Show Close- The Story Of Me & The Boys - 11.13.25

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Steve, this is our last break of the
day and everything. And before we get out of here,
we have a voicemail call for you. Are you ready.
This is a longtime fan of yours. He had a
question about your first TV show, Me and the Boys.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Take a listen.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Good morning, Steve Harvey. How do you do?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I hope all as well with y'all enjoying your show.
I have one question. You used to have a TV
show called Me and the Boys on Channel seven. I'd
just like to know what happened with that TV show.
It was a real good, inspirational show, encouraging for a
single black man.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Okay, talk bye bye. Wow.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
That's a great question, because, man, nothing has ever happened
in television like what happened on Me and the Boys.
Me and the Boys was me Matt Sinclair Chash Shepherd
to other boys, and I was a single father of
three boys whose wife had deceased, and my mother in
law moved in with me to help me with the boys.

(01:08):
Great storyline. The show was a really really good show
and it finished the season at number twenty one, twenty one.
It was the top new show on ABC that year.
But ABC had cut a deal with this guy. I
think his name was Matt Williams. I think that's his name,

(01:29):
But he was the creative Home Improvement and the deal
that he had cut with ABC was if his show
finished in the top ten, he could have the time
slot either behind it or in front of it.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
I don't remember which one it was.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
And Home Improvement finished in the top ten that year
Tim Allen. Tim Allen and I were friends for back
in the Stand Up Day, so ABC honored that. But
the show that came on before Home Improvement was Me
and the Boys, so they took Me and the Boy
off the air to honor the commitment to Matt Williams.

(02:04):
It was the highest rated TV show to ever be
removed from national TV in the history of television. No
new show had finished ever twenty one and been canceled
for Me, so they canceled Me and the Boys. Me
and the Boys was off the air. I found out
on May tenth that we weren't coming back. I went
out to LA I met with Ted Herbert, who was

(02:28):
the president of ABC.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
I walked into the office of having meeting. The lady
said he wasn't available.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
I sat in the lobby for a hour and a
half two hours till I saw it. He looked up
the hallway and saw me. He said, see what's going on, man,
Come on back. I said, hey, man, y'all cancel the
show and that's cool. He said, hey, yeah, but we're
offering you a holding deal right now. I said, well,
I need a bigger holding deal. I said, man, it

(02:55):
was really I felt really unfair the way it was done,
and I would appreciate a bigger hold deal. So he said,
how much do you want at the time back in
ninety five, I asked for four hundred thousand dollars, which
is a really large holding deal for a newcomer. He said, Steve,

(03:18):
I'm gonna give you the four hundred thousand. Two days
later he gave me four hundred thousand. I flew back
to Texas bought my very first home I've ever owned
in Plano, Texas. The house was one point one million dollars.
I got it for nine hundred and forty two thousand.

(03:40):
I gave the man the whole four hundred thousand as
a down payment because I didn't have no credit. You know,
I had been homeless and starving, and I gave a
man four hundred thousand, and he financed the house myself.
That's how I got my very first house, and was
when I gave him the money. All I had left

(04:02):
was one thousand dollars, but my house note was two
thousand and six hundred. But I was a stand up
and I knew I could make twenty six hundred out
on the road.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
So I just went out on the road and start doing.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
In the meantime, the WB got for him, and they
bought my four hundred thousand dollars contract from ABC, and
so now I belonged to the WB. And the WB
came to me and said, we have a show idea
for you. We're gonna be a school teacher and we're
gonna put you in a Chicago school setting, and you
have a best friend, and your best friend we decided

(04:36):
it's going to be George Winn from Cheers. That was
Norman the mailman. Yeah, he said he gonna be your
best friend. I said, well, I don't even know him.
I said, I met this guy one time. Name said
you to entertainer. Y'all should try him. They said, we've
never heard of him. I said, well, bring him out

(04:58):
and let him read. So they got hold of said,
just to appease me. They said, no, we like George
went better. He's famous and all this. I said, now
I'd rather do it with, said the entertainer.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Man.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
So now I put my foot down for the first
time and said you either get me. Said I don't
want to do the show.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
So he gave me. Said that was the birth of
the Steve Harvey Show. Wow.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
Wow, that's the story behind men boys. That's how the
Steve Harvey Show got started because I had met said
in eighty nine at my comedy club, Steve Harvey's caravan
of funny funky friends at Vu koua nightclub, and said
was performing at a punt at a funny Bone and

(05:42):
they canceled him when he got in town because they
had two blacks on the show, and back then you
couldn't have two blacks on the show. So dude named
Percy Cruse called me up and said, hey man, my
buddy said is in town. He got to go home.
Can he come over and do a set for you?
So I said yeah, so say it, came over. I
met him. I said, hey man, I'm gonna let you
do five minutes. If you do good, I'll bring you

(06:05):
back sometime said went up there and killed. So I
bought him back the next night gave him one hundred
and fifty dollars. He made one hundred and fifty. I
bought him back two weeks later gave him a headline
gig for one thousand dollars he had never headlined. That's
how me and said met. We've been tight every since.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Sweet news.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
Those are my closes remarks today. Hope you enjoyed that story.
It was facts, though all facts in the life of
Steve Harvey. God be good to me man, Thank you
helping father.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
I show appreciate it. Hey, y'all talk to God today.
Love to hear from you.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
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