Private Parts (46 page)

Judy Tenuta -- She showed me her tit once. That was funny. She's funny. Dennis Miller -- Funny. Joan Rivers -- Funny. Andrew "Dice" Clay -- Funny. Woody Allen -- Not funny now. His testimony's a riot, though.

Rodney Dangerfield -- Funny. Cheech and Chong -- Really funny movies. The original Beavis and Butt-head. Steve Martin -- No longer funny. A serious actor. Roseanne Arnold -- Not funny. Tom Arnold -- Definitely not funny. He will ruin his wife's career. Chevy Chase -- Never been funny. Gabe Kaplan -- Not Funny. Dave Thomas -- Funny. Gallagher -- Not funny.

Dennis Wolfberg -- Sometimes

funny. Garry Shandling -- Really funny. Gilbert Gottfried -- Absolutely funny. David Brenner -- Funny. Albert Brooks -- Always funny. Pat Cooper -- Extremely funny. Robert Klein -- Very funny.

Steven Wright -- Witty but not funny. Rosie O'Donnell -- Not funny. Sandra Bernhard -- Funny. Damon Wayans -- Not funny at all. Don Rickles -- I loved him when I was a kid. Bob Hope -- Was one of the greats.

I truly respect anyone who can get up in front of an audience and make them laugh. Especially in those smoky little rat-hole clubs with the uncomfortable wooden chairs that you can't sit in for more than two minutes. Here are some of my favorite moments with comedians who've paid their dues in shit holes like that.

DENNIS MILLER

Dennis is a great stand-up comic but an annoying, arrogant asshole. Incredibly, he switches from a great fun guest one minute to an overly sensitive scumbag the next. I really think he dislikes me, but when he needs the promotion, he runs to do my show.

I remember one time he called me when comedian Gilbert Gottfried was in the studio with me. Miller was just starting his miserable late-night show and he really needed a plug, so not only did he call in, but he was calling in while he was holding his baby boy, Holden. As Dennis began to plug his show, Gilbert and I began to talk only to his newborn son. Instantly, we turned into mock pedophiles, begging for sexual secrets about baby Holden Miller.

"Holden, this is Uncle Howard," I said.

"Holden, what are you wearing?" Gilbert wondered.

"I'm sorry? Did Gilbert just ask my son what he was wearing?" Dennis asked incredulously.

"Holden, how big are your testicles?"
Gilbert screamed.

"Holden, can you send me a Polaroid of yourself?" I said.

"Holden, put your hand inside your diaper and rub," Gilbert said.

"Gilbert's a little pervert. I hope you never have him on your show," I said to Dennis.

"Holden, I want you to unpin your diaper, okay? Just reach around and slowly unpin it. Now slap some baby powder on."

Dennis was not amused. He hung up, but Gilbert and I continued wooing Holden.

"I'd like to be holding Holden," Gilbert said. "Holden, go under the tree and pose."

"Holden, you're so natural and uninhibited. And your skin is so pink," I whispered.

"I remember the last time I saw Holden he was wearing Pampers

and the Velcro was just a tiny bit open," Gilbert reminisced fondly.

"When Gilbert was in the hospital," I interrupted, "he would slip into a doctor's uniform and go to the pediatrics ward."

"Time for your rectal examination," Gilbert riffed. "This won't hurt a bit. Bounce up and down on my lap. Why don't you climb up on my leg, like you always do? Climb up my leg and slide down."

"Touch Uncle Gilbert's candy cane," I said.

"Would you like a spanking, Holden?" Gilbert asked. "We've both been bad boys -- it's time for our discipline."

"Enough, Gilbert!" I interrupted. "Even
I'm
disgusted by you."

Another time Miller came up after his TV show had been canceled; he must have thought he'd get some sympathy from me. But I just reamed him because he blew it. He was blaming Jay Leno for stealing his guests when the real issue was that publicists were not going to book celebs on a show with no ratings.

"Fuck Jay Leno and guests. Your show sucked!" I discreetly explained. He had all these conspiracy theories, meanwhile the show blew and he didn't want to blame himself.

He's another one of these guys who gets a little bit of fame and then his marriage breaks up. I had him on once when we were out in Hollywood and he brought this model he was marrying. So I asked him about his first wife. After we finished the show, he begged me to edit out the stuff about his first wife. So I did him a favor and edited it out. He stayed away from the show for another four years. He was so pissed off that we even asked him about his first marriage, but as soon as he got the TV show, and the ratings weren't there,
boom,
he was my best friend again.

First, he wanted me to be a guest on the show and I said no. I was honest. His show was floundering and I wasn't going down on that ship. Then he told me they'd devote a whole hour to me on the same night that Jay Leno took over "The Tonight Show." Why would I go up against Leno?

Suddenly I was the guy to talk to when he was desperate for ratings and he couldn't talk about his first wife, this Hollywood guy who got some luck and married a model. It was funny, he was one of these politically correct guys who women thought was cool. Me, I'm perceived as a fucking sexist pig. Meanwhile, I'm the guy who sticks with his wife in real life and he's the one whose marriage broke up as soon as the fame kicked in. Strange world, huh?

MILTON BERLE

People mention Milton Berle and they get all teary-eyed. He's a comedy pioneer, revolutionized television, blah, blah, blah. Hey, the reason those early comedians had such huge shares on television was because they went up against test patterns, okay? I never saw the Milton Berle show when I was growing up. I didn't know anything about Milton Berle. The only reason I had him on my show was because he was infamous for having a huge fucking cock. That fascinated me. I found Uncle Miltie to be a great guest, interesting and quick, but all I wanted to hear about was that cock.

But Uncle Miltie didn't want to talk about it. Hey, if I had a penis like his I'd rope cattle with it. I'd be showing it all over the place. I'd be so proud of it. The first time we had him on I tiptoed around his cock. Then we booked him again. His publicist warned Gary that we shouldn't deal with the "penis thing." Yeah, right.

"Here comes Milton Berle into the studio," I announced. "Mr. Berle, every inch a gentleman, by the way, if I may say so. The last time you were on everyone said to me, 'But Howard, you didn't ask him about his weenie.'"

"Oh, stop, that's terrible," Milton protested.

"I have always maintained that you and Forrest Tucker had the biggest ones in the business. Man, it's gotta be great to have a big one," I went on. "You know, when they circumcised Uncle Miltie, they threw more away in the pan than I have. Doesn't it make life easier for you? You don't have to put that much effort into it. I have to do stuff to my wife just to get her excited. Your wife must be like, 'Oh, my God, this is unbelievable.'"

Milton wanted to drop the subject.

"Yeah, it's easy for you to be humble, when you've got a thermos in your pants," I snickered.

I asked Uncle Milton if he'd be so kind as to take phone calls from my audience. What he didn't know is that I had had Gary prescreen the callers and set them up with penis questions. The first caller came on.

"Listen, Uncle Miltie, when you get aroused, have you ever fainted from all the blood rushing into your tool?"

"Very funny," Berle said.

"You see? People are genuinely interested in the size of your

genitals. Uncle Miltie, don't deny this aspect of show business." We went to the next caller.

"Mr. Berle, is it true that you're hung so well that you have a five-skin?" These callers were very well rehearsed.

"Oh, boy," Milton moaned. We put the next caller on.

"I'm dying to ask you this, Uncle Miltie. The thing is, you always wear those baggy pants, so it's really hard to tell. Do you hang to the left or the right, or do you wrap it around your waist?"

I punched another call through.

"I have a legitimate question for Milton."

"Thank God." Milton was relieved.

"When you wore a dress on stage, Uncle Miltie, did anything ever stick out and graze the floorboards of the stage?"

"See, that's all they want to know about, Uncle Miltie," I gloated.

"No more phone calls!" Berle screamed. But we had made our point. We had exposed a true giant of show biz.

JERRY SEINFELD

I love Jerry's comedy and he's always been nice enough to come on the show, but his appearances do seem to revolve around his latest Nielsen rating. When his television show went up against "Home Improvement" and his show's ratings were in trouble, he was an almost weekly visitor to the show. Then, when NBC switched him so that he followed "Cheers," we never heard from him. One week they shift his time slot and his ratings plummet,
boom,
he's in our studio before the ink of next week's
TV Guide
is dry.

But I love making fun of Jerry.

The main reason I get on Jerry so much is that I'm jealous of him. It drives me fucking crazy that every babe on the planet, especially these Long Island hausfraus who are looking for husbands, thinks Jerry's a great, regular guy and they could get him. Meanwhile, he's going from model to model, dumping one and picking up another one a week later. Every imbecilic single woman I know wants to meet Jerry Seinfeld. Even if they look like a truck hit them in the face, they still think they can get Jerry Seinfeld.

This guy is living the dream bachelor life! I saw it on that Barbara

Walters special. He's got a three-million-dollar house with
two
refrigerators in the kitchen.

A woman who once had a date with Jerry called into the show. She said he picked her up and took her back to his place where they watched Jay Leno do his monologue on TV. To top off the evening, the dream date included a running critique of Jay's monologue. Now that's incredibly romantic. If a regular guy did that on a first date any normal woman would be disgusted. So whenever Jerry comes in I'm sure to bust his chops about his womanizing.

But women are such idiots; they keep going out with guys like Jerry because he's famous. They never dated me and I have a much better personality than Jerry Seinfeld.

"Aren't you nervous about getting the AIDS virus, Jerry?" I asked.

"No, I'm not nervous about it," he laughed.

"What? Do you check the girls?" I asked.

"Yes," Jerry said.

"What, you spread their legs and use a flashlight?" I said.

"I only go out with girls that can do a split on the hood of a car. That's how I check them. And then I get behind the wheel of the car and I look through the windshield," he laughed.

"And you just put on the wipers, right? I like that," I said.

"I get the windshield wiper fluid with Nonoxynol-9," Jerry said.

Then I found out Jerry was dating a
seventeen-year-old.
How immoral! How wrong! God, how I wish I were doing it! I saw the pictures of her in the
Enquirer.
She had the breasts of Jayne Mansfield, the hips of Marilyn Monroe, and the butt of Betty Grable. My God, she had the body parts of all dead people.

We even wrote a song about her. Her name was Shoshanna. It was a parody of "At Seventeen," the old Janis Ian hit, and, even better, we got Janis to sing it when she came into the studio to plug her new album.

AT SEVENT
EEN

Seinfeld's girl is seventeen An innocent with double Ds He saw those breasts and flipped his lid For a real young busty high school kid

A horny lonely TV geek Her major jugs made Jerry weak Can't he find girls his age to date? She's seventeen and she's jailbait

He takes her out in New York town That lovely girl and the TV media clown She'd barely shed her training bra She'd kiss his lips for candy bars

A nice guy you turned out to be Did she sit upon your knee? You shouldn't really grope for them At seventeen ...

Her panties must smell like a rose Is Seinfeld just like Piscopo? Seducing girls in a limousine While his fans think that he's so damn clean

Can't Seinfeld find an older dame? Do private parts all look the same? Does he make her parents shout When he sticks his tongue into her mouth?

You're making such a spectacle Thinking with your testicles If you're gonna make some glue You should date girls as old as you

Fell for an old man from TV Her pubic hair grew in last week With fresh and firm and round butt checks At seventeen...

As of now Jerry's not talking to me because of this song. I got word through a publicist that he wouldn't appear on my TV show because of it. Jerry should be flattered I wrote a song about him. I wish someone would write a song about me.

One of my favorite comedians is Garry Shandling. His "Larry Sanders Show" on HBO is about the best thing on television.

ANDREW "DICE" CLAY

I happen to think the Diceman is truly funny. Especially when Dice first broke on the scene, I thought his material was hysterical. Dice makes me laugh hard, and these other comedians who put him down are just jealous assholes who wish they could fill a stadium with rabid fans. How anybody could think this guy was somehow more than a comedian is beyond me, but all these nudnick journalists started writing essays like "The Politics of Hate" and suddenly Dice was being treated like a politician, as if his words
really
mattered. Hey, lighten up, the guy's a fucking comedian.

I also despise this idea politically correct people have that no one can make their own decisions and evaluations in life, and that the average guy who goes to see a show is such a moron that after he hears Dice he's going to go right out and rape two broads and get

drunk and do some coke. I can't believe anyone would place that much significance on Dice's act.

Dice is a very nice guy, and I think he's a very talented comic. But I think he reacted to the criticism the wrong way. When his critics really came down hard on him, his reaction was to say, "Hey, I'm a character." By saying that, he turned off his core audience. They didn't want to know that he was a character, they wanted to think that Dice was that guy they saw on the stage. And you want to know something? I've spent a lot of time with him and he
is
that guy.