Speaker 1: Because of your extraordinary bravery and intelligence, you are hearing
Speaker 1: the titles of Honorary Corporal Rusty and Honorary Private Ing Tintin.
Speaker 1: Ever since Ring Tin Tin, the superstar German shepherd who
Speaker 1: on screen rescued plenty of people and off screen rescued
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers from bankruptcy in the nineteen twenties, dogs have
Speaker 1: played leading roles in Hollywood. Look there's total from Kansas's
Speaker 1: most courageous Cairn terrier who's come to Tagas Dome, to
Speaker 1: the collie who seemed to save more people in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties than the polio vaccine did, to the Golden
Speaker 1: retriever who held court in the air Bud Movies, Dogs
Speaker 1: Don't Play Basketball was the matters, Gentlemen. A frasier team
Speaker 1: might get beat by a dog, But I'm not sure
Speaker 1: any dog has ever played a role as multifaceted as
Speaker 1: the one played by the Jack Russell terrier who starred
Speaker 1: in the nine nineties PBS television series Wishbone. Believe me
Speaker 1: it was nothing, Okay, wish Let's have some meat? Did
Speaker 1: I hear you say meat? Love? That dog's real name
Speaker 1: was Soccer. Now as Wishbone He didn't just beg for treats.
Speaker 1: Soccer was a total action hero dog. Soccer was winning
Speaker 1: battles and getting knighted and solving mysteries closely. The clues
Speaker 1: could be anywhere. No one is above suspicion. Wishbone, it
Speaker 1: turns out, had a rich fantasy life. In each episode,
Speaker 1: he imagined himself as a hero in a different work
Speaker 1: of classic literature. Viewers at home saw him leading a
Speaker 1: merry band of outlaws against the Sheriff of Nottingham actual
Speaker 1: of us so romancing like Shakespeare's Romeo, with loves like wings,
Speaker 1: did I or perchach these walls? And inspired by Jules Verne,
Speaker 1: digging deep, going where no dog or man had gone before,
Speaker 1: proof that we are on the right track on one
Speaker 1: to the sudden out of the eye. For the show's
Speaker 1: target audience of six to eleven year olds, Soccer became
Speaker 1: a tween idol. I have pictures of people waiting in
Speaker 1: line two blocks long just to see this dog. What's
Speaker 1: the story, you, wish Bone? What's this your dream? Speaking today?
Speaker 1: There's a whole pack of grown ups out there who
Speaker 1: were first weaned on Mark Twain or the Legend of
Speaker 1: Faust or the Greek epics through Wishbone. I remember, like
Speaker 1: on my tenth birthday, I think it was we were
Speaker 1: going to go mini golfing and I insisted, but we
Speaker 1: had to stay home for Wishbone first. And as a
Speaker 1: twenty five year old, a mere pup myself, I got
Speaker 1: to write for Wishbone. I've told people that writing for
Speaker 1: the show was like an assignment from an English professor
Speaker 1: on asset. So much went into this show to make
Speaker 1: it a hit, but none of it would have worked
Speaker 1: without the top dog. I think every movie star um
Speaker 1: has eyes that tell stories, and Soccer had the most
Speaker 1: amazing dog eyes. He was a magic little creature man,
Speaker 1: he really was. He looked so good on camera. Shoudn't
Speaker 1: say this, but he wasn't the smartest dog I've ever turned.
Speaker 1: But he was so devoted. Weren't he learned it? He
Speaker 1: would walk on water for me. He just loved to
Speaker 1: be out with me working to him, it wasn't work.
Speaker 1: From CBS Sunday Morning and I heart I'm Morocca and
Speaker 1: this is mobituaries, this moment Wishbone June two one, death
Speaker 1: of a working dog. All right, So what was Wishbone about? Well,
Speaker 1: Let's have some fans who grew up with the show explain.
Speaker 1: So it was called Wishbone, and it was this little
Speaker 1: dog Jack Russell Terrier. Wishbone has a love for classic literature,
Speaker 1: and then he would like magically transport himself into stories.
Speaker 1: Wishbone is a children's television show that aired on PBS
Speaker 1: and it is the only reason why I ever passed
Speaker 1: in English class because I did not do the reading. Okay,
Speaker 1: now my turn. The show was about a dog named
Speaker 1: Wishbone who lived in a town called Oakdale. Wishbone would
Speaker 1: get into all sorts of adventures with his owner, a
Speaker 1: boy named Joe, and the other neighbor hood kids, and
Speaker 1: those adventures would remind Wishbone of stay with me here
Speaker 1: stories from classic literature. It could be a novel like
Speaker 1: Treasure Island, and epic poem like Homer's Odyssey in African
Speaker 1: folk tale like a Nancy the Spider. Wishbone read a lot.
Speaker 1: He didn't waste time watching TV. Just go with it,
Speaker 1: and so each episode alternated between Wishbone living his regular
Speaker 1: life in Oakdale and his fantasy life as the hero
Speaker 1: of classic literature. Twin plots thematically connected more about his
Speaker 1: Fantasy Life later basically Wishbone. The show was all about story,
Speaker 1: but the story of the dog who played Wishbone begins
Speaker 1: with an animal trainer named Jackie Captain. Hello Jackie. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's mo oh, my good assist. In so long, it's
Speaker 1: been more than twenty five years. Jackie's been living off
Speaker 1: the grid way up in Haynes, Alaska. You know you're
Speaker 1: not easy to get a hold of. Well, that's the
Speaker 1: reason I came up here. You know, I retired UM
Speaker 1: eight years ago. It's beautiful up here, good fishing. Um
Speaker 1: bears walked through my property. Do you think the bears
Speaker 1: know your background with animals and that they kind of
Speaker 1: respect it? Well, I've kind of told them, Look, we're
Speaker 1: on common ground here. You leave me alone, I'll leave
Speaker 1: you alone. Jackie actually began her career in motion pictures
Speaker 1: working with wild animals, including bears, but she learned much
Speaker 1: of what she knows about training dogs from fame to
Speaker 1: Hollywood trainer frank Inn. I went to work for him
Speaker 1: um and that was probably the best experience I had
Speaker 1: learning how to do dogs for motion picture. Frankie worked
Speaker 1: on Lassie, I Love Lucy. He trained Audrey Hepburn's orange
Speaker 1: tabby cat in Breakfast Ta Tiffany's. He wrangled all five
Speaker 1: hundred of the animals comprising Ellieme Lampet's cast of critters
Speaker 1: on the Beverly Hillbillies. Critters are loose things for that girl.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't do for nobody else. Here he is training
Speaker 1: the lovable mutt who starting the Benji movies. Come on,
Speaker 1: Magic Benci, Please, come on, come on, dude, good kid,
Speaker 1: Look here a feed up state and speak. And he
Speaker 1: just was this larger than life's character, big man with
Speaker 1: a big hand of our mustache and a captain's hat.
Speaker 1: And you just couldn't forget him if you ever saw
Speaker 1: him work at dog Frank Ann helped Jackie launch her
Speaker 1: own career. She worked on the horror movie Kujoe, about
Speaker 1: a rabid saint Bernard Cujo, What's the Matter. And she
Speaker 1: helped Ethan Hawk bond with a surly wolfhound in White Fang.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to pet him. White Fang was shot
Speaker 1: up in Haynes, Alaska. Jackie says, she you then that
Speaker 1: one day she'd retire. There. Have you got any dogs
Speaker 1: up there? I only have one dog left, which is
Speaker 1: really weird. For me, I have the Beverly Hills Chiuawa Rosa.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, and remember Rosa. There's nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: being different. Different is just a nice way of saying runt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's twelve now, she only weighs three pounds. She's the
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills Chiwaba and she's living in Haines, Alaska, surrounded
Speaker 1: by grizzlies. How's that working out? Well, she doesn't go
Speaker 1: out much. I mean, because everything wants together, the eagles,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, so she pretty much just stays
Speaker 1: in the cabin. Oh my god. But Jackie, I know
Speaker 1: you're retired, but this just screams out for a Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills Chiwaba sequel. I mean, escape to Alaska. I know
Speaker 1: it does, doesn't it. I like that idea. Jackie met
Speaker 1: the dog who would one day play wishbone back in
Speaker 1: Connecticut when he was just a week old, and I said,
Speaker 1: that is the cutest probably I've ever seen. Jackie took
Speaker 1: him home that very day and named him Soccer. But
Speaker 1: because of Soccer's markings brown patches around his left eye
Speaker 1: and right ear, casting directors thought he looked too much
Speaker 1: like the Little Rascal's dog. PD. Pretty soon it seemed
Speaker 1: clear Soccer's acting career was going nowhere. Yeah, he didn't
Speaker 1: do much at all until he did Wishbone, and he
Speaker 1: was six or seven. I think six or seven in
Speaker 1: dog years. You do the math. He was getting up
Speaker 1: there has been without ever having been my husband, and
Speaker 1: all my friends were like, really, Jaggy, why do you
Speaker 1: spend so much time training on this dog. I like
Speaker 1: this dog. He's my buddy. I don't care if he
Speaker 1: ever worked. I like this dog. And they'd all laugh
Speaker 1: at man. I'm telling you, one day, this dog is
Speaker 1: going to get what he deserves. Auditions for the lead
Speaker 1: role in Wishbone were announced, but he was tied up
Speaker 1: on another project. I was in Montana working on River Wild,
Speaker 1: and she wasn't particularly interested. I'm tied up on a
Speaker 1: feature movie here, you know, sidebar. I loved the River Wild,
Speaker 1: an action adventure starring a buff Meryl Streep opposite an
Speaker 1: evil Kevin Bacon. Who you and the dog are expendable
Speaker 1: right now? I think I'll go whoo who the dog?
Speaker 1: But the Wishbone team liked Soccer's look and prevailed on
Speaker 1: Jackie to bring him in for an audition and Soccer
Speaker 1: wowed them. He wasn't just charming. He pulled off all
Speaker 1: of his tricks with the cool, confidence, even cockiness of
Speaker 1: a young Claude ban Dam. He sealed the deal with
Speaker 1: a back flip, which you can see in the show's
Speaker 1: opening credits. Now, Jackie could get Soccer to do a lot,
Speaker 1: but she couldn't make him actually talk. When I first
Speaker 1: was asked to audition to be the voice of Wishbone,
Speaker 1: I had no idea what the show was. That became
Speaker 1: the job of stand up comic and voice over actor
Speaker 1: Larry Brantley. And I've done this my whole life with animals.
Speaker 1: I watch an animal and I think I know what
Speaker 1: they're thinking. I don't know why I think that, but
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm convinced I know what's going on in
Speaker 1: that tiny little head, and and I'm pretty good at
Speaker 1: verbalizing it. Wishbone had his voice, and so in the
Speaker 1: summer of trainer Jackie captain pactor, Bags and Soccer for
Speaker 1: the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, where Wishbone would be filmed.
Speaker 1: I know Texas in the summer. It's not pretty, but
Speaker 1: any skepticism Jackie might have felt had melted away. She
Speaker 1: was now sold on the idea of the show. You know,
Speaker 1: this could be the last thing that I do, and
Speaker 1: it seems like it's important. It's educational for children, it'll
Speaker 1: get them to read again. And it would just hit me,
Speaker 1: It drew me, and it was like, this little dog
Speaker 1: could really bring this a love. Of course, Soccer would
Speaker 1: never go with anybody else. He'd always been with me,
Speaker 1: So you had to be there. Well, I mean he was.
Speaker 1: He was a great little dog, but he had a
Speaker 1: soft side to him. And if I wasn't there, I
Speaker 1: don't know that he would have danced the jig like
Speaker 1: he did. And in fact, he did dance jigs, and
Speaker 1: I mean he did of every behavior. Really, there was
Speaker 1: times when we do production meetings and I think, really, folks,
Speaker 1: in my head, he doesn't have thumbs. I don't know
Speaker 1: how he's going to shoot a bow and arrow. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh, my goodness, who wrote this? Well? I
Speaker 1: was one of the people who wrote for Wishbone, and
Speaker 1: writing for this dog would end up being one of
Speaker 1: the most formative experiences of my life. Did you ever
Speaker 1: think you'd end up writing for a dog? No? I didn't, No,
Speaker 1: I did not. That's my friend Stephanie Simpson. She was
Speaker 1: Wishbone supervising producer, story editor and head writer. However, in
Speaker 1: the early days, when I was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to do it, I remembered that I had always
Speaker 1: made up dialogue and sort of monologues for a cat,
Speaker 1: and so in thinking about Wishbone, I don't know, it
Speaker 1: just seemed natural. Suddenly I have to say, to write
Speaker 1: Wishbone someone's pet as having this very rich inner life
Speaker 1: that you were not aware of. Over my career, I've
Speaker 1: been fortunate to work for a few people who put
Speaker 1: everything they humanly could into making something good, who wouldn't
Speaker 1: let up until it was as right as it could be.
Speaker 1: But Stephanie has been singular in my life. She taught
Speaker 1: me more than anyone how to tell a story. If
Speaker 1: Soccer had Jackie, I had Stephanie. Ephanie had majored in
Speaker 1: Russian literature at Yale and earned a Masters in drama
Speaker 1: at Harvard. She was perfectly trained for this bizarre task.
Speaker 1: Of course, she couldn't do it alone, and that's when
Speaker 1: I got the call on the sand. At the time,
Speaker 1: I was in a production of South Pacific at New
Speaker 1: Jersey's Paper Mill playhouse, and we got Stephanie brought me
Speaker 1: down to Dallas to interview with Wishbone executive producer Rick Duffield,
Speaker 1: who hired me as a staff writer. I began working
Speaker 1: with Stephanie and what felt like a storytelling boot camp. Now,
Speaker 1: as I explained earlier, each episode of the show connected
Speaker 1: a modern day storyline in the fictional town of Oakdale
Speaker 1: to a different work of classic literature. Here's Wishbone as
Speaker 1: Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliett. Who is her mother?
Speaker 1: Her mother is the lady of the house, Oh, lady
Speaker 1: of the Is she a capulet? Who is that gentleman?
Speaker 1: His name is Romeo? Now in the contemporary plot line
Speaker 1: for that episode, one of the neighborhood kids, Samantha, falls
Speaker 1: in love with the beagle named Rosie at the local
Speaker 1: pound and wants to adopt her. But you, dad, that
Speaker 1: you have a go sa this dog, He couldn't say. Now,
Speaker 1: the contemporary world was a way to show that there
Speaker 1: were themes and ideas in these in these great books
Speaker 1: that could be translated into a kid's life. So you
Speaker 1: could fall in love with the dog at the pound,
Speaker 1: and suddenly that could be the story of Romeo and
Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet. Now, there wasn't going to be a
Speaker 1: suicide in the contemporary story as there is in Shakespeare's
Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet. But there could be heartbreak. There could
Speaker 1: be a dog is adopted before you are able to
Speaker 1: adopt it. Sam, I'm sorry. I know how much you
Speaker 1: liked Rosie and so you have to deal with some
Speaker 1: kind of loss. I'm glad she's okay. I mean, she
Speaker 1: really needed a good home for me. The exciting thing
Speaker 1: was trying to matt the thread of what I thought
Speaker 1: would capture a kid's imagination and also their hearts. What
Speaker 1: would they care the most about. And it never occurred
Speaker 1: to you that an episode should with all due respect,
Speaker 1: because I have nothing against cliffs notes, and they don't
Speaker 1: pronounced cliffs notes. And for somebody who's trouble with says,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of says. But anyway, But because it
Speaker 1: could have been in other hands, it would have been, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to do the totality of this book in
Speaker 1: the half hour. No, that never Actually, I never felt
Speaker 1: pressure to do that. What I felt pressure to do
Speaker 1: was to get someone to fall in love with the
Speaker 1: idea of the book, the idea of the book, the
Speaker 1: idea of the book, not the plot, not the out
Speaker 1: of it. But because there's only so many plots in
Speaker 1: the world. Plot really, to me in a book is
Speaker 1: not the point. The point is how the author has
Speaker 1: taken a set of events and made them mean something
Speaker 1: different than they've ever met before because of who exactly
Speaker 1: is doing them and why they're doing them. If LeVar
Speaker 1: Burton's show Reading Rainbow was teaching kids how to read,
Speaker 1: Wishbone was showing kids why great books matter, and to
Speaker 1: me it felt like the authors of these books never
Speaker 1: wrote them, so that the books themselves would be um
Speaker 1: kind of locked away from everyday people. I mean no
Speaker 1: offense to uh literature majors, but I think it would
Speaker 1: be very disappointing for Cervantes to find out that only
Speaker 1: a small group of select students at a university we're
Speaker 1: reading don Quixote. That would be super sad for him.
Speaker 1: That's a work that's so sprawling, there are so many ideas,
Speaker 1: they so long to read it. MO and I had,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe three days. Cervantes's Don Quixote, considered the
Speaker 1: first modern novel, is about an idealistic man chasing the
Speaker 1: impossible dream of becoming a night. In the Wishbone version,
Speaker 1: Joe chases a long shot of his own consecutive free
Speaker 1: throws in five minutes. That's all I need to hold
Speaker 1: the record for any kid on the sixteen. Then I'd
Speaker 1: be in the Encyclopedia of World records. Do you really
Speaker 1: think it's possible? Sure, Joe was trying to make a
Speaker 1: certain number of baskets and he was having trouble. He
Speaker 1: would get nervous and choke. He imagined that his life
Speaker 1: would be amazing if he could just achieve this one
Speaker 1: great thing, and in the end he doesn't achieve it.
Speaker 1: You were great, but I didn't do the impossible. I'm
Speaker 1: not going down in history or anything. I'm not extraordinary.
Speaker 1: You don't have to perform impossible feats to be extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Just live your life. Life is an ongoing adventure. But
Speaker 1: it was the act of trying that matters. I've told
Speaker 1: people that writing for the show was like an assignment
Speaker 1: from an English professor on asset. It totally was. Yes,
Speaker 1: you are so right, that's a perfect way to describe it.
Speaker 1: And what's so funny mo is looking back on it,
Speaker 1: I realized how crazy it was, but at the time
Speaker 1: when we were doing it, I didn't think it was
Speaker 1: that crazy, and it didn't seem nuts until later. To
Speaker 1: pull this nutty premise off, we had to stick to
Speaker 1: some hardened past rules. For example, yes, Wishbone talks, thanks
Speaker 1: to Larry Brantley, but human characters and wishbones life in
Speaker 1: Oakdale don't hear him. Only the lucky viewers here what
Speaker 1: he's thinking. But when Wishbone is imagining himself as a
Speaker 1: character in a book, he's acting opposite human actors who
Speaker 1: can hear him. Mr Darcy should be a doling and
Speaker 1: escort me to the punch bow. Yes, of course, excuse us,
Speaker 1: Miss Begga the minute. Sorry. Part of what was so
Speaker 1: what was so well immediately funny was that in the
Speaker 1: fantasy sequences that Wishbone was treated as a human. I
Speaker 1: imagine really that Wishbone was a kid, was a stand
Speaker 1: in for a kid who when they act out stories
Speaker 1: and they're the star of the movie or the comic
Speaker 1: book in their imaginations, or when they're playing it out
Speaker 1: with their friends, nobody stops and goes, well, you're a
Speaker 1: kid doing this. You're a kid, not a king. It's
Speaker 1: funnier that the dog just takes it for granted that
Speaker 1: he's doing it and this is his imagination, and everyone
Speaker 1: will treat him in his imagination the way he would
Speaker 1: expect to be treated. People love the show so much.
Speaker 1: It makes me so happy. And one of my goals
Speaker 1: and one of the things I think I said to
Speaker 1: you and to the whole crew and we were starting,
Speaker 1: is we have an opportunity to be the first people
Speaker 1: to introduce these stories and images into a child's imagination.
Speaker 1: And I had to tell you also, Stephanie. You know,
Speaker 1: for all these years since the project, anything I've tried
Speaker 1: to do, I end up going back to wish Phone
Speaker 1: and what I learned from you and working on that
Speaker 1: and you know, grow well now. But Jackie, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about training wish Phone, I thought, I know, this
Speaker 1: is a weird way to put it, but it was
Speaker 1: like Stephanie trained me really because I came into it,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was I realized I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I was doing at first. And I am so
Speaker 1: grateful to you for I'm getting emotional phones so grateful.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Mo Well. I'm so grateful to hear you
Speaker 1: say that because I I was under a lot of pressure,
Speaker 1: and it was difficult. Sometimes it's scared, right, And I
Speaker 1: don't think I don't know that you were scared. I
Speaker 1: was scared at first, and then you gave me, You
Speaker 1: gave me the courage to do it. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: also that um for me, I loved each of these
Speaker 1: books so much. This is going to sound um corny,
Speaker 1: but for me, the joy of it, even though it
Speaker 1: was also scary. The thing that over helped me overcome
Speaker 1: any fear that I had was once I actually, no,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get emotional. Once I actually read the
Speaker 1: book and fall in love with it, it seemed like
Speaker 1: not an easy thing, but an important thing to transmit
Speaker 1: that to someone else, to share that with somebody else,
Speaker 1: And that was what helped me overcome the fear of
Speaker 1: doing it. Was actually the sheer love of the story
Speaker 1: and the belief that other people needed to fall in
Speaker 1: love with it too. There's that proverb it's always darkest
Speaker 1: before the dawn. That's certainly my experience with writing the
Speaker 1: darkness part. Stephanie taught me by example how important it
Speaker 1: is not to give up and how satisfying it is
Speaker 1: to come out the other side. Wish one is where
Speaker 1: I learned not to despair in creating something because it's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's it's really looking dire right now,
Speaker 1: it's really looking dire. But this is the project where
Speaker 1: I learned that it's at that point that you just
Speaker 1: keep pushing through and you're going to get there. That's
Speaker 1: where the leap will happen. I still remember how I
Speaker 1: felt finishing the first episode I wrote for Wishbone, based
Speaker 1: on H. G. Wells is the time Machine system destination
Speaker 1: in case of emergency, keep your hands at arms inside
Speaker 1: the vehicle. And I remember finishing and I stayed up
Speaker 1: all night on New Year's Eve nineteen four and it
Speaker 1: was my best New Year's Eve ever finishing that script,
Speaker 1: and it kind of locking into place quite literally at
Speaker 1: dawn on New Year's Day, and that felt so and
Speaker 1: so I like my New Year's Eves to be promising
Speaker 1: and not frivolous to the epic creation moments of creations.
Speaker 1: I love it. I also think it's so fitting that
Speaker 1: you were running the time machine as the year turned over.
Speaker 1: That is kind of perfect. How will you remember Soccer?
Speaker 1: I will always remember Soccer as the dog who made
Speaker 1: what I imagined in my head even better then I
Speaker 1: had imagined it, I really will. I thought, how will
Speaker 1: this ever actually happened? How will we ever actually do this?
Speaker 1: And then once I saw Soccer on screen, I felt
Speaker 1: this relief that this was going to work and it
Speaker 1: was going to be even better than I thought it
Speaker 1: could be. And that's how I will remember Soccer. I
Speaker 1: am be grateful to Soccer always for that would be
Speaker 1: grateful to him. I am grateful to him and his
Speaker 1: beautiful brown eyes. Wishbone wasn't just the best red dog
Speaker 1: on TV. He was also the best dressed. I mean
Speaker 1: this dog was a total clothes horse. Just his hats alone.
Speaker 1: There was the top hat for when he played Dr
Speaker 1: Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the adorable straw hat he wore
Speaker 1: as Tom Sawyer, the bi Coocke. That's the name of
Speaker 1: that cute little had he sported his robin hood. Wishbone
Speaker 1: super fans like Claire Connolly vividly recall his costumes. There
Speaker 1: was an episode where it was the Tempest and he
Speaker 1: was aerial and had this sort of like flowy costume
Speaker 1: that was really cute that I liked a lot. Trust me,
Speaker 1: you'll want to look up Wishbones Tempest to wardrobe. We're
Speaker 1: talking Liberaci level over the top costume designers. Stephen chowed
Speaker 1: Edge and his team dressed an entire cast in a
Speaker 1: different period specific wardrobe each episode, head to toe or
Speaker 1: head to tail in the case of our star choot
Speaker 1: Edge talked to Entertainment tonight in the challenge is sizing
Speaker 1: down human clothes and making them actually fit a dog.
Speaker 1: Dogs have a different anatomy than than humans, as is
Speaker 1: obvious and U of course too. We have to we
Speaker 1: have to make things that he will wear well. For Ivanhoe,
Speaker 1: he was wearing chain mail. Dogs don't wear chain mail ordinarily. Well,
Speaker 1: they don't wear pants either. That's Soccer's trainer, Jackie Captain again.
Speaker 1: Mark Twain remembered he had pants and we'd all laugh.
Speaker 1: You know, I'd never had him back flip with pants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he kind of looked at me like, really, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can do it. It's okay. Um. So that took a
Speaker 1: few days for him to get used to the pants.
Speaker 1: Of course, it wasn't just that backflip you saw on
Speaker 1: the opening credits. Soccer had to learn all sorts of
Speaker 1: new tricks and performed them in costume. Jackie trained him
Speaker 1: to belly crawl through the fog of war. In the
Speaker 1: Red Badge of Courage episode, she trained him to pull
Speaker 1: the lever on the time machine. I think when we
Speaker 1: went there, we had like fifteen behaviors, different tricks, and
Speaker 1: by the time we finished Wishbone, he had like forty tricks.
Speaker 1: I was like, how many tricks can one little dog
Speaker 1: store in his little break? But he was so devoted.
Speaker 1: Weren't he learned it? He would walk on water for me. Well,
Speaker 1: you say he'd walk on water for you. But to
Speaker 1: be fair, he didn't really like water, did he. No,
Speaker 1: he didn't. Okay, it's a I don't like the water.
Speaker 1: Most of the water work, including an epic scene from
Speaker 1: the Odyssey episode, was handled by a stunt dog named
Speaker 1: Phoebe Daily. Yes, there were other dogs. Phoebe was amazing
Speaker 1: and Phoebe was fearless righton Linda Hamilton. Phoebe could leap
Speaker 1: off of things, she could swim, lap, she I think
Speaker 1: sat on a horse. At one point. There was another
Speaker 1: stunt double. And I say this affectionately, but this dog
Speaker 1: had a face for radio. I mean this was a
Speaker 1: dog that I remember looking a little to me Durante like,
Speaker 1: is that a fair way of characterizing Slugger or am
Speaker 1: I being unfair? Oh Slugger, he was so cute. He's
Speaker 1: such a sweet dog. I forgot about Slugger. Sorry Slugger,
Speaker 1: but rest assured. Soccer wasn't almost every scene. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting about the other dogs is that none of them
Speaker 1: were close up dogs. It was still Soccer who was
Speaker 1: the the star. The wishbones, those marking, those eyes, and
Speaker 1: one other thing I can say about Soccer's acting was
Speaker 1: his ability to look focused. Soccers look at the other
Speaker 1: actor appeared as if he really was taking in what
Speaker 1: they were saying. I remember on set after the director
Speaker 1: called action, often the only other voice you'd hear was
Speaker 1: Jackie's speaking directly to her dog. When I was just
Speaker 1: working him on the set, my voice would be just
Speaker 1: kind of normal. I rehearse him to something god mark,
Speaker 1: stay good um. But then when we were done and
Speaker 1: he did exactly what I wanted, I wanted him to
Speaker 1: know that that was correct, and I'd go good for
Speaker 1: you good, and you could see that he'd be like, yes,
Speaker 1: I did um, and that means a lot to them.
Speaker 1: Or when we were doing backflip, that's a really hard
Speaker 1: behavior and I'd always go Ready, Ready, and that kind
Speaker 1: of geared him up to what we were doing. Ready Flip.
Speaker 1: The show debuted on October nine and soon developed a
Speaker 1: with all due respect to ko Joe rapid following. As
Speaker 1: you know, Wishbone is the star of the mega popular,
Speaker 1: award winning children's show on PBS Design to introduce kids
Speaker 1: to literature. I gave you once again the Wishbone super fans.
Speaker 1: What more could you ask for? It's the perfect kids show.
Speaker 1: You got a cute dog, you got education. I remember
Speaker 1: my first exposure to like William Shakespeare was from this
Speaker 1: freaking dog. We were just very wish one obsessed in
Speaker 1: my house growing up outside Albany, New York. Aaron McDonough
Speaker 1: was a loyal viewer. I remember going to the library
Speaker 1: with my mom and being his big stack of books
Speaker 1: and Faust was in there, which was one of my
Speaker 1: favorite episodes. And you know that one he sells his
Speaker 1: soul to the devil for a woman in the librarian
Speaker 1: looked me like dead in the faces. This is not
Speaker 1: appropriate for children. You cannot take up this book, and
Speaker 1: I was like it was on Wishbone. Wishbone won several
Speaker 1: Daytime Emmys, including for those dazzling costumes. The show also
Speaker 1: won a Peabody Award for Broadcast Storytelling Excellence. Wishbone, presented
Speaker 1: here by Dan Rather, a diminutive canine with a taste
Speaker 1: for classic literature. Here is the star of this next
Speaker 1: magative series. Soccer was now a bona fide star. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you couldn't take him anywhere. You couldn't take him to
Speaker 1: a public park. No way, I'd be traveling to an airport.
Speaker 1: I mean I had to cover his crate up with
Speaker 1: a towel so people didn't see his face because we
Speaker 1: wouldn't go through the airport. You're kidding. And I have
Speaker 1: pictures of people waiting in line two blocks long just
Speaker 1: to see this dog. Gee. I mean, it was just incredible.
Speaker 1: I'm just to see him. Larry Brantley, the voice of Wishbone,
Speaker 1: remembers one incident at the height of soccer celebrity. During
Speaker 1: a promotional trip to d C. Soccer stayed in one
Speaker 1: night while Larry and the other humans went out for dinner.
Speaker 1: When they came back, they found their hotels sweep in disarray.
Speaker 1: He trashed it. He went after the comforter on the bed,
Speaker 1: tore that both the pillow cases and pillows gone. He
Speaker 1: crawled under the bed. You know that black matting that
Speaker 1: holds the box bringing all that's out just cluttered around
Speaker 1: the room like confetti. She was so upset, and I'm like, Jackie,
Speaker 1: this was his rock star moment. So what happened after
Speaker 1: Wishbone ended? What did? What did Soccer do? He just
Speaker 1: ran the ranch and hung out with me, and you know,
Speaker 1: I just really felt like he gave me his heart.
Speaker 1: And I also didn't want him on film because he
Speaker 1: was so recognizable as Wishbone and everybody's going to see
Speaker 1: him and go, that's Wishbone. What's he doing that for?
Speaker 1: And I think he really deserved his time to retire
Speaker 1: because he did his job. He never let me down,
Speaker 1: he never quit me. Um, And to me, that's the ultimate.
Speaker 1: Soccer died on June two thousand one. He was thirteen.
Speaker 1: I don't think you ever get used to it. I've
Speaker 1: had dogs my whole life, and you never get used
Speaker 1: to losing one of them. Um. People think, oh, she
Speaker 1: has a lot of dogs, that it's not hard for her. No,
Speaker 1: it's really hard. Um. I missed him a lot. I
Speaker 1: still missed him. What kind of a reaction did his death.
Speaker 1: Get I didn't really um tell anybody for a year
Speaker 1: or so. Um, I just you know, it's such a
Speaker 1: personal thing. He was a public dog on video, he
Speaker 1: was still my private dog. He was my dog, and
Speaker 1: that's between me and him, and I didn't want people
Speaker 1: to see them when he got really old and he
Speaker 1: couldn't hardly see. You know, everybody's going to get old.
Speaker 1: I wanted him to have dignity because he was such
Speaker 1: a pretty outgoing, happy, go lucky kind of guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was sorry to see him go. Well. I apologize
Speaker 1: for being so hard to get a hold of it.
Speaker 1: You know, when you retire, you become very irresponsible. Good
Speaker 1: for you. When I think of Soccer now, I think
Speaker 1: of the former kids who still get excited when I
Speaker 1: tell them I wrote for the show. I think of
Speaker 1: the blazing heat of the Texas summer when we shot outside,
Speaker 1: and how jealous I was that Soccer had an air
Speaker 1: conditioned to he could rest in, which Ween takes. I
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to crawl in there with him. I
Speaker 1: think of how fortunate I was that my very first
Speaker 1: job in television was on a show where so much
Speaker 1: love went into the final product. And I think of
Speaker 1: Soccer's gorgeous face. Those eyes really did tell stories. Damn
Speaker 1: he really was a good looking dog. It's this really
Speaker 1: cute show that I feel like too few people know about.
Speaker 1: At this point. The reason I have all these books
Speaker 1: isn't my fault. It's this guy's fault. Why the books?
Speaker 1: What happened? What's the story wish Bone? When it comes
Speaker 1: up that one of your adult friends also watched wish Bone? Like,
Speaker 1: that's a conversation that can last another hour, you know,
Speaker 1: I certainly hope you enjoyed this Mobituary. May I ask
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Speaker 1: It includes plenty of stories not in the podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode of Mobituaries was produced by Aaron Shrank. Our team
Speaker 1: of producers also includes Wilco, Martinez Cacceto, and me Morocca.
Speaker 1: He was edited by Moral Walls and engineered by Josh Hahn,
Speaker 1: with fact checking by Naomi Barr. Our production company is
Speaker 1: Neon hom Media. Our archival producer at CBS is Jamie Benson.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart. Indispensable support
Speaker 1: from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gervei, Alan Pang, Reggie Basil and
Speaker 1: everyone at CBS News Radio Special thanks to Gideon Evans,
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Speaker 1: Irrepressible Aaron Shrank. Executive producers for Mobituaries include Steve Raises
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