#26 Acting Crazy and Making Faces with Carl Gottlieb

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:19

Thank you, Roy for that amazing introduction. You get the show going and you did not fail. This week. I am pumped for Episode 26 of the Jeff Dwoskin show. Welcome, everybody. I'm your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Good to have you here for Episode 26. And it's a doozy and a doozy it is That's right. I have comedic legend Carl Gottlieb in the house. That's right. You heard me right. Carl Gottlieb. Jeff, Isn't that the guy that co wrote The Jerk with Steve Martin. Hell Yeah, it is. Hey, Jeff. Isn't that the guy that wrote the screenplay for the movie Jaws? Oh my god. Yes. He's on the show. And we got a great conversation coming up in just a little bit and you're gonna love it. Love it.

Ah, why am I saying things twice? I don't know. It's probably because I'm gonna sugar I for meat and all this candy leftover from Halloween. We only got like four people that came to the house. I got like 500 pounds of candy and they are only one way to get rid of it in my tummy. That's so I am really on a sugar high right now to in the show. I got all dressed up and everything. I was a doctor, but not just any doctor. I was sexy Dr. Fauci. That's right. Sexy isn't just for the ladies. I could be sexy too. I put a picture of it at Jeff Dwoskin show on Twitter. Go check it out. reply to that tweet, I want to see what you dressed up as Show me your costumes from this past Halloween. I'm excited to see it. See if you can go mano a mano with sexy Dr. Fauci

it's time for the social media tip. So one thing that people always ask me over and over again, and I know I've mentioned it on an earlier episode. It's important to retweet and like other people, that's how you get your stuff noticed. The more you engage, the more people will engage with you may not happen right away. But over time, that's the long term strategy. Don't get frustrated. Just give more than you take. And eventually everything works out. I promise, I promise. Okay. The other cool thing that I saw on Twitter this past week, the Mandalorian had any tweet that had hashtag the Mandalorian in it when you clicked the like button, a little baby Yoda showed up where the heart was, it was adorable, but it's gone already. And I wanted to tell you all about it. But now it's gone. Maybe look forward this Friday when Episode Two comes out of the Mandalorian. If you're not watching the Mandalorian highly recommend it. Also, I highly recommend Episode 19 where I talked with Dan's air Star Wars expert about the Mandalorian. In the episode title, this is the way check that out. I also talked to Dan, in Episode Five about The Empire Strikes Back if you love Star Wars, this guy knows everything about Star Wars.

One of the thing I just wanted to mention that's kind of cool is there's this app called humbly and they reached out to me, it's a podcast app. And what you do is you go to the app, and you can listen to any show that's on Apple podcasts, they put a little ad in front of it, and then they donate five cents every time. So those ads are supplied by the app itself. So I don't make any money. No One No one's making money in that way. But they donate money to charity, a charity that you choose when you sign up for the app. So it's kind of cool. Check it out. Humbly. It's in the Apple App Store. And that's the social media tips!

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And you know what else I do for you? I bring you awesome guests like our next guest comedic legend Carl Gottlieb. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation. And here it is.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, here Emmy winner, actor, writer, director and comedy, The legend, Carl Gottlieb. Carl, welcome to the show. Hello Sir, I'm well, thank you. All right. So excited to have you here. You've done a million things. Let's start with the comedy background. You were part of The Committee.

Carl Gottlieb 6:12

I began an improvisational comedy in San Francisco in 1963. In a show called The Committee, which along with Second City and a couple of others, is the ancestor of all improv, again, as a stage manager, then I was a director, and I appeared in some skits, sketches on stage. Then I went to New York and left the company for a while then I came back as an actor in 1966. And that changed my life I was there from I was in San Francisco as an actor and a hit show from 66 to 68. Coinciding with the Summer of Love in the Haight Ashbury in all, the Free Speech Movement, all the turmoil and tumult of the 60s, and in 68, the show moved to Los Angeles and I moved with it, we played on the Sunset Strip, and we had our own theater there. And we played there for two years and toward the end of the two years, I was scouted and picked up by various commercial television. The Smothers Brothers hired me as a writer Robert Altman hired me as an actor for the movie mash. And one thing led to another basically

Jeff Dwoskin 7:23

pretty awesome What was it like to be part of the movie M*A*S*H? It must have been,

Carl Gottlieb 7:27

it was great. It was good improvising actor and improvising director, a screenplay. It looks kind of got thrown out the window on the first day of shooting, and that the screenwriter wanted to take his name off of it. And then when it was nominated for an Academy Award, he put his name back on it, although very little of his original text left in what we did. That must have been exciting to be a part of it for the Smothers Brothers. You were part of the writing room. Yes, yes, the Smothers had inherited their time slot to produce their own summer replacement. So they picked Glen Campbell and did the summer brothers smothers show starring Glen Campbell hired a bunch of new young writers. One writer was a holdover from their CBS season that was Lorenzo Music, who was my partner at the time, and then also hired and that's that same little rush of nubies was Steve Martin and Bob Einstein, and who else Murray Roman guy named Paul Wayne. Anyway, a bunch of smart young writers. We had a great time. And then in the fall, they picked us all up for their regular Smothers Brothers CBS show, which was nominated for and won an Emmy, but between the time was nominated and the time at one it was canceled.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:47

That happens to too often to the to the good shows. So Bob is and super Dave Osborne. Yes. So that's a hell of a room, Bob Einstein. Steve Martin, you say Rob Reiner was Rob Reiner partner,

Carl Gottlieb 9:03

Rob Reiner. Steve Martin Bob Einstein me. Comedian named Murray Roman. Another writer named Paul Wayne who did most of that bad bosses material. I forget all the names are on the Emmy I could go get the statue.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:17

I was hoping you just be holding

Carl Gottlieb 9:21

I try not to pose with my statues.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:24

How many of those I have I just have the emmy of the ones that are still with us. Do you still talk at all I'm here with Rob Reiner. Steve Martin are not that often Facebook friends and

Carl Gottlieb 9:38

we've all gone our separate ways. Rob is intensely occupied with politics. And Steve Martin is Steve Martin. He's a writer. You know, he's writing he's playing banjo. He's writing novels. He's married. He has a kid y'all know we were all single guys at the time. You know, we had one or two married writers in the room who used to complain because the single guys we didn't care we'd stay up on rewrite nights until, you know two three in the morning and the married guys come on, we got family to go to

Jeff Dwoskin 10:08

Carl Reiner though you when you wrote you wrote The Jerk, you went on to write the Jerk with Steve Martin. And like oh, my God and Carl Reiner, Rob's father

Carl Gottlieb 10:20

Carl directed and contributed a lot of visual gags. Yes.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:24

When you were there Did you know because you had this feeling that you're calling this crazy thing that was so special. And

Carl Gottlieb 10:30

nobody, nobody knew. Nobody knew what I was making jaws and it was gonna be a hit. Nobody knew when we were doing this show. If we were to hit or not, we got good Nielsen ratings, but the network cancelled us anyway. So what it was like, was a wonderful job with wonderful coworkers doing work that I loved, which was you know, writing comedy, and performing doing sketch comedy. So, what it was, like was was, was like, you know, living my life as a 32 year old Hollywood writer, actor, and later, later to become a director. But at that time, I was a writer and an actor, and I was writing and acting. And you could ask me, you know, I was making money doing what I love to do, how many people can say that? Not many. I was lucky when I got out of college and winter of 1960. I made a vow. The only, like, vow I made to myself was I'm, if I can possibly avoid it, I will not do anything. But work in my chosen profession, which was journalism and theater, I'm only going to work in show business or writing. I'm not going to be a bartender, a cab driver, carpenter, a merchant marine office temp, I'm not going to sell Amway. I'm going to just do what I if I can possibly make a living at it. That's what I want to do. So I didn't take any other jobs. And in the case, sometimes I'd be working for 25 bucks a week and meals at a coffee house and off off Broadway in New York. But I was getting getting paid for what I did. I had a roommate, we had a $65 a month apartment. It was easy to live, unemployment was $52. It was 50, I think 50 bucks a week, 52 bucks a week for 50 weeks, you could live on that. And I went from one job to another each job led to something else. Somebody, somebody saw my work or I work with somebody and they said, Hey, would you like to do this with me? And I would say yes. And then off, I'd go. And Steve Martin said, Would you like you know, I got a deal to write a movie at Paramount. Do you want to write it with me? And I said, Yes. And so we wrote The Jerk. We know that. At the time, it was uneventful. Except that it was really good. Was it good luck to be in for me to be in show business with those friends at that time? You know, at the time, it was just going from one job to another. I like to think that I was when I chose to do something I was doing it with good people, you know, I did, who asked me to do something was important, as important as what they asked me to do. I mean, if if a Putz producer asked me to write a rip off of Jaws, I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't take that job. And I had the luxury of turning down jobs. I didn't have to take everything that came along. And that's a luxury, if you're not driven by starvation or need or you don't have a family to support. I never had children. My wife and I had our own business. Our income was sufficient for our needs. And you know, I didn't didn't get rich, but I was able to take whatever job came along. And whenever the job came along my criteria for taking it was Have I done this before. So what it was it was writing television sitcoms, I had done that. And I didn't focus on that if I had stayed in television, just writing sitcoms, I probably be very rich done because I chances are I would have created a show and been a show runner and you know, made a fortune and television. I took good jobs that came along. And you know, I was lucky. The projects turned out to be iconic. I mean, I also wrote some bad screenplays at that time, they could never got made. But I got paid for them. I got paid for everything. There are two kinds of writers there on deadline writers and habitual writers. Stephen King is a habitual writer, he wakes up in the morning, he's got to write 500 1000 words before he goes to sleep. And he does so he does. And consequently, he has a sizable body of work because he just keeps writing deadline writers like me. We only write when there's a paycheck involved. And and we're not going to get that check until we turn in a script. So that's when we write. It's a painful, lonely process that we avoid writing as much as possible. I describe the processes making ever decreasing concentric circles around the keyboard until there's no place else left to Go. And then you write. And if you write if you hit writer's block, this is advice to young writers. If you get blocked, and you're in the process of writing, then whatever you're blocked on, you put it aside for a second. Write a shopping list, write a letter to a friend, write

a funny post for Facebook, write something, but just keep writing keep and then eventually, you'll get back on track. And you'll go back to the screenplay or the novel or whatever it is you're writing. If you must write, write, but if you're not being paid for it, why bother?

Jeff Dwoskin 15:35

That's great advice. Thank you very much. Welcome. You mentioned directors. So you directed and wrote, he worked with Beatle Ringo. Right. wrote caveman. That's pretty exciting. I'm correct. That's where Ringo

Carl Gottlieb 15:51

met Barbara. They got I am responsible for two celebrity marriages, Ringo and Barbara. And Dan Ackroyd and Donna Dixon

Jeff Dwoskin 16:00

is that from Dr. Detroit. As well, where am I Detroit stuff. So you you wrote after Detroit Detroit, I rewrote it, you rewrote it, do you do come in alot, because like and find that people ask you to restructure things, rewrite it because like Jaws, you draw this we do a Jaws, right,

Carl Gottlieb 16:23

what I was really good at was, you know, collaborating and fixing stuff I was, you know, kind of like a play doctor, I could look at something and kind of see what was wrong and suggest what could be done to fix it. And then I could implement that decision. Because like, I couldn't just analyze, I could then write based on my analysis. And with luck, whatever it is, that I wrote was better than what they had. And that's, that's what they shot. What's one of the great things about being on location, doing a rewrite, nobody's going to rewrite you after the fact. I mean, you know, you, you turn in your pages, and then they shoot them. In that respect. It's like television, because, which is one of the reasons why television is the most interesting writing that's being done these days, is because the people who are writing in are talented, they're productive. There's not a lot of second guessing you write it, you shoot it, you go on to the next. That way, you get a body of work, you get episodes, you know, you get evolving characters. And if you're lucky when the product is something like you know, mash are all in the family. Everybody Loves Raymond, or NCIS. Pick a series. It's been on the air for 10 years, and you'll see some great writing some of the best writing being done these days done in television, not in features.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:42

It seems as where everyone, all the actors want to be at and one of these great television shows used to I feel like growing up when I was growing up, it was the opposite. But you would never see a famous like, a famous movie actor on TV. Yeah, no, that was

Carl Gottlieb 17:57

in the three network universe. Television was the trenches and features was, you know, what we all aspire to. In the 40 years since then, features got worse and worse, and became comic books and remakes, and rewrites and prequels and sequels. And all the good writers drifted into television, were the writer is God King. In movies, the director is God cake. And that's why I became a director, I wanted to get some of that authority that I never had as a writer. And as a writer, you know, you're lucky if you even invited to the set. But if you're a director, you know, you make every decision. So that's a reason to be a director so you can control the product. every writer should in the middle, even if they're not writing, if they're if they're not hired to direct a script. every writer when they're writing a script, a fairy godmother should come along and say, Okay, now you're the director, direct the 12 pages you just wrote. And then you see what the problem is, I you know, I have been on set with a script that I wrote, and I've said out loud, you know, who wrote this shit, you know, I'm supposed to give these four actors in the frame at the same time who put who put them all in the room. Oh, I did that, as a writer, it's a great education is to have to direct what you write. So you see the problems, you know, the directors face. And that's why being an actor is the best job of all because you don't have to worry about anything. You just have to get there and memorize your lines, your marks, they take you to a dressing room, they feed you put your inherent makeup, they walk you to the set, they say stand here, Director gives you action, you say your words. And when you're done, you go home, you don't have to worry about editing or cutting or any of that.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:47

You have a career where you kind of like were one of those. You've kind of balanced all those at different times. I've done it all. You were acting you were then writing, directing, producing Producing so it was it kind of cathartic to be able to go from one to the Okay, I'm just gonna act in this fine and then you know, coming off a direct, you know, like, is it Oh, is it nice having all those skills that you could just kind of choose and balance your life like that

Carl Gottlieb 20:12

keep explaining it was a job it was a skill set that I had acquired over a long period of time. Everything I did in my life was focused on entertainment. Is this entertaining? Is this funny? Should I do this? Can I make this funnier? That was my job in life. And I was lucky enough to get paid well for it. But I was doing what I always wanted to do, which was make entertainment. Not no coward, who was a protean talent from your distant past? No coward once somebody asked him about his skills, his set, skill set, and he was kind of self deprecating. He said, I have a talent to abuse like that. Of course, he was no coward. Yeah. And the town was considered a little of the amusement. You know, the plays and music that he wrote, is still out there today. So we're lucky. We're lucky about that. So I have a if anything, I have a talent to use. I'm in the I'm in the entertainment business. I provide entertainment. Anyway, I can. we once were watching a late night movie, Gypsy Wildcat or something. It was a funny movie in the hero is masquerading or he's hiding out with a troupe of gypsies. Right. The troupe of gypsies is called to the court of the wicked count to entertain him in his castle, which puts the leading man in jeopardy because he's, you know, he's not really a gypsy, but he's just traveling with them. Right? So that's the setup. So at one point, he says to the Gypsy Queen, he says, Thank you began to ask me to do something I'm going to ask you to perform, what should What should I do? And she says, do anything make faces act crazy? Well, I took that to heart. And that we we wrote that down, we had a lot of piece of paper backstage with Committee. The 60s is, is do anything crazy, make faces, it's as good a recipe for performance successes, anything I'm going

Jeff Dwoskin 22:20

to make that the name of this podcast episode. That's good stuff in terms of like, I know, I know you I know you look at him his jobs and stuff like that. So but is there any of the of the ones that you look back like on the acting that you did? Mork and Mindy mash? I, I

Carl Gottlieb 22:38

look, I work in the committee as the most productive and the most fun that I've had in my life to this day. Okay, we got to remember we were doing two shows a night three. On Saturday, we worked in a 350 seat theater with a liquor license. We played to call anybody, everybody from college students to, you know, senior citizens, we were to hit so people came to the show with an expectation that they would laugh which we tried to fulfill. And, you know, half the time we were flying by the seat of our pants, doing improvisations, you know, making stuff up we had never done before relying on our skills as performers, and our cooperation as members of a company to make it all work. And 80 90% of the time it did work. And that was very gratifying if you did a good show is no better feeling at the end of the evening, you know, your high you know, you can go home and go to sleep after a good show. You go out to eat, talk with your friends, you go to a party, go on a date, maybe you sleep with somebody till dawn, you know you that was it was the best time of my life both in San Francisco and in LA. Because I was working every night doing what I loved. And and I was doing it in the company of people who are my friends want my family to this day, the ones who are still alive. And with no there was there was no network, there was no supervision, we had a director who suggested cuts and things to do and we were relied on each other to be supportive and give us joke lines or setups or suggest actions. It was intensely collaborative and had to be collaborative, because that's the nature of improvisation. You co operator you die. And the result is I mean, you can see there was a movie made of what we did is called a session with the committee, basically a film of one of our performances in the evening, you know, edited cut for something called electronic vision, which was you know, basically a video record of it of a stage show. They came to the theater, set up three, four cameras and basically shot our show, and then cut it together like a movie. And it was so successful for what it was. Technologically it was primitive like most live theater. You know, there's not a lot of record of live theater. There's a company called fathom entertainment, which records Broadway shows and does a very good job of it, and I recommend them. But if unless fathom is shooting it, every performance disappears into history. It's just becomes a word of mouth. We did a show once in Austin, Texas, the committee, we did a two x shows very successful. And we did we did in the Fieldhouse are like 3000 people there, they were clamoring for more. So instead of doing a few scenes as an encore, we did a long form improvisation that we call the Herald, which del close made famous in Chicago later, instead of an encore. We did a half hour 35 minute long form improvisation based on some suggestions we got from the audience. And it was one of those magical evenings where everything went right. We were able to do new improvisation we wove tested material into the improv to get certain laughs. And to this day, well, not to this day, but as recently as 1015 years ago, I run into people who say, you know, I saw you guys in Austin, Texas, you were really good. And I have to tell them, You don't know how good we were that night. That was the best we've ever been. And it was you know, it was a superlative evening. No, there's some

Jeff Dwoskin 26:24

shows that stand out in your mind. It sounds amazing. Larry Hankin also spoke very highly of that time.

Carl Gottlieb 26:31

Yeah, do. We were friends at college, we were roommates in Greenwich Village. He got me into The Committee. They needed a stage manager. I was visiting him in San Francisco, but he was with the company. Yeah. Which and we're still friends.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:44

He always he made a point when you're talking to talk about you guys came over to gather all that kind of good stuff he had those those memories of that are really good for him too. And it was it's it's fun. It's because it's raw, right? I mean, that's, that's really the difference. It was you it was you guys and the collective and the synergy of that group. Versus I guess, if you're acting and they hand you a script, and they say hear just say this, it's a different high to execute someone else's words. And yeah, it off. I mean, it's still versus like your own thing. So that's very cool. You've done so much. So Jaws, that's, that's

Carl Gottlieb 27:21

don't ask me what it was like,

Jeff Dwoskin 27:23

I'm not gonna ask what it was like

Carl Gottlieb 27:26

It was a job. When I got hired on the last minutes notice. I was hired as an actor first. Then I was hired to do a rewrite. I got paid very little money for acting and writing. All the money that I made from Jaws I made from The Jaws Log.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:41

I'll put a plug that in the show notes must read. I believe it's considered one of the best Recaps of any movies ever made.

Carl Gottlieb 27:49

It is that it's the best and it's the best selling book about the making of the movie ever in history ever.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:55

Okay, so I'm gonna ask, I just have one question. Okay, cuz I don't want to ask you how it's like, because I don't care how it was like. It was a joke. And the Roy Scheider is like, we're gonna need a bigger boat. Is it? Is that improv? Or was that scripted?

Carl Gottlieb 28:12

There's, there's a complicated history to that. I'm still learning about it. For years, I disclaimed responsibility. I said, Boy, ad lib that line. Period, don't get me credit for it. What I did as a writer, was I created a fully dimensional character that Roy could inhabit. And when it came time to make up words, he would make them up in character and appropriate to the situation, which a lot of actors don't do. They just make up words. So they'll have more to say. But Roy, you know, so I that's what I said for decades. Then one year, there was a blu ray DVD with additional materials that included in the documentary on the making of jaws shot with Roy while he was still alive. And in that documentary, he says how that line became a catchphrase on the set when anything went wrong, because they had some technical difficulties with a boat of the support boat for the for the Orca. And we needed a bigger boat we were pursuing with the crew was constantly after the producers to get a bigger boat. So whenever anything happened when a light fell down, or camera ran out of film, or the shark wouldn't work, somebody would always say we're gonna need a bigger boat. It just happened that when Roy said that line, he said it out of context he'd had, the film had not been edited yet. So we didn't know. He had just seen the shark a moment earlier, come down here and show some of this shift for a while which is a laugh line, followed by a shock reveal of the shark, followed by a cut to the interior where he comes in and says we're going to need a bigger boat. And it's the combination of the editing and the moment that makes that memorable line than it is

Jeff Dwoskin 29:59

that way. That's very cool in terms of I day on Twitter, we have we play these hashtag games all the time. And it's like a race to like, kind of mash in that that famous line from jaws say it's, it's a it's a very popular favorite and a popular GIF on Twitter. So, okay, so that's amazing I so that's a good story for the we got a bigger boat, you actually live with Steven Spielberg during this entire process of writing and rewriting the house. And you guys were friends. Before this,

Carl Gottlieb 30:31

I adapted in a couple of his TV movies, we had the same agent. We had worked on writing some projects together that we couldn't sell. Because if one of the conditions was that, if we sold it, Steve would be locked in as director, nobody would take a chance.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:49

Take a chance on little old Steven Spielberg. See what you hear. Now it sounds crazy, right?

Carl Gottlieb 30:58

Even Michelangelo had to struggle to get his first permission.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:01

Everyone had to start somewhere. Is there anything in the movie that was that you didn't rewrite? I mean, there was in the version that you took over from our wood? Did you kind of scrub the whole thing?

Carl Gottlieb 31:12

Well, we have basically what we did was we trumped a lot of the superfluous stuff, there was a novel is a subplot about the mayor and the mafia and real estate development and all the other stuff. And it was extraneous. And there was a love affair between Hooper and the Chiefs wife, I mean, there's a lot of crap. That was okay with it, you know, the novel was a best seller, you know, we didn't have to do anything to make it a hit bestseller. But we did have to make considerable changes to streamline it, make it an engaging film. And toward that end, Steven and I would, you know, spend every waking minute talking about the changes we had made, the changes we were going to make. Verna fields who won an Academy Award for editing that was present for all those creative sessions. And she would remind us of editorial things we had to keep in mind, you know, if you change this, you're gonna have to change that over there in order to make you know, with that really good collaborative exchange of ideas and materials, the script, great shape, but it was, Verna was cutting along. As we were making the movie, she was cutting it.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:18

I mean, I've seen it many years, even recently, I feel like it's it's like one of those movies that you watch it now. And it's like this could have been made exactly like this. Now I get holds out like sometimes you watch an older movie,

Carl Gottlieb 32:30

the only thing is the clothes and the hairstyles are a little dated. And there's no cell phones. Through those exceptions, the human values play out. And one of the things about resort community like Martha's Vineyard, you know, it's like a little rich people on the East Coast, wear the same clothes they wore to Harvard in 1950. If you're anywhere in that part of the country, and you've got chinos and boat shoes, and a blue Oxford shirt, it could be 1945. It could be 1955, it could be 2025. Some things never change.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:07

That's true. But it's it's it's so good. So good. And that was the first blockbuster to write. So that was like, the whole marketing behind that movie set it. I mean, besides it just being one of the greatest movies ever, just to kind of just

Carl Gottlieb 33:21

jaws is a landmark movie for for several reasons. You one it's you know, so well made movie. It's a great audience pleasing movie. No, no, we know that all you have to do is screen it for an audience. anywhere in the world. It works as an entertainment. But it also was a marketing breakthrough for the studio. And I got to give credit to Sid sheinberg. And hi Martin and Lew Wasserman, who had the courage and the impulse to release it on 400 screens at the same time, which in those days was unheard of nowadays, picture comes out on 3000 screens,

Jeff Dwoskin 33:59

right 400 today would be limited for those days.

Carl Gottlieb 34:02

400 is pretty dramatic and amazing. It grew to 480 or 490, something like that. And then the gamble paid off, and the grosses reflected the additional sources of income because in those days, even you know, Sound of Music opened downtown in a big theater and played there for eight months before it went out to the neighborhood theaters. And if you lived in you know, bumfuck Idaho, you didn't see it moving to the year after it was released in Chicago, so jaws changed all that

Jeff Dwoskin 34:33

happily. So what else do you have like a specific memory of jaws like your favorite favorite scene? I know you were in it. Besides the scenes with meadows,

Carl Gottlieb 34:46

scenes that I'm very proud of. One is when Mrs. Kintner slaps Roy Scheider on the dock and admonishes him for keeping the beaches open when he knew they should have been closed. She said live Exactly as written. So I gotta compliment the actor on that. And similarly the scene with Dreyfus and shader, and may have won out by the Billboard. When they've got they've just discovered bed guard his boat, they've had the shock of seeing the head in the boat finding the shark tooth, but he does he dropped the shark tooth so he doesn't have the evidence. That scene is, again, the lines are delivered as written. The director did a great job of photographing and it's like one or two takes that continually move from a two shot to a three shot to a master to a back to a two shot. It's Steven Spielberg in his most fluid camera direction. And everybody says the words right and assume those two scenes are scenes that I always enjoy what I'm going to theater watching. I also enjoy the morning scene when they wake up, because I think a lot is accomplished in a very few minutes. After Christine's death

Jeff Dwoskin 35:59

masterclass. And then Robert Shaw's Indianapolis speech, that just you went on record as saying he kind of wrote that final version, that he had a guy with a pedigree like that. He can he can put the words together

Carl Gottlieb 36:13

Howard Sackler discovered the incident, the Indianapolis, and he correctly saw in the novel, The character of Quint is completely unexplained. He's just, you know, a blank slate. Nobody knows why he feels the way he does about sharks. So Sackler stole this account of the Indianapolis crypto scene from a book called shark attack, I think, or shark, it was written in the 60s, elements of that book that turned up in the sacklers draft. And then I worked on it and everybody worked on it. Spielberg was nervous about it was two pages of dialogue, a monologue, and he asked all his friends to take a crack at it, but it was sure who put all the different versions together and delivered the goods all credit to show

Jeff Dwoskin 37:02

how credit is shot and sound. Anyway, amazing is the whole between Dreyfus Shah right and it was just an incredible incredible movie and of course you as Meadows. How much did you you you were brought in for two and three to do rewrites, right. See? To felt like more of an extension then three was kind of a time jump at SeaWorld. I see you You stayed away from 4 you know, I just read that Michael Caine who stars in it never saw it either. I feel like every so if you can see like every shark movie that's ever you're gonna hate if you hate this question, just plead the fifth I feel like every shark movie has come after it's just derivative of Jaws. Is there any of them though? That you like maybe heard of her? No.

Carl Gottlieb 37:53

I understand Deep Blue Sea is pretty good.

Jeff Dwoskin 37:54

Oh yeah. When's it one Samuel L Jackson gets killed it's sorry spoilers but the yeah it's there's some good things

Carl Gottlieb 38:02

you know, years ago when I was first starting out and I had worked a lot Intel it variety television. I worked a lot with music acts right. So even before jaws and certainly after jaws people would approached me to write a movie about an about a band about a music group. How is Cooper different different bands whose managers want to and because the banging of the bands had a lot of clout they would no they if you had a double platinum record, you know, you could get a movie made and I would have to kind of shake my head and explain that in the genre about movies about bands Hard Day's Night set the bar just happened that the first the first one was the best ever. You can't you know you can't improve on the Beatles and Richard Lester and Hard Day's Night you just can't you know they got it. They got like to show us they got it right first time out of the box. Every band movie afterwards couldn't make it I mean, you know even the remake of Star is Born you know there's you know, there's they've been big budget efforts they've been low budget, there's been ethnic efforts. You know, the fat boys made a movie I mean, every every band a lot of bands have tried to make movies but sadly they got it right the first time. So with with shark movies for a combination of you know, luck, chance hard work studio interference, genius editing genius music score, genius director. The first one was the best You know, there's the rest are just imitations. You can't top it. Even Spielberg couldn't top himself on that one.

Jeff Dwoskin 39:39

Amen to that and then hit it again. If you're gonna get it right, get it right the first time.

Carl Gottlieb 39:45

We got lucky, everything worked. It doesn't happen. There's too many variables and show business. It just happened and you know, work the actors were great. The chemistry between the actors, locations, the editing and the score was brilliant. You know, like you said, we got it right the first time.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:02

Oh, yeah. As a kid, like, I couldn't get into a pool without hearing

Carl Gottlieb 40:07

45 years when I tell people, I wrote Jaws

and I have to go Yeah, I know.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:16

You did. You messed up everyone. Oh, am I gonna tell I'm talking about talking to us? I'm

Carl Gottlieb 40:22

gonna be surprised.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:23

No, I don't

Carl Gottlieb 40:24

really

know. that much of an effect on you. Oh my goodness.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:32

So, all right. Well, when you want people to look back on, on your on your legacy, like, What is his jaws? How you want to be remembered? Or do you want to be remembered? From a comedy point of view? We are remembered for what we did. For better or worse. jaws being an iconic film. Everybody in the world has seen at least once.

Carl Gottlieb 40:58

Yeah, that and like I say, you can't plan for that. It just happens. That's why Steven Spielberg, is such a genius. If you adjust for inflation, I think six of the top 10 grossing movies of all time are Steven Spielberg movies, that includes Gone with the Wind and godfather one, godfather two. And Sound of Music.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:20

If you're gonna if you're gonna hang with anyone and collaborate with anyone, Steven Spielberg's Yeah, you've collaborated with every like genius in every and every genre. So it's amazing. I appreciate you taking time to talk to me. This is incredible. I really, really, really, really appreciate. Yeah, how can people get the book, The Jaws Log, and I'll put a note of that in the in the show notes.

Carl Gottlieb 41:46

or anyplace books are sold. Go to your bookstore and get a copy of The Jaws Log. They don't have it. Make them order it. HarperCollins will be happy to send you a copy.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:55

Okay, cool. And then you hang on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, any of those. You know, I'm on Facebook,

Carl Gottlieb 41:59

My PO Box and you can write to me and send me copies of stuff. And I'll autograph and send them back.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:07

Got it. All right. I'm going to buy a book and I'm going to send it to you. That's, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It was a pleasure. Well, that was fun talking to Carl Gottlieb comedic legends, writing legend, directing legend. So that was so cool. So if you want to hear a couple more stories about Carl, check out Episode 11. my conversation with Larry Hankin. As you heard from Carl, they were roommates and Larry loves talking about Carl and a couple cool stories to share as well during that interview, so check that out. And then just for a matter of record, I did buy a couple copies of the Jaws Log. I did mail them to Carl. He did sign them and send them back and one is hanging on my wall. I'll put a picture of it of the autograph on my Twitter page at Jeff Dwoskin show sometime during this week. Now it's time for the hashtag roundup spotlight of the week. In honor of Carl Gottlieb, writer of the Jaws movie. He also wrote The Jerk also responsible for the Opti-Grab. We dug into the archives for a game we did for the 42nd anniversary of Jaws. So it's a few years ago, but it's a perfect spot on one it was hashtag #JawsTaughtUs us so what better hashtag than the one that goes with the interview with Carl Gottlieb screenwriter of Jaws, #JawsTaughtUs as always, these tweets will be found at Jeff Dwoskin show on Twitter, retweet these good folks. Show them some love. Their tweets will also be listed in the show notes. So definitely check that out as well. All right, here we go. Hashtag jaws taught us the world just isn't ready to embrace a man eating shark. It's sad. You think after this many years they would be 1001 men went into the water. 316 men came out and the sharks took the rest. That's right. #JawsTaughtUs a story the USS Indianapolis Quint. Robert Shaw talked about we talked about that during the interview, but that is a real story. So you can check that out. #JawsTaughtUs the way to go home. Great song great scene #JawsTaughtUs your boat is probably never big enough. So true. So true. Hashtag jaws taught us not all sharks are as nice as the left one that performed with Katy Perry so true. So true. #JawsTaughtUs kicking sharks is not an effective defense. So sorry, Quint, so sorry that didn't work out for you. #JawsTaughtUs not to elect real estate developers to public office. That one had just a little too close to home. #JawsTaughtUs is closing the beaches and the peak of the season is a bad financial decision. And even if some customers never come back so true so true that's not parallel now with the pandemic at all is it hashtag jaws taught us if you hear a cello while swimming, get the water. Man so much that we have learned from this great movie Jaws so much. Well, that's the end of another episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show. I'm Jeff Dwoskin. I can't thank you enough for joining us and sticking with us through these 26 episodes. Subscribe Like tell your friends go to Jeff is funny.com sign up for my mailing list for special emails. Lots of cool stuff. All right, tell your friends do your thing. And we'll see you next week.

Announcer 45:45

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host Jeff Dwoskin. Go repeat everything you heard and sound like a genius. catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai