The Amazing Colossal Podcast

During the 90s, India has a very limited range of choices with respect to American TV programs. There were reruns of shows from the 80s or old seasons of new shows. 

The only program that we got that was relatively fresh was The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which was shown over the weekend nights on CNBC India. 

This is where I first discovered Gilbert Gottfried, his wild and hysterically funny interpretations of everybody from the Pontius Pilate to Harry Potter or Kim Jong Il. His inimitable voice and unique countenance made Gottfried was the funniest that I have ever seen but none of us knew his name, but one rarely sat after the second act to listen to the musical act, hence one never got a chance to read the credits and hence Gilbert’s identity was restricted to ‘that funny guy on Jay Leno’

There were occasions when  I heard the same voice as the parrot in Aladdin and wondered if it was the ‘funny guy on Leno’, I watched him in ‘Beverly Hills Cop II’ and was certain it was him, then in the mid-2000 when high-speed internet came to India and YouTube was accessible. 

Being a Seinfeld fan, I once did a search of ‘Seinfeld’ and one of the top results was wrongly labeled as a ‘Seinfeld Interview with Howard Stern’ upon clicking it I realized it was Stern and somebody doing an almost perfect impression of Jerry Seinfeld and then there was the laughter and the voice and I wondered if it was ‘that funny guy on Leno’, I paid close attention to the conversation and managed to find that his name was Gilbert. 

That was it; a quick internet search through for ‘Gilbert Jay Leno’ was enough, I finally got the name ‘Gilbert Gottfried’  The rest of the months were spent listening to Gilbert’s many famous appearances on Howard Stern. There were impressions of the senile Groucho Marx on Dick Cavett and Bela Lugosi as Dracula and of course Jerry Seinfeld among many other famous people. There were bits and goofs on the attention-seeking Nanny of the famous film director, millionaire Abe Hirschfield and even the owner of a pornographic magazine Al Goldstein. 

Gilbert often sit through the Robin’s News and regale the listeners with his unique take on the occurrences, on several occasions he would even take over the news, yet Stern would never intervene since he knew this was a genius at work and what was being said, despite being impromptu and unconventional was radio and comedy gold.  

What was brilliant about Gilbert was how he seamlessly employed his brilliant impressions in various bits, the choice of the occasion was often very rare and rather unthinkable, such as Jennifer Aniston as Bella Lugosi professing her love for Ross, but it worked magnificently, there surely was nothing like this I had ever heard before and I can safely say that I perhaps never will hear. Then there were the comedy roasts, we all know about his legendary appearance at the Hugh Hefner Roast after 9-11, and the others were equally brilliant, the same can be said about the Dirty Jokes DVD. 

The combination of his voice, his irreverence, and his genius comedic abilities would often prove to be a winning combination that on several occasions’ ripuproarious laughter was not enough to accommodate the level of hysterical hilarity that was being presented. The mind was sending laugh signals to the face but the face struggled to deal with the level of laughter. 

There were other funny appearances on Jeff Ross’s comedy show, celebrity wife swap, and chat shows but they came here and there in bits, I regularly did searches for Gilbert and sorted it by upload date, to ensure I got the latest.  There was the occasion when he was forced to resign as the brand ambassador of Affleck for some ‘offensive’ tweets about the Japanese tsunami, but the occurrence made Gilbert the brand ambassador of freedom of speech especially for comedians, he wrote articles for CNN and even playboy. I could really and honestly say it is one rare occasion that I actually visited the playboy site for the article.

But apart from his Dirty Jokes DVD, a few comedy specials, and his hilarious memoirs, Gilbert had never done anything where he was the sole focus, no sitcom, and no comedy show. The only way fan gets regular updates about him is through his Twitter account and his website. Hence when it was announced that he was doing a weekly podcast, it seemed like god sent. But one hardly knew what to expect, I knew it would be funny, but what else could it be. But to be able to have an episodic show that focused on Gilbert was enough reason to celebrate.

After eight episodes of ‘The Amazing Colossal Podcast’, I can safely write that it lives up to its name. There are two factors for judging any work of art, entertainment, and memorability.  Most podcasts of current times are entertaining but you can’t remember a thing about it the next day. Luckily for the ‘The Amazing Colossal Podcast’ is unique, enriching, compelling and absorbing, and above all eminently entertaining.  I have listened to

In the company Gilbert with his able and amiable co-host Frank Santopadre, the listener is taken on a journey of an age in Hollywood that has probably been lost in the pages of show business history.  Also special on the show is the irreverent chemistry between Gilbert and Frank. Frank Santopadre is a famous comedy writer and has worked on The View and the Howard Stern Show is as fervent and knowledgeable as Gilbert about old school and sometimes obscures show business.  We are regaled by interesting anecdotes of many of the legendary figures of both TV and Cinema from the Golden Era. 

A similar pleasure was derived during the TNT aka TCM days, it seemed like we were transported back in time to an era when films were simple, peculiar, idiosyncratic, and yet compelling. For younger viewers cinema is all about special effects, stunts, mammoth robots fighting, blood, gore, nudity, foul language, and all of this done in 3D but there was a time when films had none of these. Thus it was often up to the writer, director and actor to convey what was going on without actually depicting anything in a stark fashion and it was up to the viewer to guess the subtext by the clever usage of words or action.  

That is what probably made this such a unique experience. Every actor, be is a B picture character actor or an A list superstar had his own style of dialogue delivery and we loved them for this. Some of these films may not have aged well and may feel unintentionally hilarious, but they are unique in that they provide us a window to the past, an age where celluloid was innocent irrespective of what occurred behind the scenes.

Most comedy podcasts include comedy bits, jokes, and interviews with contemporary comedians, this is a safe bet.  Hence it was both brave of Gilbert and Frank to dedicate a podcast to the golden era of Show business since conventional wisdom would suggest that a podcast usually has younger viewers and it is unlikely that the youngsters be interested in podcasts dedicated to beloved stars from the era of their grandparents. But this very nature of the podcast also made it unique, and that what made it work rather magnificently for all of us who love old cinema and TV. 

It may also serve as an eye-opener for many of Gilbert’s young fans who will discover these great films and TV programs after listening to Gilbert and Frank’s passionate and enthusiastic discussions.  I confess that there were some guests that I had never even heard of, and yet the way the interviews evolve often peppered with hilarious anecdotes is what makes it very interesting. This is also the reason why the podcasts have reached the top of the charts on iTunes and have been receiving a big thumbs up from audiences worldwide.