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♪ (GENTLE JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
If Bob knew a documentary was being made about him,
he would act like he didn't like it,
and he would love every minute of it.
He would love it. Are you kidding me?
♪ (UPBEAT ZANY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
He would love it. Because he wouldn't want his material to go away.
He would want to know everything.
How did he look in it? Was he funny?
Did you pick the funniest bit?
I think he'd be in massive support
of a documentary being made of him (CHUCKLES)
I think he would love it, and I think he would
want to be in it mostly by himself. (LAUGHS)
If he was in it, he would probably make fun of it.
He'd wanna fuck it up somehow.
And he would be upset
if he didn't get the most airtime of anybody.
♪ (MUSIC SWELLS) ♪
There will be one-- at least one person
in this documentary that Super Dave is criticizing
from the great beyond. (CHUCKLES)
He'd be thrilled. "Really? Who's making it?
When is it gonna air?"
I think he'd get a kick out of the fact
that I have to sit here and do this,
knowing that I really don't want to.
♪ (MUSIC SETTLES) ♪
If this movie sells for more than ten dollars,
-I'll be fucking amazed. -(CREWMEMBER LAUGHING)
Ah!
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Our next guest is...
The world's greatest daredevil entertainer,
superstar of our day or any other day...
You may know him from his role as Marty Funkhouser
on Curb Your Enthusiasm...
Please welcome the extraordinary...
Super Dave Osborne. Dave!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Oh, be still my heart.
Super Dave is really Bob Einstein...
JIMMY KIMMEL: I was a kid who loved to watch television.
I had a little TV on my desk. And I loved the talk shows,
I loved to watch Carson and Letterman.
And I think that's where I probably first saw Super Dave.
I call him Super Dave. (CHUCKLES) even though
I know his name, I never called him Bob in his life.
And he was such a great talk show guest.
I'm going to do a thing with you, how to remember your name.
-Say I'm at a party. -JOHNNY CARSON: Right.
And someone introduces you to me, they say,
"Super Dave, this is the great Jimmy Carson."
-John, John. Johnny. -All right?
-So... -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
The way he mixed his corny, old jokes
with this weird, angry approach was, uh, delightful.
So, what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna take your first name.
-Yeah. -And I'm gonna take letter by letter
and, and relate it to something.
-Link it with something. -J, just incredibly gifted.
-Well... -I, individually brilliant.
M, you're married. M, you were married before.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-Y. -Good question.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
When I was a kid, watching The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,
I was obsessed with him instantly,
because of his unique delivery and his hilarious demeanor.
May I have everyone's attention, please?
What is this, officer?
There'll be a routine inspection of this party.
-Everyone disrobe and remain calm. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That was just my kind of humor.
Uh, he was just something...
just so off about him, and so different.
Did you stick a gerbil up your ass?
-Who told you that? -MARTY FUNKHOUSER: I'm not gonna tell you who told me.
-Tell me who told you that. -It's not important.
No, of course, I didn't stick a gerbil up my ass!
-Don't get so upset. -I'm upset!
First time I ever saw him was as the producer
on the show Bizarre.
-BOB EINSTEIN: What happened? -It sorta-- look, it's a boat.
It's supposed to be an operating room.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It's supposed to be in a hospital room.
-Bill Zaharuk, please. -This is a boat.
-Oh! -(LOUD CRASH)
And then, as time wore on,
I would see him in-- I saw him in Modern Romance,
I'd see him here, I'd see him there.
The only reason you're going out with her
is because of her ample bosom.
That's despicable to say that to me. Of course not.
For her brains and her sense of worth and--
Have you set a day aside when you're gonna finally look at her face?
(CACKLING)
That's very...
I remember first seeing him and watching and thinking,
"Oh, he's going to do this great stunt."
What they're gonna try to do is crush me
-with an 11-ton metal-- -(WOOD SPLINTERING)
Being a guy who loves physical comedy,
watching Super Dave was like, oh, man, must-watch TV
for me growing up and all my friends, man.
-That's about it. Oh, no brakes. -(ALARM BEEPING)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -Brakes are important, kids.
He had this dryness to him.
He would not try to spin the characters.
He would just be them, and the situations made it funny.
I'm sorry about the ballgame, it was emotional.
Just give me a ride. Let's not go through this, please.
There's one little problem. I'm with a prostitute.
My eyes are closed.
He just loved playing characters who were so full of shit.
You left my party before dessert.
How can you do that?
We were trying to recreate what happened 25 years ago,
and I said, "Larry, would you like to make a toast?"
And someone said, "Larry went home to take a shit."
LARRY DAVID: (CHUCKLING) He was hilarious.
(LAUGHS)
Really made me laugh. I'm laughing just thinking about it.
♪ (WHIMSICAL ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Will you please finish shoveling that shit into your face?
The way his bits would unfold.
I don't know, it was just like perfect comedy.
And I want you to wish for something as hard as you can,
and I'm sure it'll come true for Mr. Osborne. (CHUCKLES)
Are you wishing?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
The thing about a Super Dave Osborne appearance
was the absolute cringe,
and he would never back away from it,
of just sitting there and not being amused.
And he said, "Look, Farmer Jones.
I don't like physical violence.
But if you don't give me that duck back,
-we're gonna have to do something." -Mm-hmm.
Farmer Jones said, "Pick your sport."
So, Farmer Brown said--
Was... Was this when The Tonight Show was 90 minutes?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
PATTON OSWALT: He would always look so disappointed in Dave and Johnny.
That's what I love. He was always, like, so disappointed that you're really gonna
make a quip while I'm trying to talk about this serious subject. (LAUGHS)
I'm sorry, please, Super Dave, finish the joke.
DAVID LETTERMAN: He was just rooted in the sincerity of,
"I don't think this is amusing." And you could not derail that.
But, God, it was, it was like...
"I want some more of that."
You know, just give me all of that you absolutely have.
If I imagine trying to train a bird in a cell, the first problem,
it would seem to me, would be how do you keep the bird from flying...
through the bars of the cell and going away?
Well, what I would do is,
um, you'd go to the farthest point of your cell,
and under the wall facing the bars.
-STEVE ALLEN: Mm-hmm. -BOB: And you would set the cage there
and then open the cage door, and the bird would come out at you
and try to get through the bars, and you just... slap it back
and say, "No."
SARAH SILVERMAN: He's like a one-man straight man.
You usually don't have that, you know?
Like, there has to be the... the straight man's usually
what the funny man bounces off of, but he's both.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Put the ball on my mouth. All right.
-Just hit it! -Just wait...
(YELPS)
If I tell a joke or a story and I get a big laugh,
I can't help but laugh too,
because I'm so relieved that it worked.
Bob goes dead serious when you're laughing,
which causes you to laugh again.
So he gets two laughs. He built a career on this.
A ten-year-old is walking down the hallway of his house.
He hears screaming in his parents' bedroom.
He opens the door, there's his father
dressed in a cowboy hat and swim fins and that's it.
His mother is wearing bunny shoes and a shower cap.
And he said, "Daddy, what's going on?"
He said, "Don't worry, sweetheart, we're just having some fun.
Go to bed and I'll tuck you in in 20 minutes."
Twenty minutes later, the father is trudging down the hall.
He hears screaming in the kid's bedroom.
He opens the door,
there's little Billy having sex with his grandmother.
He said, "Billy, what the hell are you doing?"
He said, "It's not so funny when it's your mother, is it?"
(CREWMEMBER LAUGHING)
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CLIFF EINSTEIN: We grew up in Beverly Hills.
My dad and mom bought that home in 1937.
And when I was three,
they brought home this cute little blonde baby. (CHUCKLES)
And that was Bob.
So, there was my brother Cliff, Bob, and myself.
And my mother Thelma, and my father.
My father was Parkyakarkus.
Very few people knew him as Harry Einstein.
CLIFF: My dad created a character he called Nick Parkyakarkus.
Parkyakarkus was funny as hell. With Eddie Cantor, I think.
-Who are you? -Parkyakarkus.
Why should I? I'm not tired.
No, no, Parkyakarkus, that's my name.
CLIFF: Those were the days of dialect comedy.
Dialects are not a-- not a cool thing today,
but it was really good in the '40s.
♪ (GLAMOROUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CLIFF: So, my dad was a comedian,
and my mom was a soprano, a singer.
They met at RKO in the '30s.
You know, we were a show business family.
Dad made some movies, and in time, he had his own radio show.
-ANNOUNCER: Meet me at Parky's. -♪ (FANFARE PLAYS) ♪
PARKYAKARKUS: Oh, me, what a day this was.
I'm got to do everything around this restaurant.
The dishwashers don't show up, the chef is sick,
-I told him not to eat here. -(LAUGHTER)
CLIFF: Growing up, there's a lot of funny guys around.
Everybody is funny.
Everybody does voices, everybody tells jokes.
My dad liked being more of a kid and joking and--
'Cause it would make my mother upset.
So he would do dialects and make fun of stuff, and my mother was always,
you know, "It's dinner, stop it."
And that encouraged him.
REPORTER: For the second time in two years,
polio has struck the nation with unusual violence.
CLIFF: When Bob was about six, he came home with polio.
So Bob had to stay home for a year.
He couldn't go to school.
♪ (EASYGOING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
It formed Bob, because he had all this time with my dad
and he watched him writing his shows and stuff.
I always thought that my brother Bob was closer to my dad
because they both lived with another character.
CLIFF: My dad had crafted an alter ego,
a character much different from himself,
and Bob spent his life with several characters,
but predominantly the great Super Dave,
who was not Bob, but was Bob.
And I think he learned that by being with my dad.
He came by it naturally,
but he, uh, he resisted it for a long time,
you know, to go into show business,
but then eventually, obviously, he did what he did.
Tell me how you got into show business.
My father died when I was very young.
-How old? -Fourteen and a half.
-And he was a comedian? -Brilliant. Brilliant comedian.
He gets up at the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz roast at Beverly Hilton,
-kills the audience. -Wow.
Sat down and died of a heart attack.
I hear about it on the radio in the morning.
-Right. -So, I--
Are we good? There's a lot of...
Okay. I'm just concerned about the sound--
I just got through telling this story that almost makes me cry,
and you turn to ass-wipe and say, "Are we good?"
We getting this okay? You got any (BLEEP) to say?
Let's make sure it's on tape because-- All right, go on with your story.
First thing I ever shot with Super Dave
was for The Man Show.
It was something called "A Hundred Shots."
You know, this is the first time I've had any drinks since my new liver.
(CHUCKLES) Congratulations.
KIMMEL: And it was me, Adam Carolla, and Super Dave Osborne.
And we start talking about his dad,
and Adam said something to the effect of,
"Well, your dad, at least he died doing what he loves."
And Super Dave takes him and he goes, "That is so stupid.
That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard." (LAUGHING)
And Adam's like, "Oh."
He goes, "What does your father love to do?"
And Adam's like, "Uh..." He tries to joke his way out,
and he's like, "No, what does your father love to do?"
And Adam goes, "Uh, he likes to play the trumpet."
He goes, "I hope your father chokes to death on a trumpet."
(LAUGHING) "I hope your father swallows a trumpet while he's playing and dies.
And then you can say, 'Oh, he died doing what he loves.'"
♪ (SUBDUED JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ALBERT BROOKS: At my father's funeral,
Bob was so turned off by the behavior of comedians.
At the funeral, Milton Berle and George Jessel--
'Cause your father was a comedian, so all his friends are comedians.
They did their act. Berle did his jokes,
George Jessel did his jokes at my dad's funeral,
and I hated it so much.
-You hated show business. -I hated it.
He said, "I never want to be any part of this.
I don't want anything to do with this business."
Once my father died, the dynamics changed
and Cliff, because he was the oldest,
I would say, became more of the father.
And I didn't look to Bob as that.
I mean, I was the youngest,
and the youngest, even in a perfect family,
has a different dynamic.
And normally that dynamic is, you punch him in the head
and you don't listen to what they say. (CHUCKLES)
That's just what happens
when you're the youngest in many families.
I met Bob when I was 15 years old
and, uh, he was just taller than all of us.
We did look up to him, but not because we respected him.
We looked up to him because he was taller.
And Albert Brooks, at the time was my--
It was Albert Einstein, he was my best friend.
♪ (DOO-WOP MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ALBERT: I was very close with Rob and close with his father.
Carl was my surrogate father.
I used to go there every day and I would talk about it,
just like you talk about your friends.
"Hey, Rob and I went down to the..."
And my brother didn't like that.
He would say, "Don't fucking name-drop."
And I said, "I'm not name-dropping,
he's my best friend."
Bob would always make fun of Albert.
He said, "You don't want to go into show business.
You don't want to do that. That's a stupid idea.
Don't go into-- you can't make a living, you're not gonna--"
And, of course, Bob became what he did.
And Albert has never let him live that down, and he didn't.
They went-- So, there you go.
I don't think we ever remotely imagined
that Bob would be any kind of an entertainer. Bob was 6'5".
Now, for a Jew, that's like being 7'2".
Bob was a basketball player,
he played starting center at our high school.
♪ (SWING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ROB REINER: He was a really good basketball player,
and I think he went to, uh, Chapman College,
that was a big deal, and he played basketball for them, too.
So, he was a good athlete,
and, uh, he talked like a cartoon character.
So, nobody thought Bob was gonna be a comedian,
but Bob probably had a different idea.
BOB: When I graduated from college,
I worked for three years for an advertising agency.
And one of the people that we used to hire to do voiceovers
was a man named Bob Arbogast,
who had a once-a-week television show.
So, I said to him, "I want to go on your show tonight
as the guy who puts the stars' names on the sidewalks of Hollywood."
For a long time,
I've wondered about something that happens in Hollywood,
and I may very well clear it up tonight.
I was watching this late-night talk show
and this guy was introduced.
You know the little stars in the sidewalk
in Hollywood with the names of people in them?
And this conversation went on,
I just thought this guy really did it.
The other day I saw a star in the sidewalk
with the name "Arnold Fillmore" in it...
-(LAUGHS) -...and a camera underneath it,
and I didn't know who Arnold Fillmore was.
He looks like a guy who's really at the end of a horrible day
and just kind of shuffling through life. That's his persona.
-What is your name, please, sir? -I'm Arnold Fillmore.
(LAUGHS)
It's not funny, but that's my name.
Okay, why did your name get--
-Are you a celebrity? -No. No, I'm not.
STEVE ALLEN: Why is your name in one of the stars on the sidewalk?
My first job, I had two wet, uh, patches of cement stars,
and I was only given one name by my superior
and I couldn't let the other go to waste,
-and I thought it was a great chance. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Well, that's, uh, free enterprise...
What he's doing here that is so special,
being a comedian
and not trying to be funny, is a very special gift.
...and at the corner of Hollywood and Gower
the name "Whitney Carstairs." Now, who is Whitney Carstairs?
Whitney Carstairs is a very good friend of mine and, uh...
-(LAUGHS) -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
He sold me right there.
...we went to school together in Parker Dam, California.
-Parker Dam, California? -Yes, and Whitney, uh,
was very ill for a while,
and this is a way I could cheer him up,
was putting his name in the cement, taking a picture of it,
and sending it back to him.
He's just playing the reality of this guy.
He's not smiling or laughing,
and you got to have a lot of confidence in how funny you are
to even attempt that.
Now, I've been in this business for a long time.
I've been in radio, I've made records,
I've written songs, I've been in movies,
I've done television, and my name is not in a star
in any sidewalk in Hollywood, and I want to know, why not?
Well, I think you're trying to, uh, embarrass me here
and say there's bribery involved,
which, uh, obviously there isn't.
And I take my orders from someone.
I don't put the names in the sidewalk by myself.
Someone tells me what to do.
How would I go about getting my name in a sidewalk?
Do you have ten dollars?
-(LAUGHS) -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That is kind of how it works. (LAUGHS)
(CHUCKLING) Okay, what amazes me about this,
first, I've never seen it before,
this is Bob's mature style.
That's all you need to know about Bob, right there.
The framework for that got bigger,
but the consistency of his attitude is what's delightful.
If you're lucky enough to have a thing that works,
um, that's your thing. You don't need more than one thing.
When I found out it was a joke,
I said, "I got to find out who this is."
I got on the phone the next day and I called around.
BOB: The next day, I'm at work and my secretary said,
"Tom Smothers is on the phone for you."
So I'm going, "Oh. Sure."
I pick up the phone, I said, "Hi, Tommy.
I'd love to talk to you, but my uncle's a hunchback
and he's straightening up today. I'll see you later."
And I hang up the phone.
And ten minutes later, the phone rings,
she said, "It's Tom Smothers again."
I go, "Hello." He said, "Bob? Yeah. Tom Smothers."
And I go, "Oh, my God."
I said, "I'm so sorry." He said, "That's okay."
He said, "I saw what you did last night, and I loved it.
We're doing a summer show with Glen Campbell.
Would you like to write on it and perform?"
I said, "Well, I...
Possibly, yes. I would have to say yes. Yes, I would."
And he said, "Okay, we'll offer you this much a week,"
which was what I was making a year at the advertising agency.
STEVE MARTIN: Bob and I were just assigned to be together.
And he was very confident, I was not.
But after three, four months,
we really started clicking as a comedy writing team.
And from about 1967 to about 1969,
we're as close as two people could be.
REINER: It was a crazy writers' room.
There was Mason Williams, there was Bob Einstein.
Oh, there they-- there's everybody.
MARTIN: There's Bob in the center, Marsha Jacobs,
Paul Wayne, Rob Reiner, myself. Carl Gottlieb's in there.
-Jerry Music. -REINER: Allan Blye, there's Cy Howard I see.
It was a pretty diverse--
It was diverse in terms of age, but mostly all Jews.
So there was not a lot of diversity there,
but there was old-school Jews and new-hippie-type Jews.
♪ (UPBEAT FUNK MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MARTIN: Bob was an advertising writer,
and he presented himself like an advertising writer,
he dressed like an advertising writer.
And I didn't know what advertising had to do with comedy writing,
except that it was terse.
So, Bob could write a joke, could write a scene
that was short, and funny, and sharp.
GLEN CAMPBELL: Hi, folks. Standing here with me is Barry Bronkhalter.
-Hi Barry. -Hello, Mr. Campbell.
Barry is a gas station mechanic
who holds a rather remarkable world's record.
Barry, you want to tell the folks at home
exactly what your record is?
Well, Mr. Campbell, on Monday, May 13th this year,
I was able to turn an ordinary six-dollar lube job
into an 800-dollar major overhaul.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MARTIN: The '60s were the days of the variety show.
Anybody who became hot got a variety show.
ANNOUNCER: It's The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour...
MARTIN: And so you'd have a host, like Smothers Brothers,
or Glen Campbell, or Sonny and Cher,
and it had guests.
All right, move them out. (GRUNTS)
-Ooh, I'm sorry there, Bob. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Then you'd have a sketch with a premise...
What have you done with our Newson family?
-Where are they? -Right out there.
-What? -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
MARTIN: So you'd have a variety.
You'd come in Monday, and you sit down in a meeting,
and Tommy tells you what you did bad.
(CHUCKLES) Uh, tells us all the warnings we're getting from the censors
and how we're not going to work anymore and all that stuff.
So, we wound up like children, but it worked,
writing things into the show that we knew we didn't need,
and the censors say, "You can't say that!
How can you say 'fuck' on Sunday night at eight o'clock?"
(CREWMEMBER LAUGHING)
"All right. Take it out, okay. But can we say 'tits'?"
"Yes, that you can do, but don't say 'fuck tits.'"
"Okay, we won't."
♪ (ENERGETIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
But, um, you'd see who the guest star is.
And then you go away and you come up with ideas.
We were laughing a lot. We weren't pained writers,
we'd just sit in a room and talk and talk and talk
until one of us went, "Hey, maybe that's something."
Well, okay. This is my recollection.
So, I went to Carnegie Tech.
♪ (STATELY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ALBERT: And I had an acting scholarship,
and it was going very well,
and I had done a one-act play of Catcher in the Rye.
And I played Holden Caulfield, and it was a massive success.
And I came back at Christmas, and I came into our house
and there was a note by the phone,
and it said, "Call Tommy Smothers."
And I thought, "Wow, he heard about Catcher in the Rye."
And in walks my brother, who said, you know,
"I don't want to hear about show business,
not once, don't ever mention it."
He had on love beads.
And I said, "Who are you? What are you doing?" (CHUCKLING)
"I'm working at The Smothers Brothers."
"What? Wait, you beat me up for saying I wanted to do this."
"Sorry. Was there a message for me?"
Ladies and gentlemen,
we've got a lot of great guests on our show tonight.
Jonathan Winters, Leigh French, and Miss Judy Collins.
MARTIN: Judy Collins was going to be on.
And so we're messing around with an intro.
-Right now, we thought we'd, uh, it'd be a nice idea for a-- -Dick, do you mind?
I care about this next guest, I'd like to introduce this.
-Okay, go ahead. -Ladies and gentlemen, here's Judy.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
JUDY COLLINS: ♪ Broken windows and empty hallways ♪
♪ A pale dead moon in the sky Streaked with grey ♪
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-♪ Human kindness... ♪ -(STEVE LAUGHING)
Yeah, now this is something, I believe,
that we created together,
and then Bob took off with this Officer Judy character.
COLLINS: ♪ Scarecrows Dressed in the latest styles ♪
-With frozen smiles... -(LAUGHS)
COLLINS: And I Think it's going to rain...
God, that was so good. He lip synced perfect.
-COLLINS: ♪ Lonely... ♪ -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
REINER: He created a character for himself.
You know, Officer Judy, and that was-- That's the best way to get on,
you know, you create a character for yourself.
♪ (FRENETIC PIANO PLAYING) ♪
This was totally Bob's bit, I had nothing to do with it.
He just came in with it one morning.
-(SIREN WAILING) -(TIRES SCREECHING)
Just the pull-up on the bike and that long walk to the car,
which is an intimidation tactic,
which when you're doing it against Liberace...
You know how fast you were playing?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Probably at that time, everyone wanted to play the funny, countercultural, hippie type,
and for him to want to be the most humorless policeman
and be hilarious with it.
What's this, Liber-ace?
Oh, uh... (CHUCKLES) I was at a party,
and I guess some joker just threw it in the piano.
Want to get off your bench?
Officer Judy would arrest people in the show,
and it was a great foil, because if we didn't have an ending
for a sketch, I would come in.
♪ A lady that I know Just came from Colombia ♪
♪ She smiled because I did not understand ♪
♪ Then she held out Some marijuana, uh-huh ♪
♪ She said it was the best... ♪
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
Yes.
Which one of you freaks sang the dope song?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It's so brilliant. It was like Officer Judy was like
a human button to sketches.
♪ (INTREPID MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES ) ♪
ANNOUNCER: From Television City in Hollywood...
MARTIN: Now, we were moving from Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
to Sonny & Cher Show.
INTERVIEWER: State your name and position.
Arthur B. Jackson, White House ice cream man.
We used to do a sketch called Sonny's Pizza.
Hey, gorgeous. How about a little service at this table?
Who's that guy?
I don't know, but if he calls me gorgeous one more time,
-I'm gonna throw him outta here. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
BOB: Sonny wound up being a great friend,
but Sonny would screw up the lines, all the time.
And I got so pissed that I wrote an episode of Sonny's Pizza
where Sonny had been tied up and gagged. The whole sketch.
♪ (ITALIAN FANFARE PLAYS) ♪
The first time I met Bob was probably 35 years ago.
♪ (ENERGETIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I was the head writer, and he impressed me.
He was very funny. Absolutely, very funny person.
I said, "I would do very good work with you,
you'd do very good work with me. I'd like to work as a team."
And he agreed with me, and we started working immediately.
My partner and I, Allan Blye, produced The Redd Foxx Show.
If you're gonna drink, take a cab. That's what I did.
In fact, I got eight cabs parked in my driveway now.
Redd Foxx, of course, great old comic, Sanford And Son,
he was doing this variety show.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
BOB: The first show. "Ladies and gentlemen, Redd Foxx!"
His audience claps
at a big R-E-D-D that turned, went into a tenement.
Redd's supposed to come out the door and come down the steps.
No Redd.
I go and knock on his dressing room door.
"What?" I open the door,
the girl who was doing his makeup is sitting on him.
So I see her like this, her dress, and he's under it.
I said, "Redd, we're on camera." He said, "Can't a man relax?"
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
♪ (RELAXED MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Bob loved, love, love, love, his wife Berta and comedy,
to me, were his great loves.
By the way, of all my friends,
no one really was as crazy about their wife as Bob was.
He and Berta, their relationship was just so beautiful.
He had a big personality, but a big love.
♪ (TENDER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
A very good friend of ours, um, John Jones, introduced us.
Bob made me laugh so hard.
I'd never met anybody like him.
That's how it started.
Bob had a daughter named Erin, and I really loved her.
We became very close.
It was clear Bob adored us both,
but he showed us in his own unconventional but best way.
He made fun of me, he made fun of other people,
he made fun of himself.
He made me laugh every day.
And I don't mean that in a way
that's like, "Oh, my whole life was laughter,"
but he did make me laugh every day.
We really had a great love affair.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
Guy walks into a bar with a dog,
and he puts the dog on the bar,
and the bartender says, "Get that dog."
He says, "No. My dog can talk."
He said, "Listen, buddy.
I've had a lot of drunks come in here--"
"I'm not drunk. My dog can talk."
He said, "Here's what we do.
Your dog talks, I give you 500 bucks.
Your dog doesn't talk, I throw the two of you through a window."
Guy said, "You're on.
Fido, what's this on my mouth up here?"
Dog goes, "Roof!"
He says, "What's on top of the building?" He says, "Roof!"
He said, "Who's the greatest baseball player of all time?"
He says, "Ruth!"
Bartender picks the two of them up and throws them through the glass window.
Dog shakes it off, looks at his owner,
and said, "You think I should have said DiMaggio?"
(CREWMEMBER LAUGHING)
♪ ("BIZARRE" THEME MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
BOB: Allan and I wound up doing the first series
in the history of cable, which was Bizarre with John Byner.
I was finishing up on the series Soap
and Bob and Allan invited me to come to their office
to talk to me about a show that
they had in mind called Bizarre.
So I go up there, and they told me
it was going to be like The Benny Hill Show, but more.
Sometimes, I'd say to Bob,
"Hey, this thing we're doing, it doesn't have an ending."
He'd just say, "It's Bizarre. What can I tell you?"
I need to tell you,
we're talking human dignity here, all right?
I'm a professional, okay?
-Yeah. -I try my best.
-I'm not a big-time Hollywood magnate. -All right. All right.
I come to the studio and do the best I can,
-and you make fun of me. -You're a nice guy, Bob.
I just took advantage, I guess.
Human dignity. I guess that's the key.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
You don't know what it's like to be embarrassed like John.
Treat a human being with dignity, okay?
Ladies and gentlemen, we've been waiting
for the right weather in order to bring you live coverage,
Daredevil Super Dave Osborne for his first stunt of this year
and his most dangerous stunt to date.
Now, this wild jump of yours,
or this amazing ride, frankly, what does it entail?
Well, Tom, it's the ultimate test
to the human body, I believe.
I'll be traveling up and down a track especially designed
in a small-ish metal container.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
Ticket, please.
One of us had an idea to make Bob an Evel Knievel character.
♪ (THRILLING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Evel Knievel was a stuntman.
He was famous for doing stunts that would risk his life.
JERRY SEINFELD: 'Cause everybody was obsessed with Evel Knievel.
The suits with the stars, and the crazy stunts.
And we wanted to do something about that.
As you can see, his head is being placed
on a Parisian oak woodblock.
And believe you me, it's going to be a miracle
if Super Dave is able to pull his head back
in that fraction of a second.
SUPER DAVE: The way this is going to work is I will signal the French guillotine team
with the word "go,"
and I will do it in French.
-MIKE WALDEN: All right. -SUPER DAVE: And then I will escape from the blade.
Super Dave is deep in concentration now
as he prepares for this,
-his most dangerous-- -SUPER DAVE: Does anyone know
what "go" is in French, the word?
Well, I believe it's aller.
FRENCH ASSISTANT: Aller!
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -SUPER DAVE: Holy shit!
BOB: And then we did six years of Super Dave,
which was a lot of writing
and a lot of work, but it was just so much fun.
You know what? The Super One
is surprising us with the stunt of his life.
What an incredible human being!
-(ENGINE REVS) -(APPLAUSE)
ANNOUNCER: Oh, my! Wow! He's just something!
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
SONYA FRIEDMAN: How did you get into the whole stunts field?
Well, about 8 years ago, my partner Al and myself
were watching every interview on television.
After-the-game interviews, after a political candidate had lost,
and they all spoke about the same way,
they were all very happy,
-everything was great, and things were terrific. -(FRIEDMAN LAUGHING)
In reality, they weren't saying what they felt at all.
So we wanted to create a character like that,
but also a character that could get his comeuppance, physically.
We love physical comedy.
Are we off?
Uh, yeah. Guys, are we off? Yeah. We're off, yeah.
Oh, I think I heard my collarbone snap.
On my first show, Super Dave, I wanted a guest to just trump the world.
-What an incredible stunt. -Fat-face, that wasn't the stunt.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
He drove me to the studio.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
JEFF GARLIN: "Can you believe that we got Ray Charles?
Unbelievable. So funny."
That was his thing.
He didn't analyze why. Just it was so funny.
His early sense of humor, and if you look,
I think, runs through his work, was from Looney Tunes cartoons.
(SLIDE WHISTLE FALLING SOUND EFFECT)
(LOUD CRASH)
All right, throw my weight off, give me my mantra.
Blue skies, clean air, the weight is tied to your waist!
SUPER DAVE: You're shitting me.
-(YELPS) -(STEVE LAUGHING)
Mr. Super, that was sensational.
SUPER DAVE: Oh, help me, putz, I'm in pain.
See, he loved those lines.
Just the simple thing, "I'm in pain."
He-- he didn't need an elaborate line.
The Super One needs an ambulance.
We'll bungee one down.
-SUPER DAVE: What did he say? -He said he'll bungee one right down.
SUPER DAVE: Tell him to forget it,
I'm starting to feel better.
-(HEAVY THUD) -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Slipping and falling on your ass, you're gonna laugh.
And, uh, someone getting hit in the head with something,
they don't get hurt, you're laughing.
Super Dave is at the top of the tower right now,
preparing to jump.
So let's go to the top of the tower
to our man on the scene, Mike Walden.
MIKE: Well, thank you, Johnny, but I'm afraid
we have some bad news up here.
Super Dave, what's the story?
Well, Mike, as you can see
and I'm sure you can feel up here,
the wind is about a hundred miles an hour.
-(LAUGHS) -SUPER DAVE: So there is no way that I can do this stunt today.
Well, listen. I'm gonna go down. I'm gonna take
the elevator down. I'll see you down there, okay?
-I won't need it. -J.B. SMOOVE: Oh, man.
You know it, know it comes. Here it comes. There he goes.
Holy shit!
(LAUGHING)
(SIGHING, LAUGHING)
Ooh, that hurt!
-Super Dave, are you all right? -Oh yeah, John, I'm just fine.
OSWALT: Under all that bluster,
Super Dave Osborne is the most fragile, thin-skinned person,
who just wants to make the world better,
he just doesn't have the tools to do it.
And that character is sitting on a lot of rage.
All right, Mike, what I'm gonna do for you now
is a very special jump. Normally you'll see stunt people
go right directly into the middle of the bag.
What I'm gonna do for you today is, I'm gonna kind of
hit the left side of the bag on your camera there,
and, uh, then I'll hop right down and we'll talk about it.
Maybe we could replay it or something.
All right, here I go. Ready?
Get set. Watch the bag. I missed it.
(LOUD CRASH)
(CHUCKLING) Super Dave Osborne just knocked me out.
I'm gonna be all right.
Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
The great Super Dave. Not only showing
-his great athletic... -SUPER DAVE: Oh, you're standing on my hand!
NORMAN LEAR: It's not just the personality
and the way he can perform his character and so forth,
it is in him,
a deep understanding of the human condition.
The foolishness of the human condition.
-SUPER DAVE: Mike! -Jack, before the ambulance arrives, how about one favor?
-SUPER DAVE: Mike, I'm talking to you. Putz! -I'd like to get a picture of me
and Simba the elephant and Super Dave.
-SUPER DAVE: Get off my hand. -Just one. Won't take long.
Bring in Simba right away, will you?
SUPER DAVE: I've got bullets in my side. My foot is smashed. Thanks.
-What is that smell? No! -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-(ELEPHANT GRUNTING) -SUPER DAVE: Stop!
♪ (BREEZY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I started working for The Super Dave Osborne Show
in the summer of 1988.
I was a young broadcasting student here in Toronto.
And I knew Super Dave from Bizarre.
Which is a show we loved as teenagers
because there was swearing and there were boobs.
The two things teenagers love the most.
ANNOUNCER: Super Dave Osborne.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
So, I got hired as a production assistant.
I'm a little bit nervous.
He's not the most warm and fuzzy guy.
On the set of The Super Dave Osborne Show,
Bob was the king.
He wrote the show,
he produced the show, he starred in the show.
Really, you know, his baby.
He was demanding, so everybody was
kind of dancing around him, you know?
But he was very sweet with his daughter, Erin.
♪ (FUNKY MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
I worked with my dad from the time I was five.
He only shot his shows in the summer,
so that I wasn't in school.
So we would spend summers in Toronto
for six years of Bizarre, five years of Super Dave,
literally, like June to September.
He took me everywhere. He used to say
I was like luggage. I went everywhere.
I was often whatever kid needed to be in the shot.
-CHILD: Super Dave Osborne? -Yes?
-Can I have your autograph? -Sure. Holy shit!
-(CRASHING) -(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
SMOOVE: Here's a true mark of funny to me.
The premise gives just as many laughs
as the execution of the punchline.
How can we create something where we can show the people
what it's like to be emotionally and physically up and down.
And he and Robby came up with this yo-yo idea,
and I think it's brilliant.
SMOOVE: If the premise gets a smile out of you,
I can do that premise as long as I want to.
'Cause guess what? I know I got bullets in this holster
that gonna kill you.
SUPER DAVE: All right. This is gonna be fun.
(ENGINE GRINDING)
-SUPER DAVE: What's the problem? -I don't know.
-MIKE: Let's check it, Fuji. -FUJI HAKAYITO: All right.
SUPER DAVE: Wait a minute. Gentlemen.
I'm in the yo-yo here. Uh-oh.
-Uh-oh. Guys? -(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
I could use some assistance.
(GRUNTS)
Thank goodness for the fence.
-(AUDIENCE SHRIEK) -(GRUNTS)
Super Dave was very popular in the hip-hop community
of-- of people from my generation of music.
Which is, like, the...
what we call the golden era of the '90s.
Like, your Tribe Called Quest, your Tupac.
We probably all had a Super Dave rhyme in our arsenal.
When you make references about things, it's usually...
about things that are important to you
and you feel like everybody knows about.
Well also, when I look back at it, Super Dave was appealing,
especially from us coming from
the communities that we come from.
It seems like, no matter what he tried
or what he tried to do...
he would always end up on the wrong side of it, right?
And that's kind of like, how we all kind of grew up.
Like, feeling like we can never really get ahead
or get from under the conditions that we lived in.
♪ (HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
But he was funny.
You know, as a kid, you're just laughing at it.
FUJI: Five, four, three, two, one. Touchdown!
(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
Well, Super. You didn't go quite as far as we thought you would.
That's a brilliant observation.
You put two right gloves. Look at this.
Don't worry. It will work.
-It's not gonna work. -It will work.
(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
MIKE: Super Dave, aided by his two assistants,
being placed into the hole.
This is a doubly reinforced steel target.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Super Dave, are you all right?
Sure, putz. I've never felt better in my life.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGH) -Ladies and gentlemen,
another successful stunt from Super Dave Osborne.
BOB: Okay, I'll tell you my favorite thing.
It was a Super Dave piece I did called "King of the Road."
Where I'm top on a bus...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGH) -As you can see up here,
I've got a terrific little dining area...
KIMMEL: I think "King of the Road"
is the quintessential Super Dave.
'Cause he's just so foolish in it,
it's jaunty, it's fun to watch,
and it's a long, long set-up with a great punch line.
And I just wanna say I'm very sorry
that I couldn't do a stunt this evening, uh,
but duty calls, so I have to go. Have a great week.
Sing along and let's end highway profanity.
-Goodnight, everybody. -(LAUGHS)
Okay, Fuji, start the bus and put on my favorite song.
You know what, he even has the lyrics here for me.
-He doesn't forget anything. -(LAUGHS)
Have a great week. See you next week.
-♪ Trailer for sale or rent ♪ -(LAUGHS)
♪ Rooms to let, 50 cent... ♪
Do you know what occurs to me? There's no piano in that song.
(LAUGHS)
So, the fact that he's playing piano...
♪ I ain't got no cigarettes ♪
♪ Third boxcar Midnight train... ♪
Remember, if you're going on a vacation,
-put a couch on your car. -(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
♪ Man of means, by no means King of the road ♪
(GROANS)
(LAUGHS)
Always the best blow.
I-- I love the types of-- "He even has the lyrics for me."
I mean, so what? But-- But Dave wants to know,
uh, what has been done by way of preparation.
And then also, "Let's end highway profanity."
That's his big crusade. And then he builds this massive disaster
around the dumbest PSA you could possibly think of.
He has no problem with the outfit, either.
That's what I love.
That's his Super Dave suit.
And it's got the initials S.D. on the hat.
That's right, and he's fine with that.
And somehow, even though it takes forever to get there,
and you know what's gonna happen...
it's funny.
It's just... It's made funnier because it's him.
♪ (FANFARE PLAYS) ♪
I love when comics have a plan. And he always had a plan.
Tonight is the 369th straight talk show
where I have never been bleeped.
-I broke George Gobel's record. -KIMMEL: Wow.
You and I had a thousand-dollar bet
that I would never break the record.
-Yeah, we did. Yeah. -George Gobel's record.
So, I came on tonight and your producer, Jason Schrift
-handed me this joke... -Uh-huh.
...and he said, "Jimmy really wants you to read this."
SILVERMAN: He would find ways to tell street jokes
and really have his cake and eat it, too.
You know, he'd go, "I heard a joke, it's awful.
It's so offensive,
I-- I'm not gonna tell it." "Oh, please, tell it." You know,
"No! It's-- It's offensive, it really made me upset,"
you know. So he gets-- he really, you know,
then they draw it out of him and it's hilarious,
but it's hilarious in this frame where he is released from any--
anything problematic about the joke.
"A guy goes into a bank and says--
sits down and says..."
-KIMMEL: What? -(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
"...and says to a woman, 'I wanna open a damn account.'
She said, 'Sir, we don't use language
like that in this bank.'
He said, 'I wanna open a damn account.'
She said, 'If you say that again,
I'm gonna get the manager.'
He says, 'I wanna open a damn account.'
She runs away and brings back the manager.
The manager looks down and says,
'You have a problem, sir?'
He says, 'Yeah! I've got five million dollars
and I wanna open a damn savings account.'
And the manager says,
'And this f(BLEEP) c(BLEEP) wouldn't let you?'"
(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
The whole basis of Super Dave is,
when he's coming on to these talk shows,
he's coming on after something has gone wrong
and I'm gonna try to bluff my way through it
by talking about this wonderful gift store
or this new food or something,
and maybe we don't have to watch the videotape,
and it never goes his way.
(LAUGHS) Do you have, uh, some videotape we can look at?
No, no. Let me say something...
It's a big inside joke. Look, we know what's gonna happen,
we know he's gonna come out, we know he's gonna say,
"They don't wanna see that clip."
And then I'll go, uh, "No, I think everybody does wanna see it.
Don't you wanna see it?" And the audience will go,
"Yeah! We wanna see it!"
And then, um,
then he'll go, "No, no, they don't wanna see it."
And then sometimes I'd screw with him and go,
"Okay." And throw to commercial.
(LAUGHS) And that would make him crazy.
But I think it made him like me more.
Um-- Ultimately, though, it was all about the inside jokes.
Go get it, Green team. I'll time the whole thing.
Right, we are at 50 seconds.
That's the burger. Those are the son-ion rings.
That is the, uh, shake, and there you go.
With 30 seconds to spare.
All right, you can drive-thru and pick up your order
-with 30 seconds to spare. -FUJI: Okay. Thank you.
-(GROANS) -(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
KIMMEL: So we spent a lot of money on that particular bit.
He didn't care, you know, he didn't care
how much it cost, he wanted to do this.
And when he wanted to do something, you're doing it.
So, I go, we spend the whole day
and the weekend shooting this thing.
In the bit, I give him a tour of that restaurant
that goes on... (CHUCKLES) ...for like six minutes.
All for that scene we've shown on the show,
and everybody likes it pretty much.
And, uh-- And I just happen to be poking around on the internet,
and I see that he's done that exact bit before on his show. (LAUGHS)
SUPER DAVE: And now you can drive-thru and get your order
with ten seconds to spare.
(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
He would do bits on our show that he had done, word for word,
on Johnny Carson 30 years earlier. (LAUGHS)
We're doing a Super Dave fast-food,
health-food restaurant...
KIMMEL: And he was always like, "Nobody remembers. Nobody cares."
And he was right. I mean, he was right.
Mr. McCawley had the tape
and he gave me the tape this afternoon.
-I think we ought to show-- -I don't wanna show the tape.
And he's a really good actor, you know.
SUPER DAVE: And I'm here to try out for American Idol.
KIMMEL: We cut him into something once,
and then we realize that it worked.
My first joke comes from my very good friend
and golfing buddy, Donald Rumsfeld.
KIMMEL: When someone was addressing Congress,
he would be in the president's spot.
We just started cutting him into everything.
Are you saying the essential truth of this book,
you stand by a hundred percent?
-I would say 95 percent or 80, 87 and a half percent. -(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
If you read it, I gotta be-- I gotta be 72 percent sure
of almost 60 percent of what I wrote.
-I would say it's 50-50. -(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
Are you surprised at the furor?
-Hitler? I wouldn't say I'm surprised. -(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
I'm disappointed. I don't like him.
But what does that gotta do with my book?
♪ (ROCK MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
Bob had no "on" and "off" stage. He was the same.
His conversation was the same.
You would be having a conversation,
and his voice would get up there.
Same guy. I mean, that was him.
He was always very dry. Uh-- There was always,
as every great comic has, little twinge of anger in there.
Well, the biggest contrast would be the absolute, uh, gutter filth
that would come out of his mouth when you talk to him in person.
It's called Entertainer's Secret.
-INTERVIEWER: What's it called? -Entertainer's Secret.
It's filled with cum. (GROANS)
He could sell a bit by insisting that it was funny.
(CHUCKLES)
Pitch isn't the word I'd use.
He'd tell me what we were going to do. (CHUCKLES)
What he is and what Larry's character is,
and what I do in real life,
which throws people off sometimes,
truth teller. I was at a dinner party once with Bob
and somebody interrupted him.
They interrupted him, and their story went nowhere
after they interrupted him.
"Really? You're gonna interrupt me
with that crap? That was crap!
What are you doing? What is that?
Why--" And I thought the same thing.
He loves to bust balls.
Like, when I'd have a guest that was bad,
I'd get a call from him the next day,
just like re-living every terrible moment. (CHUCKLES)
He loved it so much. He-- He loved to watch bad things.
He was never funnier than the day after a bad award show.
Comedians hone in on pretentiousness.
And, uh, people trying to elevate themselves in any way, which,
of course, that's all award shows are,
are people trying to elevate themselves.
And comedians love to puncture that.
And nobody was better at it than him.
This man, Lenny Pepperidge, a.k.a. Lenny the Pep,
a.k.a. Sheldon Wills,
a.k.a. Little Timmy Hartwell, is a confidence man.
He was just so skilled. He was an excellent actor
in the Soderbergh movies.
-Oh, no! (GROANS) -(WOMAN YELLS)
OSWALT: The other great thing that I remember him from
is Albert Brooks' Modern Romance.
-How are you doing? -Fine. How are you?
-How do I look? -You look fine.
Hit this.
-(SOFT THUD) -I'm in great shape. How about yourself?
-I'm-- I'm all right. -Okay. You're a new runner, huh?
The idea that Bob
completely takes advantage of Albert's character is...
SALESMAN: They put everything in one box,
and then they knock the price down.
All right, well, I am serious.
Here's the thing. I just broke up with somebody
and I'm trying to start a new life,
and I feel that running should be a major part of it.
You want happiness? Get away from the box.
-(LAUGHS) -SALESMAN: Come over here.
He's in this vulnerable situation and he's meeting
the worst possible salesperson. The worst!
It-- It's all very real and flat and natural.
And that's what's great.
If you didn't know it was his brother,
you'd say that was a guy in the store.
Fifty dollars? This whole box says 70.
I mean, isn't this a lot for just shoes?
Those shoes are made out of old tires.
Is that the way you want to start your new life?
No. All right, I'll take these.
OSWALT: Albert is also so good at playing characters
who take themselves way too seriously,
so they don't think anything's funny either.
These two knocking into each other
in this scene, as a comedian, it's so fascinating to watch.
I'll take one, I don't want two.
What are you gonna do if one's in the wash?
(SCOFFS) Maybe I won't run that day.
I misjudged you. I'm not perfect.
Buy the box, you'll like it.
And it's funny because it really is
what he does, deadpan.
But it's also what Albert does and it's in his world of...
nuance and subtlety.
Having seen this scene so many times,
I can't imagine Albert casting anyone else.
And it does kill me that they never worked together again.
It's a great scene on its own,
and then it's fascinating with...
everything, you know, between them.
I mean, they're brothers.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
Well, you know. This was the part of a sporting good salesman
who had distaste for me, the customer,
and was put off by any questions I asked.
Sort of what our relationship was. (CHUCKLES)
And, uh, and I knew that he had that automatically.
The funny thing is, at lunchtime,
I'm in the trailer, eating,
and there's a knock on the door and it's Bobby, and he says,
"I don't know what's funny about this scene."
And I said, "W-- What?"
He said, "I don't get it. I just don't-- I don't get it."
And I said, "Well, you don't have to get it, this is my gig,
and I think you're doing great as an actor in this,
and I'm really happy."
"But what is it? Why is it funny?"
I said, "Bobby, you gotta trust me."
So, at the premiere, I remember...
it was one of many scenes that got gigantic laughs,
and I tried to find him in the theater
just to make eye contact. "Where is he?" I--
"See? I told you." But I couldn't find him. (LAUGHS)
♪ (PIANO MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
That scene, it's like a proto, um, Curb Your Enthusiasm.
♪ (SILLY MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
LARRY DAVID: Hey! Funkhouser!
REINER: I gotta say, to be honest,
the stuff he did on Curb Your Enthusiasm,
to me, was as good as anything I've seen him do.
I'm gonna give you the 50 dollars
I owe you for the golf bet.
-Oh, my God. -Hold this.
Fifty-- I forgot all about it-- The 50 dollars?
-Yeah. -Great.
What are you doing?
MARTY: Taking off my shoe. I got money in the shoe.
LARRY: What?
LARRY DAVID: There was a part, this Marty Funkhouser character,
and Bob jumped out at me for that part, and that was it.
It's perfectly fine. See? Fifty dollars.
I didn't write for Bob. I would write shows, and then...
"Oh. Let's put Funkhouser in this part."
You're serving nothing but lies here! I'm not hungry!
(SCOFFS)
-Come on! -SUSIE GREENE: What did you do to her, Jeffrey?
-How could you do that? -She's fucking nuts!
She's a nutbag!
All right, all right, all right!
First time I met Bob was on set
of Curb, and I had no idea who he was.
Okay. Everybody! Everybody!
I want to apologize for the Funkhouser family.
Oh, stop. It's not necessary...
SUSIE ESSMAN: Larry threw everything at this character.
He had the crazy sister, Bam Bam.
He killed off his uncle,
he killed off so many Funkhousers,
I can't even remember how many.
I'll give you the quintessential Larry David.
He called me up two years ago.
He said, "You wanna know what happens
in the first episode this year?"
I said, "Yeah." He said, "Your mother dies."
(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
I said, "Well." I said, "Unfortunately,
it's the truth, she just did die."
He said, "I'm not changing the script."
And hung up.
(LAUGHS)
-I swear to God. -Oh, man.
Yeah. That's probably true. (LAUGHS)
I think the reason this show is great
is because we really, honestly, like each other, all of us.
You can't do improvisation
if you're doing it with an asshole.
Curb Your Enthusiasm is Friends.
They got history, they got hang-ups,
they got fucking beef,
they got goddamned laughter, they got stories...
-Guess who's getting a divorce? -What?
Martin Norton Funkhouser. And it's because of you.
-Really? -And it's because of you.
SMOOVE: I'm the last piece that came in.
So when I finally got a chance to do a scene with Bob,
let me tell you something, I just sat there and watched him for a little while.
Congratulations.
You know what you should do? You get a fucking divorce?
You should ride around and bump the horn and shit,
like motherfucker's getting married.
You know what I mean?
-What a great idea! -Goddamn right.
-Put cans on your car. Beep your horn. -"Just Divorced."
-LARRY: "Just Divorced." -I'm excited. I'm single.
Get out there and get some new ass.
You know what I'm saying?
You done run the other ass in the ground, right?
I don't wanna talk about my wife like that.
You ran that ass in the ground. You're moving on, right?
Well, I didn't run-- We had a nice marriage for--
-No, you ran that ass in the ground-- -I don't run people...
That dude don't break, man. He is committed.
Commitment to the scene.
I'm gonna flip this coin
and this will be the kidney decider,
-all right? -Um...
Why don't we do... uh, eeny meeny?
-I thought we were gonna do a coin flip. -Let's do eeny meeny.
ESSMAN: That is a perfect Bob Einstein scene.
How serious he is in that moment
for a completely ridiculous premise
of who's gonna give the kidney to Louis.
What you're doing is an unbelievable act of friendship.
I just wish I had a kidney match so I could be involved.
-Well, you haven't taken the test. -Are you ready to do eeny meeny?
-Yeah. -Do you want to take the test?
No, I don't think I'm a match anyway. Let's just do eeny meeny.
SMOOVE: That's the unique thing about Curb Your Enthusiasm is,
and Bob's performance on the show is,
you can go as hard as you wanna go,
because you are playing a version of yourself.
And the key to the show is, turn that shit up.
Did you take the flowers at my mother's site?
-What? -What?
They wouldn't take the 50 at the flower store!
-How could you do that? -Oh, man.
Why? There's so many of them. I didn't know it was such a bad--
-So many of them? -Is that such a bad thing?
They're not there to pick!
ESSMAN: And the other was "Palestinian Chicken,"
where he rededicates himself to Judaism.
I think that was his best episode ever.
He's gonna love it. He's gonna love it.
Shalom. You know, I thought all last night,
if Rabin can break bread with Arafat,
I can have chicken at this anti-Semitic shithole.
-Okay, that's just not gonna work. -Yeah, that's no good.
What's not gonna work?
-The yarmulke. -Yeah.
I can't go in with wearing this yarmulke?
-JEFF: No. -LARRY: You're shoving it in their faces.
-MARTY: Let's go in. -JEFF: No, no, no, no, no.
-It's far too cocky a move. -Yeah. Yeah.
What is this, the Raid on Entebbe?
Let's just kind of walk in casually--
-MARTY: What? Proud Jews wear yarmulkes. -I love this!
-JEFF: Just go in and sit down. -LARRY: Take it off. Take it off.
I'm not doing anything--
-Don't you dare go after my-- -LARRY: Come on. Take it--
Don't you reach for that. Don't you ever touch that. No...
What was beautiful about this, was Bob played it to the hilt.
Every take. He was aggressive, and he was pissed off,
which was what we needed.
And then they applaud him going in.
He was a master joke-teller. He was always trying to get his jokes in
and he would follow Larry around on set,
telling him jokes, trying to get 'em into a scene.
Sometimes, he would tell a joke in the middle of the scene...
that had nothing to do with the scene whatsoever.
And I would listen and laugh and in my head, I'm going,
"This is hilarious, but it's not gonna be in the show."
He'd have his own agenda for telling a story.
"Wasn't that funny?" And Larry would have to go, "No-- I mean, yes, Bob,
but we need you to do this."
"All right, but you're missing out!"
Like, that was one of his big things.
He would let you know
that you lost by not going his way.
-Jerry, Marty Funkhouser. -Hey, Marty. How you doing?
-How you doing? -Good.
-Want to hear a joke? -Oh, no...
That was definitely one of the more memorable moments
in the history of the show, when Bob told that joke.
-Let me just get right through it. -Okay.
A woman is very afraid of the size of her opening.
-What is she afraid of? -The size of her opening.
So she goes to her mother, she says, "What am I gonna do?
I'm so big down there.
When I marry Harry, he's gonna divorce me."
Her mother says, "Don't worry, sweetheart, it runs in the family.
Do what I did when I married your father.
Go to the market, get some raw liver,
put it in there, he'll never know the difference."
-Oh, my God. -So she does.
They have eight hours of sex after their marriage.
She wakes up at ten o'clock.
He's gone, but there's a note on her pillow.
It says, "My darling Harriet, to think that I waited a year
to consummate our love relationship
makes my heart beat so loudly,
I'm surprised it didn't wake you up.
The only reason I'm not here now, darling,
is I'm at work to make enough money
to buy you a house, a picket fence.
-We'll have dogs and children." -Oh, this is not so bad.
Yeah, this is great. Will you finish the fucking joke already?
"When the five o'clock dinner bell rings,
I will be home like the wingèd gossamer of love in your arms.
-Your loving husband, Harry." -Aw, that's nice.
"P.S. Your cunt is in the sink."
(LAUGHS)
We must have done a lot of takes because I was laughing.
I remember laughing really hard during that joke.
And the way the scene was constructed,
I'm not supposed to be laughing, I'm supposed to be annoyed.
-BOB: How good is that? -It surprised me.
It surprised me. I had no idea it would be that revolting.
I think that he liked people's responses to it. Right?
A little shock value, but honestly,
I do think he thought that was hilarious.
To me, it was just Bob, it was just more Bob.
And that scene that we did together
was no different from any other conversation
we've ever had with him. I don't think
that was any kind of character.
♪ (ENERGETIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
So, this is what would happen
every single day we would work together.
Like clockwork, we'd leave,
I'd be in my car, my phone would ring.
It would be Bobby.
He wanted to relive every moment of every scene.
"Was that the funniest thing when I said this and when I said that?"
And like, afterward, I'd be like, "Yeah, Bobby. Yeah. Funny. Funny."
And then I'd say, "You know I was in the scene, too."
"Yeah, yeah, you were funny,
but when I said this and I said that..."
And I'll just tell you, this almost never happens. Like,
it almost never happens that I will speak
to a guest about their appearance
after they've appeared on the show.
But Super Dave would call me the next morning, without fail,
every day after, and he'd go, "Can you believe? Have you ever heard
the audience laugh that hard? How funny was that?
How funny was I?"
(LAUGHS)
"How funny was that? How funny was I?"
And I'd sit there going,
"Yeah, that was funny. I've never heard
the audience laugh that hard."
It was at once self-congratulatory and insulting.
(CHUCKLING) Which was, I think, his specialty.
♪ (GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
He's rigid and stoic onscreen,
and he was very emotional offscreen.
He was very sweet and caring. You know?
And he could really connect with somebody,
and find out how you're doing, what's going on in your life,
and really cared.
Every time I would walk on set and I knew he was gonna be on set,
I would walk on the set and he would just immediately smile.
'Cause he was just that kind of guy.
ESSMAN: One day, he was driving me home, I was staying at a hotel
and he said he would drive me home, but instead, he kidnapped me.
(CHUCKLES) He kidnapped me, and he would not take me home.
It was like-- This was Bobby.
It was Bob's world, we're only living in it.
♪ (FUNKY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ESSMAN: So, first, we go to Gladstone's for lunch.
And we walk in and everybody, "Super Dave! Super Dave!"
He buys me lunch. Then he takes me to his daughter's house.
'Cause he wanted to see his grandson.
Ethan, I think, was less than a year old
and him and Susie showed up at my house. (LAUGHS)
In my horrible Santa Monica apartment that he hated.
Um, but just brought her over to see Ethan
'cause he was so, like, mesmerized with him.
And he's just sitting there, watching him with this look on his face
of such love for this child.
I mean, just sitting there, just staring at this kid for hours.
And I was ready to go home. This wasn't my grandkid.
And then when I had Zoe, he was like, so excited to get a girl.
Because I was his daughter and he wanted me to have a girl.
Bob Einstein to me was just my grandfather.
♪ (TENDER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ZOE DALE: We called him Papa Super,
because he was Super Dave Osborne,
and we thought he was always, like, a superhero.
I remember distinctly there was a time
he comes into my room, and he's like,
"Let's go to In-N-Out." And I'm like, okay, I'm not complaining.
And we're driving to In-N-Out
and he's on the phone with a friend,
um, and I'm sitting in the backseat. And he's like,
"Ethan, plug your ears for this joke. Your mother will kill me
if she knows that you heard this."
I, still, am not allowed to watch
Curb Your Enthusiasm or anything. (CHUCKLES)
There was always a funny aspect to life when you're with him.
Um...
I'm the most emotional person ever.
(LAUGHS)
(VOICE BREAKING) I don't know, there was just always a way
to, like, make the day better,
there was always a joke that could, like, brighten our days.
Just a loving dad, grandpa, husband.
Well, you know. He was sort of intimidating.
I heard from people who worked with him that he, sometimes,
got upset and had a temper,
but... that's not how I remember him.
I mean, we had our fights,
but mostly, they were over the phone.
Because I didn't wanna be there. You know? Because he was bigger.
But, deep down, when you didn't involve show business,
the brotherly love, I believe, was there.
CLIFF: If you lose somebody, in an ordinary context,
you have phone messages, answering-machine messages,
maybe some videos. That's what you get.
But Bob is present everywhere.
Sometimes, just sitting around at my desk,
I go to YouTube, and I look up
"Marty Funkhouser's Ten Favorite Moments."
And I got Bob for 40 minutes.
So, he didn't leave, you know? A big hunk of him is here.
I'm on set, always taking pictures of the other actors.
People will show me their souls.
I swear, they'll be so comfortable and relaxed,
'cause they're not, they're not feeling it
with me, it's a close friendship.
Of all my close friends that I photographed,
only one never let down their guard,
but he did it to fuck me.
He didn't do it because he wouldn't show me who he was,
'cause I knew him intimately, but he was like,
"I'm not gonna give you a straight face,
or just a casual resting face. No chance."
So, this is the most normal picture I ever got of Bob.
(INTERVIEWER CHUCKLING)
♪ ("LANDED ON MY HEAD" BY BARENAKED LADIES PLAYING) ♪
♪ You know my face Not my name ♪
♪ Funny all the same ♪
♪ They won't know What hit these fools ♪
♪ I'm gonna rewrite the rules ♪
♪ Hell no I'm not asking for attention ♪
♪ Seems though you may Have misread my intentions ♪
♪ Let go, maybe we Won't need to mention ♪
♪ How I landed on my head ♪
♪ Set the trap, lay in wait The payoff will be great ♪
♪ It's subtle and dry and slow I won't telegraph the blow ♪
♪ Hell no I'm not asking for attention ♪
♪ Seems though you may Have misread my intentions ♪
♪ Let go, maybe we Won't need to mention ♪
♪ How I landed on my head ♪
♪ Don the suit, hit the ramp Take it like a champ ♪
♪ Then a tremendous fall or maybe a wrecking ball ♪
♪ I brought the Funk just in time ♪
♪ Enthusiasm's fine ♪
♪ Consider yourself told After they made me they broke the mold ♪
♪ How I landed on my head ♪
♪ Wake me up when we land I'll never understand ♪
♪ Man, it can get so dull Let's make it uncomfortable ♪
♪ Hell no I'm not asking for attention ♪
♪ Seems though I may have Increased all the tension ♪
♪ Let go, maybe we Won't need to mention ♪
♪ How I landed on my head ♪
♪ (SONG CONCLUDES) ♪
SUPER DAVE: I'm in pain, Mike.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪