Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 128. Steve Binder

Episode Date: November 7, 2016

Emmy-winning producer-director Steve Binder joins Gilbert and Frank to talk about his long and successful career in variety television and shares recollections of working with legendary performers Steve Allen, Soupy Sales, Lucille Ball and most notably, Elvis Presley. Also, Steve clashes with Danny Kaye, discovers Shields and Yarnell, turns down Uncle Miltie and makes TV history with Petula Clark and Harry Belafonte. PLUS: Colonel Parker! "The T.A.M.I. Show"! "Aladdin on Ice"! Gabe Dell does Dracula! And Bob Denver dates a Wookiee! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Tennessee sounds perfect. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried begging you for money. Give me money to make more. Cut, take two. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried saying to you, give me money. I want money. Just give me money to make more Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. It costs money, believe it or not. You're over there saying, but it's so cheap and amateurish. I know that, but it still takes money. So it's patreon.com slash Gilbert Gottfried. Patreon.com slash Gilbert Gottfried.

And there are rewards in it. I can't even say reward. Rolling. And there are... Cut. And, you know, like signed posters. And some of you, if it's enough money, I'll roast you.

And there's so much, so much, but it's patreon.com slash Gilbert Gottfried. Give me money! Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Fertorosa.

Our guest this week is an Emmy-winning producer, director, music producer, and talent manager who created, greatest rock and roll concert film, working alongside music icon James Brown, the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Diana Ross, and the Supremes and the Rolling Stones. In 1968, he directed the groundbreaking and controversial Petula Clark special Petula, co-starring Harry Belafonte. Later that year, he played a key role in the career comeback of Elvis Presley by conceiving, producing, and directing the King's primetime NBC special, Elvis. Additional credits include Hullabaloo, The Danny Kay Show,

James Whitmore's Give Him a Hell Harry, Diana Ross, Live from Central Park, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. He's worked with everyone, and we mean everyone in his five-decade career. Steve Martin, Burt Lancaster, Eddie Murphy, Barry Mandelow, George Burns, John Denver, Bette Midler, and Michael Jackson, as well as two people near and dear to the podcast, Joey Ross and Pat McCormick. His new book, co-written with Mary Beth Liedman, is called Fade Up the Movies and Shakers of Variety Television.

Please welcome to the show a man of many talents and, to our knowledge, the only person to have worked with both Senator Robert F. Kennedy and R2-D2, Steve Binder. Thank you, guys. A pleasure to be here. Welcome, Steve. It's quite a resume. Yeah, it seems like yesterday I was the youngest director in television. Now the coin has flipped and I think I'm on the other end. Now there's something most important that I think the world wants to know about more than anything else you've worked on. That's Aladdin on ice.

I was actually given a key to the Disney library and I ended up producing and directing about five primetime CBS, ABC network, I shows with Michelle Kwan, Christy Yamaguchi, et cetera, et cetera. One of the shows actually took me to Cairo, Egypt to do the show you're connected with, which is Aladdin. We shot the entire show on location, and it was an amazing experience. I'm glad I did it. I don't think I'd want to go back there, especially now, and do it again. Where did you find ice in Cairo? We actually made our own ice, fortunately for us. Ringley Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus, which was in a partnership for liveuchi and Kurt Browning, two Olympic skaters, to take the leads. And it was the first time ever, to my knowledge and what I was told, it's the first time ever that the Egyptians saw an ice rink, let alone ice on ice. So it was quite an experience. Well, on your IMDb page, where you have that credit listed, Gilbert is listed as a cast member.

What did you do? Did you record a voice for it, Gil? Yeah, I think we recorded the whole movie all over again. And we actually went in and used the original movie soundtrack. So Gilbert was definitely a star in our show. And the only prerequisite that I was told by Disney was not to imitate any productions that they had done or were doing of Aladdin. This was called Aladdin on Ice.

And it was shot on location in Luxor, where we actually did a helicopter pass on that to see the pyramids and so forth. Wow. And then we shot the bulk of the show in Cairo. The Egyptians came to see the live show and they were blown away because, as I said before, there was they'd never seen an ice rink, let alone skaters on ice. I remember one time I got a message where someone said to me, I have tickets to see Aladdin on ice. Can I go up to you afterwards and say hello? on ice. Can I go up to you afterwards and say hello? Yeah, I think actually in the United States, if not around the world, Disney had it. They may still have a Aladdin Eye show going somewhere in the world. Yeah, I think they thought I was actually skating. What I would have given to seeing you skate in the costume. Now, I want to ask you about this Elvis Presley. You brought Elvis back.

Well, I was credited with bringing Elvis back. The truth of the matter, I think it was the only time Elvis left his comfort zone working for the Elvis Presley estate and so forth. And actually, I had just finished two primetime specials on the networks, one with Leslie Uggams, who at the time was a huge Broadway star, doing Hallelujah Baby on Broadway. And she was obviously very, very famous for her Mitch Miller days. Yeah, we remember Leslie Uggams. Follow the dancing ball, right, of the lyrics on the screen with Mitch Miller.

And then we did this special. I had gathered a whole team of behind-the-scenes talents who had worked with me on Hullabaloo and The Tammy Show. And kind of each production I had done, I had collected a few favorite people and eventually put them all together, and we did basically a trilogy. We did Leslie Odom's first in 1967. We then went on to do Petula Clark and Bella Fonte in 68, which was probably the reason I even was offered the Elvis special,

and then we did Elvis. But what happened was after I finished Petula and Harry, I decided to go into the movie business. And I was approached by Walter Wanger, a 1950s icon as a producer in feature films. And he had a project and asked me to direct it, and I accepted it, signed a deal. And then I got the call from NBC asking if I was available to do Elvis. And I said, no, I just made another deal to do a movie.

Thank you very much. We hung up. And then as fate stepped its hand in, Walter Wanger died suddenly of a heart attack. The motion picture was canceled. Walter Wenger died suddenly of a heart attack. The motion picture was canceled. And I called back Bob Finkel, who was the executive producer and basically under contract to NBC, and told him I was available. And Bob told me, you know, we have a deal that Colonel Parker made with Tom Sarnoff, the head of NBC at the time. We're going to finance Elvis' next movie because the financing at the major movie studios had kind of dried up. And so the Colonel was looking for a financier to do another movie. But the condition that NBC put on Colonel Parker was you've got to deliver Elvis to do a television

special. When the Colonel told Elvis the deal that he made, Elvis said, I don't want to do television. Actually refused to do it. Bob Finkel had told me that, you know, he never could get past Elvis calling him Mr. Finkel. And he needed to find somebody who Elvis could relate to on both a age-wise and personal level that was really understood the music business. And at the time I was in business with one of the great West Coast record producers, Bones Howe. And we were producing exclusively the Fifth Dimension and all their hits, the association and their hits. Bones was working with Laura Nero at the time. And so after they heard about the Petula Clark Belafonte

incident where they physically touched breaking the color line in network variety television. It was actually Petula who, during a singing of a very emotional anti-war song, reached over and touched Harry on the forearm. And that was a shot heard around the world that Newsweek, Time Magazine picked up the story. This was when Petula was 68. It was the first of the year. Her special. And she was there with Harry Belafonte, who, of course, is black and she's white. And tell us what happened there.

Well, it's as I was saying, they physically touched each other. But even before the incident happened, while I was taping this particular song that Petula wrote called On the Paths of Glory, about any mother who sends their children to go fight wars, and then they get killed or wounded, and then years later, their flower is growing where the battlefield was. And it was it wasn't about you have to realize in 1968, the Vietnam War was raging. And so there's a lot of controversy, discussion about about Vietnam was something that immediately the network and the sponsor didn't object to 100% at the time, but they didn't want her to sing that song. There's a little bit of it right there.

You can hear it. That's the song, Paths of Glory. Glory Why should man be forced to kill? Why should they be made to die? So they were as ticked off by the song, if we have this right, Steve, as they were by the fact that there was interracial contact? Well, you have to realize when we were in pre-production on the show and going into

production, a lot of things were happening in America, like Martin Luther King was assassinated. While I was with Elvis at my offices on Sunset Boulevard, we were rehearsing Elvis's songs that he was going to then do with an orchestra at NBC. We started rehearsals at my offices on Sunset with Bones. And one evening when we were rehearsing, we had a television set going in the next room. And all of a sudden we heard this giant commotion. So we stopped rehearsing. We went into the next room. And all of a sudden we heard this giant commotion. So we stopped rehearsing. We went into the TV room and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel. So everybody was on edge. We stopped rehearsing. We spent the whole night just talking about

what's going on in America politically and the assassinations and so forth. going on in America politically and the assassinations and so forth. And it just seemed at the time when we got the sponsor, the sponsor was not looking for any controversy on the show whatsoever. Colonel Parker had already announced that Elvis was just going to sing 20 Christmas songs. He wasn't going to talk on the show. He was just going to say, hello, everybody, and good night. And that was going to be it. And I decided that, you know, as nice as that might have been, let Perry Como, let Andy Williams, let Bing Crutt, let them do the Christmas show. We've got to do something special. Elvis had not been on television for a good 10 years, wasn't sure he could even come back, told me that he was uncomfortable other than the Ed Sullivan exposure, which he got, and some genius at CBS did him the greatest favor in the world by

telling the camera crew they couldn't shoot Elvis from the waist down. So when NBC made a deal to do the Elvis comeback special, they sold the show very early on to Singer Sewing Centers, little old ladies who wanted to make sweaters or Afghans or whatever. And as a result, when I was doing the show, there were so many interesting similarities to both Petula and Elvis because when I was doing Elvis, the network was objecting to seeing his hair messed up and sweat under his arms when he was doing the improv and so forth. And in Petula and Harry, right from get-go, one of the executives at Plymouth Motorcars in Detroit, Michigan, who was responsible for the advertising and the special, objected to having Belafonte on the show to begin with, and he did not want a black artist. I got a call from Young and Rubicon, who is representing the ad agency, who is representing Plymouth,

and they said, when I told them I had booked Belafonte, the first thing the guy said was, what color do you want your Plymouth car? He was so excited, as I was, because Belafonte didn't do very many television shows other than all the Emmys he won in the 50s and so forth. While we wait for Gilbert to find the men's room, we promise we'll come back to the show after a word from our sponsor.

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Well, that was after. What happened was that the sponsor representative called me and he said, listen, on the record, the sponsor doesn't think the Belafonte is hot anymore. He hasn't had any hit records. He isn't ononte is hot anymore. He hasn't had any hit records. He isn't on television very much anymore. And we basically need to get rid of him because the sponsor called up when he heard that Belafonte was booked and he wants you to take him off the show. I said, what's the real story? And he said, he said well off the record that can't be repeated the guy's a racist

and he doesn't want a black guy on the show so I said thank you because if I have to take Belafonte off the show I will go to the press and nationally announce your off the record statement of why Belafonte

could not do the particular clock special. And he said, wait a minute. Don't do anything. Don't panic. I'll call you back. Five minutes later, I get a call, and the guy, his name was Colgan Schlenk. I'll never forget that name. And Colgan said- Colgan Schlenk. Sounds like from Hogan's Europe. Exactly. And he said, listen, Exactly. And he said, listen, I'm replacing the guy you just spoke to. We can work this out. And in the contract with NBC and Petula, it says you have to have guest stars with an S. You can't just have one guest star. So we'll accept Belafonte if we put another white star on the show with him. And I said, but I've already created the show. I don't have any room for another star. He said, well, we're going to send you a list of people to use. And I'm sure this list will really impress you. They faxed over a list with Ray

Bulger and Milton Berle and a bunch of other names. And I said, totally unacceptable. We're doing Batula and Harry, and that's it. And so I had to fly to Detroit right in the middle of pre-production to meet the president of Plymouth Motor Cars, who had nothing to do with show business. He was a really nice guy. He's into building cars, but he was given the responsibility. The guy at Plymouth who objected to Belafonte was there, and he was recommending they cancel the whole production. You have to even go back further than that because the show was actually going to be a special with Nancy Sinatra. Right.

The story's in your book, by the way. Yeah, and her agent actually realized he could get more money from another sponsor, so they tried to pull a switch on Plymouth, and they put Petula, who had one hit record called Downtown at the time. And I had directed Petula. Ironically, the first time she came to America, I was directing Hullabaloo, and we banked Downtown for one of our future shows at the time. So I was excited about her. I knew what a great voice she had and so forth. And when I got the call from the advertising agency, Petula had already gone back to her home in Medjiv, Switzerland and said, I'm not doing an American television special.

So I was assigned to get on an airplane, fly to Medjiv, landed in Paris, took a car to Mijev, and had to convince her to come back to America and do the special. And we hit it off immediately, and she agreed to come back, and we created the show for her. First call I made was to try and get Belafonte on it, and he at first turned me down, then called me back saying, is Petula that English girl, the the blonde blue-eyed chick who's got this hit record downtown i said absolutely he said well maybe this would be a good thing with the two of us doing a show together we could probably make some kind of a a really good statement about you know uh blacks and whites and racial comments and so forth. I said, we can't get too heavy, but we can certainly disguise stuff in the music, which is exactly what we did. You're doing a lot of flying around, too, to pull this special off.

I was in 24 hours. I was in Europe, back in the United States, flying to Detroit, et cetera, et cetera. That was definitely, as I look back over the years, I have to laugh at what went on. And it was meant to be, let's put it that way. So NBC read about the Petula Clark-Bellifani incident, and that's when the executive producer, Bob Finkel, got the idea to call me and see if I would talk and meet with Elvis. Which is funny, because you say in your book that you thought your career was over after the Petula Clark situation. Not really because I've been told that a lot in my career, as I think most people have.

But, you know, the name of the game is for every person that doesn't want you, there's got to be another person who does. And I've worked continuously for five decades, so I have no complaints. I mean, I've had incredible experiences, worked with some fantastic people. And, you know, I started out in pre-med at the University of Southern California, never dreaming, even though I was born and raised in Los Angeles, that I would end up in the entertainment business. And truly, I have Steve Allen to thank for that. And truly, I have Steve Allen to thank for that. I came in from the mailroom at KABC in Los Angeles, the local affiliate for the ABC network.

First job I was given, and I don't understand why I was given it, because I certainly had no experience or credibility. I think I was 22 at the time. And I ended up directing five days a week the Soupy Sales Pie Throwing Slapstick Show. Tell us about that. We're Soupy fans. Well, you know, we had a huge high school audience and college audience. And, you know, it was a fun, it started in Detroit. It was very successful there. He came out to Los Angeles to live with his family.

It was very successful there. He came out to Los Angeles to live with his family. And so I was assigned the show. And the show was designed around, truthfully, a slew of dirty jokes without the punchlines. But all the kids knew the punchlines. So it was just a really fun experience. And Soupy was great to work with. We were so popular in Los Angeles that we went on the network with a primetime show. And I was doing five days a week in the afternoon and then once a

week in primetime for the ABC network. I had done, I think, four shows with Frank Sinatra getting a pie and Mickey Rooney getting a pie. You weren't involved with the famous Soupy incident where he told the kids to go take the money out of their mother's pocketbooks. I was, actually. I was twice. I was also—Steve Allen did the same joke on the Steve Allen show, and I did that show as well, where he basically told kids to sneak into their parents' bedroom, go through their dad's pants pockets and, you know, send any money they find to him. And so, yeah, in fact, Supi, we had a few, you know, really funny incidents where once we shot this nude girl behind the door, when Supi opened the door and saw her standing there stark naked, he freaked out because he thought, oh my God, this is going on television. And it obviously wasn't. I had hidden the camera enough so you couldn't see who was behind the door.

And that became something that was videotaped and bootlegged to all the networks and all the people behind the scenes. And that became quite famous, too. But Suppy is really fun. You know, it was a fun experience. I couldn't believe that I not only had the job for about 150 bucks a week, but, you know, they were paying me money to go have the time of my life. And you're still in your 20s at this point. Absolutely. And I remember, I think, Soupy, he asked the kids to sneak into the parents' bedrooms, get that little green paper and send it to him. And he goes, and you know what I'm going to send back to you? A postcard from Puerto Rico. I don't remember that.

That's great that you remember that, Gilbert. That's right. But what happened was when the show went on the network and I was taken off of the network show, I quit. I left ABC. I wrote a letter to Leonard Goldenson, who was at the time the president of ABC Network, and said, this is absolutely unfair and I'm leaving. president of ABC Network and said, this is absolutely unfair and I'm leaving. That decision, because I thought that was the end of my career right there, that decision turned out to be the best decision I ever made because I got a call from my super sales stage manager, Jimmy Baker, who was doing a Steve Allen primetime show for ABC Network that got canceled. And Steve decided to finance a jazz series called Jazz Scene USA with Oscar Brown Jr. hosting it.

I got to use the Playhouse 90 crew at CBS who taught me all kinds of things. And we did 26 half hours with the greatest jazz talent in the world, Stan Kenton's big band, the Jazz Messengers, Nancy Wilson, Joe Pass, Cannonball Adderley, and so forth. So I was shooting that show at CBS. I got a call from Steve Allen, who I'd never met even though I was hired to do the jazz show. And he said, Steve, I just signed a deal with Westinghouse, and we're going to do this show on La Mirada and Vine Street in the heart of Hollywood, and I want you to come this show on La Mirada and Vine Street in the heart of Hollywood, and I want you to come over and direct it. And I said, Steve, I can't. I'm doing your

jazz show. And he said, well, why don't you for a little while do them both, and then I'll replace you on my show. And as a result, Cecil Smith, who at the time was the entertainment editor of the LA Times, wrote a full article with my picture in it and talking about my directing both shows at the same time and bicycling from CBS into Hollywood every day. And it exploded. I got all kinds of offers off of that review alone. And I ended up with Steve for two years. And I mean, it was like going to grammar school and graduating with a PhD. I mean, he just taught me so much. And he just gave me a free hand to experiment, play around. It was totally an improv show. And nobody was better at improvisation than Steve. I mean, he was

absolutely brilliant. And in fact, he wrote an article in the New Yorker magazine saying that we had this kind of ESP thing going between us where he could read my mind when I put pictures up on the screen and vice versa. I could read his mind in terms of how to take advantage of whether we were out on Vine Street with Steve just interviewing people walking up and down the street or uh doing stunts uh on la mirada with uh you know a swimming pool full of jello or or a full-grown elephant in a tug-of-war with our crew i mean there were just so many great things and at the time i didn't even appreciate it as much but we we interviewed uh woody allen frank zappa uh there were just so many mel brooks uh yeah everybody was almost a regular on the show because you know

steve still had all of his connections with his man on the street routine when he did his new york show late night show uh and so when we brought it to LA, it was just so fresh and so much fun on top of being cross street from the Hollywood Ranch Market. You'd see bums off the street and Rolls Royces driving up. It was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I did a lot of stunts in the market itself, watching Louis Nye shopping from other people's shopping carts, Gabe Dell, who was dressed as Dracula. And Gabe would go in fully dressed as Dracula and nobody would pay any attention because they were so used to so many characters in Hollywood walking around and looking like it was Halloween night 365 days a year. So it was great, great fun. And that opened the door to everything. I went from there to do Hullabaloo in New York,

did the Tammy movie in 64, and then came back to LA to do Danny Kay who was an idol of mine long before I even thought of being in show business and the truth is we did not hit it off and as a result he fired me. I heard Danny Kay was not an easy

person to get along with. Well I think he resented my age to be honest with you. I think directing him and giving him direction of where to stand and what to do. What were you, 26, 27? At the time, yeah, around that. Maybe even a little younger at the time. But from there, after I did Danny Kaye, I really decided to specialize in star specials. I wanted to make

specials that nobody else could do if they fell out. I told the artists, starting with Leslie Uggams, that if you get sick or you can't do your special, it's not a case of me just phoning up another star and coming in to replace you with the script we've written, with the songs we've chosen, and so forth. But we would just have to cancel it. And I told that to Petula and Harry and Elvis as well. And so they were like going to a tailor and having a tailor made dress or suit made for you. Let's talk a little bit, Gil, I just want to ask Steve about a little bit about Hall of Baloo. Because there were only 48 episodes of Hullabaloo, and yet it made an impact. Well, I only did the first 13. Oh, you only did a handful of them.

We started out, when I got the Danny Kaye offer and my contract was up with Hullabaloo, I jumped at it because I wanted to work with Danny so much. But Hullabaloo was a really great experience. I had finished shooting the Tammy movie, and Tammy, incidentally, was Teenage Music International. Sure. We'll ask you about that, too. Tom Hanks called me one day, and he said, I'm in the middle of a bet. Can you tell me what TMI stands for? I told him, and he said, thank you, you just won me some money. But it was really a case of where

I didn't lock in to really saying, hey, most people go to work and they can't wait to get off to go have fun. This is just the opposite. I hated to go home and go to sleep. I wanted to be back in the studio directing the very next day all the time or editing. And that's lasted with me my entire life and my entire career.

I love what I do, and I still joke about it, and they pay me to do it. You know, I can't believe it. Yeah, the story of you riding your bicycle from studio to studio is great, going from job to job. Well, that was the Jazz Scene USA and Steve Allen show. Must have been wonderful days. About Hullabaloo, it was just to people who might not be familiar with it, it was a version of Shindig? It was really a case of where when the networks decided that rock and roll was here to stay and building exactly their

target audience of 18 to, I guess, 35 or something for sponsors, ABC decided to do Shindig. Shindig was originally a pilot by an English producer named Jack Good. And it was a country western show. It was not a rock and roll show. And at the same time, after they did the pilot, they decided to switch it to a rock and roll show. Did not change the name. That's why Shindig more represents country than it does rock and roll. And I got a call from Gary Smith from the famous producing team of Hemian Smith and asking if I wanted to come to New York and direct Hullabaloo, which was starting up. And I said I would come if I could bring my choreographer with me, David Winters, who was in West Side Story, was both the movie and the Broadway show. And Gary agreed. When I got to New York, the staff was unbelievable.

Peter Matz, who had done the early Barbra Streisand albums, was the musical director. Billy Goldenberg was the dance arranger on Hullabaloo and eventually became my key guy when we did Elvis Presley. He changed Elvis' life musically with his arrangements. Elvis had never sung with a big orchestra in his life. He just sung with his rhythm section. And when I brought him in to meet the orchestra in a recording session in Hollywood, and here

was what eventually became known as the Wrecking Crew, the greatest studio musicians. Oh, sure, Hal Blaine and company. All of them were in the studio, and Elvis made me go out on Sunset Boulevard and promise him that if he didn't like the sound, he'd never heard a Billy Goldenberg arrangement, he'd never sung with a real orchestra, and said, you've got to promise me to send them all home

and just keep the rhythm section, which I did. And we started out with recording Guitar Man, the soundtrack. And the minute Elvis walked in and stood alongside Billy on the conductor's platform, he never looked back. I mean, when he went to Las Vegas, he hired more musicians than we had on the comeback special. I mean, he loved it. A couple of things about Elvis that's interesting, too. You were confrontational with him. You were

very honest with him at the very beginning. Didn't he ask you about the condition his career was in, or his movie career? Yeah. The first time I met Elvis, he said, what do you think of my career? And I said, I think it's in the toilet. And at first, it was a shock reaction, and then he burst out laughing, saying, finally, I'm meeting somebody who's really talking to me and telling me the truth. But I've always felt with every star I've worked with, everybody needs a Jiminy Cricket on their shoulder. They need somebody who's leveling with them, and whether they like to hear it or not. But, A, it brings them down to earth, and secondly is they begin to trust you.

And without trust, you have nothing as a director so i've been very fortunate to work with a lot of stars and uh you know i think i'm on my seventh or eighth diana ross special uh you know we're we're uh possibly going to do another special with her uh this coming december oh great uh with the she's going to do the concerts anyway in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center. And it's with the National Symphony Orchestra. So it should be quite exciting, and I'm hoping it does come through. And you had dealings with the infamous Colonel Parker, who was kind of like a Svengali on Elvis. It always struck me.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I own the book by Alanna Nash on Simon & Schuster called The Colonel, which is an incredible life story of the stories behind the man. The Colonel, as you probably already know, was born in Holland. He never was a colonel of anything. He just took that moniker when he snuck into the United States illegally. When he died, he didn't have a passport to any country. They thought he was dead in Holland and he never bothered. As a matter of fact, in World War II, when every American male had to register for the draft, the colonel didn't and took the risk of being arrested. But Elvis didn't even know this when they were together. But Parker was all about, you know, he came from a carny background, the circus, and he had this amazing Svengali power over people that always amazed me because there was nothing that the colonel offered me.

And he did offer me Elvis' next movie and then withdrew the offer after we had our first confrontation. But there was nothing he could offer me other than I wanted to do a great show period I wanted to do the best I could do and he kept thinking he had control what I never knew was that after Elvis and I met for the very first time he went home and told Priscilla you know on this one I don't care what the colonel says I got a gut feeling about Steve Bender and I'm going to do whatever he asked me to do and he did great because I was wondering why I wasn't care what the colonel says. I got a gut feeling about Steve Binder, and I'm going to do whatever he asked me to do. And he did. That's great.

Because I was wondering why I wasn't fired because I had so many confrontations. Didn't the colonel call you by the wrong name? Yeah. When he liked me, it was Binder. When he didn't like me so much, it was Bindle. I don't know where he came up with that. Now, did he do things, in your opinion, to screw Elvis's career? Like, I heard he was offered movies that the colonel would turn down, like Midnight Cowboy and A Star is Born.

Yeah, you're right. But I have to, you know, I can't blame the colonel per se because we all have to take responsibility for our own lives, no matter who's in our life, etc. So I felt, you know, whatever decisions he made, you know, the colonel certainly got Elvis's approval and Elvis went along with it. with it. Elvis was a country boy, street smart beyond anybody that I think ever met in my life that was that smart, who had not been educated beyond a high school education and so forth. But if you went up to his room at Graceland, you'd be amazed because there's nothing Elvis in the room when he passed away. It was all books on, a lot of books on, you know, Kennedy's, on King, et cetera. His record collection was amazing to me because it even had Lawrence Welk albums

in his private collection, et cetera. A lot of gospel, I bet. And then, you know, you hear everybody has an Elvis story in the world. I think for sure he's more popular today than was even alive worldwide. I just got back from a tour in Australia and fanatical Elvis organizations where the whole town gets together and celebrate Elvis week with parades and marching bands and you name it. And as Elvis said in his own words, it never ceases to amaze me.

And I feel that way all the time because I'm obviously on the list as somebody involved in his life, even though I was only involved in his life for the comeback special. But the fans are now generational. They're great grandparents, grandparents, parents, kids, grandkids. I mean, it's amazing. Steve, you had an effect on him in a sense,

because didn't he say that he would never, tell us what he said, that he would never make a film or do a record he didn't believe in? The last time I saw Elvis, we'd come from a screening of his show that I had put together. We were in a small editing room at NBC in Burbank. First, it was with his honorage of what I called his paid audience, who laughed at all his jokes. Nice guys, but they knew their job. Their job was to report to Colonel Parker every day what Elvis was doing every day and obviously, you know, basically spy on him. And so when I, the outsider, came intoondi, Leslie Uggams, and previous shows that I had done. And we were a well-oiled machine by the time we got to Elvis Presley. But the last day that I saw him in the screening room, nobody reacted to the show, which really, you know, it's horrible as a producer director to sit in a screening room and nobody's, you know, laughing, applauding, hissing, booing, I mean, whatever, but you're looking for some human reaction. And then Elvis asked everybody to leave except he and myself.

And we sat in the screening room. He wanted to see the show again. And now he opened up. Now he, you know, it was almost embarrassing. He laughed at everything. He applauded himself. I mean, it wasn't ego. It was just he was enjoying what was on that videotape. And obviously the improvisation was the real gold mine in the special where I finally got him to just, we brought in Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana, his original guitar player and drummer. And we did this in the round acoustic session, which kind of opened the door to all the acoustic shows that followed. And Elvis forgot he was on television, forgot there were cameras.

He was just having the time of his life. just having the time of his life. Initially, when we started to tape this, he called me in the makeup room and said, Steve, I've changed my mind. And I said, what do you mean you've changed your mind? He said, I don't remember anything that I sang or talked about or whatever. And the great thing that happened is he made the decision to live at NBC during the entire production of the show. Without him living there and being in his dressing room slash now bedroom, every day after we'd finished rehearsing or we'd finished taping segments,

he would go in the dressing room and whoever happened to be hanging out or around him, they would start to jam. And they had no electronic amplifiers or guitar equipment or anything. So everybody would just bang on the piano pretending they're playing drums. They had some acoustic guitars in the room. Lance Legault, who was a stand-in, had a tambourine. And for days, I was watching every single day this improv going on and telling stories about being on the road and being censored by the police departments

because he was too sexy, supposedly, quote unquote. And it was a case of where I decided with all the show that we had planned with the big production we had a cast of a hundred we had we're over a hundred we had dancers singers you name it i'm saying this is better than anything we're doing spending all this money just seeing elvis being elvis nobody had ever seen this before from from the beginning uh this was going back to his roots when he was in Tupelo, Mississippi and in Memphis and just having fun and being what he really was,

a truly great entertainer, musician. He always put himself down as a guitar player, but other guitarists, really great ones, always admired his guitar playing and said he just downplays it, but he'sists, really great ones, always admired his guitar playing and said he just downplays it, but he's really, really good. And his personality, you know, he had an incredible sense of humor. We had, you know, we didn't really have, Frank, any confrontations at all. I mean, we were in sync from day one. There's a point in the book where you talk about how struck you were by how attractive he was, even though you say I'm a heterosexual male. It's true.

I found amusing. Usually the star, especially female stars, will come up and say, don't shoot my right side, don't shoot my left side, don't shoot from a low angle to show my chin. angle, to show my chin. Or when Elvis walked into my office for the very first time, and I'd seen him for the first time in person, I looked at him and said, he's flawless. I mean, this guy walks in totally charismatic. I mean, even if he wasn't famous, you would pay attention to him. He was tan, wasn't he? He just come back from Hawaii. Yeah, he just come back from Hawaii and he had rested up. And it was, you know, the only confrontation I can ever remember in shooting the show is I came into rehearsal one morning, and Elvis is sitting on a bench, and he's got his head buried in his hands. And I could tell he was very upset, and I said, what's going on? And he said, Bob Finkel told me I use too much hair dye in my hair and it's too black.

What do you think? But that was the only time I saw him upset. The rest of the time was just a ball. In fact, every time we used to have a confrontation, Colonel Parker would call us in together in his little office offstage. And he would tell me what Elvis wanted and Elvis would just stand there with his head you know bowed and we'd walk out of the colonel's office and Elvis would jam me in the rib and say you know F him we'll do whatever we want to do so but in and I want to get back back to when he did tell me the last time I saw him in that screening room when we were just one-on-one. He said, Steve, I'm never going to make a movie ever again that I don't believe in.

And I said to him, and that was a time when Midnight Cowboy was out directed by John Schlesinger. Midnight Cowboy was out directed by John Schlesinger. I said, instead of the Colonel asking for a million dollar salary for you, why don't you offer John Schlesinger, a director like that, a million dollars just to put you in their movies? And he said, I'm never going to make another recording that I don't believe in because when he did all of his 26 or seven movies, the screenwriters were writing a lot of his songs. He'd never written a song or a hit song for sure, ever. And it was a case of where he was really stating, this special has changed my life. And I'm really, you know, I knew Elvis wanted to travel the world. I knew he wanted to climb new heights and mountains and what have you. It never got chance to, ended up, in fact, some of the

Presley fans resent the fact that I have referred to it as he became a saloon singer in Las Vegas. Well, you went to see him in Vegas, didn't you? I went to see him right after we did the special, the first time he did it in 1969. I thought he was phenomenal. And he was having the time of his life and his orchestra was bigger than the one we used on the comeback special. Next time I went back to see him a year later, I knew it was over. I mean, he almost had his back to the audience. He was performing for just the musicians. And for whatever reasons, and it was sad because he just, I said he never died of drugs. He died of boredom. He just didn't want to end up with all the indulgences. And I never confronted anything when it came to drugs.

I mean, he was in great shape mentally, physically. I'm very, to begin with, very naive on anybody who's into that because somehow I got through the 60s pretty clean and uh so it was not only nine years that he that he passed after you worked with him yeah but it was it was really a case of uh you know I hated to see him uh you know in the state he was in years later even though we never spoke I never saw him again etc but I never knew what an impact I had on him to be honest with you until uh Priscilla and I are still friends. And she tells me a lot of behind the scenes stories of him being so excited about working on the special, getting up early in the morning.

It's nice. You have such great memories of that. It sounds like it was an almost perfect experience. Well, I don't think anything is perfect, but I certainly came close to the definition, I think, for sure. Tell us about the Star Wars. Uh-oh, you had to go there. The man's on a roll. Star Wars Christmas special. The holiday special. Holiday special.

The Star Wars holiday special. Do a lot of people ask you about this, Steve? All the time. Almost as much as Elvis. was holiday special a lot of people ask you about this steve has it come up all the time almost as much as elvis uh the truth is and it's going to shock you uh gilbert it's going to shock you probably the most here you laugh i loved it i had a great experience bless your heart i well first of all you know i think cbs what a lot of people don't know is that George Lucas ended up somehow with all the rights to merchandising for Star Wars 1 movie. He wanted to and made a deal with Kenner Toys to sell Star Wars toys to kids, naturally.

Star Wars toys to kids, naturally. What he failed to do and what CBS failed to do is tell the audience, this is a TV variety show for a tenth, if not a hundredth of the budget of a big movie that Lucas would do, and we're going to fill it with variety stars like Bea Arthur was in it. Art Carney. Jefferson Starship.

Art was one of the co-stars. Harvey Korman. We had Diane Carroll and so forth. And so when the show was aired, aiming at kids telling the story of the Chewbacca family, what I loved about it is I got to work with the entire cast of the original Star Wars movie, all of them. I got to work with a lot of Lucas's technical people who were on set during the time. You know, the Chewbacca's, their costumes were so heavy that they could only be in them about 40 minutes out of each hour. So it certainly slowed production down when we had to give them oxygen for 10 minutes on every hour.

And, you know, I came in as a fireman. They started the production. Smith-Hemion were the executive producers. A class act as far as the technical crew from television, let alone all of the Lucas people. And I got a phone call saying, hey, we're shooting at Warner Brothers in Burbank, and we're shut down because we've shot for a week, blown the budget.

And we only have about, you know, two of the production numbers shot. Could you come in and convince CBS and Warner Brothers not to shut the production down and finish it. So I had no voice in any, I mean the script opened with a good 10 to 15 minutes of the Chewbacca's. Yes. It's very weird. With bare sounds and lumpy and itchy. Yeah, well lumpy.

Very strange, Steve. The child was a little person who I knew very well. I think at the time she was dating John Denver from Gilgit's Island. But she weighed about, right, she weighed about, to begin with, no more than 80 pounds. I think when we finished the production, she was probably down to 45 pounds or something like that. Wait a second, wait a second.

There was a little person in the Chewbacca uniform, costume, excuse me, and that person was dating Bob Denver? You got it. Yeah, and wonderful. I loved her. I mean, she was great. So Bob Denver was into some weird stuff. Hey, I directed two Gilligan's Islands.

Yes, you did direct Gilligan's Islands. Yes, you did direct Gilligan's Islands. Yeah. Now, how did the cast of Star Wars feel about the special? I'm going to shock you and tell you. We had a great time, all of us. There wasn't one. The only negative anything that I heard was that at the time, and I understand that George ended up doing right and giving certain actors a little piece of the pie when it came to, nobody expected Star Wars to be such a huge, iconic hit. It was turned down everywhere before he went up to Fox. And Fox

didn't want to finish the film. And that's how he got the merchandising rights. They actually went to him and said, we want to stop production unless you'll pay for the ending and we'll give you the merchandising rights. But anyway, it was really a case of where, had they told the audience to begin with, don't expect Star Wars II, the movie, but this is a children's television special in primetime for two hours. And it's a variety show with a variety budget.

And so there are, I've seen over the years, you know, because most people are, oh, Steve, I'm so sorry you had to direct this Star Wars holiday special. But the truth is I had a great experience. I loved working with everybody on it, and I learned a whole lot. I mean, that's the great thing about my career. To this day, if I'm doing a show, I'm going to learn something. I'm not just going to come in and phone it in because I did that. And even doing Pee Wee's Playhouse as their executive producer for a couple years,

it was great because Paul had an eye for amateur talent, artists and what have you. And we mixed them with my professional crew. And it turned out to just be a great experience because that was a living set. I mean, every day, you know, between everything being a puppet from the windows to the flowers. 30 years ago today, by the way, Pee Wee's Playhouse hit the airwaves. So congratulations. It's an anniversary. Now, one guest we've had on the show and someone I know and I can use that line, well, he was always nice to me, is Chevy Chase.

And you produced the infamous Chevy Chase talk show. Okay. Here we go again. We loosen you up, Steve, and then we go for the jugular. You got it. It's great. Truthfully, I was the executive producer of the Chevy Chase show. I think Chevy probably chose me because of my Steve Allen background. It was the first time. What I never knew when I went into that job, Chevy had never ad-libbed in his life

and had only done one season of Saturday Night Live and left. And that show by Lorne is a very tightly scripted show. It has the impression as a viewer that it's ad-libbed and freeform. It's not. It is totally controlled by Lorne, who created the show and the executive producer. And is a writer himself. And a writer himself. And he insisted that whoever did material on Saturday Night Live follow the script, which I totally respect him for. But Chevy, basically, first of all, I had no idea.

We went on a Fox national tour with Chevy. national tour with Chevy. And I was shocked to realize that the press was so anti-Chevy for whatever reason, I guess, following him on his movie career and so forth. They were asking some really nasty questions from the audience and so forth, and I couldn't figure it out. Then I said to Chevy and I said to his manager, I'm not sure what the show should be, but I definitely know what it should not be. We should not follow the formats of Jay Leno and Letterman. We have to do something really different.

Well, Fox insisted, first of all, making the mistake of telling all their affiliate stations, we're going to beat Leno and Letterman in the ratings. Chevy's going to be the biggest thing that ever happened. Instead of sneaking him on the air, giving him a year to work it out, learn how to do the show, et cetera, because there's no improv on the Chevy show. I mean, he wanted everything scripted, and it's impossible to script 60 minutes a night, five nights a week.

And when he came to me on the opening show that we did and said, put my name on the cue card. Hello, I'm Chevy Chase. I said, uh-oh, we're going to be facing some trouble here. But he never, ever accused anybody of, you know, being part of the show failing. He took 100 percent responsibility on his shoulders, which I totally respect. A lot of people never want to take the blame for anything. And, you know, and Chevy should have done the Bill Maher show. Chevy should have done the Bill Maher show. I mean, he had no interest in actors in sitcoms and actors in general.

And between NBC and CBS, they were going to blackball every major guest who would come on the Chevy Chase show and threaten them with, you will never do the Tonight Show again. You'll never do the Letterman Show again. And as a result, we had a horrible time just booking the show from the very first day. Chevy gave me a list of all of his best friends, quote-unquote, and none of them wanted to do the show. A few did, but most of them didn't.

They either were out of town or unavailable for whatever reason. I remember Goldie Hawn famously coming on the show and them having a moment, but I don't remember too many other guests. Well, you just proved my point. He must have been calling in friendship, calling in favors. But the point being is that Chevy was definitely interested in politics, definitely interested in the other side of show business

and that's the format that he should have really gone for but every night after we finish production the executives at Fox would come into his dressing room and critique his performance and if there's anything called a kiss of death

it's making an artist feel insecure and looking over their shoulder and second guessing them instead of giving him all this confidence and support. They did just the opposite. They just took his self-confidence away from him completely. But you know, the truth of the matter is, when you think back, nobody in that format, the matter is, when you think back, nobody in that format, even with tons of experience in improv, which Chevy had none, it takes them a year or two just to feel out the audience and their own talents and so forth. And Chevy was under the spotlight from before we even began. And that was a huge mistake. Fox should have said, you know, we're not competing with Leno.

We're not competing with Letterman. We're just doing the Chevy Chase show and he'll improve as we go on. And I never thought the shows were as bad as the reviewers said they were. I felt he did a decent job. I remember when Leno started on the air, they sent him to school

just to learn how to interview people. I remember that. And so two for two. two what should have been embarrassing career moves turned out to be something that I really enjoyed doing and respected the people I worked with. You handled that grilling quite well, Steve. Thank you, Frank. Oh, and tell us about working with Groucho Marx. That was a Shields and Yarnell thing, wasn't it?

You told me on the phone. We did a pre-interview. Yeah, he was, you know, the interesting thing is when I did the Steve Allen show, that is the original stage on Vine Street where Groucho did You Bet Your Life. Vine Street where Groucho did You Bet Your Life. I walked into the studio the first day, went down to the dungeon of the catacombs of the studio. And what did I find? Cue cards by the hundreds. Every line that Groucho Marx and his guests said on those shows was never ad-libbed. It was all written by writers. So that was a real shock to me to begin with. I saw Steve sit next to every, just about every great comedian in the business at that time. And nobody could touch Steve for real improv, real thinking on his feet, et cetera. And it came true in so many cases where you'd sit

next to people that you idolized, but realized that, you know, that they had their writers to thank basically for their careers and, you know, weren't as fast on their feet. And we had some great, great stars on that show. But then years later, I had discovered a, actually one of my dancers on Elvis Presley, I had discovered a, actually one of my dancers on Elvis Presley, Lorene Yarnell, called me and said, I've fallen in love with this kid on the streets in San Francisco doing mime. And his name is Robert Shields, and I'd love you to see us.

We're going to be performing in Las Vegas in a show called the Doodah Gang. And that's when they did their breakfast routine as robots. I remember. Remember Shields and Yarnell? Oh, yeah. Sure. And so when I was producing and directing the Mac Davis series for NBC, I put Shields and Yarnell on as guest stars.

Mac did me a great favor by not just putting them on, but knowing my relationship with them, he would tell America week in and week out whenever they were on the show, you know, watch this act. They're really going to be superstars. They're great. And so forth. And he gave them the house, good housekeeping seal of approval, basically. From there, Cher was doing a show on CBS produced by a great television variety producer who's passed away, Nick Vanoff. You'll know him from the Hollywood Palace. So we know the name Nick Vanoff. And Nick came to me, he was producing the Cher show and said, can I put Shields and Yarnell on the Cher show? And he said, there's only one

problem. And I said, what's the problem? He said, they're not going to get any credit. Cher doesn't want them to have any credit. She just wants them on the show as an act. get any credit. Cher doesn't want them to have any credit. She just wants them on the show as an act. And so I turned it down and Nick said, can I buy the Mac Davis video pieces that you did on that show? Because they were regulars on the Mac Davis show. And we did a whole bunch of sketches with them, the honeymooners, I mean, you name it. And so I said, sure. So we made a deal to sell, share three or four of the Shields and Yarnell routines. And then CBS called me and said, would you like to do a pilot with Shields and Yarnell at CBS? do it anywhere you want. I said, well, if I do it, I want to do it at CBS because I know all the executives turn their closed-circuit monitors, TV sets on, and they'll be able to see them.

And it's exactly what happened. They ended up on the air with their own top 10 summer show for CBS. I remember. And then I got a call after we were in the top 10 for the whole summer. Then I got a call from my agent, and he said CBS wants to pick up their contract, put them on in the fall. But there's one problem. And I said, what's the problem?

They're going up against Laverne and Shirley. That's the number one show in America. And I said, I don't want to do it. And he said, why? And I said, because they'll end up in the bottom 10 and nobody ever want to see them again. He said, why? And I said, because I'll end up in the bottom 10 and nobody ever want to see him again. And so I'm the only one who said, don't take the job. And they said, well, CBS will never hire him again. I said, yes, they will. If you're leaving a top 10 show, at that time they had made a deal at Caesars Palace to open for Andy Williams, Bob Newhart, you name the stars at Caesars. And they didn't want to blow that deal. And the deal was contingent they'd be on the air with their own television show.

And so they went on the air. They went up against Laverne and Shirley and sure enough ended up in the bottom 10 and the phones never rang again. So there's a lot more than talent that dictates careers. It's timing. But how was Groucho involved with Shields and Yarnel? Going back, it seems like an hour ago. Groucho actually, somehow, I think Robert Shields ran into Groucho. At that time, he had this young woman who was very controversial. Oh, Erin Fleming, yeah. Erin Fleming.

Erin Fleming said, why don't you make Groucho their mentor, like George Burns did with Anne Margaret, or George did with Bobby Darin. I thought it was a great idea. So next thing you know is Groucho is going with Shields Yarnell. But at that point, you know, he was in the latter stages of his life and so forth. And I don't think really 100% knew what was going on. And as a result, you it it it didn't really pay off the way i he would have if groucho was 60 years old or 50 years old or something would have been a whole different ball game we're just we're sitting here uh and looking at your your

credits steve yeah it's insane barry manilow the rolling. Don Kirshner's rock concert. I actually created that show. Lucille Ball in London. John Denver. It goes on. And give him Hell Harry with James Whitmore. We'll have to do another show with you. Yeah. There's so much that we just barely got into it.

Great. I hope we have time at least to plug my book a little bit. Absolutely. Grab the book. Okay. Great. I hope we have time at least to plug my book a little bit. Absolutely. Grab the book. Okay. Yes. That book means a lot to me. Absolutely. Tell us a little bit about it. It's called Fade Up the Movers and Shakers of Variety Television. And you co-wrote it. Well, there are 26 of us, 25 of my peers and myself who contribute to the book. I got you. There was no Skyping. There was no iPhones.

It was all Mary Beth is an active teacher at Indiana University. Did we say her name right, by the way? Mary Beth Leidman? Leidman. Perfect. Leidman. But her academic credentials are longer than mine in the entertainment industry. She's well-respected at the university.

are longer than mine in the entertainment industry. She's well-respected at the university. And I met her when I was hosting a panel for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Hollywood. And she happened to be in my class or my lecture. She came over to me after the class and said, you know, I know all the people you talk about, but I've never met any of them. I teach about them in my classes. I'd love to do a book with you. And at first, I was kind of hesitant. And then I thought, you know, I've been teaching regularly for over 30 years at universities and college campuses, teaching a directing course or a general producing directing course. And I never found a book that I really wanted to use in my classroom. And I used to joke all the time when people would ask me, what are your

textbooks? And I'd say, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, the most important book you could have in show business. And so I set out to do this book with Mary Beth. I called 25 of my peers, including George Stevens Jr., Glenn Weiss, who produces and directs the Tony Awards. I've worked with Glenn. Yeah. Great guy. And Gary Smith from Smith-Hemion. Even going far back to Tony Sharmily, who is my choreographer on Danny Kaye, who is over 90 years old now. And he was there when television began after World War II and did test patterns for two of the networks and so forth.

But there's some, Vin DeBona, who does America's Funniest Home Videos. And George Slaughter. George Slaughter. Who was on this show. Funniest guy in show business, in front of the camera, let alone behind the camera. I should explain to our listeners what the book is, is extensive interviews with all of these people with the giants of variety television. 15 questions prepared by the university to ask all of us without us knowing anything about the

questions that were going to be asked or the answers. And it's like, I don't know if you remember a Japanese film years ago called Rashomon. Sure. Oh, yeah. Kurosawa. Three people witness a murder and each one has a different story of how it happened. That's like reading this book. I know all of the men and women that participated in the book. And I only knew them socially.

I never knew what they did on their stages and talked to actors and singers and dancers or whatever. So this was, in reading the book, an amazing experience of hearing them from their own words. I mean, it took us five years to put this together. And it started out strictly as an academic book to be sold at colleges and universities. Strictly is an academic book to be sold at colleges and universities. The publisher, an academic publisher, Kendall Hunt, got so excited about it when we turned it over to them that they said, we got to get this out to the public. So they distributed a second book with a different cover, took out a lot of the educational information and just left it with the 26 participants. And, you know, fortunately, it's doing quite well right now. And it's just starting. I think its big move will be this

coming holiday season. But I'm very proud of it. And all the guys have called me, which was my biggest fear, is that somebody wouldn't like what we edited down to. Some of the people in the book said some nice things about you. And they all love participating. They all read the book, and they love it. So I'm very excited about it. The book is called Fade Up, The Movers and Shakers of Variety Television by Steve Binder and Mary Beth Liebman. You know, the interesting thing in the book is I think we got Tommy Smothers from the Smothers Brothers to do the foreword.

He nailed it. He said the readers may not know any of us by name, but they'll certainly know all the shows we've done. I mean, it's a history of variety television. Lorne Michaels from Saturday Night Live did also a blurb saying it's about time variety television got this kind of recognition. So it's something that I am really proud of. And, you know, I never did it for the money. And I really mean that sincerely. I really want as many people to read it as they possibly could.

Oh, you should be. As I was reading it, I was thinking that very thing. There has never been a book like this about variety television with all the books that have been written about television. I agree with you. And that's why we did it. Congratulations. Thank you very much. This has been fun, guys. I mean, it feels like five minutes, to be

honest with you. I know. There's so much more we can do. We'll do it again, Steve. Great. Thank you. We didn't get the Pat McCormick story. Oh! Okay, quickly. Next time. Do you know the Pat McCormick helicopter story? I know a lot of stories. I go back to Hullabaloo the Pat McCormick helicopter story? I know a lot of stories.

I go back to Hullabaloo with Pat McCormick, and he was one of the co-writers with Ron Friedman doing Lucy in London with Lucille Ball when we went to London. Well, we'll have to rebook. We'll rebook you, Steve, and we'll tell all those stories. You got it. I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast

with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And we have been talking to a guy who has done everything in show business, Steve Bender. Steve, thank you so much. Thank you, Gilbert. I really appreciate it. This was a lot of fun. And like I said, we barely scratched the surface. So, I mean, you managed the monkeys at one point. There's so much here that we didn't get into and we will come back. We'll have you back and

we'll do it again. Sounds great, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time.