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Gilbert pod freed PODFRID. You see it's kind of a pun on the last name and never mind.

Hi, I'm Gilbert Godfrey. This is Gilbert Godfrey's amazing colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're here once again at Nutmeg Post with Frank Verderosa.

And our guest this week is a best-selling author and comedy historian with a vast almost scary knowledge of all-time show business.

Vice magazine referred to him as the human encyclopedia of comedy and Los Angeles magazine called him the King of Comedy Lore.

His work has been praised by the Atlantic monthly, the Chicago Tribune, Vanity Fair and Comedy Central. His website classic showbiz, a site devoted to comedians and showbiz, was called infalible by the onions AV club and his new book from Grow Press.

The comedians, Drunk Steve Scoundrels and the history of American comedy. Please welcome to the podcast on official jack-order biographer Cliff Nesterhoff.

I thought you were going to say unofficial jackass. Yes, well that too, which brings us I and thank you for the once sentence about me.

Well you've you're in there a lot more than some other people I think red skeleton is maybe not mentioned at all but you know every person that is in there less than one sentence I have heard from the biggest fan of those particular people so some red skeleton worshipper who's 90 years old except me a scathing email how dare you don't you realize he was on television for 20 years don't you realize the rolling stones debut.

I'm an absolute genius. The book was originally supposed to be just void fill through to the mobster right I pitched the idea for the book that I pitched was about comedians in the mafia because if you worked night clubs in the 30s 40s 50s or 60s nine times out of 10 your boss was the mob and I found that kind of fascinating because people talk about Frank Sinatra and the mob but what they don't realize is the reason he was connected to the mob is because he was playing all those clubs.

So anybody who played those clubs was mob connected including the comedians and I always found that more interesting because it seemed more perilous if your vocation is ridiculed and you know I always what what I find interesting is it's accepted that can be that singers back then a lot of them were owned by the mob yeah where they didn't my favor once and now if they call them up and said oh my third cousin is having a

birthday party that's right fly across the world and you sing at it that's right to do it yeah Joey Bishop had to MC the wedding of Sam jacana's daughter in Chicago the famous mobster Sam jacana he just didn't have a choice he said I need somebody to MC the wedding are you available well no I'm not really available well you're doing it and it's on March 5th you know you didn't have a choice interesting yeah yeah so there were a bunch of comedians owned by the mob most of the guys that were working on the mob are not the same as the other

in the 40s and 50s and night clubs whether it was jack Carter shecky green Joey Bishop so many of them they they even any young man talks about you know in his autobiography he said most of them were were great guys even though they were murderers and thieves

Sammy Shore says that in the point in the book yeah he witnessed a murder yeah I mean I'm going I don't know how much of Sammy Shore's word you can trust but he said he was playing a place called Dan supper club in Danville Illinois when somebody was

assassinated in the back of the club while he was on stage and he kind of did he started playing the trumpet on stage to kind

of distract people he played the Saints go marching in while people were running out of the club and after that the boss of the club gave

him a raise and booked him for an extra two weeks because he thought he handled it so well and then he says great guys great guys great guys great

I mean I heard like Jerry Lewis saying that they were terrific to them you want to introduce our other guests who sitting in with us

oh and not really okay okay so clip I'm not going to say a fucking word introduce me okay it's written there yeah oh you want to

okay you want to wing it yeah I'm going to wing it because I don't know you know who I am not for taking we only go

back 35 years yes also sitting it's a former two-time guest of this show and award-winning illustrator a

satiric artist whose work has appeared in time newsweek the New York Times the Wall Street Journal rolling

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