Speaker 1: Hi friends, Chuck here with your Saturday Selects episode. This
Speaker 1: is a live when, Live from the l A Podcast
Speaker 1: Festival in This is from November eight when we talked
Speaker 1: about comedy legend Rodney Dangerfield. This episode, Everybody is notable
Speaker 1: because this is where we met Mr Kevin Pollock for
Speaker 1: the first time, when he jumped up on stage in
Speaker 1: the middle of our podcast to refill our water classes
Speaker 1: that had become empty. And that's how we met Kevin.
Speaker 1: And now he's become a real pal and he's a
Speaker 1: great guy and a good industry friend, and uh I
Speaker 1: just think the world of him. So support Kevin and
Speaker 1: the stuff that he does. He's in a lot of
Speaker 1: great movies and a lot of great TV shows right now,
Speaker 1: including one of my favorite shows on television called Better Things,
Speaker 1: where Kevin plays Pamela at Lan's brother, and the wonderful,
Speaker 1: wonderful show Marvelous Mrs Mazel and check out both of
Speaker 1: those if you haven't checked out Kevin's work before. And again,
Speaker 1: a long way of setting up the episode where we
Speaker 1: met Kevin when we talked all about how Rodney Dangerfield
Speaker 1: worked Live from the l A Podcast Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should know A production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: and well, hey, I guess I want to say hey
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. But this is a little
Speaker 1: different because this is a this is the intro to
Speaker 1: the podcast. That's right. We recorded a live episode at
Speaker 1: the l A Podcast Festival, and uh, this is it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is it. We did one on Rodney Dangerfield. It
Speaker 1: was September nineteen fifteen with the Sophie Tell and Beverly Hills.
Speaker 1: Very chic, very chic, and it was a lot of fun. Greed.
Speaker 1: We hope you guys have fun listening to it. How
Speaker 1: are you guys doing? Thank you very much for coming
Speaker 1: to our show. But we do this normally, but um,
Speaker 1: it's usually just two of us and Jerry sitting here
Speaker 1: on Facebook while we record like eating me so soup yea,
Speaker 1: she loves me so souper um. And then you know,
Speaker 1: we do live shows too, but normally there's like a
Speaker 1: gulf of a stage between us and like, you guys
Speaker 1: are right here, so we're watching YouTube. I guess that's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. She's got one of our shirts. Nice
Speaker 1: nice shirt, and she's the only one. Oh I like that.
Speaker 1: I oh, there, of course they are he says I
Speaker 1: listened to podcasts before Cereal burn. Yeah, and on the
Speaker 1: back it says, but I love serially right we should.
Speaker 1: We should also say hi to everybody in lives Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: streaming folks, Hello, and of course thanks to Audible and
Speaker 1: square Space and the rest of those people don't sponsor us,
Speaker 1: so I don't feel n mention anything. Does that count
Speaker 1: as a mid role land? Sure? Okay? Cool with a
Speaker 1: stack of money waiting outside, Mr Monopolies, just hanging out outside? Okay,
Speaker 1: So um, what do you got anything to start with?
Speaker 1: I've got nothing to start with. I usually don't drink
Speaker 1: this early in the day, but coming the nerves and
Speaker 1: is I felt it would be fitting as a tribute
Speaker 1: to our our topic, which we're gonna get into. So
Speaker 1: I decided to work up a heavy sweat because Rodney
Speaker 1: Dangerfield is known for drinking and sweating. Yeah, you're basically
Speaker 1: missing the tie. Got everything else covered? Thanks you guys
Speaker 1: familiar with the one Mr Rodney Dangerfield. Yeah that's good.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that he's a an increasingly underappreciated comedian.
Speaker 1: Like I've talked to it at least a couple of
Speaker 1: people who have not seen back to school? I know boom.
Speaker 1: And I was actually talking to someone who works here
Speaker 1: at the festival who said, is he dead? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: that happens a lot to that, because she said, why
Speaker 1: don't I remember that? Alan? It's no respect? No respect.
Speaker 1: That's the cool thing about the guy like he That
Speaker 1: was his whole stick, that was his whole um hook. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: we need to start in the traditional way. Okay, you're ready,
Speaker 1: very nice, hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuckers Bryant, and we are here at
Speaker 1: l A popfest and uh all you lovely people, give
Speaker 1: yourselves a hand. Thank Is that better? You feel a
Speaker 1: little more? You guys happy with that too? Okay, Um, well,
Speaker 1: now we have to start over. How people, how many
Speaker 1: people have seen back to school? Great start? So, as
Speaker 1: we were saying, um, the weird thing about Rodney Dangerfield
Speaker 1: is that, um, he was his whole his whole stick
Speaker 1: about um no respect was actually really really close to
Speaker 1: accurate as a matter of fact, and and not just
Speaker 1: while he was growing up he had a really tragic,
Speaker 1: terrible childhood, but also as he got older and older
Speaker 1: and even after he blew up. Um he's still people
Speaker 1: just kind of took what he was saying and ran
Speaker 1: with it. Like he he had this one story where, um,
Speaker 1: he opened a club which we'll talk about called danger Fields,
Speaker 1: so it's very obviously his club, and he was on
Speaker 1: his way up to the stage. He'd just been like
Speaker 1: called up there, and on his way some guy stops
Speaker 1: him and says, Rodney, can I have your autograph? And
Speaker 1: can you also give me some more butter? And like
Speaker 1: this this happened to this guy quite a bit. Actually, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it does turn out that you will see even
Speaker 1: after death, the guy got no respect. But um, as
Speaker 1: Chuck will assert later, I predict um he he is.
Speaker 1: He's a comedians comedian and very actually well respected by
Speaker 1: the ones that count. And uh, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you guys know this, but a lot of comedians have
Speaker 1: in her pain, uh, which is the reason a lot
Speaker 1: of them get into comedy and a reason that many
Speaker 1: of them drink until they black out on many nights. Uh.
Speaker 1: Inter pain is no secret to the comedy world. But
Speaker 1: you'd be hard pressed to find someone who was as
Speaker 1: legitimately depressed and sad as Rodney Dangerfield. He was like
Speaker 1: a crying clown for real, he was. He often talked
Speaker 1: about the heaviness he felt every day when he woke up.
Speaker 1: He said he would wake up and every day and
Speaker 1: there it was lingering above him, was his heaviness. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever if you ever want to go
Speaker 1: down a YouTube rat hole, just look up some interviews
Speaker 1: with the guy on YouTube from like the eighties, and
Speaker 1: you know, he does a lot of interviews that just
Speaker 1: like local TV stations promoting movies and stuff. And when
Speaker 1: he's out of his stick element, it's one of the
Speaker 1: saddest things you've ever seen. Man, it's really depressing. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's he just had this air about him. You could
Speaker 1: tell he had the weight of life on his shoulders.
Speaker 1: And it all pretty much stems from his awful, awful,
Speaker 1: awful childhood. Child It is Hilary us so far, everybody. Uh,
Speaker 1: so we should start at the beginning with him. Um.
Speaker 1: He was born in n on Long Island, Not in
Speaker 1: Long Island, Chuck tells me. Um, And uh, he was
Speaker 1: born to a vaudevillian father who took off with one
Speaker 1: of Rodney's brothers to go hit the circuit. And that
Speaker 1: was that, Like he I think he saw him like
Speaker 1: once or twice a year for a half hour, an
Speaker 1: hour or something like that. Yeah, he said he saw
Speaker 1: his dad literally like twice a year growing up. And
Speaker 1: uh he was born Jacob Cohen. Uh, and his dad
Speaker 1: was a juggler and a comic who um apparently hit
Speaker 1: the road because of his wife, Um, who was. You know,
Speaker 1: we were talking about what an awful person she was,
Speaker 1: and we were going over this stuff and that she was.
Speaker 1: But the more I thought about it, um, she she
Speaker 1: had a serious problem. It was you know, back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, you didn't diagnose things like they do today.
Speaker 1: You just ran off to the vaudeville pretty much. But
Speaker 1: she was clearly depressed, like foundly depressed and uh sadly
Speaker 1: completely abandoned emotionally and neglected a little rot or I
Speaker 1: guess little Jacob Uh he was. He was left on
Speaker 1: his own from the time he could remember. His mom
Speaker 1: literally never hugged him once, never kissed him once. He
Speaker 1: swore up and down, Yeah, and never complimented him or
Speaker 1: like tried to build him up. She Uh, she was
Speaker 1: a bad lady. And um at starting probably around age
Speaker 1: eight or something like that, he um realized that if
Speaker 1: he was going to eat dinner on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: he was going to have to go get a job
Speaker 1: and go grocery shopping himself. Right, So he basically raised
Speaker 1: himself storrying about age eight or so. Um and uh,
Speaker 1: speaking of grocer's one of the one of the great
Speaker 1: things that stuck out to him about his childhood. He was, um,
Speaker 1: he had to get a job, and after after school job,
Speaker 1: he was still in school. Um. And he lived in
Speaker 1: a fairly wealthy neighborhood, but he was not wealthy, so
Speaker 1: he used to deliver groceries to his classmates, um home,
Speaker 1: which is kind of demoralizing when you're like ten, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: And he also, while he was out there running around
Speaker 1: on the streets, there's a he wrote an autobiography the
Speaker 1: year he died in two thousand and four, and um
Speaker 1: he called this chapter male Prostitute because he was like ten,
Speaker 1: and he was so unsupervised that they were apparently at
Speaker 1: least one or two local molesters that were like, hey, Rodney,
Speaker 1: come on up, I got a nickel for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he swears up and down that it was just uh,
Speaker 1: that it was it was just kissing everybody, don't worry.
Speaker 1: The child was just kissed by the grown man for
Speaker 1: a nickel um, but he and it happened a lot,
Speaker 1: and he was doing it because he needed the money.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Rodney danger feel, let's fast forward out of
Speaker 1: this horrible, horrible funk. And by the way, we're gonna
Speaker 1: pepper in some of his best jokes here and there. Uh,
Speaker 1: and debated on whether or not to try and do
Speaker 1: it as him, because it's hard. I've already promised certain
Speaker 1: people here there, it's hard to do that. It's hard
Speaker 1: to tell a Rodney Dangerfield joke without kind of doing him.
Speaker 1: And I took a little informal pole last night with
Speaker 1: some folks and they're like, yeah, you sort of have to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's not like it's a good impression. But
Speaker 1: plus it makes me delivering it my flat weirdo affect
Speaker 1: where I'm not even trying it all the weirder, So
Speaker 1: prepare for that too. But one thing that he did,
Speaker 1: and that of course a lot of comics do, is
Speaker 1: they turned that pain into funny and he really relied
Speaker 1: on his uh, his jokes is a way to I mean,
Speaker 1: the only time he was happy was when he was
Speaker 1: on stage performing and as soon as he left that
Speaker 1: heaviness would come back. But he he often joked about
Speaker 1: his mom. He would say, uh, my mom never breastfed me.
Speaker 1: She told me she always thought of me as a friend,
Speaker 1: which is a funny joke. But when you know the
Speaker 1: real pain behind it, it's it's just like the saddest
Speaker 1: thing you've ever heard. It takes a dead bit of
Speaker 1: the funniness away from it. I've got a good apparent one.
Speaker 1: You're ready. Yeah, So I remember the time, and this
Speaker 1: is my Rodney danger. I remember the time I was kidnapped.
Speaker 1: They sent a piece of my finger to my father.
Speaker 1: He said he wanted more proof that probably did not happen.
Speaker 1: But it gets the point across, you know, And plus
Speaker 1: it's funny. And so if you're a one more parent joke, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I tell you my parents hated me. My bath
Speaker 1: toys were a toaster in a radio funny. All right,
Speaker 1: that's going over better than I thought it wouldn't. So,
Speaker 1: so starting about age fifteen, he starts, he realizes he's
Speaker 1: actually kind of hilarious and that he has a talent
Speaker 1: for taking all of this horrible, tragic stuff and turning
Speaker 1: into funny stuff. Um and uh, he started writing jokes
Speaker 1: and he got good pretty quick. He started selling jokes
Speaker 1: age fifteen or sixteen to establish comedians, right, yeah, and
Speaker 1: he kept him He had this stuffel bag. He would
Speaker 1: write jokes by hand his entire career and put him
Speaker 1: in this stuffel bag. So he literally had a duffel
Speaker 1: bag full of like thousands and thousands of jokes. And
Speaker 1: apparently I think, uh you said that during a typical
Speaker 1: performance later, like once he hit the big time, he
Speaker 1: would tell like over three d jokes in a set,
Speaker 1: like three fifty yeah, yeah, in an hour. He ran
Speaker 1: at their quick jokes, but still, but he remembered them
Speaker 1: all and he knew which one's fit best. Like the
Speaker 1: guy was a comic genius. Hopefully that's coming across here
Speaker 1: or will by the end of this, right. So he
Speaker 1: gets this big break at age nineteen. He's written jokes
Speaker 1: for a few years and he's gonna try this out,
Speaker 1: and he gets a job at a cat skills resort
Speaker 1: for twelve bucks a week ten weeks, including room and board,
Speaker 1: like dirty dancing that kind of scene very much. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's like the up and coming comic on stage. Right,
Speaker 1: have you guys ever seen Iron Man meets Dirty Dancing
Speaker 1: that mash up? Now go check it out. Actually, it's
Speaker 1: so bizarre. It's one of the better things you'll ever see.
Speaker 1: That has nothing to do with the Rodney Dangerfield. That
Speaker 1: was just an ad on basically. But um, so he's working.
Speaker 1: He's working hard, um the stint of cats skills. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think he gets ree up, but he he
Speaker 1: keeps going back to the cat skills. It's one of
Speaker 1: his regular gigs. But on the on the side, while
Speaker 1: he's working, he's a singing waiter at the Polish Falcons
Speaker 1: nightclub where, yeah, where Lenny Bruce's mom was the m C.
Speaker 1: He was an acrobatic diver, right, Um, but I don't
Speaker 1: know what you're all thinking, triple indy. No, he did
Speaker 1: not do the triple indy in the movie obviously. Uh
Speaker 1: for those of you who have not seen Back to School,
Speaker 1: that was an in joke. He was a diver in
Speaker 1: the movie, a competitive diver. Yeah. Well, I was going
Speaker 1: to punish them for not having seen it. Okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: I was trying to drive him a point. Uh. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty one, he gets married for the first
Speaker 1: time to a jazz singer name Joyce Indig, and he
Speaker 1: had a couple of kids and moved to New Jersey,
Speaker 1: which we all know is the death knell for any
Speaker 1: comedian trying to work in New York. Kind of means
Speaker 1: you've given up, um. But he didn't give up just yet.
Speaker 1: He did for a minute for sure. Yeah, not not
Speaker 1: at that point though. He was still trying to work.
Speaker 1: But when he turned twenty seven, he quit comedy and
Speaker 1: literally did not perform from the age of forty one.
Speaker 1: And at forty one he was like, let's try this again, right, Well,
Speaker 1: he and his wife divorced, so he's like, I've got
Speaker 1: a little more time. I think I'm gonna go try
Speaker 1: comedy again. And they actually got back together like the
Speaker 1: next year and stayed married for another ten years or
Speaker 1: something like that. But this time around, um, he was like,
Speaker 1: let me see if I can figure out how to
Speaker 1: how to balance home life with this. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: break into comedy, right yeah, and let me try and
Speaker 1: develop an act. I think the first time he flounder
Speaker 1: because he didn't he didn't know what kind of comedian
Speaker 1: he wanted to be. He tried singing, he tried impressions,
Speaker 1: he even tried prop comedy for a little while. But
Speaker 1: he also I mean, and he had these jokes about
Speaker 1: how much his life sucked. Like he used some of
Speaker 1: these same jokes his whole life, um, but they just
Speaker 1: didn't hang on him quite right, because he had his
Speaker 1: whole life ahead of him and he was young and
Speaker 1: full of promise. That second time around, he was right
Speaker 1: there in the sweet spot, like age forty one is
Speaker 1: a little desperate, kind of sweaty, and uh, these jokes
Speaker 1: about how bad is light, these jokes about how bad
Speaker 1: is life where it was going, um like really just
Speaker 1: kind of hit a lot more. He adopted a persona basically,
Speaker 1: and uh that definitely helped. Yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 1: it was sort of him, but it was also a character.
Speaker 1: And when I was researching this, I was like, I
Speaker 1: was kind of thinking about the you don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of character comedians anymore, Like that was the sort
Speaker 1: of the Heyday with like Andrew Dice Clay and uh
Speaker 1: well Rodney Dangerfield and Emo Phillips, and it seemed like
Speaker 1: there were a lot of characters, but now no one.
Speaker 1: Now it's just like, look at this thing that happened
Speaker 1: in my life and how funny it is look at
Speaker 1: all these witty observations about my life. I'd like to
Speaker 1: see some good character comedians. I can't think of it.
Speaker 1: There any out there. I guess Brent Windbag. That's kind
Speaker 1: of wait, wait, what about like Larry the Cave Guy.
Speaker 1: He's total I assume that is a character because he
Speaker 1: started out as as a completely different kind of comedian
Speaker 1: and then adopted that persona. But I don't count him
Speaker 1: as a comedian. So yeah, he's not watching. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: he's not. He's writing bad jokes to start a flame
Speaker 1: war with Larry the I'll totally take him up on
Speaker 1: that flame war. Uh, although kids squashed me with his
Speaker 1: sacks of money. Um. So he adopts his character. Uh.
Speaker 1: He changes his name legally at this point to Jack Roy,
Speaker 1: which was that his father's name. His father's stage name
Speaker 1: was Phil Roy. Yeah, and so he changed his name
Speaker 1: legally to Jack Roy, and that was his real name
Speaker 1: till the day he died. Uh. And he was performing
Speaker 1: under that name for a while until he tried this
Speaker 1: second go and decided I don't want anyone to remember
Speaker 1: Jack Roy. So um, he told this guy that was
Speaker 1: booking him at a up in Manhattan. Could you just
Speaker 1: make up a name for me and put that on
Speaker 1: the on the I guess it would a marquee on
Speaker 1: the play, yeah, or you know in any ad they
Speaker 1: took out. So the guy who ran this place, the
Speaker 1: Inwood Lounge, I think um came up the Rodney Dangerfield, right.
Speaker 1: But the weird thing is, um he had actually lifted
Speaker 1: the name from a Jack Benny character, Like there was
Speaker 1: an original Rodney Dangerfield and it wasn't Rodney Dangerfield, right,
Speaker 1: were the giant twist of of the podcast It's all
Speaker 1: downhill from here. So the the Jack Benny came up
Speaker 1: with his character and I think the forties maybe or
Speaker 1: something like that, UM of this grade Z Western hero
Speaker 1: named Rodney Dangerfield, and UM, I guess the the lounge
Speaker 1: owner remembered it and came up with that Rodney Dangerfield
Speaker 1: had no idea about this. So he's walking around like
Speaker 1: using this name for years. And apparently he met Johnny
Speaker 1: Carson once that one of his shows, and Johnny Carson
Speaker 1: was like, you know where your name came from? Right?
Speaker 1: And he said, what are you talking talking about? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He explained that the whole Jack Benny thing and later
Speaker 1: on he uh saw Jack Benny, and Jack Benny wasn't
Speaker 1: like Matt or anything, actually said I really love what
Speaker 1: you did with the character, and you really, you know,
Speaker 1: you did it just right, So no harm, no felt,
Speaker 1: and they hugged it out from that very famously. So
Speaker 1: uh on the second go round, he was he was
Speaker 1: making a living doing okay, but he got his real
Speaker 1: big break in nine seven with Ed Sullivan. He was, um,
Speaker 1: he couldn't get booked on Ed Sullivan, but at the
Speaker 1: time they would book other comedians for the run throughs
Speaker 1: as like just placeholders for dress rehearsal basically, and so
Speaker 1: he got a spot booked on that and apparently did
Speaker 1: so well and dress rehearsal that Ed Sullivan, you know,
Speaker 1: took note on the side of the stage, which means
Speaker 1: he went like this, you know you're funny. That's how
Speaker 1: you knew Ed Sullivan thought you were funny, because if
Speaker 1: it works for Nixon to do that, Nixon And actually
Speaker 1: that was the result of a huge long shot. He
Speaker 1: told his agent like, just get me on Ed Sullivan,
Speaker 1: and it it played out, panned out very well. He
Speaker 1: ended up being on Ed Sullivan like seventeen times or
Speaker 1: something like that, and it led to all these other
Speaker 1: late night appearances. He was on Carson, like I think
Speaker 1: a record, he holds the record for being on Carson
Speaker 1: the most seventy times something like that. Merv Griffin, Dino,
Speaker 1: like all the dudes who are running late night and
Speaker 1: basically where the tastemakers for all of the comedians were
Speaker 1: suddenly promoting the sweaty, weird, coked up uh pothead, booze hound,
Speaker 1: huge pothead the way Rodney Dangerfield right, and he took
Speaker 1: it and ran with it, like right when he hit
Speaker 1: in nineteen seven he got to work. He was such
Speaker 1: a big pothead. Actually, the original name of his biography
Speaker 1: was going to be My Love Affair with Marijuana, And
Speaker 1: he was serious. He wanted to call it that because
Speaker 1: he smoked potty, said for you know, sixty something years. Uh,
Speaker 1: but well up until the day he died. Really, I
Speaker 1: think from like one on, like he was smoking pot
Speaker 1: in I see you in the hospital, because he had
Speaker 1: an early medical marijuana exemption long before anyone even knew
Speaker 1: it that way, he just wrote his own I don't
Speaker 1: even knew what that was, but if he flashed it
Speaker 1: in your face, you didn't ask questions. So, uh, he
Speaker 1: got his big break. Actually, Carson had blackballed him for
Speaker 1: a while because he accused Carson in a letter of
Speaker 1: stealing or one of his writers of stealing one of
Speaker 1: his jokes. So Carson famously wouldn't have him on the
Speaker 1: show for a long time until they eventually right, until
Speaker 1: they eventually met um and worked it out out, and
Speaker 1: then Johnny became like the biggest fan ever. And if
Speaker 1: you want to enjoy yourself at home on the YouTube's
Speaker 1: just go look up Johnny Carson on Rodney or Rodney
Speaker 1: Dangerfield on Carson. There's a lot of clips where I mean,
Speaker 1: Carson was just like the ultimate set up dude. Just
Speaker 1: let him do his thing. Yeah, and he would laugh
Speaker 1: until he was crying because he couldn't believe that danger
Speaker 1: Fields getting away was saying most of the stuff he
Speaker 1: was saying on TV on Carson's own show, it was good.
Speaker 1: So he's he's married, he's working a lot, and uh,
Speaker 1: he decides that he doesn't want to happen to his
Speaker 1: own kids what happened to him, which was to be neglected.
Speaker 1: So he said, you know what I'm gonna do. Um,
Speaker 1: even though no one's ever done this. I'm gonna borrow
Speaker 1: a bunch of money dollars and I'm gonna open my
Speaker 1: own comedy club in New York City so i can
Speaker 1: stay home with my children, Brian and Melanie, I think, right.
Speaker 1: And it's not like he had any money, right then,
Speaker 1: you know, like this is a huge, huge risk and
Speaker 1: he's doing okay, but he had to borrow all not
Speaker 1: that okay, right, so um, everybody tries to talk him
Speaker 1: out of it. He goes ahead with it, and it's
Speaker 1: such a success. He has a loan paid off in
Speaker 1: like eighteen months. Just a huge success. And this this
Speaker 1: club actually became venerable in its own right. Yeah, still
Speaker 1: there today run the Danger Fields in New York and um,
Speaker 1: it had this HBO special that broadcast out of in
Speaker 1: A bunch of comedians got their big breaks on that show,
Speaker 1: like Seinfeld, Um, Chris Rock I think, yeah, Jim Carey, Uh,
Speaker 1: what's his face? Saget, Jeff Foxworthy, Yeah, Jeff Foxworthy, fans
Speaker 1: in the room, Rita Rudner. Of course, Sam Kennessan completely
Speaker 1: made Sam Kennison's career and that was what he uh,
Speaker 1: and that's why comedians love him so much because it
Speaker 1: meant more to him to play father to these young
Speaker 1: comics and to give them their start than almost anything else.
Speaker 1: He really that was sort of his life's goal, was
Speaker 1: to seek out talent that he thought was original and
Speaker 1: really kind of boost them up. He was a huge Freudian. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole father son thing. And I wonder why, so, Chuck,
Speaker 1: where were we at? Uh? We are at Danger Fields.
Speaker 1: It is nineteen eighty and he decides that, you know what,
Speaker 1: I should start making movies because well he made a
Speaker 1: few movies before that, but nothing that anyone would know.
Speaker 1: He's actually cast first by Stanley Kubrick in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: six for the movie Uh, the Killer, Yeah, the Killing,
Speaker 1: The Killing, great movie. Who said, yeah, wow, yeah, great movie.
Speaker 1: So he plays onlooker, Um, big part. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: he was in another movie what was that up on?
Speaker 1: Called The Projectionist. Yeah, it was a big part in
Speaker 1: a very small movie. He said that it was the
Speaker 1: type of movie where they went to go shoot on
Speaker 1: location by taking the subway. Um it's probably true, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was. But he played this movie projectionist
Speaker 1: boss and the projectionists had quite an imagination and he
Speaker 1: was a superhero and um, Dangerfield was this arch villain nemesis.
Speaker 1: Didn't it didn't go very far, but he learned almost
Speaker 1: nothing about how to shoot a movie because this was
Speaker 1: seventy seven. And apparently his huge, huge breakthrough came in Caddyshack. Right.
Speaker 1: He was already very much a well respected comedian, but um,
Speaker 1: when he when he shot caddy Shack Harold Ramos right
Speaker 1: when he directed it, he said later on that, Um,
Speaker 1: clearly Dangerfield didn't know what he was doing. He was
Speaker 1: a live performer. So when when Harold Raymos said action,
Speaker 1: Rodney Dangerfield was just stand there and be like, you
Speaker 1: want me to do my bit? Now, Like that's what
Speaker 1: action means, right, do your bit? And uh So then
Speaker 1: Rodney would just turn to the camera and like do
Speaker 1: his whole bit into the camera. He's like, hold on,
Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta get this right here, so pretend
Speaker 1: the camera's not there one and um, he finally got
Speaker 1: to do it because that was the thing that just
Speaker 1: broke him out. Yeah, and he hated making movies. Um,
Speaker 1: like you said, he loved performing live in front of people,
Speaker 1: and that's where he got his his rush. And he
Speaker 1: once compared making movies to um. He said, like you
Speaker 1: know when you make a kid write something a hundred
Speaker 1: times on the chalkboard and they've done something wrong, He's like,
Speaker 1: that's what making the movies Like, he hated doing all
Speaker 1: these takes. He hated standing around and waiting. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: why he didn't make a ton of it. And he
Speaker 1: felt like the live audience is like he compared it
Speaker 1: to a heroin attic, like shooting up. You know, like
Speaker 1: he just loved that rush and uh, he definitely didn't
Speaker 1: get that from movies, which I mean you got like
Speaker 1: the crew standing around looking at you, waiting for lunch.
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't his bag at all. It was
Speaker 1: not his bag. Uh. You found this um description from
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong Torres, which I think describes
Speaker 1: him like to a t Do you want to read that, sir? Okay?
Speaker 1: So Ben Fong Torres, who was in almost famous, Uh
Speaker 1: he uh, he had a quote he says, Uh, Rodney
Speaker 1: Daserfield looks like a midlife crisis. There's a surface orderliness.
Speaker 1: He's groomed and he's dressed like a businessman at a convention.
Speaker 1: Gray hair slicked back over a haggard shades of mayor
Speaker 1: day leaf face, dark suit, white shirt, bright red tie, silks,
Speaker 1: silk stockings, shiny shoes. But the neatness gives way to
Speaker 1: what he calls the heaviness that looms over him. Life
Speaker 1: gives Rodney Dangerfield the jitters. He's in a constant sweat.
Speaker 1: He wipes his brow incessantly, tugs at his tie, herky
Speaker 1: jerky as he recounts the horrors of his daily life.
Speaker 1: He shifts his shoulders uncomfortably, and his eyes bug out
Speaker 1: of their bags. He moves the floor, mic around as
Speaker 1: he roams the comedy store stage looking for sympathy, but
Speaker 1: all he gets their laughs. I just think that's fantastic, man.
Speaker 1: He nailed Rodney dangerfielding absolutely and his shirt and tie
Speaker 1: that came about because well, he hated clothes in fashion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's just go ahead and say that. I think it's
Speaker 1: time he was a slab. He was a slab, he
Speaker 1: said in interviews, how much he hated clothes, how he
Speaker 1: never cared about clothes and fashion and was comfortable in
Speaker 1: a robe basically. And uh, but for one of his
Speaker 1: first acts, he put on the red tie in the
Speaker 1: black suit and like dressed all dapper and when it
Speaker 1: came for the second performance, he was like, well, they
Speaker 1: liked me in that, so I'm just gonna wear that.
Speaker 1: And that became his stick. Was you know, this very
Speaker 1: dapper looking guy who's always very well put together. In fact,
Speaker 1: I just saw earlier today, Um, when he gave out
Speaker 1: a Best Makeup award at the I think eight seven
Speaker 1: Academy Awards. Yeah, and he and he walked up and
Speaker 1: he said, hey, nice took seed to everybody, right, and
Speaker 1: he went underneath torn under shorts. You get this feeling
Speaker 1: that like that was the dead truth. Yeah, she probably
Speaker 1: had like holy underwear. You should look at it. Two man,
Speaker 1: that's a great because he basically does five minutes of
Speaker 1: stand up at the Academy Awards and it gives out
Speaker 1: an award. So Iron Man versus dirty dancing. Yeah, take
Speaker 1: some notes and then some danger fields stuff. Um, should
Speaker 1: we take a break here, Chuck, take an ad break? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back after this big announcement, folks.
Speaker 1: It's called a podcast event called The Message. That's right.
Speaker 1: Thanks to ge Podcast Theater and Panoply, there is an
Speaker 1: eight part series out right now called The Message, and
Speaker 1: you can get it wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know what, it's gonna blow your collective scientific
Speaker 1: minds because it's currently rocking our worlds. Ye. So the
Speaker 1: message follows the story of Nikki Tomlin, who's a PhD
Speaker 1: in linguistics. Right, that's right at the University of Chicago,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, that's right. And she's following a
Speaker 1: team of cryptologists, which, really, if you say cryptology, you've
Speaker 1: really got me hooked already. Their research thank tank called Cipher,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to dacode a message received from outer
Speaker 1: space from seventy years ago. Yeah, it's from outer space,
Speaker 1: we think. And if you're not familiar with the story,
Speaker 1: well then I guess you better go listen to the message.
Speaker 1: You can get it on iTunes, you can get it
Speaker 1: on any of your podcast apps. Just go search for
Speaker 1: the stage and subscribe today. Yeah. So thanks to the
Speaker 1: podcast theater and Panopoly for pushing the boundaries of the medium.
Speaker 1: You guys are doing a great job. Subscribed to the
Speaker 1: message and listen today and we're back. All right. I
Speaker 1: told you that would work. So he makes Caddy shock, huge,
Speaker 1: huge hit. Um, he's allowed to kind of just do
Speaker 1: his thing in that movie. And I'm sure most people
Speaker 1: have seen that classic comedy, which Josh said would stink
Speaker 1: if it weren't for Rodney Dangerfield and Bill Mury, Bill
Speaker 1: Murray the rest of it. It's like a tepid coming
Speaker 1: of age dramedy sucks. Ted Knight he was fine, But
Speaker 1: I mean, you can watch too close for comfort and
Speaker 1: get just as much as you want. You know, I
Speaker 1: just don't think it needs to be in the movie, right.
Speaker 1: I think it was Bill Murray and Rodney Daingerfield. That's
Speaker 1: what made Caddy Shack a classic little Chevy Chase Tad, Tad.
Speaker 1: You know how I feel about Chevy Chase. My father
Speaker 1: raised me to hate Chevy Chase. Did he really? He
Speaker 1: really did. Your dad didn't like him. Oh man, still
Speaker 1: does not like Chevy Chase. Why. I just didn't think
Speaker 1: it's funny or he thought, yeah, yeah, something about Chevy
Speaker 1: Chase sticks in my dad's craw and he passed it
Speaker 1: on me. Isn't that weird? It is totally weird. That's
Speaker 1: what you get when your dad's not a vaudevillian. They
Speaker 1: pass on weird stuff like that to you. You know,
Speaker 1: So he makes Caddyshack. It was a huge hit. Now
Speaker 1: he was a legitimate Uh, he was sought after for movies. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then a nineteen three he wrote a movie called
Speaker 1: Easy Money. Uh, where's anyway. It's actually pretty cool movie.
Speaker 1: It's not bad. It's a little weird structurally, which kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense that he wrote it because he clearly
Speaker 1: did not how to write it right script, you know,
Speaker 1: how to write a bunch of good jokes though. So
Speaker 1: he played Monte Capuletti, an Italian American drunkie head, uh
Speaker 1: baby photographer because because this is back in the early
Speaker 1: eighties when anyone of any ethnicity could play any one
Speaker 1: of another ethnicity. Sure, right, because he was Hungarian born,
Speaker 1: but hey, play an Italian guy. It's cool. Uh. So
Speaker 1: in the movie, his mother in law was the inspiration
Speaker 1: for twin beds and uh hated her son in law.
Speaker 1: And when she died, she said, all right, you can
Speaker 1: have all this money, Um if for one year, I think,
Speaker 1: like ten million bucks, if for one year you quit
Speaker 1: gambling and boozing and smoking and uh and doing drugs.
Speaker 1: So easy Money was you know, I had Joe Pesci
Speaker 1: it was it was okay, right, Like the first half
Speaker 1: of this movie is just a series of vignettes to
Speaker 1: where he just completely screws everything up and like that
Speaker 1: your stomachs all upset and everything, and like you're really emotional,
Speaker 1: and then nothing comes of it whatsoever. Right, and then
Speaker 1: finally halfway through the plot arrives and then it gets
Speaker 1: kind of good. Actually, yeah, I agreed. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of build up, not a lot of payoff in that one.
Speaker 1: But one Roger Ebert uh like the movie, even though
Speaker 1: it was a little weird, and said, uh, basically the
Speaker 1: movie was about watching Rodney Dangerfield. He said, Rodney Dangerfield
Speaker 1: gloriously playing himself as the nearest thing we are likely
Speaker 1: to get to W. C. Fields in this lifetime. Uh.
Speaker 1: And Rodney himself said that it was that was pretty
Speaker 1: much me on screen. That's as close as you can
Speaker 1: come to my real life. In Easy Money. Yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 1: here's a maybe photographer. So nin six is when he
Speaker 1: finally makes back to School, which was his biggest hit.
Speaker 1: I think it costs like million to eleven million, grows
Speaker 1: swell over a hundred million, which in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: I mean today that's still good money. Yeah, and today dollars,
Speaker 1: that's a hundred fifty billion dollars it's inflation for you, right.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, this one he played, he he had
Speaker 1: the idea. I think he got a story credit of
Speaker 1: a guy father that goes back to school who was
Speaker 1: a big loser in life. So he goes back to
Speaker 1: school with his son to get his degree and he
Speaker 1: and he told that idea to Harold Ramos and he
Speaker 1: was like, that's good. But what if he was rich?
Speaker 1: What if he was wealthy and had it all and
Speaker 1: still goes back to school like knowing what he knows
Speaker 1: now with a lot of money, and and Ridney was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the movie. Yeah, it's a good idea, and it actually,
Speaker 1: I mean, that was a huge movie when it came out.
Speaker 1: It was the sixth biggest movie of six That was
Speaker 1: behind Top Gun, Platoon, Karate Kid, to Star, Trek four
Speaker 1: and there's one other one that's written down somewhere and here,
Speaker 1: but they're big movies. And it was like the six
Speaker 1: highest grossing movie of the year and it's Rodney Dangerfield,
Speaker 1: right yeah. And so he has hit it big at
Speaker 1: this time and is a huge, huge movie star and
Speaker 1: in the in the biggest comic. I think they did
Speaker 1: a survey in the late seventies, right before his movies
Speaker 1: with college students that said that they were Rodney Danger
Speaker 1: was their favorite comic, and he was sixty one years old,
Speaker 1: fifty eight years old. Same thing basically was when he
Speaker 1: hit it big as a comedian, fifty eight years old, right,
Speaker 1: and like college kids are like into this guy. And actually,
Speaker 1: if you've seen, if all you've seen back to school,
Speaker 1: if that's all you've seen of Rodney Danger, Phil, you
Speaker 1: don't quite have the the understanding of what he was
Speaker 1: actually like. He was pretty edgy comic actually and pretty hilarious,
Speaker 1: and college kids loved him. In the seventies, he hosted
Speaker 1: Sara Live in when when he was I think like
Speaker 1: sixty or something, fifty nine, um, and he started to
Speaker 1: blow up like at about age sixty. Isn't that crazy? Uh?
Speaker 1: Should we tell a few more of his favorite jokes?
Speaker 1: I think it's high time not to you guys. We'll
Speaker 1: go over a few of these. Uh. He has a
Speaker 1: great joke about his psychiatrists. I told my psychiatrist that
Speaker 1: everyone hates me, and he said I was being ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Everyone hasn't met me yet. Classic. Uh, let's see. I
Speaker 1: like this one. It's a little brow, but I like it.
Speaker 1: You know what classes when you were alone you fart,
Speaker 1: you say, excuse me, that's class. That weird. So, if
Speaker 1: you haven't noticed, a lot of his jokes were they
Speaker 1: were self deprecating for himself, but also about his family.
Speaker 1: He talked about his wife was dumb and fat, and
Speaker 1: his son it was stupid. Uh. And even when he
Speaker 1: wasn't I mean, it was all a character. So even
Speaker 1: when he wasn't married, he was telling jokes about his wife,
Speaker 1: which must have made it a lot easier when he
Speaker 1: went home at night. Probably so. But one of my
Speaker 1: favorite wife jokes was, I tell you my wife can't
Speaker 1: cook it all? How can toast have bones? And and
Speaker 1: your impression is getting better as well. I'm drinking whiskey,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I'm not saying that us. Let's see, I've
Speaker 1: got one. Um. So this is so like I said,
Speaker 1: it's a little weird, and I like that in a comic,
Speaker 1: just just bizarre stuff. Um. He was talking about the
Speaker 1: bar that he was doing stand up in that nice says,
Speaker 1: what did joint? I asked the bartender for a double
Speaker 1: and he brought out a guy who looks like me.
Speaker 1: I missed those days, man, where comedians just wrote great jokes,
Speaker 1: set up punchlines, set up punchline over and over. Yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a drink too much. The last time
Speaker 1: I went to the doctor, I gave him a yurine sample.
Speaker 1: I had an olive in it. So classic. And then
Speaker 1: another thing I've learned about Rodney danger Hild when you
Speaker 1: go back and listen to his stuff, he wasn't like mean.
Speaker 1: He was self deprecating. Even when he was targeting like
Speaker 1: his family mostly non existent family, all of it reflected
Speaker 1: back on him and basically what a loser he was,
Speaker 1: right um, And he didn't have very many mean jokes.
Speaker 1: He didn't tell like many gay jokes. He he didn't
Speaker 1: tell racist jokes or anything like that, which and this
Speaker 1: is like in the seventies when like everybody was telling
Speaker 1: where that right? But he did have this bat choke
Speaker 1: that stuck out to me. Are you fat? Do you
Speaker 1: look at the menu and say, okay, I love love
Speaker 1: getting laughs from Ronnie Daserfields chocks we should just do this.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, I think we have a
Speaker 1: new act. If you should know one day talk about
Speaker 1: a rush. I got one more. I'll tell you I
Speaker 1: was dating a woman. She called and said, come on over,
Speaker 1: nobody's home. I went over and nobody was home. Good stuff.
Speaker 1: I have a new career reading Rodney, Dangerfield Chokes. That's
Speaker 1: the whole. No one's done that cover comedians. Oh, Sharknado,
Speaker 1: and now this you're all aware of? Chuck predicted Sharknado. Right,
Speaker 1: he did, You're welcome. Okay, no more, you got anymore?
Speaker 1: You like the one about his dog, tell that one? Okay,
Speaker 1: all right? My dog is lazy. He's so lazy. He
Speaker 1: doesn't chase cars. He just lays in the driveway taking
Speaker 1: down license plates. All right, So now we're in. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's enough. Stop last. In the early nineteen eighties, he's
Speaker 1: making these movies. He won Best Comedy Album Grammy for
Speaker 1: the album No Respect, beating out Richard Pryor, Monty Python,
Speaker 1: Gilda Radner, and father Guido Sarducci. Uh. And in nineteen
Speaker 1: eight two, the Smithsonian Institution put his red tie and
Speaker 1: his shirt in the Smithsonian. Uh, the American History National
Speaker 1: Museum of American History. Uh, Right, along with Jimmy Dranny's hat,
Speaker 1: Archie Bunker's recliner, and Charles Lindbergh's plane. But the joke
Speaker 1: Briden he said, was he got a feeling after they
Speaker 1: left they were just gonna use the shirt to wipe
Speaker 1: down the plane. Always self deprecating. Yeah, Andy, And when
Speaker 1: he handed him the shirt, he said, this is a big,
Speaker 1: big deal. I only have two shirts, which may have
Speaker 1: been true. Uh. And also in the nineteen eighties, Um,
Speaker 1: who remembers the Miller Lite commercials from the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: tastes great less spelling. That man back there has his
Speaker 1: hand up all the best, right. They were great commercials.
Speaker 1: They were named it was like named the eight best
Speaker 1: advertising campaign in history, uh, from McCann ericson the ad agency.
Speaker 1: And uh I went and watched a ton of them
Speaker 1: earlier today, and uh I remember them all from being
Speaker 1: a little kid, and it was weird. They were. Um.
Speaker 1: For those of you who haven't seen him, the premise
Speaker 1: was you would get a bunch of ex athletes and
Speaker 1: then Mickey Spillane and Rodney Dangerfield and some other random
Speaker 1: pop cultural icons at the time, and to sell Miller
Speaker 1: Lite and you know, getting a big argument about tastes
Speaker 1: great and less felling. At the end, Rodney would usually
Speaker 1: come in as the ship who does something wrong to
Speaker 1: spoil everything. It was just such a weird like Bubba
Speaker 1: Smith and Dick Buckus and baseball players. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was so strange, but they were huge and they
Speaker 1: really the one who could score the weed for everybody else.
Speaker 1: They let him, They led him on. Uh January. Um,
Speaker 1: if anyone remembers his hit rap single rapping Rodney, have
Speaker 1: you guys heard this? Really, it's something else it is
Speaker 1: and it was a big hit. Actually it was a
Speaker 1: top sixty hit, just pretty big, top top fifty nine, Chuck,
Speaker 1: give it its due. That means it was number fifty nine. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so um it was right behind Uptown Girl. And it
Speaker 1: was Rodney Dangerfield rapping about being old, which sounds really
Speaker 1: bizarre now, but like legitimate rappers at the time, like
Speaker 1: say the sugar Hill Gang, we're rapping about like having
Speaker 1: dinner at your friend's mom's house. So it wasn't that
Speaker 1: far off the mark for the time. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like being nice to your family. That's what raps were about.
Speaker 1: It pretty the good old days. Uh. He was on
Speaker 1: The Simpsons I think a couple of times. Whnet Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was on more than once.
Speaker 1: I think he's on twice, but in he played Mr
Speaker 1: Burns illegitimate sun herb who got no regard, no regard
Speaker 1: at all. I wonder why they didn't say respect to
Speaker 1: day not. I think there wasn't just a joke messing around. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: the man himself was there. I would have been surprised
Speaker 1: if he was like, look, guys, just one thing. I
Speaker 1: don't want to say respect? Maybe not? Can we just
Speaker 1: avoid that. I'm trying new things here, trying to branch out,
Speaker 1: which actually he did branch out. He was actually a
Speaker 1: really creative guy. Um. He had a live Broadway show
Speaker 1: that ran for a couple of weeks in called appropriately
Speaker 1: um Rodney Dangerfield Live on Broadway exclamation point. For a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, he wrote a romance novel, uh called
Speaker 1: La Contessa. And if you google the image for this, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's disturbing. Yeah. It's basically like uh, your typical.
Speaker 1: It was like it's fabio basically with a woman, except
Speaker 1: it's got Rodney Dangerfield's face on it. Uh. And and
Speaker 1: it's available on audible. Oh is it really? Yes? It
Speaker 1: is with Rodney Dangerfield reading it. No way, I I
Speaker 1: kid you not what I joke about what's on audible. Well,
Speaker 1: his I looked up earlier to see if his autoback
Speaker 1: autobiography was on there. It is not. It's the only
Speaker 1: Rodney Dangerfield thing on there. It's awesome because it has
Speaker 1: the album RT too, so you get that for free
Speaker 1: with the audiobook. He wrote, Uh, and I guess he
Speaker 1: didn't direct it, but he produced and wrote the movie
Speaker 1: Rover danger Field, the animated UM classic about a dog
Speaker 1: who gets no respect. And then, uh, Mr Oliver Stone
Speaker 1: called him up one day and said, I had this
Speaker 1: role for you in a movie called Natural Born Killers.
Speaker 1: And it's about this sadistic father who was molesting his
Speaker 1: daughter raping his daughter, and I think he'd be perfect
Speaker 1: for it. And Rodney didn't get it at first. He
Speaker 1: was like, why do you want me for for this
Speaker 1: kind of role? He's like you'll see yeah, And uh,
Speaker 1: did you guys see that natural Born Killers? You can
Speaker 1: get the scene on YouTube. It's when Oliver Stone did
Speaker 1: the phony sitcom. That's how they portrayed that that part
Speaker 1: of the movie. Uh. So they have a laugh track
Speaker 1: and it's it's really disturbing. It's like three layers of bizarre, right,
Speaker 1: So there's so it's like Rodney Daningerville is a sadistic,
Speaker 1: ancestuous molester um, but it's Rodney Dangerfields. That's the weird part.
Speaker 1: And then there's a laugh track to just throw you
Speaker 1: off that little extra bit. You know it is. It's
Speaker 1: very jarring. It was pretty well done. But the um.
Speaker 1: The notable thing about that is that Oliver Stone let
Speaker 1: Rodney Dangerfield rewrite all of his lines and he got
Speaker 1: a lot of critical acclaim for it, but he was like,
Speaker 1: Rodney danger Field, we had no idea. And he's like, seriously, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you go today and just google, um, the Rodney
Speaker 1: danger Field of you can find a whole list of things.
Speaker 1: He's such a cultural icon that phrase itself has become
Speaker 1: a thing now, like Petitzera is the Rodney danger Field
Speaker 1: of California wines, or the Memphis, Tennessee City Council is
Speaker 1: the Rodney danger Field of local government. Seriously, that's a thing.
Speaker 1: Even saw a guitar pre amp was known as the
Speaker 1: Rodney danger Field of guitar pre amps. My favorite is
Speaker 1: a palladium is the Rodney danger Field of precious metals.
Speaker 1: That's stupid. We're not making this up. So chuck right
Speaker 1: about now, let's uh, let's step back a second, press
Speaker 1: pause on this and have a beautiful little message break.
Speaker 1: Uh So, here's some more examples of the lack of respect,
Speaker 1: and and here's sort of the thing. The irony is,
Speaker 1: he got nothing but respect from his peers throughout his career. Um,
Speaker 1: but outside of that that was still just doses pepper
Speaker 1: throughout his life. And examples of times where he didn't
Speaker 1: get any respect, like when he sued Star Magazine. They
Speaker 1: published a story about him being in Las Vegas, said
Speaker 1: he would drink like tumbler fuls of vodka and smoke
Speaker 1: pot all day long in duke cocaine, which was all
Speaker 1: completely true, but he knew that they couldn't prove it,
Speaker 1: so he sued them for libel and the court ruled
Speaker 1: in his favor. Right, Yeah, so that's respect. Right, So
Speaker 1: they awarded him one dollar for damage to his reputation
Speaker 1: and one dollar for personal distress and then the judge
Speaker 1: went sorry live stream people, I realized he did. He
Speaker 1: did get awarded forty five tho dollars for presumed damages
Speaker 1: and uh, I did a little more research today on that.
Speaker 1: He um. Apparently he blew it all on cocon weed.
Speaker 1: Apparently Star Magazine showed that they didn't turn a profit,
Speaker 1: so he couldn't go after him form Uh, you couldn't
Speaker 1: appeal for more money. So he tried to go after
Speaker 1: their parent company and it went all the way to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court and they said you you didn't start
Speaker 1: the suit that way, So they were no respect. Uh.
Speaker 1: And even in death, as we mentioned earlier, Rodney Dangerfield
Speaker 1: is dead. Why didn't I know that? Oh? I have
Speaker 1: an example for you, hold on before he dies. He
Speaker 1: was on Howard's during the year he died, and somebody
Speaker 1: watched that interview. Yeah, man, that's depressing. He's eighty one.
Speaker 1: He's clearly like at death store, but he still has
Speaker 1: his his sense of humor about him. Um. But somebody
Speaker 1: called in to Howard Stern and said, hey, Rodney, it's
Speaker 1: Bob Hope. I'll see you in fifteen minutes. And Howard
Speaker 1: Stern is like, well, that's not funny. Bob Hope is dead.
Speaker 1: So they were saying like that Bob Hope was calling
Speaker 1: from behind the grave and would see Rodney Dangerfield in
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. And if you can't get respect from a
Speaker 1: caller on the Howard Stern show, Where Can You Get Respect?
Speaker 1: So it was actually in that interview, which I said,
Speaker 1: is it's like forty five minutes long and it's completely depressing,
Speaker 1: so don't go watch it. Um but uh, not just
Speaker 1: because he was old, but Howard's trying to talk to
Speaker 1: him about his childhood and stuff, and well, he had
Speaker 1: just written his autobiography and really just laid it all
Speaker 1: out there, like he'd alluded to the rough life that
Speaker 1: he had had in interviews and stuff like that, but
Speaker 1: he published this book right before he died, and it
Speaker 1: was it was rough. Well. I think the saddest thing
Speaker 1: to me about his mom was that despite being completely
Speaker 1: neglected emotionally and getting no love at all as a child,
Speaker 1: he still wanted to be like a good kid, and
Speaker 1: he still worked to support her and like apparently came
Speaker 1: home and showed her his report card. He worked hard
Speaker 1: to get good grades. She wouldn't even look at it.
Speaker 1: She just like signed it without looking. And Uh, that
Speaker 1: was the saddest part is he he still sort of
Speaker 1: defended her in that interview. Uh, like right before he
Speaker 1: was he was dying, and he made up with his
Speaker 1: dad before his dad died. Apparently um, even though he
Speaker 1: never saw him. He said he forgave him for all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, yeah, really sad stuff. Though. You want
Speaker 1: to hear some more jokes. Uh, well, well, actually, why
Speaker 1: don't you tell him how he died? Okay? Well in
Speaker 1: this interview. In the same interview, he's telling Howard Stern.
Speaker 1: Howard Stern's like, he's about to go in for um
Speaker 1: for the Uh, should I pretend there's not a siren
Speaker 1: in the background. Um, He's going in for surgery, and
Speaker 1: Howard Stern asks him, like, are you afraid you're gonna die?
Speaker 1: And he goes, you know what, dying in surgery would
Speaker 1: be the best way to go, Like I would go
Speaker 1: to they drug me up, I go to sleep, and
Speaker 1: then I just wouldn't wake up. That's like as good
Speaker 1: as it gets, right. So he goes in for this
Speaker 1: very surgery. He falls into a coma during surgery, almost there,
Speaker 1: and then he wakes up. Then he has a heart attack,
Speaker 1: then he dies. That's how Rodney danger Phield went after
Speaker 1: that life that he had. That's how he went. He
Speaker 1: was so close to going the way that he wanted
Speaker 1: to go. And no no respect. You want to hear
Speaker 1: no respect? A year after he died at CNN tried
Speaker 1: to get in touch with him to get his reaction
Speaker 1: about the passing of Johnny Carson and and and if
Speaker 1: you read his obituaries, a lot of them a shocking
Speaker 1: amount mentioned that he was well known for his role
Speaker 1: in The Scout. He wasn't in the Scout. I got
Speaker 1: to the bottom of that. Oh oh late on me.
Speaker 1: He was going to be in The Scout. The role
Speaker 1: was originally intended for him and Sam Kennison, and he
Speaker 1: didn't do it for unknown reasons, and it ended up
Speaker 1: going to Albert Brooks and Brendan Fraser. But it was
Speaker 1: one of those things. I think we're one of those
Speaker 1: Internet neat things. On the Internet, someone prints something that
Speaker 1: everyone else's copies and pays it. So I think one
Speaker 1: person wrote that because everything else I saw was worded
Speaker 1: the exact same way, like list his movies as The Scout,
Speaker 1: which he was never in. Now he wasn't. No thanks
Speaker 1: for looking into that, man. That's what you get when
Speaker 1: you hang with Chuck. But he did find love again,
Speaker 1: um in a in a situation in everyone probably thought
Speaker 1: was like a typical gold digger. He was sixty one
Speaker 1: years old. Uh, and he married a thirty year old
Speaker 1: woman who was really hot and blonde in l A.
Speaker 1: But um, by all accounts everything I looked into, it
Speaker 1: was not that Like, she really really loved him and
Speaker 1: was great for him and they were super happy together,
Speaker 1: um or as happy as he could be. And um,
Speaker 1: it turns out that it wasn't that kind of a
Speaker 1: deal after all, which made me feel good. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 1: for example, when he died, she made sure that his
Speaker 1: funeral wasn't until five or dusk because he always asked
Speaker 1: her not to schedule any appointment for him before five pm,
Speaker 1: so she made sure funeral didn't come until after that. Uh,
Speaker 1: and his funeral was a really big deal. Everyone basically
Speaker 1: came out in droves. Um. His pall bearers included Jim Carey,
Speaker 1: who he took Jim Carey on the road for two
Speaker 1: years when he was a struggling comedian and he opened
Speaker 1: for him in Vegas and Jim Carrey was getting booed
Speaker 1: off the stage. Everyone hated him, and Rodney stuck by
Speaker 1: him for like a full two years, and Jim Carey
Speaker 1: never forgot that. Chris Rock, Tim Allen, Larry David, George Carlin,
Speaker 1: Jay Leno, um Adam Sandler and then your boy Michael Bolton.
Speaker 1: Michael Bolton, he was supposed to sing, wasn't he was,
Speaker 1: but he was too choked up to sing at Rodney
Speaker 1: danger Fields funeral. Apparently they were really, really, really tight
Speaker 1: friends because Michael Bolton's song Everybody's Crazy was in Back
Speaker 1: to School and I guess he parlayed that into a
Speaker 1: trip to the set where he got to meet Riding
Speaker 1: dasent Field and they became friends for the rest of
Speaker 1: the life. So Michael Bolton was too sad to sing
Speaker 1: at danger Fields funeral, and you know, everybody was disappointed.
Speaker 1: I bet there were a couple of people there that
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, it's okay, Michael, we know you're upset.
Speaker 1: You don't you don't have to do this if you
Speaker 1: don't want it's everybody will understand. That's what they said
Speaker 1: to us before we went on. So we're gonna close
Speaker 1: this with with a final nice little cherry on top
Speaker 1: about um Rodney Dangerfield and sort of his outlook on
Speaker 1: his lack of respect with when it comes to the
Speaker 1: Academy of Motion Pictures motion Picture Sciences. Yes, what it's called,
Speaker 1: as you guys call it in l a the Academy. Right,
Speaker 1: he applied for membership because he wanted to be in
Speaker 1: the Academy and he had the credentials. He was in movies,
Speaker 1: and uh, they said, no, no, you you had to
Speaker 1: be in like at least three major roles. He had
Speaker 1: thirteen under his belt by this time, including Natural Born Killers,
Speaker 1: for which he received a lot of critical praise. Right,
Speaker 1: and they turned him down like jerks. Right. He even
Speaker 1: got a letter from Malcolm McDowell, d d He McDowell.
Speaker 1: Which one was Malcolm McDowell, he's the good one. Are
Speaker 1: they brothers? I don't know? Are they no relation? But
Speaker 1: Roddy okay was Roddy? Was Roddy? It was Malcolm McDowell.
Speaker 1: Was Roddy McDowell and Clocker Gorns or Malcolm McDowell. That
Speaker 1: was Malcolm McDowell. Oh well, okay, good, because I felt
Speaker 1: a lot better about this than Rodney McDowell. Wasn't the
Speaker 1: Planet of the Apes? Yeah, so okay good. I'm glad
Speaker 1: that those two were separated in my mind because I was, like,
Speaker 1: I really liked him in Clockercorns. Good Roddy McDowell, who
Speaker 1: everybody hates, wrote a letter to Rodney Dangerfield. This rejection
Speaker 1: letter that said that he um had not he had
Speaker 1: not had enough of the kind of roles that allow
Speaker 1: our performer to demonstrate a mastery of his craft. Basically,
Speaker 1: you're just playing Rodney Dangerfield and we all know it,
Speaker 1: even though he had all the credentials to get in right. So,
Speaker 1: Rodney Jasfield, He's like, let's see what years it? What years?
Speaker 1: What's new? What's on the horizon? Well, the internet. I
Speaker 1: think I'll build the world's first ever entertainment website. And
Speaker 1: he built his own website and realized that this would
Speaker 1: be a great place for his fans to come like
Speaker 1: vent their anger. And it was, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: like this guy like think about that, and um, his
Speaker 1: bands came on and were like, to heck with the
Speaker 1: Academy that kind of stuff, and um, the Academy actually
Speaker 1: relented and said, you're in, man, you're in Rodney, come
Speaker 1: on in. That's right. And what do you say, Nope, yep,
Speaker 1: he said, thanks, but no thanks. He still has a website,
Speaker 1: uh Rodney dot com. And if you go to that.
Speaker 1: I just found this out earlier. There's a section called
Speaker 1: jokes and had audio clips. I was like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is great, but it's not him. It's some dude reading
Speaker 1: like as bad as me, really, just saying his little
Speaker 1: one liners over and over. And it's not in front
Speaker 1: of people. It's like dead quiet and it's just some
Speaker 1: dude saying his jokes. It's really weird. I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how much I'd love the cover comedian idea. Just
Speaker 1: you know how stealing from other comics is such a taboo.
Speaker 1: We just need to just to get out in front
Speaker 1: of the Yeah, mix up a little like Mitch Hedberg
Speaker 1: and Rich Little Mind do a little Steven right there
Speaker 1: in the middle. Yea perhaps, Yeah, so that's Rodney Dangerfield. Everybody,
Speaker 1: that's our show. If you want it anymore, you're s
Speaker 1: O l R. Yeah, you can clap if you want
Speaker 1: it's hey that right, that was a lot of one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had a great time and big thanks to the
Speaker 1: l A Podcast Festival for having us out and um
Speaker 1: yeah please have us back. We'd love to. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was really cool. We got to see other shows and
Speaker 1: uh we did our own and had a nice little
Speaker 1: crowd there, very supportive, nice kind people all the way around.
Speaker 1: And look for the next l A Podcast best coming.
Speaker 1: I would imagine next September. Hopefully we'll be there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: keep keep your ears up for it. We'll mention it
Speaker 1: whether we are or not, because we're that kind of guys.
Speaker 1: That's right. No listener mail for me, buddy, No, But
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
Speaker 1: always joined us at our super awesome home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know
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