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fredalan · 2 years

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"Greetings from Gilbert” on Cinemax.

vimeo

"Greetings from Gilbert" on Vimeo.

{Shortly after we posted about our Gilbert Gottfried comedy special came the sad news that Gilbert has passed away.}

Cinemax presents “Greetings from Gilbert” aka “Gilbert Gottfried...Naturally”

Thanks to Barbara Kanowitz, Gilbert Gottfried, the comic's comic, became MTV's first comedy star. It might not have propelled him as far as Jim Turner as "Randy of the Redwoods" by John Payson or Dennis Leary's iconic spots from Ted Demme, then again MTV wasn't as big in 1986. But, it did get Gilbert his first TV special.

Fred/Alan started life as a production company for TV shows. We’d never made a show, but we wanted to. After our decision to leave MTV we partnered with producer Buzz Potamkin to come up with a show for the Playboy Channel. Things went south with them after the third episode and we left. The good news is that we got ourselves agents. That’s the ticket, they’ll help us sell our shows.

Well, not really. The good news is they introduced us to Stu Smiley, another young’un who was trying to get things going. Eventually he became a comedy exec at Showtime, then at HBO, then he scored big. But in the meantime, we pitched him shows.

“Make it funnier!” he’d write on our scripts.

And then, one day, Stu gave us our big break. When we finally came up with the right talent, the right idea and the right director, Stu was there for us.

Fred Seibert: After ... ahem... interesting experiences creating a music video show for The Playboy Channel and producing the second Farm Aid concert for VH1, Cinemax's "Greetings for Gilbert" –our first real TV show production– put Fred/Alan, and our soon to be production partner Albie Hecht, on track.

The initial vision Alan and I had for the company was that we’d make TV shows. I was thinking about TV movies because we could own them. But Alan and I didn’t really have the heart for those, so comedies (and TV branding, to pay our bills) became our focus.

In 1986, MTV was in its first moment of maturing success (of course, I guess your age would determine whether you’d agree), with all music videos all the time. The promotion department that I’d started was being run by the expansively creative Judy McGrath who'd put together an incredible team that continually found new ways to express the rebellious, outsider spirit that was rock’n’roll. and, it was in the 80s that comedians and rockers really sealed their alliance that had always been there, but really blossomed during this first national cable TV era.

Writer/producer/director Barbara Kanowitz was one of MTV’s best. And Barbara’s the one who made Gilbert Gottfried famous.

One day, seemingly out of nowhere, an obvious New Yorker, a comedian in a blue tuxedo jacket, burst onto the screen at MTV, in a dozen or so short films. They were hilarious, for sure. But, from my perspective, as the architect of MTV’s “branding” strategy –aka, how to make the “M” famous– Gilbert Gottfried’s riffs weren’t only hilarious, they were on message. The promos banged our branding “promises” into your head without seeming like they were actually messages.

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And Barbara’s directing and editing... the spots were gorgeous.

Barbara Kanowitz: I don’t really remember much about the origination of the spots, Gilbert didn’t have much of a following at that point. I do remember his William Morris agent selling him pretty hard.

I did know that Gilbert would be wearing his infamous blue tuxedo jacket and thought that it would pop against the white cyc (or maybe the white cyc was all we had the budget for – honestly, I don’t remember). Each spot had a marketing message that Gilbert was to espouse on. I asked him to speak to each marketing point the same way in different angles and locations with a locked camera so that we could pop him around the frame in post. Of course, Gilbert never repeated anything more than once, he just went off on tangents – which of course was the beauty of him and those spots.

I worked with Gilbert recently and it was nice to see him, he’s still as funny as ever.

Fred: We saw those spots, and like everyone watching MTV we fell in love with Gilbert. Maybe this would get Fred/Alan into the TV specials business!

Our friend Stu Smiley was a top comedy at HBO/Cinemax, which was then the top TV comedy venue, and he'd had been generous to us in many ways, trying to help us get something going. Without Stu, who knows where we would have been?

Alan Goodman: I always remember all the stuff around the show.

I went to see Gilbert almost nightly in the month leading up to the taping, at Catch a Rising Star or The Improv, to become super familiar with his set and talk about what to use. I never in my life saw a comic blow so hot and so cold. The very first time we saw him was at Caroline's original club on 9th Avenue in the 20s I think. I remember we went with Tommy Schlamme and his wife, and she was gushing after it was over. From his "thank you.. thank you.. no stop! stop!" that started the show until he left the stage, the laughter never stopped for a second. Continuous, deafening laughter. Other times, there'd be crickets.

He got into the habit of coming to the office in the afternoon, and planting himself in my office until it was time to go out. He'd sit there all afternoon telling me jokes. Gilbert doesn't much tell jokes in his act, but he knows a trillion jokes and he would just go non-stop. One day he was telling me how much he dislikes Seinfeld, who was just another guy in the clubs back then. He started imitating Seinfeld, but without the jokes. "Did you ever wonder why a pencil has an eraser only on one end, and not the other? What's up with that?" Again, he wouldn't stop and his impression was spot on. That night at Catch, he couldn't get one laugh. Not one. It was a terrible crowd. Out of nowhere, unannounced and unexplained, he just started doing his joke-less Seinfeld. For me. Because he knew at least one person would be laughing.

When we had wrapped, he continued to come to the office for a few weeks, to sit in my room because he had nothing else to do all day. Eventually I had to tell him I had moved on to other projects. I remember he never stopped by without leaving with a couple of pens, a pad of paper, whatever he could carry out of there.

The reason behind the baby blue dinner jacket is that he had established something of a presence in the fabulous rants Barbara Kanowitz Small had developed with him for MTV. That was his wardrobe for those spots and we wanted to piggyback on the recognition.

I also remember a couple days before the shoot Tommy was very ill. There was some talk that I would have to direct. Thank goodness he recovered, because I would really have fucked this up.

I found a video tape of this show, credited to FRED/ALLEN Inc, on HBO Video in a bargain bin years later, paired on the same tape with his "Norman's Corner" produced by our pals Peter Rosenthal and Steve Oakes, written by an equally unknown Larry David. I have it still shrink-wrapped with the price sticker, $2.95.

This was also the show when I learned that, if the network tells you "We don't pay a lot of money for these comedy experiments, but we leave you alone, you don't get a lot of notes," it means you won't get much money, and you will still get a thousand notes.

I wonder what happened to the LP we made from the special that QMI Music was going to release? Gilbert and I traveled down to Memphis together for the launch party of QMI, and as we were walking through the airport he looked around at the distinctively Southern Christian inhabitants. "Somewhere in this airport is a digital counter," he said, "and when you and I got off the plane it clicked up to three. When we go back to New York, it'll go back down to one."

Albie Hecht: Wowser! - (You know, Gilbert will probably ask us for additional payment!)

"Best set I never built!"

I walked into American Place Theatre and they had a Sam Shepard play which had an amazing Airstream trailer in a desert and I said I’ll take it!" - made the deal to keep it for our show.

"We're always working with first timers!"

Tommy Schlamme who was an amazing film director had rarely done multi-camera shows so of course we chose him to direct since we knew he had great comedic timing and creative pov. Which was true and made this show so successful but when we began shooting and he starting calling the cameras and called for camera 2 - there was dead silence in the truck - and then the TD said "We're on 2 " - without a losing a beat Schlamme says " and stay on 2 -, its a beautiful shot " and for then on he was perfect.

"Working with the unpredictable!"

Gilbert was and is a unique and special talent. When he walked out of the trailer at the top of the show and immediately went to his water pitcher and says "I’m having a glass of water," the audience broke into big laughs and we thought - we're home free - But then he kept repeating it "I’m having a glass of water " - After the third time, i looked at Alan in the truck and said "we're F-ed" - but Al was cool and said "wait for it" and after Gilbert repeating it another 3 times, the audience started roaring and that actually went on for 10 minutes.

Not all of it made the final cut but a big moment ( and learning moment ) !!!

Alan: A story I have told many times is about our ACE Award for the special.

Yes, the Airstream was already there, and it's a small detail but we couldn't move it because we shot during a two-day hiatus of a play that was in theater. The play was coming back, and we were told we couldn't move it. Instead, we built around it. And thanks to the pre-existing Airstream (and some additional dressing by Bob and Jimmy), we got our first ACE Award... for set design!

Fred: “Greetings from Gilbert” was a eureka! moment for us. Alan, Albie and I started to think it was more than a dream. We actually had a future in this business! We started Chauncey Street Productions as our label for the shows we would go on to produce.

Ah, show business!

.....

For some reason the credits for “Greetings from Gilbert” didn’t make it into IMDB. (Yet. We’re fixing that now.) So, for history, here’s the team that got this thing done. Thanks all!

Cinemax presents “Greetings from Gilbert”

Starring Gilbert Gottfried Directed by Thomas Schlamme

Executive Producers: Alan Goodman & Fred Seibert Producer: Albie Hecht

Associate Producer: Jeffrey Alan Beer

Production design: Robert Small Lighting designer: Randy Nordstrom

Art director: David George for RSE Set supervisor: Jim Burns

Camera operators: Manny Gutierrez Juan Barrera John Feher Jim Scurti For The Camera Group

Technical director: John Fortenberry Assistant director: Jeffrey Alan Beer Stage manager: Juli Pari Production coordinator: Rie Koko Post production supervisor: M.B. Hagner

Audio: Randy Ezratty for Effanel Music Show open camera operator: John Hazard Show open audio: Larry Nelson

Make-up: Fran Kolar Wardrobe: Julie Anderson

Still photographer: Elena Seibert

Stagehands: Richie Tattersall Eddie Giffenkranz Chris Fedigan Michael Yoscary Alan Stieb

Videotape editor: John Fortenberry Graphic artist: Sharon Haskel

Audio post production: Ken Hahn/Sync Sound

Fred/Alan Production Manager: Steve Shepard Assistant to the producers: Daria McLean Jessica Wolf

Production assistants: Emily Wolfe Chris Stand Kew Yao Agyapon Hyra Goldberg Jeffrey Dinces

Production interns: Nick Avrameas Jeff Samet Maria Tecson Wendy Loeser Janet Gutyan

Video Remote Facilities: Rebo Associates Lighting Equipment: See-Factor Video post production: Broadway Video

American Place Theatre: Joanna Vedders Alfred Miller Bob Katz

House audio: Peggy Freitag Trailer design: Chris Barreca

Special Thanks: Lucy Aceto Wm. Morris Agency Scott Blakeman Billy McDonough IA Local One Caroline Hirsch Campbell McLaren Peggy Reed Michael Dugan Barbara Kanowitz Judith Mcgrath

Management: Ellis/Simone Management

Live Show Produced in Association with Caroline’s

A PRODUCTION OF FRED/ALAN INC. & SCHLAMME PROD. INC.

A Cinemax Presentation

#Gilbert Gottfried #Cinemax #HBO #Albie Hecht #Alan Goodman #Fred Seibert #Thomas Schlamme #1986 #Chauncey Street

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