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