Well, I suspected but didn't know for sure.
Punk eek of course actually says that transitional fossils between closely related species should be rare, not necessarily nonexistent. This is because most speciation happens when small populations breakaway from the larger population & get isolated. Mutations have a much better chance of taking over a small gene pool than a large one. When the breakaway population evolves into something more suited to its new environmental niche, new mutations are less likely to be beneficial, because it's already adapted to the new surroundings, thank you just the same. Plus it starts growing, and so even beneficial mutations would have a harder time taking over.
Also notice I said "transitionals between closely related species are rare". Gould especially has taken pains to point out that transitional species between closely related families & other higher taxa are abundant.
But then you... :-)
Gould contradicted himself as much as Clinton. Fact is though that he fought against Darwinists most of his life and he insisted that the Cambrian species could not be explained by gradual evolution.
As to his theory, it is just an excuse for lack of evidence and part of the totally unscientific credo of evolutionists that 'lack of evidence is not evidence of lack'. Such may be okay in the Art Bell show, but it is not science, never was, never will be.