Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George nor with
Speaker 2: you along with George Schlatter and Georgia's website is linked
Speaker 2: up at Coast to coastam dot com. He's also got
Speaker 2: some programs on YouTube and his book is called Still
Speaker 2: Laughing Now. I love that cover picture of you on
Speaker 2: the book, George. It's so cool. You had a great time.
Speaker 2: You had fun.
Speaker 3: I have had a great time. I'm having a great time.
Speaker 3: By the way, to listen to your show tomorrow. I'm
Speaker 3: sending in a subscription because I want to join Coast
Speaker 3: to Coast. I think you guys are great.
Speaker 2: We'd be honored to have you listening in as a
Speaker 2: member to the book.
Speaker 3: Started out to see the book that it became another
Speaker 3: book and now it's a paperback book. But it was
Speaker 3: a celebration of the people I've known and the things
Speaker 3: I've done because I feel it life is now so
Speaker 3: seriously the presidential situation we're in, we needed something that
Speaker 3: would relieve the tension, and so we wrote to just
Speaker 3: my funny memories, and it's doing very very well. That
Speaker 3: you know, I'm really glad it did as well because
Speaker 3: it was the risk because people said, you're going to
Speaker 3: write a book about comedy, though, you know. So it
Speaker 3: turned out pretty well and I'm proud of it, sure did.
Speaker 2: What do you think of television today with all these
Speaker 2: different venues You've got YouTube, bits like Samazon, You've got
Speaker 2: all of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's I'm a little disappointed because I think
Speaker 3: we could be doing more and I think there's funny
Speaker 3: people out there who can learn from what's been going
Speaker 3: on before. But I think we should do more, more
Speaker 3: adventures and more funny people there, and I think we
Speaker 3: should focus more on that because we need we need
Speaker 3: to do something to break this tension, because we are
Speaker 3: in trouble. If you look at the news, it's getting
Speaker 3: worse and worse and worse, you know, and they focus
Speaker 3: on the ugly side. They shouldn't. There's all kinds of
Speaker 3: funny things and funny people. I want to see more
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: What would you say is the funniest comedian you've ever heard?
Speaker 3: Oh? Probably will be Robin Williams. Uh boy, he was
Speaker 3: in San Francisco, barefoot was I brought him in, dressed
Speaker 3: him up and we put him on the New Laughing
Speaker 3: and he exploded, and he's gone on to have a
Speaker 3: brilliant career. But that mind is wonderful. Uh, But we
Speaker 3: need to we need to encourage more of those people,
Speaker 3: more political comics, because politics needs gumor as all you
Speaker 3: have to do is look at the presidential race now,
Speaker 3: you know. But very very lucky, we've we had a
Speaker 3: lot of them and and uh fortunately, uh there's more
Speaker 3: of them coming up. Laughing affected a number of young
Speaker 3: comedians who now will try things. It doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be dirty, it doesn't have to do language, doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be of scene. He's gonna be funny with straight
Speaker 3: language and straight subjects, but just enjoying the experience. And
Speaker 3: that's what we tried to do.
Speaker 2: How did you come up with the concept for real people.
Speaker 3: It was the fact that there were so many people
Speaker 3: out there that were funnier than the people that are
Speaker 3: on television. So we started collecting these people and so
Speaker 3: we put them all together, and they were concerned about
Speaker 3: that celebrating because it wasn't a show about guest stars.
Speaker 3: It was a show about people who did strange and wonderful,
Speaker 3: funny things. And the real people went on and had
Speaker 3: an enormous impact, almost as much impact as laughing, because
Speaker 3: real people started a whole trend towards celebrating and presenting
Speaker 3: just not not big stars, just puny people.
Speaker 2: You moved on to ABC after a while. What made
Speaker 2: you make that move?
Speaker 3: Colin NBC? See, I've been fired more than any producer
Speaker 3: in television.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 3: Everything everything we ever did kind of broke the moles
Speaker 3: a little bit. I had one show called turn On
Speaker 3: that was canceled after fifteen minutes. Guy wanted to keep
Speaker 3: Peyton Place on the air, and so he called all
Speaker 3: the stations that said, we have to cancel this, but
Speaker 3: turn On we remained one of my proudest accomplishments. It
Speaker 3: was a show. It was so fast and so bright
Speaker 3: and so outrageous, but it was canceled after fifteen minutes
Speaker 3: of an insurance that I'd never run it before. So
Speaker 3: it's somewhere in the museum. But that's one of the
Speaker 3: things I'm the proudest though. But there were more. We
Speaker 3: did an updated burlesque show, and we did a show
Speaker 3: with Jonathan Winners. And my whole career, my whole success,
Speaker 3: my whole enjoy has come from adventure and from taking
Speaker 3: chances in breaking molds, and so it's worked. They've been very,
Speaker 3: very lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky.
Speaker 2: Yo, you've done a great job. You knew Sinatra, didn't you.
Speaker 3: Oh? I had great fun with Sonata. Sinatra was an
Speaker 3: adventure The only secret was Sinata. I could make him laugh,
Speaker 3: but you better be sure it's going to be funny.
Speaker 3: But he was a poor adventurer, all of electricity and
Speaker 3: energy and outrage. And I had a lot of fun
Speaker 3: with mister Sinatra. And but sometimes we were very we
Speaker 3: flew very close to the flame. But he he did
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff for me. And he was a
Speaker 3: wonderful guy and a good friend.
Speaker 2: Who was a tough guy, wasn't.
Speaker 3: He he Well, yeah, yes he was. He was. You
Speaker 3: had to be careful, you know. And if you could
Speaker 3: make him laugh, you got buy with anything. And that
Speaker 3: was my secret with him. I could make him laugh.
Speaker 3: But the Sinatra, we had funny with him, and with
Speaker 3: Dean and with Sammy and Sammy Davis was another one
Speaker 3: we had a lot of fun with.
Speaker 2: They were very talents.
Speaker 3: They were just well they but it was it was
Speaker 3: they all were susceptible and eager for new ideas and
Speaker 3: new their approaches, and again again the feeling of adventure
Speaker 3: and taking chances. Well, I married wonderful girl. The name
Speaker 3: was jolian Brand. She did all the yearning Kovec shows
Speaker 3: and so she has put up with me for sixty
Speaker 3: five years. So that's a big, big element in my
Speaker 3: success has been the support of Jolane.
Speaker 2: That's great. Yeah. The rat Pack came to Saint Louis
Speaker 2: back in nineteen sixty five, yep. And they sing at
Speaker 2: the Peabody Opera House at the time, and they would
Speaker 2: they would always have a great skip. They'd have fun.
Speaker 3: Was up in Saint Louis. I lived living in Webster Groves.
Speaker 2: That's right, not too far from.
Speaker 3: One of my first jobs in the Saint Louis Municipal Opera.
Speaker 2: And you sang there, didn't you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I did. I did, And I was the youngest. I
Speaker 3: was the youngest member of the chorus, and I had
Speaker 3: learned a lot in Saint Louis. It's pretty hot there sometimes,
Speaker 3: but it was a real adventure. I've had a long
Speaker 3: and very spotty, unusual, bizarre career, including working in at
Speaker 3: the chorus boy in Saint Louis and as bouncer in
Speaker 3: Vegas and whatever. But when I'm married Jolie and the
Speaker 3: story rented I had been a bouncer at Zero's and
Speaker 3: she hated hearing that, and so they released the story
Speaker 3: that I had been an executive in charge of emergency departures.
Speaker 3: I love it, and that got rid of the bouncer label.
Speaker 2: Belt out a few lines for me. You can still sing.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, I don't do that. At the recommendation
Speaker 3: of a number of people, I gave up that career,
Speaker 3: gave talking and doing jokes. The thing is what I
Speaker 3: really think we need. We need laughter because when you
Speaker 3: look at the political scene today, you realize how bizarre
Speaker 3: this is. You have this man running around doing interviews,
Speaker 3: calling the president all kinds of names, and nobody's answering him.
Speaker 3: So hillmer is our answer. Humor will be the great leveler,
Speaker 3: I think. So That's where I'm focused.
Speaker 2: We need to laugh.
Speaker 3: We have to. It's the you know, it breaks the
Speaker 3: break that coil, and you've got to be careful what
Speaker 3: you laugh at, but not too careful. You guys take
Speaker 3: a lot of chances what you do on there.
Speaker 2: I love the show you created, the American comedy Awards
Speaker 2: group tell us about that.
Speaker 3: Well, it was the fact that we had awards celebrated writers, directed, producers, singers, dancing,
Speaker 3: and musicians, but the comic would always be hired to
Speaker 3: introduce the show and then they forget about them. So
Speaker 3: I said, let's devote the entire show to the people
Speaker 3: who've made us laugh. And we did, and it's been
Speaker 3: on the air for a long time. It was very,
Speaker 3: very successful because comedy is a necessary ingredient in our environment.
Speaker 3: And if you look at the political scene right now.
Speaker 3: I watched the news tonight and the entire show is
Speaker 3: about this wacko presidential candidate we have, and the riots
Speaker 3: on UCLA, on the campuses and all of that. All
Speaker 3: of that is so tense, angry and so unhappy. You
Speaker 3: need comedy. You need that person who walks in and
Speaker 3: tells the emperor that he's not wearing any clothes. And
Speaker 3: so my life, my career, my family, my security has
Speaker 3: all come from my looking sideways of life and making
Speaker 3: people laugh and making myself laugh.
Speaker 2: What do you think of this?
Speaker 3: I haven't told you anything funny tonight, but we'll see
Speaker 3: if i's how long I stay on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got you for another hour after this, George,
Speaker 2: what did you I can do that? What do you
Speaker 2: think of a Saturday Night Live?
Speaker 3: But arong? Michael rooksm me as a writer. I brought
Speaker 3: him down from Canada and the best politician in the world.
Speaker 3: And I'm not but Lorlanki and he's not a great writer,
Speaker 3: but he is a great politician. And that shows amazing
Speaker 3: the success they've had. I'm not a big fan because
Speaker 3: it's the same show over and over and over again.
Speaker 3: And all my success has been in not doing the
Speaker 3: same thing over and over over again. And they said
Speaker 3: some wonderful people on Saturday Night Live, and I wish him.
Speaker 3: Web has been on for what fifty years or something?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 3: So we need another new form. We need another I'm
Speaker 3: thinking about doing a comedy telethon and collecting all of
Speaker 3: these people that are around who are funny, and they
Speaker 3: need a window and we get half to be where
Speaker 3: we are politically and economically, socially, environmentally, we need to laugh.
Speaker 3: And I'm not making anything. I'm not too amusing right now,
Speaker 3: but I will be tomorrow.
Speaker 2: What'd you think of Don Rickles?
Speaker 3: I love Rickles. I love Don Rickles and he was.
Speaker 3: I introduced him to Sinatra and he was terrified because
Speaker 3: at that point he was Don Rickles, but he wasn't
Speaker 3: the Don Rickles that we knew. But he went into
Speaker 3: the Slave Brothers and I took Frank and Deceive and
Speaker 3: Don whipped on Frank timidly, but Frank loved it, and
Speaker 3: that kind of launched him. Don. Don was really a
Speaker 3: nice man. He was not the angry I mean I
Speaker 3: used to on stage.
Speaker 2: I met him like a couple of years before you
Speaker 2: passed on, when he was doing his shows in Vegas,
Speaker 2: and yeah, one of the kind. I just met Wayne
Speaker 2: Newton a couple of months ago. He's still a great talent.
Speaker 3: Wayne. Oh god, Wayne, I didn't want to Wayne's Force shows.
Speaker 3: He's a great talent and a nice man. You know.
Speaker 3: I've been lucky because I've had experiences with all of
Speaker 3: those guys, from from Robert Maryland and and to Robin
Speaker 3: Williams and Sammy Davis, all of those. My career has
Speaker 3: been so spotted and so varied, with so many ups
Speaker 3: and downs. There were a lot of downs in there,
Speaker 3: you know, But I survived it, and I've had a
Speaker 3: good time, and I'm having a good time with you,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna I'm going to subscribe to Coast to
Speaker 3: Coast Now, all.
Speaker 2: Right, George, what got you to Hollywood? First place?
Speaker 3: I came to Hollywood to go to the road show.
Speaker 3: There's a song. I got a foot infection. I wound
Speaker 3: up out here with no money and no job, and
Speaker 3: I got a job. As I say, as I say greet,
Speaker 3: it was a boucher, and some of my early adventures
Speaker 3: led me to a career. I could handle disturbances, and
Speaker 3: that led to opened a lott of doors to different
Speaker 3: places and things and jobs to eventually when I met
Speaker 3: Joe Inn and decided to go straight. And then I
Speaker 3: walked into NBC, who had nothing to put on opposite
Speaker 3: Lucy and gunsmoke, and I said, let's try this. And
Speaker 3: I had all of these people, Goldie and Lily and
Speaker 3: Judy and Hardie Johnson, and we came in with this
Speaker 3: collection of young character people and they didn't know what
Speaker 3: the hell that was. Because you must have realized this
Speaker 3: many years ago, that show was a really you're an adventure.
Speaker 3: We didn't know what to do or what to say,
Speaker 3: or what to say, and again it was a hit
Speaker 3: before anybody could figure out that they ought to cancel it.
Speaker 2: You knew Ronald Reagan, did you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, Wasssman called me and asked me. He said
Speaker 3: he wanted me to book Ronald Reagan at the Frontry Hotel.
Speaker 3: I was booking the Frontier Heart. I said, he doesn't
Speaker 3: do anything, and Lotchman said, it's not my problem. I
Speaker 3: want him to work Vegas. So I booked him into
Speaker 3: Vegas and it was the act he did with a
Speaker 3: group of people was just terrible. So I booked a
Speaker 3: Markian family who were an act with five chimpanzees to
Speaker 3: open the show, and they couldn't cut their act lod shorter.
Speaker 3: So I wound up one night because they so ran
Speaker 3: too long, had him do the first fifteen minutes of
Speaker 3: the act in the hallway and then opened the door
Speaker 3: and let him out on stage. Well, one night they
Speaker 3: got loose on stage and absolutely throw the police apart,
Speaker 3: and the owner of the hood instead of him, just
Speaker 3: do that, which meant that Reagan had to cut his act.
Speaker 3: So Ronald Reagan never forgave me for booking booking him
Speaker 3: into Vegas with the five girls.
Speaker 2: He was funny, you know, he was a straight actor,
Speaker 2: wasn't he Oh, he was straight.
Speaker 3: He was a nice man. I liked her a lot,
Speaker 3: but he was a nice man. Not a great president,
Speaker 3: but you know, uh, we've got a great president. Now.
Speaker 3: He's just quiet, and all I see is Trump, pump pump.
Speaker 3: What the hell are we doing with Trump? Somebody's going
Speaker 3: to stand up and say that man is an accident
Speaker 3: looking for a place to happen. But I don't want
Speaker 3: to get into that. I'll get you canceled too. Yeah,
Speaker 3: don't do that, won't, but you won't do it. I
Speaker 3: don't do a lot of political stuff on your show,
Speaker 3: which is kind of good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I let the daytime talk show hosts do
Speaker 2: a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 3: Well, right now we kind of need it. Sumber may
Speaker 3: be our only way out of the mess that we're in.
Speaker 3: You know, you realize that the violence on campus is
Speaker 3: why what the hell are they epis tight about UCLA.
Speaker 3: They shouldn't have you know, riots, and so they should
Speaker 3: have parties. So we were in a difficult place right now,
Speaker 3: but this will be over pretty soon.
Speaker 2: It's one of the strangest times, George I can recall
Speaker 2: in a long, long time.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's strange because you know, You've got a
Speaker 3: nice man as president. He's nice. He's kind of boring,
Speaker 3: but he's a lovely man.
Speaker 1: Do you know.
Speaker 2: Him personally, Biden?
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit, but he comes along with this animal,
Speaker 3: you know, and uh, unfortunately, he has had a lot
Speaker 3: of impact and he dominates. He dominated the entire news
Speaker 3: cycle today and he's not that interesting, you know. So
Speaker 3: I don't want to go on that because I wind
Speaker 3: up getting deported. I'll get another tax rep. But he's dangerous,
Speaker 3: you know.
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