Don Rickles

Don Rickles is the voice of Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story 2.

Q. Take your best shot, old man.

A. I don't read your column, but I use it to wrap gifts.

Q. Your habit of calling people "hockey pucks" doesn't seem very insulting or funny. How about "impotent old crank"?

A. I got kids very easily.

Q. So in the movie, you fall in love with Mrs. Potato Head or something?

A. Yeah, right. It's a great story. It's one of those stories that you'll go away and write into your book of memories.

Q. Are you going to do Toy Story 3?

A. Not if I can help it.

Q. Tomorrow night I get inducted into the Friars Club. Any advice?

A. Yeah. Quit.

Q. You once sold makeup door to door. What line did you open with? "My God, lady, I don't have any spackle"?

A. No. That's why you write a column and I'm a successful comedian.

Q. Even though you're a lifelong Democrat, you co-starred at the Inaugurations of Reagan and Bush. Were you that hard up for a gig?

A. No. I was that hard up to hang around Sinatra. Frank got me the jobs.

Q. In 1982 you dedicated the Barbara and Don Rickles Gymnasium at the Sinai Temple in L.A. Why don't you ever go?

A. I have my own gym. When you do jokes and they sell, you get a gym.

Q. Why were you in those Beach Blanket Bingo movies? Did you have a better body back then?

A. No. I did them because I wanted to pick up a few dollars, and my dream was to meet Frankie Avalon.

Q. More than Annette?

A. Yeah, Frankie was my idol. That shows you the shape I was in.

Q. You ever use insult humor during sex?

A. This is going to go into the paper? You've become a writer with this stuff?

Q. Oh, yeah.

--By Joel Stein