039 Super Funkhouser transcript (Bob Einstein)

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Amit: Welcome to Famous and Gravy, a discussion about quality of life as we see it one dead celebrity at a time. Now for the opening quiz to reveal this week's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 2019, age 76. In 1958, when he was 14, his father died immediately after performing at a Fryer's Club Roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Aez.

Friend: Oh man, he was an early tv and he was 14. Don Rickles?

Michael: Not Don Rickles. God. Good guess. His dry delivery piqued the interest of Tom Smothers, who offered him a job on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

Friend: Early writer for that. George Carlin was on there. I believe Steve Martin was a writer.

Michael: You actually know some of the Smothers brothers. Dude, you're a little too good at trivia. It's incredible.

Friend: Is it Bob Newhart?

Michael: Not Bob Newhart. His younger brother is the renowned comedian and filmmaker Albert Brooks.

Friend: Oh, is it Charles Groden?

Michael: Not Charles Groden , although he is a good candidate. All right. His most famous character was something of a cartoon character, a witless deadpan parody of bravado fueled stuntman like evil Canel.

Friend: Oh, Dom Deloise?

Michael: Not Dom Deloise. He played Marty Funkhouser on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Friend: Oh, I forget this guy's name. The Tall Guy. Oh, it's Bob Einstein. One of my heroes.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Bob Einstein.

Archival: No, this is not non second. Where are you gonna introduce me? Well, maybe we should introduce Super Dan, can I just say one thing? Yes. I have not seen you in so long. I know it's been a love. I love you. What if each of us told a joke and decided who is the better joke? I goes into a dentist's office. Dennis said, what are you doing here? He said, I think I'm a Moth. A moth. I think I'm a moth. He said, well, you have mental problems. You need to go see a psychiatrist. He said, I know. He said, you're in a dentist's office. He said, I know. He said, what are you doing here? Why did you come here? He said, the light was on I a good joke.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: My name is Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question, would I want that life today?

Bob Einstein died 2019, age 76. Category one grading the first line of their obituary. Bob Einstein, whose career as a comedy writer, took a quirky turn into television acting as the hapless daredevil, super Dave Osborne, and later as a friend of Larry David's on Curb Your Enthusiasm died on Wednesday at his home in Indian Wells, California.

He was 76. Ah, okay. What do you think? I kinda like it, I, I

wanna say right off the bat that I think as we do this obituary, or afterwards, I think we're gonna have to do some explaining on who Bob Einstein is. Okay. Because of, we have these two references, but there is some obscurity to the

man. Yeah. I, I mean, with Super Dave in particular, that's hard because Super Dave was a recurring character for, you know, decades who was never like, didn't really have his own property.

Exactly. I mean, he sort of did later. He had a movie and there was a TV show, but it was more as a. Character who show up in places, right? Correct. I mean, who else is like

Amit: that immediately? To me, I think Sasha Baron Cohen

Michael: interesting and super named Osborne World Famous Daredevil, and I'm here to try out for American Idol.

I'm excited. I can't wait to go to Hollywood. I can't fight this feeling any longer. Give me a reaction to this obituary.

Amit: I think good. They got the two kind of bookends, which they happened to be. Yeah. Of Super Dave Osborne and Larry David's quote friend. I think those are definitely what he's best known for.

It's completely different generations that know him for that. A lot of people may not even realize that's the same person. Yeah, but I think they captured it. I like that he died in Indian wells. That's essentially Palm Springs . That just seems so right. Yeah, but I think it's okay. I think it did it justice.

I wrote down words that I want to talk about, which are quirky, hapless

Michael: and friend. Well, quirky and hapless leap out to me. I think it's more okay than good. I think there are real problems with this. I don't think it quite got at. How revered he was. I mean, there is a comics comic here kind of, or a writer's writer.

Like the way other people talk about him is a little more elevated than I feel like what they did justice to here

Amit: in this obituary. They didn't give the

Michael: importance facts. Not at all. I mean, it really just gets into, you know, he had an interesting quirky turn, uh, and then later was Larry David's friend on a show that you may have heard of.

And that's it. There's not a whole lot of elevation here. I don't

Amit: think they need to. I mean, I think we've had this discussion before on some people, but I think this guy is extremely important to several dozen people. In which he's had incredible influence or incredible friendship and bond. But I don't know that that number's in the tens of thousands in which the New York Times needs to highlight it in the first line of the obituary.

I

Michael: think that there's a case to be made that his inspiration extends well beyond that core circle and is is way more important. I mean, he was in comedy and in comedy writing for many, many decades, over 50 years, and I think his impact and influence is underrated. And I kind of came to that through the research.

I'm not sure the New York Times obit writers quite understood. His stature in a way. And so to me it's falling a little bit short, but let's talk about the

Amit: words. Okay. So Quirky was the first one. Comedy writer. It

Michael: took a quirky turn. I love that.

Amit: I like it too. Yeah. Because it didn't take a turn into being a sitcom actor.

Yeah. It took a turn into being just a weird ass character. Yeah.

Michael: All right. Hapless Daredevil. Great word actually for that word. Hapless

Amit: is really good. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I guess now we have to do the quick description of who Super Dave Osborne was. You wanna say it? Yeah. So, uh, character born out of variety shows lived on for several decades.

Really? For as long as Bob Einstein lived in some form. Yeah. Did stunts that were always destined to fail had some traumatic ending to it in which he was severely injured. Yeah. But he was always dumbstruck by the fact that the stunt didn't work. Yeah.

Michael: This is like the comedy version of Evil Knievel. This is the Hapless Evil.

Knievel Super. Dave, what about today? First, why are you doing it? Secondly, do you honestly think you can make it? Well, Mike, I've said this before, I'm doing it for two reasons. Uh, first of all, I love the challenge. Uh, and the second reason, I'm not sure it's more important. I love the money. I'm not a terribly gifted person, so I feel the money, I make risk in my life.

Uh, He's far more than I can make doing anything else. Okay. Go get him. Dave. Incidentally, super Dave has been outfitted with a special transistorized microphone so that we can be in full contact with him at all times. All right, I'm okay, Mike. I feel good. Holy shit.

Amit: So the other word I wanted to talk about is friend, friend of Larry David. Uh, because it's, I mean, he wasn't, and so this is the, the reveal, right? He was for all your, you Kirk, your enthusiasm fans out there, we were talking about Marty Funk Hauser. Right? Uh, who was kind of the anti friend of Larry David.

Interesting. And Kirk, your enthusiasm. They were, they were frenemies. Yeah. If, if,

Michael: uh, if you will, the way, the way Marty Funer, like sometimes say My best friend Larry, like, we're not best friends. , I like the word best friend there. If you weren't my best friend, I would take my bare hands and pop your head off your neck.

Amit: Not my best friend.

Michael: So you want to talk about the word friend as it appears in this obituary?

Amit: Yes. Cause I just think it's, I would've added something else to it. Mm-hmm. I would've said maybe anti friend or quote friend, direct friend to Larry David on K. Curb. Your Enthusiasm seems like they've never seen the

Michael: show.

Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. So, I don't know. This is, this has got some high highs and

Amit: some low lows. I think if there's anything that's missing from the first line, it's perhaps hailing from an entertainment family. By the

Michael: way, we haven't talked at all about the last name Einstein. Do you think

Amit: that's a burden?

Uh, well, clearly it was. When you name your son Albert. Yeah. I, I Is that a burden? No, I don't think, I think twice about it. I mean, that is why Albert Einstein became Albert Brooks at age 19. Is he knew he was gonna be an

Michael: entertainer. Yeah. Bob also makes a career out of different names though. I mean, we've kinda alluded to this earlier.

Amit: Well, you can be a stunt man named Einstein. I don't think fake stunt man.

Michael: He can because of the irony in a way, right. Einstein is a synonym for brilliant, right? That guy's a real Einstein. Completely. Right? So I don't know that he played it either way. I guess if anything, he, he, he, he didn't hurt him. Um, but I don't know.

I also have a question about whether or not that jives with the name recognition,

Amit: which of course we'll get to, but I don't see great omissions here. I think you see a bigger canyon. I

Michael: feel like that whoever wrote this didn't quite do all the homework, call all the people that they needed to have.

Accurately captured. I don't know. It, it, it is stature. Um, and I feel like I want to nod the reputation. I think I'm going six. Okay. It's a fairly low score. It's better than average. Yeah.

Amit: I'm only agreeing with you that I don't think they watched Curber enthusiasm. Yeah. Uh, I'm gonna go eight. I'm fairly satisfied.

Michael: All right. That seems like the right numbers based on what we talked about. All right. Category two, five things I love about you here. Amit and I come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we want to be talking about them in the first place. You start us off. Yeah. I'm

Amit: gonna. Soft, which will allow us to kind of build the character.

Okay. I wrote Gentle Giant. Interesting. Those of you that don't have the visual image, Bob Einstein was six five. Yeah. And as his brother said, six five for a Jew is like seven two . Uh, he was also so gentle, like every character he played was so sensitive. I wanna say something else.

Michael: Uh, you left my party before dessert.

How can you do that? It's not proper etiquette. I don't subscribe to the Wake for Dessert rule before you can leave a party. Yeah. No one cares what you subscribe to. Okay. 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.

Amit: Overall a very, very gentle giant, especially

Michael: in character. It's interesting you point to that. On one hand I agree and I guess I wanna unpack soft and gentle and whether or not you're talking about sort of personality or physicality or both. There's a certain physique out there that's like goofball athlete, you know, he did, Bob Einstein played college basketball.

Huge limbs. Yeah, totally. But, but also there is something like, just funny, like the man, just a, a picture of him standing there. There's something comical about it, right? It's Will Ferrell like very much Will Ferrell, right? Yeah. In terms of being gentle, I see a kind of. Physical aspect and his humor obviously because of, with Super Dave, there's like getting the shit beat out of.

Amit: Right. He's getting crunched. But he was always, he was so disappointed every time he did. Yeah. He was just, he has a sensitivity of a seven year old and he has this almost like cartoonish voice. Yeah. Right. So it's this complete contrast to what you see of this six five to seven two giant Yeah. With huge arms who was the center for a respectful n NCAA school, but is so, so sensitive.

Yeah. And is just like long faced when the slightest thing goes wrong or when the slightest demotion is triggered the wrong way. I think it's an extremely likable trait. Yeah. To be a gentle giant. And so I'm just zeroing in on the likability of that. That's

Michael: good, Amit. All right. My thing number two, I wrote friendships with other comics.

That's not a very good summation, but this is worth talking about. He first gets into comedy writing with the Smothers Brothers in the mid sixties, and his writing partner and roommate was Steve Martin.

Amit: Yeah. They were roommates for

Michael: four years. Yeah, and this was at the beginning of Steve Martin's career.

Steve Martin was nobody then. Like, and they were tight. They were like literally

Amit: the first gig for both

Michael: of them. There's that touchpoint. Then he, you know, worked with Red Fox, who's one of the greats. Gary Shandling also worked with Red Fox. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Um, then he is all over The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel.

I mean, he is a Tonight Show fixture. Friends with Jerry Seinfeld, first guy ever to appear on comedians in cars, getting coffee twice, and then was also on Arrested Development as Larry Middleman. . Yes, . Those are some insanely great. Comedy institutions, right. Smothers Brothers, red Fox, the Tonight Show arrest, the development curb.

Like, holy shit. I just love that about him. I like a comedian's comic. I, I like picturing him in the room with other greats being able to hold his own, but also clearly having his own unique dead pants style. He's a ability to not laugh and hold a straight face when he's telling a joke or when he's on TV and everybody around him is cracking up.

That's amazing. I don't know if that should be a separate number three or not, but I wanted to call it

Amit: out. I can take it and segue into a number three. Okay. But I wanna pause for a second because you brought up something that's on my mind. Oh, uh, his stage names Super Dave Osborne. Yeah. Uh, what do you, where does that sit with you?

Michael: It's interesting. I swear to God. I asked my parents, are we related to Super Dave Osborne? And I can't remember my father's reaction, but he's like, I'm not sure I know who the hell that is. . So , thank, so

Amit: the answer is, and your mom, the genealogist knew exactly. . She's like, no, this is exactly who we're related to Michael part of the Melville tree.

Okay. So I think you actually introduced my number three pretty well. So what you said you liked was the deadpan delivery. Yeah. And so I can pick up on that and add a few cards on top of it to make a number three. All right. And I'm gonna call that commitment to the bit. Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is specifically a Super Dave thing, but you see signs of it later, interest development and in funk Hauser.

Yeah. And the man could keep a straight face the entire time. That is a special kind of funny, I think Jerry Seinfeld talked about this. He's just

Michael: playing the reality of this guy. He's not smiling or laughing and you could have to have a lot of confidence in how funny you are. To even attempt that. If you're lucky enough to have a thing that works, um, that's your thing.

You don't need more than one

Amit: thing. That's something to applaud, something to admire, and something that is way, way, way easier said than done.

Michael: We can point to other deadpan. Humorous out there. His version of it is a 10 outta 10.

Amit: Absolutely. Yeah. So the other part I wanna talk about in commitment, there's two other, there's A B and a C.

Okay. So the B is he never broke character. Right. When he did these appearances as Super Dave on the Tonight Show and on Letterman. Yeah. He never did an appearance as Bob Einstein on those shows. And he never like broke and like accidentally laughed and. , you know, came back as Super Dave, but also so committed that for three plus decades showing up as his alter ego on all these shows.

Yeah. . Um, that is hard. That, I mean, that is hard to do. Yeah. One, just to sustain it for that many times, but also like, not grabbing the opportunity to change character or put yourself forward as Bob Einstein who may be something else and who may pivot into this other career. Yeah. So my part C then of commitment to the Bit is strictly a Super Dave, the big expensive buildup for one tiny payoff

So these gags that he did were like sometimes massive and cost tens of thousands of dollars Yeah. To build. And it's all just for one pretty quick, simple Loony Tunes

Michael: laugh. Do you think you should, we should explain the king of the. That's probably the best one. Well, it's a sing along tour, Michael, about six months ago, the Sing Along Society of North America called and said, super, we think you could help us get rid of profanity on the highway.

And they said, what do you mean? And they said, well, have you ever pulled off alongside a car and seen someone singing to a record? They're happy. So they felt that if I could go on a week long tour mm-hmm. , uh, we're gonna cover about 5,000 miles. Five, I'll be singing night and. Then maybe I could be like a pied piper.

People would follow me, start to sing along, and uh, then when I left, I could leave kind of a musical highway through

Amit: the world. So he's basically in this bus, which is an rv, but the hop of the bus is essentially the garden of the rv. And

Michael: he starts, he's like, all right, let's do this. Let's kick off this road trip.

But there's like 10 minutes of build up, kicks it off to King of the Road, did the song, king of the Road, and. Within 30 seconds goes underneath the tunnel and it smashes into a bridge like a low overpass king of a,

Amit: and that's, and the entire thing collapses, like this entire build that they just had payoff for the one thing. It's like when you hear like a four minute joke. Yeah. And it has one payoff at the end and it's not even that funny. Yeah. Uh, it's just the commitment is so great and I think it's so metaphorical to, to

Michael: life.

I love that. All right. I'm gonna stick on the humor thing for my number four. Again, I just wanna make the case that this guy. You know, had influence. I think you can draw a straight line from Bob Einstein to Will Ferrell in terms of deadpan delivery, in terms of commitment to character and so forth. You can also draw a straight line to Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass franchise.

And in fact, Johnny Knoxville said, we owe everything to Super Dave Osborne and Bob Einstein. Bob Einstein, for what it's worth, was reluctant about that. He's like, kids can't do this at home because they can't strap a piano to the top of an RV and drive underneath. And he felt he was like a reluctant to embrace the jackass lineage.

All of this is to say that I love that he's situated somewhere unique, where you can point to the people who influenced him and the people who he influenced. And I think some of the streams that come out of the Bob Einstein lineage are disparate and unique, which speaks to his. Okay.

Amit: That's it. Good. Okay.

The number five I want to give is all around family love, marriage. You seem to make it work. The question is, do I spill it now or do I save it for our category?

Michael: I think we should have it as a thing we love about him and we'll elaborate on it when we get there. Um, but I think he made the family thing work great marriage commitment to children and we'll have more to say about that when we get there.

And sibling as well, and sibling as well. Um, a good call on

Amit: that. Yeah. The other thing that we'll have to tag on that is just the influence of his parents on his trajectory. Park your carcass. Yes. That's his, his father. So all of that coming in a future category, but worth noting that both Michael and I love it.

Michael: Actually, that's a pretty good segue. So category three, Malkovich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which you can take a portal into John Malkovich mind and have a front row seat to somebody's experiences. The point is to imagine what memories or experiences might have been interesting.

Um, you could choose one of a hundred deadpan moments, but the moment I'm gonna go with is a little darker and isn't about that at all. Park your carcass. . Is that how you say which? Who's his

Amit: staging? There's not his father's actual

Michael: his name. It's his father's name. Albert Brooks and Bob Einstein. And Cliff, their dad was an entertainer who actually has a Hollywood star and was a, a fixture in late night.

He was giving a roast to Desi Aez and Lucille Ball, the stars of I Love Lucy. He finished the bit and then returned to his seat and dropped dead. Mm-hmm. . Bob was 14 when he died. Um, and he's the middle son and he's devastated. And at the funeral, other comics are doing their bits. They're being funny.

Milton Burl among them was like trying to entertain people and I. The way Bob Einstein describes it, it sounds like crazy, inappropriate and very painful. And he's a teenager, you know, suffering from the loss of his father. And they're doing bits. And at that point he says, I am never gonna be part of this entertainment business.

Yeah. Um, because he's so insulted by it. The reason this is a malkovich moment to me is, I guess like, I don't know how to process grief. I don't know how anybody processes grief. There's a part of me that wants to believe that humor can be a part of it. Who knows what Milton Burl or anybody else actually said or did at that funeral.

Maybe it was inappropriate or maybe it just felt inappropriate because he's in Bob Einstein's in such a state of pain. I guess I, I wanna be behind those eyes when he's watching a comedy bit and saying, there is nothing funny about this. I have a dead father. And that's why he's livid now. He's grieving and livid.

Yeah. Which makes sense. , and yet his life takes a totally different turn. So there's something really complicated going on inside that mine, but I wanna know, I wanna know what's going on there. Yeah. We started talking about his dad and Adam said, well, your dad, uh, he's, he died doing what he loves and super day takes him minute.

He goes, that is so stupid. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. 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. I hope your father swallows a trumpet while he's playing and dies. And then you could say, oh, he died doing what he love.

Amit: This may be some of the gentle, giant sensitivity. Yeah. Uh, I had, and maybe this was a blind spot in Bob Einstein, is make all the jokes you want. Just not about my father.

Michael: Yeah. Interesting. I don't know if I made our podcast dark and sad here, but it struck out to me and it's something that he called attention to and this becomes a defining moment in his life in a way.

Yeah.

Amit: So you teed me up for my malkovich. You've done this quite nicely today, Michael. Thank you. And for the listeners, we don't plan this . This is just,

Michael: this just happens. This is just slow. Yeah. What do you got? What's your malov?

Amit: Somewhere in between that age 14 and a half. And Bob Einstein being about five years into his post-college advertising career,

Michael: he, we should pause on.

He says no to entertainment. He goes to Chapman College. Chapman plays basketball, Chapman plays basketball and goes into a career in advertising. He's gonna write ad copy. Correct.

Amit: Which, as we know, requires humor, right? Yes. This is absolutely the madman era of advertising. Right? Right. And he is a copywriter.

These are the funny people, and this is how they make up for the fact that they didn't work in pure entertainment as they go into copywriting and become wealthy and try to live with themselves.

Michael: Do you wanna list their names or ? So Bob goes into

Amit: advertising. So Bob goes into advertising. There is a guy that they use for voiceovers in some of the ads that he did, and that guy's name was Bob Arga

And Bob Arga was a radio guy who also had a once a week talk show, sort of like a comedy talk show. But he is not a big name. You know, this isn't tonight's show. And Bob Einstein gets this idea. And says, Hey, can I go on your show tonight? And he gets this idea that he was gonna go on the show and he's gonna play a character of the guy who lays the Hollywood stars in the cement, like

Michael: laying it out and doing the

Amit: stenciling and all of it.

Literally a construction

Michael: worker, like a contractor, right? I make the Hollywood stars. Yes. The other day I saw a star in the sidewalk with a name Arnold Fillmore in it, , and a camera underneath it. And I didn't know who Arnold Fillmore was. What is your name, please, sir? I'm Arnold Fillmore . Sounds funny, but that's my name.

Okay. Why did your name get in? I mean, are you a celebrity? No. No, I'm not. Why is your name in one of the stars on the side? 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

Amit: thought it was a great chance. So I love the invented career so, so much.

The guy who lays down the Hollywood stars. Yes. Like somebody's gotta do that. This is Absolutely, yeah. My shtick or was my shtick with me and my friends when we go to bars just making up ludicrous professions. Yeah. As we talk to people. Yeah. So we'd like go up maybe to girls and they're like, well, what do you do?

And it would be like, well, um, have you ever seen a a, a skyline? And they're like, yeah. They're like, well, have you ever wonder who decided who, which lights are on and, and which are off? And they're like, no, we just assume that the, you know, the buildings decide. We're like, no, no, no. I am the light sky, the line designer.

Yeah. I, I'm a, I'm a skyline designer, so, uh, every night it's, it's, these buildings are my canvas and, um, go run for, I draw them out and I go and I flip all the switches. Yeah. Uh, to make the skyline every night. And we would just have a complete commitment. That's beautiful. Okay, here's another one. Okay. So I, I work in a hospital.

Yeah. I'm a baby namer. They said, what? And they're like, yeah. So, so a lot of times new parents have a child and they think that they'll have an inspiration. Cause they'll look into his eyes and her eyes and they'll name him. Um, Factually, that doesn't happen 34% of the time. And so I'm there as part of the medical staff and they bring me in.

I'm a staff baby neighbor, and I, I'll, I'm just on staff to name your baby. Yeah. And

Michael: um, you know, they could probably actually use this. This is good. Yeah. I love this invented job. So,

Amit: um, Bob, so, so bub Einstein. I wanna do that. I wanna make up a profession and say that on television. Yeah.

Michael: 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 side, in any sidewalk in Hollywood. And I want to know why not. , how would I go about getting my name in a sidewalk? Do you have $10 ?

Amit: The next day he got a call from Thomas Smothers of the Smothers Brothers saying, I saw you on Arga show.

How would you like to write for the Smothers Brothers? So he basically does this one thing saying, Hey, I think I can do this. I think I can go up there and be funny. It's gotta be somewhere in his head and I'll be a hero. Yeah. To me, this is like when you're a kid and you're just like dreaming and fantasizing that, okay, maybe I'm at a football game and maybe they like run out of players.

Maybe they'll just ask me to come in and be a receiver. Yeah. And I'll go in and I'll catch the winning touchdown. Yeah. And this is what Bob Einstein did at the moment, is he's like, I'm just gonna step up to the plate. And lo and behold, he becomes a hero. I think it's magical. So I feel

Michael: like we should mash these two malkovich moments together because my funeral moment was largely about him saying, I don't want to be part of entertainment.

And this moment is about, hey, entertainment's wanting you to come to us. But the question of my mind is like the inner conflict,

Amit: what resolved in the next 12 years? Yeah. I

Michael: mean, something had to happen in there.

Amit: So I, I mean, I think it's this, I go back to the fact that he was 14. Yeah. And I don't think a 14 can comprehend that there is humor and celebration and death.

Yeah. I will stick by that. Yeah. I think he goes through, he plays college of basketball. He discovers this likability, this gentle, giant ness in him. Yeah. And that he actually does make people not only laugh, but just makes them happy. His presence at being this giant deadpan goofball is contagious and it is affirming and it's cozy and everyone loves it.

He said, well, perhaps this is my destiny. Mm.

Michael: It's good Malkovich. All right, let's pause.

Are you looking at my books?

Amit: I am. I'm actually looking at your bookshelf. I wanna see if there is anything that I can give as a

Michael: gift to somebody, uh, with my permission, I assume. Well, no, I was

Amit: just gonna take it off your shelf.

Michael: Wait, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't take it from me. I put time into this bookshelf.

I actually want these books there. However, if you're looking to get some of these books, no. A great store, you can go to Half Price books. They're likely to have this entire catalog in their bookstore, and if not, in their bookstore there, they can order it

Amit: for you. But the thing is, I trust you. There's nowhere else that I can find a trusted book seller to give me an equal recommendation.

Sir,

Michael: I disagree. You can find. Trusted book seller at Half Price Books. Ask a Half Price Books book seller. If you don't know what to read next or if you're looking for a gift idea. Really? Oh my goodness, yes. The Half Price Books book sellers are knowledge keepers. They're there to help you navigate.

They're tremendous catalog. Excuse me, I've got to go now. . Oh good. Because Half Price Books is the Nation's largest new and used bookseller with 120 stores in 19 states. And Half Price Books is online@hpb.com.

Category four, love and Marriage. How many marriages also how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? One wife, Roberta, I had a hard time getting info on her. I wasn't even a hundred percent sure when they were married. I saw that they were married over 40 years, but I didn't see a marriage year or a marriage date.

Amit: I really, so very little info. And the daughter was from a previous. Not in marriage, but I think his daughter was.

Michael: It was not, it was a, it wasn't a biological mom. Was not Roberta? No, I don't believe so. Okay. I got confused on some of this. I mean, it was actually really hard to find, but we started to talk about this a second ago and he also had, uh, a few grandchildren and he made it work.

Like this is the thing. I think it's so striking that he would schedule things around the school year so that he could be there and be present as a. And that translated to when he was a grandfather as well, which is just crazy notable because most entertainers, whether it's in music or film or whatever, just have bonker schedules that makes it look like the family life is all but impossible.

You may be a great guy, a great dad or a great mom or whatever, but actually being present is really hard. He scheduled things to so that

Amit: he would be able to, this was a clear priority for him and, and when he couldn't, he took her. Yeah, he took her on, I mean he wouldn't let it interfere with school or whatnot, but he would take her to any set or any filming or

Michael: whatnot.

Yeah. And she did not go into entertainment. No. Nor have any of the grandkids thus far anyway. No. Which is sort of interesting cause it's an entertainment family, the dad and of course the younger brother Albert, the family was almost completely silent when he died though. Other than Albert Brooks. Like there was no like big social media postings or anything like that because I don't, I

Amit: just don't think that was them.

Yeah, I think they do their own thing and they say in the documentary, in the Super Bob Einstein movie, we

Michael: 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 is like, let's go to Inn Out.

And I'm like, okay, I'm not complaining. And we're driving to Inn 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 I, if, if she knows that you heard this. I still am not allowed to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm or anything,

I'm the most emotional person ever.

I dunno. There was just always a way to like make the day better. There was always a joke that could like brighten our days. So the fact that we don't hear a lot from the family when he dies, that tells you like there's something healthy here. There's something good.

Amit: I mean like there is a private life and it's a family life that's probably not that different than what we are used to.

Yeah. It started in tragedy losing his father at 14. The relationship with the brothers. I think that, I sense the little tension there. I think there is a little tension.

Michael: There's, I mean, brother rivalry, maybe that's natural. They're all kind of clustered in age.

Amit: Yeah. They're all kind of clustered in age.

They all are brilliant minds of different varieties. Two of 'em happened to be comics. Yeah. But completely different styles of comics. Totally. But the times that they did collaborate, which was really just that one time in Modern Romance. It's a great

Michael: clip. I have never seen that whole movie, but that clip of Albert.

Brooks with Bob Einstein is hilarious.

Amit: Yeah, totally. And we'll put that in the show notes. Sure. But, uh, so the question I had for you is Roberta said he could make me laugh every day. Yeah. So I wanna ask you as a married person mm-hmm. , uh, how much does that matter? Oh, are you

Michael: kidding?

Amit: No, I'm not kidding. A

Michael: lot.

Okay. Full stop. A lot. Yeah. Oh my God. I think I would sum it up by saying my wife and I can crack each other up. Like she's a very funny woman. It's one of the things I love about her. She is funnier than you and that's fine. But I can also make her laugh too. Like it's just tension release. That's what it, it always is.

Sometimes it's a cue that our fight is now done. If we've had a big discussion about money or about kids, or about the house or about, you know, future plans or whatever is stressing us out. Most of the time those conversations are no fucking fun to have. But, you know, if at the end of them, You know, there's a laugh.

You're like, okay, you know, something's been released. Something that had to happen has happened. Also, there's just truth and humor. Like, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a way of making sure that you are looking at the world the same way that you're kind of view on life and what you're doing and what you're trying to get out of it is aligned.

It's not just that I enjoy her sense of humor, it's that it's a foundation piece of a healthy marriage. And I think, yeah, I think we do laugh every day. It's not as necessarily that's a point, but it should be that frequent. So, yes, I, I'm anybody who says, he made me laugh every day, I think that that's not just like he was ribbing me every day.

It's that we loved each other.

Amit: And I think what you said is that it's, it's humorous truth telling. Yes. Right? It's how you identify

Michael: that you're on the same page at the same Yeah. It's alignment. It's alignment. It's it a hundred. . Yeah. Category five. Mm-hmm. category five net worth. Google the net worth of any dead person.

And for better or worse, you'll get an answer. I saw 6 million. Yes. That's what I saw. Kind of makes sense. Great number. It's a good number. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it, uh, you know, there's a part of me wanting to be a little higher, but it's not gonna be higher. No. It's not gonna be higher. And it doesn't have to be higher.

Yeah. And he said, you know, Indian wills right next to Palm Springs is a great

Amit: place. Yes. Where Sunny Bono was mayor who he once wrote for

Michael: what to say about this 6 million. I don't know that I have a whole lot of, uh, reaction to it other than it feels about right. It feels about right.

Amit: I think it's a lot of curb money.

Yeah. Um, honestly, I don't think there's super, Dave Osborne was this long-running franchise that, that existed as part of a variety show. It existed. You don't get paid for late night talk

Michael: segments. Well, you get a few hundred bucks. It's like an honorarium.

Amit: So he, he would get that, um, you know, there was a cable spinoff, there was an animated series at one point.

It was a super, super, no pun intended big deal for in the late eighties, early nineties, but just because of its, it was a moneymaker though. Just cause it's ubiquity, not because it was like raking inbox office. Yeah.

Michael: The exposure's pretty damn good there. I mean, I, I, you know, it's funny, I did listen to a podcast in the mid 20 teens where somebody asked him about that and they said, we saw 5 million.

And he and he kind of makes a joke about it. It was fun to hear his reaction to it. And he is like, well, come visit me in Palm Springs. You can see my $5 million house. Yeah. Um, I don't think there's a whole lot to be said in this. To me,

Amit: it's just, it's rich and it's, it's the type of rich I want out of that guy.

Yeah. That's amazing. I don't want him flipping hundreds to the maitre d. Yeah. Like for Bob Einstein. That's perfect.

Michael: It's good market value. Yes. All right. Category six, Simpson Sarah Night Live or Hall of Fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons as well as impersonations.

This is interesting to me cuz it's Oh, for four, he was never on the Simpsons. He was never on Saturday Night Live. He does not have a Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was never even on Arsenio. What's so interesting to me about that is that he managed to like sidestep the four pillars that you and I have in this category and show up at every other.

Big fame making institution outside of that, the Tonight Show, arrested Development Curb, your Enthusiasm and The Late Show with Letterman too. I mean, he's freaking everywhere except Simpson Saturday Night Live or Hall of Fame and I don't know, once again has me thinking about our category. I think we may have gotten it right, like he's not a household name, he's no name recognition.

Yeah. And so maybe, you know, he would never voice The Simpsons even though his brother Albert is all over it. He never was on snl, even though he has, Albert was also involved with SNL and you know, there is this, that show bizarre that he was on. that I didn't know about, but I've heard a lot of people talk about, there was a killer B skit that he did, and he interrupted the skit and said, okay, this is a clear rip off of Saturday Night Live.

This is not okay. So he liked nods to Saturday Night Live, but Saturday Night Live never nods back. His dad has a Hollywood star, he doesn't, and he's all over late night talk shows and somehow misses

Amit: Arsenio. You know what's funny is the precursor to Saturday Night Live is all of these variety shows and then they would claim to be edgier and more individualistic.

Yeah, but the Marques of those. The Smothers Brothers, Sonny and Cher, the Dick Van Dyke show, all of these things that he was very integral in starting. And it's just weird that he sidestepped

Michael: a hundred percent. I mean, I, you know, even Super Dave Osborne is, you

Amit: think, you basically character flying into weekend update.

I mean, seriously,

Michael: he manages just skirt around every single institution you and I happen to have in this category without hitting it. Yeah, I think

Amit: he did do an in living color though, as like a guest

Michael: dj. It would make sense in living color's, not in our category here. Yes. So, uh, so kind of not famous.

Exactly.

Amit: Right. You know, to me this is like a mid-level c e o type of success. Like largely, hugely successful, very wealthy, but enough to have a private life. Enough not to be bothered.

Michael: Yeah. It's not an annoying level of like gonna get swarmed by the paparazzi and, and, and harassed. Like, he can probably go into Applebee's and, uh, not have anybody tap him on the shoulder.

All right. Shall we move on?

Amit: No. Oh, because I do want talk about pop culture for a second. Okay. What I, I wanna point to is the presence in rap songs. Oh. Did you

Michael: see this? I did actually. But I'm glad you made note

Amit: of this. I meant to mark Super Dave as a name got dropped by Tupac. Yeah. Whereas Tupac, fat Joe Tribe called Quest and Ice Cube.

Yeah. . And so I did this, uh, earlier today. I was like, I'm gonna go find the lyrics. Yeah. To where they talk about Super Dave, I'm glad you put this together. Yeah. So fun, . Fun fact, I cannot find a single one that the N word is not used like, Almost immediately around Super Dave . But I'll, I'll just give a little really.

So yes, slope Blunts

Michael: believe in stunts up to Super Dave Jump. I'm ready. Flex this rough neck from maneuver down with the fuel.

Made the MCs cause the MCs safe like we soup, but they, 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 and what he tried to do, he would always end up on the wrong side of it. Right. And that's kind of like

Amit: how we all kind of grew up.

Michael: This really should have been in the five.

Amit: Category. Ah, maybe so. Yeah, you can't, you

Michael: can't redo, you can't go back. But I'm so glad we got this in there. Okay. Uh, shall we move on? Yes. All right. Category seven. Over under, in this category, we look at the life expectancy over the years somebody was born to see if they beat the house odds.

And as a measure of grace, life expectancy for a man in the US born in 1942 is 71.4 years old. He died age 70. Okay. Just barely a little bit over. I thought it was gonna be like right around in the median. Right. It's a, that's within a standard deviation. Easily. It's sad. It's sad. I mean, everything I saw was got cancer.

They didn't specify which kind of cancer and then went fast. Yeah. So it was like diagnosis and then a few months later gone.

Amit: Correct. He only did 22 episodes of Curb, like the most two recent seasons he wasn't on. Right. I don't think they, they said what happened to the character within the

Michael: plot. Yeah.

There's a, there's actually an interesting article cuz like Albert Brooks playing, Albert Brooks does show up and it's sort of like this meshing of universes. Right. Um, so there, there's, there's nods to it. And then I think Vince Vaughn's character is on there playing, uh, somebody in the funk, Houser family.

Yes. I haven't seen it yet. But anyway, I mean, fast, tragic, and sad. 76.

Amit: Yeah. Just not, not God awful. But this is, this again points to a a, a,

Michael: you know what this is to me, this is normal. It's

Amit: not exactly normal, goddammit. Yes it is. 76 is normal. No it isn't. When we say a 72 year old life expectancy, it is including everybody, right?

Yeah. It's including all income levels, you know, it's including people that are born severely disadvantaged economically, and we know that just by the, um, yeah. Conditions, environments, and all of these things that they're not gonna live that long if either of our parents died at 76. It is sad

Michael: what to say.

This category's gotten more interesting and complicated as our show is going on.

Amit: We're talking vocabulary here, right? Yeah. It's not tragic. But it is sad and it is too

Michael: soon. I can agree with all that. I mean, he was still acting and still making people laugh and uh, he, he, he had more to give as a performer and, uh, and in, in that sense it feels premature at the same time.

It's a pretty long, rich life. Yeah.

Amit: And let's talk through this. Is this Saturn beautiful? Is that he, he kind of had two mountains, right? Yeah. He had the Super Dave Mountain and then he had the Marty Funkhouser Mountain. Yeah. And he was pretty much right at the top of the second mountain. Yeah. That's

Michael: be. I don't know the, the template for me to, this is Johnny Cash.

I mean, Johnny Cash in a way had two music careers, right? Yeah. There's the early stuff, which is sort of classic, you know, country. And then there's all the stuff he did with Rick Rubin was a whole different chapter of his life and they got better and better and he kind of died at the peak of his second mountain.

And I think

Amit: beautifully because you saw the rise up. Yeah. The second mountain. So all you saw was the ascending. You didn't see a second descending. This

Michael: is something you and I used to talk more about too. We haven't talked about as much, you know the the staircase up, right? Like Bob Einstein is still doing funny

Amit: shit.

Yeah. And his sixties and seventies. Right. But I think that's the beauty, right? What we haven't talked about is multiple staircases. Yeah. Right. And I don't think his ever went down. I think it went up, you know, and maybe the steps were just not as

Michael: steep. It ebbed. I mean, you pointed to this a second ago, like we could have forgotten all the Super Dave kind of like, you know, jackass comes about Super Dave is not as funny.

There was a risk of fading from relevancy and then that did not happen because of Curb.

Amit: Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of it. What both him and Johnny Cash found was not a new staircase up, but just another door, which is an additional staircase to just go.

Michael: Bravo. Like, I think it's going out great.

Amit: I, he did.

He, he did suffer. It

Michael: doesn't sound like Right. He got the diagnosis and he's gone. He did

Amit: it right. It would be great to see him throughout the culmination of curb if, if there ever is one. Yeah. All of the family things, young grandchildren, all of that is, is sad. We want more time with that. Given the choices that he had and his ability to find new opportunity and keep renewing his creative spirit.

I think he did it brilliantly. I agree.

Michael: Dare I say gracefully Agreed. Let's pause.

Amit: Danielle Steele. Oh, alive. The rules are

Michael: simple. Dead are alive. Danielle Steele is still with us at 74 years old. Dick Cavitt. I think Dick Cavitt is dead. Uh, incorrect. Dick is still with us at 85 years old. Wow.

Test your knowledge, dead or alive. app.com.

First of the introspective questions. Category eight man in the Mirror. What did they think about their own reflection? What do you

Amit: got here? This was, to me, the hardest question to answer.

Michael: Why is this hard? Because he's kind of, he's a handsome goofball, kind of, he's a

Amit: handsome goofball. He plays a klutz in Super Dave Osborne,

but

Michael: he's also kind of a stud, you know?

I mean, he looks good in the jumpsuit. There's

Amit: a confidence. This was a real life college basketball player. Totally. Right? Like he's, he's gonna maintain some of that. Yeah. Throughout his life. He's got a little swagger. But this freakishly tall aspect of him that, that he parlayed into being a straight faced comedian.

Was he lanky? He was definitely lanky. Okay. Well, my question is his style of humor. Yeah. Somewhat self-deprecating. Yeah. Straight man with filthy jokes. Yes. Thing I, I'm just, it's, it's all seems like it comes from some place of weirdness and some insecurity and so I think this fish out of water Mm. Does feed into just some of this where, where do I fit?

Michael: It's like he's placed somewhere funny. Okay. This is a little bit of a tangent, but bear with me. Okay. You know the character Pigpen? Yes. This is one of my favorite cartoon panels of all time. There's no text on it. You see Pigpen, it's a, it's four part panel and he is filthy. He goes, gets into a shower, you see him wash out the shower and he gets outta the shower and there's a little bit of dirt around him and he towels off and there's a little bit more, and then he walks outta the bathroom with his clothes and all of a sudden he's surrounded by the cloud of dirt again.

Yeah. It's as if like, this kid cannot get clean. He is always destined. He's been placed in a situation of permanent dirtiness. I think Bob Einstein has kind of been placed in a position of permanent comedic disposition. Right. His body is kind of goofy and funny. His surroundings, his family environment is kind of filled with like a, a certain humor.

It's almost like it's a destiny, but a little bit awkward because what's so freaking funny? Like, why is this funny? So does he see that when he looks in the mirror,

Amit: he sees that he he is funny and he is funny looking. Yeah. And

Michael: I he's also kinda handsome. I'm going, yes, Amit. I see. I

Amit: don't, I'm not gonna agree with you.

Okay. I think there is a difference between liking the way you look and liking yourself. I think his style of humor is drive from the way. Mm-hmm. , the discomfort about how he feels, about how he looks. I think he likes himself, but I'm going no to man in the. Okay. I'm

Michael: flipping. I No, don't, no, no. Yeah, I'm flipping, I'm flipping.

That's a great argument. And I've changed my mind. Stand your fucking

Amit: ground for once. This is a

Michael: healthy thing for an individual to do. So we both agree, man, in the mirror, he didn't like it. Category nine, outgoing message like, man in the mirror. We wanna know how they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on a voice answering machine or outgoing voicemail.

And would they have left it or would they have used the default setting when leaving their voicemail? What do you got here? I

Amit: wanna ask a question first. Right? So his, his voice is notorious, right? He has this like, uh, I know it's constrained, raspy. Sounds like he has like he's getting over a cold. Is there anything medical behind

Michael: it?

It's just age mostly. Cuz he didn't have, he wasn't like that earlier. It wasn't like that earlier. It's as he goes on, gravity

Amit: was the word that they used to

Michael: describe. Yeah, it's really unique. It's really unique. Okay. I, I've never said this to you before. Yeah. You are brilliant, right? Yeah. I invented this look.

She texted me right back. I love you. What a great man to stick up for me like that. Unbelievable. Thank you. Unbelievable. Huh? I think, I think I'm on the fence here. I'm,

Amit: I'm going. Yes. I think it's a signature and I'm going No,

Michael: cuz I'm gonna stand my ground. Thank God. , right? Uh, I'm Elaine. No, you went. Yes.

Amit: Why?

Yes. I think it's a s I think it's a signature that wasn't that awkward in these formative years. Yeah. And I'm not sure Marty Funk Hauser or Larry Middleman is as funny without it and I think it's the signature

Michael: and I think he likes it. Okay. I'm going, no, and here's why. I think it sounds like it's hard to talk.

I think it sounds like

Amit: now it's like a's a painful exertion, lot of cough drops.

Michael: Every time he's opens his mouth. It's sort of like takes something and he wants to talk, he wants to express himself, but this voice is like holding him back from everything. In a way, it's almost a flip reverse of what you said for man in the mirror.

He likes that he has it, but I don't think he likes it. I think he works to his advantage, but I think actually talking and using his voice takes something out

Amit: of him. You know when you Google Bob Einstein and like Google has their suggested searches, like one of the most common things is what happened to Bob Einstein's voice.

Yeah. The answer is nothing.

Michael: Yeah. Right. That's just what happened. , yes, which

Amit: is what happened. It's his body. So the second part of the question, would he actually do the act a hundred percent recording it? No question. No

Michael: question at all. All right. Category 10 regrets. Public or private? What we really wanna know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at night?

I don't have a lot here. So did you see the thing? I think Jimmy Kimmel talked about how like after Super Dave would come on his show and do a skit, he would call Jimmy Kimmel the next day and be like, wouldn't night Great. You know? Yes. um, he's like, nobody Jimmy Kimmel's laughing about this. Like nobody else ever calls me the next day.

He didn't talk about last night's show. I'm onto the next

Amit: thing. Sarah Silverman said the same thing is that whenever Bob Einstein delivered a funny joke, he'd be like, how funny was that

Michael: everybody? Yeah, totally. So I think that's funny, but I also think that's coming from a genuine place. I also wonder if he feels like he didn't get enough to recognition that he did manage to skirt around the Simpson Sarah Night Live and.

You know, Arsenio Hall , right. That maybe there was a different set of choices and, and had something to do with whatever happened between age 14 and age 24. When he says, I'm not gonna be part of entertainment that says I am gonna be part of entertainment. And like he invests in himself in a way once he gets into it.

But it's all on the job training. When he gets the job with the Smothers Brothers, figures it out with his new buddy, Steve Martin and there I crack each other up. Right. And he goes on to work on Red Fox, but he sure

Amit: as hell didn't become Steve Martin. Right.

Michael: I wonder if he looks back on his career that like I didn't quite reach the heights that maybe I could have if I had.

I don't know, knowing something more about myself at an earlier age, maybe.

Amit: I think that's a really good one. Cause there's some signs, you know, the way that he just, he, he tells jokes in such a classic way. Yeah. He's like, do you want to hear a joke? You want to hear a joke? Oh, he knows he's funny. Yes. Right.

The exact reason he's calling Jimmy Kimmel and calling Sarah Silverman. He, he's like, I know I'm funny. I know I killed it. Please repeat after me

Michael: that, that I did, don't

Amit: tell people that. Right. So, yeah, maybe there was a part of him that's like, I am one of the best, I am one of the funniest out there. And it's like working in a company and like the levels of management above you, you know that you are so much smarter than, so much better that, but you're just looking at this greater tier of success when you know that you are actually so much funnier.

Yeah. And so maybe he does regret not rising to it, considering that he had the exact same starting point as Steve Martin, but he took this route of a goofy character actor. Yeah. Okay. That was a private one. You got something else? Yeah, I'm on private being an asshole. Um, on set. Yeah. Uh, you know, I, I said he was, he was gentle, uh, which I think is true, but I think to get shit done, um, a lot of the people said like, he was really hard on

Michael: us and he was the accident, uh, uh, executive producer.

I mean, he was in charge of, and the star for most of the Super Dave activities.

Amit: Yeah. And maybe that's what you, I mean, maybe that's just what you have to do. Yeah. When you're creating these extravagant stunts, um, that have all this detail, uh, maybe you have to do that. Maybe you just have to be an ass kicker in order to do it.

But people still talked about it that they're like, oh my God, Bob Einstein, like one of the funniest people. One of the nicest people, one of the most caring people. Tough as nails when we're actually shooting. Yeah. So I just, you, you

Michael: gotta wonder. Yeah. I think that's a good one. I'm glad you called it out cuz it really does need to be pointed out that like there were people who were like, this was difficult to work with.

This was not like an easy set. All right. Category 11, good dreams, bad dreams. This is not about personal perception, but rather does this person have a haunted look in the eyes? Something that suggests inner turmoil in, or demons or unresolved trauma.

Amit: I see it a little bit. I, I think we've actually covered this topic quite a bit through our other ones.

Yeah. What I will say is I see it a little bit in kind of the heavy eyes and it, it, it also just fits with his deadpan delivery. If, if it's there, and I'm going to give a reason, I think there is this sort of unresolved conflict of, of feeling livid at your father's 14 year old, funeral year old being exactly

Michael: that person.

Yeah. And Congress surrounds me like Big Ben getting out of the shower.

Amit: Exactly. Yeah. Perhaps that is an unresolved conflict and maybe that's a little bit of the heaviness in the eye, but I don't see bad dreams associa associated with that. I, I think if there is, I think unresolved conflicts are singular.

I don't think they are existential crises in him.

Michael: You know, as I was preparing for this recording and I got to this question, I was like, I really had to think about it and then I actually did decide to go look at some pictures and just see if I could see it and I didn't see it. I think there's some darkness.

It's not zero darkness, but overall I see good dreams. Yep. I see largely a piece with himself. Okay. Category 12, coffee cocktail or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity? This. So maybe a question of what kind of drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them.

We are most curious about. I wrote cocktail. It's funny, usually when I want the humor I go cannabis. But I do think that there's a kind of like under the surface out outrageousness to him. I do wonder if he doesn't get a little bit more physical and slapstick and kind of really great drunken debauchery with Bob Einstein.

Like I think it'd actually be fun to not just have a drink with him but to like get fucking smashed and do stupid shit. Yes. Ah. And I want to have that experience cuz I think

Amit: I'd laugh mys off. There was a Jimmy Kimmel sketch with Adam Carla where they like try to do a hundred shots each. Yeah, I saw that.

And who better to

Michael: get drunk with than the greatest daredevil of all time? I can't think of anyone. Take a look now as we do a hundred shots with Super Dave Osborne. You know, this is the first time I've had any drinks since my new liver . Congratulations. New liver tell. I gotta tell Jim. Like that sounds perfect.

That sounds like the Bob Einstein I want to like hang out with. And I mentioned he's got this sort of frat boy quality to him. Yeah. That like, you know, I, I think I would just laugh a lot. I think that there would be no shortage of jokes and humor. I don't know that it would go anywhere. I don't know that it would be a point to it.

And that's just fucking fine. Yeah. Let's just get stupid drunken, make it idiots of ourselves and see what happens. Yeah,

Amit: that was pretty much my answer for Shaha. If you remember , I do remember that. Um, and lemme tell you what I wanna do and then let's have a discussion about the substance. Okay. So what I wanna do is break him.

I wanna make him laugh. Yeah. Right. I wanna make that, that deadpan face. I wanna make that stoicism. I wanna crack it. Yeah. I don't know if that is the job of cocktails or the job of cannabis. So my question to you, Michael then is if I want to. Break somebody if I want to ha Yeah, if I wanna cut it up with somebody and just get into a flow session where we're just making jokes, but I want to do my damnedest to see if I can break him.

Michael: I think it's probably cocktail. I think you probably need e loosening of inhibitions cuz I could see a hardening of mindset win a certain kind of high.

Amit: Yeah, but does a crack with

Michael: laughter in a guy like that? Look man, maybe when you get underneath it, maybe it's all the same. I am not sure there is such a difference between the deep sadness and the deep posture in a way.

You know, I mean, I I

Amit: mean, that goes back to the funerals,

Michael: right? Yeah. I all, all you know, is that there's a, you know, big pot of emotion trapped inside that you're curious to get to. So it may be both once you get 'em just drunk enough. Yeah. Okay. So there's my answer. Like tequila shots

Amit: or what is the word that they used?

If you're like, if you get a beer and a shot, they've got a word that they use for it now that like you order it off a menu and you get like a pearl in a gym mask about this. Okay. My friends and I call it, uh, a derecha because the shot is to the right derecha, but, but there is an actual name of it. Um, that's good.

Yeah. Basically I just wanna do a bunch of those. That's what that looks like. Beer shot beer Shot beer shot. Beer shot. Beer shot. I see

Michael: it. Yeah. All right. We're there. Final category, the VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said In Varsity Blues, I don't want your life. Ahed based on everything we've talked about.

Do you want Bob Einstein's

Amit: life? Take a walk with me through Bob Einstein's life. Yeah. So, um, he was obviously very affected by his father's death. I wouldn't want that. By any means, I think the career, which is really what we know and what we focus on, I think he knocked it outta the park on both of those.

I think he, he threw a Hail Mary to try to get into a career, which he knew he was good at, and perhaps 50 years later he even knew that he was better than everyone else at. But I think he was a master of these little worlds that he created. There was nobody else like Super Dave Osborne doing what he was doing.

So within his own worlds, he was a master

Michael: really dancing into the beat of his own drum. It's funny that we haven't used that phrase yet cuz it really applies to this

Amit: guy. Some people aspire to be. King of the world, but all you have to do is just be king of your own world. Yeah. And I think that's what he was, and like you said, highly revered in the way that Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin and Larry David and Sarah Silverman and all these people talk about him as a comedic genius, a sweetheart.

There's so much to like about it, but I think he also navigated success very well. This was a guy with real success that he created himself uniquely. Yeah. It seems like he had a wonderful relationship with his wife. I saw even in the interview, which was done a few years after he died, I mean, you could still see love and affection in her eyes.

Yeah. The way the children and the grandchildren talk about him, uh, was incredible. So yes, I want Your Life, Bob Einstein. Excellent

Michael: argument. There's really nothing unassailable in there. Nothing hapless for sure. I've got a hesitation here with Yes on the Vander Beak, and let me see if I can talk out why.

For me it has something to do with what's missing from what comedy is all about. You know, we talked in handful of episodes. I wanna say Gary Shandling, maybe Joan Rivers, you know, Humor as a kind of like coping mechanism for dealing with the pains of life. Right. He is a really funny guy, but he, he also looks confused to me somehow.

You know, I talked earlier about humor as truth telling, right? Or or humor as truth exploration. Right. That part of the reason we laugh, part of the reason we love great comics is that they can point out the things that all of us should be seeing and we don't see, right? And we laugh in recognition of those truthful moments.

His humor isn't exactly like that. His humor is a little bit more

Amit: superficial,

Michael: and I don't want to denigrate that. It's not that there's anything wrong with superficial, but it also doesn't point to me to any like sort of deeper enrichment, you know, on the. Family and career and relational wealth scores.

He does score high. I mean, good money, great family, great career, great friends. All of that is like obviously desirable, but there's something that I see here and I don't know exactly what it is that looks kind of like a permanent state of frustration, something that, that I, I, I don't understand this confusing world and I guess I'll just, you know, laugh my way through it in a way that I'm not sure, like provides any kind of like real emotional relief at some point.

I wonder if he was ever able to grieve. I wonder if he was ever able to deal with this angerer. I wonder if he was ever able to make sense of the world and of what he was given and what he was denied.

I think I'm a no. And maybe that's not a good enough reason, but I, there's something I can't quite put my finger on other than to say I'm not sure what the point was. And at least today, I think I need purpose and I'm, I'm not sure he got purpose enough for me, but I feel like the man's redeemable. Okay, Ahed, you are Bob Einstein.

You've died, you've gone to the Unitarian proxy for the afterlife. St. Peter Floor is yours. I've always wondered if

Amit: telling a lot of dirty jokes in your life, stops you from getting into heaven. And I, I guess this is where I find out in case that's not a deal breaker. Here's what I did. Granddaughter said this about me that I found a way to make every day better.

Most of that was through jokes and humor. There's a lot of jokes out there. There's a lot of humor out there. It's everywhere nowadays. Certainly since I started out. But what I did is just when you think you've seen it all, just when you think you've heard it all. I put out the new twist and I still make you laugh, and wasn't that hilarious what I did?

Let me in.

Michael: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Famous and Gravy. If you're enjoying our show, please tell your friends about us, help spread the word. Find us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at Famous en Gravy, and we also have a newsletter which you can sign up for on our website, famous en gravy.com.

Famous en Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thanks for listening. See you next time.