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Speaker 1: Did you ever wonder why classic TV worked? And why

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Speaker 1: things are falling apart?

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Speaker 2: Today?

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Speaker 1: Star of Happy Days, Donnie Most is here with his

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Speaker 1: thoughts and is late night going away? And is it justified?

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Speaker 1: I'll get into all of it on this edition of

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Speaker 1: The Arroyo Grande Show. Come on, I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to the show. Now turn

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Speaker 1: those notifications on. You will be so happy you did

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Speaker 1: in the weeks a hit. Let's start with a culture counter.

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Speaker 1: You gen zers don't know what you missed. There was

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Speaker 1: a time when we would all gather around the TV,

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Speaker 1: the whole family would watch a sitcom or certain personalities,

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Speaker 1: and they really became part of our families. It's what

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Speaker 1: people talked about at school to work the next day.

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Speaker 1: This was common ground that we all shared as a people,

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Speaker 1: a common experience, no matter your beliefs, where you came from.

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Speaker 1: It was a touchstone that brought us together. And I

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Speaker 1: mourned the passing in some ways of all of that.

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Speaker 1: I think we were better when we had that common

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Speaker 1: frame of reference, when we were watching a few of

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Speaker 1: the same things, the Carol Burnet Show, All in the Family,

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Speaker 1: Dallas Happy Days, which my guest Donnie Most starred in,

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Speaker 1: and of course The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Carson

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Speaker 1: was the king of Late Night for a very good reason,

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Speaker 1: which I'll get to in a moment. But now CBS's

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Speaker 1: Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been canceled by their

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Speaker 1: parent company, and my guess is the rest of Late

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Speaker 1: Night will soon follow. They say it's a financial decision,

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Speaker 1: and I believe them. The Late Show cost CBS one

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Speaker 1: hundred million dollars a year to produce one hundred million dollars,

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Speaker 1: and the network was losing forty to fifty million annually.

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Speaker 2: According to something I read in The New.

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Speaker 1: York Post, it's just not feasible to keep that kind

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Speaker 1: of bleed going. But there's another reality at play here.

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Speaker 1: The financial situation was directly tied to the show content. Colbert,

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Speaker 1: like Jimmy Kimmel, shattered the format that made Late Night go.

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Speaker 1: They turned a joyous entertainment into a nightly political harangue.

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Speaker 1: I'm the first to admit Late Night is a relic

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Speaker 1: of the nineteen fifties. Steve Allen and Jack Parr and

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Speaker 1: later Carson created this escapist format, and it was a

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Speaker 1: defined format, and it worked for a reason. Carson had

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Speaker 1: ten million people watching that show nightly, at times as

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Speaker 1: high as twenty million viewers a night. Part of it

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Speaker 1: was his cool demeanor and his in the moment what

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Speaker 1: he called reactive comedy style. It was humor that included

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Speaker 1: the audience. Look at this clip from the nineteen seventies

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Speaker 1: when Carson realized his sidekick Ed McMahon might be loaded

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Speaker 1: and not with cash.

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Speaker 3: Now, as you know, the San Diego Zoo is one

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Speaker 3: of the finest zoos in the world. In we've had

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Speaker 3: this young lady on the show very often in the past.

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Speaker 3: I guess seven or eight years. She's been appearing with.

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Speaker 4: Us nine years, but nine years.

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Speaker 3: Right, yeah, several plus several will be about nine.

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Speaker 4: He said seven or eight.

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Speaker 3: I said no, I didn't say seven or eight. I

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Speaker 3: said several. Then you said seven or eight, and I

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Speaker 3: said that's nine nine nine.

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Speaker 4: Good, thank you.

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Speaker 3: Some of the animals, some of the animals you had

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Speaker 3: as babies are now ten years old.

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Speaker 4: That would be about right. Anyway.

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Speaker 2: John Embry is here tonight and she's now thirty two.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: Joan is an animal handler and a trainer, And you

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Speaker 3: really think you're fooling everybody.

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Speaker 4: And she also best to help him. I know that.

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Speaker 3: And she does her three horse shows a day. Did

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Speaker 3: you know that at the animal park? What an exciting idea?

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Speaker 2: Would you like? An army cutter or something?

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Speaker 3: Maybe in gotta catch up on a little nappy poo.

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Speaker 4: Just my fatty right out of it. Okay.

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Speaker 2: I love Joan.

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Speaker 3: I'm the only one that went down to see jo

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Speaker 3: dog has never seen her.

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Speaker 2: You've never seen her. I went to the wild animals.

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Speaker 1: There was stanuine laughter, right, they were actually in a

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Speaker 1: human moment together.

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Speaker 2: That wasn't scripted.

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Speaker 1: He was really reacting to Ed McMahon and that happened

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Speaker 1: every night, even when the jokes didn't work. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the scripted parts of the show were often the worst parts.

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Speaker 1: The Carson Show was engaging and consistently entertaining, and let's

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Speaker 1: be honest, Today's Late Night has none of that. Carson

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Speaker 1: had a Karnak bit he did, which was corny, but

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Speaker 1: it was also hilarious. He played a soothsayer from the

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Speaker 1: East who could answer questions before he saw them.

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Speaker 3: Watch having trouble divining this week, Yeah, Sis Boomba.

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Speaker 2: Sis Boombaugh.

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Speaker 3: Described the sound made when a sheep explodes.

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Speaker 1: That was back when laughs were real and politics were

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Speaker 1: for conventions. When David Letterman and Jay Leno took the

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Speaker 1: mantle of late night in the nineties, they kept the

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Speaker 1: comedy going and the silly characters and sketches continued. But

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Speaker 1: with the rise of cable, the late night audience fell

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Speaker 1: into the seven to five million range. Leno started to

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Speaker 1: beat Letterman, and I can tell you why. As the

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Speaker 1: years went on, Letterman became more, wait for it, blatantly political,

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Speaker 1: which was an audience turnoff, and I think one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons that Leno continued to dominate.

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Speaker 2: Frankly, it was really Letterman.

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Speaker 1: Who sowed the seeds of that rapid politics that would

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Speaker 1: run through Late Night like kudzu. It was Letterman, not Carson,

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Speaker 1: that Colbert and Kimmel ultimately emulated. Johnny hit both sides

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Speaker 1: and he never used his show to grand stand for

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Speaker 1: political parties. Can you imagine Carson doing a musical number

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Speaker 1: about Nixon or the age crisis. It would never happen,

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Speaker 1: and it didn't. Suddenly laughs were out and tears and

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Speaker 1: political hissy fits became routine.

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Speaker 2: It was a terrible night for poor people.

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Speaker 1: For the middle class, for seniors who reliance social security,

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Speaker 1: for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO or gobsuit.

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Speaker 2: We get it.

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Speaker 5: The country is a turdstorm. You said all of that

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Speaker 5: during the campaign. You can stop now. He knows he won,

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Speaker 5: right Putin must have told him just give it up.

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Speaker 1: You know, Colbert is a very talented guy. I also

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Speaker 1: think personally he's a nice man. Though my pal Jerry

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Speaker 1: Lewis had a different take several years ago.

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Speaker 2: What about Stephen Colbert?

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Speaker 4: I don't like him.

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Speaker 2: Why not?

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Speaker 4: I think he's a snub. I think he's elitist and snub.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that was part of the problem. Like so many

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Speaker 1: of these hosts, he carved up his audience along ideological lines.

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Speaker 1: You must believe what I believe when all the vast

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Speaker 1: audience really wanted was what Carson offered years ago, real

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Speaker 1: laughs and honest moments. You know, Carson was once asked

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Speaker 1: about this, about the drift into politics.

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Speaker 2: You know what he said, here's Johnny.

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Speaker 3: Do you get sensitive about the fact that people say

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Speaker 3: he'll never take a serious controversy. Well, I have an

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Speaker 3: answer to that. I said, no, tell me the last

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Speaker 3: time that Jack Benny red Skelton, any comedian used his

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Speaker 3: show to do serious issues. That's not what I'm there

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Speaker 3: or can't they see that?

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Speaker 4: But you and I do.

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Speaker 3: They think that just because you have it Tonight's show

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Speaker 3: that you must deal in seriously. That's a danger. It's

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Speaker 3: a real danger. Once you start that, you start to

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Speaker 3: get that self important feeling that what you say has

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Speaker 3: great import and you know, strangely enough, you could use

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Speaker 3: that show as a form, you could sway people, and

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Speaker 3: I don't think you should as an entertainer.

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Speaker 1: If you want to know why Late Night is really disappearing,

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Speaker 1: it's because they ignored the Carson recipe. Entertain and stop

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Speaker 1: being so damned self important. And that's probably while we'll

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Speaker 1: soon see the end of Late Night as we know it.

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Speaker 1: AD revenues across the board are down fifty percent in

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Speaker 1: the last seven years, which is sad because I think

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Speaker 1: a variety show can be well done for a heck

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Speaker 1: of a lot less than one hundred million a year,

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Speaker 1: and it's something the audience still craves. The country needs

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Speaker 1: a commonplace to laugh and gather together.

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Speaker 2: If you permit me to close with a little Karnack.

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Speaker 1: Partisanship, what is the vessel Captains Colbert and Kimmel rammed

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Speaker 1: into Late Night.

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Speaker 2: I hope it's not sunk for good.

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Speaker 1: And did you see the reaction to that canoodling Coldplay couple.

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Speaker 1: They went more viral than those awful AI talking babies

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Speaker 1: that I can't stand. Astrologer CEO Andy Byron and his

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Speaker 1: HR director Squeeze were captured at a Coldplay concert. Chris Martin,

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Speaker 1: the front man, said, either they're having an affair or

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Speaker 1: they're just shy. You think I love how Byron suddenly

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Speaker 1: hit the deck. Did you imagine his wife had snipers

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Speaker 1: in the arena? What was he ducking for? She's more

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Speaker 1: dangerous than any sniper. When he got home, I can

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Speaker 1: promise you he looked.

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Speaker 2: Like one of those guys Chris Hansen drops in on

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Speaker 2: have a seat.

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Speaker 1: I think there's something actually wonderful happening here if you

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Speaker 1: look at it properly. There was public outrage and ridicule

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Speaker 1: and shame in the aftermath, and that's a good thing.

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Speaker 1: Not that some in the media saw it that way.

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Speaker 1: The free press said the Coldplay couple did something bad.

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Speaker 1: The internet did something worse, really worse than getting caught

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Speaker 1: in an affair in a spectacular way, worse than bringing

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Speaker 1: disgrace on your company and your family, worse than humiliating

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Speaker 1: your wife and children. I don't think so. I think

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Speaker 1: the Internet acted appropriately here. Then the Washington Post hufft

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Speaker 1: a coldplay kiss cam goes viral as the morality police

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Speaker 1: weigh in, as opposed to the immorality police that usually

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Speaker 1: controls these reactions.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I understand.

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Speaker 1: Look, my sympathies lie with the wife and the family

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Speaker 1: who never asked for this public shaming. But let's not

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Speaker 1: miss the moment that this represents. It shows that people

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Speaker 1: still have a sense of right and wrong and still

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Speaker 1: place some value on the sacred bond of marriage. This

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Speaker 1: isn't extended data. It's a public bond that should be

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Speaker 1: respected by both parties. That's why this story exploded. It

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Speaker 1: was such a blatant offense, such a comic one to

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Speaker 1: that bond. The astronomer CEO must be living in outer

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Speaker 1: space if he thinks the public should have been silent. No,

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Speaker 1: if you're flaunting you're a fair in public, what did

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Speaker 1: you expect would happen? My next guest is one of

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Speaker 1: the most beloved actors of his generation. He was, of course,

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Speaker 1: in an iconic television show that remains popular even today.

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Speaker 1: For eleven seasons, he was Ralph Mouth on Happy Days.

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Speaker 1: Since that time, Donnie Most has continued to act in films,

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Speaker 1: other television shows, and even branch out into music, which

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about. But I started our conversation talking about

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Speaker 1: where we began with classic television, his Donnie Most, Why

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Speaker 1: do you think that era of sitcoms John Mash which

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Speaker 1: you appeared in company, the Jefferson's All in the Family,

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Speaker 1: Why did those shows resonate and reach so many generations

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Speaker 1: at once? Why did they become those gathering points for

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Speaker 1: American culture and families?

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Speaker 4: You know, great great writing and and great you know

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Speaker 4: actors that were beautifully cast in those roles. And and

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Speaker 4: in our case, we had a brilliant director, Jerry Parris,

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Speaker 4: and and our cast, you know, it was amazing cast.

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Speaker 4: So that I think that applies to those other shows

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Speaker 4: that you were talking about. The writing, you know, it

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Speaker 4: was just excellent. Gary. Gary oversaw the writing staff, you know,

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Speaker 4: he was the creator of the show, exec producer and

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Speaker 4: a writer himself, so he oversaw them and picked the

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Speaker 4: writers and and and you know, so they did a

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Speaker 4: great job. You know, the other shows I can't. I

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Speaker 4: wasn't privy to what was going on, but I imagine

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Speaker 4: similar and especially what the shows you mentioned, except for

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Speaker 4: Mash Mash was a one camera show, but all the

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Speaker 4: Family and some of the others you mentioned were shot

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Speaker 4: in front of an audience. And then so what happened

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Speaker 4: with our show. We were one camera for the first

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Speaker 4: two seasons, and we were doing pretty well in the

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Speaker 4: first year, but in the second year the ratings were

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Speaker 4: not so great. It was starting to go down and

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Speaker 4: we were in danger of not getting picked up for

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Speaker 4: a third season. But then they decided, I think it

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Speaker 4: was Jerry's idea and Gary's that all the top shows,

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Speaker 4: all the big hit shows then comedies were in front

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Speaker 4: of an audience, and they thought we had a great

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Speaker 4: cast for that, and they said, let let's try that

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Speaker 4: in this you know. An ABC said okay, let's you know,

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Speaker 4: try it, and that's when the show really shot up

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Speaker 4: and became number one. So, you know, it was a

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Speaker 4: different energy, that kind of performance when you have the

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Speaker 4: audience and you're being filmed. And of course then they

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Speaker 4: also made the Fons character Henry Winkler pushed him up

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Speaker 4: to even the higher place because his character was getting

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Speaker 4: so popular, and then they put him in as that

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Speaker 4: Fonsie moved into the guest department above the Cunningham's garage

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Speaker 4: so they can get him in, you know, more involved,

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Speaker 4: not just with the teenage gang, but also with that family. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and and then then we shot up to number one,

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Speaker 4: you know by the end, and stayed there for a while.

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Speaker 4: And so you know that that dynamic, that dynamic had

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Speaker 4: a lot to do with.

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Speaker 1: It, and and the fac there was a closeness to

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Speaker 1: this to this crew as well. I mean, Happy Days

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Speaker 1: with one of the most successful sitcoms of all time.

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Speaker 1: Was that part of the success or was it also

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Speaker 1: the nostalgia for the fifties?

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Speaker 2: How did you all channel that era?

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Speaker 4: Well, that's a good question. You know, I grew up,

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Speaker 4: you know, in the fifties, although I wasn't a teenager

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Speaker 4: until the sixties, but you know, I still grew up

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Speaker 4: in it. You're exposed to it. I think it's somehow

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Speaker 4: you absorb it, you know. So and then probably seeing

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Speaker 4: seeing a movie like Graffiti and some other movies that

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Speaker 4: were made in the fifties, and I think that probably

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Speaker 4: was the same for the rest of the cask So

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Speaker 4: and that. You know, I think it definitely had a

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Speaker 4: part in the longevity of the show because we were

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Speaker 4: doing a show in the seventies, but it was about

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Speaker 4: the fifties. So I remember people, whether it was Ron

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Speaker 4: or Garry, saying, you know, it won't get dated because

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Speaker 4: it's it's about it takes place in that particular timespan,

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Speaker 4: and people will look back at that with nostalgia, and

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Speaker 4: so it's not going to get dated. And I think

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Speaker 4: that that's what was true. I think to a large.

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Speaker 1: Extent, you really touched generations and you left a mark

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Speaker 1: on the culture. I can remember gathering with my own

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Speaker 1: family waiting to watch Happy Days, and you know, it

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Speaker 1: was a time when these great TV shows were a

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Speaker 1: gathering spot for all of America. Tell me how you

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Speaker 1: first came to this series. You did not read for

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Speaker 1: the part of Ralph Mouth.

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Speaker 4: No, No, I did not. Yeah, well, I had been

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Speaker 4: I was going to school back east at Lehigh University.

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Speaker 4: I grew up in Brooklyn, and I'd been pursuing, you know,

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Speaker 4: singing and acting from the time I was like fourteen,

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Speaker 4: and I was doing some work, started getting some work

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Speaker 4: in New York, a lot of commercials, some small theater

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Speaker 4: and then I went out to LA after my your

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Speaker 4: year during the summer to kind of lay some tracks

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Speaker 4: and make you networks so that after graduation a year later,

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Speaker 4: I could sort of hit the ground running. But when

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Speaker 4: I went out there, I was able to get an

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Speaker 4: agent pretty quick because of the work I've done in

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Speaker 4: New York and references. So they started sending me out

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Speaker 4: on auditions, and I landed a few guest spots pretty quickly,

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Speaker 4: and so I wound up My agent said, what after

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Speaker 4: the summer was over, said, you've got some real momentum.

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Speaker 4: Why don't you take six months off of school and

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Speaker 4: keep the momentum going. So I didn't even have to

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Speaker 4: blink That's what I'm doing, And so I didn't go

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Speaker 4: back for my senior year. I put it off and

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Speaker 4: then went right back to LA because I'd come back

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Speaker 4: to New York. Went back to LA and started getting

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Speaker 4: some other auditions and landed a couple of other parts.

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Speaker 4: And then it was I think it was in October

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Speaker 4: or late October that I got the call to come

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Speaker 4: in and read for this new show taking place in

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Speaker 4: the fifties. So I met with two of the executive producers,

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Speaker 4: Tom Miller and ed milkis I had a really good interview,

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Speaker 4: and then they called me back to read for Gary

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Speaker 4: Marshall and in a room with about ten other people

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Speaker 4: I think execs from Paramount Studios and maybe Network, I'm

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Speaker 4: not even sure. Then they called me back and I

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Speaker 4: was reading the role of Potzy. Then they called me

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Speaker 4: back for a screen test and again to do the

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Speaker 4: same scenes for Potsey. And then we see that Ron

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Speaker 4: Howard and Anson Williams are screen testing, and I knew

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Speaker 4: Ron was obviously everybody didn't know Anson. But then there

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Speaker 4: was rumor I found out that they had done they

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Speaker 4: had done a pilot a year and a half earlier.

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Speaker 4: Ron and Anson had done a pilot with Gary Marshall,

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Speaker 4: had a different title, but it took place in the

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Speaker 4: fifties and all that, but it didn't sell. So then

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Speaker 4: about a year and a half later, Greece becomes a

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Speaker 4: hit on Broadway, takes place in the fifties. American Graffiti

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Speaker 4: becomes a big hit in movie theaters during the summer,

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Speaker 4: again in the fifties. So the ABC execus were going,

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Speaker 4: wait a minute, maybe we should revisit this. So they

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Speaker 4: asked Gary to make another pilot, and they thought Ron

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Speaker 4: and Anson might be too old. The network. Gary didn't

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Speaker 4: think so, but their network made him screen test them

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Speaker 4: to make sure, along with a bunch of other hopefuls,

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Speaker 4: myself being one of them. So I'm, you know, do

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Speaker 4: my scenes, and then they had me do an improv

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Speaker 4: and then they had me do an interview on camera.

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Speaker 4: I mean, there's a whole whole long day, and they

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Speaker 4: were like six other actors for each role, you know.

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Speaker 4: But then so I get a call a few days

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Speaker 4: later from my agent saying it was a Friday, and

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Speaker 4: he said, Okay, you didn't get the role of Potzi,

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Speaker 4: but they want to put you in the show. The

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Speaker 4: executives really like your your screen test. They're going to

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Speaker 4: go with Answer and Ron again, but they want to

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Speaker 4: give you a different role. And and there's a small

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Speaker 4: part in the pilot of a guy named Ralph, and

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Speaker 4: you'll play that part, but it'll become you will guarantee

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Speaker 4: so many episodes, you know, and it'll be a regular role.

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Speaker 4: So that's how how how where it got changed, you know,

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Speaker 4: And and and that was it.

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Speaker 1: Did they ever tell you, don Did they ever tell

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Speaker 1: you what they saw there that they that I mean

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Speaker 1: to to create a new role for a character you

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Speaker 1: know that didn't exist. That's a that's a heavy lift

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Speaker 1: if you're in the middle of a production, are about

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Speaker 1: to start one.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know if I got specifics. All I

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Speaker 4: remembered them saying is they loved you know, they just

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Speaker 4: loved yours screen test. And and then I found out

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Speaker 4: later I was being interviewed. I did an interview for

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Speaker 4: TV Guide and they were doing a story about me.

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Speaker 4: So they so they interviewed the other producers, and when

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Speaker 4: I'm reading the article, Tom Miller was one of the

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Speaker 4: execut producers, was saying explaining how I got cast, and

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Speaker 4: he said the executive there was at one of the

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Speaker 4: top executives at Paramount at that time was Mike Eisner,

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Speaker 4: And it was Michael Eisner who was the one who

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Speaker 4: said put him in the show. So so I didn't

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Speaker 4: even know that until I read this in TV Guy.

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Speaker 1: Some TV guid always got the story, Where did your

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Speaker 1: catchphrase come from? Ralph Mouth often said, I still got it.

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Speaker 1: Where did that come from?

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Speaker 4: That's a really great question because it was not in

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Speaker 4: the script. Really, it was not. There was an episode

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Speaker 4: that we were shooting where Ralph comes into Arnold's and

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Speaker 4: he says some wisecrack to Richie. And what happened was

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Speaker 4: our director who I mentioned, who was brilliant and who

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Speaker 4: we loved and who was like an uncle to me.

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Speaker 4: And and he his character was more a lot more

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Speaker 4: like Ralph Mouth than that I was in real life.

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Speaker 4: I was not really the jokes. But Jerry would crack

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Speaker 4: jokes all the time, and and and he'd love, you know,

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Speaker 4: when he'd score, and when he'd store with a good laugh.

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Speaker 4: That was he would say, I still got it. You know,

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Speaker 4: I still got it because he scored. So we heard

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Speaker 4: Jerry say this, I don't know countless times. So it

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Speaker 4: hit me one day while we were getting ready to

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Speaker 4: do the show, that's what I should say after I

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Speaker 4: cracked that joke. And so I went up to Ron

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Speaker 4: because I didn't want to throw him, because we're shooting

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Speaker 4: in front of an audience. I didn't want to throw him.

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Speaker 4: And I just said, Ron, when I say this, and

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Speaker 4: right after that, I'm going to say something. It's not

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Speaker 4: in the script. I just want you to be prepared

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Speaker 4: so you're not too thrown by it. He said, Oh, okay,

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Speaker 4: So that's what the cameras are rolling the audience is there,

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Speaker 4: come and I do the joke he laughs, and then

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Speaker 4: I delivered the line you know, I still got it,

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Speaker 4: and they they went crazy because because they you know,

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Speaker 4: Jerry went nuts. Everybody loved it. The audience laughed because

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Speaker 4: it was funny. They didn't know the whole story. So

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Speaker 4: from that point forward, the writers, you loved it, so

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Speaker 4: they started writing it into the script more and more,

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Speaker 4: and then it became my phrase. And then years later.

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Speaker 4: It took years, I guess it to reach the the

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Speaker 4: you know, the the innards of the lexic kunt of

405
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Speaker 4: our culture. But yeah, I'm hearing people on TV all

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Speaker 4: of some saying after they said a joke on IT live,

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Speaker 4: you know, like a variety show, the talk show, talk show,

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Speaker 4: and then they'd go, I still got it, you know,

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Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, that was wild. But because

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Speaker 4: you know, some years for it to I think percolate

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Speaker 4: or something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well you all, I mean, you really set the zeitgeist.

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Speaker 1: And for those years there were so many cultural markers.

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Speaker 1: And I want to get to some of the big

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Speaker 1: ones in a moment. But did you ever feel like

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Speaker 1: it was a burden? Don You've spoken about how people

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Speaker 1: come up to you and look, I feel the same way.

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Speaker 1: They feel so connected to you because of that role.

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Speaker 1: I guess it's a blessing in the curse of TV.

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Speaker 1: You know, you're in their home. It's not like a

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Speaker 1: big screen you go out of your house for you're

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Speaker 1: literally in their home. Have you always embraced that or

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Speaker 1: was it.

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Speaker 2: A burden at any time?

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Speaker 4: It was? It was both, definitely both, because you know

426
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Speaker 4: you're I was twenty when I started the show You

427
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Speaker 4: Want To. For me, the what I loved about acting

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Speaker 4: was playing roles that were different than me and playing

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Speaker 4: all different kinds of roles. And then you're on the

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Speaker 4: show that there were only three networks and you're going

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Speaker 4: to show that that's bit that it's become so big

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Speaker 4: that it's inevitable. And everyone was saying, you know, the

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Speaker 4: danger that you'll get type casts people associate you with

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Speaker 4: with that role and I and it became clear after

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Speaker 4: a couple of years because like the parts that I

436
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,959
Speaker 4: was getting before Happy Days, I auditioned and got parts

437
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 4: that were dramatic parts. I did a police story where

438
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 4: I played a sort of a psychopathic mad bomber, and

439
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 4: then I did Emergency where I played a kid who

440
00:25:56,840 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 4: got paralyzed in a car accident, and one and another

441
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 4: one that was dramatic. So but now I couldn't even

442
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:09,399
Speaker 4: they wouldn't let me even audition, you know, three years

443
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 4: in they wouldn't let me come in an audition for

444
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:16,119
Speaker 4: those kind of roles because everythinking of me as this jokester,

445
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 4: so that that became really frustrating. And you know, but

446
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 4: I kept sort of pecking away and and and and

447
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 4: doing some theater and then doing a role that was

448
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 4: a little different, and then another role. And that's one

449
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 4: of the reasons after the seventh season, when my contract

450
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 4: was up, why I decided not to renew, because the

451
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 4: show ran another four years, but Ron and I. Ron

452
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 4: and I left after the seventh season, and that was

453
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 4: and I knew that I needed to get out there

454
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 4: and start knocking down those barriers. You know.

455
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 2: It became a limitation.

456
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:57,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was tough. It was very tough.

457
00:26:58,119 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 2: Don tell me about the fifth season.

458
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: People forget Gary Marshall decided to introduce an alien into

459
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: the show.

460
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 2: I remember this vividly.

461
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 1: Tell me about that alien and what working with that

462
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 1: actor was.

463
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:17,919
Speaker 4: Like, Yeah, yeah, that was it was. It was funny

464
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 4: because we we we read this. We would read the

465
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 4: script the cast every Monday round a table and the

466
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 4: writers would be there and Jerry and some of the

467
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 4: producers and we're reading the script and we found out

468
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 4: that we're going what is this? It was like, it

469
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 4: seems so ridiculous, and we thought it was terrible. And

470
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 4: we found out that Gary Marshall's son, Scotty, they had

471
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:47,919
Speaker 4: gone to see Star Wars or something like that. So

472
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,159
Speaker 4: afterwards he said to Gary says, day you should do

473
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 4: a show on days, you know, with an alien, you know,

474
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 4: with some kind. So that's was the genesis of why

475
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 4: this to be. But we were thinking, oh my god,

476
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 4: this script. We thought it was the worst, one of

477
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 4: the worst, the worst script. And then they couldn't get

478
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:13,360
Speaker 4: somebody to play the role of the alien. They wanted

479
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 4: a couple actors, but they turned it down. Then they

480
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 4: finally got somebody in and then I didn't even remember this.

481
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,880
Speaker 4: Henry and Anson told me that he on Wednesday. By

482
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,919
Speaker 4: Wednesday he quit. And then so now what are we

483
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 4: going to do because the show's on Friday, the big

484
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 4: rehearsal on Thursday with cameras and everything. So so somebody

485
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 4: was Gary's sister Ronnie and Almon and Arrow said we

486
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 4: saw a guy at the comedy store that would be perfect,

487
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 4: that would be perfect for this, and it's really and

488
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 4: they and they said, okay, well you brought him in.

489
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 4: He came in and red he blew everyone away. And

490
00:28:55,840 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 4: then and then I come in on Friday, not on

491
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 4: a Thursday. Yeah, for the camera blocking day. And my

492
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 4: scene was later so I didn't have to come in.

493
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 4: I go into the soundstage and there's this electricity. I

494
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 4: just feel it. Well, people are buzzing, and where do

495
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 4: you see this guy? Where do you see who they

496
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 4: got to play the alien guy? So I go up

497
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 4: and I'm looking at the sit in the bleaches and

498
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 4: I see Jerry cracking up, and then there's this guy

499
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 4: doing all this stuff. And of course it was Robin

500
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 4: Williams playing more for more, and that's how that happened,

501
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 4: and then the show became It went from being a

502
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 4: really not a good script because he started improvising and

503
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 4: coming up with some stuff of his own that he

504
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 4: used in his comedy routine, you know, the noises and

505
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 4: this and that, and and his mind was so quick

506
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 4: that you know, we were like looking at this guy

507
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 4: is from another planet, you know, that's what it seemed like.

508
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 4: And then and then the show went great. And then

509
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 4: a couple of days later, after the weekend, literally you

510
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 4: think it was a Monday or Tuesday, we come in

511
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 4: we find out, oh, Robin's got his own show. Now. Yeah,

512
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 4: like happened like.

513
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 2: That, and that was more from work. Unbelievable. I mean,

514
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 2: it really is.

515
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: I'd forgotten that it had its genesis on Happy Days.

516
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: But look, you've had such a varied and impressive career

517
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: in addition to Happy Days. What is it like to

518
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: receive that kind of worldwide acclaim. I mean, I've seen

519
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: people in England, in Australia they love Ralph melf and

520
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: they've loved this show.

521
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 2: They've embraced it in the same way America did.

522
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 4: It's huge in Italy, and I know, it's crazy. When

523
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 4: I'd see some of the stuff dubbed in Italian, I'd

524
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 4: watch It's funny yourself. Yeah, I mean it's hard. It's

525
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 4: hard to comprehend that. You know, it was hard for us,

526
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 4: for me and I think the other actors to comprehend

527
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:04,600
Speaker 4: you know, how many people it was going out to

528
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 4: and how popular it was, because you know, you're on

529
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 4: a sound stage doing the show, and you don't. It's

530
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 4: impossible to take that in and understand they go for that.

531
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 4: You know, I still have trouble comprehending that. But of

532
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 4: course it's incredibly gratifying and rewarding feeling. I mean, it

533
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 4: seems like a dream sometimes to me.

534
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: Don How many people were watching that show every week?

535
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: Tens of millions, right, oh.

536
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, huge audience.

537
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think at its height, I think it was

538
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 4: like sixty million people something like that.

539
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we can't comprehend this today. Look, I'm

540
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: on one of the biggest shows in prime time. They

541
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: got three million people, you know, four million people are

542
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: the top. I mean, you cannot imagine the cultural impact

543
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: of this. Two things I want to bring up in

544
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: that respect, how did Happy Days bring the country the

545
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: Heimlich maneuver? We might never have heard of it if

546
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: it weren't for Happy Days. Tell that story. I love this.

547
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, because Anson's uncle doctor Heimlek and and he

548
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 4: was visiting Anson and he had come up, you know,

549
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 4: with this this technique that he invented to help people

550
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,959
Speaker 4: who are choking, as we all know, and but it

551
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 4: was it was not really known. You know, he invented it,

552
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 4: and he was trying. He was having trouble getting it

553
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 4: to be considered or to be taken to seriously on

554
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 4: a big scale. But but he's visiting Anson and Anson

555
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 4: was a book to do an appearance on the MERV

556
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 4: Griffin Show and you know, a talk show like Johnny Carson.

557
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 4: And he said to his uncle, you know, his uncle

558
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 4: came came to the to be in the audience and

559
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 4: watch the show. So before the show, when they're talking

560
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 4: about what they're gonna with the producers, what they're going

561
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 4: to be, he's going to do a song. Answer, I

562
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 4: was going to sing a song and this and that,

563
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 4: and then ANSWER's going, you know, my uncle's here and

564
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 4: he's come up. He's got something really really pretty big

565
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 4: and he's telling them about it and they go, yeah, well, no,

566
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 4: we don't have time for that. Now. You know, we've

567
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 4: already planned the show and we we just don't really

568
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 4: have time. So answer, okay, he does this song. He

569
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 4: comes out, MERV you know, greets him, has him sit down,

570
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 4: and he goes, okay, we're going to break for a commercial.

571
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 4: And during the commercial and swers talking to mrsaying, you know,

572
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 4: I have an uncle who's come up with this? And

573
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,479
Speaker 4: he tells MERV the story and he said he and

574
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,959
Speaker 4: he's said sitting and MERV is like, really really and

575
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 4: he's so go to the producers and he says, bring

576
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 4: him up, you know, bring And so they bring him

577
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 4: up during you know, the commercials still on, bring him up.

578
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 4: And then when the show starts, MERV starts asking him

579
00:33:58,000 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 4: about it, and he talks about it and he kind

580
00:33:59,920 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 4: of demonstrates or whatever. And then I think somebody from

581
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 4: Carson Sun so they wanted him on the show. And

582
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 4: then the whole thing took off.

583
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: The han maneuver became the again touching the zeitgeist. And

584
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: I didn't realize Anson was Anson Pimelick. I guess that's

585
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: his name, right.

586
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, And who knew? Wasn't for Anson doing what he did?

587
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 4: It might who knows? Who knows?

588
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:27,839
Speaker 1: This is another thing done a lot of young people.

589
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: My daughter the other day said, well, that jumped the

590
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: shark and that line has endured, but its origins are

591
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 1: lost on them. Tell them and the rest of us

592
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 1: where that came from. And the situation.

593
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 4: Everyone was loving the fact that the show was getting

594
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 4: bigger and bigger, and of course Phonsie character was becoming

595
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:50,799
Speaker 4: the biggest character on television, so they they wanted to

596
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 4: do more things with the fins, you know, come up.

597
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:55,759
Speaker 4: And some of it was a little you know, come on,

598
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 4: making him like he's superhuman or something, and we thought,

599
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 4: but some of it was also very funny, you know,

600
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 4: a lot of it was. So they came up, the

601
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 4: writers came up, Okay, what what, Henry, what what are

602
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 4: you good at? What can we create around a storyline

603
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 4: with something that you were you know, sports or something.

604
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 4: And he talked about, well, he's he was good water ski.

605
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 4: He spent the summers upstate New York on this lake.

606
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:28,399
Speaker 4: I knew because I spent my summers upstate very close

607
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 4: to there near it different differently, so I knew all

608
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 4: about that. But he said I could I'm good water

609
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 4: skier because he learned when he was young waterski, you know.

610
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 4: So they came up with this whole idea that that

611
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 4: Richie was going out to California. I can't remember. Some

612
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 4: scout had seen him and thought he'd be good for

613
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 4: some show, and so they come out to California with him,

614
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 4: and then you know, they're on the beach and then

615
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 4: there's this character called the California Kid, and they somehow

616
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 4: wind up talking and he challenges him to this thing

617
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 4: with water skiing and that there was a shark in

618
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 4: this area and that they would have to jump over

619
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 4: the shark. You know, So again a little bit far

620
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 4: fetched and pushing, pushing the bumble up a little. But

621
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 4: you know, the show it did well, you know, I

622
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 4: mean people it was a two part or a three part,

623
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 4: right or I know, but then you know, it was

624
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:31,319
Speaker 4: a little crazy obviously. So so then these guys, I

625
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:33,799
Speaker 4: don't know if they are in college or something, they

626
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 4: came up with that phrase to signify when a show

627
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 4: has gone up, and then it just kind of hit

628
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 4: hit his point and then it starts going down. And

629
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:49,319
Speaker 4: that's the moment they said when a show jumps the

630
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 4: sharks based on what because because you know, some people say, okay,

631
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 4: the show is started. I don't disagree with that. And

632
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 4: that's another reason when I left it after the seventh season,

633
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 4: because I felt I didn't feel the shows. I felt,

634
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 4: you know, you reach a point after five years. It's tough,

635
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 4: but but you know, the Devil's Advocate, the other actors

636
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 4: on the show say, well, we ran four more years

637
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,280
Speaker 4: after that, after that or five years, I can't remember

638
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 4: after that. So how do you say, jump the shark?

639
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 4: We still we didn't get canceled, right, you know, the

640
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 4: next year, you know.

641
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's that's where it Jumped the Shark came from.

642
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: And I guess the show began to jump the Shark

643
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: for you. How close were you to this cast? I mean,

644
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: I know you had real you had enduring friendships that

645
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 1: have persisted to this day.

646
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 4: For all past Oh. Absolutely, we were very extremely close,

647
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 4: so tight. I mean, we became like family. And it

648
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 4: sounds cliche, but we were that that was a family,

649
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 4: and we did things together off the set. You know.

650
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:00,400
Speaker 4: We'd go to Jerry Parris's house and place your raids

651
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:03,320
Speaker 4: and we'd go here, and we'd go on trips, and

652
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 4: then we Gary started formed a baseball a softball team

653
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 4: for the Happy Days because he knew we had a

654
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 4: lot of ballplayers. He was he loved sports. And then

655
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:16,879
Speaker 4: we started going around the country playing in Major League

656
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 4: stadiums before the regular games, so that bonded us even more,

657
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 4: you know. So we were incredibly close and I'm still

658
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 4: very close. Anson and I are best friends, and Henry

659
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 4: and Ron. We stay in touch. I don't see them

660
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 4: as often, but we still see each other. We were

661
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 4: actually all together about a month ago in.

662
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 2: Orlando anniversary of the show. Incredible.

663
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, and we even have a group text so

664
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 4: whenever we check in with each other, you know, in

665
00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 4: a group text. So that shows, yes, we're still as

666
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 4: tight as you know, in many ways as we were.

667
00:38:57,520 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: You know, when I talked to casts of these shows

668
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 1: that really touched America in a deep boy, the Carol

669
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: Burnett Show cast, the Mash cast, you guys, it seems

670
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:12,880
Speaker 1: to be that that connectivity, that family spirit really is

671
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: the heart of what bonds, what makes it work.

672
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so. I think that that it can't help,

673
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 4: but that to come through in some way in a

674
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 4: visceral way that people respond to, you know, it's it

675
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:32,759
Speaker 4: goes beyond just the spoken lines. And even if the

676
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 4: lines are delivered, even if the lines are delivered with

677
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 4: with precision and with and with with you know, great

678
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:44,359
Speaker 4: talent and and all that, it's still might not go

679
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,799
Speaker 4: to this other level when I have that kind of

680
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 4: chemistry and that kind of affection and respect for each

681
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 4: other that we had, and we took it very seriously

682
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 4: the work. We took it very seriously, but we also

683
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 4: had had a great time, and so it was a

684
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 4: perfect blend.

685
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 1: I want to I want to talk about your music

686
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 1: in a moment, but I just want to end with

687
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: this about the TV part of this. Uh, you guested

688
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 1: on so many incredible shows, Murder, she wrote, Fantasy Island, Glee,

689
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:19,319
Speaker 1: Love Bote, What is the craziest memory from one of

690
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: those shows? And who did you learn from the most?

691
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 1: Don Who do I learn from the most? Yeah, I'm

692
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: doing these other guest roles and stuff.

693
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:30,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you were on other shows.

694
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 4: Well, that's tough because I did work with a lot

695
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 4: a lot of different people. You know, you mentioned you know,

696
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 4: Angela Lansbury and and then when I did what was

697
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 4: that show? Well, I did a Star Trek two parts,

698
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:49,879
Speaker 4: Voyager and Glee and and and then some I did

699
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:54,479
Speaker 4: some films early on with some wonderful people. The ones

700
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,439
Speaker 4: that really stand out. It was the first movie I did.

701
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:02,360
Speaker 4: It was, you know, a small film that Roger Corman's

702
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:06,360
Speaker 4: company produced, but it had it was starring Chlorus Leachman

703
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 4: and and and Southern and Stuart Whitman and and we

704
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 4: worked really closely because it was like a road movie,

705
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 4: so we were all traveling together and the director it

706
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 4: was his second film. It was second film and his

707
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 4: name was Jonathan Demi, and we worked really close with him,

708
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:28,840
Speaker 4: and he went on to direct Silence of the Lambs

709
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 4: Philadelphia one Academy Award, all kinds of stuff. So that

710
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,439
Speaker 4: was a period where I really learned a lot, as

711
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 4: I did, of course on Happy Days, but you were

712
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 4: asking outside of Happy Days. Happy Days. I learned from

713
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 4: so much from Ron and Jerry Parrish and Gary and

714
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:51,800
Speaker 4: Henry and Tom Bosley, you know, I mean, so great.

715
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 4: But then I had the good fortune to work in

716
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 4: a totally different situation like a you know, a feature

717
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 4: film where we were a road movie and absorbing all

718
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:06,000
Speaker 4: this stuff. Flors was amazing. So that one really stands

719
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:08,279
Speaker 4: out for me. But then there's so many others. You know,

720
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 4: it's hard to pick.

721
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 1: Well, I won't force you, I won't push you. I

722
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 1: want to move on to your music. I mean, we

723
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: saw you in the band in Happy Days. You was

724
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 1: saying you played piano. You were always involved in music though,

725
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:22,839
Speaker 1: did you train?

726
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 4: Yes, I was singing before I was acting bu Scot

727
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:34,759
Speaker 4: and smiling at me when I was thirteen living in Brooklyn.

728
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:39,359
Speaker 4: I would take the subway every Saturday into Manhattan go

729
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 4: to the school for acting, singing, dancing run by an

730
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 4: old vaudeville a guy named Charlie Lowe, And you know,

731
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 4: I was doing that for about a year and then

732
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 4: he would handpick students he produced like a nightclub review

733
00:42:55,200 --> 00:43:00,240
Speaker 4: comprised of seven of the students that agees fourteen to sixteen,

734
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 4: like a nightclub review, and I got picked after about

735
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 4: a year to be in that. So I spent the

736
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 4: summer I was fourteen at the beginning of the summer,

737
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:15,120
Speaker 4: turning fifteenth singing in this nightclub review in all the

738
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 4: hotels and nightclubs in the Catskill Mountains, which was at

739
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 4: a big upstate resort, upstate New York that had a

740
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 4: lot of big name entertainment in its day. So yeah,

741
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:29,240
Speaker 4: I was singing. We were doing four or five shows

742
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 4: a week, and I was like loving it, you know,

743
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 4: just loving it. But then I switched my focus the

744
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 4: next year into acting. It was a bit I put

745
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 4: the music aside, knowing that i'd come back to it

746
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,440
Speaker 4: at some point, but I really became the laser focused

747
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 4: on acting. And then things started, you know, picking up,

748
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 4: and I was getting more and more things, and then

749
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 4: of course when Happy Days came along, and trying to

750
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 4: do the music that I loved singing was all the

751
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 4: Great Standards, the Jazz Standards, the Great American Songbook, and

752
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 4: in the seventies that was you know, it was hard

753
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,759
Speaker 4: to kind of unless you were established like Tony Bennett

754
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 4: or somebody like that, doing it was hard to do,

755
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,479
Speaker 4: especially I was young. They wanted me to do more

756
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 4: rock and roll or pop, but thank goodness, that style,

757
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 4: that genre had a big resurgence in the eighties nineties,

758
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:32,720
Speaker 4: and to this day it's still going. It's big again.

759
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:36,239
Speaker 4: And so then about ten years ago, I said, if

760
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:39,239
Speaker 4: I'm ever going to do what I've always wanted to

761
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:42,320
Speaker 4: do singing wise, and so, like I said, I trained

762
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 4: at that school, and then I also went to a

763
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:49,320
Speaker 4: vocal teacher that taught opera, and so I was studying

764
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 4: with her and another teacher in La Voice. So I

765
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 4: did that, and then ten years ago I put together

766
00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 4: an act. I met a a musical director I really liked,

767
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 4: and we found some musicians and we tried doing did

768
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 4: my first show at a jazz club in La It

769
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 4: was Vitello's and then and then it went great. It

770
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:15,360
Speaker 4: went great. People were like, holy cow, you don't know

771
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:18,399
Speaker 4: you could sing like this and you didn't do more

772
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 4: singing unhappy days. Why did Pazzi get to do all

773
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 4: the thing?

774
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 1: You know?

775
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:25,360
Speaker 4: So I get that all the time. But they were shocked,

776
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 4: you know, But this is what I did you know

777
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:29,800
Speaker 4: before is in my blood.

778
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 1: I love Don that you focused on the great American

779
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: songbook d Mostly Swinging.

780
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 2: That was such a great album.

781
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 1: Now you've got a new album out New York High.

782
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:44,840
Speaker 1: Tell me about this genre, why this genre, Don, What

783
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:46,919
Speaker 1: drew you to this style, this era?

784
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:47,719
Speaker 2: Yeah?

785
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,839
Speaker 4: People people ask me that a lot, And the only

786
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 4: thing that comes to mind is, you know, my mom

787
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:59,240
Speaker 4: was a teenager doing the swing era and young adult

788
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 4: so she had albums and I think, you know, I

789
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 4: heard those growing up. And then for whatever, I mean,

790
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 4: who knows. I saw the movie. I was nine years

791
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 4: old and I saw the movie The Jolson Story about

792
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 4: the great Al Jolson, and I was like riveted, and

793
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 4: it just hit me and I was obsessed. It was

794
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 4: on million dollar movie in New York where they chose

795
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 4: a movie every night, twice a night during the week

796
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 4: and four time Saturday and four times Sunday. So I

797
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:33,799
Speaker 4: saw it on a Tuesday night, I think, and I

798
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 4: went crazy over this movie Jolson's. It was Jolson singing,

799
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:41,719
Speaker 4: so it was his talent coming through Larry Parks, who

800
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 4: did an amazing job playing Jolson. The storyline and the music,

801
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:52,759
Speaker 4: the music. I mean, I just became so well, I

802
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 4: don't know, over possessed by it. And then I went

803
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 4: out and bought Joelson albums. So I think I saw

804
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:02,840
Speaker 4: the movie like about ten times that week, maybe twelve,

805
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,320
Speaker 4: and then I got albums, and then I started singing

806
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 4: along with it, and then that got me sort of

807
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 4: aware of that those genre, and I started listening to

808
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 4: radio at night in New York WNEW. William B. Williams

809
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 4: would play that music every night, all the great you

810
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 4: know Sinatra and that King Cole, not King Cole, and

811
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 4: you know Elfis Gerald and all that, and.

812
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 2: Well William B. Williams, the great William B.

813
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,360
Speaker 1: William that's the guy who anointed Sinatra the chairman of

814
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:37,279
Speaker 1: the board. By the way, and I saw Frank like

815
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: thirty times in concerts, So we are we are fellow

816
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 1: addicts on this music. The Great American Songbook there's something

817
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: about these songs, don They're so beautifully constructed, they're so heartfelt,

818
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,879
Speaker 1: they're so true to the human condition, no matter where

819
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,959
Speaker 1: you are. Tell me about the new album, New York High.

820
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:57,479
Speaker 1: What's the concept here? Sounds great?

821
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 4: By the way, YO, thank you. Well. You mentioned I

822
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 4: did Demost mostly Swinging a few years before that, and

823
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:10,319
Speaker 4: it was with a wonderful arranger, producer Willie Murrio who

824
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 4: produced that CD, and incredible trumpet player and put together

825
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 4: an amazing big band, which I love the sound of

826
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:22,640
Speaker 4: a big band and so exciting. And we did, you know,

827
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:27,800
Speaker 4: mostly swinging jazz standards. And when I met with Tony Mantor,

828
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 4: the record producer who's based in Nashville, and he'd heard

829
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:34,919
Speaker 4: some of my stuff and he really liked what I'm doing.

830
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:37,880
Speaker 4: But he said, you know, I think we should do

831
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:41,360
Speaker 4: something a little different where we could still do jazz standards,

832
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 4: but now with maybe the big band, maybe a more

833
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 4: contemporary jazz kind of cop bumbo, you know, just the

834
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:54,239
Speaker 4: rhythm section and maybe some solos and you know a

835
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 4: little bit of punch of brass. But but you know,

836
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 4: he brought a different sensibility to it, a different a

837
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 4: little more trying to do like what Diana Crawl is

838
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:07,279
Speaker 4: doing and some of the other people who are doing

839
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:12,359
Speaker 4: jazz but not big band style. So I said, yeah,

840
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 4: I'm all for it because it's still going to be

841
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 4: that great music, but the approach is going to be

842
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:21,319
Speaker 4: different and has going to have a different feel, and

843
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:23,839
Speaker 4: why not. You know, I was totally open to it.

844
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:27,759
Speaker 4: And it was a great collaboration and the musicians he

845
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:32,359
Speaker 4: got together and the arranger and you know, it came

846
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:34,320
Speaker 4: out great. And I even did a couple of songs

847
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 4: that from a different from the rhythm of Smokey Robinson's

848
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,360
Speaker 4: song Yeah Baby Baby and smoke from a Distant Fire,

849
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 4: which was a Sandford Townsend band hit. So it's it's

850
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 4: really it's it's really good and and but different than

851
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 4: mostly swinging for sure.

852
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:55,719
Speaker 1: But your voice sounds incredible. I have to tell you

853
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 1: live and on the album. I mean, the new album

854
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:02,719
Speaker 1: is fantastic. There's a question when I first saw you

855
00:50:03,239 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: at fifty four below. I think it's a question and

856
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: it's a challenge a lot of people go through. How

857
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,439
Speaker 1: do you transition? How do you make the transition when

858
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: you are so known for one thing? This is a

859
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: big leap and look for those For those of you

860
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 1: who have never done live performance with a band, it

861
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: ain't for the faint of heart.

862
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:23,520
Speaker 2: How do you make that leap?

863
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:27,600
Speaker 1: What would you tell people about I guess the internal

864
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 1: confidence you have to have, the lack of thea to

865
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 1: just yeah, to do it.

866
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:37,359
Speaker 4: Yeah. And it certainly helped that I'd done it when

867
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 4: I was young, you know, Like I said, I would

868
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 4: do four or five shows a week for the two months,

869
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 4: so it was kind of like riding a bicycle. It

870
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 4: was easy to get back on. And I'd done some

871
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 4: music during that interim, musical theater and occasional singing at

872
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 4: a certain event. But the confidence is important. But the

873
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:10,240
Speaker 4: confidence comes from loving something and then having that passion

874
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 4: and then just working at it because you love doing it.

875
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:16,799
Speaker 4: So it's not that you know, you just have to

876
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:19,960
Speaker 4: you have to build up that that base. There's a

877
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:24,880
Speaker 4: base of of just working through things and and and

878
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 4: and not and having times when it's not working so great,

879
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:30,879
Speaker 4: and then you figure out what it is and then

880
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:34,839
Speaker 4: you can improve and and even now it's like maybe

881
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 4: it was meant to be now because I was so

882
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:42,760
Speaker 4: busy with the acting stuff that I wasn't out there

883
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 4: doing gigs and and and you know, applying your trade

884
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 4: and really getting getting the chops. I was more on

885
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 4: the acting side. But then with the technology now today,

886
00:51:56,960 --> 00:51:59,120
Speaker 4: when I started doing deciding I wanted to do it,

887
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:02,360
Speaker 4: I could go on my computer, get on garage band

888
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 4: and take all these songs and sing to them, you know,

889
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 4: and record them and just work it and work it

890
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,239
Speaker 4: and work it. And I did it a lot. And

891
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:16,080
Speaker 4: because I loved it, I couldn't believe this new toy

892
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:18,399
Speaker 4: I had where I could take some of these great

893
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 4: songs I could remove the vocal and then just have

894
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:26,560
Speaker 4: this great Sinatra arrangement, Bobby Darren arrangement, and I'm singing

895
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 4: to it. It was like wow. So I would do

896
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 4: this for hours and hours, you know, day after day

897
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 4: after day. I don't know how many. I recorded thousands

898
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 4: of times, and there's no short you know. That's what

899
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:44,120
Speaker 4: gives you the You keep improving a bass, and then

900
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 4: you can improve and then doing it alive, you know,

901
00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:50,120
Speaker 4: then you learn a lot more too that way. But

902
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:53,279
Speaker 4: I'm not giving People say what about the acting, No

903
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:54,399
Speaker 4: way would I give it up.

904
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 2: No, They're still working busy.

905
00:52:57,040 --> 00:53:01,760
Speaker 4: I did like seven eight movies, you know, four year period,

906
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:05,320
Speaker 4: and one of them is being released right now in theaters.

907
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:08,839
Speaker 4: It started in Michigan where we shot it, and they're

908
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:11,640
Speaker 4: rolling it out, you know, over the next few months. Yeah,

909
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 4: and a true story during Prohibition, very intense story. There's

910
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 4: a gang called the Purple Gang.

911
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: Which a lot of people have forgotten about, but it's

912
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:24,360
Speaker 1: an important and you're the head of this gang, the

913
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:25,399
Speaker 1: Purple Gang.

914
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 2: Let tell people the name of the movie.

915
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:29,919
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a Jewish mob called the Purple Gang,

916
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:32,919
Speaker 4: and I played the head of the mob. Very different role,

917
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 4: which I love, which I love. This is called Harson's

918
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:40,399
Speaker 4: Island Revenge, and look for it. It's going to be

919
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 4: probably at a theater near some point the next few months.

920
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 4: Then it'll go streaming of course.

921
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 2: Excellent.

922
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:50,239
Speaker 1: Okay, I have a there's a questionnaire don that I

923
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:52,759
Speaker 1: ask everybody as we wrap up these interviews. It's my

924
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 1: royal grande questionnaire. Who is the person you most admire?

925
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:04,560
Speaker 4: My wife? Why she's she's been She was diagnosed with

926
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:10,360
Speaker 4: Parkinson's twenty three years ago, Parkinson's disease, and she's and

927
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:17,120
Speaker 4: she's doing pretty darn good. But courage and the incredible

928
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 4: attitude and strength. It blows my mind. So that's what

929
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:25,800
Speaker 4: just popped into my head.

930
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: And God bless her and you I know that's also

931
00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 1: you know, I know, I know families who have somebody

932
00:54:31,320 --> 00:54:33,719
Speaker 1: suffering with Parkinson's and it, you know, the whole it's

933
00:54:33,719 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 1: a family effort, you know, yeah, to eat it and

934
00:54:37,120 --> 00:54:37,640
Speaker 1: combat it.

935
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:40,799
Speaker 4: So it is she's doing, she's doing well. She's going

936
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:41,279
Speaker 4: to love it.

937
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:42,879
Speaker 2: What's your best feature, Don?

938
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:49,040
Speaker 4: My best feature? Gosh, oh god, that's a good one.

939
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:55,600
Speaker 4: I think that maybe that I'm still very curious and

940
00:54:56,280 --> 00:55:03,239
Speaker 4: also can be with people, you know, be very give

941
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 4: and take listening and being able to give and take

942
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:07,560
Speaker 4: with people.

943
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 1: No, I can see that. I see it in your

944
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 1: work too. You still have an adventurous spirit. You know,

945
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 1: you're trying new music, You're trying new audiences. It's amazing

946
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 1: to watch, Don mos. I thank you so much for

947
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,480
Speaker 1: the time, for your incredible music and your gift to

948
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:24,279
Speaker 1: so many generations over so many years. Thank you, my friend,

949
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 1: my thanks to Don Most. I hope you'll come back

950
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: to Arroyo Grande soon. Why live a dry, constricted life

951
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:32,560
Speaker 1: when if you fill it with good things, it can

952
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:36,040
Speaker 1: flow into a broad Thriving Arroyo Grande.

953
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 2: I'm Raymond Arroyo.

954
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe like this episode. Thank you for

955
00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:43,799
Speaker 1: diving in. We'll see you next time. Arroyo Grande is

956
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:47,480
Speaker 1: produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available on

957
00:55:47,520 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

958
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:04,120
Speaker 3: Concipentssiples Books, Persians