#392 - Gary Mule Deer on Being Roommates with Steve Martin + Getting Into Comedy on Accident + Hanging Out With Johnny Carson and Seeing David Letterman’s First Comedy Set + Why Frank Sinatra Told Him “He was Unusual”

Gary Mule Deer's (@Gary_MuleDeer) unique comedy and music career have set him apart for over six decades. His path to starting in music to getting into comedy by accident is one of the most unconventional stories that Bobby has been able to dive into. Gary talks about once being roommates with Steve Martin and how he wrote his first joke. Also how he used to hangout with Johnny Carson and was at David Letterman's very first comedy set. Bobby also explores Gary's musical background and how he once shared the stage with Frank Sinatra and Willie Nelson on the same night, and we find out why Sinatra told him he was unusual. Gary also shares how he was surprised by his recent Grand Ole Opry induction, and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's one of my first night show business. Honest to god,
I gotta do it. Music, comedy, gambling, and drugs and prostitution,
all in all five food groups in the same night. Hey,
here we go, Episode three ninety two. Gary Muldeer, he
just got inducted as a member of the Grand ol Opry.
He is so funny. I did not know he was

(00:24):
in his eighties. I thought he's probably a young seventy.
I did not know he was in his mid eighties.
I also did not know he didn't live in Nashville. Yeah,
and we talked about this. He comes down once a
month from South Dakota to play the Opery, but his
comedy career is so storied you're gonna hear stories about
Frank Sinatra, Andy Kaufman, David Letterman. I mean, I don't

(00:46):
really want to say anything else, but I'm a big
fan of Gary Muldier, and we were trying to track
him down to get him on this. It was a
little harder than we thought because he doesn't live here.
But even as much of a fan of him as
I am, I still came away going holy trap. He's
been through a lot, has done a lot, has towards
a lot of people. Weren't you a bit mind blown? Yeah,
I definitely. I mean that he used to open for

(01:08):
Dolly in like the seventies in Vegas. That's a hilarious story.
So Gary mule Deer. I just can't believe some his eighties'
This is wild to me because he on stage he
is rocking man. Here is his highest streaming joke. It's
called Grandpa. My grandpa used to say, listen, if we
all like the same things, everybody'd be after your grandma.

(01:37):
My grandpa used to say some weird things. He used
to say things like one good turn gets most of
the blankets. One time somebody asked him what he wanted
to be when he got out of high school. He
said no more. In twenty five I have mentioned this
to him, but Caitlin's grandfather had never been to the operation.

(01:58):
So I took her and Gary was playing and he
was laughing so hard, and I also was laughing, but
we were both just dying laughing, but really love it.
His documentary comes out called show Business in My Life,
but I can't prove it. It's coming out later the summer.
Conan is a big part of it all. These comedians
that say he influenced them Carrot Top, But here we go.
It's a lot of fun. It's Gary mule Deer here

(02:19):
on the Bobby Cast. My introduction to you was the Opery. Honestly, yeah,
and I consider myself a moderate fan of comedy, but
I was watching your stuff and the night it was
just even different back then, it was really different. And
I can see where a lot of these guys credit
you as being an influence on them. Yeah. I run

(02:41):
into that all the time. I have for some time
and lean up on the microphone a little bit. Sorry.
They're always asking me. Younger guys will ask me too,
like do you have any tips for me? I just
always say I don't see anything. This is funny, you know.
I just I always made sure I never had anything
to fall back on, So you never had a what
do you mean, fall back up on stage or life life.
I just going to do this, and I thought, if

(03:02):
I want to do it, I better do it right,
you know. So that's what I've been doing all this time.
I was always a little under the radar, you know.
I was helping down all the time. Did you wherever
frustrated with being I'll just say what you said under
the radar. Was therever a frustration like I'm actually good
and I'm different, but I still hasn't like hit like
you wanted to hit. I deal with that now. Yeah,
every day I feel I feel that. Now, what are

(03:23):
you feeling that? Then? Never did? Never have? I just
always been pretty comfortable wherever I've been. I was always
I always thought to me, just making seven five hundred
dollars a week in the lounges in the seventies and
in Las Vegas, Reno and Toe and alternating with toppless reviews,
I thought that was as good as it gets. Every
so often I would do it Tonight Show. They never

(03:44):
let me do the Tonight Show at Johnny because drops
of my guitar. Okay, they hated it, but when somebody canceled,
they'd call me. I did thirteen shows when people canceled.
In fact, one time we did a show where the
guest host canceled and like us, sad to be the host.
I mean that they just didn't like my props. I
remember one time I did a show. It was so

(04:04):
good on Tonight Show. They were still clapping to the
commercial and after the show, I walked up to Freddie
Decarterbay I said, what do you think you know the producer,
and he said, it was great, Gary, but that's not
the Tonight Show. You want to be the Tonight Show.
You wear a suit, you know, you come out, you
get rid of all this stuff, your props, your guitar,
all that stuff. We'll put you on through or four
times a year. And that never worked out for me.

(04:25):
So ironically, you know a guy, would you really will
in the Tonight Show. Johnny would call him more to
sit down. That was a big deal. If you got
to sit down with Johnny, that you were made with me.
I got to know Johnny better than they did because
they just met him that night, you know, on the show.
But Johnny would work the weekends in the main room
with the Sahara and I was in the lounge, so
I would go and hang out of the backstage with him.

(04:48):
He'd come and look watch me in the lounge. Sometime
we'd sit around later after the shows and talk. I
got to know him pretty well. And the other guys
that really did well on the Tonight Show, except for
two or three, like Steve Martin who played poker with
him all the time. Nobody really knew him like I did.
What was Johnny like, I'm a massive late night talk show?
Like I used to go to library as soon as
I could drive. Where can people drop me off? I

(05:08):
would go and watch old Jack Park. I got a
Jack part microphone. Yeah. Like also that to me, you're
talking about things. I get just excited about him. But
what was Johnny like hanging out? And why was he
doing a set? Was he practicing material for the show
because he wasn't. He just had a show and he
would do a lot of stuff from his monologue, but
he had writers with him, and he also just did
his own our observations of things. He was the guy

(05:29):
and what I noticed about him, which is so different
from today. You have a celebrity out among a lot
of people. God, you know, they're they're they're just they're
just surrounded. And with Johnny, people kept a respectable distance
from him. They always did. And Johnny, we love your show.
They nice to see you where we saw your show tonight,
but nobody came up for an autograph. He just had

(05:50):
this thing about him and he remember taught me one thing.
We would leave to go to the elevator, to go
to the rooms. People would talk to him, but he
would just keep talking to him, but keep moving stop
And you know today that doesn't happen any Why do
you think that is with him? Because you know he's
what was it from Nebraska? Right? Yeah, so he's like
middle America. You really couldn't define where he was from
by how he talked to Everybody felt like that he

(06:12):
was from where they were from, right was it? Did
he have kind of like a regals a weird word
because we don't have that here, but like like he's
some sort of like royalty, and you respected and liked him,
but you didn't want to get too close because the
rules were you don't like, why do you think that
is with him? I'm not real sure because I see
things like he'd be in the main room and Buddy

(06:33):
happened to be coming in the next week, and Buddy
was out in the out in the showroom or out
in the casino trying to get all the attention he
could get. He was totally different John. There was something
about John that people just respected and they really just
kept their distance and we're just happy to just to
be able to see him, having him talk to them.
And there was No, he just kept walking, just kept moving,

(06:54):
and no one felt offended. Were you ever like Johnny,
let me let me come on with you? I mean,
you know, why don't you put me? You want to
call me over? If you're like hanging out? You never
thought about kind of hopping into that water with him there? No,
never did. No. I just I was always happy with
I always worked. People thought I was always the hardest
working guy in show business, and I was. I had
to work every night to keep even because I was

(07:16):
a twenty four year Provian marching powder guy. I mean, jeez,
I never I went to bed Monday, Wednesday and Friday
for twenty five years. I mean, I'm lucky to be here. Seriously.
What was it like in South Dakota where you grew up?
It was pretty cool. I grew up in a ranch
and I tried every job after I got out of
high school. I have a record of Black Hill State

(07:36):
Teachers College. I was a seven year of freshman. I
had thirty three incomplete and an A and archery. Have
you been for a Yes, had thirty three incomplete and
an A and archery. Yeah. I mean, and that's why
I came famous on shows by taking my guitar using
it as a bowl, putting a Rubbert chicken on a microphone,
putting a cigarette in his mouth, walking up thirty two
feet and shooting, using my guitar as a bowl shot

(08:00):
shooting the cigarette out of the chicken's mouth. Back to record,
I have his own David David Letterman. It was a
thirty two feet so you set the record on I
said the record on Letterman? Yea, how many times you
got Letterman? I was on Letterman about a dozen of
each shows each one like Late Night and Late Show,
so NBC, NCBs, Yes, And we bonded immediately when I
when I met him, I'll never forget. I was at

(08:20):
the comedy Store a few years before he came in
when he went up for his first set that night.
I remember standing in the back room, which all the
comics did when a new guy came on their back,
kind of sizing up the guy, you know, the kind
of thing. And I remember him saying he was doing
an editorial. He said, you know, w x ZUY would
like to take this time to say we are a
diametric diametrically opposed to using orphans as the yardage markers

(08:44):
at driving ranges, and that got me right away. Wow,
this guy is something. So I went up and sat
till I got off, and we talked and became really
good friends. I mean, that's that's how we've known Letterman's
probably I was about probably seventy five something like that. Yeah,
I started, you know, Tom on stage. It was nineteen
fifty six. I think, what kind of stage could you
get on? I was at the Silver Dollar Bar at

(09:06):
the Ward Hotel and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was a
bus boy at a place called Pahaska Tepee at the
east entrance of the Yellowstone and the guy in the
bar had a big country gentleman a gretch guitar, and
he could play one song, Johnny Cash's Big River. I
could sing it. So we got to be pretty good
at every night in the bar, and on our night
off we went over to Jackson Hold the silver Dollar Bar.

(09:29):
He got up and played a Big River. I sang it.
They gave us a couple of free drinks. We did
about three times that afternoon. We got some food that night,
and coming back. I remember driving his convertible driving back
through Yellowstone at night, which was something at nineteen fifty six,
and thinking to myself, someday, I want to do that
song with a band. And then I started putting bands
together and started in fold music. I think about fifty

(09:50):
nineteen sixty, and I got into comedy by mistake, by accident.
The B seventh chord got me into comedy my first night.
I don't i'd learned. I think ten Johnny Cash songs
and Mule Skinner Blues in the key of E, and
I went at the song with Johnny Cash's fulsome Prison Blues,
and the first two lines I missed the B seventh chord,

(10:12):
and all eight people in the audience who had been
ignoring me after that time, just stopped and looked at me.
So I told the first joke I ever wrote, which
was three snails Molesta Tortoise officer arrives to mccut the report.
Assist to the tortoise, all right, I want you to
tell me exactly what happened. The tortoise said, well, everything
happened so fast, and everybody laughed, and then I went

(10:32):
back there drinking again. I went back into the song,
and I missed a chord or two or all night long,
and pretty soon I noticed I was getting more response
from my comedy and my jokes, and it was from
my singing. And I was playing the pinball machines in
between my sets. I think I was getting fifteen dollars
for the weekend. I was playing it from nine to
one with forty five on fifteen off. And this is honest.

(10:53):
It got through. What happened. I lost most of my
money between sets playing the pinball machines. And then when
I got through, there was a lady sitting at the
bar said, what are you gonna do now? Gary said, well,
I'm gonna probably get something to eat and go back
to spearfish. This was in Deadwood, South Dakota. She said,
come with me. She was the madam of the Pine Rooms,
one of the brothels in Deadwood. There were from eighteen

(11:13):
seventy six to nineteen seventy six there were brothels all upstairs,
all along main street. And she was the item of
the Pine Rooms. So I took my guitar and my
amp and you know, my little microphone, sat in the
corner and entertained. The guys are up to see the girls.
There were miners, you know, from the mining camps. There
were guys from the oil rigs over in Wyoming. They're

(11:34):
the cheap herders of in Montana, all kind of in
that area. And plus the college was only ten miles
away of Whish where I got thirty drink completes and
an a and archery and I played until about probably
until about four in the morning. I'm starting to fade,
and she walks up and gives me a little black pill,
but a half an inch long. It was exit drain

(11:54):
and I took this and next day at noon, I
was still playing my guitar. This is the honest truth.
She came up and said, you know, Gary, you can
stop playing now. So I stopped, and she said, by
the way, one of the girls kind of like ships.
So I went down to the room with one of
the girls. But I just sat there and just talked.
I was just so high, and pretty soon she looked
at her watch and said, you know, I got to
get back to work. That's okay. So I stayed up

(12:16):
all that day and then I started to fade that evening,
and so I went up to that madam again. I said,
if I can have one of those pills again, I'll
come back after I get through with my set at
to a Buffalo bar so my first night in show business,
honest to god, I got into music, comedy, gambling, and
drugs and prostitutions, all in all five food groups in
the same night. That night, my first night in show business.

(12:39):
Say so, were you funny as a kid? Were you
smart as a kid? And not so much? Like? Did
you study and make good grades? But did you feel
like you were quicker at more advanced than others? I was,
and I could have made good grades. All I wanted
to do is read. I'm still a reader. I read
two and three books a week. My thing is to
My favorite time is to read till two or three

(12:59):
in the morning and get up with eleven, have somebody
to eat, and go play golf. That's kind of where
or go get ready to do a show with that
afternoon or that evening. But that's I still read two
three books a week. That's what I do. That's crazy,
two or three books a week. Yeah, And I'm always
been a reader and a speller. By the time I
got into first grade, I had an uncle who had
a big business. He took me around and maybe read
billboards to him and read the paper with him at night.

(13:21):
I could read pretty well and spell by the time
I was in the first grade. Yeah, were you not
challenged as a kid intellectually? And so you know, he
didn't make good grades, because why would you you're so
advanced anyway, Do you feel like that was it? I
got by. I always got by. I just always got
by with where they're always with the teachers or whatever.
It was where I hung out with the smartest kid

(13:44):
in all the classes, my friend Building Wigan. He was
a genius. He'd do my homework for me in a second.
He'd do all this stuff for me. So I always
got by doing that. And that's a I don't know,
I just uh, I had We had lived on a horse,
you know, at the ranch for ever. And then when
I got out of college, I got married to my
high school sweetheart, had to get married. We had a

(14:06):
son coming along, and my dad gave me the movie theater.
We also had a movie theater and the ranch. So
I would just remember how I got into the music
with that. During the late fifties and early sixties, all
the top groups came through and there's a two thousand
dance hall to held two thousand. They came to South Dakota. Yes,
Spearfish as a matter of fact, it was called the

(14:28):
Spearfish Park Pavilion. That's where I met Jerry Lee Lewis,
I met the Everly Brothers, I met the Fenderman. I
bet God, all these different acts came through all the time.
The Everly Brothers and I would be at my theater
the night before on Thursday night watching Kelly's Hotel across
the street. When the guys pulled in, I would go
over and tell them, you guys want to see a
movie to night after if you want to run a

(14:49):
movie and give you a popcorn. And so they would
all come over and I'd keep the projectionist over and
they would watch a movie. Then the next side I
would get onto the park and sad by this stage
and they'd see the guy gave him a movie in
popcorn and say can I got to do a song
with them, And so this day all the guys remembered me,
The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, all of them remember me,
the Ventures, even getting up on stage. Ventures never played anything,

(15:11):
sang everything. They just played and they'd let me do
Summertime blues and mule Skinner blues with them. And that's
how I got work up. That's how I worked in
show business and spear feature. So you cut your teeth.
Basic played musically in a lot of ways with the
very famous people because you had a movie theater and
you just kind of yes, traded it out. Yes. And
I finally decided to put a band together because I
found the best musicians in the area. Were you good?

(15:34):
Could you play? I was just a rhythm guitar player
and I could sing. Once again, I just got by
because I had the best musicians I could find in
the area. Had a guy that was an incredible guitar player.
I mean he played like Noki Edwards from the benchures
he played like James Burton. He played like he could
play anything, even jazz. And I found the best drummer.
I found the best saxophone player, the best bass player,

(15:56):
and we opened for all these groups when they came through.
I've got posters opening for the Champs in sixty three,
and I think I'm right about this. I think the
Champs at that time they had the song to Quila.
I think it was Glenn Campbell and Seals and Crofts
were the first three guys in the Champs. And I
remember that's when I met Glenn and years ago. Years
later when I came out to LA I got into
a group called the New Society and our CEO Vector Records.

(16:18):
We went into record and Glenn Cambell we had the
Wrecking Crew to our song we went out on the road.
We couldn't play our album. You had the Wrecking Crew
to you had the Wrecking Cup. Yeah. We had Carol
k on bass, We had Jim Kelton on drums, we
had Glenn Campbell on guitar, and we couldn't play our album.
It was just they were so good. Yeah, they were
so good, and we had this album it was kind
of doing okay, and we couldn't do anything. We couldn't

(16:40):
play it. These guys were so good, but it was
amazing for me to I won the calend contest with
another guy called the Black Hills too, at this college
that I flunked out of. We went the first prize.
You got to go to Denver, Colorado, and you got
to play free at the airbase for the Officers Club.
They gave you a meal and put you over the night.
That was your That was it. It sounds like word, yeah,
it was. Yeah. So my partner went back to South

(17:02):
Dakota and I stayed down there and I saw a
sign up one night that said jose Feliciano coming in.
I didn't know who he was, but he said they're
looking for an opening acts. So I went in and
uh mits. When I met Michael Johnson, you know, I
had Blue or Than Blue and Let's Spend the Night
together those songs. Michael and I both got the jobs
working with Jose Feliciano, and I hung out in Denver,

(17:22):
did as many bars as I could, and when a
friend came up to me one day and said, can
you play bass? I said yeah. He said, well, I'm
going out to join the Greenwood County Singers in LA.
They're looking for a bass player. I said, okay, I
could you play bass? No, okay, I was gonna say,
oh yeah, I couldn't play bass. Got then we went
out to California. I went in with the group. In fact,
Van Dyke Parks was the leader of the group at

(17:42):
the time, and they had me a bass. They said,
let's play our hit, went into the Frankie and Johnny song,
and h I couldn't play, And everybody just stopped and
froze and looked at me and the guy that brought
me out and says what And I said, I camp,
but I'm pretty funny. And I remember Van at seeing Gary.
We're not looking for funny, We're looking for a bass player.

(18:02):
So I went out on the street and waited while
they rehearsed. That night, he came out to me and said,
you know we're leaving it. We're going on the road tomorrow.
I know a guy. He's a cook at Ledbetter as
it is Randy Sparks club that had the New Christian Minstrels.
You can stay at his house the first night you're
on your own. He dropped me out with the club.
I went in, honest to God. The MC was John
duchendor if he wasn't John Denver yet. Steve Martin was

(18:25):
the magician who had an act that never worked. The
carpenters who were twelve and thirteen years old, who had
to sit with their mom out in the in the alley,
in the car between jobs, between shows, I mean because
they had a served liquor. It was Mike Settle in
the first edition. Kenny Rogers was just the bass player
in the group and that was and then we had
the back porch majority which was a farm team for
the New Christian Minstrels. So that was my first, my

(18:49):
first night walking into this club. Let me walk back
through the first second. So the MC was John Denver,
John Denver, he was still do duchendor if he hadn't
changed Denver yet yet, So that by itself would be
a crazy story. Yeah. Obviously Kenny Rodgers before he went solo, Yes,
he was just part of the band and bass player. Yeah,
he could play bass. Actually was the difference there, and

(19:09):
say he actually knew how to play played? Yeah. Who
was the carpenters? Carpenters twelve and thirteen years old? I
think that's what they were. Crazy. Yeah, and Steve Martin
was the magician. Was an act that never worked. Yeah,
and so you see that now were you performing? Did
you do anything that night on stage? Not? That night
was the next night. I came back with the cook
and the guy that ran the place, Danny Will and

(19:30):
his wife was one of the back porch majority. They
were a farm team of the Christian Minstrels. He said,
are you old enough to check I d s? I said, yeah,
were you? Yeah? Okay, Steve lied a lot, I know,
I led all the time, I was actually twenty two.
I could check IDs. So he said, by the way,
Michael Martin Murphy's leaving the New Society and they're holding
you're holding auditions tonight, so write down people's names after

(19:53):
we're gonna have auditions. So after that, I wrote my
own name in and I went up on stage and
I silly thing I did. I just said, I'm new
I'm from South Dakota. I was just outside and I
saw some guy having an argument with a girl and
she's stabbed in the hands with a pineoneil a while
and she screamed and took off. I said, I'm just
from a small town. I took my hand on my

(20:13):
pocket and I had it wrapped, make it look like
like it was you. That. Yeah. For some reason, Brandy
Sparks thought it was great, and he said, that's it.
You're in. And I didn't know any of the songs.
We're going on the road in two days. Then we're
gonna go down and do the Miss Universe pageant in
Miami at at the Found Blue Hotel, and we're gonna
be with the Pat Boone as the host, and we're

(20:36):
gonna do that, and then we're gonna do Jack Link
Letters Talent Scouts on NBC, and this is I didn't
know anything I did. You were in LA for a day,
like a day, two days, two days at this point,
two day, two days, the right time, at the right place,
at the right time. But you also had to do
the right thing at the right place at the right time.
I was funny. So we changed it to where I
would just introduced all the songs and made fun and
I just they always made me sure my microphone was

(20:57):
my microphone, from my guitar, my post vocal. We're off
until I learned the songs. And that's how I got
into it, just being at the right time. Hang tight,
the Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow, and we're
back on the Bobby Cast. If it hadn't happened. But again,
I don't think you get yourself off credit because you

(21:17):
did the right thing at the right place, at the
right time. But if that hadn't happened so quickly, do
you think you to move back home to South Dakota.
I no, I wouldn't have gone to South Dakota. I'm
not sure what I'd have done. I just I wasn't
sure what I wanted to do even at that point,
you know, I just I was so happy to be
into this group and it was so incredible. There's a
story that I love to tell. I'm gonna drop a
few names here, so keep your feet. We love the

(21:38):
name drop. Okay, well what's your feet because I'm gonna
tell you this one. So I was in the New
Society and we went down to the Miss Universe pageant,
and of course these girls hadn't been around guys for
like six months, and we're out at night. They would
sneak out of the rooms. We were out on the
beach with all the Miss Universe girls and one girl
that got runner up, Miss israel vb Israeli was her name,

(22:00):
they called her. She was runner up. I gave her
my phone number and I was in LA. About a
week later, I get a call from her and she
had been hired by hired by Israeli Bonds to be
a spokesperson for them, and she was put up at
the at the I think it was a big hotels
very close to somewhere around Westwood. I can't remember the
name of the hotel, but anyway, she had a suite,

(22:21):
so she said move in with me. So I moved
in with her. I was with her two nights and
I had to go on the road to play a
place called Bimbos up up in San Francisco and with
the New Society. I'm up there a day and I'm
rehearsing in the afternoon at the bartender said, you got
a phone call, and it was her and she said, Gary,
you're stuff with the Bellman. I'm getting married. So that's

(22:45):
quite she wanted. She wanted somebody to had a lot
of money could bring her mother over. So I said, okay,
So I just got my stuff with with, you know,
from the Bellman. Now here we go. Ten years later,
I'm with Deborah Winger. We were together for a year
and a half. We were in Las Vegas gambling. We
have run out of money, we have no place to go,

(23:05):
so we go over to see Freddie Prince opening for
Andy Williams, thinking we could get something from you to
keep us awake. All Freddie her quay Lads, which opposite. Yeah, yeah,
So we did quay Lads and gambled. So that didn't work.
By the way, anyone listening out there, don't do this.
And uh so we gambled away all of our money
on quay lads, we went over to start Us Hotel.

(23:27):
I called Jim Hager from the Hagar Twins because he
was part of that group too that I forgot to
tell you about within Randy Sparks that night, the Hagar
Twins were there to send us one hundred dollars. So
Debra Winger and are standing in the start Us Hotel
waiting for one hundred dollars telegram to come with some
money to get home. And I'm walking around the place
and I'm looking for I'm looking for money that people

(23:48):
might have missed in the you know, in the pans
out of the slot machines, and I hear, hey Gary.
I look over and there's two ladies sitting there and
they're they're hardcore slot players because if we're wearing gloves
in those days, the stuff that dropped down was pretty dirty.
So they were in gloves, they had potbillies, they had
cigarettes hanging out of their mouth. It was missus Rael
and her mother and she says, hey, Mom, that's Gary.

(24:10):
Remember Gary. I told you about Gary. Mom says, yeah,
I remember Gary. And there never stopped playing, just talking
to a cigarettes hanging out of their mouth. So Debra
Winger waves to me and says, the money's here. I
walk over and she says, who is that? I said,
missus Rael nineteen sixty seven. She says, yeah, right, I said, boy,
do I have a story for you? And that's one
of my stories. So a couple of things you said,

(24:31):
I'm just remember to get back to them. But went
to watch Freddie Prince. Did you know him? I knew
him very well. In fact, I was on the first
HBO comedy special, Freddy Prince and Friends. I was one
of the five people on that show. So his death
obviously he died very young, Yes he did. That was
a horrible thing. Yeah, and apparently from what I have
because again being a fan of comedy, and you would
hear people just talk about how great he was in

(24:53):
his brief time. Yes, that he kind of came on
so strong and so fast. He was so good that
there was so much potential that we never really to
experience because he died so early. Exactly what was he
like as a performer? He was incredible, He was really
really good. And his best friend was Ellen Burski, who
was a comedian who actually was with him when that happened.
I mean like, Ellen's never gotten over that, and we

(25:13):
don't know exactly why what happened. We know that Steve
Lebetkin didn't get on the comedy list one night, so
we went next door to the Hyatt, went up to
the roof and jumped off into the it's like twenty
stories down into the comedy store parking a lot with Freddie.
We never really knew exactly why he did that. I
think he was steering around. He always had guns. I

(25:34):
think it was almost accidental, maybe a rushing roulette kind
of thing. I don't know. I'm not sure even No,
even the people are really close to him really have
no idea why he did this. Was he dynamic on stage? Yes,
he was. There was something boy immediately you were drawn
to him when he walked up. There was just something
about him. It was just his accent, his just his

(25:56):
way he looked on stage. Everything about him was incredible. Yeah,
when you look back at other comedians that you've seen,
you mentioned Letterman, Yeah you saw us first ever, said
who did you see? Really early on where you saw
them went day? They are so good, either in a
way of like adoration or like at times for me,
I'm like I get jealous. I'm like, man, they are
so good, Like, who was that for you? Steve Martin.

(26:18):
As soon as I saw him, I knew he was
going to do well. And we've had a place together.
I was him and I and Michael Johnson lived together
for a while. You live with Steve Martin? Yes, he
was my roommate and he was worked for the Smothers
Brothers show. I was too irresponsible to be at the
office every day, so I just would ever so often
send in stuff. So Steve has been on the show
about three four weeks. He has contributed nothing. He calls

(26:42):
me and says, I need a couple of things from
your act. I said sure, So he gave him. He
wrote him out and gave him to the guys that
worked perfectly. Tommy said, okay, you're in. But Tommy had
come to him and warned him he was gonna have
to let him go. That broke his writer's block after that,
so he always gives me credit for that. So I
broke his writer's block on the Smothers their show. Yeah,
I can't believe you live with Steve Martin. Like to me,

(27:03):
I don't know who yours is because I'm gonna ask
you this. But if I were to do, like you know,
my top four greatest influences of all time on me
at who I not who I've met, because I haven't
met any. But it's like Letterman, because I saw a
guy who was a bit of reverent, didn't look like
what everybody else looked like. It was just odd, but
people were drawn to him like it's Letterman, it's Steve Martin.

(27:23):
It's both of those guys, and the fact that you've
had relationships with both of them. I was always attracted.
Besides Letterman, I was always hung out with funny musicians.
To be to this day, most of the funniest people
I know are musicians. Conan I mean, Roger Miller was
one of the fastest and quickest I've ever known. But

(27:44):
people like at Jack Benny was my influence who played
a violin me. He could really play. But to this day,
I noticed a bunch of musicians hanging around really funny.
A bunch of comics hang around is one guy trying
to top the other guy, and so I just kind
of out away from that. I was always with musicians.
That's we get through at the comedy story. But he

(28:04):
would go out to Delhi and talk and do stuff.
I would go out down to the strip and that's
where I met Robbie Krieger from the Doors Sore, I'm
at the Birds, who I met all these guys going
way back. I was always attracted the guys that played,
and to this day it's the same thing. Would you
play then, so when you dedicated your life to doing
more comedy, obviously kept playing because you have the guitars
bay here, But would you try to stay let's say,

(28:27):
in shape, playing wise in case you ever needed to
really play? No. I just always made sure I had
a joke ready and I could. I've never been above
the fifth re read. That's how I got true. Roger
Miller said, there's no money up there. He's right, but
I just use it. It's true, it's true. I see.
You got a picture of me right there with my
guitar on this end with us right now. You see

(28:48):
where it's all worn off up there at the top
of the all that's cocaine days from what though, just
slashing at my guitar. Yeah, yeah, like trying to make
a lot of noise to make it sound like I was,
you know, trying to be a one man bands whatever.
Once I stopped doing drugs, I never did anything like
that again to that guitar. By the way, that guitar
now has say fifty six guitar players signed on it

(29:09):
on the front back of it. Yeah. I was at
the opery I got a few weeks ago, and my
wife's grandfather came. He had never been to the opera before.
I talked to you before the show. It was the
last time that united seen each other, and Vince was playing.
You were playing, and I was telling him. I was like, Gary, hilarious,

(29:29):
you gonna love him. And he's like, yeah, I've never
never seen comedy the operate. It'd been a while since.
And so he came out and I remember him and
I both laughing so hard. Do you have two you
have forty years splitting us up and we were both
laughing so hard. Did you find that your comedy then,
let's say seventies eighties, did you find that it was

(29:50):
palatable even enjoyed by different ages or were you kind
of dialed in more to a certain demo. I always
worked with all ages, and I just I'm really. They
always said laughter is the best medicine, and then they
meant I think they met healthy laughter all my all,
my laughter is above the belt. And here's here's somebody
a good example. You take somebody like Andrew Dice Clay
and the late Bob Saget and they're on stage and

(30:12):
they're doing the best they can with the audience. There's
a certain decibel level that they are and then you
take somebody like Rider Rudner of myself whatever. When we're
up there at that same level, it's a different sound,
it's a different it's darker. The other the other comedy
is darker. Mine's always healthy. I love it when people
come help to me. And the mom says, I've never
laughed at my kids before. The kids say, we never laughed,

(30:35):
see dad laugh like that. They usually the kids hate
what the parents thinks funny and vice versa. And I
just seemed to bridge the gap I always have. And
that's what I was saying to it, like both of
us were just dying. There's the bit that you did
at the start of it. It It was I think you're
playing Ring of Fire, Yeah, and it was you know,
fell and you drop your guitar pick and the guitar.
Then you spend the next twenty thirty seconds just trying

(30:56):
to get the guitar pick out of the guitar exactly.
I was laughing so hard because that is a brave
segment to do, meaning you just gotta trust that the
awkwardness is going to translate into some people and they're
going to know that it's funny. That's right. It happened
to me, actually happened to me, and people were laughing

(31:16):
so hard. I just kept it in. So I've got
about I got about twenty good picks in that guitar
if you shake it and uh, and I put it in.
Ever since then, when I found the Ring of Fire,
it was perfect because of an ifill Ino right just
right in and it's oh no, and then right down
I'm down. I'm down on my knees. So there's the
guitar mic right there, so I can tell a few

(31:37):
jokes and the guitar mic until I get them going
that I can raise get back up again and stew
the show. I've just always had a lot of fun
up there. I'm just and there's certain things that I've
I don't know, there's not many things that I've I
can't do anymore. They've been doing for sixty years. Do
you still right. I still do. I still do. Do
you have every all the jokes written down somewhere? Though

(31:57):
I do, I have some. I just fact they're doing
an exhibit of all my old stuff at the opera.
They're going to start putting it one of those glass cases.
So I got a suitcase full of stuff to take
to him. And I've got a guitar case from the
sixties and seventies. There has so many stickers on it.
That's a set lists that I just put on it.
I noticed one that I just found yesterday. I've stayed

(32:19):
with Randy Hart. He was my favorite, my best friend.
Who's the staff keyboard on the opera. I met him
when he was Roger Miller's music director in seventy seven.
That's another story. Anyway, I've got this guitar case and
I noticed something that I said a long time ago.
I said, it's not who you know in the business,
it's just knowing if they are really in a meeting.

(32:41):
I'd forgotten that completely. I saw another one and said, bigger,
bigger things and never been falling through lately, I've had
some things fall through. I never dreamed I even get
close to stuff like that. But I have all over
my guitar. I've got a lot of stuff. Yeah, I've
been writing forever and I write. Eighty percent of the
stuff is my own. The other twenty percent. Maybe I'll
hear a joke and I and I tailor it to

(33:02):
my to what I like. I've found a joke here
just now that I rewrote that. Now I have to
end my show with. I can't follow with anything. It
used to be I would follow in my show with.
A couple months ago, it was a knock at the door.
I answered it. It It was huge Jehovah's witnesses. I invited
him in and he said out of the couch. I said, well,
what do you want to talk about? And they said,
we don't know. We've ever made it this far before.

(33:23):
That's what I always ended the show with. But now
I just do that with the first thing when I
dropped my pick because I've got this new joke. Now
that's just ridiculous and it works so well, I just
I end with it. You know, I've been with Johnny
Mathis in the orchestra now for thirty years. Going In
the middle of his show, Johnny comes out and does
thirty five minutes. I come out and do thirty. He
comes back and does an hour of fifteen. I've been

(33:45):
doing that forever, And you can trace everything I do
back to the game of golf. When I came out
of rehab, I needed a new addiction, and in nineteen
eighty seven, I took up golf at forty seven years old.
And everything I do now or what it is, we
can trace it back the Opry Nashville. Now, anything that
I do came out of celebrity golf tournaments. It just

(34:08):
that's how it happened. So I want to go back
a little bit too. Being in South Dakota, you're he
lived on a ranch. Yeah, you had a theater, your
mom wash you around. My mom was around, Okay, so
your mom and dad they were both there, yes, And
what did they first of all to you? What kind
of relationship did you have with them? And then secondly,
what did they think of a kid from South Because
I'm from Arkansas and my dreams were like aliens to

(34:31):
people there because nobody left. Yeah, what did your parents
think about your dreams of music or leaving to do
something creative rather than staying home. Well, I failed at
everything else. They weren't really sure that it was going
to happen. In fact, I just kind of took off.
I ran away twice from run away from home twice,
once when I was a sophomore and once when I
was a senior in high school. But I also I

(34:52):
have to tell you this is how I lost the
movie theater. My dad took it back. He gave me
the theater as a wedding prison to run for, and
to give you five hundred dollars a month to run it.
And this is what happened. This is how I lost
the movie theater. If every ember Ilford Hitchcock's movie The Birds, Okay,
well but the birds are like so if you were
sitting in the audience down below the balcony watching the birds,

(35:15):
what would you do if somebody like myself and my
assistant manager threw four live pigeons zone into the audience. Yeah,
I mean I would, Yeah, yeah, that would freak me out.
Well that's what I did. Yeah, that's what we did.
It was like live live action, way ahead of your time.
My dad took back just the worst. Do you still
live in South Dakota? I still live in Spirit Fish.
I'm back in Spirit fisht I had no idea you

(35:36):
played the Opery. I mean, I feel like I see
you play the opera a lot. Do you come in
every time for the memory, every time for it? Yeah?
I do. I come in from one month, one week,
a month, Yeah, I do. I'm blessed to have this.
I mean, I just about break even. It's incredible. Whenever
you were invited, not inducted, to different things, obviously, whenever
you were invited to be a member of the Grand

(35:57):
Old Opery, did you sense in any way that was coming. No,
I did not. It was a Henry show and we
were under the under the guys they were doing to
do a new circle show called The Comedy of the Opry,
and they wanted to interview us about the comedy and
the Opery, and so it was all set up. They
had cameras set up the whole thing, but they actually
they were they weren't doing anything. Marty Stewart was asking

(36:18):
us questions, and at the end he said a lot
of times about it. He says, by the way, the
Grand ol Opry members would like to invite you both
to be members. We had no idea. I really did not.
I had no idea we're going to be inducted or
invited even Yeah, how did you create a relationship with
Nashville and the opery At the beginning, I think being

(36:40):
on TNN. TNN was a natural fit for me. I
got I'd done everything, I'd done all the clubs. I
wanted to get out of clubs. I wanted to get
into other stuff. So I decided to go and do
cruises because the they were families and they paid a
lot of money. And I got that. By the way,
I was playing a golf from it with the Charlotte
Hornets and my partner was a guy was a guy

(37:01):
that was I didn't know anything much about him, and
about halfway through playing golf, he said to me, Gary,
how come you don't do cruises? I said, he don't
pay anything. He says, how much do you want? I thought,
oh great? I said who are you? He said, I'm
the head of Royal Crimpin Entertainment. I said, okay, I
just doubled my price. He said all right. I thought,
oh great. He said, well you know you'll get more
of it works out than it did. And I did

(37:22):
one hundred and sixty eight cruises. Wow. So I did
that and also started working on TNN. And it was
a natural fit for me. In fact, roy aycoff Aycoff
asked me to do the first opera. He because he
saw me on TNN. I think I did sixty something
of shows with with Ralph Emory and I did all
the other watch Off Emory all the time, Crook and
Chase anything. Yeah, I did him forever. They are all

(37:42):
those shows in Nashville. It was perfect for me, perfect fit.
And they said, oh, you're a country comedian. Well, I said,
I guess I am. I never thought about it that way,
but yeah, I do country music and I worked well
with families and That's what I've done forever. And I
was on the last year and a half a Hehaw
That was weird too. That was great. That was I
loved it. You know, I want to get to hell
on a second with the backtrack. So you say country,

(38:05):
you say country comedian. Were in LA? Were you like
the country guy? That was kind of yeah? I was.
I always wore a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. I
always had a guitar, yeah, and I wore unusual, unusual clothes.
Did you play into that a lot too? I did, know.
I just wore just wore boy wore, and I have
the guitar that I'm giving them for this exhibition. There

(38:26):
were NBC tried to do a country show once. They
tried to do a country show. What do you mean
country show? And like, well they put me Carl Perkins
with a couple of other people as regulars on it.
And they tried to do a half hour country Western
show on NBC and like comedy or music, comedy in music,
so like he haw, yeah it was and it only
lasted about one season. But I remember I wanted I

(38:47):
wanted an unusual guitar, so I always played Japanese copies
of j two hundreds made in Mexico. There were one
hundred dollars. They looked like they looked a good guitar,
but they weren't, and I had them at that time.
Shaneric Ducks came out all over the country. It was
like it had a name of what it was, like
oatmeal and then a bar code. Right, so I had
him put make me a guitar like that. I hadn't

(39:09):
painted white, I hadn't put a bar code on it
and guitar across the front of it. And then instead
of having Fender or Gibson, up at the top of
the neck. I had n't put Ralph's Supermarket, and I
played that thing for twenty two years. That's the guitar
I'm giving them now for the exhibit. But yeah, I've
played all kinds of different things that I never thought
much about it. My guitar strap always had a quiver

(39:29):
on the back with arrows in it, so ever so
often I would just take out shoot into the audience,
and then I started doing the chicken thing, you know.
But yeah, I always Yes, I had three hundred pounds
of props at one time, and a partner Mulder and
Moondog Medicine show from seventy to seventy five. We were
pretty unusual in what way musically and skit wise and

(39:51):
everything we did. We did incredible parodies on commercials. We
did historical things which people would know now. You know,
Ben Franklin running into John Hancock and we're upset because
Betsy Ross has got a flag that looks like a
holiday and towel doesn't look anything like it should. Things
like that. But we did all these things and it
was pretty amazing and it went very fast. It went

(40:14):
really fast, and we were way ahead of our time.
We did in concert. We did Jack Parr when he
came back on the air, and Jack Parr came back
on the air. Mulder and Mundog were his favorites, and
we also were Heffner's favorites. We played every Playboy club
probably a dozen times, and one night I was playing
a Playboy club. We got through with our act. A
guy comes up to me and says, someone wants to

(40:34):
meet you in the back. I walked back. It was
Jack Benny who shook my hand and said, young man,
you have the potential of my timing. And this is
when I had an afro. It was like two bushel baskets.
You could hardly see my eyes. I got a picture
of him and I on a TV show together the
next day in Chicago. It was Gay IRV Cups and
Eckers Cup. Anyway, we had a date day day TV

(40:55):
show I'm on with my idol. He was my influence
because I grew up with radio TV until I was
a senior in high school. So that was something to
me I never forgot. And I think a lot of
it is my timing, you know, But again I hear you.
I think timing is a big part of it. But
if you hadn't had whatever, that innate whatever, you could

(41:15):
be in the right place at the right time forever.
But if you're not doing the right thing and it
ain't gonna work out, that's right, the Bobby Cast. We'll
be right back. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast. Just
thinking about your mule deer. They called you that because
you have to literally spot mule deer. Yeah, really the
yead I dropped the bus and with the B B
B stop the bandag, what's going on? I'd be spotting

(41:37):
mule here with the spotlight. I had a Chrysler Chrysler
engine in a old for four or five seat Limmo
and I would drive that and I was always high,
so people wouldn't even notice in the band that I
hadn't been to bed yet. We'd drive in one place
the other and then I do a show, get back
and drive again. I go to bed about every three days,

(41:59):
and it will be the host band and be the
guy that ran the show. How did you not die?
I don't know, I mean it all. It took two times.
I went into tensive care in eighty seven and from
from a wreck or overdose. Okay, but okay, harvest comes
to the best. I almost had a stroke and almost
had a heart attack, and the guy said to me

(42:20):
when I came out of if you ever do this again,
you're gonna die, so you better go upstairs. So I
went upstairs in UH Saint Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, right
behind the NBC, and stayed in there for thirty days.
I went right to the heroin Attics because I knew
they had all the chocolate, and I stayed in there
for thirty days and gained about thirty pounds. Came out
and I remember Randy Hart, my friend Randy, who was

(42:42):
Steve Warner's UH music director at the time. They were
playing in a a place I wanted to come over and
see him, So I went over to see them. I
was house sitting at the time. I'd been on the
rehab ten days. They left, they left town, and I
went back to the house, house sitting, and I thought
to myself, I can probably do a half a GRAMMU
won't hurt anything. Because I was trouble writing and doing
and making a song work. And there was a guy

(43:03):
in the in the San Fernando Valley that roamed with
the Pager in those days, and he wasn't there in
thirty minutes. It was like dominoes. It was free. He
was never late. He brought me half a gramma cocaine.
I put out two lines. I snorted one. Boom my heart.
I hit the floor. I remember crawling over to my
friends phoned I was out sitting for called ninety one,

(43:24):
crawled out the curb and waiting for him to come
and get me. Ironically, when I got into intensive care
that night, it was the same guy that had had
me before I rehab and he said now. I remember
him saying, if we can slow his heart down, he's
got a chance. And when I came out of it,
he said, now do you believe me? I said yeah,
And I never did it again. That was it. Yeah,
and that's why I took up golf. I gave up

(43:45):
one four letter word for another one. I gave a
coke for golf. Yeah. I saw you at pell Beach
this year. Yeah, you were playing and you know they
have everybody do something. Yeah, And I didn't even know
you were there. And I'm sitting in there and I
just met Ron Rivera, the head coach of the Cane.
I'm like, and everybody was super cool. The first time
I've ever been invited to go up there, and I'm
looking around and going, man, I kind of don't belong,

(44:08):
like these are really famous people. Yes, but everybody was
so nice. I've never been to an event like that
where there were so many famous people and the role
was you better be awesome where you're not gonna get
invited back. And then they're like, here's Gary Mulder and
I was like, Gary's here, yeah, And then you get
your guitar and you crushed and you crushed the room.
And I wasn't even supposed to be on that. I
brought my guitar. I would be with me. Usually I

(44:28):
do the volunteer show on Thursday, but I couldn't exactly
go with work somewhere else. But uh yeah, I remember
my first celebrity golf tournament was the LPGA. Well, actually
I was playing golf how to Balbo and Encino in
San Fernando Valley and I played just a public of course,
and Smokey Robinson came up to me and said, have

(44:50):
you ever done a celebrity golf tournament? I said, I
don't know what they are, so I'm gonna take you
to one. So he took me to Roy Clarks and
that was my first one, but my biggest term. My
first big tournament was the Craft Nabisco, which was the
LPGA thing the ladies did. It was originally the Diner Shore.
I remember the guy Terry Wilcox calling me the day
of my practice round and saying, Gary, You're going off
at ten thirty with Joe Damagio, John Havlicek and H

(45:13):
and Johnny Unitis. Is that okay? This was my first
So one of the greatest baseball players ever. Yeah, huge Celtics,
like best basketball player and then a crazy famous NFL player,
the big, biggest every Yeah. And that was my first time.
I hit the worst drive in my life. I think
it went about thirty yards. But I've been a Yankee
fan ever since I was nine years old. Was Dimajo awesome? Oh?

(45:35):
I got to know him really well. He became my pal.
Every time I would do three we did three different
tournaments together. We'd have dinner together every night the night
before I got to I've Got I've Got the only
National League baseball signed by Joe Dimajol. I brought the
wrong baseball one time. He said, you went me ever
signed something and he said, don't ever show this to
anybody till after I'm gone. I have a National League

(45:57):
ball signed to me by Joe Demanjio. But I gain
And remember one day out on the course, we were
waiting for a group ahead of us that were kind
of slow, and he said to me, you know why
I like you. I said what he said, You've never
asked about her Marilyn Monroe. Yep, yeah, that's one of
the things he said. Man, I remember getting chills when
he said that to me, and he said, I mean

(46:18):
that you've never said a word. And that's I appreciate that.
Anybody that ever did boom out of his life, it
had to be a different time without people having cell
phones and documenting everything that was happening everywhere. Because just
even Demaggio, like the guy world famous, the hit has
the hit record for just the guy, and if we'd
had phones, everything he would have ever done would have

(46:40):
been documented. How is it so different back then? Oh,
it was so different. I mean somebody might have had
a camera, a little disposable camera with him, or somebody
might have taken a picture, maybe send it to you
or something. I have no pictures of my band of
the carols opened for all those acts back in the
back in the sixties. I have no, no, nothing from
the news society that I was in. I have very

(47:02):
few things for Mulder and Moondog. I just things happen
all the time. I go back and I think, oh
my god, anything we had, just all the people that
I met, all the people I worked with, and no,
it's totally different. Well, the only thing I really like,
the only thing I really like right now that I
really like I realized I liked about the seventies. I

(47:24):
never lost a phone, because there's nothing worse now we
can't find our phone. I have a friend not too
long ago, Will Shriner. He's a great comedian. He has
had his own show for years. I remember riding with
him one time to a golf course. He's talking to
his wife and he's driving and he's going like this,
and he's looking, he's pulling up things. I said, Will

(47:46):
what he says, my phone? My phone, you're on it.
Will find your air, you're on it. You're talking on
your phone right now. I mean that's I see things
like that. When I get spam calls, I just usually
say things like, you're on the air, or I'll say
things click, We're all seeing like Lawrence Country Shrif's department.
We hold, can you hold? And they go away and
oh yeah, you gotta have something to say. Yeah, we

(48:09):
interrupt this interview to bring you a message from our sponsor.
This is the Bobby Cast. I was looking for your documentary.
I didn't know wasn't getting released. Told released to late
this summer. I was all over trying to find it,
like a month ago. Just got sold. So and that's
why I bring up Conan because I haven't seen the documentary,

(48:30):
but I was like looking for anything I could get. Yeah,
and so I saw that Conan was a part of it.
Starts it off yet Yeah, so what is the documentary?
When does it come out? And how do we watch it?
Five years before COVID's two guys came up. We said,
they've been fans of mine for twenty for forty years.
They were both in their fifties, since they were ten.
So we're going to do a documentary on you. I said, Okay.

(48:51):
Then I start following on all the scent, everything you've
got that you did, TV shows, anything you have that
we can that we can we can transfer over and
we'll go out and we'll do with all the places
you played in the early days. We're going to do
this whole thing. And he said, the main thing we're
gonna do is we're going to find a guy to
play you when you were young, a guy to play
wh when you were at middle age, and then you
will play in yourself now. And h it's pretty amazing.

(49:14):
It's Scott, It's Scott Conan. It's got Jay Leno, it's
got Steve Martin, it's Goot Kevin Nealon, It's got the
Carrott top. I was a big because I was a
big influence on him. It's Goot Callis Cooper. It's got
Vince Kill, Ammy Grant, a lot of different people doing it.
And it's called Show Businesses My Life. But I can't
prove it. And it's uh, it's done great at every

(49:36):
screening it's gone to. It's it's one all but two times.
It's one best best comedy documentary. And I'm pretty pretty
happy with most of it. How do we get to
see it though? One I Finally it's going to start
streaming on Netflix and Hulu and everything else again beginning
of September. It was sold somebody called Comedy Dynamics, who
have who put out a lot of different comedy things,
and they're just telling me, the producers just what you relax,

(50:00):
we got a great deal. It's going to be really good.
And I say, okay, So I'm just wait and see
and people love it. Jay Leno called me after he'd
watch it, said, this is the first Comedians documentary that
I never fast forward through. I went back and looked
at some of its again, so that to me, it
was pretty good. I can't wait to see it. Well,
I hope we all get to see it. I'm gonna

(50:21):
send you. I'm gonna send you. I'll consume it immediately.
I'm gonna send it to you. Yeah, because I'm I'm
a massive fan. I was just looking forward to the fan,
not even that you were doing this. I was just
trying to find it on a Sunday because I think
about you all the time, day and night, and so
as I was searching for it, I was like, day,
I can't find it. And then I finally saw that
it was a come out out till the summer. That's
why I can't sleep. That's it. That's me. You see

(50:42):
that little thing go by your window, that's where it is.
A couple other things. I just want to bring up
a few people. I don't know if you've met them
or not. I'm sure and you're you know travels Frank Sinatra.
Oh yeah, but Frank Sinatra story. I'm the only guy
I've ever worked with. Frank Sinatra and Willie Nilson in
the same night. I got a call three am from
he went at the Golden Nugget and back in my

(51:04):
proving marching days, I was still up at three am.
He said, I'm opening the Crystal Ballroom downtown at the
Golden Nugget. I'm going to have Frank Sinatra's going to
go open, do forty minutes at the orchestra. We're going
to close the curtain and they're going to strike the
orchestra and set up Willie's band. He's going to do
two hours. Who wants you to go out and do
in front of the curtain whatever, how much time we need.
So the first night Frank did the show and he

(51:24):
stayed over to watch me and little of Willie. So
after after they opened up and Willie goes into a song,
I'm walking backstage and Jillie, who was Sinatra's guy, says,
the man wants to see you. So I walk over
to Sinatra and he puts his hand on my shoulder
and he says, you're a very unusual young man. And
then I look at Jillie and says, I'd say kid,

(51:46):
I walked away. That's the only thing. But I got
to know Barbara really well. I did twenty six Sinatra
tournaments with Barbara Sinatra's Children's Foundation, so I got to
know her really well. And I never got to see
him again, never met him again, but Tom Dreeson opened
for him for fourteen years. You know, Dreeson was with
him a lot. But yeah, that was my deal with Sinatra.

(52:08):
Ray Charles, Ray Charles, Randy Hart, who's the keyboard player
now at the Opera. He was by guy at the time,
just him and I went out and h we played
there's a thing with Ray Charles. You might have ever
heard it, but when Race who Ray fires his guitar
player in the middle, that's Randy's recording on a little
cassette sitting in a booth with with a with a

(52:28):
girl and he punched the little cassette in That was
That was the night we were working with him, him
and we did Frank Sinatra at there, but then we
did uh Roy Orbison, and we did Merle Haggard. We
did all three of those at her at the time,
but that was Randy's recording. You hear that. Did you
ever meet or spending time with Andy Kaffin? Yes, Andy

(52:49):
Kaufin was the only time I ever saw Andy Brake
was when he was that character with a character and
he had to brows on his on his arms and talk.
You know, he had the character and ever went out
of it, never came out of it. We went to
the restroom together at the improv and we were standing
to the urinals and nobody'd ever seen nobody had ever
seen Andy break. And we're standing there and Kaufman looks over.

(53:11):
He says, Yielder, how are you doing in his regular voice,
good man, He says you, I've never heard you talk
like this. He said, this is it. And we've been
back and finished our business, went back out and he
was that guy again, and then I never never saw
him break. That's the way time ever. Yeah, that's one
great memory of Andy Kaufman. Yeah, it's like you have

(53:32):
a really great memory of Frank Sinatra one. Yeah, one
of Kaufman. Yeah, and you did a Letterman, you said twice,
but two different versions of the show. I did. Yeah,
I did, probably Tana Beach, what kind of guy was
Dave when when the show wasn't on and the show
wasn't on. He's very private man, very private. I remember
out of all those shows, maybe going back after the show,

(53:54):
had the show, had dinner with him once before the
show at one of the shows, and went up maybe
two times after the US after the shows. Because David,
as soon as the show's over, he's back watching it,
every bit of it, to see what he liked, what
he didn't like. He was never satisfied. I never saw
David satisfied completely. He'd walk off stage would he would
do a great show, but there was always something he

(54:15):
did he didn't like it. It was the same way
with watching the show afterwards. And pretty soon it got
to where I think, you know, that was what I
felt like, I'd say, Dave, and I see after the show,
I just kind of knew that he was more comfortable being,
you know, saying he got he almost lived there. Yeah,
it was lit at the studio. You know what about
Dolly early Dolly like you guys younger. Wow, I got

(54:39):
a call to they're gonna do Dolly at the Riviera.
She can make the most money anyone's ever made, more
than Sinatra. They're gonna put just Dolly on the on
the thing, on the thing, and they're gonna have just Dolly.
And she was getting three and fifty thousand, and they
wanted me to open for for thirty five hundred. I said, okay.
So the place is packed every night. You hear the
announcer going to gentlemen, welcome to Dolly Parton show. That

(55:02):
people just screaming and yelling and clapping, and you hear
and her please welcome Gary Guilder, which nobody ever heard.
And maybe ten people out of the audience knew who
I was. And I get out to the audis and
it took me about ten fifteen minutes to get him
settled down because they were shocked to see me walk out.
I got no building at all. And but it's funny

(55:23):
that Dolly was just so down home offstage backstage. I
met her the first day. She was ironing her own
clothes in her dress room when I walked by and
I saw this, I saw her. She was just this
little tiny thing, without a wig, and it took me
a minute to say, Oh, Dolly, and she's come on in, Gary,
Gary Muller, I love your stuff, Come on in. We

(55:45):
talked and became friends. But she was just so natural.
Just so I remember one thing that happened with that show.
I remember Mike Douglas came out on a Friday night
with his wife to Dolly the sag Award and they
were going to do it in the midd her show.
And so Mike, Mike Douglas is standing at the counter

(56:06):
to check encounter at the hotel because his wife didn't
like the room and she's bored, and she's playing a
progressive slot machine in the middle of the lobby and
she got twenty bucks one or to play it and
it went off and she had thirty thousand dollars and
guys have been playing that machine for weeks and weeks

(56:27):
and weeks, and she goes ooh, and they said, we
got to put the money in these little trays, and
I don't want to touch that stuff. So they put
the money into trays for it, and now you have
to come over to they have to go over to
the you know, to the cage. We have to ride
out of check and we do this all this stuff
and taxes, and really he said, yeah, you have to
do that, so she would just say okay, all right,

(56:47):
going over and doing all this stuff and like oh geez,
and hearing her that night saying, you can't believe what
I had to go through to win thirty thousand dollars.
I'll never forget that. I got three final questions for you,
all right. Number one, why are you still going so hard?
I don't know. I can't. I can't stop. Everybody I've
seen that stop can't get going again. Plus I love it.

(57:08):
I just am so happy to be right here where
I am. This is where I'm supposed to be. I
just know this is where I'm supposed to be. So
I just I don't think I'm gonna quit. This is
not one of the three. But do you ever think
about moving to Nashville? Yeah? I have, but a humidity
is really bad for my hair. How good of a
golfer are you? And where are you at your best?

(57:28):
I was at my best when I was probably in
my middle fifties. I was never very good. I got
down to a fourteen once. Now I hit from the
red tees because I'm over. I'm the oldest person ever
re inducted into the offering, by the way, I think
at eighty three years old. Wow, I think I'm the
oldest one. But now I hit from the Red Teas.
I think I'm about a twenty from the Red Teas,

(57:48):
from the White Teas, I'm about a twenty five from
the Gold Tees. I'm probably about a thirty from the
Blue Tees. It's probably at thirty five and from the
Black Teas. I just want to hit it past the reds. Yeah, yeah,
way it is. You still enjoy playing I'd love I do. Yeah,
I do. And I like scrambles because they don't have
to drive. They'll never use my drive. I'm a pretty
good chipper and putter. Yeah. And does that anything to

(58:09):
do with this new CDAF coming out in three months.
Probably not. I thought i'd better put it in. Well,
I am. We're gonna get to that in a second
because the documentary in the summer, and I'm gonna get
to the CD here in just a minute. Are there
any Are there any jokes you don't use anymore you'd
like to pass on to me. I have jokes that
I can't use. It anymore, Like, what give me one
that I can now use that I will always know

(58:30):
this was a Gary Mule deer joke, but it's not
politically correct. Okay, well then I can't do it. You
can't do it. One thing about you're going to see
in this documentary is they act out some of my jokes.
You hear my voice and they're mouthing they acted with.
Actually will see the joke and hear my voice. I'm
trying to think and I'm not going to say the joke.
Did you do it when I saw you a few
weeks ago, if you operate it was about a dog. Yeah,

(58:53):
it's the final joke about a dog. My final joke
is about a parrot. M Okay, I guess the dog,
or it's like the dog. I do a dog song
for the kids, I do a pit bulls. Yeah. There's
also like, I remember what it was. I want to
repeat your joke, but I remember being so funny. Okay,
I don't even I remember the parrot one, now I
got I'm not gonna spoil it. I remember the parrot one.

(59:14):
The parrots saying something that's a pizzet parrot. Yeah, obviously
parrots say something in jokes, right, Mike, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Um,
the live or the CD. I guess it's not really CD,
but yes, that new album, Yeah, a new album. Yeah?
Where have you did you recorded or have you not recorded?
Ard it? Live? You did a place just before COVID,
a place called Buck Tower Gardens and uh in Florida.

(59:36):
And now we hadn't worked for a while, myself, my
production guy, and we just decided to just do the
show that night for the heck of it. And it
turned out to be real good. I didn't know how
good I was going to be because we hadn't worked
much because of COVID, and it just turned out really well.
There's uh. I just had. I've got what I do
I have when I'm on the road in my show,
I had I traveled with the Duck and Cover Band.
That's the name of Mike production companies, Duck and Cover Productions.

(59:59):
I the Duck and Cover Band. What the Duck Cover
Band is or tracks of the Opry band? The best guys.
I've got eight Bears on drums, I've got all these
great band parks on guitar, I got Steve Warner, I've
got I've got everybody that say there's nobody with you.
Everybody no y. I tell people people at night, you're
going to hear them, you're not going to see them.

(01:00:20):
And then I have empty instruments on stage. So when
it because the guitar break boom, that spot like goes
the guitar blake, which is ledd and flashes. If I
want a bass solo, it's over here. Got an empty,
empty set of drums. I got empty everything is all
all the guy you just don't see them, but to
the best tracks, and they tell people you're gonna really
hear good players tonight, and I do that. When does

(01:00:40):
this album come out? We're gonna hope, We're gonna have
it out probably in October. We're hoping to do it right.
I want to put some some good artwork and some things.
And I've got three or four CDs I've had for
years that still sell. I don't know why they still
I got one that they did at the Ice House
and Pasadena back in seventy seventies xits. For years, it

(01:01:02):
was I was getting reseisuals maybe ten dollars a month.
Now it's like three or four hundred, and I'm going, like,
what in the world it's all from the opera exposure.
That's all it is. Hey, Mike giving the unsk gary
before you go. I mean I could do three hours
with him. Yeah, what is your shortest joke? My shortest
joke is, uh, let's see my short joke is um.
Oh boy, god, you know I've got I got some
really short ones. Um um um. Guy calls up his buses.

(01:01:27):
I'm sick. His buzz is, what's wrong? The guys is
and old glaucoma. He's just what's that? The guys really
can't see my ass coming into work today. That's a
twenty second joke. That's the one I was thinking out
the step. But yeah, I don't know why I thought. Dog,
that's that's that's his wildest I yet. I mean, that's
that's that's over the top for me almost. That's when
I saw Caitlin's grandfather freaking dying laughing. He was repeating

(01:01:47):
that one when we left Great Yeah, he was repeating
that one. Look, I'm a massive fan. I'm We've done
over an hour here. Oh man, I love watching it.
The opery. You're inspiring, you know to a guy like
me who does a little bit of music, little bit
of comedy a little bit, but to watch you do
it like you're still just so good. So I just
I appreciate your friendship. Congratulations on the opera. I know

(01:02:09):
how much that means to you. Everything. Yeah, I'm gonna
ask you one question. Yeah, do you think you're the
best note you've ever been at what you do? I
think you probably are. I think that I've met this
is the really answer. I probably yes, because I've done
it wrong so many times that I know if something

(01:02:32):
starts to go in a direction that I know doesn't
feel right, I know how to quickly address, aboard and
get back on track. Actly. Yeah, same way, so I figured.
So there's several of us like that. I've talked to
Johnny Mathis about it, talked to everybody about it. Been
around a while, see Martin, everybody. Yeah, we're the best
note of what we do. Ever you feel that about
yourself to I just feel experience of things not going right. Yeah,

(01:02:55):
doesn't make my ceiling higher, But what it does is
it keeps me real high for almost all the time.
Because I've messed up so many times, I now can
see that coming or this coming, so I can dodge it.
That's right. Yeah, So that's that's an interesting question. I
never really thought about that. Yeah, a huge fan. I'll
see many many more times. I'm sure, are you still
going back to but you're not playing at the Pebble

(01:03:16):
Beach right? Probably anybody? No, I can't walk seven miles
a day anymore. You still enjoy going out there? Oh? Yeah?
I Clint has me come out and Clint has me
do his turn right every year, and I'm his partner
with a couple other guys. And at ninety two, he's
you know, I've got a song. I do a song
on my show now with I do a lot of
senior jokes, and I say, you know I'm a senior.
I mean, I'm one year older than Bugs Bundy and

(01:03:37):
four years younger than Porky Pick. I mean, and that's true.
It's nineteen thirty nine, and uh yeah. Four years ago
Clint was playing golf with Toby Keith up at his
Tahima up in vermel and Clints and Clint so, I
gotta I'm gonna be eighty eight this year. Toby said,
what are you gonna do? And Clint s, well, I
got a movie coming up. We go into production Monday,

(01:03:59):
and Abby so we keeps you going, And Clinn said,
I get up every morning and try not let the
old man in. Well that Toby wrote the song, and
now I do this song in middle of my show. Now,
I've never done a song in the middle of my
comedy act. But and I tell you something. You can't
believe how many people relate to it. It's really really Yeah,
it's for people that are older. Yeah. The documentary later

(01:04:21):
this year. The live album. We'll talk about both when
they come out and have more details at Gary Underscore,
Mule Deer on Instagram and just a big fan and
thanks at the time. Oh, it's awesome. Play is I
love this episode of the Bobby Cast. Subscribe on iHeartRadio,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.