Playboy Interview: Don Rickles

With the following probe into the poisonous psyche of comedian Don Rickles, the checkered career of our interviewer this month, the intrepid Sol Weinstein, hits an all-time low. Undaunted by the hate mail in response to his demented "Playboy Interview" with Woody Allen (May 1967), the cockamamie creator of that one-man blintzkrieg Israel Bond (whose superspy misadventures premiered in Playboy) foolishly accepted our assignment—he was the only one who'd take it—to confront "The Merchant of Venom" in his lair at Las Vegas' Sahara Hotel. When his wounds had healed, Sol sent us this report—C. O. D.—scrawled in body paint on the torso of a topless waitress:

"I lounged on the lawn of Twin Hangnails, my ancestral estate in Levittown, Pennsylvania, chuckling fondly whilst my beloved dog, Mimi, part Saint Bernard, part Chihuahua, nibbled on a new Alpo mixture fast gaining favor among our furry friends because it tastes like a mailman's ankle. My daughter sat entranced at the activities of her 1969-model Barbie and Ken dolls, which, because they came accoutered with a full array of battery-powered working parts, were teaching her all she'd ever need to know about the facts of life. Stooping over his mother's flower bed, my typical suburban son deftly plucked an azalea here, a jonquil there, to afford the sun and rain a clear shot at his Cannabis garden. In a hammock reclined the fair Mrs. Weinstein, knitting a sampler, Love Levittown, Haight Ashbury, and humming the catchy score from Ingmar Bergman's 'The Silence.' Such was the bucolic bonhomie of this lazy-daisy day when the accursed phone burred inside. 'It's Playboy calling, Stallion Thighs,' chirped my missus. 'Wonder who the interviewee is this trip?' I mused. Sonny Tufts? Judge Crater?

"On came the same hard-nosed Playboy editor who'd dispatched me on Woody Allen's trail in 1967. He spat two words into the receiver, heard my audible gulp and added, in a softer voice, 'Playboy, of course, will furnish you full combat pay plus a week's R and R in Sun City.'

"The phone tumbled from my hand; I turned albino-white. Recovering myself, I gritted my gums, snarled and punched my wife in the mouth, yanked the bowl from Mimi's slavering jaws and sent her off yapping with a brutal kick, pushed my son into a thornbush and broke my daughter's heart by tearing Barbie and Ken apart at the moment of truth.

"'For the love of heaven,' whimpered the wife through a shattered $4000 periodontia job, 'what's come over you?'

"'When I went on the Woody assignment, I got into an appropriate mood by thinking small. Now I've been asked to interview Don Rickles.'

"My brood began to chant the Kaddish, the Hebraic prayer for the dead. The ever-practical Mrs. Weinstein doubled my life insurance and made a hasty arrangement to connect with a lover, specifying that the employment agency send over any gamekeeper named Mellors.

"Of course, the Rickles job meant that once again I would have to postpone a series of big-league projects in order to satisfy Hefner's sadistic caprice: (a) my screenplay for Sam Katzman about a teeny-bopper's hopeless love for a robot, 'Gidget Balls Gadget' (in a tragic final scene, he dies of rust); (b) my novel of a Middle Earth nun, 'Hobbit Kicks the Habit'; (c) a bonanza from the sale of a naked photo of Raul Castro to Ramparts for use as a gatefold; (d) my brilliantly reasoned treatise for the U.S. Public Health Service in which I proved an irrefutable causal link between standing on ground zero at an H-bomb test and death; and (e) my offer to labor at the side of Dr. Christiaan Barnard on the world's first soul transplant, Ray Charles' into George Wallace's.

"The next day's post brought a plane ticket (one way) from Playboy, some publicity stills showing Rickles dropping napalm on Disneyland and a copy of the tyrant's best-selling Warner-7 LP, 'Hello Dummy!' I had seen many a controversial album labeled 'NOT SUITABLE FOR AIR PLAY,' but never one that admonished 'NOT SUITABLE FOR PLAY ANYWHERE.' Nevertheless, I slapped it onto my phonograph, which slapped me back, and I then listened in fear and trembling to a scathing half hour of ethnic invective. But before the first side had hissed to a close, the machine pressed its reject button and self-destructed. Unfortunately, I'd also left my window open during the audition; a forest of For Sale signs cropped up throughout the neighborhood as I packed my suitcase.

"So it was on to Vegas and the Sahara via a blushing-pink, highly seductive Braniff jet (which was attacked in midair over Nashville by a randy TWA 707). After wolfing down a delicious Braniff platter of baked storm window, I dug into the authorized biography of Rickles supplied by Grove Press.

"Born in Jackson Heights, New York, to a solidly middle-class couple who'd owned their own janitor, I learned, Rickles had overcome his initial 'shyness' by involving himself in scholastic theatrics, i.e., the lead in Victor Herbert's 'The Red Mill,' the classic operetta about a Communist take-over of a Social Democrat granary. After graduation from New-town High School with a diploma in license-plate manufacture, he had spent his semen first class with the Navy in the Philippines during World War Two, alternating between fighting the Japanese and writing continuity for Tokyo Rose's nightly broadcasts.

"His post-War training ground in comedy was 'the toilets,' those tenth-rate night clubs—such as Filopowicz' Hawaiian Paradise in Hamtramck, Michigan—that have served as the compost heap for thousands of flowering showbiz careers. Then came a prominent booking at the famed Slate Brothers Club in L.A. as a last-minute replacement for another comic, who had become violently stricken after receiving a box of Girl Scout cookies from Rickles. In the audience that first night was Frank Sinatra, who found himself the target of Rickles' sniping: 'Hi, Frank! Remember the good old days when you had a voice?' For reasons best known to himself, Sinatra instantly became a Rickles nut, began to drag in his Rat Pack nightly to boost attendance. Soon the nettlesome New Yorker was a ranking raja of the hate set and all of show business was thronging the joint for the right, to be lashed by Rickles' forked tongue. Realizing he'd fallen into the right bag, Don has been excoriating his auditors ever since.

"It took nine years, however, before the TV tycoons became sufficiently courageous to spring the sulphuric Rickles wit on unsuspecting home audiences. After debuting on the Johnny Carson show and demolishing the host, he soon became a familiar fright wig on TV's other big variety shows—Joey Bishop's, Men Griffin's, Mike Douglas', etc., and he hit the heights of hostility in a memorable 13-minute stint on 'The Dean Martin Show' last year, castigating a gaggle of gagging celebrities who'd been invited by the thoughtful Martin for the express purpose of having their careers destroyed before 30,000,000 viewers.

"Rickles' confreres in the night-club fraternity have since bestowed the warmest accolades upon him at numerous 'trade' fetes. Among them were Joe E.Lewis, the famed Aristotle of the Bottle, who croaked: 'Don Rickles is in a class by himself—because decent people won't associate with him'; and Jack E. Leonard, who accuses Rickles of 'doing my act so long I'm going to make a citizen's arrest.' But perhaps the most effusive encomium came from Jackie Kannon, no slouch in the venom league himself: 'Don Rickles has given diarrhea an exciting new egress.' Firmly established as the Torquemada of the tongue, Rickles now fronts his own half-hour show each Friday night on ABC-TV, is co-hosting a number of 'Kraft Music Hall' specials and has been promised that his face will soon grace a stamp—North Vietnamese.

"When I met him in Vegas, Rickles was packing them in—personally, with the help of a cattle prod—at the Sahara's Casbar Theater. One glance at the bullet-headed bawd ramming his jack boots onto the stage, and occasionally onto a ringsider's hand, convinced me that someone had cut Mussolini down from the rope and infused him with a second, even more heinous existence. Indeed, as Rickles thrust out his belligerent jaw, a column of Fascisti rolled their tanks through the crowd, weeding out defectives for shipment to a labor camp.

"His press agent had guaranteed me an interview at poolside; so the following afternoon, I waddled through a field of strewn-about keno losers to the star's webbed feet and kneeled in obeisance, as is the custom, while he munched angrily on a chef's salad.

"'Cheap bastards,' rasped the satrap of the Sahara. 'I ask them for Thousand Island dressing and they give me nine hundred and sixty-three islands.' Flinging the plate into the waiter's face, he snarled, 'Tell Del Webb I hope his next hotel is built on a mine field in Syria.'

"The beauteous Mrs. Rickles, who sat beside him, flashed a look that said, 'He really isn't this way all the time'; whereupon, Rickles proffered his right hand to me in greeting, while he dumped hot coffee onto my leg with his left. I looked back at Mrs. Rickles, whose despairing eyes said, 'I guess he really is that way all the time.'

"Before he would agree to the interview, he insisted on a set of preconditions that seemed reasonable enough. He would squat under a huge umbrella, his feet in a bucket of ice, while I would lie staked out in the 115-degree Vegas sun and howl in merriment each time he dropped a colony of sauba ants into my navel, which he had smeared with Smucker's quince jelly. Satisfied of my eagerness to please, Rickles showed his fangs in a mirthless smile and spake thusly."

[A] Rickles: You have 15 minutes, dummy. I shall grant a few additional moments if you don't prove to be a complete idiot, and perhaps as long as half an hour if you amuse me.

[Q] Playboy: Fair enough, Don. Why don't we begin by——

[A] Rickles: What's with this "Don" bit? Since when did you become an equal? It's Mister Rickles to you. And what's with this "we"? All I see is one blinking, nail-chewing little spy writer from Levit-town who pathetically needs to conduct a successful interview with a superstar to save his flagging career. And who's that dwarf with the camera?

[Q] Playboy: That's Carl Iri, our Japanese-American photographer. He just wants to take a few candid shots of you while we talk.

[A] Rickles: OK—but what's he got in that case, photos of direct hits on Pearl Harbor? Tell him to kiss my Sessue Hayakawa.

[Q] Playboy: Mr. Rickles, we'd like to start by——

[A] Rickles: Did anybody ever tell you that you have exciting shoulders?

[Q] Playboy: You're the first guy to comment on them. Shall we get on with the interview?

[A] Rickles: You really need this, don't you, kid? You desperately want to halt your downslide back to oblivion, right?

[Q] Playboy: Well....

[A] Rickles: Then blow in my ear. Would you like to call me "Don"?

[Q] Playboy: It would certainly make for a friendlier dialog.

[A] Rickles: Then do it. Say, did anyone ever tell you that you have a finely turned pair of ankles? I particularly like the way your veins stand out when you arch your instep, just like the tributaries of the Amazon gleaming in the midday sun. You're a bewitching boy—but I detect a definite gaminess emanating from this room. Doesn't big-spender Hefner give you enough to buy a decent deodorant?

[Q] Playboy: As a matter of record, that aroma is English Leather.

[A] Rickles: You must have gotten it from Lord Cornwallis' saddle at the Battle of Yorktown. And that bathing suit: It looks like it was cut from a casing on Hebrew National Salami.

[Q] Playboy: Don, we——

[A] Rickles: I've warned you once.

[Q] Playboy: But you said we could call you Don.

[A] Rickles: That was before I got downwind from you.

[Q] Playboy: OK, Mr. Rickles. We'd like to begin by——

[A] Rickles: Before we go any further, I'd like to tell you that I've read your Israel Bond spy stories in playboy, and an Ian Fleming you're not. You're not even an Irving Fleming.

[Q] Playboy: Since you'd like to get personal, we've caught your act, and we've heard funnier material on a sinking lifeboat.

[A] Rickles: Let me have that stubby, gnawed pencil of yours for a second. I just want to mark this down: "Semiunknown spy writer flattens big-time super-Jew with devastating put-down, thus grabbing a one-to-nothing lead in the top of the first." Go ahead.

[Q] Playboy: For years, the moguls of the television industry shied away from you. Why?

[A] Rickles: I had one major problem. I was hilarious wherever I performed. They had a cardinal rule on TV: Who needs laughter? They preferred to see some guy on a game show hit a buzzer and correctly identify the days of the week in order, thus winning three weeks in Borneo. On one of those shows I won the trip, but who can foxtrot with a Pygmy? Speaking of Pygmies. I knew right away I'd have trouble selling myself when I met the powers that be in the television industry; they were dressed in Robert Hall suits, Thom McAn no-scuffs and T-shirts without sleeves, and they had these tiny pimples on the backs of their necks. Their biggest kick was getting up at five A.M. to watch the daily farm reports and shouting, "Oh, look, Abner! The heifer is making do-do on the sow! Whoopee!"

[Q] Playboy: What prompted the breakthrough that's made you one of the medium's hottest attractions?

[A] Rickles: Somebody at one of these TV agencies came up with a wild new concept. He called it "talent." They hanged him at high noon on a scaffold in Rockefeller Plaza for such blasphemy, but it did help me crack through at last.

[Q] Playboy: You've scored resoundingly on all the variety shows. What kind of relationship do you have with the various hosts?

[A] Rickles: Let's start with Johnny Carson, who's a peachy guy. I had dinner at his home one night; he made us all sit on the floor and shuck corn. Those Midwest guys never forget their taproots. The first time I ever saw Johnny in swim trunks, I enrolled him in a Borscht Belt health club; a substantial Jewish meal has saved more than one gentile comic from malnutrition. Mike Douglas is a charming fellow, too. Runs a real wholesome, family-type operation. I spent a day in his dressing room sewing name tags on his shorts so he could go to summer camp, and I gave him some animal crackers to eat on the train. Mike's an ex-Kay Kyser band singer who used to perform on those remote broadcasts from hotels in Pittsburgh during the golden days of radio. The announcer would say, "And now, Mike Douglas steps to the microphone to ask the musical question ..." and Mike would forget the question. No matter what the leader had scheduled, he'd sing Ramona.

Recently, I've started appearing with Merv Griffin, another ex-band singer, whose only hit record was I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts, which gives you an indication of his musical tastes. Merv used to sit in a high chair above the Freddy Martin band, banging his spoon and screaming, "I want my Farina, I'm generally forced to spend an hour with him before each show convincing him that he's tall. His fondest memento is a daguerreotype taken of him in the company of Blue Barron, Shep Fields and Harry Horlick at a Lawrence Welk barbecue, watching Harry James' lip go bad.

[Q] Playboy: Are you as fond of Joey Bishop?

[A] Rickles: Occasionally, Joey nods to me, starts to engage me in conversation, then decides he'd better not, because I might make him laugh and then his jaw would crack. Seriously, though, I hate to admit it, but Joey has definitely eclipsed me as a star with his new country-and-western album. When I see him, I'll have to give him a bucket of grits.

[Q] Playboy: You're well acquainted with most of the funnymen in this business. Who, in your opinion, are the genuine powerhouse comics?

[A] Rickles: Jack Haskell, Regis Philbin and Strom Thurmond. With a possibility of their being joined by Bud Collyer, "Mr. One-Liner."

[Q] Playboy: This TV season, you're cohosting some specials on the Kraft Music Hall. Since Kraft has somewhat of a conservative image, why do you think they decided to engage your services?

[A] Rickles: Probably because I was very impressive in my interview with producers Dwight Hemion and Gary Smith. I wore a dark, conservative suit with a Reagan button, Florsheim shoes and, instead of a hanky in my breast pocket, a grilled-cheese sandwich. And I was humming the Parkay margarine song. One of these Kraft shows will feature Alan King, a delightful performer who has done for the suburbs what Nasser did for Egypt. Also with me will be Eddy Arnold, who secretly fathered all the Sons of the Pioneers.

[Q] Playboy: Many critics thought your appearance on the last Emmy Awards show saved it from being a complete bomb. Did you agree?

[A] Rickles: Completely. If I'd been in charge, there would have been some drastic changes in the format. I would have done 90 minutes of cute patter, mailed everybody their awards and then shown a test pattern. I don't know how interested some guy in Fort Wayne is in seeing someone get an Emmy for the best cable pulling during a Miss Universe telecast, the best bulb screwing, the best drawing of Charlie Brown by a Czechoslovakian illustrator or the sexiest lighting for an Excedrin commercial. And they waste so much time on the Emmy show. The announcer introduces the West Coast moderator, who introduces the East Coast moderator. Then the West Coast moderator and the East Coast moderator spend five minutes in troducing themselves to the announcer, who proceeds to introduce the caterer, who introduces the headwaiter and ultimately the guy who dunks the wienies at the steam table.

[Q] Playboy: There was some talk that your own performance in a Run for Your Life segment last season might win you an Emmy, but this never panned out. Why?

[A] Rickles: Because my competition wasn't exactly the three top balloon squeezers on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. I was up against the likes of Sir John Gielgud and Rod Steiger, and there was even a rumer that God was entered in my category. I was promised a consolation prize, though. If anybody dropped his Emmy, I was first in line for the pieces. The statuette is supposed to be a high-priced, gold-plated creation designed especially for the Emmy show, but when I saw Dick Van Dyke knocking his against the wall to get attention, I knew it couldn't be wroth much. The brass inscription fell off, and underneath it I saw the words, "To You, Claudette Colbert, for Your Stunning Performance in It Happened One Night."

But I did enjoy working with Ben Gazzara on Run for Your Life, and I've given his producer a perfect way to extend the series. The doctor says to the doomed Paul Bryan, "We've made a horrible mistake and read the wrong X rays. You never did have a terminal illness, just a mild case of house-itosis. So come back next Thursday for a fumigation and you can do another 39 weeks." Incidentally, kid, this interview is going on too long and it's too brilliant to waste on a cold like Hefner. Screw him. Let's sell it to Olympia Press as a dirty book.

[Q] Playboy: That's twice you've maligned Hefner. What have you got against him?

[A] Rickles: You wouldn't print it if I told you.

[Q] Playboy: Come, now, Don, Playboy is nothing if not fair.

[A] Rickles: I agree with the first part of that statement.

[Q] Playboy: How can you be so vindictive, when Hef had you as his personal guest at the Mansion?

[A] Rickles: Hef had me as his guest for one reason: He wanted to play trick or treat with me in the dark. Did you ever see Hefner in heat? It reminds me of a melting Fudgsicle flanked by two jelly beans. He wouldn't leave me alone all the nights I stayed there. Kept sneaking into my room with those hot, lovesick Methodist eyes boring into mine. Wanted to know if I'd like my pillow fluffed up, offered to rub Ben-Gay into my tummy. What a weirdo. When he isn't making passes at his guests, he sits around that meshuganah Mansion all day in those brown pajamas, writing about the sex life of a guppy. The man is definitely bananas. He must be a gay dog at W. C. T. U. meetings. To be frank with you, I didn't find it amusing when he put a rubber band on his ass and kept telling me, "I'm an airplane, Don. Make me take off!" And that bedroom of his. It looks like a Polish janitor's. He keeps jumping up, grabbing oily rags and polishing the trophy he won from Good Housekeeping for installing a "dancing waters" fountain in his bidet. I personally think that any guy who hangs around Bunnies all day should be retired to a carrot farm.

[Q] Playboy: Why shouldn't Hef hang around with Bunnies?

[A] Rickles: He claims he's too intellectual, too high-principled to molest these unfortunates, but I've seen his bathroom towels marked His and Hers and Hers and Hers and Hers and....

[Q] Playboy: That ran once as a Playboy cartoon. Hef has always wondered where you get your material. Have you ever been privileged to attend any of his famous Sunday-night movie screenings at the Mansion?

[A] Rickles: Yes. What a thrill. He still thinks John Boles is big in the business. Hef's idea of a stag film is Bambi. He nudged me in the ribs while it was playing one night and cried, "Look, Don! The deer is running from the forest fire!" His brother had to keep explaining the story line to him, and that's no bargain, because his brother is a hockey puck. These Sunday-night movie sessions generally wind up with a festival of rib-splitting cartoons. I must say, it's a trifle dismaying to see Hugh M. Hefner, Playboy of the Western World, sex symbol of America's heartland, running around hitting his nose against the walnut paneling and singing, "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! It's the Woody Woodpecker song!" Now I'm told he's sunk some of his ill-gotten lucre into a gigantic Playboy resort in Lake Geneva. Wisconsin, which is so square it's been turned down by Shriners' conventions. He can't even get the Holiday Inn crowd.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever been given a tour of the Woo Grotto downstairs at the Mansion?

[A] Rickles: That's where old Bunnies go to drown at the advanced ages of 20 and 21, when Hef doesn't want them anymore. When I visited the Woo Grotto, Lon Chaney was crawling around with his Phantom of the Opera make-up still on. And once in a while, you'd see a dead plumber floating by.

[Q] Playboy: Did Hef play his $20,000 stereo rig for you?

[A] Rickles: He spent 20 big ones just so he can pick up reruns of Don McNeill's Breakfast Club without static. He keeps the volume up so high you'd think he invited Johnny Belinda for lunch. But he doesn't even listen; he usually spends the day up in his office answering letters from subscribers, those typical queries: "Dear Hef: I'm a zookeeper and I'm having an affair with an anteater. Is this wrong?" And Hef always answers: "Not if the anteater is a consenting adult."

[Q] Playboy: Why are you painting such an unflattering portrait of Hef?

[A] Rickles: Are you kidding? Those are his better points. Let me tell you about some of his less charming qualities—like the way he lets his porridge drip down his leg when he eats, the disgusting noise he makes when he sucks his Ovaltine through a Flavor-straw, the tantrums he throws when his valet won't lift him on his "horsie." On top of that, I happen to know that Hefner puts silicone in his malteds to make his breasts harder. I could go on, but I don't want to embarrass him.

[Q] Playboy: That's very thoughtful. May we change the subject now?

[A] Rickles: Not till I tell you this theory I have about Hefner. I think he and Howard Hughes are one and the same.

[Q] Playboy: This is a serious charge. Can you support it?

[A] Rickles: Have you ever seen both of them together? They never appear in public. They have the same initials. They both made their fortunes in questionable enterprises. They both wear white sneakers and like to consummate big business deals at the bottom of abandoned zinc mines. And they both subsidize Holy Roller sects in Lubbock, Texas. I rest my case.

[Q] Playboy: Do you mean to say that Hefner has done nothing for society?

[A] Rickles: Well, during World War One, he did block doughboys' hats.

[Q] Playboy: If we didn't know you better, we'd think you didn't like him.

[A] Rickles: That's not entirely true. We did have a barrel of fun once when we hand-wrestled one night, but he started to weep when I broke his pipe. Up until then, he thought he was Popeye. With a body like his, he needs all the spinach he can get. Incidentally, do I get a free subscription to the magazine for consenting to this interview?

[Q] Playboy: You'll be lucky to get a copy of the interview.

[A] Rickles: Tell your peerless leader I hope he gets rhino fungus in any areas he considers important to his manhood—or his womanhood, as the case may be.

[Q] Playboy: Let's get off this sour-grapes, knock-Hefner kick. You know he could ruin you if he wanted to.

[A] Rickles: The only thing Hefner could ruin is a rug, if he drooled on it.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about that famous 13-minute shot on The Dean Martin Show that alienated not only Hefner but the entire entertainment industry. Are you grateful to Dean for that opportunity?

[A] Rickles: Not really. He didn't even know I was on the show. When we were introduced, he thought I was Sam Levenson. All he said to me was, "Bring me more ice, more ice." Dean's lovable, all right, but it's tough to be with him. You get seasick trying to talk to him on an angle. And it's difficult to make yourself heard over the popping of corks. His idea of fun would be to be abandoned in the Mojave Desert with Arnold Palmer, playing putt and pitch. It was kicks, however, to needle all the celebrities that Martin's staff had packed the audience with—especially Pat Boone, who cried so hard he inadvertently cleaned his white bucks.

[Q] Playboy: On the strength of that success, ABC assigned you to your own Don Rickles Show. How did you settle on a format?

[A] Rickles: We took the best elements from The Gale Storm Show, Lamp unto My Feet, The Hollywood Squares and Lyndon Johnson's farewell speech to his troops and unified them into a veritable lafF riot. If it doesn't turn out that way, you can contact me at the Charley Grapewin Home for Actors. Probably neither you nor Hef owns a TV set, so if you want to watch me on Friday nights, go down to Sears and have them turn one on for you. I do an opening monolog, then talk with five or six people who have oddball occupations—like the Man from Glad or a professional nose groomer—or somebody who's connected in some weird way with a big star, like Sinatra's dentist or Sammy Davis' rabbi or Don Adams' telephone-shoe repairman. Each week it'll be something different, a heckle session, or a sketch, or a stunt. It'll be a loose format that will enable me to be constantly brilliant. My head writer, Pat McCormick, is assisted by Eddie Reider, Frankie Ray and Jack Riley, who used to be the gag writers on Sermonette.

[Q] Playboy: It would seem you've reached the pinnacle in television. Do you have any desires as yet unfulfilled in show business?

[A] Rickles: Well, I have my own TV show; my album Hello Dummy! is a redhot item; I own a few apartment houses; I make a tremendous weekly stipend; I'll be moving soon from the Sahara's Casbar Theater to the hotel's main room, the Congo, with a 12-figure, three-year contract—or is it a three-figure, 12-year contract?—and I've just been named a Presidential advisor on comedy. Maybe now, just maybe, they'll consider me worthy enough to be the host on the Hollywood Palace. It could happen very soon—if Guy Madison and John Forsythe drop out.

[Q] Playboy: One of your biggest boosters has been Don Adams, star of Get Smart. What do you think of him?

[A] Rickles: He's one of my dearest friends, but I wish he'd stop kissing my ring; it loosens the stone. Some guys worshiped Mantle, Gehrig, Williams; I've always been Don's idol. It's a terrible bore, but every so often I break down and spend an evening with him, strictly as a mercy mission. He always wants to play spin the bottle or pink belly, but I tell him to grow up; so we usually go out and roll a crippled newsboy.

[Q] Playboy: Frank Sinatra had much to do with your early success. Why does he brook insults from you that he wouldn't take from any other comedian?

[A] Rickles: He knows I have complete prints of Johnny Concho and The Kissing Bandit in my vault and that I can arrange to have them run on any Saturday Night at the Movies, thus sending him back into limbo forever. Did you see Frank in those flicks? For years he gave criminals a bad name. And I have other holds on him. I know for a fact he's a virgin and that the biggest sexual kick he gets is touching the noodles in my mother's chicken soup. That's how he gets in heat.

[Q] Playboy: Your act and your private conversation are studded with that phrase, "in heat." Why?

[A] Rickles: Don't knock it if you haven't tried it. And in your case, I don't think you have. The last sexual experience you had was in a laundry hamper with wet towels on top of you. Give me that pencil back: "Super-Jew floors slopebrowed interviewer with roundhouse right to the groin, overcoming deficit to grab two-to-one lead going into the top of the third."

[Q] Playboy: That was a foul blow. Getting back to Sinatra—

[A] Rickles: When you interview somebody, do you always keep your hand on his knee?

[Q] Playboy: You're not concentrating on the interview.

[A] Rickles: Forget the interview. Keep it up and I'll grab you by the ankles and make a wish.

[Q] Playboy: Getting back to Sinatra: By bringing his Rat Pack to your café performances, he gave your career a big shot in the arm. Now that you're just as towering as Sinatra [Rickles insisted on this description as a condition of his permission to publish the interview—Ed.], have you considered forming your own Rat Pack?

[A] Rickles: I have, and—to answer your next question—Hefner's not going to be a member.

[Q] Playboy: Who will be?

[A] Rickles: My second in command will be Criswell of Criswell Predicts, who told me that, according to his astrological calculations, Mount Everest will not be climbed this year by a cardiac patient. Also in the gang will be Huntz Hall, Jane Withers, Snooky Lanson and Pat Nixon. Our court jester will be "Scatman" Caruthers; and Frank Sinatra, Jr., wants desperately to be our technical advisor. We plan to dash about in a gay, insane social whirl, speeding from White Tower Restaurant to Howard Johnson's in a fleet of Tucker Torpedoes and planting all sorts of zany quips in Earl Wilson's column, like "Don Rickles said it was so hot in Manhattan today that when he drove by Grant's Tomb, the door was open!" We'll also be a bunch of crazy cutups—tying strings to wallets, squirting water from our boutonnieres, wearing ties that light up and say, will you KISS ME IN THE DARK, BABY? And we'll throw wild hen fests and smoke cigarettes and talk catty and play cribbage and go off our diets and stay up till all hours. We'll set the tone for society with our hip talk—expressions like "Ain't we got fun?" and "Monkeys is da cwaziest people." And we'll be the envy of Carnaby Street with our Mod outfits: the kind of expensive but casual separates that Bogart wore in The African Queen.

[Q] Playboy: Don't you plan to invite your pal Bill Cosby to join the Rickles Rat Pack?

[A] Rickles: Well, some of my best friends are ex-television spies, but this is an exclusive club. Nothing personal, you understand.

[Q] Playboy: You appeared as a guest star on an episode of I Spy. What was it like to work with Cosby and Robert Culp?

[A] Rickles: It was like being Nancy Drew on safari with the Hardy Boys. What a sick relationship: They're Frick and Frack with Lugers. When lunchtime came, Culp did the cooking and I waited tables while Cosby sat and ate. That's when I knew equality had arrived in America. They offered me the part of a ruthless, overbearing night-club owner who pushes people around and despoils women. Anxious for a chance to change my image, I jumped at the part. Anybody who really knows me off stage can tell you I'm so docile that I ask permission to go to the bathroom. Sometimes when I hear a bell, I think it's time to go to geography class.

We filmed this particular I Spy episode on location in the shade of Cosby's 500-pound friend, Fat Albert. For background music we used Cosby's LP, Old Silverthroat Sings, which reaches a new high-water mark in popular singing. Bill is really representative of the new Negro: He has a natural lack of rhythm. But he does move well, due to his early days as a quarterback at Temple University in Philadelphia. He's the only spy I know who says, "Take this grenade on a hand-off, run out into the flat and bomb the secondary."

[Q] Playboy: From the intrigue of I Spy to the folksiness of The Andy Griffith Show was quite a jump, but you managed it in another acting role last year. As a big-city sophisticate, why were you hired to appear on such a hayseed series?

[A] Rickles: Andy originally hired me because he wanted somebody to play the jew's-harp; the way he played it, it came out too gentile. Anyway, I've always had a masochistic desire to get in touch with the real America. Andy and I sat around the ole cracker barrel in Mayberry's general store, just awhittlin' and achewin' the fat: "Lookee thar, Andy, a cricket! Let's watch him fer a few days." When things got dull, we moseyed on down to the drugstore and listened to the Alka-Seltzer fizz.

[Q] Playboy: This kind of homey humor is conspicuous by its absence from your best-selling album Hello Dummy!, which has been described as too incendiary for air play. Is it?

[A] Rickles: Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, I'm getting plenty of air play for Hello Dummy! on several FM stations in Andorra and Madagascar. And the album has been number one for the past 30 weeks at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland. I must confess I had trouble at first getting U.S. stations to spin it, until the record company had the good sense to send out sample discs to all the deejays containing carefully culled ten-second excerpts. Great bits like "And here he is—Don Rickles!" That one got tons of air play. And "Hi. folks!" and "You've been a wonderful audience, folks" and "Well, good night, folks." Listeners haven't been offended in the least by these savage samples of my lethal wit.

[Q] Playboy: Another milestone in your meteoric career has been your recent headlining at the Copacabana. Was this appearance valuable to you as a performer?

[A] Rickles: The Copa is still the most prestigious date in New York, because you get coverage from Gotham's widely read syndicated columnists. They all sit at front-row tables, writing their reviews, which their editors can't read too well because they've only recently learned how to block-print. I have to help Earl Wilson a lot with his capital T's and I's. He still can't figure out which one has the long straight line going across the top.

[Q] Playboy: Though it's only about ten miles from the Copa, you've come a long way since you were graduated summa cum laudemouth from high school in Jackson Heights. Tell us something about your early life there.

[A] Rickles: I'm the product of a passionate interlude between a couple whose Atwater Kent radio failed one night. Unable to pick up Amos 'n' Andy, they found themselves with time on their hands and begot me. I was born in 1926; but when my mother took her first look at me, she began to holler, "You'll never amount to anything, you dummy; you'll end up like your cousin Sol, a buttonholer in the garment district." When she kept nagging me, I decided to run away—but the Doberman wouldn't let me out of the closet. After my birth, she and my father got in touch with me on various occasions, which was decent of them, considering that I resided in the same apartment.

[Q] Playboy: Are you saying they didn't love you?

[A] Rickles: Well, I was left on the doorstep with a note pinned to my Dr. Dentons: "Please kidnap." Within an hour, I was spirited away; within two hours. I was dumped back on the doorstep with another note: "Keep him. Please find enclosed check for $10,000." They used the money to send me to military school in French West Africa. And there were other hints of their disaffection. In the den they furnished for me was a tiny rocking chair with arm clamps and a metal yarmulke attached to a pair of electrodes. My toy soldiers shot real bullets; and one Hanukkah they gave me a kiddicar with a bomb wired to the ignition.

[Q] Playboy: How did you express your gratitude for their kindnesses?

[A] Rickles: When I grew older, I would book them on Florida cruises during the hurricane season. And I used to go to Mass on Seder in a Polish church, where I would eat pork chops with dairy silver and hold hands with my Negro sweetheart.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever taken a nostalgic trip back to the old neighborhood?

[A] Rickles: Yes, and each time I do, the same guys are still sitting on top of the same Pepsi Cola cooler in the corner delicatessen. Apparently their asses are frozen to it, because they were sitting there when I left in 1939. They try to hide their envy in subtle ways, like telling me that no matter how many times I go on The Dean Martin Show, I'll still never make their fakokteh softball team. My old rabbi, on the other hand, whom I saw on my last visit, has never displayed an iota of envy. He said to me, "Duvid"—that's my Jewish name—"I always thought you'd grow up to be famous, because you were outstanding in the annual Purim play." The Purim holiday celebrates the victory of the Jews over the wicked Persian overseer, Haman, when Good Queen Esther and Mordecai conned the king into hanging Haman. I got rave notices as the queen.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true, as Thomas Wolfe wrote, that "You can't go home again"?

[A] Rickles: Who the hell was Thomas Wolfe? Did he marry a shiksa? As for going home again, I never went home when I lived there. It was a stuffy, lower-middle-class flat in a dank cell block on a sunless side street directly over the subway. You had to time your conversations between trains. I don't expect Hefner to know too much about this kind of life, since he was raised in a silo with a Guernsey for a wet nurse. He'd think a dumb-waiter is a guy who doesn't know how to uncork a wine bottle. We had a German super who used to yell up the dumb-waiter: "It iss Crizz-z-z-muz. Vere iss mein Crizz-z-z-muz prezent?" We used to drop it down to him in a large brown garbage bag attached to an anvil. The place had a lot of charm if you like to listen to your neighbors going to the bathroom—and if you like the ambiance of cabbage soup, which wafted from the apartment of the Hungarians on the ground floor, killed flies and darkened the wallpaper in the hall two shades. All this we were able to afford because my dad was a truly big success in the insurance field.

[Q] Playboy: What was his approach?

[A] Rickles: Soft sell, basically. He'd tell a client. "Herbie, I saw your cardiogram and you have about an hour left. Sign here on the dotted line." And they did, thus enabling him to bankroll my bar mitzvah.

[Q] Playboy: Can you re-create the solemnity of that day in which you bound yourself to the faith of your forefathers?

[A] Rickles: The synagogue was so crowded that half the services were held in a church three blocks away; but we had a reciprocal deal with each other's spillovers, so it worked out. My speech was somewhat unorthodox—if you'll excuse the expression: "Honorable Father and Mother, worthy Rabbi"—and then I blanked out, forgot all my lines; but I was a real trouper even then. Without a pause, I went into my crowd-pleasing impression of W. C. Fields in The Bank Dick, topped myself by cracking my knuckles to the tune of A Yiddisha Momme and somersaulted off the stage. What's the Jewish word for excommunication?

[Q] Playboy: Did you make out any better at school in Jackson Heights?

[A] Rickles: I was king of the hill at P.S. 148. As classroom monitor, I turned in a daily truancy list containing the names of anyone who defied me—including the teacher, a shriveled-up old maid who came complete with bun, steel-rimmed glasses and a dress that had enough flowers on it to give you a hay-fever attack. She never dared to flunk me, because I threatened to tell the others that she pasted eight-by-ten glossies of Edgar Kennedy to her bodice. After school, I usually sauntered home, had my glass of milk and watched the water from the clothes hanging over the stove drip into my Orphan Annie mug. A good afternoon for me was going over to the schoolyard and making juice loans to the gentile kids. Otherwise, I spent the mid-Thirties campaigning for Alf Landon; I was the only Jewish kid in the block to do so. It was the same as coming out for Hitler. But I was never too hip about Roosevelt, anyway. I thought he was a boulevard.

[Q] Playboy: Did you play any of those fabled street games that Bill Cosby talks about in his monologs?

[A] Rickles: We played Johnny on a pony: I was the kid whose tuchus ended up on the fire hydrant. The idea of the game is that five guys bend over and ten guys jump on them. I remember thinking at the time, "We should be playing this game with broads." Stickball was another of my big talents; my next-door neighbor was Polish, so I always had a broom to use. But all of our neighbors were friendly and helpful. One of them was Italian, so we always had plenty of oil for my dad's car: Giuseppe just shook it out of his hair, right into the crankcase.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of broads, when did you start to become aware of the fair sex?

[A] Rickles: At a synagogue dance, when the kids laughed at me for lindy-hopping with a bridge chair. So I asked Bernice Sachs to dance. Bernice's father was so rich he used to stand up in the synagogue every Jewish holiday and yell, "I donate ten thousand dollars—anonymous!" When I returned home from my first date with her, I had a noticeable hickey on my neck; my mother thought an Irish kid had bit me in a fight. That first experimentation with love wasn't a howling success; Bernice begged me to rip off her dress, but my main concern was if my comedy was going over. I thought I'd outgrown that problem until years later, on my wedding night, when my wife failed to laugh when I was ready to make my big move, and I knew it was back again.

[Q] Playboy: You were doing comedy routines on your wedding night?

[A] Rickles: Yeah—the old Adam and Eve bit. Except we didn't have any fruit.

[Q] Playboy: Let's move from one combat zone to another. Your biography cites your heroic accomplishments in the Navy during World War Two. Would you care to tell us about them?

[A] Rickles: No, I'd really rather not toot my own horn that way.

[Q] Playboy: But——

[A] Rickles: Well, if you insist. I was stationed in the Philippines for three years. There were only two Jewish kids on the boat, a PT tender called the U. S. S. Cyrene. It used to be a dock until they put a bottom under it. It was so humid in the tropics that the crew spoiled. Every time we got a taste of action, the rest of the guys would look at the two of us and cry, "Do us a miracle. Part the seas and get us the hell out of here."

[Q] Playboy: Seriously, did you really see any action?

[A] Rickles: Yes, we hissed at the enemy, cursed at him, even fired our weapons at him. That's how we destroyed our ship's movie screen. I was personally responsible for the death of Richard Loo in The Purple Heart, and my buddy got Philip Ahn in Wings over Burma. Tell your buck-toothed photographer this is all in fun.

[Q] Playboy: Who was your commanding officer on this magnificent fighting vessel?

[A] Rickles: A guy who'd come to us directly from a sea-scout meeting. He thought a sand bar was candy. The atmosphere on board was a trifle strained. We kept looking at each other under the shower, imagining the other guy was Betty Grable on a Bob Hope camp tour. One of the gang had definite effeminate tendencies. He kept on skipping up and down the deck, screeching, "Oh, let me fold the flag!" There was another guy who was always attempting suicide; we had to keep cutting him down from the bulkhead.

[Q] Playboy: Who was he?

[A] Rickles: The morale officer. The whole tour was worse than Mister Roberts. If any of us had tried to write a book about it, the others would have killed him for reminding them of it.

[Q] Playboy: After the War, you studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. What did you learn there?

[A] Rickles: How to use make-up effectively. I swabbed it on so liberally I was always being solicited by members of the vice squad. Have you ever seen a policeman expose himself? It's what they call a "cop-out."

[Q] Playboy: With this sort of high-caliber dramatic training under your belt, you launched your career in those premiere-showcase supper clubs that comedians refer to as "the toilets." What were they like?

[A] Rickles: Really high-class places. They smelled like a pair of sneakers after a basketball double-header at the Garden. And the owners were the kind of guys who wore $5000 pinkie rings and beer-stained undershirts. They'd sit in the front row and spit at the acts. The clientele wore double-breasted Chester Morris suits with Hoover buttons—and this was in the Fifties. It was the first time I'd ever seen grown men wearing brown-patent-leather shoes with white anklet socks. And always on their ties was a figure of Roy Rogers' horse. You wouldn't often see Grace Kelly there dancing with Adolphe Menjou.

Many of these gin mills were sailor joints in Washington, D.C., which featured bubble dancers like Monique LaVine, who was in big trouble when her bubble pipe didn't work; you know how opium residue can clog a pipe. We had specialty acts like Zokina and Her King Cobra, which turned out to be a garter snake with dewlaps. It was retarded, too. Instead of slithering over Zokina's oiled body, it ate its own basket. And one of the strippers, Flora LaVerne, had so many stretch marks on her body she looked like the Mississippi River delta from 30,000 feet up. Occasionally, brawls would erupt, which I avoided by lying on the floor and pretending to be a mound of cigarette butts.

[Q] Playboy: Did it work?

[A] Rickles: You get out of line once more and I'll fix it so you never play the glockenspiel again. The marquee outside these fun spots was a real ego booster. It was a kick to spot your name in lights—if you could see it through all the dead moths on the bulbs. My accommodations were swanky, too. To dress, I had to stand on top of a bus boy. The four-piece combo—piano, bass, drums and spittoon—were all Sammy Kaye rejects. No matter what request the customers hollered for—Stardust, Body and Soul, Moonglow—they broke into Take Me Out to the Ball Game. They started a wonderful musicians' quiz called "Find the Melody." Generally, there was also a girl singer named Lola Lane or Tish Burdue, who had the sexy, throbbing vocal quality of a wino retching through a kazoo. And the food served in these places could best be described as Forest Lawn for flies. An occasional ribbon of flypaper dangling in the soup added a distinctive Duncan Hines touch. The only reason the place was never condemned by the Board of Health was because they didn't have the guts to go in there and check. The parking-lot attendant had his fun and games, too. You pulled up, gave him the keys to your car and went inside. It was your job to find it the following day at the demolition derby on Route 31 outside Bethesda, Maryland.

[Q] Playboy: Were any of these "toilets" operated by hoods?

[A] Rickles: Perhaps, but I've never worried about the mob element, because I'm a personal friend of Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

[Q] Playboy: Plays a hell of a zimbal, doesn't he?

[A] Rickles: Give me that pencil, "PLAYBOY punster zings in 'zimbal' joke on unsuspecting comedian to take a four-to-three lead in the top of the seventh." You have a quicksilver mind, my child. I both respect and hate you for that. Why don't you dive headfirst into a vat of pickled hair? But to tell you the truth, the gangster image has never frightened me, because I happen to know that Warren Beatty has trouble with the firing mechanism on a cap pistol.

[Q] Playboy: Many people who know you primarily as a night-club performer are surprised these days to see you popping up on some of the Late Show movies. Would you like to discuss some of your early film successes?

[A] Rickles: Hollywood first beckoned to me in 1956 by starring me in a War thriller. Run Silent, Run Deep, which also featured Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in supporting roles. They were adequate in the film, but I got tired of carrying them. The plot concerned an American sub in the Bongo Straits that was trying to fool a Japanese destroyer into thinking they'd sunk us by using the old submariner's trick—disgorging garbage from the torpedo tubes. To this day, I'm bitter about how Clark and Burt looked at each other and said, "We're out of garbage. Let's throw out Rickles."

I also did The Rat Race with Tony Curtis, one of our great Cary Grants. When I knew Tony, he was one of the boys: today, he wears love beads and challenges women to duels. Then they threw me into a couple of high-class vehicles called Muscle Beach Party and Beach Blanket Bingo, produced by American International Pictures, which specialized in low-budget quickies that were shot for a price range of $40 to $50; add $5 if they were in color. This gave me a chance to work with my idols Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, who got me admitted to their day nursery as a fringe benefit. My dialog consisted of yelling "Surf's up! Surf's up!" every 25 minutes. But Frankie and Annette had to rehearse their lines for hours. It was hard for them to remember "Run, Spot, run!" They want me to act in their new one, Kiss My Sandbox.

[Q] Playboy: Now that you're a big star in your own right, have you been offered any meatier parts?

[A] Rickles: Only the ones they throw into my cage. Actually, yes, my agent has been deluged with movie offers, but unfortunately none of them are talkies. I've been asked to co-star with Lyle Talbot in I Was in Heat for a Werewolf. And Paramount wants me to redo the Quasimodo role with two humps. There was also some talk about me starring in Planet of the Apes because the producers thought they could save money on make-up, but I turned it down because they offered me peanuts. Give me that pencil. "Super-Jew lobs in 'peanuts' ad lib, streaks into five-to-four lead in the top of the eighth."

[Q] Playboy: Until Hollywood discovers your potential as a sex star, fans can see you at your unexpurgated best only in Las Vegas. For the benefit of those who've never sojourned in this man-made jewel on the desert, could you fill them in on the atmosphere?

[A] Rickles: You know you're getting into Vegas when the pilots start betting among themselves that they'll clear the mountain. And the weather can be quite (continued on page 150) Playboy Interview(continued from page 90) distressing. During a typical Vegas sandstorm, I often put a hanky over my mouth and go out looking for Rommel's tanks. The heat can be appalling, too. It hit 125 degrees here at the Sahara one afternoon and the pool had to be rushed to the hospital with heat prostration. In other parts of the world, the hotels bear dignified names—Hilton, Statler, Plaza, St. Regis. Here, the owners have delusions of grandeur. They call them Sahara, Aladdin, Thunderbird, Caesar's Palace. The only hotel in town that makes any sense is called the Mint. They hit it right on the head. The residents of this town have one shining philosophy: Roll the customers, but do it legal. In my hotel, the Sahara——

[Q] Playboy:Your hotel? We're sure Del Webb would take umbrage at that claim.

[A] Rickles: Del Webb doesn't get laughs—not intentionally, anyway. I put this hotel on the map. Before I came here, they had thrilling lounge acts like Milo Waslewski and His Accordionettes, featuring Wanda Kropnik, the first topless eggsucker.

[Q] Playboy: Since you started working in Vegas, nude shows have taken over most of the big showrooms. As a devoutly religious man, how do you feel about making your living in this sexually liberated atmosphere?

[A] Rickles: Well, it was a shock to discover that many of the girls are not wearing their dresses at a decent, respectable mid-calf length, and that there is gambling going on here openly and nobody is saying a thing about it. And the language is revolting. I don't believe I've ever heard the words "hell" and "damn" used so casually and by people of such obvious breeding. I'll definitely have to write an expose for the Watchtower on these developments.

[Q] Playboy: We hear a good deal about your storied confrontations in Vegas with Fat Jack Leonard, who likes to call himself the "fastest mouth in the West." Can you set the scene for one of these showdowns?

[A] Rickles: Somehow, the word gets out that both Jack and I are in town and a hush falls over the Strip. Saloonkeepers board up their establishments. Kids and old ladies are hustled off the streets; even hustlers are hustled off the streets. Danny Thomas kneels in his combination chapel and night club and prays for our souls. Then at high noon, Jack and I start a measured walk down the Strip toward each other. I can see by the way his cheeks are puffed up that he has 20 new one-liners jammed in his mouth. I myself have 25, including five that Shecky Greene sent over on the Wells Fargo wagon. We've agreed to start spewing lines at the count of three; but at two, Jack cheats, spits his lines out and I get knocked off as usual. I know Jack claims I've been doing his act, but at least I've been trying to improve it.

[Q] Playboy: With or without Jack's help, you've cornered the market on the ethnic insult. How did you uncover this mother lode of malice?

[A] Rickles: What do you mean, ethnic insult? May your yam nose get caught under a West German steam iron; may your bird shrivel up into a pea pod; may a Green Beret drive a personnel carrier over your kumquats. But to answer your question, pal, it happened one night when the audience bolted toward me carrying their knives and forks with them. I had an idea it wasn't for the purpose of asking for autographs, so I hurled a few ethnic gibes to fend them off. About half of them reeled back, and the rest began to laugh at them, which they took as deadly slander; in a moment, they were at each other's jugulars. Then I called the police and had them all arrested for starting a race riot.

[Q] Playboy: Is it really necessary for you to be so hostile?

[A] Rickles: Would you rather I came on stage like Art Linkletter and sang 4-H cookie-baking songs? If I did that, my audience would consist of two Cuban waiters in the back, slapping at mosquitoes with their napkins.

[Q] Playboy: What have you been saying lately to the various ethnic groups in your audience?

[A] Rickles: If I see an Italian in the audience, I tell him, "Domenico, spit out the nails and tell me if my shoes are ready." To the Poles: "You're wonderful people. When Jewish-owned cars break down, who else has the strength to push them back to the garage? And thanks for giving us the Warsaw Concerto."

[Q] Playboy: To Mexicans?

[A] Rickles: "Every time you get the runs, Manuel, stop over at the state highway department. They need someone to make the white lines down the middle of Route Sixty-six. If you don't like that, you can kiss my tacos." That's Castilian for tuchus.

[Q] Playboy: Do you spare those of your own faith?

[A] Rickles: No, why should I? I usually say something like, "If you took that roll of bills out of your pants pocket, you'd look like a eunuch."

[Q] Playboy: How about the WASPs?

[A] Rickles: I always know when WASPs are in the audience. They're the ones still wearing World War Two discharge buttons. They order corned beef on white bread with a glass of milk and a pickle. They call each other "Mother" and "Father." The Negroes call them Mother, too, only they pronounce it different.

[Q] Playboy: Ever get any Arabs in the crowd?

[A] Rickles: Sometimes. It would be the easiest thing for me to malign the Arabs, to get cheap laughs at their expense, but I tell them, "Look, we're all part of humanity, so let's bury the animosities of the past." Then I tell Achmed and Abdullah to stand up in the spotlight and take a bow.

[Q] Playboy: Do they?

[A] Rickles: Yes. And as soon as they do, I yell, "Open fire!"

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever reduced anyone in your audience to tears?

[A] Rickles: One night some old broad yelled out, "You're great, you're great!"; so I cut her up with a hundred insults. I just can't stand people who fawn—though I must admit, it was a rotten way to treat my own mother.

[Q] Playboy: Must there be celebrities in your audience for you to be at your best?

[A] Rickles: Oh, no. Human beings have a habit of laughing, too.

[Q] Playboy: A guy like you seems to beg for hecklers. What devastating lines do you direct against a really rowdy speciment?

[A] Rickles: I say, "Please try to be more polite. Your frequent interruptions have a deleterious effect on my timing and thus diminish my over-all effectiveness as a humorist." He generally runs off crying.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't you afraid of being assaulted physically when you toss off barbs like that?

[A] Rickles: Not really. I tell any hostile elements in the audience, "If you strike me, a squadron of Mirage bombers will level your home." I have also studied Korean Fung Kyu, the deadliest form of openhanded combat. With one blow of my left hand, I can shatter every bone in a child's body.

[Q] Playboy: Do you work yourself into a rage before you come on stage?

[A] Rickles: My, my, the cockamamie interviewer is so clever he asks his questions in rhyme. Why don't you swing with a Burma-Shave sign and get splinters in your thighs? My usual procedure before facing a Sahara crowd is to allow myself to be bitten by a vicious dog. Working with rabies germs coursing through my veins helps my comedic flow.

[Q] Playboy: Are you aware that a growing number of your devotees would like to see you committed to an institution?

[A] Rickles: Yes, I can understand how lonely it gets for them in those cages; they're just as entitled to a little entertainment as anyone else.

[Q] Playboy: In view of your seething hostility, it seems logical to ask if you've ever submitted to psychiatric evaluation.

[A] Rickles: A guy named Lennie once recommended it to me. He also wanted me (continued on page 215)Playboy Interview (continued from page 150) to pet rabbits and fluffy chickens and, like an idiot, I listened. Next thing I remember, two guys in white coats were jamming a thermometer into me and I was making like Johnny Weissmuller and diving into a sink. My first headshrinker was the great Jivaro psychiatrist Calypso Bwanamakuba. I gave him up fast when I saw some of his former patients hanging from his belt. I ended up with a Freudian analyst, but I gave him up, too, when I walked in on him one day and found him making love on his couch. Alone.

[Q] Playboy: Some entertainers possess legendary fixations—like a well-known pop singer who reportedly takes showers several times a day and insists on carrying freshly laundered money. Did your analyses uncover any special quirks?

[A] Rickles: Several. I can never work a night club that's on fire—an odd hang-up, but that's how it is. I must sleep in my closet to ascertain that my clothes aren't plotting against me. I must have food and drink on any day of the week ending in "d-a-y." And no optometrist who has ever memorized the South African constitution or played bop alto in the Cedar Rapids Jazz Festival can be allowed to examine my eyes. I also have two major phobias—spiders and height; if I ever had to stand on top of a 1000-foot spider, I think I'd die. And one lesser hang-up: I will never use chili-pepper suppositories unless the seeds have been removed.

[Q] Playboy: That's the umpteenth anal reference you've made in this interview, suggesting a rather sick fixation. Do you tell enema jokes, too?

[A] Rickles: I never mention enemas; that's not my bag. Incidentally, is this how Hefner gets his jollies? "Hey, guys, let's get Rickles to talk about enemas!" He must sit around his bedroom in the nude, humming. With some of the fruity clothes he wears, he'd be better off. What the hell can you say about a midget who sits around in Bunny ears and trap-door pajamas screaming, "Don, you wanna see me play dump truck?" May he take a high colonic with an open umbrella.

[Q] Playboy: You know, Don, you can dish out the insults, but can you take it when some enraged listener strikes back?

[A] Rickles: Try me, yo-yo.

[Q] Playboy: You're ... you're a terrible person!

[A] Rickles: Oh, God, did you have to excoriate me like that? I must call up my rabbi for spiritual solace in this, my darkest hour.

[Q] Playboy: "Interviewer's incisive invective shatters Superswine's facade, thus enabling magazine to take a six-to-five edge going into the top of the ninth." Let's continue. A man who abuses as many people as you do must have a good attorney. Who's yours?

[A] Rickles: A sharp cookie named Paul Caruso, who predicted Caryl Chessman would get off free. Paul thinks the Supreme Court is a garden apartment in downtown L. A. And he has a unique way of influencing the jury. During his final summation, he distributes Italian ices. I once saw Paul get a guy out of a rape charge by using a shrewd strategy. He proved that his client couldn't possibly have attacked the girl because at the exact time the alleged offense took place he was selling atomic secrets to the Russians.

[Q] Playboy: You seem to be well fixed in the legal department. Who steers your artistic career?

[A] Rickles: Joe Scandore, another Italian, which shows you how much faith I have in my own people. Joe has always been a mite too hungry for that ten percent commission. He once booked me into the Roxy Theater in New York City while the wrecking ball was hitting the building. He always thought I worked better in debris. And to this day, I'm still irate over his booking me into the officers' club in Stuttgart, Germany.

[Q] Playboy: Why? Some of those Service-club gigs pay very well.

[A] Rickles: In 1944? Another thing leads me to believe he may not be the proper manager to shepherd my career. His favorite comedian is Tennessee Ernie Ford. I don't question Joe's intellectual qualifications, though. He did get a master's in potty training at Syracuse University.

[Q] Playboy: Your professional life looks set. May we now delve into your married life? Until fairly recently you were a confirmed bachelor. What induced you to take the plunge?

[A] Rickles: It happened when I met Barbara Sklar, a very pretty brunette who was a secretary for a big show-business agency, supplementing her income by standing on Lexington Avenue in a torn dress, whimpering, "Paper, mister? Daily paper?" She's from Philadelphia, where their big thrill is watching the Liberty Bell on hot days, hoping the cracks will get fused together. She's so quiet I hardly know she's even with me, which makes for a blissful marriage.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have an elaborate wedding?

[A] Rickles: It was an orthodox wedding, but kind of weird. I don't think the rabbi liked me; he put the wineglass on the floor for me to step on, as is traditional at these mergers, but he insisted that I do it with my shoes off. And the service was quite prolonged; by the time it was over I had cheated on her three times. My family was great about the whole thing, though; they gave us generous presents. Her family's contribution to the proceedings was taking pictures of my family giving us the gifts; then they sent my family the bill for the film. Because Barbara's a little frugal, we took the economy-jet honeymoon trip to Europe, which consisted of circling over London, Paris and Rome without landing.

[Q] Playboy: You spent your honeymoon in the air?

[A] Rickles: Yeah, but it wasn't so bad. We just flipped the OCCUPIED switch and curled up in the head. For some reason, she was rather hesitant about lovemaking. She said, in an accusing tone, "I had no idea you were going to do that." But since then she's become quite sophisticated about love. Her favorite phrase is, "Let's do that."

[Q] Playboy: What's "that"?

[A] Rickles: She feels that when we indulge in amorous activities we should be in the same room. It's a little kinky, but I go along with it.

[Q] Playboy: In preparing for the love act, do you peruse any sex manuals?

[A] Rickles: Usually I go off by myself and read one to make sure I don't flunk. Afterward, she grades my performance; 95 is passing. I haven't failed yet.

[Q] Playboy: You've been married for several years now. Has any of the excitement worn off?

[A] Rickles: Not at all. Today, just like when we were married, strange things happen when our lips meet. My Timex goes back one hour; the night light flutters in bossa-nova tempo; the shower curtain flings itself open so the tub can watch; and sometimes my cousin comes over, looks at us, lights an Olympic torch and cries, "Let the games begin!"

[Q] Playboy: Which sex manuals do you consult—Theodoor Van de Velde, Eustace Chesser, Albert Ellis?

[A] Rickles: The writings of Sonny Liston. He was always good at working in close.

[Q] Playboy: Apart from lovemaking, how do you spend your time at home?

[A] Rickles: I usually sit around watching my wife prepare exotic cuisine. Her favorite dish is a day-old bun with a side order of lard. She reads all those Julia Child cookbooks, like 100 Exciting Ways to Prepare Salt. On a typical day at home, the fan magazines would find us cuddling together as we dice onions and chat about hemming curtains for the nursery.

[Q] Playboy: Are you a good baby sitter for your daughter?

[A] Rickles: Not bad. Mindy Beth and I change each other every four hours.

[Q] Playboy: Is she being brought up according to Dr. Spock?

[A] Rickles: Yes, but it's pretty hard to carry a picket sign when you're teething. Spock's advice is sound for the most part, but when it doesn't work, I go back to my mother's old method: I deprive Mindy of food and water and lock her in a suitcase.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of future do you have planned for her?

[A] Rickles: Marriage to a rich guy with a heart condition; but with my luck, she'll wind up a taxi dancer. Just warn Hefner that if she ever becomes a Bunny and lives in his Mansion, he won't look too attractive with stumps for hands.

[Q] Playboy: The word is that since you became a star you've gone Hollywood with a snazzy penthouse in Beverly Hills. Is that slander true?

[A] Rickles: Don't say penthouse. I prefer to say "top floor," because that phrase won't make my friends think I've outgrown them. Which I have.

[Q] Playboy: Did you hire a decorator to furnish the place?

[A] Rickles: Several. The first one was Tiny Tim's effeminate brother. He wanted to tiptoe through my tulips, so I threw him out. Our second decorator was a jovial, burly type in a tweed jacket who puffed on a briar. Did a hell of a nice job, too; except I didn't like the way she kept fondling Barbara.

[Q] Playboy: Have you become a patron of the arts since you started coming into big money?

[A] Rickles: Yes, I have. While scouring the galleries for a frame worthy of my 20-foot self-portrait, I discovered a great artist, a Dutch genius named Van Gogh.

[Q] Playboy: We'll bite. You mean Vincent?

[A] Rickles: No, Sylvia, his mother—a great undiscovered talent. I've added her greatest masterpiece to my collection, the immortal Hair Drier Breast-Feeding Its Young. A very passionate lady; she got that from her son, who was once so incensed at his mistress that he cut off part of his body and mailed it to her.

[Q] Playboy: His ear?

[A] Rickles: If that's what you want to believe, go right ahead.

[Q] Playboy: Your book collection is the talk of the literati. Do any first editions adorn your shelves?

[A] Rickles: Many—children's classics, mostly. Like Heidi Is Horny, Porky Pig Goes Kosher, Little Jack Horner Sits in the Corner and Watches His Thumb Die, Doctor Dolittle Goes Both Ways with the Pushmi-Pullyu and my personal favorite, Chitty-Chitty Gang Bang.

[Q] Playboy: Who runs this soigné household?

[A] Rickles: Cockimoto, our Japanese house-boy, who does a bang-up job but sometimes embarrasses us by staging those Oriental tea ceremonies. The narcotics squad has raided us three times. And it's chilling to see him interrogating my guests: "Where is your aircraft carrier, Yankee pig?" Tell that Japanese photographer to stop pointing that zoom lens at my navel. If he wants Okinawa back, he can have it.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of showbiz luminaries show up at your celebrated parties?

[A] Rickles: Mostly animal acts that never made it on The Ed Sullivan Show. But Ed should do his own act on that show; he's the only guy I know who shaves with his arms folded. I don't want to knock him, though. He's one of my dearest friends, so you know how lonely I am. His wife, who interprets for him, is amazing; she's the only one who has the guts to tell him he looks great.

[Q] Playboy: Your eleemosynary instincts have been lauded throughout the years. What charities do you support?

[A] Rickles: Mostly the Etta Rickles Cabana Chair Fund, which keeps my mother in Miami Beach. And the United Jewish Appeal, of course; although during the six-day war, for the sake of fair play, I started a United Arab Appeal drive with a gigantic rally at the city dump. We raised damn near three dollars, most of it in pledges from Syrian bellhops who work in Jewish hotels. But I knew the Jews would have to win the war in six days; after all, on the seventh day He rested, too.

[Q] Playboy: In your act you talk so much about your God that many people think He's a personal friend. Are they right?

[A] Rickles: Last week my mother-in-law turned into a pillar of salt; draw your own conclusions. But to be perfectly honest with you, our God hasn't shown up yet; I'll know Him when He does, though, because He'll be wearing a top hat and tails and do a couple of tap numbers with Moshe Dayan's daughter.

[Q] Playboy: How can you be sure He hasn't appeared already?

[A] Rickles: Because we haven't had a Jewish President.

[Q] Playboy: Would you want to be the first Jew to occupy the White House?

[A] Rickles: No, I wouldn't want to step down. I will say, however, that under a Jewish President we'd never have any wars. He'd give the enemy a couple hundred bucks and settle out of court.

[Q] Playboy: Still, if you were President, how would you exercise your power?

[A] Rickles: I'd force Everett Dirksen to flush out his sinuses on Meet the Press. Maybe make Captain Kangaroo read The 120 Days of Sodom to his kiddies some Saturday morning. And insist that Kate Smith sing lead with the Jefferson Airplane—naked. And every place I'd go, I'd be surrounded with drooling fawners begging me, "Don, let me go on your TV show!" But the hell with Barbara's family.

[Q] Playboy: In April of this year, Playboy ran a series of sardonically witty horoscopic profiles. What's your astrological sign?

[A] Rickles: I was born under the sign of Taurus the Bull, which gives me a tendency to charge the audience and gore the maitre de. At the Sahara, the latter happens to be Johnny Joseph, a man of Lebanese extraction, which gives me an added incentive.

[Q] Playboy: Those born under your sign can boast a number of endearing virtues—stubbornness, irritability, avarice, insane jealousy—but nothing to indicate exceptional intellectual endowment. Yet you're known to have an inordinate admiration for your own mental powers. Since they say the stars never lie, do you think you might be wrong?

[A] Rickles: If the stars never lie, then you can believe me when I tell you that I'm brilliant. Let me put it to you this way. When I retire at night, my mind sleeps in a separate bed. I get a wake-up call from the hotel clerk at two P.M., but my mind isn't disturbed until 3:30. Since my career is predicated on the successful function of my mind, I defer to it in every way. I would never dare offend it; it might decide to leave me and relocate in Sinatra's body. Why should I make him a hit?

[Q] Playboy: We concede that your mind is paramount, but we also can't help noticing that your physique has undergone a drastic change from its elephantine proportions of a few seasons back.

[A] Rickles: True, angel boy. Would you like to get a room together? The best way to describe my new slimmed-down body is to say that when I see it in the mirror, I touch and sigh. The mirror is so jealous it takes the Fifth when I ask it who's the fairest of them all. You may fondle it if you wish.

[Q] Playboy: That would be sacrilege. We're told you've shed some 60 pounds. How did you do it?

[A] Rickles: I was going to try a crash diet, but I decided against it when I found out it called for me to run my car into a concrete abutment at 70 miles an hour. Then I tried sitting in a basin of cottage cheese, but all it did was excite me sexually. Organic foods were my next kick: breakfasts of Quaker Puffed Pebbles and Campbell's Cream of Jeans. Another diet called for skimmed water. I tried to get jobs that would guarantee exercise, like being a real-estate agent in Watts. Then I went on the famous weight-watcher diet, which allows you five fruits a day, but I abandoned it when I got 423 phone calls from Fire Island. I finally settled on the famous Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company diet—Scotch tape across the mouth; that did the trick.

[Q] Playboy: Has weight reduction enhanced your virility, as it has for many middle-aged men?

[A] Rickles: Again with the damn sex questions? Why doesn't Hefner get his mind off smut and go mount a Fig Newton?

[Q] Playboy: The reason Hef asked us to pump you for this sort of information is because of your reputation for great expertise in the field. We were hoping, in fact, that you'd use this podium, as a veteran sexual counselor for thousands of showgirls, to enlighten our readers with the facts about various myths pertaining to sex. What can you tell us, for example, about the legendary ill effects of autoeroticism?

[A] Rickles: Let me look it up in my diary. Let's see—oh, yes, here it is. As far as legends are concerned, my research tells me that prolonged autoeroticism will definitely cause blindness and excessive growth of hair. I would say that overindulgence in this practice makes one sluggish and could lead to explusion from the volleyball team.

[Q] Playboy: How about those behind-the-hand whispers about Oriental women?

[A] Rickles: They're true. Oriental women are built vastly different from Oriental men.

[Q] Playboy: Thanks for clearing that up. We've also wondered whether it's true, as popular belief has it, that Greek love is practiced only by Greeks.

[A] Rickles: That's just a Greek myth.

[Q] Playboy: Are you speaking from personal experience?

[A] Rickles: I'll have to back away from that question.

[Q] Playboy: We'll mark that down as a yes. What are your other perversions?

[A] Rickles: Driving past schoolyards with the car door open, the back seat loaded with Milky-Ways and Mars bars, and calling out to little girls. I lure them into the car, sell them the candy at outrageous prices and boot them out untouched.

[Q] Playboy: What other perversions excite you?

[A] Rickles: Anything Danish—films, pornographic books, girls, coffeecakes. I also wanted to see that four-letter version of Ulysses, but I couldn't get the producer to lend me a print so I could show it in my bathroom.

[Q] Playboy: Couldn't you have gone to see it at a theater?

[A] Rickles: That would take the fun out of it; and besides, I'm a little too old to sit in the balcony with my coat over my lap.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have any secret cravings that involve animals?

[A] Rickles: I sometimes become aroused looking at a frog on a wet rock and watching his neck throb.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever make it with a frog?

[A] Rickles: Once. It convinced a Navy doctor I had been in the Philippines too long. On one other occasion, I had a burning yen to attack a chicken, but my mother said no for two reasons: It wasn't flicked, and it wasn't kosher.

[Q] Playboy: Don, you've fielded our toughest questions with engaging frankness, but now we're going to hand you a blockbuster. Ordinarily, we wouldn't want to get this personal, but we think we know you well enough to spring it.

[A] Rickles: Wait—let me brace myself.

[Q] Playboy: Ready?

[A] Rickles: Fire away.

[Q] Playboy: What's your favorite color?

[A] Rickles: Look, pal, I didn't mind you asking me about my private life and even my sexual perversions, but this time you've gone too far.

[Q] Playboy: Don't duck it. What's your favorite color?

[A] Rickles: The way things are going—black.

[Q] Playboy: Another ethnic slur. A racist like you probably wouldn't even want his daughter to marry a Negro.

[A] Rickles: If you were a Negro, would you want me for a father-in-law?

[Q] Playboy: Good point. Do you think intermarriage is the solution to the race problem?

[A] Rickles: No, I think all we have to do is make a new version of Gone with the Wind, starring Sidney Poitier as Rhett Butler, Sammy Davis Jr. as Ashley Wilkes, Lee Bouvier as Mammy and me as Prissy, Butterfly McQueen's unforgettable role as the faithful family retainer. Race relations might also improve if we could get bookies and jockeys to work closer together.

[Q] Playboy: Many young people, black and white, feel that drastic reform of our social institutions will be necessary before racial justice can be achieved. Do you have any equally inspired ideas on how to make the New Politics a viable force in America?

[A] Rickles: Would you repeat the question?

[Q] Playboy: Sorry to wake you. Many young people, black and white, feel that drastic reform of our social institutions will be necessary before racial justice can be achieved. Do you have any equally inspired ideas on how to make the New Politics a viable force in America?

[A] Rickles: I heard you the first time. I just couldn't believe you were such a pompous ass.

[Q] Playboy: Don't know the answer, do you?

[A] Rickles: Egghead fruit. May your Phi Beta Kappa key get caught in your fly during commencement exercises.

[Q] Playboy: May we conclude that you have nothing to say about the New Politics?

[A] Rickles: I don't have anything to say about the old politics. As far as I'm concerned, Nixon is the brand name for a dog repellent that keeps Fido off the furniture, Spiro Agnew sounds like a Rumanian fungus and Johnson is a baby powder. As for Humphrey, who could vote for a cartoon character from Joe Palooka? Besides, who could trust a man who once sold Chapstick right over the counter in a Minneapolis drugstore?

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever taken drugs yourself?

[A] Rickles: I tried something called LBJ once before I went on stage and the microphone cord turned into a bullwhip, sliced me in a key region and I finished my act sounding like Anna Maria Alberghetti.

[Q] Playboy: What's your feeling about the hippie movement?

[A] Rickles: I don't worry about them. The unkempt hippie of today will be the mutual-fund salesman of tomorrow.

[Q] Playboy: A man of your sagacity should certainly have some notion about how to close the generation gap. Do you?

[A] Rickles: I say this: Talk to your kid, see what's bugging him, give his fears and desires a sympathetic airing; then take him into the cellar and work him over with a rubber hose and I'm sure he'll come around.

[Q] Playboy: A progressive panacea. What do you think about the new morality?

[A] Rickles: It's the same as the old morality except that they put it on film.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of films, you're an inveterate moviegoer. Apart from Danish stag reels, what kind of movies do you like?

[A] Rickles: Anything with Bruce Cabot or Buster Crabbe. I particularly liked a recent remake of King Kong in which, instead of falling from the Empire State Building, Kong marries Fay Wray and they move to the suburbs. But it doesn't work out because their sex life isn't all they dreamed it would be.

[Q] Playboy: In addition to moviegoing, how do you like to relax?

[A] Rickles: You'd like me to say I read playboy in the woodshed, wouldn't you? You're sadly mistaken. I relax by lying with the bedcovers over my head and playing "pup tent."

[Q] Playboy: Last night during your act, you told a woman who gasped at your bawdy language, "What did you expect, lady? Billy Graham?" If Graham ever chanced to find himself in your audience, what would you do?

[A] Rickles: Convert, what else?

[Q] Playboy: Would you clean up your material for his benefit?

[A] Rickles: No, but I'd wear a lightning rod to ground any bolts from the blue.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think he'd enjoy your act?

[A] Rickles: I think he'd laugh his head off—and then ask the Almighty's forgiveness. But I don't think Sinatra would accept the apology.

[Q] Playboy: You once remarked that you'd know you'd really made it in show business when "that guy in the Kansas wheat field" would recognize you on sight. If that day ever comes, how will you feel toward him?

[A] Rickles: If I thought he really and truly loved me, I'd plow his south 40 with my tongue—two rows at once.

[Q] Playboy: Don, because you're basically a well-meaning pussycat at heart and because you always conclude your act with a sincere apology if you've hurt anyone's feelings, can we assume that all your vicious pillorying of Hef has been just in fun?

[A] Rickles: It's just my humble way of telling Hefner he's the laughingstock of two continents. In the others, nobody's heard of him yet.

[Q] Playboy: But, Don——

[A] Rickles: Mr. Rickles to you. May Hefner do a half gainer and land on the head of the pin he should have written his Philosophy on. May his famous Playboy Club breakfast give his patrons the Aztec Two-Step and may the johns be out of order when it happens. May all the Bunnies' tails fall off from jungle rot.

[Q] Playboy: But, Don——

[A] Rickles: As for you, flunky, may I say from the bottom of my heart that I've never liked you from the start. You're the kind of toady who bootlicks a star and then borrows money at the end of the night for passage on the Greyhound back to Omaha.

[Q] Playboy: Do you mean to tell us you were insincere when you called us "angel boy" and invited us up to your room?

[A] Rickles: Face facts, dummy. You've been had. I find you about as attractive sexually as a dentist's drill. I was just stringing you along to snap Polaroids when I got you in heat, which I planned to send to your wife. Now that I've got what I want from you—the publicity from this interview, even in a six-bit girlie rag like PLAYBOY—you can go eat a dish of Brillo for all I care. May you pass out and wake up in the bottom of a bird cage. As for that no-talent publisher of yours, he's the type who sits in his living room with his robe open reading True Confessions. May his next special girl turn out to be a special boy. May his electronic entertainment room short-circuit with his finger in a socket and give him a Rap Brown haircut. May his new television show win an Emmy as the greatest cultural series since Ding Dong School.

[Q] Playboy: But, Don——

[A] Rickles: May the members of his editorial staff come back from a field trip to Tijuana with blue tongues. May all the gatefolds of the next issue fall out before they get to the newsstands, leaving the readers with a thrilling 50,000-word essay on Che Guevara's favorite cook-out recipes. May Hefner leave that airless Mansion of his just once to see what the sun looks like—and get sunstroke. May all his yachts be lost in the Bermuda triangle. May his entire empire be taken over by the board of directors of Jack and Jill magazine. May all the performers at his Clubs start telling dirty jokes in Yugoslavian. May a herd of baboons break into the Clubs, eat the VIP dinner and throw up all over the Door Bunny. May God hurl a thunderbolt and——

[Q] Playboy: Don, has anyone ever spoken to you about your breath?