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August 12, 2025 • 21 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back. It's another Bob and Tom extra. This is Christopher.
Not only is the Bob and Tom Show live every
weekday morning, but every afternoon. We'll give you a little
extra in case you missed anything on today's big show,
comedian Billy Gardell. You'll hear him coming up in just
a minute.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
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Speaker 6 (01:53):
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Speaker 7 (02:04):
We're just waiting for the cast and actually show up
for work. Here's more, Bob and Tom extra Tom.

Speaker 6 (02:11):
We have one of our favorite people in the universe
with us today.

Speaker 7 (02:14):
We're joined by a very fine actor and comedian. He
is Billy Gardell. But he only brought half of himself.
You left fat Billy somewhere else.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
He had to go away, go away. He's not coming back,
and we don't know anything about.

Speaker 6 (02:29):
It, all right, We won't ask any questions.

Speaker 7 (02:33):
Billy Gardell is a very fine stand up comedian. We
first met you on the stand up circuit many years ago,
I think many years. Jim Wilson, I think brought you in.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
He begged you guys to have me on the air
and promised that I would behave and be polite, be
a gentleman, and yeah, back in, back in me, what
got it?

Speaker 6 (02:50):
I want to say.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I was trying to think when I met you guys,
I want to say it was middle nineties, probably maybe
even a little before that. So thank you for having
me back. It's great to see you guys. It's nice
to meet God. We've we've done every gig. Yeah, a
week or two apart those names.

Speaker 6 (03:07):
Yeah, we did a famous stress gig exactly.

Speaker 7 (03:11):
You did a strip club.

Speaker 8 (03:12):
Yeah, I would imagine is what you were in Atlanta.
They tried to have comedians with the strippers and it
didn't work. We were paid pretty well, but yeah, that
was it.

Speaker 9 (03:20):
Were the girls stripping while you were doing stand up.

Speaker 6 (03:23):
No, they give us like a ten minute spot. Yeah
that was. It was just six o'clock at nine o'clock
in a midnight and yeah, it seemed like it went
on forever.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Oh dear God. And I was really heavy back then too,
so I remember, man, that happy hour crowd was the
tough one because it's like six o'clock, the lights go up,
girls leave, and then I go waddling towards It says.

Speaker 6 (03:45):
Like sure ship.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
And everybody's everybody's going our boy, we have we have
the same scar. That's like the two guys talking about
the scars and the boat and jaws. Look at this
right there. Palamino took it out of me. Shock's eyes
black at night customers, it was just for the strippers. Yeah,

(04:08):
after a while, you're there for two weeks.

Speaker 7 (04:11):
Imagine the idea. The germ of that probably came from
the fifties Lenny Bruce famously. I mean, if you've ever
seen the movie Lenny were Dustin Hoffin portrays Lenny Bruce,
that's fairly accurate.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, that's what they were trying to bring that back.
And this guy had a whim to do that. And
I think I and Pat and maybe three or four
other guys survived it for they pulled a pluck.

Speaker 6 (04:32):
And they stopped it.

Speaker 8 (04:33):
Yeah, we had like one little little tiny green room
in the back where I would hide because it was
just crazy.

Speaker 9 (04:38):
Did you play guitar back then?

Speaker 6 (04:39):
Yeah? Really yeah, yeah, little guitar. Actually I wished I
played guitar back then.

Speaker 7 (04:45):
How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (04:46):
I would have put cymbals on my knees and clank
come together. I mean it was horrib our.

Speaker 7 (04:50):
Guest is Billy Gardell before before he got famous. Let
me ask you, this was the content of your comedy
when you were playing in this strip club? Was it
a clean show?

Speaker 6 (05:02):
No?

Speaker 7 (05:02):
No, no, your show now is relatively I.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Swear a little bit, but I'm not going to say
nothing that's going to run you out the door.

Speaker 6 (05:09):
But never that's never really been my thing.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
No, I don't think so. I was still just trying
to be funny. I was probably talking about getting drunk
a lot, because that was what was going on back then,
so you know, but and that fit that particular group.

Speaker 7 (05:27):
Ask you this. So you're playing this this strip club.
Did you meet the ladies?

Speaker 6 (05:32):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (05:32):
God, yeah, I mean they were they were a nude dude,
it was.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
There was, But you would you would sit at the
bar waiting for your spot. I don't know how you
worked for but I had to drink to get through it.
I'm like I had if I had done with my
life right. But then they would sit and then get
up and go work and sit and get up. But
they would like drop some of their story on you
as so you would just get this round robin them.

Speaker 6 (05:55):
Anyway.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
My boyfriend said, he doesn't really care for me, and
he's going to Louisiana and I.

Speaker 6 (05:59):
Got to work. The other want to come in.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I think I'm just gonna do this long enough until
you get a car.

Speaker 6 (06:05):
They just ship there like the dude, and.

Speaker 7 (06:13):
If you really got to know them, they tell you
the real name. A couple go by galaxy Galaxy. My
real name is the Galaxy, the name of the star.

Speaker 6 (06:24):
I've ever done. Man, that was rough.

Speaker 7 (06:26):
Oh wow. One time we were out with our band
and it was.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
We was in Nebraska, Yeah, and the club was a
It was a huge place and for some reason there
was a strip show in the middle of the day,
so and they were kind of over on the right
and back we were trying to do a sound check.

Speaker 7 (06:47):
It was. It was really interesting, Yeah, very sad.

Speaker 9 (06:52):
It was a strip club most of the time, and
we were the guests. Yes, we were the guests that day.

Speaker 6 (06:57):
All right.

Speaker 7 (06:58):
Billy Gardella is going on to many of the things
besides stand up comedy. It would include the one of
my favorite sitcoms of all time.

Speaker 6 (07:06):
You are so kind about that.

Speaker 7 (07:07):
Thank you, we were I have this is odd. I
have seen every episode and I have not seen every
episode any other show because it used to It used
to air at three am.

Speaker 6 (07:19):
Here, so when you were getting ready to come in.

Speaker 7 (07:21):
I've seen every episode. I'm not kidding.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Sorry, you had to hear my voice first. Every day.
My dad used to say, it should be on top
of an ambulance. Get out of the way, there's been
an accident.

Speaker 6 (07:33):
The show.

Speaker 7 (07:33):
I'm sure the show is of course, Mike and Mollock.
And every once in a while there'll be a marathon
on the weekends, so I'll leave it on so as
I come and go, I get to watch.

Speaker 6 (07:44):
So well written, it so well cast. That's it.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Man, our table reads scripts were better than most people
shoot scripts. That that camp just has an incredible writing
staff that just Chuck kind of promotes from within. He
has kind of a farm system, so you really have
to make it to the next level. To get to
the next level. And man, some of the drafts we
would get, we'd be laughing out loud at the beginning

(08:07):
of the week.

Speaker 7 (08:07):
Are there is there somewhere an outtake reel.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, I got a couple. Actually, you want me to
send you one. We got some funny ones, We had
some great They're just such a great cast.

Speaker 7 (08:16):
Now, who was the best at remembering their lines?

Speaker 6 (08:18):
Me?

Speaker 3 (08:20):
I was just terrified I was going to lose my
job every day, you know, because you think about it.
Melissa had been on Gilmore Girls and came out of
the ground links. Katie Mixon, who played her sister, was
out of Carnegie Mellonambi Shakespearean trained. Reno Wilson had had
a show and then was Uh. He went to the

(08:42):
School of fame in New York, lou mas Stillo Broadway,
Swoozy Kurtz Broadway, Rondi Reid who played my Mom's Steppenwolf.

Speaker 6 (08:49):
And then here I come out of a comedy club kitchen.
You guys do want to show? I had to be
on my horse Man.

Speaker 7 (08:57):
Do you by chance know who you beat out for
the role?

Speaker 6 (09:01):
Was?

Speaker 7 (09:01):
There was somebody I do?

Speaker 3 (09:03):
There was a great guy, Lance Barber. Uh, he's wonderful,
just and a great guy. And me and Lance. Now
Lance was the dad on Young Sheldon. So he eventually
ended up on the Yankees. Too so, and I got
to go down and congratulate him. But it came down
to me and him. During the like the late nineties,

(09:23):
early two thousands, me and Lance passed each other every audition.
We were like, you know that, I remember that the
Warner Brothers cartoons like Morning Bob Morning. We were those
guys past it like every overweight white dad. We were
like that, you know what I mean, or the side
camp or the cop like. We would just pass each
other at every audition. So I was very happy when

(09:45):
he got there. Just scenes together on Young Sheldon.

Speaker 6 (09:48):
Oh man, it was so fun to go sun. We
got to hide in the chicken shack and have our beers.

Speaker 10 (09:56):
Yes, and yeah, that must have been great to actually
get to work together after all.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
It was really really nice. And to go in and
play supporting role to him was even cooler.

Speaker 6 (10:04):
Yeah. And then he really took that role and crushed it.

Speaker 7 (10:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (10:07):
That is another great cast, another great.

Speaker 7 (10:10):
Cast, and that also that happens to be my daughter.
Finn's favorite show is every episode of Young Sheldon.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
The young people that watch that show, it's unbelievable. I
mean they've they've they've kind of skipped the generation, like
they were a hit on TV. But then when they
went I think they're Netflix now boom, they're they're a
hit again, which is pretty as heart.

Speaker 7 (10:31):
Yeah, that's a lot of heart, a lot of charm,
and yeah, our guest is a distinguished actor, Philly Gardald.
When you this is an awkward question. Sure you were
a man of a certain size.

Speaker 6 (10:41):
Oh as you could see me from the Space shuttle.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, when I had that blue uniform on, I look
like another body of water of Lake Michigan.

Speaker 6 (10:51):
Here he comes.

Speaker 7 (10:52):
Uh did was there? This is awkward? Was there something
in your contract saying he don't lose weight, we need
you to be big or with if you had said, hey,
look I'm going to drop one hundred pounds, would they
have written it into the script?

Speaker 3 (11:03):
You know, I think Chuck would have done that because
on the second show, I did Bob Hart's Abashola. That's
when my like I that's when I had to make
a change because it was like, you know, I got
type two diabetes and then I had some cholesterol problems
and some tri ghosts. A right, but like you can't
once the numbers start climbing, you can't play denial anymore,

(11:26):
you know, or you might lose a foot, you know.
So I had to really come to grips with I
gotta get healthy, no matter what the thing is. And
I went in and talked to Chuck, which was over
the is Yeah, Chuck Larry dropping names all the road
to floor her. But I said, look, man, I got
to make a real health change. It was over the
hiatus between season two and season three of Bob Harts

(11:49):
and he's like, look, man, he goes, I just want
you here. It just go get healthy, and he goes,
and we'll just we'll color it into the script like,
hey Bob, did you go to the gym today?

Speaker 6 (11:57):
Hey Bob eating salad?

Speaker 3 (11:58):
And that actually kind of reflected the show because at
the beginning of that show, I play a guy who
played had a heart attack and then wakes up and
falls in love with his nurse and she's from Nigeria,
and it's about blended families and and love is love,
but underneath that, it's, uh, it's kind of his journey
to getting healthy. So it kind of reflected and worked perfectly.
But I think had I been in trouble with Mike

(12:20):
and Mawy, I think I think Chuck would have been
supportive either way, he's he has been rial Melis dropped something. Yeah,
Melissa actually was ahead of me, man, but she she was.
She was just always being strict and really got focused
in on exercise. I got. I had bariatric surgery, and
I always say that. I'm very open about that because
you know the wonderful cesspool that the internet. Don't you

(12:43):
miss earth one? Really, I feel like I feel like
I bumped up against a multiverse and I'm not supposed
to be here, but but I I did beriatric surgery.
And I always say that because there was a group
on the internet after I lost my weight, all over
Facebook and fake AI commercials saying I ate these magic
gummy bears to lose weight, and I was like, I

(13:05):
got to defend that and just say because my lawyer said, look,
you could chase them, you'd run out of money before
you'd catch them, because they bounce off of everything. You
can't catch anybody on the internet. So I just tell
people openly what I did, because there's always somebody that
will come up there that saw those commercials.

Speaker 6 (13:20):
So I let you go.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Did those gummy bears work? I'm like, gummy bears is
what got me in trouble in the first place. Let's
get the cognitive.

Speaker 7 (13:28):
Thinking your breakout hit Mike and Molly. Yes, sir, was
that your very first appearance on television?

Speaker 3 (13:34):
No, my first appearance was I want to say in
somewhere around ninety seven, I was a guest star. I
got a guest staring spot on The King of Queens
where I played. It was his football team reunion and
me and another guy got to play a guy, these
guys that kind of used to give Paton Oswald's character

(13:56):
a rash of trouble in high school and they played
on that. And then there was a thing where Kevin
James like got the game winning block, but they were
giving credit to somebody else and he couldn't hold it together.

Speaker 6 (14:07):
It was a fun episode.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
And then and then I did Little you know, I
was Man number three, and then you know, like the
Plumber and stuff. I did a bunch of those, and
then I caught some air on a show called Yes
Dear as a reoccurring character.

Speaker 6 (14:22):
You were a security guard right at a studio.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, we were the security guards at the studio and
we used to film there, which was great because when
I had an audition, because we were cool with the
security guards. When those guys were in there and they
saw me coming, They're like, they used to park you
like way down the street in the parking structure and
it's la heat.

Speaker 6 (14:39):
You know, you're heaving.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
I'm walking in just I look like a serial killer
by the time I get to the audition. But because
we were cool with those guards and we played them,
they would always sneak us into a parking spot that
a producer Wasn't it take four fifty four, but be
out of there by one?

Speaker 6 (14:53):
Got it?

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Did you ever do any commercials I did? I did
a local McDonald's commercial. I did a Nokia cell phone
commercial that went national. And then I was a spokesperson
for a restaurant in California early on, which is actually
what got me married, for a place called Round Table Pizza,
and I did like, I don't know, ten or eleven

(15:17):
commercials for them.

Speaker 6 (15:18):
I was like, there, Uh, I don't know what the
word is.

Speaker 7 (15:20):
What's the were you were you on camera?

Speaker 6 (15:24):
Yeah? Yeah, we did, we did. Probably was this commercial?

Speaker 7 (15:27):
Is this the larger iteration of a Billy Gardell?

Speaker 5 (15:29):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I wasn't at full capacity yet,
but I was on my way and uh I had
like a flat top. Well yeah, I always said, I go,
you're gonna you need like you're gonna get a thin
guy to advertise pizza.

Speaker 6 (15:43):
Let's be real.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
That's like when they show a commercial for Michaelo Blight
and some dudes running a marathon.

Speaker 6 (15:50):
Just put the game on. Shut up. But I did
that and that got me. Uh, that got me. Uh.

Speaker 3 (15:57):
That was the first financial, like little bit of get
ahead breathing room that I had. And that's when I
got married to my wife. We went to Hawaii for
their spokesperson thing and they very kindly give us a
couple extra days and we got married, just me and
her out there for We had a little we bought
the twenty two hundred dollars wedding package, and uh, we're

(16:17):
still married to this though.

Speaker 7 (16:18):
I like your wife because she talked to you a
lot of the mustache.

Speaker 6 (16:21):
She did well. She shen't really talked me out of it.
She loved me.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Said that's it, I'm done kissing the cactus. It's been
five years to take it off. I was like, because
I liked it. You know, you grow a mustache, you
know you're gonna roll the dice. You either look pervy
or old timing, and I came out old timey. I
was like, let me keep this.

Speaker 6 (16:40):
Now.

Speaker 7 (16:40):
The producers now when you when you you're on your second
I guess second big show and you've got the mustache? Yeah?
Do they do?

Speaker 5 (16:48):
They do?

Speaker 7 (16:48):
You have to say, hey, look, Chuck, I'm going to
grow this mustache. You know how you show up on
set and he goes, wait a minute.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Now.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
What I did was for the for the table read uh,
for the network in the studio before the pilot. I
grew it and I brought it in and he walked up.
Chuck walked up and he goes, yeah, I like it,
And that was it.

Speaker 6 (17:08):
Really Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
I figured the guy's a compression socks salesman from Detroit.

Speaker 6 (17:13):
Chances are he's got a Mustang driving a catac Hey,
how you doing? And I just.

Speaker 7 (17:21):
I'm a fan of the compression socks. I fly on him.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
That's the only part I don't like about being back
on the road is at this point I'm like Bull
Durham out on the road.

Speaker 6 (17:32):
I'm just knees hurt, gotta work.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Got to get up, take a walk in the plane,
make sure I don't drink too much before I get
on the plane and I just mean liquid's not liquor,
but I mean it's so yeah, so, but you know,
it's it's it's a gift to be out.

Speaker 7 (17:46):
What I want to go back to the early days
of stand up.

Speaker 6 (17:49):
Sure.

Speaker 7 (17:50):
I was talking my son Willie. He's currently touring with
Frank Kellendo and Frank he was he was talking about,
you know, in the early days, when your first it,
you always have to have a couple of beers before
you go on stage because you're nervous. Then there comes
a point where you say, wait a minute, I'm working. Yeah,
I gotta be straight when I do this. Was there
a phase where you were You mentioned you were drinking

(18:11):
when you were doing those strip gigs.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, I drink every week and then you know, I
haven't had a drink in years now, but back then
I was a What did I go? I started with
tequila and beer. Then I went to Jack Daniels, and
then I went to Jamison and Jamison put me on
the bench.

Speaker 6 (18:29):
Yeah, that's what that's the one. That's what took me out.

Speaker 7 (18:32):
That's where that's where, that's where you and the Jamison brothers.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
You know, when it when it you have to look
at your career realistically, and when it gets when you
get to the point where it's uh, they mentioned your
name and they go, man, he can drink instead of man,
he's funny. Then you got to go, Okay, wait a minute,
I'm fading away here.

Speaker 10 (18:53):
So I never wanted to drink before I got up
smart because I smart didn't want to have to rely
on anything there it is, But Jeff, do you did you?
I go up with a beer, but I just sip,
just have it to sip.

Speaker 6 (19:06):
I don't drink beforehand. But everyone's like, oh, you were hammered.
I'm like, I had one sip. Yeah. I can understand
having a cocktail up there.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
It's a very social setting and yeah, you know, I
totally get that, but I would do like, you know,
three or four shots before going oh.

Speaker 6 (19:23):
Yeah with the judgment not judging at all. Yeah. Yeah,
there were always guys like that.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
But I I thought I needed it, and then uh,
and then you know, I quit drinking. The two years
later I had a TV show, so I was like, wow,
I probably should have put the brinks on a little
bit earlier.

Speaker 6 (19:39):
You could have been on friends.

Speaker 9 (19:40):
Did you ever find the drinking cause you to forget
part of your act though.

Speaker 6 (19:46):
That's what I would be.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Weirdly no, no, weirdly no. I don't know if it
just loosened me up or whatever, but I was just
leaning into it too heavy, and then when it starts
getting sloppy, I'm like, you know, man, A wise old
man told me at the worst part of my drinking. Look, man,
he goes, I'll just shoot you straight. A guy like you,
He goes, I watched you drink all week.

Speaker 6 (20:06):
He goes.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
You can have a drinker, you can have everything else,
but you better make your choice. And then the wife
put it in the suggestion box.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
That's it for another Bob and Tom Show Extra. Catch
us on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher For Bob and
Tom Extra. This is Christopher take care of Everybody.

Speaker 7 (20:29):
I am Michael Rosenbaum. I am Tom Welling.

Speaker 5 (20:32):
Welcome to Talk Bill, where it's fun to talk about
small We're.

Speaker 7 (20:36):
Going to be talking to sometimes guest stars. Are you
liking the direction flow Us is going in? Yeah, because
I'm getting more screen times.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
Good.

Speaker 6 (20:41):
Mostly it's just me and Tom remembering.

Speaker 7 (20:43):
I think we all feel like there was a scene
missing here. You got me time. Let's revisit it. Let's
look at it. See what we remember, See what we remember.
I had never been around anything like that before. I mean,
it was so fun Talkville, Talk Bill. I just had
a flashback.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

Speaker 6 (20:58):
Let's get into it.
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