How I Blew It at the Movie Premiere for Tootsie

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

I Couldn't Throw It Out podcast
Season 2, Episode 2 - How I Blew It at 1982's Tootsie premiere

Michael Small:
Hello, I'm Michael Small, co-host of the podcast I Couldn't Throw It Out, the podcast where we tell stories behind the treasures I've saved and then TRY to throw them out. In this episode, we go back to the fateful night in 1982 when I absolutely infuriated a star of Saturday Night Live.  But then my ego was rescued by one of the world's top supermodels. I know that sounds unlikely.  But I swear to you, it happened. So keep listening…


[Song excerpt starts]

I couldn't throw it out
I had to scream and shout  
Before I turn to dust
I've got to throw it out
Before I turn to dust 
I've got to throw it out

[Song excerpt ends]

Michael Small:
Hello, Sally Libby. 

Sally Libby:
Hello, Michael Small.

Michael Small:
Now I'm going to start today with a question for you. Can you think of a time when you were in public and something extremely embarrassing happened to you?

Sally Libby:
Hmm. Yes, I can.

Michael Small:
Okay. That's what I thought because that is particularly true for even the coolest people in the world who never seem to be embarrassed. Everybody has some time when they got embarrassed.

Sally Libby:
Do I have to say what it is?

Michael Small:
You do not, you can keep that a secret.

Sally Libby:
Yeah, all right.

Michael Small:
But at the time when you were embarrassed, were you being watched by Andy Warhol, Dustin Hoffman, Halston the designer, Terry Garr, Raquel Welch, and Diana Ross?

Sally Libby:
(Kidding)
Let me think. I don't think so.

Michael Small:
Yeah, I don't think so either. But that is exactly what happened to me in December, 1982. And can you think of where I might have found an object that reminded me of that terrible moment.

Sally Libby:
Probably in your file somewhere in some box.

Michael Small:
Yep, it was in one of the boxes of treasures I've been saving pretty much my whole life. When I was digging through the box, I found something that reminded me of the trauma. And do you know what I thought?

Sally Libby:
What?

Michael Small:
I thought it is my duty to inflict this tale on Sally in an episode of our podcast, I Couldn't Throw It Out.

Sally Libby:
Yay me!

Sally Libby:
And I was not satisfied to make you sit through this alone. I asked a key player in this story if he'd be willing to join us to revisit the humiliation. I'm happy to say that the person with us is someone that you Sally have not seen since the 1970s, but he's definitely one of your favorite people you ever met.

Sally Libby:
I know. Absolutely.

Michael Small:
Yup, say hello...

Sally Libby:
Hello!

Michael Small:
To one of the most accomplished humorists in American history.

Tom Gammill:
Oh, stop it.

Michael Small:
Mr. Tom Gammill! Welcome, Tom Gammill.

Tom Gammill:
This is very embarrassing for me now.

Michael Small:
Now, before we get to my story, I think we need to say a bit more about Tom Gammill. Tom, I met you in college when were were on the staff of the humor magazine The Harvard Lampoon.  Then, after college, you started working on TV as a writer for a lot of funny shows.

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, well, Max Pross and I were on the (Harvard) Lampoon with you. And senior year, the great Jim Downey, who was working at Saturday Night Live said, "Hey, Tom and Max, why don't you get a packet together and submit it as a team?" So we did. And then we were apprentice writers on the fifth season of SNL. That was 1979, 80. And what was interesting about that time is everybody thought that was going to be the last year. Saturday Night Live was going to be over after that. Now, when you hear about people working at Saturday Night Live now, it's always like, "Am I going to get asked back?" It's the pressure. There was really no pressure about like... "Well, there's no next year to be asked back on." I can't say we contributed a whole lot to the fifth season. Thanks to Jim Downey, we got some stuff on the air that he helped us write. And also Franken and Davis. The great Senator Al Franken and his writing partner, Tom Davis. We worked a lot with them and Sarah Paley, who was also a new writer, an apprentice writer that season. It was a lot of fun. It was a much smaller operation than it is now. There were just a handful of writers, maybe like 10 or 11 or something. And there wasn't the support staff that there is now. But it was really exciting. I mean, just coming out of college, to be able to go to Rockefeller Center and have a pass and have a desk. And it really screwed me up about what working was like. Because at Saturday Night Live, you only came in the weeks that the show was on. So you only came in 22 weeks a year. All the other time you're on vacation. Budweiser was a sponsor, and they literally came in like a couple of times a week and filled the refrigerators with... Budweiser beer.

Michael Small:
How many years were you at SNL?

Tom Gammill:
We were just on that first season and then we hopped onto Late Night with David Letterman. It was starting up about a year later so we got on that. But it was so funny --  after SNL it felt like we were working in a bank. Because like there was no Budweiser beer in the refrigerator. You had to come in 50 weeks a year. Having Saturday Night Live as your first writing job sort of gives you a weird idea of what it's like to work someplace.

Michael Small:
Name some of the other shows you worked for.

Tom Gammill:
We left The Letterman Show and worked for a show that Lorne Michaels started up called The New Show, a short-lived show on... I think it was Friday nights on NBC. But I've got to say, it was one of the most fun working experiences. John Candy was on it a lot and Dave Thomas was on it and Valri Bromfield. And then in terms of writers, Jack Handy was there. Jack Handy is a real person. A lot of people ask that. He just wrote a hilarious book. You can get it on his website called Escape from Hawaii, which is really funny. I really recommend it.

Michael Small:
And you just sent me a copy, which I'm reading next.  So thank you for that.

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, so then after The New Show, we were very bitter because Max and I, we didn't have a job and we were sitting on a park bench being bitter about all our friends who were successful. But what happened was that bitterness helped us when we wrote for Seinfeld 10 years later. A lot of the stories we did for Seinfeld actually were inspired by our miserable lives after The New Show was canceled and after we left Letterman. When we got out to LA, we worked on It's Gary Shandling's Show on Showtime and that was a lot of fun. So that was our first job in LA. And then we got onto Seinfeld and we were there for a few years. And then I was on The Simpsons for 22 years as a consulting producer.

Sally Libby:
22? Wow.

Tom Gammill:
Then after Disney bought The Simpsons, they said like, "If it's not broke, we don't need to fix it." But then they started going, "Gee, you sure have a lot of consultants." And so Disney slashed the budget and got rid of the consultants. But I was able to hop on as a consulting producer on Curb Your Enthusiasm for season 12, which I think is coming out in January. If you're a fan of the show, you're gonna love this season. It's great. So I'm still working.

Michael Small:
Meanwhile, Tom is an amazing cartoonist. You know, a great cartoonist, you see one line and you know it's them. And that's true of Tom Gammill.

Sally Libby:
What do you call your cartoon?

Tom Gammill:
Oh, it's called The Doozies, it's on Go Comics. I haven't done it for a while, but I hope to get back to it.

Michael Small:
But look at this. I actually have here a script of Jack Lalane theater from Saturday Night Live for 1980.

Tom Gammill:
Yes, that never made it on the air. But it was funny.

Michael Small:
I kept it not because of S&L, but because I thought these drawings that Tom put on it were going to be worth so much money.

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, sorry about that.

Michael Small:
But we're here today for another reason. We are seeking your help, Tom.

Tom Gammill:
Yes, I want to hear the story.

Michael Small:
We need you to determine if I can or should throw out some of the things of mine that relate to your first job at SNL.

Tom Gammill:
Okay.

Michael Small:
And since I love to procrastinate, I want to just talk a little bit more about what happened when you were at SNL, which is that you and Max were very generous. You would invite your friends. You would give us tickets to the show, and then you would invite us to the after-parties, and we'd be there with Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, John Belushi. They would always come over and they would slap Tom on the back and say, "You're a great writer. We love you. You're so funny." Right? It's true. I witnessed it.

Tom Gammill:
Well, I actually have a funny story with John Belushi. So the season we were apprentice writers, Dan Ackroyd's brother, Peter Ackroyd, was there too as a writer. And after the very first show of season five, Peter said, "Hey, Danny and John have opened this thing called the Blues Bar. It's down on Barrow Street. And after the party they're gonna have an after party. Why don't you join us?" So I walked over to Barrow Street to the after-party and apparently I was the first person there. And I knock on the door and John Belushi answers the door and I go, "Oh yeah I'm a friend of Peter Ackroyd. He said I should come over. And he was like "Bullshit!" and he slammed the door. Then I walked. It's like I wasn't gonna argue with him. Then the next day he shows up at the office and says, "Oh my God, I had no idea that you really did work here. Oh my gosh." Then after that, whenever John Belushi saw me, he was like, I was his buddy. And actually, John Belushi and Dan had already left the show. This was the fifth season.

Michael Small:
So didn't they come to the parties?

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, they would hang out at the party. So it's like after you graduate from high school. You know, sometimes if you were the cool guys, you'd go back and hang out.

Michael Small:
Anyway, but there was one sort of unspoken rule.

Tom Gammill:
What was that?

Michael Small:
Which was you really did not want us to chat with those people. I don't know if you remember that, but you really were nervous about that. And you were afraid that we would open our big mouths and say something that would embarrass you forever.

Tom Gammill:
Oh, man. I remember one time... so I lived in the village and I would walk up to Rockefeller Center. And one time I'm crossing the street and this limo is honking at me and I like give him a finger like, "Fuck you." It's like, "Hey, Mr. Limo Person." And then it was Jane Curtin. Popped her head out. She was like, "No, Tom. Do you want a ride?" It's like, "Oh, okay." So yeah, they were all very... but you know, yeah, we did not really talk too much.

Michael Small:
But especially not your dorky friends. You didn't want us to, you know... and also I didn't have the same boundaries, as we're going to find out. What happened is that I ended up breaking that rule and it did not go well. So Tom, we're going to revisit that time.

Tom Gammill:
Okay.

Michael Small:
You can chime in at any time. This is a bit different from most of our usual episodes, because I kind of just have to tell you a story. The object that I saved all these years -- it's hard to believe -- that brought me back to 1982, is this 4 by 6 inch baby blue spiral notebook. I can see that I bought it at Lamston's, which as far as I know is a store that doesn't exist anymore.

Tom Gammill:
It was like a five and dime.

Michael Small:
Yeah, like Woolworth's.

Tom Gammill:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
And in this notepad are the notes I took on the fateful night. I have to backtrack a little and say it started when I got a job as a fact checker at People Magazine. You had already left SNL by the time I had this experience.

Tom Gammill:
I totally remember, we were at Letterman in December of 82. Okay. That was the year that Saturday Night Live wasn't produced by Lorne Michaels. It was the year Gene Doumanian ran things. What's amazing about that, that's when a young Eddie Murphy came on the show and he, you know, blew everyone away. It was a fun time to be at Rockefeller Center because yeah, you have Letterman going on and then the Eddie Murphy SNLs were starting up.

Michael Small:
Oh, Letterman was also done at Rockefeller Center?

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, we were on the 14th floor. And then the studio was on the sixth floor, I think.

Michael Small:
So Sally, I think at the time when I told you I was a fact checker, you were like, "They check the facts at People Magazine?" I think they forgot to fact check my background because I knew a little bit about pop music, but I knew nothing, I mean, nothing, about movie and TV celebrities. And I felt that I liked to learn. So I would learn on the job. But if you remember in those days, it was a lot different. Like, if you wanted to get caught up, how are you going to? There was no Wikipedia.

Tom Gammill:
No.

Michael Small:
If you're watching a TV series and you missed an episode, it was really hard to see that episode again. You had to wait for reruns. You could go to the Museum of Broadcasting I guess if you wanted to see old things from the '50s.

Tom Gammill:
Max and I around this time went out to Hollywood where we were taking meetings with people and we had this meeting that was going great and they were laughing and stuff, and they said, "Well, do you have any ideas for Dolly Parton?" And we were like, "What? No." And then: "Well, this is her company." It's like, oh, with the internet, we could have known that. Then we could have known everything she had done and said we loved everything. But yeah, so that's a good tip to fact check before a job interview.

Michael Small:
Yeah, well, it's exactly the problem. You couldn't get information. And so I did not increase my knowledge of movies and TV very quickly. Because I think by 1982, I'd already been at People about two years. and I still was not well-educated. This is another key point for what happened to me because the movies I knew about, Sally, you also know. On Friday nights, Saturday nights, in high school, I was such a loser, I was home, and I was watching whatever movies were on.

Sally Libby:
And Carol Burnett.

Michael Small:
Yep, and there was one movie that I saw that would be on at like 11 o'clock at night that I loved, which was the funniest movie of all time. I would scan the schedule every week to see if it might possibly be on again. Because there was no way other way to see it. Sally do you remember the name of it? Eli Wallach and Ann Jackson?

Sally Libby:
Tiger Lily or something.

Michael Small:
The Tiger Makes Out.

Sally Libby:
Oh, yeah.

Tom Gammill:
Oh, yes.

Michael Small:
It was so obscure, but it was the funniest movie. I highly recommend it to anybody. You can get the DVD for $26 on Amazon.

Tom Gammill:
Who has a DVD player?

Michael Small:
Well, you can't stream it. No one's streaming it.

Tom Gammill:
Oh, okay I didn't know.

Michael Small:
There's no other way to do it. You have to get a DVD player, I guess. Maybe it'll come on streaming at some point, but it's not on Amazon.

Tom Gammill:
Wait, so did they play like parents of a teenager or something?

Michael Small:
No, it was that she was a suburban housewife who has gone into the city and she's very pretentious and she's going to get her baccalaureate degree. And he is a very pretentious, disgruntled mailman. And he decides to take out his animal lust on society by kidnapping a beautiful woman. But by mistake he kidnaps her. And then they are so pretentious, the two of them, they just are just the perfect match for each other. So anyway, it was a fantastic movie. No one but me had heard of this movie. They knew movies like Midnight Cowboy, The Way We Were. I hadn't seen any of that. This knowledge one day did prove useful to me and you'll find out how that happened. So it was my second year as a fact checker. A bunch of fact checkers worked in this big room with no windows and fluorescent lights. And this editor walks in and he goes, "Look. We got this invitation to the opening of a new movie. It's got Dustin Hoffman, but it sounds like a total stinker. He plays an actor who dresses as a girl to get work. We've invited to a private screening. We really need someone to show up, get some quotes, just, you know, make nice. And if it's any good, maybe we'll do a little one page story. But please, would one of you just do me a favor and go to this party?" That was not such a hot offer. So everybody's like, you know, "I gotta go to Studio 54 for a disco party." You know, or, "I'm going to Danceateria to see Life in a Blender," you know. But I wasn't busy. So I was like, "Yeah, okay." The editor was really happy with me and he hands me the tickets. He says, "Oh, thank you. You're doing us such a favor. I mean, even the name of this movie is stupid. It's called Tootsie." So on the tickets, it says it's a black tie event, which is great because I still had the tuxedo -- Tom has one too -- that we we bought in college at Keezers thrift store.

Tom Gammill:
Keezers, yeah. 


Michael Small:
Mine was six bucks.

Tom Gammill:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
I got that $6 tux and I went out and bought this blue pad at Lamston's.

Tom Gammill:
I bought my tuxedo for $6, but I didn't have money for dry cleaning.

Michael Small:
Ew.

Tom Gammill:
Whenever I got a spot on it, I would just take a black magic marker and color it over.

Sally Libby:
Oh, that's fabulous.

Tom Gammill:
By the time college was done, the pants could stand up by themselves.

Michael Small:
Ew.

Sally Libby:
I'm curious, why did you need them in college? What did you use them for?

Tom Gammill:
Oh, for the Lampoon. There'd be like a black tie event. So you'd need a tuxedo.

Michael Small:
But I mean, it wasn't fancy black tie. It was $6 black tie.

Sally Libby:
I remember Norman Lear, a party.

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, were you there for that?

Michael Small:
I invited Sally to the party because I knew she loved Norman Lear.

Sally Libby:
I was dancing barefoot with glass on the floor. I remember that.

Tom Gammill:
Oh boy. That was a fun night. That was just one of those things where, "Hey, Norman Lear's in town. Let's bring you to the Lampoon." And it ended up turning into this huge thing. It was so fun.

Sally Libby:
It was great.

Michael Small:
Anyway, this was a little different kind of event. It turned out I get to the screening and it's not one of those big screenings. It's, like, intimate. I could see Dustin Hoffman's with his family and the other stars. The lights go out. And I realized I've never interviewed anybody -- certainly not at a party. And I'm gonna be at a party where I have to ask all these questions about the movie. So I take out this blue notebook and I'm trying to write questions as I'm watching the movie. Do either of you remember Tootsie?

Tom Gammill:
Oh yeah.

Sally Libby:
It wasn't one of my favorite movies, but I remember it was huge.

Tom Gammill:
They just tried to do a Broadway show about it too, right? It maybe didn't age well, the premise or whatever, so they had to update it.

Michael Small:
Well, when you think about it, that's a good point. Cindy and I watched it last night and... It was fantastic. The script is amazing. There's not one extra word. It's so funny and entertaining. And we were completely wrapped up in it. But when you think about it from today's perspective, the idea that a man has to dress as a woman to teach women how to be assertive is dated today.

Sally Libby:
Very dated.

Tom Gammill:
And also soap operas on live and stuff. It was hilarious in the movie, but now they don't have live events like that anymore. So they had to switch it in the play, I think. So it wasn't a soap opera.

Michael Small:
Yeah, that was 2019, I think, that they... did the musical. Also, the haircuts are very outdated, but that's beside the point. The thing is, you know I knew how to analyze a work of art. Do either of you remember what I majored in at college?

Sally Libby:
French literature. Is that right?

Michael Small:
Actually, history and literature of France and England from 1750 to the present, which was very useful while watching Tootsie. Because I saw it as a literary work. So the screening's over, I'm in a cab on the way to the party. And I come up with... a really excellent history and lit question. This is my question: How do you think this movie reflects the role of women in society today?

Tom Gammill:

(Groan.) You're asking this at the Tootsie premiere?

Michael Small:
I also have another one, which is, Do you think Dustin was plausible as a woman? Can a man dress up as a woman and be believable?

Tom Gammill:
Oh my God.

Michael Small:
Like... what? I mean this is a light funny movie. I don't even think those would be good questions about Madame Bovary. Last night when Cindy and I were watching it, she just kept going like, you could have asked this question, you could have asked that question.

Tom Gammill:
What was the screening like though? Was everybody laughing and really into it and stuff?

Michael Small:
Yeah, people were into it. People were really enjoying it.

Tom Gammill:
It was, I remember seeing it in the theater. Yeah, the whole place went crazy.

Michael Small:
So I arrive, go to this party with the question, How do you think this movie reflects attitudes about women in society today? And the party was at the home of the producer, Robert Evans.

Tom Gammill:
Oh my God.

Sally Libby:
Are you kidding?

Michael Small:
That name did not mean a lot to me because we didn't have Wikipedia.

Tom Gammill:
Wait, was this in Manhattan?

Michael Small:
It was in Manhattan. But I did get a clip saying he produced The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Love Story. And I had seen those. So that was a miracle. I was like, "Oh, I'm ready for this."

Tom Gammill:
Have you ever read his book, The Kid Stays in the Picture?

Michael Small:
No, is it good?

Tom Gammill:
You've got to listen to the audio version of it where he reads it himself. It's like, "Was Tootsie going to be a hit? You bet it was!" It's like he answers a lot of questions. It's hilarious.

Michael Small:
The party was at his place on Park Avenue. I knew that was fancy, Park Avenue. But I wasn't an expert on anything, including New York real estate.

Tom Gammill:
Except for French literature, I guess.

Michael Small:
Yeah. I get there and I'm kind of disappointed. Because he didn't have his own building.

Tom Gammill:
Oh my God.

Michael Small:
Like, there were other apartments in the same building. And to me that was like, "What? Can't you get your own place? Aren't you rich?" You know, on Park Avenue.

Sally Libby:
Was he with Ali MacGraw then or was that after?

Michael Small:
I think after.

Tom Gammill:
"Ali and I had split by then. Were we still friends? You bet we were!"

Michael Small:
I walked into his apartment. It's a lot like a scene in a movie, really. It's a three-story apartment, high ceilings. There are waiters walking around with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. There are orchids all the way around. There's art.

Sally Libby:
Was there a lot of glass and light? You know, the really big, big windows.

Michael Small:
Not where I was. It was an internal area. So I realized I was in trouble because this was not a big press event. It was a private party and there were probably about 60 people there. Not that I recognized them. But I knew some of them were famous and I did not know where to begin. I get out my pad and I'm standing there. And then I see this other guy, he's older. He's standing by the door. Also, I'm no fashion expert -- no expert on real estate or fashion. But I could tell that his tuxedo did not cost $6. He looked famous to me because he was so well dressed. So I go over and I say, "Hi, I'm from People Magazine. Were you in the movie?" And he says, "No, actually I'm from W." And I look at him like, "W? What the heck is W?" And he knows I'm confused, so he says, "Women's Wear Daily. I'm John Fairchild." I had never heard of Fairchild Publications. And Women's Wear Daily did not sound fancy to me. It sounded like, I don't know.

Tom Gammill:
"Extra, extra, new bonnets in town."

Michael Small:
So I said to him, "What do you do there?" And he said, "I kind of run the place." He's the head, John Fairchild, Fairchild Publications. He says to me,"You must be some kind of VIP at People Magazine. And I'm like, "Wha?"  And he's like, "Yeah, I hear you and I are the only two journalists who are invited to this event."

Tom Gammill:
Wow.

Michael Small:
And he says, "Have you ever seen so many stars in one room?" And he's like, "There's one for you." So I follow where he's looking. And I don't really see a person. What I see is glitter. I mean, glittery shoes, glittery dress, glittery halo of hair puffed out like three feet in diameter. John Fairchild is like nudging me. So I open my pad, you know. He's pushing me over. I walk up to her and I say, "Hi, I'm from People magazine, would you mind if I ask you a question about the movie?" And then I hear the breathiest voice in human history. And she says, "Oh, you don't want to talk to me, do you? Look at all these famous people. I'm sure they'd have a lot of things to say. You should talk to them." And that's when a miracle happens. Because I actually recognize her. It's Diana Ross.

Sally Libby:
Wait a minute.

Michael Small:
It's Diana Ross.

Tom Gammill:
Oh my gosh.

Michael Small:
So I say, "Um, well, I'd like to hear what you have to say." And she says, "Oh, you're so sweet. You're the sweetest little thing." Then she starts to walk away, but I cannot let her walk away. So I follow her and I ask her, you know what I'm going to say. I asked her the better question: Were you convinced by Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of a woman in this movie? I did not remember that she answered me. I've told this story before and I thought -- no answer. But in this little blue book, I found, there it is, Diana Ross must have looked at me quite seriously and said, "I don't think you were supposed to be convinced. I just enjoyed the movie."

Tom Gammill:
Good answer.

Michael Small:
It was a really good answer. And then she gave me a big smile, a little pat, and she glittered off into the crowd. I should have known at that point. I should have gone in the corner, paused and written some new questions. But there was more glitter in that room, and I pivot around and right in front of me is this amazingly beautiful, amazingly tall blonde. And she looks down on me and she introduces herself. She says, "Hello there, I'm Cheryl Tiegs." Well, in case anyone hears this, who does not know who Cheryl Tiegs is, would you two please explain?

Tom Gammill:
Oh, she was like the most famous model back then. The top model in her time.

Sally Libby:
I think it was through the 70s, maybe part of the 80s. Michael Small:
Everybody knew her.

Sally Libby:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
'Cause she was on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues. Unfortunately, I am not a sporting man. I'm a fact checker. So I wasn't familiar with that. I needed to get things right. This explains why my first question to her was, could you spell your name for me?

Tom Gammill:
Oh my God.

Michael Small:
And guess what? She spelled it T-I-E-G-S. 

Sally Libby:
Wow.

Michael Small:
She was not put off by my stupid question about role of women in society. She chatted with me. Looking at my little notebook, I see she told me that Dustin Hoffman was her favorite actor and that Midnight Cowboy was her favorite movie and she'd seen it 10 times. That was Cheryl Tiegs. Nicest person, really. I felt a lot better then. I was on a roll. And then another miracle happened. Because across the room, there's someone else I recognize, someone I know. When I was little, every year we'd watch a movie biography of Hans Christian Andersen. It was a musical too. Did you guys ever watch that?

Sally Libby:
Yes.

Tom Gammill:
No.

Michael Small:
It was the best. You know, we loved Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling. We used to read those. And then in this movie, Hans Christian Andersen is a guy who sings and dances and he's the nicest person on earth. The guy who played him, who sang, do you remember the song Sally? "Thumbelina, Thumbelina..."

Sally Libby:
"Thumbelina dance. Thumbelina sing."

Tom Gammill:
"Makes no difference if you're very small. If your heart is full of love, you're 10 feet tall."

Michael Small:
There you go. That's from that movie.

Tom Gammill:
Oh, wow.

Michael Small:
And across the room is the guy who played him, Danny Kaye.

Tom Gammill:
Oh my God.

Michael Small:
So I run to him. I'm standing there, worshiping him as I stand beside him. He looks up and he goes, "Who are you?" I was proud to answer actually, because I'm working for the most famous magazine in America really. So I say, "I'm from People Magazine. Would you mind if I asked you for a quote?" And he says, "People Magazine?" And I'm like, "Yes." And he says, "People Magazine." And I'm thinking, "Yeah, he's really impressed with me, right?" He says, "People Magazine -- a fucking piece of shit."

Sally Libby:
Wow.

Michael Small:
And he turns away. And I'm thinking...

Tom Gammill:
"Could you spell your name, please?" Now did you go back? They'd written something bad about Danny Kaye earlier or something?

Michael Small:
I don't know.

Tom Gammill:
Because People Magazine doesn't ever write anything bad about anyone?

Michael Small:
No, they sometimes did. I never knew why he responded to me that way, but I knew that it was time for me to turn away.

Tom Gammill:
Whoa, what a party. This is amazing.

Michael Small:
I was shattered, but I had this job to do. It was my chance to maybe become a reporter. So I decided to keep going. There's a buffet table across the room. It's got the most delicious food all over it. It was amazing catering. And I look at the people around the table. And so I see... Let's see, there's Andy Warhol. And I know this from my notes. Dustin Hoffman, the designer Halston, Raquel Welch, Robin Williams, Robert De Niro

Sally Libby:
My God.

Michael Small:
Shelley Hack and Jacqueline Smith, who were the stars of Charlie's Angels, Gina Davis, and many other famous people. That was just, that's a smattering of them, okay? And a lot of, I then learned, famous directors, you know, Sidney Pollock was there, Martin Bregman and... lther people like that.

Tom Gammill:
They'd all been at the screening?

Michael Small:
Yes. Well, actually there's an exception. Robert De Niro apologized and Raquel Welch apologized because they couldn't be at the screening. She was starring in Woman of the Year, I think on Broadway.

Tom Gammill:
Oh yeah.

Michael Small:
Does that sound right? And he was at the wrap party for Once Upon a Time in America.

Tom Gammill:
Oh wow.

Michael Small:
And he had his head shaved and dyed his hair white for that part.

Tom Gammill:
But everyone must have been in a good mood because it's like after a screening like that, you know, it's like, "Oh my God, we've got a hit." It's like... it's so much fun to go to a party when the movie's good.

Michael Small:
Yeah. People seem to be having fun until I approach them. I recognize two of those people. Andy Warhol because of the soup can and Dustin Hoffman because I had seen a few of his movies, including the screening of a movie he was just in. So I go towards them, but then I'm distracted by something even better. Because there's another person I recognize. You know, I didn't think I'd recognize anybody and now we're on to number three. And it's someone I first saw when I was with Tom at a Saturday Night Live party. It's Bill Murray. And he is absolutely fantastic as Dustin's roommate in Tootsie. He's one of the best things about the movie.

Tom Gammill:
Oh yeah, because he has a line like, "That's one nutty hospital," at the end. I remember that brought down the house when I saw it.

Michael Small:
Yeah, he is fantastic. And I... I totally forgot at that moment that Tom Gammill ruled that we are not supposed to chat with the stars of Saturday Night Live.

Sally Libby:
Uh oh.

Michael Small:
So I make a beeline for him and I say, "Bill, hi. I'm a friend of Tom Gammill and Max Pross. Can I ask you a question for People Magazine?" There's a pause and he looks down at me and he's pondering, and he says, "You really know those two clowns?" And I say, "Yes, we're old friends." So he says, "Okay, since you know them, I'll talk to you." Now, this seems like a rare opportunity. This was the time I really had to go to my history and literature question. So I say to Bill Murray, "How do you think this movie reflects the role of women in society today?" And Bill looks at me and he says, "That's a stupid question, next question." And it's just lucky that I do have one more question. So I say, "Do you think Dustin was convincing as a woman?"

Tom Gammill:
Oh God, oh my God.

Michael Small:
And Bill, Bill says, "Now that's a REALLY stupid question. You have one more chance to ask me a smart question." And now I'm in trouble because I don't have another question. I have no option, I go with the truth. And I tell him, "I don't think I have any smart questions. Is there anything you want to say about the movie?" At this point, Bill, he's kind of, he's had it with me. He says, "Ask me a question. I want you to ask me a question." So I say, "Okay, sorry, sorry I bothered you. No problem, I'll go. Thank you, fine." And he, at that point, grabs my arm hard. I'm not afraid to say, really grabbed it. And he says, "You are a fucking idiot. Ask me a question." And I try to back away, but he will not let go. And he starts to scream at me. "Ask me a question! You moron, ask me a question! Ask me a fucking question!" And the room has gone silent and everyone is watching.

Tom Gammill:
Oh God.

Michael Small:
And you know who those people are. I am a few feet from Dustin Hoffman and Andy Warhol and all those people. And I'm trying to pull my arm out of his grip, but he is not letting go. And then, a man in a tux, who I mentioned earlier happens to be our host, Robert Evans, comes over and says to Bill, "It's okay, it's okay. Let's go to the other room." And he pries Bill's fingers off my arm and drags Bill to the other room while he is looking back at me and yelling, "You're an idiot! You're a fucking idiot! What are you doing here? I don't believe you know Gammill and Pross. I'm calling them. I'm telling them what an idiot you are." And now I think... Before I finish the story of the party, we flash forward to the next day, I guess. Tom, did I call you to tell you?

Tom Gammill:
I was sitting at the Letterman desk on the 14th floor and the buildup was like, "Tom, this horrible thing happened." I thought someone had died the way you built it up. And then you said like, "I told Bill Murray, I knew you and he hit the roof." So it was obviously, he was just messing with you. You know, had you not mentioned Gammill and Pross, he wouldn't have yelled at you about it. He just, he thought you would go with it the way me or Max would have gone with it. But anyways Bill is a great guy. So then I call... because Bill, those early days of Letterman, Bill was instrumental in keeping the show going and keeping it funny. He was on quite a bit. He was on the very first episode and actually Max and George Meyer and I spent the whole weekend with him at his house and tried to come up with stuff for him to do. And I remember Max going like, "Are we gonna do this with every guest? Like, three days with them before they come on? We're not gonna be able to do this." So I called up Bill, I said, "What happened at that party?" He goes like, "You're not gonna believe this, but somebody, some reporter from People Magazine was going around claiming he knew you. And I knew that was bullshit. And it's like, I just want you to know there's somebody going around town claiming they know you. And I was trying to put a stop to it. I don't like people going around town claiming they know you. When they clearly don't know you. It's like, it just makes me so mad." And so he was just messing with you.

Michael Small:
Oh my God.

Tom Gammill:
It's like, "How dare he? How dare he claim he knows Gammill and Pross?"

Michael Small:
Yeah, you are the linchpin of this entire trauma. Well, you clarified, I guess, if you believe it.  I find that hard to believe. He really was annoyed with me and I was very annoying.

Tom Gammill:
But he was like, he was the first guest on Late Night, February 2nd, 1982. He's yelling at Dave. It's like, "I know what you're trying to do. You know, you're trying to control me with your mind and you're not going to get me.  Wizard's not gonna fall for it too."  Because the other guest, it was Bill Murray and Don Herbert. It was Mr. Wizard. It's like, "I've got Wizard in my pocket." It's like, he basically does the first episode of Letterman routine on you. I gotta say, there's a lot of Bill Murray bashing around. But Bill is the funniest, he's the nicest guy. He really saved us, Max and I, after we left Letterman. And then we were on The New Show, and that didn't last too long. Lorne Michaels said, "Hey, you wanna do this Bugs Bunny special?" It was for CBS. This must have been 1983. And it was called like Bugs Bunny's All-Star Review and we couldn't get any stars. We got, well, we got Eve Arden, who I thought was a star. We got Danny Thomas, who I was really excited to meet. But then we called Bill and Bill agreed to do it. He said, "Sure, I'll help you guys out." And then because we got Bill, then we got David Bowie and we got Kirk Douglas and we got... it ended up being an All-Star Review. It was all thanks to Bill Murray helping us out. Yeah, it was great. Then a few years later when Ghostbusters 2 came out, it was very funny. Sandy and Myra, my wife and Max's wife, went to see Ghostbusters 2 and they came out and they said, "Oh, you guys were mentioned in the movie. But it doesn't get much of a response." It's like, "Why would it get a response?" But there's a scene where Dan and Bill are looking at the baby, going, "It's now time to do the Gammill and Pross Infant Acuity Test." And that must have been Bill who said, like, "Let's put someone's name in it. Let's put in Gammill and Pross.

Michael Small:
They put your name in Ghostbusters 2?

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, yeah, and that was all Bill. That was all... that was a shout out from Bill.

Michael Small:
Wow, I'm gonna grab his arm and I'm gonna say to him, "You don't really know them!"

Tom Gammill:
It was so fun to work with him that year at SNL. You know, at that point, Danny and John had left, so it was him and it was like Franken and Davis and Harry Shearer and Garrett. He was really fun to be around. But yeah, he could yell sometimes. I remember one time we were blocking a sketch that wasn't going well. And he came over and he started yelling at me and Max. And I thought, "You know, I can walk away and Max will still be here to get yelled at." And so I did. And I realized it's really good to have a writing partner. But he was, he's great.

Sally Libby:
So he's not usually irascible, would you say?

Tom Gammill:
He was messing with Mike the way he messed with Letterman in that very first episode of the Letterman show. It was that same kind of thing.

Sally Libby:
What if Michael had gotten cheeky and said, "Okay, what's your shoe size?" Or something like that? How do you think Bill would have responded?

Tom Gammill:
I think as soon as he mentioned Gammill and Pross, the interview went south. He said, like, "I'm gonna mess with this guy." Yeah, although that French literature question certainly didn't help you.

Michael Small:
You know, I was afraid to even invite you on this episode because I thought you wouldn't want me to be telling this story. Because I broke the rule. You know, I mentioned you to an SNL celebrity. It's really a relief to me to know that You're not holding that against me or don't seem to be.

Tom Gammill:
No, come on, that was just Bill messing with you.

Michael Small:
The story didn't end there, I have to say. There's a little coda to this, which is much happier because even though Bill Murray yelled at me, I had to do my job. First, I remember I walked over to the buffet table and I got a cookie and I ate the cookie. Chomp, chomp, chomp. Everyone's just sort of watching me eating the cookie. And then who's next to me is Dustin Hoffman. And a detail came back to me that was very crucial because I remembered when the credits came on for the movie, I saw that one of the script writers was Larry Gelbart who wrote, didn't he write MASH?

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, he wrote a lot of great stuff.

Michael Small:
Yeah, he was amazing. And the other one was a guy named Murray Shiskal. Do either of you know who he is?

Sally Libby:
No.

Tom Gammill:
Oh, I don't know.

Michael Small:
Well, he wrote the movie, The Tiger Makes Out.

Sally Libby:
No!

Michael Small:
My favorite movie of all time...

Tom Gammill:
Oh my God!

Michael Small:
...that no one in the world knew about. And guess who had a cameo in that movie?

Tom Gammill:
Dustin Hoffman?

Michael Small:
Dustin Hoffman!

Tom Gammill:
Oh my God!

Sally Libby:
Oh, that's so cool!

Michael Small:
So I went over to Dustin Hoffman, who was there with his wife, his stepdaughter, his daughter, his brother, his nephew, and I said, "I just want to tell you, The Tiger Makes Out is the best movie ever. and you were in it." And he said, "It was my first movie role ever. Nobody ever knows that."

Tom Gammill:
Wow.

Sally Libby:
Whoa.

Michael Small:
And Dustin Hoffman was incredibly nice and talked to me and gave me quotes which are appearing in this story -- which of course I saved the article right here, with pictures of Dustin. And he said to me, "Any part alters you. I find that women, like the woman I played in the movie, are very attractive now. Anytime I see a woman like that, I immediately want to bed her down." You know, he played around with me. It was funny and nice. And I had this breakthrough because of The Tiger Makes Out, the most obscure comedy movie ever.

Sally Libby:
Synchronicity, it was supposed to happen.

Michael Small:
So I turned it around. I got quotes. This is full of quotes from all those people because that kind of broke the ice, or they felt bad for me. But there's one more little coda, which is the next day, I hadn't finished filing the story yet, but I... had another event that was also potentially humiliating. Which is that I had not gone on a lot of dates at that time. And I had a real classic date with somebody. I don't know if it was a fix up. I'm not sure I remember who it was with. But I decided to impress this woman by using my People Magazine juice to get tickets to a hot Broadway play. Because they would give us tickets to anything. So we're waiting in line to go pick up the tickets. And you know, it's a typical New York crowd waiting for tickets and there's a woman in front of us. She's... very tall, blonde. At one point, she turns around and she's actually very beautiful and she looks down at me and my date, and she breaks into a big smile and she says, "Michael, how great to see you again. I guess we're on the same circuit." This really happened. 'Cause that woman was Cheryl Tiegs.

Sally Libby:
No!

Tom Gammill:
Whoa!

Michael Small:
T-I-E-G-S.

Tom Gammill:
Oh, that's awesome.

Michael Small:
I thought... "Okay, I think I can do this job." These were pretty special experiences. Tootsie was the second most popular movie of that year after E.T.

Tom Gammill:
Oh yeah, and it's in many people's Top Comedies of All Time.  So did you ever see Dustin Hoffman or any of those people again, or Robert Evans? Or...

Michael Small:
You know, after that, I would go to parties all the time. It became my thing. I'd sometimes go to three or four parties a night.

Tom Gammill:
You never mentioned Gammill and Pross again.

Michael Small:
Oh no. The person I saw all the time and that I really interviewed a lot was Andy Warhol. Sometimes he talked, but he didn't say anything and that was on purpose. He was the one person I saw that and I continued to see. But now we have to decide, are we gonna throw out this stuff? What I have here is a copy of the original article.

Tom Gammill:
No, you can't throw that out.

Michael Small:
And then I have my version of the story and their version. The final version was not all that similar to my version, although, you know, all the reporting was from me, all the quotes were from me.

Tom Gammill:
Did that French literature question -- did that make it into the story?

Michael Small:
Oh God, no. I wanna read you, let's see. Okay, here's two headlines. I wrote one of them and one of them is the final headline. Which is which? We've done this before, Sally.

Sally Libby:
Okay.

Michael Small:
Headline number one. A Star-Studded Audience Has Nothing But Praise for Toot-Toot-Tootsie's Good Guy

Tom Gammill:
Oh God.

Michael Small:
That's headline number one.

Tom Gammill:
That was yours.

Sally Libby:
I don't think...

Michael Small:
The second one is, Dustin Hoffman's Tootsie Roll Gives Toot New York an Excuse to Get Dolled Up.

Sally Libby:
That's yours.

Michael Small:
No, that's theirs.

Sally Libby:
You're kidding!

Michael Small:
Mine was Toot-Toot-Tootsie's Good Guy.

Sally Libby:
Oh, Michael!

Michael Small:
So I have their copies and my copies. And then I have the memo book, which has the scribbled notes, you know, and you open it up and it says: Dustin's wife, six month preggers, due in March.

Tom Gammill:
Oh, you gotta keep that. What did you write for Bill Murray?

Michael Small:
I wrote nothing for Bill Murray.

Tom Gammill:
What about for Danny Kaye?

Michael Small:
I wrote nothing for Danny Kaye.

Tom Gammill:
Did you ever see Danny Kaye after that?

Michael Small:
I avoided him. But the article ends with the quote, "Anytime I see a woman like that, I immediately want her." They changed it from "want to bed her" to 
want her."

Sally Libby:
Wait a minute. Are they allowed to do that if he didn't say those words?

Michael Small:
Well, I think all these years later, I'm not taking them to court.

Tom Gammill:
No. If we've learned anything from this podcast, People Magazine is fucking shit. Or whatever Danny Kaye said.

Michael Small:
Actually, Danny was not right!  Because People Magazine was a great place to work.  You can tell from this story that I had amazing experiences there that I will never forget.

Tom Gammill:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
And I am so grateful to my editors and my friends there. And I owe a lot to that magazine. And with that, I think we can wrap this one up.  Sally, we are just going to remind everyone that they can hear our podcast on any podcast service except Spotify. They can also hear it at our website, throwitoutpodcast.com. Our Instagram is at throwitoutpod, right?

Sally Libby:
Yes.

Michael Small:
They can follow us on Instagram at throwitoutpod. And they can hear our rockin' theme song right after we're done talking, with many thanks to Don Rauf, Boots Kamp and Jen Ayers for actually changing it a little for our second season. Tom?

Tom Gammill:
I have nothing to promote. I'll come back when I have something to promote.

Michael Small:
No, we want to tell everyone that your amazing Doozies comic strip... they can basically put in Tom Gammill and Doozies into Google and that'll take them to it.

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, or the Learn to Draw videos on YouTube.

Michael Small:
Oh, right, right.

Tom Gammill:
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Small:
There's a very funny series of learning to draw videos on YouTube.

Tom Gammill:
...that we did about 15 years ago.

Sally Libby:
Oh cool.

Michael Small:
So go to YouTube, type in Tom Gammill, Learn to Draw.

Sally Libby:
Thank you for joining us, Tom. It's been so...

Tom Gammill:
Oh, Sally, it's great to see you. This was really fun.

Sally Libby:
Yeah, let's do it again sometime.

Tom Gammill:
Totally.

Michael Small:
Yeah, we'll throw out all these letters you sent me. Or we won't.

Tom Gammill:
Okay.

Michael Small:
Thank you again for joining us on this episode of...

Sally Libby:
I Couldn't Throw It Out.

Michael Small:
Bye, Tom. Bye, Sal.

Sally Libby:
Bye, Mike. Bye, Tom.

Tom Gammill:
Bye.

[Theme song begins]

I Couldn't Throw It Out theme song
Performed by Don Rauf, Boots Kamp and Jen Ayers
Written by Don Rauf and Michael Small
Produced and arranged by Boots Kamp

Look up that stairway
To my big attic
Am I a hoarder
Or am I a fanatic?

Decades of stories
Memories stacked
There is a redolence
Of some irrelevant facts

Well, I couldn't throw it out
I had to scream and shout
It all seems so unjust
But still I know I must
Before I turn to dust
I've got to throw it out
Before I turn to dust
I've got to throw it out

Well I couldn't throw it out
Oh, I couldn't throw it out

I'll sort through my possessions
In these painful sessions
I guess this is what it's about
The poems, cards and papers
The moldy musty vapors
I just gotta sort it out

Well I couldn't throw it out
Well I couldn't throw it out
Oh, I couldn't throw it out
I couldn't throw it out

[Theme song ends]

END TRANSCRIPT