Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know from house stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and well, hey, I guess I want
Speaker 1: to say hey and welcome to the podcast. But this
Speaker 1: is a little different because this is a this is
Speaker 1: the intro to the podcast. That's right. We recorded a
Speaker 1: live episode at the l A Podcast Festival and uh,
Speaker 1: this is it. Yeah, this is it. We did one
Speaker 1: on Rodney Dangerfield. It was September nineteen fifteen. The Sophie
Speaker 1: Tell and Beverly Hill. Very chic, very che and it
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. So greed. We hope you
Speaker 1: guys have fun listening to it and stick around after
Speaker 1: the credits roll, so to speak, because we have a
Speaker 1: little bonus track at the end of this one. How
Speaker 1: are you guys doing? Thank you very much for coming
Speaker 1: to our show. We do this normally, but um, it's
Speaker 1: usually just two of us and Jay are you sitting
Speaker 1: here on Facebook while we record like eating me so soup?
Speaker 1: She loves me so soup? 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 right then anything? Does that count
Speaker 1: as a mid role land? Sure? Okay, check out with
Speaker 1: a stack of money waiting outside, Mr Monopolies hanging out outside? Okay, So, um,
Speaker 1: what do you got anything to start with? I've got
Speaker 1: nothing to start with. I usually don't drink this early
Speaker 1: in the day, but coming the nerves and is U
Speaker 1: felt it would be fitting as a tribute to our
Speaker 1: our topic, which we're gonna get into. So I decided
Speaker 1: to work up a heavy sweat because Rodney Dangerfield is
Speaker 1: known for drinking and sweating. Yeah, you're basically missing the tie.
Speaker 1: Got everything else covered? Thanks you guys familiar with the
Speaker 1: one Mr Rodney Dangerfield. Yeah that's good. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: hear that he's a an increasingly underappreciated comedian. Like I've
Speaker 1: talked to it at least a couple of people who
Speaker 1: have not seen Back to School? I know boom And
Speaker 1: I was actually talking to someone who works here at
Speaker 1: 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? Al 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 Pop Fest and uh all you lovely people,
Speaker 1: give yourselves a hand. Thank Is that better you feel
Speaker 1: a little more? You guys happy with that too? Okay? Um, well,
Speaker 1: now we have to start over people. How many people
Speaker 1: have seen Back to School? Great start? So, as we
Speaker 1: were saying, um, the weird thing about Rodney Dangerfield is that,
Speaker 1: um he was his whole, his whole stick about um
Speaker 1: no spect. It was actually really really close to accurate
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, and and not just while
Speaker 1: he was growing up. He had a really tragic, terrible childhood,
Speaker 1: but also as he got older and older, and even
Speaker 1: after he blew up, um, he's still people just kind
Speaker 1: of took what he was saying and ran with it.
Speaker 1: Like he he had this one story where, um, he
Speaker 1: 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 can medians
Speaker 1: have inner 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: Interer 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 in 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 to 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 at all. Pretty much stems from his awful, awful,
Speaker 1: awful childhood. Childhood. It is hilarious 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 Vauvilian 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 uh.
Speaker 1: He was born Jacob Cohen. Uh, and his dad was
Speaker 1: a juggler and a comic who, um, apparently hit the
Speaker 1: 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. He didn't diagnose things like they do today, right,
Speaker 1: you just ran off to the vaudeville pretty much. But
Speaker 1: she was clearly depressed, like profoundly depressed and uh sadly
Speaker 1: completely abandoned emotionally and neglected a little rot or I guess,
Speaker 1: a 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 gonna have to go get a job and
Speaker 1: go grocery shopping himself. Right, So he basically raised himself
Speaker 1: storrying about age eight or so. Um and uh, speaking
Speaker 1: of grocer's one of the one of the great things
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: ten and he was so unsupervised that they were apparently
Speaker 1: at least one or two local molesters that were like Hey, Rodney,
Speaker 1: come on up, I got a nickel for you. And
Speaker 1: 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 bets boakes here and there. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I debated on whether or not to try and
Speaker 1: do it as him, because it's 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 uh.
Speaker 1: I mean the only time he was happy was when
Speaker 1: he was on stage performing, and as soon as he left,
Speaker 1: that heaviness would come back. But 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 parent one.
Speaker 1: You're ready. So I remember the time, and this is
Speaker 1: my writing danger, Phil. 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 so,
Speaker 1: starting about age fifteen, he starts, he realizes he's actually
Speaker 1: kind of hilarious and that he has a talent for
Speaker 1: taking all of this horrible, tragic stuff and turning into
Speaker 1: funny stuff. Um and uh, he started writing jokes and
Speaker 1: he got good pretty quick. He started selling jokes age
Speaker 1: fifteen or sixteen to establish comedians, right, yeah, and he
Speaker 1: kept them. He had the stuffel bag. He would write
Speaker 1: jokes by hand his entire career and put him in
Speaker 1: the stuffel bag. So he literally had a suffel bag
Speaker 1: full of like thousands and thousands of jokes. And apparently
Speaker 1: I think, uh you said that. During a typical performance
Speaker 1: later like once he hit the big time, he would
Speaker 1: tell like over three hundred jokes in a set, like
Speaker 1: three fifty Yeah, in an hour. He ran at their
Speaker 1: quick jokes, but still, but he remembered them all and
Speaker 1: he knew which one's fit best. Like the guy was
Speaker 1: a comic genius. Hopefully that's coming across here or will
Speaker 1: by the end of this, right. So he gets this
Speaker 1: big break at age nineteen. He's written jokes for a
Speaker 1: few years and he's gonna try this out, and he
Speaker 1: gets a job at a cat skills resort for twelve
Speaker 1: bucks a week, ten weeks, including room and board, thin
Speaker 1: 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 to add on basically. But um, so he's working.
Speaker 1: He's working hard. Um the stint and the cats skills. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think he gets read 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 MC.
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: he's trying to drive him a point. Uh. So, in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, he gets married for the first time
Speaker 1: to a jazz singer name Joyce Indig, and he had
Speaker 1: a couple of kids and moved to New Jersey, which
Speaker 1: we all know is the death knell for any comedian
Speaker 1: trying to work in New York. Kind of means you've
Speaker 1: 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 ish,
Speaker 1: a little desperate, kind of sweaty, and uh, these jokes
Speaker 1: about how bad is life, these jokes about how bad
Speaker 1: his 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: while Ronnie 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 come. I can't think of it.
Speaker 1: There any out there. I guess Brent Winback. That's kind
Speaker 1: of a wait. Wait, what about like Larry the Cable Guy.
Speaker 1: He's total I assume a character because he started out
Speaker 1: as as a completely different kind of comedian and then
Speaker 1: adopted that persona. But I don't count him as a comedian.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he's not watching. Don't worry, he's not. He's
Speaker 1: writing bad jokes and start a flame war with Larry
Speaker 1: the Cable Guy. I'll totally take him up on that
Speaker 1: flame war. Uh, although kids squashed me with his sacks
Speaker 1: of money. Um, so he adopts his character. Uh. He
Speaker 1: 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 decide, 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 club 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, but yeah,
Speaker 1: or you know, in any ad they took out. So
Speaker 1: the guy who ran this place, the Inwood Lounge, I
Speaker 1: think um came up the Rodney danger Field, right. But
Speaker 1: the weird thing is um he had actually lifted the
Speaker 1: name from a Jack Benny character, Like there was an
Speaker 1: original Rodney Dangerfield and it wasn't Rodney Dangerfield, right, were
Speaker 1: the giant twist of of the podcast. It's all downhill
Speaker 1: from here. So the the Jack Benny came up with
Speaker 1: his character and I think the forties maybe or something
Speaker 1: like that, Um of this grade Z Western hero named
Speaker 1: Rodney Dangerfield, and um, I guess the the lounge owner
Speaker 1: remembered it and came up with that Rodney Dangerfield had
Speaker 1: no idea about this. So he's walking around like using
Speaker 1: this name for years And apparently he met Johnny Carson
Speaker 1: once that one of his shows and Johnny Carson was like,
Speaker 1: you know where your name came from? Right, and he said,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Yeah, he explained that the
Speaker 1: whole Jack Benny thing, and later on he uh saw
Speaker 1: Jack Benny, and Jack Benny wasn't like Matt or anything.
Speaker 1: Actually said I really love what you did with the character,
Speaker 1: and you really you know, you did it just right.
Speaker 1: So no harm, no felt, and they hugged it out
Speaker 1: from that very famously. So on the second go round
Speaker 1: he was he was making a living doing okay. But
Speaker 1: he got his real big break in nineteen six seven
Speaker 1: with Ed Sullivan. He was, um, he couldn't get booked
Speaker 1: on Ed Sullivan, but at the time they would book
Speaker 1: other comedians for the run throughs as like just placeholders
Speaker 1: for dress rehearsal basically, And so he got a spot
Speaker 1: booked on that and apparently did so well and dress
Speaker 1: rehearsal that Ed Sullivan, you know, took note on the
Speaker 1: side of the stage, which means he went like this,
Speaker 1: you know you're funny. That's how you knew Sullivan thought
Speaker 1: you were funny. It works for Nixon to do that.
Speaker 1: Nixon actually that was the result of a huge long shot.
Speaker 1: He told his agent like, just get me on Ed
Speaker 1: Sullivan and it it played out, panned out very well.
Speaker 1: He ended up being on Ed Sullivan like seventeen times
Speaker 1: or something like that, and it led to all these
Speaker 1: other late night appearances. He was on Carson, like I
Speaker 1: think a record. He holds the record for being on
Speaker 1: Carson 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 taste makers for all of the comedians
Speaker 1: were suddenly promoting the sweaty, weird, coked up uh pothead,
Speaker 1: booze hound, huge potha Rodney dangerfield, right, and he took
Speaker 1: it and ran with it, like right when he hit
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty seven he got to work like that.
Speaker 1: He was such a big pothead. Actually, the original name
Speaker 1: of his biography was going to be My Love Affair
Speaker 1: with Marijuana, and he was serious he wanted to call
Speaker 1: it that because he smoked potty, said for you know,
Speaker 1: sixty something years. Uh, but well up until the day
Speaker 1: he died. Really, I think from on like he was
Speaker 1: smoking pot in I see you in the hospital. Because
Speaker 1: he had an early medical marijuana exemption long before anyone
Speaker 1: even knew it that way. I don't even knew what
Speaker 1: that was. But if he flashed it in your face,
Speaker 1: you didn't ask questions. So, uh, he got his big break. Actually,
Speaker 1: Carson had blackballed them for a while because he accused
Speaker 1: Carson in a letter of stealing or one of his
Speaker 1: writers of stealing one of his jokes. So Carson famously
Speaker 1: wouldn't have him on the show for a long time
Speaker 1: until they eventually right, until they eventually met um and
Speaker 1: worked it out, and then Johnny became like the biggest
Speaker 1: fan ever. And if you want to enjoy yourself at
Speaker 1: home on the YouTube's just go look up Johnny Carson
Speaker 1: on Rodney or Rodney Danger Build on Carson. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of clips where I mean Carson was just like
Speaker 1: the ultimate set up dude. It just let him do
Speaker 1: his thing. Yeah, and he would laugh until he was
Speaker 1: crying because he couldn't believe that Danger Fields Getting Away
Speaker 1: was saying most of the stuff he was saying on
Speaker 1: TV on Carson's own show, it was good. So he's
Speaker 1: he's married, he's working a lot, and uh, he decides
Speaker 1: that he doesn't want to happen to his own kids.
Speaker 1: What happened to him, which was to be neglected. So
Speaker 1: he said, you know what I'm gonna do, Um, even
Speaker 1: though no one's ever done this. I'm gonna borrow a
Speaker 1: bunch of money of a million dollars and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: open my own comedy club in New York City so
Speaker 1: I can stay home with my children, Brian and Melanie.
Speaker 1: I think, right. And it's not like he had any money,
Speaker 1: right then, you know, like this is a huge, huge risk.
Speaker 1: He's doing okay, but he had to borrow off 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, saggot, Jeff Foxworthy, Yeah, Jeff Foxworthy, fans
Speaker 1: in the room, Rita Rudner of course, Sam Kennison 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 you 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 may 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, The Killing, The Killing,
Speaker 1: great movie. Who said, yeah, wow, yeah, great movie. So
Speaker 1: he plays onlooker, um, big part. Uh. And then he
Speaker 1: was in another movie what was that up on? Called
Speaker 1: The Projectionist. Yeah, it was a big part in a
Speaker 1: very small movie. He said that it was the type
Speaker 1: of movie where they went to go shoot on location
Speaker 1: by taking the subway. Um, it's probably true. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it was. But he played this movie projectionist boss
Speaker 1: and the projectionists had quite an imagination and he was
Speaker 1: 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 respe the comedian.
Speaker 1: But um, when he when he shot Keddy shacked Harold Ramos, right, yeah,
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 Ramos said action,
Speaker 1: Rodney Dajerfield 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
Speaker 1: people and that's where he got his his rush. And
Speaker 1: he once compared making movies to um. He said, like
Speaker 1: you know when you make a kid write something a
Speaker 1: hundred times on the chalkboard and they've done something wrong,
Speaker 1: He's like, that's what making the movies like, he hated
Speaker 1: doing all these takes. He hated standing around and waiting. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's why he didn't make a ton of him. And
Speaker 1: he felt like the live audience is like he compared
Speaker 1: it to a heroin attic, like shooting up. You know,
Speaker 1: like he just loved that rush. And uh, he definitely
Speaker 1: didn't get that from movies, which I mean you got
Speaker 1: like 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?
Speaker 1: S okay? So Ben Fong Torres, who was in almost
Speaker 1: famous Uh he Uh, he had a quote he says, Uh,
Speaker 1: Rodney Deserfield looks like a midlife crisis. There's a surface
Speaker 1: orderliness he's groomed, and he's dressed like a businessman at
Speaker 1: a convention. Gray hair slicked back over a haggard shades
Speaker 1: of mayor daily face. Dark suit, white shirt, bright red tie, silk,
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 He's in a constant sweat. He
Speaker 1: wipes his brow incessantly, tugs at his tie, herky jerky
Speaker 1: as he recounts the horrors of his daily life. He
Speaker 1: shifts his shoulders uncomfortably, and his eyes bug out of
Speaker 1: their bags. He moves the floor, mic around as he
Speaker 1: roams the comedy store stage looking for sympathy, but all
Speaker 1: 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, so 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 a very will put together.
Speaker 1: In fact, I just saw earlier today, um, when he
Speaker 1: gave out a Best Makeup award at the think eight
Speaker 1: seven Academy Awards. Yeah, and he and he walked up
Speaker 1: and he said, hey, nice tuxed 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, probably had
Speaker 1: like holy underwear. You should look at it too. Man.
Speaker 1: That's great because he basically does five minutes of stand
Speaker 1: up at the Academy Awards and it gives out an award.
Speaker 1: So iron Man versus dirty dancing. Yeah, take some notes
Speaker 1: and then some danger fields stuff. Um, should we take
Speaker 1: 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. All 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. So The Message
Speaker 1: follows the story of Nicki Tomlin, who is 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 Message 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. Subscribe 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 Shack 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 m Bill Murray.
Speaker 1: The rest of it. It's like a tepid coming of
Speaker 1: age dramedy sucks. Ted Knight he was fine, but I mean,
Speaker 1: you can watch too close for Comfort and get just
Speaker 1: as much as you want. You know, I just don't
Speaker 1: think it needs to be in the movie. I think
Speaker 1: it was Bill Murray and Rodney Dangerfield That's what made
Speaker 1: Caddy Shack a classic. Chevy Chase tada. You know how
Speaker 1: I feel about Chevy Chase. My father raised me to
Speaker 1: hate Chevy Chase. Did he really? He really did? Your
Speaker 1: dad didn't like him? Oh man, still does not like
Speaker 1: Chevy Chase. Why. I just didn't think he's funny or
Speaker 1: he thought, yeah yeah, something about Chevy Chase sticks in
Speaker 1: my dad's crawl and he passed it on me. Isn't
Speaker 1: that weird? It is totally weird. That's what you get
Speaker 1: when your dad's not a vaudevillian. They pass on weird
Speaker 1: stuff like that to you, you know. So, Uh, he
Speaker 1: makes Caddyshack. It was a huge hit. Now he was
Speaker 1: 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 anybody seen that? Anyway, it's actually
Speaker 1: pretty cool movie. It's not bad. It's a little weird structurally,
Speaker 1: which kind of makes sense that he wrote it, because
Speaker 1: he clearly did not how to write it right a scratch,
Speaker 1: you know, how to write a bunch of good jokes though.
Speaker 1: So he played Monty Capelletti, an Italian American drunk pothead,
Speaker 1: uh baby photographer because because this is back in the
Speaker 1: early eighties when anyone of any ethnicity could play any
Speaker 1: one of another ethnicity, 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
Speaker 1: think like ten million bucks, if for one year you
Speaker 1: quit 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 Ronney danger beale. He said, Rodney
Speaker 1: Dangerfield gloriously playing himself as the nearest thing we were
Speaker 1: likely 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: he's a maybe photographer. So nineteen 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 a
Speaker 1: gross swell over a hundred million um, which in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties six. I mean today that's still good money. And
Speaker 1: today dollars, that's a hundred fifty billion dollars. It's inflation
Speaker 1: for you, right. Uh. And uh, this one he played,
Speaker 1: he he had the idea. I think he got a
Speaker 1: story credit of a guy, a father that goes back
Speaker 1: to school. He was a big loser in life, so
Speaker 1: he goes back to school with his son to get
Speaker 1: his degree. And he and he told that idea to
Speaker 1: Harold Ramos and he was like, that's good. But what
Speaker 1: if he was rich. What if he was wealthy and
Speaker 1: had it all and still goes back to school like
Speaker 1: knowing what he knows now with a lot of money,
Speaker 1: And and Riney was like, Okay, that's the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good idea, and it actually, I mean that
Speaker 1: was a huge movie when it came out. It was
Speaker 1: the sixth biggest movie of n six. That was behind
Speaker 1: Top Gun, Platoon, Karate Kid, to Star Trek four, and
Speaker 1: there's one other one that's written down somewhere and here,
Speaker 1: but they were big movies. And it was like the
Speaker 1: six 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 Dangerfield
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: Sarah 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 now 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. Uh,
Speaker 1: I like this one. It's a little brow, but I
Speaker 1: like it. You know what classes when you were alone,
Speaker 1: you far you say, excuse me, that's class. That weird.
Speaker 1: So if you haven't noticed, a lot of his jokes
Speaker 1: were they were self deprecating for himself, but also about
Speaker 1: his family. He talked about his wife was dumb and fat,
Speaker 1: and his son it was stupid. Uh. And even when
Speaker 1: he wasn't I mean, it was all a character. So
Speaker 1: even when he wasn't married, he was telling jokes about
Speaker 1: his wife, which must have made it a lot easier
Speaker 1: when he went home. And I probably so. But one
Speaker 1: of my favorite wife jokes was, I tell you my
Speaker 1: wife can't cook at all? How can toast have bones?
Speaker 1: And and your impression is getting better as well. I'm
Speaker 1: drinking whiskey, so I'm not saying that all of us.
Speaker 1: Let's see, I've got one. Um. So this is so
Speaker 1: like I said, it's a little weird, and I like
Speaker 1: that in a comic, just just bizarre stuff. Um. He
Speaker 1: was talking about the bar that he was doing stand
Speaker 1: up in that night. Says what did joint. I asked
Speaker 1: the bartender for a double and he brought out a
Speaker 1: guy who looks like me. And those days, man, where
Speaker 1: comedians just wrote great jokes, set up punchlines, set up
Speaker 1: punchline over and over. Yeah, I'll tell you a drink
Speaker 1: too much. The last time I went to the doctor,
Speaker 1: I gave him a yurine sample. I had an olive
Speaker 1: in it. Classic. And then another thing I've learned about
Speaker 1: Rodney Danger Hilman. You go back and listen to his stuff.
Speaker 1: He wasn't like mean, He was self deprecating. Even when
Speaker 1: he was targeting like his family, mostly non existent family,
Speaker 1: all of it reflected back on him and basically what
Speaker 1: a loser he was, right, um, And he didn't have
Speaker 1: very many mean jokes. He didn't tell like many gay jokes.
Speaker 1: He he didn't tell racist jokes anything like that. Which
Speaker 1: and this is like in the seventies when like everybody
Speaker 1: was telling jokes like that, Right, But he did have
Speaker 1: this bat joke that stuck out to me. Are you fat?
Speaker 1: Do you look at the menu and say, okay, I
Speaker 1: love love getting laughs from Ronnie Daserfields chocks we should
Speaker 1: just do this was about to say, I think we
Speaker 1: have a new act. You should know one day talk
Speaker 1: about a rush. I got one more. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: I was dating a woman. She called and said, come
Speaker 1: on over. Nobody's home. I went over and nobody was home.
Speaker 1: Good stuff. I have a new career reading Rodney Dangerfield chokes.
Speaker 1: That's the whole. No one's done that cover comedians, Oh Man, Sharknado,
Speaker 1: and now this you're all aware of? Chuck predicted Sharknado.
Speaker 1: Right he did. You're welcome. Okay, no more, you got
Speaker 1: any more? You like the one about his dog, tell
Speaker 1: that one? Okay, all right? My dog is lazy. He's
Speaker 1: so lazy. He doesn't chase cars. He just lays in
Speaker 1: the driveway taking own license plates. All right, So now
Speaker 1: we're in Uh, it's a nut stop last. In the
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties, he's making these movies. He won Best
Speaker 1: Comedy Album Grammy for the album No Respect, beating out
Speaker 1: Richard Pryor, Monty Python, Gilda Radner, and father Guido Sarducci. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen eighty two, the Smithsonian Institution put his
Speaker 1: red tie and his shirt uh in the Smithsonian Uh,
Speaker 1: the American History National Museum of American History. Uh. Right,
Speaker 1: along with Jimmy Dranny's hat, Archie Bunker's recliner, and Charles
Speaker 1: Lindbergh's plane. But the joke Bridden, he said, was he
Speaker 1: got a feeling after they left they were just gonna
Speaker 1: use the shirt to wipe down the plane. Always self deprecating. Yeah, Andy,
Speaker 1: And when he handed him the shirt, he said, this
Speaker 1: is a big, big deal. I only have two shirts,
Speaker 1: which may have been true. Uh. And also in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, Um, who remembers the Miller Lete commercials from
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties tastes great less spelling. That man back
Speaker 1: there has his hand up the best, right. They were
Speaker 1: great commercials. They were named it was like named the
Speaker 1: eight best advertising campaign in history. Uh, from McCann ericson
Speaker 1: the ad agency. And uh I went and watched a
Speaker 1: ton of them earlier today, and uh I remember them
Speaker 1: all from being a little kid, and it was weird.
Speaker 1: They were. Um, for those of you who haven't seen them,
Speaker 1: the premise was you would get a bunch of ex
Speaker 1: athletes and then Mickey Spillane and Rodney Dangerfield and some
Speaker 1: other random pop cultural icons at the time and to
Speaker 1: sell Miller Lite and you know, getting a big argument
Speaker 1: about tastes great and less felling. At the end. Rodney
Speaker 1: would usually come in as the ship who does something
Speaker 1: wrong to spoil everything. It was just such a weird
Speaker 1: like Bubba Smith and Dick Buckus and baseball players. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it was so strange, but they were huge
Speaker 1: and they he was the one who could score the
Speaker 1: weed for everybody else. They him. They led him on
Speaker 1: uh January. Um, if anyone remembers his hit rap single
Speaker 1: rapping Rodney, have you guys heard this? Really? It's something
Speaker 1: else it is And it was a big hit. Actually
Speaker 1: it was a top sixty hit, just pretty big, top
Speaker 1: top fifty nine, Chuck, give it its du That means
Speaker 1: it was number fifty nine. Yeah, yeah. So um it
Speaker 1: was right behind Uptown Girl. And it was Rodney Dangerfield
Speaker 1: rapping about being old, which sounds really bizarre now, but
Speaker 1: like legitimate rappers at the time, like say the sugar
Speaker 1: Hill Gang, we're rapping about like having dinner at your
Speaker 1: friend's mom's house. So it wasn't that far off the
Speaker 1: mark for the time. You know, it's like being nice
Speaker 1: to your family. That's what raps were about. It the
Speaker 1: good old days. Uh. He was on the Simpsons, I
Speaker 1: think a couple of times. Whitney, Um, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know if he was on more than once. I think
Speaker 1: he's on twice. But in he played Mr Burns, illegitimate
Speaker 1: sun herb who got no regard, no regard at all.
Speaker 1: I wonder why they didn't say respect to day Not.
Speaker 1: I think there was 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 on 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 Daingerfield 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?
Speaker 1: Well his I looked up earlier to see if his
Speaker 1: autoback autobiography was on there. It is not. It's the
Speaker 1: only Rodney Dangerfield thing on there. It's awesome because it
Speaker 1: has the album mark too, so you get that for
Speaker 1: free with the audiobook he wrote. Uh, and I guess
Speaker 1: he didn't direct it, but he produced and wrote the
Speaker 1: movie Rover danger Field, the animated UM classic about a
Speaker 1: dog who gets no respect. And then, uh, Mr Oliver
Speaker 1: Stone called him up one day and said, I had
Speaker 1: this role for you in a movie UM called Natural
Speaker 1: Born Killers, and it's about this sadistic father who was
Speaker 1: molesting his daughter raping his daughter, and I think he'd
Speaker 1: be perfect for it. And Rodney didn't get it at first.
Speaker 1: He was like, 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 Dangerville is a sadistic,
Speaker 1: ancestuous molester um, but it's Rodney danger Fields. That's the
Speaker 1: weird part. And then there's a laugh track to just
Speaker 1: throw you off that little extra bit. You know, it is.
Speaker 1: It's 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 acclaimed for it, but he was like,
Speaker 1: Rodney Dangerfield, we had no idea And he's like, seriously, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you go today and just google um the Rodney
Speaker 1: Dangerfield 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 Petit Sara is the Rodney danger
Speaker 1: Field of California wines, or the Memphis, Tennessee City Council
Speaker 1: is the Rodney danger Field of local government. Seriously, that's
Speaker 1: the thing. Evan saw. A guitar pre amp was known
Speaker 1: as the Rodney danger Field of guitar preamps. My favorite
Speaker 1: is 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
Speaker 1: respect 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 and
Speaker 1: said he would drink like tumblerfuls of vodka and smoke
Speaker 1: pot all day long in duke cocaine, which was all
Speaker 1: completely true on 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 his damage to his
Speaker 1: reputation and one dollar for personal distresss Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: the judge went, yeah, sorry, live stream people, he did uh,
Speaker 1: he did get awarded forty five tho dollars for presumed
Speaker 1: damages and uh, I did a little more research today
Speaker 1: on that he um. Apparently he blew it all on
Speaker 1: cocon weed. Apparently Star Magazine showed that they didn't turn
Speaker 1: a profit, so he couldn't go after him for uh.
Speaker 1: He couldn't appeal for more money, so he tried to
Speaker 1: go after their parent company and it went all the
Speaker 1: way to the Supreme Court and they said you you
Speaker 1: didn't start the suit that way. 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: this 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 grade even with 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's actually in that interview, which I said, is
Speaker 1: it's like forty five minutes long and it's completely depressing,
Speaker 1: so don't go watch it. Um but uh, and not
Speaker 1: just because he was old, but Howards trying to talk
Speaker 1: to him about his childhood and stuff, and well, he
Speaker 1: had just written his autobiography and really just laid it
Speaker 1: all out there, like he'd alluded to the rough life
Speaker 1: that he had had in interviews and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but he published this book right before he died, and
Speaker 1: it was it was rough. Well. I think the saddest
Speaker 1: thing to me about his mom was that despite being
Speaker 1: completely neglected emotionally and getting no love at all as
Speaker 1: a child, he still wanted to be like a good kid,
Speaker 1: and he still worked to support her and like apparently
Speaker 1: came home and showed her his report card. He worked
Speaker 1: hard 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 then he made up with
Speaker 1: his dad before his dad died apparently, Um, even though
Speaker 1: he never saw him, he said he forgave him for
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, really sad stuff. Though.
Speaker 1: You want to hear some more jokes? Uh, well, well, actually,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell him how he died? Okay, Well
Speaker 1: in this interview. In the same interview, he's telling Howard Stern.
Speaker 1: Howard turns like he's about to go in for um
Speaker 1: for the should I pretend there's not a siren in
Speaker 1: the background. Um, he's going in for surgery, and Howard
Speaker 1: 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 danjer 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, CNN tried to
Speaker 1: get in touch with him to get his reaction about
Speaker 1: the passing of Johnny Carson and and and if you
Speaker 1: read his obituaries, a lot of them, a shocking amount
Speaker 1: mentioned that he was well known for his role in
Speaker 1: The Scout. He wasn't in the Scout. I got to
Speaker 1: the bottom of that. Oh oh late on me. He
Speaker 1: was going to be in The Scout. The role was
Speaker 1: originally intended for him and Sam Kennison, and he didn't
Speaker 1: do it for unknown reasons, and it ended up going
Speaker 1: to Albert Brooks and Brendan Fraser. But it was one
Speaker 1: of those things. I think we're one of those internet
Speaker 1: neat things on the Internet where someone prints something that
Speaker 1: everyone else's copies and bays 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. No, 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 his 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 pallbearers included Jim Carrey,
Speaker 1: who he took Jim Carrey on the road for two
Speaker 1: years when he was a stroke glin comedian and he
Speaker 1: opened for him in Vegas and Jim Carrey was getting
Speaker 1: booed off the stage. Everyone hated him, and Rodney stuck
Speaker 1: by him for like a full two years, and Jim
Speaker 1: Carey never forgot that. Chris Rock, Tim Allen, Larry David,
Speaker 1: George Carlin, Jay Leno, um Adam Sandler, and then your
Speaker 1: boy Michael Bolton. Michael Bolton, he was supposed to sing,
Speaker 1: wasn't He was, but he was too choked up to
Speaker 1: sing at Rodney danger Field's funeral. Apparently they were really, really,
Speaker 1: really tight friends because Michael Bolton's song Everybody's Crazy was
Speaker 1: in Back to School, and I guess he parlayed that
Speaker 1: into a trip to the set where you got to
Speaker 1: meet Riding dajer Field and they became friends for the
Speaker 1: rest of the life. So Michael Bolton was too sad
Speaker 1: to sing at danger Field's funeral, and you know, everybody
Speaker 1: was disappointed. I bet there were a couple of people
Speaker 1: there that were like, Yeah, it's okay, Michael, we know
Speaker 1: you're upset. You don't you don't have to do this
Speaker 1: if you don't want it's everybody will understand. And that's
Speaker 1: what they said to us before we went on. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna close this with with a final nice little
Speaker 1: cherry on top about um Rodney Dangerfield and sort of
Speaker 1: his outlook on his lack of respect with when it
Speaker 1: comes to the Academy of Motion Pictures motion Picture sciencests. Yes,
Speaker 1: what it's called, as you guys call it in l A,
Speaker 1: the Academy. Right. He applied for membership because he wanted
Speaker 1: to be in the Academy and he had the credentials.
Speaker 1: He was in movies, and uh, they said, no, no,
Speaker 1: you you had to be in like at least three
Speaker 1: major roles. He had thirteen under his belt by this time,
Speaker 1: including Natural Born Killers, for which he received a lot
Speaker 1: of critical praise. Right, and they turned him down like jerks. Right.
Speaker 1: He even got a letter from Malcolm McDowell Roddy 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 with it was Malcolm McDowell.
Speaker 1: Was Roddy McDowell and Clocker Gorings or Malcolm McDowell. That
Speaker 1: was Malcolm McDowell. Oh well, okay, good, because I felt
Speaker 1: a lot better about this than Ron McDowell. Wasn't Planet
Speaker 1: of the Apes. Yeah, so okay, good. I'm glad that
Speaker 1: those two were separating. 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 Jsfield, 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 come like vent
Speaker 1: 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 we're 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. Uh,
Speaker 1: Rodney dot com and if you go to that. I
Speaker 1: just found this out earlier. There's a section called jokes
Speaker 1: and had audio clips. I was like, oh, this is great,
Speaker 1: but it's not him. It's some dude reading like as
Speaker 1: bad as me, really just saying his little one liners
Speaker 1: over and over and it's not in front of people.
Speaker 1: It's like dead quiet and it's just some dude saying
Speaker 1: his jokes. It's really weird. I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: much I'd love the cover comedian idea. Just you know
Speaker 1: how stealing for other comics is such a taboo. We
Speaker 1: just need to just to get out in front of
Speaker 1: the Yeah, mix up a little like Mitch Hedberg and
Speaker 1: rich Little Little Mind do a little Stephen right there
Speaker 1: in the middle. Yea perhaps, Yeah, I like so that's
Speaker 1: Rodney Dangerfield everybody, that's our show. If you want it anymore,
Speaker 1: you're s O l R. Yeah, you can clap if
Speaker 1: you want it. Hey, that was fun, right, that was
Speaker 1: a lot of one. Yeah, we had a great time
Speaker 1: and big thanks to the l A Podcast Festival for
Speaker 1: having us out and um, yeah please have us back.
Speaker 1: We'd love to. Yeah, it was really cool. We got
Speaker 1: to see other shows and Uh, we did our own
Speaker 1: and had a nice little crowd there, very supportive, nice
Speaker 1: kind people all the way around. And look for the
Speaker 1: next l A podcast best coming, I would imagine next September.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we'll be there. Yeah, keep keep your ears out
Speaker 1: for it. We'll mention it whether we are or not,
Speaker 1: because we're that kind of guys. That's right. No listener
Speaker 1: mail for me, buddy. No, but if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, you can tweet to us
Speaker 1: at s y s K podcast. You can join us
Speaker 1: on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
Speaker 1: our super awesome home on the web, Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com? Mike, I,
Speaker 1: my psychiatrist said, you're crazy. Oh, hold on, already mess
Speaker 1: it up. No, no, no, that's right. My psychiatrist said
Speaker 1: I'm crazy. I told him I wanted a second opinion.
Speaker 1: He said, okay, you're ugly too. Yeah. He wrote that joke. Man,
Speaker 1: everybody knows that joke. It's a good joke. Uh. When
Speaker 1: my wife has sex, she screams, especially when I walk
Speaker 1: in on her. Boy he wrote a lot of jokes
Speaker 1: about his wife's cheating on him, like hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 1: of boats because he wasn't married. Uh. If it wasn't
Speaker 1: for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all. Gross.
Speaker 1: The football team from my high school was tough. After
Speaker 1: they sacked the quarterback, they went after his family. That's
Speaker 1: a good, clean joke. That's good, it's nice. Uh what
Speaker 1: else we got here? I solved my drinking problem. I
Speaker 1: joined a A. I mean I still drink, I just
Speaker 1: use a different name. I'm getting old at my age.
Speaker 1: Shooting up means using an anema bag. I think there's
Speaker 1: one more about a dog that I Oh, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: a dog? I got? What a dog? His favorite bone
Speaker 1: is in my arm. I think that's it for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure. I want to say that I have
Speaker 1: another one hiding in here somewhere, but I can't find it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Go to the YouTube, folks. Yeah, make sure look up
Speaker 1: Iron Man versus Dirty Dancing. You will love it. And
Speaker 1: that's it all right, Thanks everybody, Thank you very much too.