Mindy Rickles and Ed Mann on ESPN 97.7 Discussing Don Rickles

If you missed our interview about the legacy of the great Don Rickles with his daughter Mindy and son-in-law Ed Mann here it is with the transcript.

Andy: How's it going? Mindy and Ed, thanks so much for being with us.

Ed: Hey, Andy. You know what? I'm doing great. And I worship Don Rickles. So I saw this opportunity, and I jumped on it.

Andy: Let's start. I want to start with you, Mindy. And just painting a picture of introducing Ed for the first time to your father, Don. What was that like for you? And then I'll get Ed's story on the first time he met Don Rickles.

Mindy: Well, I mean, Ed expected it to be just like a one-on-one. Maybe the four of us with my parents. And instead, it was like a dinner at a steakhouse with, like, the owner of the steakhouse, my dad's business manager and uncle, my mother's friend... I mean, there were, like, a million people there. And Ed was like, "Well, obviously, you know, I'm not exactly a special guest here." And I said, "No, you're not." Or my dad said, "No, you're not." And since we have the same delivery, my dad was like, "How did you even get a guy to begin with?" Because, you know, he said, "I would see the guy at the door and I would say, 'You're going to wear that jacket?' And that way they wouldn't call me back." And yes, you know, it was expected if I acted like that, Ed was the only one that would put up with that. But Ed, well, you go into it. Is that nice?

Ed: Yeah. What was that like, a million people at the dinner? It's exactly how it happened. Mindy convinced me, "Hey, yeah, you could meet my parents." I'm like, "That'll be fun." I really wasn't that intimidated. But I was just like, "Are you a fan?" I was like, "I've always loved this guy. Let's see what he's really like." And you're living in L.A., you meet all sorts of people, and you realize that people are people. You know, you don't really get too enamored by celebrity unless you're really enamored by celebrity—and everyone knows people like that. So I sat there and it was like this whole crowd of people at dinner, and that actually took the pressure off, to be honest with you. You know, it was like he's talking with the owner of the restaurant, he's talking with the maitre d', he's asking the waiter his name, ordering this...

Mindy: My dad always was, I mean, so fascinated and interested in the maitre d' or the waiter, I should say. Really anybody—the busboy that was helping. He was very interested in wanting to know about people's lives, where they were from. And so that would take up... growing up, we would be at dinner and my dad would be talking to the waiter, and I'd be like, "Dad, can you look at me for a second?" He's like, "I'm talking with Emilio. I want to find out where his grandmother's from." So it was a little different, but that's so true. That's how I grew up there.

Ed: So I kind of tried to fit in and get a line in here, and he just kind of looked at me, and then eventually the conversation sort of gravitated toward me a little bit. And it was a nice dinner. And he paid for the valet. That's all I cared about.

Andy: And I should mention, of course, Ed Mann is a titan in the radio business. For years at Premiere Radio and working out in L.A., he was in show business kind of going into this marriage as well. Let's talk a little bit about the podcast, guys. I've enjoyed listening to it. Loved it. I had guests on like Matt Friend recently—he's one of the biggest new names in comedy—and John Stamos, who was a great friend of Don. How fun has this podcast been for you guys so far?

Ed: Oh, it’s great. Yeah, it's really been fun. It really breaks up the day.

Mindy: Yeah, it's really been fun. And, you know, to listen to these... hopefully we're going to have some other really great guests, these other celebrities, whoever they might be, to discuss my dad and what he meant to them and his relationship with them and how he was. We do clips of my dad on stage, or on Jimmy Kimmel—certain clips. And so we talk about what was happening or what I remember during the time, maybe during a specific show or what he did or what he might have been thinking, because I kind of knew those shows pretty well. So it’s fun to kind of dissect and discuss that.

Ed: Yeah, we pull it apart a little bit, and then you get the video to get a better idea through our podcast what was kind of going on with that crazy mind of his. Yeah, it really was an interesting process he went through to get his act together, to get the audience engaged. He did a lot of audience engagement throughout his career. He was always in the crowd, right? And it just became a major part of what he did.

Andy: It’s amazing. Anytime I'm down, I'll just go on to YouTube or whatever and find a Don Rickles clip. And it's just, to me, he's the most unique comedian ever. And I've heard guys like Seinfeld—who had him on Comedians in Cars—just say, "Yeah, all of us are going up with a script that we've done a thousand times. Don goes up there and is on a tightwire act the whole time." It’s just fire and spontaneous stuff that comes to his mind where, you know, only he could do that, I think. I don't think there's anybody comparable to his style in the history of comedy. I mean, it's just unbelievable to see what he does night in and night out. I was going to ask you guys—and you might not want to give a specific answer to this—but I'm curious of all the interviews you saw Don do, from Carson to Letterman to Kimmel, and he did everybody in those types of formats. What does the host need to be to do a good job interviewing Don Rickles, which is a very unique challenge sometimes? And who did it well? I know a lot of them did it well, but maybe tell us a little bit about your thoughts on that.

Mindy: Well, of course, Johnny Carson was the best. And my dad had just such a great repartee with him. And Johnny loved my dad and knew, you know, when my dad was telling a story while he would interrupt it—which was crazy.

Ed: Which was designed! Yeah. You're talking to something and—yes. And they just had a great kind of back-and-forth.

Mindy: Also, Letterman. Yes. My dad loved it when he was on Letterman. And about that clip... oh, yes. This is a window into his mind. This is exactly my dad's mind because it was very much about what was in his head at that moment and it would just come out of him.

Ed: All right, so he goes, "Okay, you're going to get married. She's going to marry this Ed Mann guy." Yeah. So he's in radio. "Oh, that's right. Premiere Radio. Got that right." Yeah. It’s like, wow, he kind of nailed it, right? And then the subject about being a disc jockey goes, "Oh, yeah, well, he was a DJ in Boston." Now, the reason... I was never in Boston. But he's in L.A. to serve them. But my dad, on that show, his next job was in Boston.

Mindy: So it was all about him all the time anyway! My mother, we had a pillow at the house that said, "It's all about me," and it was in reference to my dad. So the fact that he got it from Premiere Radio was a huge thing, but he had to get it right back to himself.

Ed: Yeah, and so he said, "Oh, I got to be in Boston." And so he had worked a lot in Boston. So that's kind of how his mind was—what was right in front of him at the moment, he would work into it. Whether you've worked or not, he would work that in. And he was saying how radio deejays make a ton of money. And my boss didn't get that memo. Of course, I don't have near... you apparently didn't either. I know, but someone else got it.

Andy: Let's see. What was it like early on, Mindy, when you're young in Vegas and he's working in the lounges? When you're a kid just growing up with that lifestyle, what was that like for you early on?

Mindy: Oh, wow. I mean, it was... I think a lot of kids say it was the only lifestyle they knew. So it wasn't unusual to me, but I spent a lot of my youth in Las Vegas walking through the kitchens of all of the hotels at the Sahara, because we would walk through the kitchen to get backstage before my dad's show. And sitting in the audience, he would always introduce me. I would have to wave, which... I was very shy, so I didn't love the waving. But, "That's my daughter, Mindy. She wants to be an actress." He was always very sweet about that. But it was fun. You know, I'd bring a girlfriend with me to Vegas as a teenager, maybe 12 or 13, and going backstage after the show, he would introduce us: "That's his daughter, that's his daughter." And of course, that made me feel special. But it was very interesting. And the people that came into the dressing room—a lot of stars. And he would come out in his bathrobe. After he took a shower, he'd come out in this big bathrobe with his initials on it, and everyone would be waiting because he would do a whole show in the dressing room for whoever was there. It could be George Clooney, whoever came to the dressing room, he would be on a whole other roll with them, you know, and they loved it. John Stamos and Bob Saget would come a lot to his shows, and that was so much fun to be in the dressing room also.

Ed: Well, in fact, when Stamos and Saget went, they went with Dave Coulier. So it was like, "Oh, cool, Full House!" Nice.

Andy: And then we just had Dave on the program that drops on Monday night.

Ed: Oh, great. That'll be awesome. By the way, the podcast is named the Mindy and Ed and Don Rickles Podcast. And then my name comes before it! Yeah, please don't mess up. Just like Don, I remember him making a joke—oh, yeah—he's sitting next to Denzel. And Denzel stayed out on the stage because he wanted to sit next to Don Rickles, right? And Don made a joke about, "Hey, let's do a movie together, Denzel. Oh, no, it'll be 'Don and Denzel' in this movie." That was great.

Andy: I also wanted to ask you—and you might not have been around yet, Mindy, for when he was hanging out a lot with Frank Sinatra—but some of these classic old school Dean Martin Roasts celebrities... what was your awareness of Sinatra and some of these other guys that Don was so close to?

Mindy: Well, I mean, I have Newhart.

Ed: Yeah.

Mindy: Oh, well, of course, Bob Newhart. You know, I grew up with their kids, and we would travel together, and he was always Uncle Bob and always in our lives. Frank Sinatra was not like that to me, but I always knew that my dad credited his career with Frank because Frank would come to Vegas and into the lounge. My dad would do shows at 8:00, 12:00, 2:00 in the morning, 5:00 in the morning... you know, he'd bring in big stars to the shows. And that's how my dad kind of started to really get known, because he'd bring in, like, Judy Garland and people like that. But my dad and Frank would always, a lot of times, work together. Even through the years as I was growing up, they worked together on a bill. And so my dad just loved Frank. And Frank got a kick out of my dad. And of course, on the Roasts, that was a very big thing when my dad would be on the Roast and Frank would be there, and my dad would be like, "Is he laughing? Is he laughing?" And he was laughing. So Frank really thought my dad was very funny. And my dad got a real kick out of that, I think.

Ed: Yeah, he could get away with almost anything with Frank. Frank didn't care. You know, there's a Roast where... and Frank is smoking a cigarette, per usual, and the smoke is going up and down in space, and he goes, "What is this, London?" You know, it's just... and Frank just falls apart. It doesn't matter.

Andy: Yeah, it’s a great... sometimes it bothers me a little bit when he's referred to as an "insult comic" because to me, I don't think anybody's insulted by any of this stuff. His style—he has this magical ability to endear himself to people in a way that nobody else could really pull off to that level.

Ed: Very authentic. Absolutely. Yeah. He always expressed during his show that this is just to make people laugh. And that's what he really wants to do, to bring people together. And I think everybody kind of got that. That’s why he was able to continue until right before he passed away. At 90, he was still doing shows and showing kind of clips on stage. He wasn't running around the stage, you know, they would do clips.

Mindy: And Regis Philbin! Yes, Regis Philbin would ask the questions. And it was really fun, the two of them working together. They'd known each other for 50 years.

Andy: And Don and your mom, Barbara, Mindy, famously had a great relationship that lasted over 50 years. What was your perspective on how she supported him and handled his act and stuff like that?

Mindy: Oh, well, my mother was, you know, very much in charge of that. My dad, his job was to go out on stage, and she kind of handled everything else. And we would all travel together, which was not as common. The Newharts also did that. Bob Newhart used to take all four of his kids with him to Vegas, and we would all go to Vegas, and my mother would always have us going on the road with my dad as much as possible to keep the family together. Whether we took our schoolwork and went on the road, wherever he was performing, we would do that. And she really knew... my dad would do the jokes and she would kind of sit back. And if he said something she didn't like, she’d kind of kick him under the table. "Donald! Don! No, don't say that."

Ed: He had a lot of bruises on him.

Mindy: That's right! But she really... they were the perfect combination because everyone knew that my mom was really the glue in that relationship.

Andy: One of the cool things, at least I always thought about Don Rickles, was I think as comedians get older, they can look down on the younger comedians coming up. Whereas I felt like he was cool with pretty much everybody. And it may just have been because everybody looked up to him. But was that your sense of it, where he could hang with the younger guys just as well as guys like Newhart?

Ed: Oh, loved the younger guys.

Mindy: You know, who did this dinner with John... we sat in a restaurant and all the comics of today came. Sarah Silverman and who else? Just everybody. And he loved to be with the younger—he preferred that, you know, he really did. I mean, there were a million Catskills comics that he knew that were his age, and he did work the Catskills, but not as much as some of the others. And he really preferred to be with these younger, up-and-coming guys and women. He thought that was great.

Ed: I remember he told me one of the highlights: he went to a Laker game once and Chris Rock walked across and said, "God, Mr. Rickles, Mr. Rickles, I love you. Everything you do is magical," etc., etc. He couldn't wait to come home and tell us, "You know who came over to me?" Like he was a kid! "Chris Rock! He's big! He's big!" So he loved that kind of thing.

Andy: One of the things that Don always joked about with Letterman was, Letterman would bring up Newhart having starred in sitcoms in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And Don would joke about how he was in sitcoms, but they didn't go so long. I always thought it was because he's too big for a sitcom that's scripted; his act and his personality are so big. CPO Sharkey, I think, had success and maybe some others. He did one, I think in the 90s, with Richard Lewis that I thought was hilarious in the clips that I saw.

Mindy: Daddy Dearest, yeah.

Andy: What's your perspective on that, Mindy and Ed, as far as his act being on the stage versus on TV?

Mindy: He always did have a lot of sitcoms. And Bob Newhart, he would joke because his were all huge successes for so many years. CPO Sharkey was big and then he had Daddy Dearest that went for a little bit. But when it came to lines and memorizing... I mean, that's why he was so great in Casino with Robert De Niro, because he just stood there. Scorsese would be like, "Don, you don't have to say anything. You just stand there." And he'd say to De Niro, "Is that how you're going to deliver the line, Bob? You're mumbling!" He just had to be himself and he was funny. He really cracked Robert De Niro up.

Even years ago, I remember he did Saturday Night Live. They work and rehearse for a week, and they have scripts. Well, the night of the show, and it's live, my dad would get a little nervous having all those lines. And he just, like, went off-book and just... he was very funny, but he made it up, the whole thing. So everyone was standing there kind of waiting: "What is he going to say and how are we going to respond?" But it turned out to be really funny. And that was when Julia Louis-Dreyfus was on. Well, these were all improv people, so they knew how to work with him. But yeah, when you talk about being bigger than the show, he was all over the place.

Ed: Yeah, he definitely was bigger than life. CPO Sharkey was a great vehicle for him to kind of show that off. They kind of let him roll. The writing wasn't as tight.

Andy: I could talk to you guys all day, but I got a couple more that I wanted to get your take on. He talked a little bit on shows about his service in World War II, and he'd always kind of joke about it and make fun of himself. But did he talk very openly about what that time in the war was like for him? Or was that something that he didn't discuss much?

Mindy: Yeah, he worked on a ship and he was sort of the clown for all the other sailors, making jokes and making them laugh.

Ed: What was his job on the ship? Painting the ship? Yeah, he had to tell that story. He was actually, at one point, had to go below deck and paint the underside of the hull and swing from one side to the other with a paintbrush. He was a physical guy, but that wasn't the exercise he was looking for! So they gave him all sorts of crap jobs. But he had a lot of great memories from being the clown. He loved to make all the guys on the ship laugh. That was his main thing.

Andy: And then, the last thing here, Mindy and Ed, I wanted to talk about was kind of the generations of Don Rickles fans. You kind of have the ones of my parents' generation who watched the Dean Martin Roasts, more my age that maybe saw him on Kimmel or Fallon, and then my kids who know him from the Toy Story movies. And I think that's what's really cool about your podcast—whatever phase of Don Rickles fandom people are in, they can come and learn about the other side of his career that maybe they didn't experience. Are you finding that the exposure of the podcast is introducing Don's comedy to different generations?

Mindy: Oh, absolutely. I mean, Toy Story was such a big thing. Even our kids, they were little when he did that. And he has a huge Mr. Potato Head at California Adventure—Disney California Adventure in Disneyland—where he's spoken different things that they recorded for people that walk by. That's always going to be there. And yes, there are so many different generations sending us notes about the different experiences they had with my dad or what he meant to them. So it's really been great in that way, from all different ages—20s, 30s up to 90. I mean, they really run the gamut because he affected all those different generations.

Andy: And I heard you say on another interview, Mindy, that he said to you, "Keep my name alive, Mindy." And that's what you're doing. And I think this is so cool. Mindy and Ed and Don Rickles Podcast. Go check it out. You can get it anywhere you get podcasts. Great guests, great stories. They play clips from Don Rickles' career. And it was such a privilege to have you guys on. Thanks for making time for us.

Mindy: Hey, thank you, Andy. Our pleasure.

Ed: Fun. Yeah. And you're good at this!

Andy: Well, coming from you, Ed, that means a lot. So thank you guys.

Mindy: Thank you guys.

Ed: Not much of an interviewer, but you know what you're doing, dude.

Andy: Thank you guys. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back right after this.