort of exercise, dynamic tension.
30:07Remember Charles Atlas?
30:08Yes, I do.
30:09Ernie Pyle?
30:10Yes.
30:11I know all those names.
30:12All those fellas.
30:12Here's a question for you, and I only sense this.
30:16I don't know if this is true.
30:19But did Dick Van Dyke and Jerry Van Dyke have any troubles between the two?
30:23No.
30:24They loved each other.
30:25Because I always wondered why, because I was a devotee of your show.
30:28And then three seasons in, all of a sudden, Jerry Van Dyke shows up.
30:32No.
30:32As a matter of fact, it happened in a very interesting way.
30:36Dick got a letter from his brother.
30:38He was saying, oh, my brother's working so-and-so.
30:41I said, your brother?
30:43He says, yeah.
30:44He was on the road all the time.
30:46And I said, when did you see him last?
30:49He says, not for two, three years.
30:50He's always away.
30:51I said, would you like to see him?
30:52I'd love to.
30:54I said, well, we'll write him on to the show.
30:56Just tell me one thing about him, and I'll write a show about him.
30:59I said, well, he says, as a kid, he sleptwalked.
31:01He was a sleepwalker.
31:03Don't say another word.
31:04And I wrote a show, and I called Dick, and I said, hey, Dick, I can't do it in one
31:08show.
31:08It's too big a subject.
31:10Can we do it?
31:10Well, can you come for two weeks?
31:12He's absolutely, oh, that's even better.
31:14No, he was so happy to see his brother.
31:16They got along great.
31:18That's awesome.
31:18My favorite, or one of my favorite episodes was, more Amsterdam's brother, Phil Leeds,
31:26played him.
31:26You remember that one, The Pool Shark?
31:28Do I remember?
31:30Many reasons, and one of the reasons was, Phil Leeds was one of the best comics in the
31:36world, one of the sweetest human beings, but during the McCarthy era, Phil couldn't
31:41get work.
31:41He was branded a communist because he had left leanings, and he couldn't work.
31:46And gee, I knew about him, and I knew his work, and I had seen him in New York.
31:51He was hysterical.
31:52He was so sweet.
31:53Never did political humor, even.
31:55And so I said, I'm going to, he looks like Maury a little bit.
31:58I'll call him, and I got him out to play his brother, a really badass brother.
32:03And after the show, the sponsors called me, and said, that guy was great.
32:06Where did you find him?
32:08He's a New York actor.
32:10That's all I could say.
32:11You mean because he was branded at that moment?
32:14Huh?
32:15The moment you cast him, he would still have been branded.
32:18Oh, sure.
32:19Oh, yeah.
32:20Oh, yeah.
32:20If they knew, he was one of the guys, they would say, you can't use him.
32:24Wow, that's interesting.
32:24I don't, I know nothing about the blacklisting, but just as you said that, were Jewish people
32:32more likely to be blacklisted?
32:34Well, not, I don't know about that, but Jewish people were more likely to be considered liberals,
32:40and so they'd be more vulnerable.
32:43Were you ever a communist?
32:44No, they called me and said, and they knocked at my door, 9 o'clock in the morning, on Sunday,
32:51two guys dressed like that in black suits.
32:54Mr. Reiner?
32:55Have you no shame, sir?
32:57Mr. Reiner, FBI, may we come in?
33:00Oh, absolutely, gentlemen.
33:01I'm in my shorts.
33:02I was just woken up.
33:03They wanted to know if I knew.
33:05Explain to the folks what the FBI is.
33:07The Federal Bureau of Investigation were looking for communist infiltration into the arts.
33:14They were sending people to jail.
33:17By the way, the guy who ran the whole committee was ultimately sent to jail and went to the
33:22same jail that the communists were sent, and it was so nice to him.
33:26They really were.
33:27Anyway, that was another part of the story.
33:29The FBI are at your door.
33:31They're at my door, and I decided, and by the way, I was on the show of shows at the
33:36time,
33:36and I said, oh, here it comes, and I had done liberal things.
33:39I was a liberal, and I had done liberal causes, and they wanted to know this is the question
33:43they asked, and I could not believe it.
33:45They said, sir, did you vote for the American Labor Party in the last election?
33:51And I'm saying, they can't ask that, sir.
33:53It's a secret ballot.
33:54And I said, yes, absolutely.
33:57Didn't you?
33:58And I decided I'm going to go with them.
34:00They were charming.
34:01I'd out-charmed them.
34:03They said, why did you vote?
34:04I said, Henry Wallace, our vice president.
34:06He's a businessman.
34:08He runs a strawberry farm.
34:09We need a good businessman.
34:11And I said, you didn't vote for it?
34:14Who did you vote for?
34:15Anyway, that's the way it went for a long time.
34:18And then they asked me questions like, you once emceed a thing for Mr. Barsky, a fellow
34:25named Edward Barsky.
34:26Do you know about him?
34:27I said, yes.
34:28He said, you know he was a communist?
34:30I said, probably.
34:32But I said, why did you do that?
34:33And I said, well, they asked me to emcee something.
34:36They were giving him a big award because he invented plasma, the thing that saved lives.
34:42You know, he did it in the fields during the Spanish War, the Franco War.
34:47And with a motor from a machine, from a car, a jeep.
34:53Sure, that's what I do.
34:54He got plasma out of that.
34:55He got plasma out of that.
34:56And I said, saved thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives in the Second World War.
35:00I said, I would, you know, who wouldn't be an emcee at that?
35:04And then they said, you also emceed a thing, a liberal thing at Carnegie Hall.
35:08I said, who asked you to do that?
35:10And I said, well, it was in Call Me Mr. at the time, a Broadway show.
35:13Somebody asked me.
35:14And I said, Carnegie Hall, every kid actor, you have to play a violin.
35:18You want to go to Carnegie Hall?
35:19I didn't play the violin.
35:20I didn't sing.
35:22So a gentleman, and I said this to him, a gentleman, if the FBI ever has a big event,
35:27I'm your guy.
35:28I want to emcee that event.
35:30This is the way I went.
35:31And then they asked me the question, do you know any commies?
35:36I said, I'm sure I do.
35:38And he said, could you name them?
35:39I said, commies don't go around giving their names.
35:42But, oh, you don't know any commies in show business?
35:45I said, sure, they're in every business.
35:47You guys tell us that.
35:49And they said, would you give us anything?
35:50I don't know.
35:50They don't go around telling their names.
35:52And that's the way we left it.
35:53And nothing else.
35:54It wasn't illegal to be communist at the time.
35:56It was just, it couldn't work.
35:58I think the Constitution says you're allowed to.
36:00You think the way you want to think.
36:02Right.
36:03But you couldn't work.
36:04Do you ever think maybe it's a little like racism?
36:07A lot like racism.
36:08No, I mean, if you're a racist.
36:10Oh, yes.
36:12It's not illegal, but you can't work.
36:14If you're a racist, you can't work.
36:16Well, Donald Sterling, for instance.
36:17Oh, yes.
36:19Do you think there's any correlation?
36:21He doesn't have to work.
36:23No, he doesn't.
36:25You know, the amount of money he has, he could live another 100 years.
36:29That's true.
36:30No, but a serious question, though.
36:32Yes.
36:32If a man has a job and he is a racist, should the job be taken away from him?
36:38No.
36:38Okay.
36:39But his fellows should.
36:42Good news for him.
36:43Yeah.
36:43Not a racist.
36:46Hey, you want to hear some questions from the Twitterverse?
36:49Absolutely.
36:50Are you on Twitter?
36:51Absolutely.
36:51Every day.
36:52Goodness.
36:52Can I follow you?
36:53Yeah.
36:53Oh, yes.
36:54What is your name?
36:56It's at Carl Reiner.
36:57At Carl Reiner.
36:59How did you come up with that one?
37:00My first Twitter, I remember, was a good one.
37:03It was, sometimes I'm beginning to worry about my short-term memory loss.
37:07That was the, oh.
37:09Sometimes I'm beginning to worry about my short-term memory loss.
37:13Sometimes I'm beginning to worry about my short-term memory loss.
37:16That was it.
37:19You asked, how did you come up with that name?
37:21I thought he was talking about his first Twitter name.
37:23I was like, that's a really long Twitter name.
37:29Real Ed McMahon over here, huh?
37:32Stepped right in the middle of your thing.
37:36Ed McBoy.
37:39That's your nickname up now on, fella.
37:43Ed McBoy.
37:45Anyways, here are some questions from the Twitterverse for Carl Reiner.
37:49Have you ever once, in a moment of anger, asks BigYellow22,
37:54have you ever once, in a moment of anger, Carl Reiner,
37:57called your son Meathead?
38:00I have never called my son Meathead.
38:02My son, Rob Reiner, has one of the best heads I know.
38:06He's one of the smartest people I know.
38:08What a body of work.
38:09On any subject.
38:10It's amazing.
38:10I saw him on one of these shows where they had left-wing ones.
38:14I saw him on Politically Incorrect once.
38:16Brilliant.
38:16Right.
38:17And just no matter what the subject is, bang, he's there.
38:19And even his brother and sister agree with us.
38:24Very well informed.
38:25I ran into him about a few weeks ago at a bank,
38:28and he was just complimenting the Cadillac.
38:31And just he went off for like five minutes about everything he loved about Cadillacs,
38:35asking what year it was.
38:36So I believe that.
38:39Ed McBoy.
38:40But he has one of those cars that you plug in, you know, get a lot of.
38:46Oh, yes.
38:47A Tesla.
38:48Tesla, yes.
38:48Yes, yes.
38:49My friend has a Tesla.
38:50He's very big into environment and all that.
38:52Those Teslas are a nice ride, too.
38:54Yes.
38:54Aren't they?
38:55They're coming out next year with sort of an SUV Tesla.
38:59Really?
39:00Because I can't get down low in those sporty cars, you know.
39:03Well.
39:04Brittle bones.
39:07Tyler Cain 08.
39:09That's the fellow's name.
39:11Yes, yes.
39:11On the Twitter.
39:12We can't all be Carl Reiner.
39:14No, no.
39:15Or Tyler.
39:16Your dad was a watchmaker.
39:18What the heck did they give him when he retired?
39:22Well, he was self-employed.
39:25Oh, he was?
39:25Yes.
39:26He was.
39:27Oh, he also asked, was he tightly wound?
39:29No, I put that.
39:30My father.
39:31When you talk about my father, I write about my father a lot in a book.
39:34My father was five foot three, and my mother was five foot two, and I were to be six foot
39:39one.
39:39I said, Mom, Bob, how did I get my height?
39:41Where did it come from?
39:42He says, well, your grandfather, my father, your father.
39:45I said, how tall was he?
39:46Five, six.
39:48But my father was also an inventor.
39:50He invented the battery clock, and he invented a battery.
39:54He invented a battery that would last 100 years to drive a clock.
39:57He was a real inventor.
39:59He invented a thing that sells time to take your own picture.
40:03He was a really very, very, very bright.
40:06Did he ever think of being in the, well, that's creative.
40:09So did he ever think of being in show business?
40:12No, but he, when he came from Europe, he bought himself a violin because he loved the violin.
40:17His brother took lessons, and by using a book in libraries, he taught himself to play the violin well enough
40:23to play in an orchestra, the flute, the clarinet.
40:27He was a real good musician, and very short.
40:34So what are your biggest memories in the war?
40:36What was the worst thing you ever saw?
40:37In the war?
40:38Yeah.
40:40Well, uh...
40:40Worst thing?
40:41The worst thing I ever saw in the war.
40:43Did you ever see a dead man?
40:45No, I didn't.
40:46So you were blessed in a way.
40:47No, but I was in the, I was in the hospital for three months.
40:52I had pneumonia when I was a radio operator, and I laid on my stomach and I'm running a generator
40:59and getting frostbit, and I ended up three months in the hospital and watching dying people in the hospital.
41:04Did you worry about your own mortality?
41:06Pneumonia was a serious thing back then.
41:07No, no.
41:08You're worried about it, but you, for some reason, stupidly, you think you're going to get through it.
41:12You think you're going to be the one that the bomb is going to go.
41:14My brother...
41:15You're worried about the fellow next to you.
41:17My brother Charlie was in 11 major battles, including the original battle in North Africa against Rommel.
41:2411 major battles, blown up once.
41:27He came out, when they had the picture at Arlington yesterday, I was there at Arlington when they, my brother
41:33passed away many years ago when he was 83 years old, and they gave him a 21-gun salute.
41:38This is a brother who worried when he was a kid if somebody spit on him, he'd put peroxide on
41:43him.
41:43Yeah.
41:43And here he's in the war.
41:45Died a hero.
41:45And when he told me once, after the Rommel invasion, he said, for 37 days, they never bathed, shook...
41:53He said, when I took off my socks and shoes, I hadn't seen my feet for 37 days, I didn't
41:59recognize my feet.
42:00Wow!
42:01I mean, that was the story.
42:02The stories he told, and he liberated Dachau.
42:06He told those stories, him and his bunch.
42:08And he said, the stories he told them, and he told them 25 years after it happened.
42:14I said, why didn't you ever tell about it?
42:15He says, I didn't want to relive it.
42:18Every time I thought about it, do you want to hear a horror story?
42:22And Dachau, when he liberated Dachau, there was one skinny Jew left who was in charge of doing
42:29things that they, he said, they went into the middle of the town.
42:34There was a stench in the town that was horrible.
42:36But they went into town, they got all the people out of the, people didn't know about the cremations.
42:43Didn't know about it?
42:43They didn't know about the cremations.
42:45And they, and they got all the people out of the buildings.
42:48There were a few survivors last season.
42:50Go in those buildings, a captain, a Jewish captain.
42:53Go in those buildings, take what you want, get food.
42:55And they wouldn't go.
42:56They were frightened.
42:57They went in the building, came out with a piece of bread and ate it.
43:00That story.
43:00But these, the stench was so horrible.
43:03And this story never told me for 25 years.
43:06He said, what it was is they were caught.
43:09They knew the Allies were coming in and they were going to go to, the Nazis would get caught.
43:13They took all of the people out of Auschwitz or Dachau.
43:18And they sent them into the woods, put them in a pile, threw gasoline on them and lit them.
43:24And they were burning.
43:25And it was the smoldering fat coming off bodies that was still being, they were all dead.
43:31But they were all being, that's what the smell was.
43:33And when he told me that story, I said, this is a comedy show?
43:38What's funny about it is there's nothing funny about it.
43:41That's funny.
43:43Look at, I got the smile off his face, oh my God.
43:47Oh no, this is important things.
43:49Boy, that Rommel was a tough old bird, huh?
43:52Yeah.
43:53Wow.
43:56Now that really, does that change your mind at all about your opinions?
44:03I had a bar mitzvah, again.
44:06Jewish, my mother and father, both sides.
44:08Oh really?
44:09Yeah.
44:10Were you ever frightened?
44:12Frightened?
44:13That Hitler would win somehow?
44:15Did that cross anyone's mind at the time?
44:18It never occurred to me that Hitler would win.
44:20The fact that-
44:21Only because he was evil?
44:23You know, the thing that I think of all the time is that Hitler came to power and somebody
44:30allowed him to come to power.
44:31And when I see people listening to congressmen talk about things that can wreck our country,
44:38I'm saying, why don't more people speak up?
44:41That's what happened in the old days.
44:43Nobody spoke up.
44:44Everybody went along with the, go with the flow.
44:46You don't go with the flow if the flow is leading you into a sewer.
44:50It's a very slow, yeah, very slow process.
44:52People just stay silent.
44:56Wow.
44:58Now I gotta, now I gotta, now I gotta find a question from the Twitterverse.
45:04And he just said we have-
45:05Wait, it says, wait a minute.
45:06Don't you have something in your book on Hitler?
45:09Oh, wait a while.
45:10I remember leafing through and seeing a picture of Hitler.
45:13Oh, wait, wait, there is one.
45:14Oh, yes, you know-
45:16He's a German shepherd, I believe.
45:17Yeah, there he is.
45:19There he is.
45:19There is the feller there.
45:20His name is H.V.
45:23Kaltenborn.
45:23A broadcaster.
45:24In the 30s, he was the first news person who did analysis of the news.
45:30Nobody did analysis.
45:31They just told you the news.
45:33But he did analysis.
45:34He was like an old-timey Howard K. Smith.
45:37I remember him only because I didn't care what he was saying.
45:40But I was like six, eight, ten years old.
45:42But his rhythms, he had a very specific way of haltingly talking.
45:47As he spoke, he chopped his words in half and he made himself very interesting to me as a little
45:54boy.
45:54I talked like him.
45:56Anyway, so for some reason, I dreamt of him.
45:59And one of the things I remembered later on, I was on the Jack Parr show, and I thought Kaltenborn
46:05was on with me.
46:06And this is the story I remembered.
46:10On the show, I thought he was talking about Hitler.
46:15He mentioned the fact that he had.
46:17There's Hitler.
46:18There's Hitler.
46:19He mentioned the fact that he had interviewed Hitler at Berchtesgaden in 1939 before the big Anschluss.
46:30And he says he was not a very nice man.
46:33He knew he was not a very.
46:34And then later on, he said that somebody saw him.
46:39This was another person commenting on Hitler.
46:42He saw a bunch of dogs ran out.
46:45And Hitler had a relationship with those dogs.
46:47He says it was a part of Hitler he had never seen.
46:50It was a side of Hitler he'd never seen.
46:52And I remember screaming, how about the side of Hitler that killed six million Jews?
46:57I thought I was screaming at him.
46:59I was screaming at the set.
47:00Of course, Kaltenborn and I were on Parr show, but two nights, a night apart.
47:05He was on one night.
47:06And I was actually looking at the set and screaming at the set.
47:09Oh, wow.
47:09And I had to Google that to remember that.
47:11I found that we were not on the same.
47:13Oh, wow.
47:14But there were one.
47:15Oh, and I said that night, I dreamt, I hope I dreamt about.
47:17The great June Allison.
47:19June Allison.
47:20And I showed you what June Allison looked like.
47:22She was my favorite looking person.
47:25By the way, that dog he loved so much was the one he poisoned.
47:29To test out his poison before he committed suicide.
47:32That's the only thing he really did good, Hitler, is he killed Hitler.
47:36Yeah, I know.
47:36And with that, we're going to go to a break.
47:38When we come back, jokes with Carl Reiner.
47:50Back talking to Carl Reiner, the author of this book right here.
47:57Anybody ever say you look a bit like Jerry Seinfeld?
48:02No, forward by Jerry Seinfeld.
48:04I know, I know I see that, but look at your face.
48:06Yeah, well, that was how I looked at 20.
48:08Yeah, a little bit.
48:11Huh?
48:11A little bit, maybe.
48:13It's the Semite in both of us.
48:16Yeah.
48:18He claims he's part Semite, but I don't know.
48:21Full, full, 100%.
48:24So this is where we do jokes.
48:26Would you like to do a joke, Carl?
48:28You're a great joke teller.
48:29I'd love to do a joke.
48:30Okay, here's a joke.
48:31Carl Reiner, the great Carl Reiner.
48:33So you can read ahead?
48:34You can just read?
48:35No, a tractor trailer flipped over, releasing millions of bees,
48:39which stung the driver hundreds of times.
48:42Speaking from the hospital, the driver said,
48:45No flowers?
48:50You put a little Yiddish in that one.
48:53Oh, I realize in therapy, Carl, that I'm not afraid of dying.
48:57I'm afraid of living.
48:58Oh, no, I'm afraid of dying.
49:03I had Larry King sit in this chair, your chair, a couple of weeks ago.
49:09And he said he's a younger man than you by a dozen years, as many Emmys as you have.
49:15So the years that he divides you by.
49:21But he thinks of death all the time.
49:25You know, there's a whole chapter in his book, how to tell of the encroaching.
49:32Oh, look at this.
49:35You know, I have a, yes, about tweets.
49:38There's a whole bunch of, put your money where your mouth is when a burglar breaks into your home.
49:43Put your money where your mouth is, and you'll get the tenth interest you would from a bank.
49:48There are a lot of those.
49:49My favorite was, a penny earned is nothing to brag about.
49:52Yeah, a penny earned is nothing to brag about, right.
49:55Some people just don't get it, while other people get it, but just don't want it.
50:00Well, those are good.
50:04Felons will be less likely to commit crimes if our prison served worse food.
50:10Well, now, what about these jokes?
50:12They're not going to sound as funny anymore.
50:14No, no, go ahead, go ahead.
50:15Well, you don't want to do a dirty joke.
50:18Absolutely.
50:19Here you go, sir.
50:20Okay.
50:22Police in Tennessee arrested a teenage girl when they found a loaded handgun in her vagina.
50:27When questioned, her boyfriend said, I guess that explains why my cock, I can't say that word.
50:34I guess that explains why my cock kept getting blown off.
50:38I don't get it.
50:39Oh, I can't get it.
50:41I may believe I don't get it, because that means I'm not complicit.
50:46I'm not complicit.
50:47Two months later, we still haven't found Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
50:50This looks like the work of Yoran Vandersloot.
50:54Remember that character?
50:56Yes.
50:56No.
50:57You don't remember him?
50:58He's one of allegedly, well, he murdered.
51:00How about this one, Carl?
51:01Okay.
51:02A 28-year-old med student is auctioning off his virginity online.
51:07For $300,000, you can have the worst sex of your life.
51:12That's good.
51:13That ain't bad.
51:14That ain't bad.
51:14Who writes these?
51:15Oh, well.
51:16How about this one?
51:17I know who writes them.
51:18You know who writes them?
51:20Prison, men in prison.
51:22That's right.
51:23A man in Cipata allowed a hyena to eat his penis after being told by a witch doctor that would
51:29help him become rich.
51:31Is it me, or does it sound like that hyena and witch doctor were in cahoots?
51:36I think maybe they were in cahoots.
51:38See, who writes these?
51:39Huh?
51:40We should have this person locked up and looked at, or at least looked at.
51:45Let's let Adam Eager read one.
51:46He likes to read sometimes.
51:48All right.
51:48George Clooney's engaged.
51:50The rich and handsome 53-year-old told reporters, it's time for me to settle down and start officially
51:56cheating on a heart-sick and disillusioned spouse.
52:01I don't hear any laughter.
52:02Well.
52:03I love George Clooney so much that he can do no wrong.
52:06He's just one of the good-
52:07I can do a lot of wrongs.
52:08He's just one of the good human beings in the world.
52:10He is, doesn't he?
52:10Well, look, he put you in three movies.
52:12With the things that he does, he and his father going to Delfour and going through Chad at risk
52:19of being- to send food and shelter to people who are getting killed.
52:24I don't know.
52:24He's really a- he's a man of the world.
52:27I mean, a man of caring about the world.
52:29I don't know much about geopolitics, but that is one cool name for a country.
52:36Chad.
52:36I know.
52:38Yeah, yeah.
52:39Hey, how about this one?
52:41Yeah, okay.
52:41This is a terrible story.
52:43The Nigerian schoolgirls.
52:43The kidnapping victim in Nigeria are being forced to marry their captors.
52:47I'm glad to hear these kidnappers are old-fashioned.
52:51In a way.
52:51Yes, yes.
52:52In a way.
52:52I mean, they're getting married.
52:53Yes.
52:54Yeah.
52:54This is a similar type of joke.
52:57Right.
52:58Some of the 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by extremists in Nigeria have been forced to
53:02marry their kidnappers.
53:03And worse than that, they've been forced to laugh at their husbands' stories even after
53:08hearing them for the umpteenth time.
53:11You know something.
53:12I don't know.
53:13Yeah, I know.
53:14It's very hard to make a joke about those girls who are kidnapped.
53:18When I hear about those things, that is one of the worst, you know.
53:21And yet you got a big laugh out of yours.
53:23Yeah, I'm sorry.
53:24I got it.
53:25You know, I'm just thinking of Liam Neeson doing that movie called Taken.
53:29Taken.
53:30Oh, yeah.
53:30It's one of the best movies ever made.
53:31I love Taken.
53:32And I love comeuppance movies when Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite movie because
53:37the people, the bad people get comeuppance and Taken, Liam Neeson wipes the floor with
53:42the worst human beings in the world who have Taken.
53:45And when I read about these kids, all I can think is Liam Neeson sent him in and get these
53:49people out.
53:50Very, yeah.
53:51Also interesting, though, still that you got a big laugh and he got nothing.
53:54What?
53:55Yeah.
53:55I don't know how you're still surprised by this.
53:57People are being kind.
53:58To you?
53:59Yeah.
54:00I disagree.
54:01No, if there's anybody to be kind to, it's this guy.
54:05Hey, how about this?
54:06If I had a gun to my head and had to pick a vice presidential candidate to have sex with,
54:11I would choose Sarah Palin and Spiro Agnew.
54:15Remember Spiro Agnew?
54:16Do I remember him?
54:17Hot piece of ass.
54:18You know what I would like to hear?
54:19A poem.
54:20Do you have a poem, sir?
54:22I do not have a poem.
54:23You do not have a poem?
54:24Oh, I have a poem.
54:25You have a poem?
54:26Perfect.
54:26Well, I'm glad one of us has a poem.
54:28Yeah, thank God.
54:28You know, as a matter of fact, this poem, and here, by the way, I wrote this poem when
54:36I was 20 years old in the Army, and I wrote it on a piece of paper, which I had
54:41lost.
54:42All I remember was the title.
54:43How did you know to archive yourself?
54:45Well, this is one of the things.
54:47When I was writing this book, I happened to find the little, the little...
54:52Almanroca tin?
54:52This little thing I carried in the war, it was with all my letters in it, and I found
54:59this piece of paper in there.
55:00All I remember was the Ode to the Buttocks Bountiful.
55:03I know I...
55:03Ode to the Buttocks Bountiful.
55:06And I remember I've written that.
55:07Would you do us the honor of reading?
55:08I will, and I would not have been able to write it had I not found it just a week
55:13before
55:13I finished writing this book.
55:15Ode to the Buttocks Bountiful.
55:16This is...
55:18I've written this to a girl that I had met in the Army before I was married, a young
55:23girl, a very lovely girl named Lois.
55:25I don't know her last name.
55:26Not an American.
55:27I hope she's listening today.
55:28Is she an American?
55:29Yes, she is.
55:30I met her in Laramie, Wyoming, and she did have a very lovely backside, and I wrote this poem...
55:36Likely long dead.
55:37I wrote this poem to her.
55:39Wouldn't you say?
55:40Pardon?
55:40I say, likely long dead.
55:42Yes, yes, yes.
55:44No, no.
55:44Not likely.
55:45She was younger than I am.
55:46Oh, oh, oh.
55:46Maybe not.
55:48Ode to the Buttocks Bountiful.
55:51In any anthology of poetry carefully bound, poems of love and hate undoubtedly could be found.
55:57And wherever one deemed to look or to gaze, up would pop Keats with nightingale and vase.
56:05But ne'er has there been in verse or in rhyme an ode or sonnet to a covetous behind.
56:11To the laws of poets I will not abide, but write as I will of the broad back side.
56:16To me this subject is as quite as dear as love and intrigue was to will Shakespeare.
56:22So to hell with convention and the great bard, I'll write as I will of the hiney firm and hard.
56:28I do not extol, of course, any blasé asp, but one that belongs to a lovely sweet lass.
56:34A tush that is soft, rigid and white, not one flesh, flabby or slight.
56:39So to you, dear Lois, I deed must ordain, you are the queen of aforesaid terrain.
56:48Wow.
56:50Anyway.
56:51You know your life, you're a renaissance man.
56:54I sent that to when she loved it.
56:56She really did.
56:57As a matter of fact, she was a very, very lovely girl.
56:59You know what else is interesting?
57:01Bodacious behinds are now all the in thing.
57:03I know, I know.
57:04You know, she made a trip from Laramie, Wyoming to Bronx, New York, just to visit my folks
57:11and tell them what a lovely son they grew up.
57:14And she was a very lovely girl.
57:15I wish I knew her last name and I wish she was still alive so I could thank her and
57:19say
57:19hello to her.
57:20You are multi-talented though.
57:21I did not know that.
57:22You are a renaissance man.
57:23I would call you the rich man's Steve Allen.
57:26The rich man's poor man.
57:28Steve Allen is the guy who is responsible for the 2,000-year-old man getting on record.
57:35Oh, he is.
57:36We did it at parties for years.
57:37Ten years, Mel and I did the 2,000-year-old man just for fun.
57:41Yeah.
57:41And everybody says, you got to put it on record, you got to put it on record.
57:44And we said, no, this is only for Jews and non-anti-Semitic Gentiles.
57:49And finally, Steve Allen said, fellas, if you don't do it, George Burns says if you don't,
57:56he sorted a party, if you don't put it on a record, I'm going to steal it.
58:00And Edward G. Robinson said, put it on a record.
58:03He says, I want to make a play.
58:05I want to make a play out of that.
58:07Make a play out of that.
58:07That's what he said.
58:08Make a play out of that.
58:09I want to play the 1,000-year-old man.
58:11I says, 2,000.
58:12I can play any age.
58:14And it was Steve Allen who said, fellas, take my studio, go whale.
58:18And we did.
58:18We wailed for two hours, cut it out to 47 minutes, and there it was.
58:22Now, in that story, Edward G. Robinson's the funny man.
58:25Yeah.
58:26Steve Allen just let you use his studio.
58:28Yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:29But it was you who created the 2,000-year-old man.
58:32Not even Mel Brooks.
58:33You!
58:33Yes, yes.
58:35The great Carl Reiner has been with us for the full hour of a very special show.
58:40Thank you, sir.
58:41I appreciate it.
58:42Thank you so much for being here.
58:44Thank you Lord.
58:45Thank you very much.
58:46Thank you too.
Comments