The Bill Dana 100th Birthday Celebration

Fascinating revelations abound in this salute to iconic comedian/writer/starmaker BILL DANA with his wife, EVY DANA, and JENNI MATZ of the American Comedy Archives.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
The Fantastic World of Hannah and Barbara podcast wishes to
thank the American Comedy Archives at Emerson College and
the Television Academy Foundation Interviews for
selected materials included in the following special program.

(00:25):
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we love Hannah
Barbera. Welcome to the Fantastic World
of Hannah and Barbera, a celebration of Bill, Hannah, Joe

(00:46):
Barbera and the thousands of people, past and present who
have shared in their entertainment tradition.
And now your host, Greg Airbar. Thank you, Chris Anthony.
This is Greg Airbar, author of Hanna Barbera, the recorded
history. This is a really, really
special, not only special episode, but special event

(01:09):
because the entire month of October we have declared Bill
Dana's month. It is the birth month of one of
the finest and kindest entertainers and writers in the
entertainment industry, and it is going to be his 100th
birthday. So to celebrate the late Bill

(01:29):
Dana, we have his lovely wife and we're going to talk all
about him and his career and hislife.
For those of you who are Hannah Barbera fans, he was the writer
of one of the best things HannahBarbera ever did, which was
Alice in Wonderland. Or what's a nice kid like you
doing in a place like this? First of all, I want to
introduce the radiant Mrs. Dana,Evie or Evelyn.

(01:54):
Hi, Thank you, Greg. Thank you.
Please call me Evie. Everyone has changed it from
everyone. Yeah.
We also have the big privilege of having one of the premier
archivists and producers in television and in comedy, Jenny
Matz, who's continues to be BillDana's producer and did the TV

(02:15):
Academy interviews that you can see online and on YouTube.
She was responsible for those and also Bill Dana's own comedy
organization that was one of hisfinest and most proudest
achievements. Welcome to our program, Jenny
Matz. Thank you so much, Greg.
And yes, we'll talk about that. The American Comedy Archives at

(02:36):
Emerson College is his proudest legacy.
Yes, and that is something that we can all enjoy and benefit
from. Bill Dana was about the healing
power of humor, and one of the projects he worked on was a book
with Dr. Lawrence J Peter. If you've heard of The Peter
Principle, he's the guy who created that and wrote that.

(02:58):
But he teamed with Bell Dana to write a book called the Laughter
Prescription, which has input from Norman Cousins, who was
another person who was a proponent of this.
And a lot of other psychiatristsand specialists, therapists,
monologists, comedians. It's not really a self help
book. It's a self laugh book because
it covers a lot of aspects of life and then Bill curated

(03:22):
comedy routines, cartoons and things.
This is not a new book, but you can still get a used copy.
It came out in 1982. It's still very relevant and
very necessary, knowing that laughter really is.
It's trite, but it's true. Laughter is the best medicine.
And I think Evie, I watched one of his interviews and he said

(03:44):
that the wives of comedians are always told by people who don't
understand what it's like to be a wife of a comedian.
You must laugh all day long, right?
Yes, yes. How many times have we heard
that over the years? But may I say right now, Greg,
with you, you mentioned the timing of the book.

(04:06):
This was the first cutting edge book.
Again, we're over 50 years ago almost of the humor potential
movement is how Billy coined it.We were working with Norman
Cousins who had written his anatomy book of how he healed
himself laughing by ordering up animation.
The Three Stooges. At that point in time, every

(04:29):
tape he could get when he was hospitalized at UCLA and he
realized how much a positive attitude and laughter was
curative. So he and Billy met and Doctor
Lawrence Peter was in the circleof friends involved and Norman
suggested you 2 need to do a book.

(04:50):
So that's where that began. And Billy was with the thinkers.
And you'll find with everything he created, he was roughly 30 to
40 years ahead of the curve on how he saw and what was coming.
And I think it was Shirley McClain once said he must have
had 100 people channeling through his head.

(05:11):
And so to come up with the things he saw coming from the
future and what he wanted to share.
Yeah, his brand of comedy was a very classic brand of comedy.
He never wanted it to be anything but light and funny and
a good thing for people that there wasn't the sense.

(05:32):
I mean it. Comedy takes gentle jabs at
things, but it was never cruel and it was never a sardonic kind
of dark. And the way things have become
in the latter part of the 20th century, towards the end and in
recent years, an exasperation offrustration and, yeah, humor.
Comedians by and large are. And Jenny, you're it's your

(05:53):
business. You know a lot about comedians,
by and large. They're not the happiest folks
in the world, but they're dedicated to getting laughs from
people. And we need that.
Absolutely. And that was, I mean, Bill felt
that very strongly, that the comedy was a sword and a shield.
And the people who do it well are often those who need it the

(06:14):
most because it is the way that they cope with the world is
through humor. And the first time he realized
he was funny and had that comedytool, he was a little kid and he
was getting bullied. Evie, do you want to tell the
story about. Yeah, it was.
He was being bullied at school, a Billy's Hungarian Jew.
Some of the kids came up to him and were pounding on him that he

(06:38):
had killed Christ. So they're pummeled him with all
that and to save himself right Then he goes, I didn't do it,
but my mom and daddy are at home.
They did. You can find them over there.
Mechanic St. Go find them in Quincy, MA.
And they laughed. They laughed.

(06:58):
And yeah, no, I didn't do it. Mom and daddy did.
That's how little he was. He was a little kid living in
poverty and moving every month from home to home, a house to
house, staying ahead of the Depression and the poverty.
His family lost everything in the Depression.
Yeah, and he had a very close family because even as he became

(07:21):
more famous, his brothers also participated in the things that
he did. It was an extremely intelligent
family. His brother Arthur was professor
of Princeton. Arthur had graduated Harvard at
18. And of course, they're coming
into World War 2 as young teenagers.

(07:41):
And Arthur had taught Billy languages because he had the ear
for it. Billy was multilingual at
probably age 6 or 7. The ease with which he saw and
heard words was part of the magic of the humor.
He could see funny how to see funny.
We wrote once, and like I said, they're beating him up.

(08:04):
He found the humor was the salvation.
And of course it was with the poverty worry, the stress of
being six and seven years old and not knowing where you'll be
living the next month. He lovingly said they were so
poor that they had to chop up the wood box for the fire.

(08:24):
He never stopped. You must note that in his 80s is
when he came to him that there was no repository getting the
true a deep understanding of thecomedians of his generation.
He called it the Circling the Drain project and took it to

(08:45):
Emerson College. And Teddy Cutler made it happen.
And it still remains the most professional repository and oral
interviews in the country. And of course, they're shared
thanks to Jenny's work at the Academy of Television, so that
the whole world can hear them forever, you know?

(09:06):
And this is how we met Jenny. She was selected by Emerson to
be the producer for the project.And from the first day we all
met each other, we just, it was just a marvelous, marvelous
time, Greg. Marvelous.
You would have loved it meeting everybody.
And because Billy was who he was.
And it sort of goes into the Alice in Wonderland project.

(09:28):
Why was Bill picked to write that?
You know, it was because of his respect.
He'd written for everyone in thebusiness for 40 years.
Everyone respected him, as you said.
And I appreciate it, Greg. He was so kind, kind and
respectful and celebrated everyone's accomplishment.

(09:48):
Never jealous of anything. He could be trusted to work with
the stars. This was also, and correct me if
I'm wrong, Greg, the first time animation had stars, celebrities
as the players in it. Am I right about that?
Well, as far as television, that's true.

(10:09):
It's funny. Walt Disney's Alice in
Wonderland and 51 had very well known people, mostly from radio,
like Edwin and Jerry Kelowna, and that was the first time they
were really in a full length feature.
But it wasn't done very much, and Alice in Wonderland that
Hanna Barbera did was not only the first time Television

(10:30):
Animation had that many names init in one show, because The
Flintstones had occasional gueststars.
Did he talk about that special at all with you or about the
album he did after with The Flintstones?
He could speak to Bill and Joe and try to find out why it could
never air. He desperately wanted it to air.

(10:51):
I'm thinking in the 80s, most ofall 80s, nineties.
But they just could not clear. The estate between Jaja and Send
Me was really bad. Bad meaning difficult.
Yeah, all of the contracts probably weren't updated and all
that's complicated. I've also heard it was the music
rights. I don't think Charles Strauss

(11:12):
was against it because I've talked to somebody connected
with him and apparently he'd always wanted to have it out
there again. But I do know that Warner is
working on it. They're trying their best to
make it happen because Oh yeah, it would be the greatest to have
that happen because it to a lot of generation would be like a
brand new show, so. They could, Yeah.

(11:33):
Oh, yeah, Was posted. I mean, that's great to hear.
I just figured it was buried nowin the basements at Warner, you
know? No.
Warner has an archive division that is working feverishly to
restore the Hanna Barbera stuff,and they've done an enormous
amount already. That particular special has
those legal entanglements, but it is one of the things they

(11:55):
have been trying and they continue to try.
Yeah, when they release it, punch us back up, we'll be doing
a jig here. Billy will be walking and
laughing the whole way. Oh yeah.
That thank you for sharing that though Greg had no idea.
That's good. There are.
People there at Warner who wouldlove to see it happen, and there

(12:16):
was a lot of people in the animation quarters who'd love to
see it happen. It also is historic because the
presence of Sammy Davis Junior, because he really was, besides
Bill was the star as a Cheshire Cat.
He was, to my knowledge, the first African American to play
the Cheshire Cat in any kind of a film version and also to be in

(12:37):
a special in prime time because before that, Scatman Crothers
was on Beatty and Cecil and thatwas pretty much it.
So one of the things that I learned in researching the book
was that the reason that Sammy Davis Junior appeared in it was
a favor to the composer Charles Strauss because they had gone

(12:57):
together to Selma, to the March with Martin Luther King.
He was the one who asked him andhe said yes.
Also the connection there is Bill wrote the script for the
special and then what about 6-7 years later wrote the All in the
Family episode with Sammy Davis Junior.
Well, I'm so happy you brought that up.

(13:17):
I wanted to make sure you knew that that was included.
And again, that made him an another first and that was
Norman. Norman Lear was a dear old
friend that all grown up professionally in New York, you
know, and Bea Arthur, Oh my goodness, so many.
And Norman called Bill and said,we've never had a writer outside

(13:42):
the show's writers, but this is the only time I'm going to put a
celebrity in the show, and it's going to be Sammy.
And would you write it? And Bill, it was just thrilled.
So he brought in the idea, and they work.
And so everything he touched like that, Greg, it might have

(14:03):
just been one time, but it was done to the finest degree one
could imagine happening. There's always little surprises
to things. The kiss.
Oh my goodness. Yeah, I forgot if it was one of
the biggest laughs. The joke about Archie warning
everybody. Don't mention his eye.

(14:23):
Don't mention his eye, you know.And then when he serves him the
coffee. Make the coffee, huh?
Excuse me, Mr. Davis. He remember how nothing about.
Well, Mr. Davis, I want to tell you it's a real honor to have
you in our home. Thank you.
Breaking bread with us this way.I was just saying to my family

(14:46):
before you come in, I said SammyDavis Junior is maybe the
greatest credit to his race. Well, thank you very much.
I'm sure you've done good for yours, too.
I tried. Oh, thank you, Missus Bunker.
Thanks, Edith. Now, that's all right.

(15:06):
I can I can say Mr. Davis. Edith, get out of here.
Now. Now, Mr. Davis, do you take?
Cream and sugar in your eye. Really love that.

(15:28):
He was a rare. I'm not going to say rare.
There are a lot of kind people in the entertainment industry.
It doesn't always have that reputation because of the people
who aren't quite so kind, but itis a highly competitive, tough
industry. And he was so easy going and
willing to just help out sometimes to his detriment, it

(15:50):
seems, because he didn't think it mattered if you got credit
all that much. He just thought, well, this is
just the right thing to do. These are my friends and I'm
helping out. And he wasn't sitting there
writing at all. Let's let's do contracts and
all. Nobody really, even in
television, thought much about it in those days because no one

(16:10):
knew how long things would run. But one of the most famous
things that he is directly responsible for is not only
helping Don Adams get onto a regular prime time series.
He brought him on to the Bill Date show as Byron Glick, the
detective, which became Maxwell Smart.
But he was the one who chose theWilliam.

(16:33):
Oh gosh, what's his name now? I'm done.
Oh, Howard. But yeah, the William Howard.
Impression he was the one who's Don Adams had been doing it and
he did it in a sketch and he said that's the thing we need to
work with and started writing lines for that character and the
would you believe joke, the jokethat has that tier of 123, you

(16:53):
know, it starts with something huge, then it's medium and then
it's ridiculously small. Mr. Phillips and I are the only
two people who know the combination of that safe.
Now. I don't know about him, but they
haven't yet invented the torturethat could drag those numbers
from my lips. You're right, Mr. Glee.
I remember when I was in Burma during the war, I was captured
by the enemy and gave only my name, rank and serial number, in

(17:14):
spite of being subjected to the most fiendish torture ever
devised by man. The water torture.
A drop of water on the forehead every minute for 300 gallons.
300 gallons. Mr. Brown, would you believe it?
That's pretty hard to believe. Would you believe a quart?

(17:35):
What if they came by once a day with a glass of water and an
eyedropper? That was his.
And Evie has it on the original,would you believe, on a cocktail
napkin, right, Evie hanging in your bathroom still, I think
that was I'm glad you brought that up too, because he did
write the character with Don Adams.

(17:55):
He wrote the jokes. Byron Glick was Maxwell Smart
and they had the same manager. I don't know if you know that he
and Don Adams, Mace Neufeld was their manager and and when he
got Maxwell Smart, the Bill DanaShow was still on, but he left
to go as Bill you said before Bill was always helping others

(18:17):
and wanted his friend to go on to bigger and better things.
And his brother that you mentioned, Irving Zathmarry,
another brother, wrote the OR toget smart.
And so he went off to, I mean, they all went off to great
success. And Bill sometimes did get lost
in the shuffle with those big moments in television and
comedy. He was not an opportunist, Greg,

(18:39):
And that's what I appreciate. You understand.
And no, he encouraged on, oh, no, you can't say no.
You got to do this. And then they brought on Gary
Crosby because they wanted to help him.
And he did build it in, but people wanted him to take claim
to Maxwell Smart, which in this day and age you would.

(19:01):
It's called Internet intellectual property now.
It's an IP, it's a brand trademark.
And so nowadays, yeah, this is the character that I market.
They'd make dolls out of them and stuff.
Well, they did. There were, there were toys and
all. And he didn't at the very least
a creator credit. Buck Henry was another person

(19:23):
and he Co created Get Smart, then had a fantastic career in
the 70s and 80s. Buck Henry is another person
that Bill talked up and. Bill hired him.
Yeah, yeah. He gave a lot of really
impressive writers. Your listeners will know their
start either on the Bill Dana Show, the Steve Allen Show or
other other opportunities. He was a mentor and he

(19:45):
encouraged. He was the one for Steve Allen,
who would go to the comedy clubs, and he found Buck.
Didn't he ever had a comedy? I mean, he's a lot of the early
writers for The Tonight Show. That was part of Bill's job was
to scout talent at the same timeGreg Don Knotts had finished a
Broadway run. But he ran into Billy on the

(20:07):
streets at Rockville Center and said, Bill, I've got to go back
to West Virginia. I cannot get a job.
I've got my family. And I got to leave and Bill
went, wait a minute, you know that character you do of the
shaky guy? Let me write you a sketch and
come do the show. So Don took the character like

(20:30):
that and made an entire career around it.
So. That flipped asking.
For so many years with Don Knotts being interviewed by
Steve Allen. Are you nervous, Sir?
Oh no. That's Billy.
Yeah. His touch was magic.
Writing for people really magical there are lots of

(20:51):
stories like that too so. But as Jenny said, he was in the
clubs looking to find new talent.
Jim Neighbors he discovered and put on the show.
Just so many people he gave their first break to on TV and
everybody remained friends and respectful.
He. Was never resentful of anybody's

(21:13):
success. He was happy that other people
had success, which is also sometimes rare.
Oh my, there are those stories too, you know?
But he loves Steve Allen, and when he was writing his show, at
one point he was writing for a long time, was writing it

(21:33):
completely by himself. Yes, he was made $300.00 a week.
That was the past. But then he wrote it for himself
when he did Jose, which creatingthat character.
That character was his alter egocompletely.
The sweet naivete Charlie Chaplin Esky always called him.

(21:56):
That's where his thinking was onit.
In November 1959 in one of theseit was called Pre Christmas USA.
What's happening? Getting ready for the holidays
and just out of the air there were women.
If we had a school for Santa Clauses and the instructor were

(22:17):
Latino and I had no beard or anything, just had a little
Santa Claus outfit with a littlehat.
Pat Harrington is a straight man.
This is Dave Hinckley at Santa Claus School in Los Angeles to
teach them how Santa Claus is supposed to act and speak.
What is your name, Sir? And what course do you teach?

(22:39):
My name Jose Jimenez I so I takeSanta Claus to speak.
Now this is the early Jose who barely spoke English.

(23:01):
I teach him to say. Now we pull down a thing and
they had J0J 0J0 ho ho ho, and then it was like AB movie people
calling in who is that guy? Because they were used to having
what we call left fielders and Joe interledgy the human garbage
can or Missus Miller or all these these people would come on

(23:22):
to the Steve Allen. So so they all thought this Jose
Jimenez was Amis. It was the real thing and if you
did a time lapse, you can see that in the very early trying
struggling to to hear without irony.
He if you said you must have some opinions on the race with

(23:42):
bank. All right, I will you know you
must OK, I will. Jose then became more and more
hip and a little bit more conversant.
And by the time I had my own show, 6364, he was still the
naive but very much in charge. And who uses polysyllabic words

(24:03):
in it, Maybe misunderstanding. And I just felt totally in love
with that character because it really was whatever Pollyanna
and good guy was in me was. Jose was totally pure.
And the people just, they fell in love with him.
They thought it was Jose, and itwas.

(24:23):
But that's Belly. Yeah.
That was him saying funny and it's just was wonderful.
He wrote this sketch on the Steve Allen Show, and they
didn't think, you know, it was just another sketch.
The audience just embraced this character because of how he did
it, and he did it from us. This was a real person.

(24:46):
This was not a caricature. There might be some that feel
that way, but he did not base iton stereotype.
He'd base it on people he reallyknew.
Yeah, and he was, like I told you, multilingual.
And the best comedy is born out of your own personal experience.
I mean, Ralph Kramden, Jackie Gleason famously said, you know,
there were 500 Ralph Kramden's in Brooklyn.

(25:09):
They were all the post war blue collar guys and in tenement
buildings, another chaplainess kind of character, but it was
from his real life. And Norman Lear created All in
the well, all in the Family was based on a British show, but
they changed it. And part of the change was that
Mike was Norman Lear as a young man, and Archie, I believe, was

(25:29):
based on his father. And he talks about that in his
interview. Actually, the when Bill Dana and
I interviewed Norman, Archie washis father.
And same thing with the Dick VanDyke show.
So and in the way I Love Lucy, especially the like 5253
episodes, that's the idyllic life that Lucy and Desi wish
they could have and never quite could.

(25:51):
But they had it briefly when that show was at its peak and in
a way that preserved that feeling for everyone.
And that's one of the reasons it's such a classic.
So Jose was this person. He wasn't just for gosh sakes.
The worst thing to say about himis that he was not smart.
Jose was very, very smart, but he was totally without any

(26:12):
guile. He was very, very childlike and
innocence. He was a babe in the woods and
he pretty much said things the way they just came out.
And that was what was so funny. And Bill was such a great
improvisational actor as well asa writer because on his albums
he does sketches and some of them are clips from Steve Allen.

(26:33):
Some of them are are new sketches at different clubs.
But sometimes they're Q and as and some of the Q and As.
I'm assuming some of those are just real questions that he came
up with funny answers to. And some of them were they.
They found that it worked and they worked those in because he
came up with such funny, funny responses that you couldn't do
that with a limited character. Jose had to be flesh and blood

(26:55):
for that to work. He loved that challenge of
immediately needing to respond to something and to meet the
criteria for it being funny. He just naturally that just that
was he. Yeah.
But like, like you said, Greg, throwback to the classic comedy,
but the the whole basis of the humor of the Jose character was

(27:18):
malaprops. It was.
He just took everything literally as if, you know,
you've learned English, you know, as a second language.
Oh, Jose, is that a crash? Oh, I hope not.
You know, I mean everything is totally literal.
There was a purity to that, thatunfortunately the world got in
the way. And he really describes it well

(27:39):
as comedy as a sword, because it's almost like in the wrong
hands it can hurt. And he was very torn because he
was extremely first of all, he was a war hero.
Yes, that's, as Evie said, you know, he came from, you know,
meager beginnings. But the GI Bill, because he

(27:59):
fought in World War 2, is what enabled him to go to Emerson
College and get an education. Was the GI Bill.
He was a World War Two baby, just like a lot of these other
comedians who fought. Yeah.
And he saw a lot of things that I'm sure he never touched in his
humor, but they came out in other ways.
He saw a lot of the devastation,he said, that Eisenhower wanted

(28:24):
as many soldiers. I mean, we're getting, we're
getting a little, you know, we're getting into a little.
Bit of it. Here but.
He said. The soldiers he felt like so
that people wouldn't forget and people wouldn't say it wasn't
true. He wanted as many to witness and
see what had gone on, and it wasa horrible thing to see because

(28:45):
Robert Sherman of the Sherman Brothers also visited those
things. And yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And the more people who could
attest to it, that's really, really important to be able to
say to defuse any kind of all while it's all that had a huge
effect and it and with comedians, a lot of times the
tragedies, that's the salve theyput on it.

(29:07):
And then that's what they pass on into the world.
And when he was at Emerson, he mentions that he was at Emerson
with Gene Wood, who a lot of people might know as I think the
original announcer on the familyfeud, but he was a his comedy
partner for a long time. And then the other thing, and I
don't know if either of you knowthis, but he mentioned another
friend, Guy Aylward that he. Was.

(29:29):
Well, I grew up in South Floridain the 60s and 70s, Miami, Fort
Lauderdale and he was the next announcer for WCI X Channel 6.
So he was. Oh my gosh, that's great.
Well, I know Guy was from down there and yes, it's all when
they would get together, which wasn't very often, but they

(29:51):
would talk about all of that andthe time they decided to buy
them a rock, no car and drive from Boston to Miami and the
adventures they had. They're just, they were
wonderful. If I may just go back one more
moment about bearing witness in the war.
The thing to take note of is when they asked for volunteers,

(30:14):
Billy's hand went up immediately.
That was Bill. Why he wanted the challenge, why
he thought he could do it, why he should do it, is what made
him the soul that he was and he carried it through.
He never dealt with the post traumatic stress part of World
War 2 as most of the men and women did, not in that time,

(30:37):
because we hadn't created that word yet.
They simply brought all of it back with them home when they
returned to the United States. Only later in life did Billy
begin to speak to some of that. But the essence of Billy was to
raise his hand and said I will bear witness.

(30:57):
This is the kind of person having the the childhood
experiences with his ethnicity and then seeing what he saw.
This is the last person that would have created the character
that would have made people unhappy because it was a
stereotype. This is a character that he
didn't see. It has that, but other people
started to. And then we hit the late 60s and

(31:18):
suddenly everything is being questioned and there's
aspersions cast on it that it it's hard to explain except that
some people were upset and many people were not.
But he was highly involved with causes and highly involved with
Hispanic organizations, was verysupportive of all of those
things. And he talks about working with

(31:41):
Ricardo Montalban, who at the time was getting under fire for
being the Latin lover stereotype, and Vicki Carr and
Anthony Quinn and a lot of majorfigures.
There was a. Time when everything was being
overturned and the counterculture and the country
was very split. Sound familiar?

(32:04):
Yes, upheaval certainly comes tomind, but you know the point.
I think Billy, I always wanted everyone to understand and he
was very he and then we were very involved with the Latino
community. One of his adventures was with
Ray Andrade, who is a contemporary of mine, and he led

(32:24):
the most. He was a producer, went on to
produce Chico and the Man as a young Latino out of East LA and
he was wearing the Chavez hat and the most militant group in
LA and they were picking on the Jose character.

(32:45):
And Bill went down there one dayand walked right up to him and
he was sitting in the desk again, the Ho Chi Vero military
image and walked right up to himand put his nose on his and
said, I think you've been looking for me.
And from that day forward, they were friends.

(33:07):
And the thing that Ray shared with us as you discussed very
clearly the upheavals of the 60sin 66, AT&T wanted him to do the
commercials, beginning SW Bell to do the commercial.
Let your fingers do The Walking through the jello pages because
Billy had defined the ages of pronounced black Jays in

(33:31):
Spanish. And to raise that bill, it's a
Public Utilities. We've got to challenge it.
And so as he would that was respected by Bill and just like
he respected hiring other players, helping other creative
people. It was that but thank you very

(33:55):
much. But the no he wanted to lay with
everyone after their lives beingthreatened.
Speaking of Ricardo and Anthony and Vicki was coming out as
Latina. Nobody even knew she was Latina.
Final thoughts on it was he justdid not think believe that the

(34:17):
most famous Latino in America was a little Jewish kid out of
Boston, right? And therein is why he it wasn't
that he killed Jose. That was a story from a huge
gathering in San Francisco wherethey almost had a riot.
It was just so fragile and therewas just so much hostility at

(34:43):
the time, directed at the wrong place, of course.
But Billy sort of became the howdo I say this?
Political football. Yeah, that's the word I'm
looking for, for everyone to. I have to think about this a
moment, please. The whipping boy for everybody

(35:08):
trying to please and take the pressure off them in the Latino
or minority communities such as William Morris.
OK, We're not repping those BillDane and Jose anymore.
We're good. Yeah, the record companies, no,
we're not doing it. The whipping boy for the whole

(35:29):
thing, because he was so public,because he was with the
astronauts, America's first honorary astronauts, and that's
something. He was very proud of too, that
he had said that. Oh.
My God, these were these were his brothers.
It was amazing, Amazing the brotherhood he had with all the

(35:49):
astronauts. Actually.
Mercury through Apollo. I've got a couple of questions
about that. First of all is 66 is when the
the Bell commercials, when that came up, were those commercials
produced, did they play and did he play Jose in them?
They did ads before it was takendown and I know there were some

(36:12):
commercials made, but I don't know the extent.
Discover America with Jose sponsored him so but then that's
another, you know, they got off the Schneidbach.
We're let Jose go. So the Bell System was doing was
was Jose in those placards, in those print ads and posts?

(36:32):
Yes, his image was. I see.
OK. So and that kind of was that was
sort of a tipping point because it was an ad and it was for
public utility and and it's so unfortunate that these things.
But meanwhile, he told those people who were going to go
after Bella said, go ahead. I agree with you.

(36:52):
I mean, he was. He was so.
So. Split.
He was so conflicted about this thing that he really didn't mean
to be used as the sword for wrong.
It was a wonderful, adorable character.
But people who use that way of speaking and stuff to make fun
of people and to belittle people, that was not a good

(37:17):
thing. And that's where the sword comes
in, and that's where he felt. You know what's funny about
this? He did these two things for
Hanna Barbera in 66, which is when he did those ads.
It's really weird how the world turned just as these records
were being made too. He did a Jose Jimenez in The
Time Machine with Fred Flinton and Barney Rubble.

(37:40):
That's a really funny album. Well, Jose.
Where are we now? We must be in Rome.
Look at that sign. It says you must be in Rome.
There's another sign that says Julius Caesar's Pizza Palace,
and here comes the man and his girlfriend and I ask him where

(38:02):
we're at. Are you kidding?
That's Anthony and Cleopatra. Oh.
Boy, maybe I can get their autographs.
You who? Anthony and Cleopatra.
You. You who'd?
Yes, Sir. And who are you?
My name Jose Jimenez, I am one of your fans.
Could I please have your autograph?
Right now here I'll sign your. Autograph Book.

(38:24):
Thank you. Could I have your autograph too,
Miss Cleopatra? Why not?
Thank you. Very much you you sign my book,
Anthony and Cleopatra. Well, what did you expect us to
sign? You mean you are the real
Anthony and Cleopatra? We're not Batman and Robin,

(38:45):
sweetie. I say, what's wrong?
You act disappointed. I am.
I thought you were Richard Borton and Elizabeth Taylor.
Very, very funny. I get the feeling that he wrote
quite a bit of it, even though he's not credited, because that
seems to be his his way. But in Alice in Wonderland, he
played the character of the White knight, which is actually

(39:08):
a Looking Glass character, probably the kindest character
in all the Alice stories. And when I learned all about the
details of this whole Jose controversy, I thought about
what the white knight says in the special.
See now now when a bad guy is chasing after me, I press this

(39:29):
button and when they get close enough I hit them with a powder
puff like this. But white knight, a powder puff
won't stop anybody. I know, but it won't leave any
marks. Well, anyway, if I'm really in
trouble, I use my secret weapon.Secret weapon.

(39:50):
Yeah, you see, if a whole bunch of enemy people have got me
cornered, just when they think they've got me, I use my secret
weapon. You push a button and a flag
pops out and says I give up. You mean you surrender?
How did my secret get out? Oh, now that's very silly.

(40:10):
You know none of that is going to be of any use.
You're right, but but you see, Iwant to kill the Dragons and
destroy the naughty enemy peoples, but I don't want to
hurt anybody. Oh, this problem is making me
very very nervous and sad. Ah, a big brave night.
Like you shouldn't be sad, especially on a lovely day like

(40:32):
this. Look at the sunshine.
I don't want to look at it. Two days, a wonderful day.
Lock your troubles in the attic.It's a day to feel ecstatic.
Today is a wonderful day. Birds are chirping, butts are

(40:54):
blooming. What a pleasure to be human.
It's a day when you puff out your chest and you say semi
sixteen O 17 Dragons to slay. I feel like yelling Hooray.
Call me silly call. Me.
But I've never felt so happy. And so I snap.

(41:18):
Police say today's A. Wonderful day.
I want to kill the Dragons and destroy the enemy people, but I
don't want to hurt anybody. And he says this problem is
making me very nervous and sad and it's like that could be.

(41:43):
Oh wow. Isn't that incredible?
I didn't think about that, you know, Yeah.
When he wrote that, he knew. He would be such a scapegoat.
It took its toll on him. Greg barely dead because he
loved the character and everybody went it's you, it's
not a character, it's just you. I loved the character of Jose

(42:08):
Jimenez because it was a love based Organism and I despise a
lot of the stuff that's out there because they're just
purveyors of of hate. The activity of laughing at
something doesn't necessarily going to be mean that it had a

(42:32):
positive positive effect. I have listened to the albums
over and over and over again. I grew up watching the Bill Dana
Show and and I remember when he was on Get Smart and The Golden
Girls and playing Uncle Angelo and he was always appearing and
it was always that welcome presence.
It's like. Oh.

(42:53):
How wonderful to see him again because he wasn't always around,
but whenever he was, it was always such a joy.
And when they showed the Steve Allen clips, it was always so
wonderful. And the end.
Sullivan and all those things. Bill Dana was just somebody.
I don't know a soul, except people who might have the
social, political issue. I can't think of anybody who

(43:13):
didn't like Bill Dana as a performer or as a writer or as a
person. You would be hard pressed to do
that too. Can I?
I'm going to share an anecdote right on that point.
But when we were, we started theAmerican Comedy Archives and,
you know, this ambitious task oftrying to record the stories of
all these legends of his era, you know, from Bea Arthur and

(43:36):
Norman Lear. And I mean, all these people,
not a single person turned us down, but not a single person
asked me when I called. Well, the first question is how
did you get this number? And when I said, well, Bill,
Dana, they stopped right there. Whatever it is, yes, whatever
it, whatever Bill wants will do it.
They didn't ask any questions. They didn't need to.
And when we did meet Leonard Stern at before the interview,

(44:00):
he said, you know, I'm going to get the quote wrong, But he said
in a business where you eat yourenemies for lunch, this man has
no enemies. This man is loved by everyone
and we do anything for him. Wow, and Leonard Stern was a
giant. Yeah.
Street with Get Smart and. Meet your friends for lunch.

(44:21):
Sorry. Yeah, that's what it was to eat
your friends for lunch. This man has no enemies, that's
what he said. That adage about they can kill
you but they can't eat you. Well, they can't physically eat
you, but you know, but there's symbolic Ichu, but it is a rare
thing. And Jenny, we've kind of gone
through his career and then whenwe get to the Jose period, he

(44:42):
did sort of symbolically say Jose is no more, but he did
perform him on occasion. Is that?
Did. Yeah, I was with him.
And what was it, Evie? Like 2006 he performed at
Leisure World in Florida. He did his Jose and he had a
straight man playing like the EdSullivan or Steve Allen role

(45:03):
asking like you said, because the tour would stay tour.
I think more about, I think moreabout Carnegie Hall and with all
the astronauts that we helped found the Mercury 7 Foundation
and give kids the world. That's when he began to bring
Jose back big time within the 80s and people just loved it.

(45:25):
You know his biggest audience, Greg, during the early part
Steve Allen's show and into the 70s was the Latino community as
far as viewership went. That was the same thing with
Speedy Gonzalez. Every so often there are these
waves of should this character go away or not?
But then you find out that wait a minute, did you even ask the

(45:48):
people? Because apparently Speedy
Gonzalez is very popular with the Latino community.
And The thing is that it's easy to say the community or in a way
that's still pigeon holing people because every person in
any group or anything are individuals and every single one
of them is going to have a different answer about how they

(46:08):
feel about something. There's never going to be a
consensus. And poor Bill was sitting there
thinking, I just don't want to hurt anybody.
What am I supposed to do? Some people find it joyous and
fun. Some people find it upsetting,
mostly because the power of humor was used for evil
purposes. But it wasn't him, it was just
he released this thing and into the world and it's a shame, but

(46:32):
he continued to work. Like I said, he was on The
Golden Girls occasionally and on.
And elsewhere. Yeah, and, and writing, doing a
lot of writing on the CD that Rhino put out the best of.
There's this song with children singing about being happy.
Make nice. Make nice.

(46:54):
Yeah. Which sounds like my mom, you
know, make nice. And it's coming back, Greg.
It's coming back. Was that one of his campaigns?
Was that A cause or he put it out like a record hoping people
would listen to it and. Oh, this is a wonderful story.

(47:15):
And you know that he performed at the Kennedy inaugural with
Milton straightening for him, right?
And of course, Billy went on to produce Milton Show a while
after that, and that's another fun story.
But. He said something like Milton
Berle. Are you kidding?
I've heard terrible stories. Says, Oh no, he's better now.

(47:37):
He's like he's got, he's got. He's not so bad.
That's when Nikki Van Off calledhim to produce the show.
He said, Bill, I've got this great thing.
You're going to produce a special for us for summer and
you're going to have a ball. And Bill goes, what is it?
He says the Milton Berle special.
And Bill goes, I thought you said I was going to be happy.

(47:59):
And Milton was on the phone withthe guys, Okay, You know, they
bills milk and bills like, Oh no.
But he did do it, and he did survive it.
And he also guarded the character.
You never saw Jose carrying a switchblade or doing commercials
for cigarettes or liquor. And then we see all the Latino

(48:23):
comedians went so far that way in the 80s of putting down their
own people. I didn't understand why that was
OK. What he was doing was so basic
and simple and gentle. Why was it OK to bring in all of
the tropes, all the stereotypes,the crime and the drugs, and why
was that all? All fodder for real popular

(48:46):
comedy at the time. I mean, Jenny, what's the deal
with that? Why do you suppose that was?
Yeah, he was just roiled by all of it.
I mean, he was torn, like you said, and I think a little
confused at how this, what he called a Pollyanna character,
was taken to be a hurtful thing to people and didn't want then,
you know, wanted to put it to bed.

(49:06):
But yeah, he definitely saw the hypocrisy in a lot of these.
I mean, people we even interviewed later who were just,
you know, much more direct with the ethnic humor and, you know,
became popular again to do that.I mean, I don't know what lass
and what is an Evergreen form ofcomedy.

(49:26):
I mean, is there? He wasn't a real big fan of
topical humor that was just working.
You know, he really liked thingsthat had a lasting was funny as
funny as funny. You know, it's not taking a bite
out of this group or that group.He was confused by a lot of
younger comedians. I'll say that.
You know, I'd ask him, oh, did you see this stand up or That's

(49:48):
each. I just don't think it's funny.
What's funny about? May I say something?
Yeah, politics, control, power. The country was changing at that
time. What was allowed on TV, We only
had three networks, right, Was what worked for the interests of
the political climate, had nothing to do with talent,

(50:11):
nothing to do with creativity and morals.
It was he's making them laugh. Put him on and we could name the
names, but that's not necessary.But that's what was allowed.
You got to think about it. I don't know.
It controlled all the hostility and put people's heads to
another place, and that was the 70s moving into the 80s.

(50:34):
You can't remove the politics. Billy's performing at Kennedy's
inaugural. There was no problem there.
Peter Lawford told Billy that one of John Kennedy's favorite
jokes was a question man. I'm going to give this to you,
Greg was one of the question manjokes Billy had written.

(50:55):
And the answer was chicken teriyaki.
And the question was give the name of the oldest living
kamikaze pilot. It's funny and you don't know if
you're supposed to laugh, but yeah.
Now you can't because we can't laugh at one another or with one

(51:15):
another. And the polarization of it all.
Gosh, I see that having matured to the way it is today, a lot of
what we want to see succeed for all of us together as community
has really hit a, you said it earlier, Greg, a tipping point

(51:36):
and it it's amazing to have seenthe evolution of it all.
Just amazing to have lived through it.
I would like to be optimistic inthe fact that having lived
through the 60s and 70s and the 80s, that one tension is
replaced by another tension. And I remember in the late 60s
and 70s, all of this was polarizing.

(51:57):
The country was the counterculture and the
establishment. There was a lot of division.
I mean, that's what All in the family was about.
A lot of things were about, everything was being questioned.
Everything was being, you know, this isn't what was right, isn't
right. And what we believe is because
there were so many iconic thingsthat had in some ways let us

(52:19):
down as people sometimes. So there was no stopping the
questioning of the heroes and the of everything.
And I think that's happening again now.
And we have social media, so it can happen even more and
everybody has a voice on it. But I think optimistic that as
it did in the 70s, we moved on to something else.

(52:42):
And you put things in their proper perspective.
And the most important thing is see things in the context that
they were meant to be seen. That's why what you guys are
doing. And as somebody who archives the
kind of stuff I archive and write about, you want the
stories and the facts and the viewpoints to be captured so

(53:06):
that the wrong things don't fly around in the ether.
That's sort of the mission is let's find as many ways to have
evidence of this is really not something that somebody heard or
there's they heard from a friendor we all know.
I hate that phrase. We all know because, you know,
it's followed by something terrible, but what you guys are
doing is super, super important.It is putting it down and you

(53:30):
know you've got something on record and, and Jenny, can you
kind of explain what you did at the Academy and then how that
led to what you're doing for Emerson?
Actually, it's perverse. Emerson was first.
The project with Bill was actually first.
So it was Bill's. This was his idea.
You want to get the comedians intheir own words, not how are

(53:53):
they interpreted, how they, you know, are seeing now, then or
later, but just in a frank environment, unedited, right?
They were 3-4 hours long. He would sit, you know, and the
method was Bill. Just by being there would enable
this level of candor because these were his peers and there

(54:14):
was a level of trust there. They didn't know me from Adam,
but you know, I would sit right next to him and he would sort of
start the interview and then I would jump in with the follow up
questions, which they were willing to give just by his
presence. So it was the idea was we don't
and we can't teach you how to befunny.
But if you understand where thisis coming from, the genesis, the

(54:35):
back story, like we've been talking about today, what you've
been through in your life that led to this perspective, this
weird skewered perspective of how you see the world and
interpret it, which is where this humor is coming from and
what are you trying to do with it?
You get this whole other level of appreciation right from where
they're coming from. And they don't have to explain

(54:56):
the jokes, but you understand the sentiment and the the
philosophy you had a lot of the talks were very philosophical.
I mean, they were very deep. They were very across the board,
some of the most intelligent people I've ever had the
privilege of interviewing, some of the most emotional and some
of the most, you know, like we have a Yiddish word, Soros.

(55:17):
They were just consumed by problems.
And this was how I don't know any other way than but to make
fun of it, because you can't. You know, they would talk about
gallows humor. And this is how the Jews for
years, you know, most and most of them were Jewish, the
comedians we interviewed. So that project, the Television
Academy, had been doing them longer since 1996.

(55:40):
I came after the Emerson projectended in 2006.
I then went to the Television Academy to continue what I've
been doing, but what they had already been doing for many
years, which is these long format first person oral
histories, unedited so you can hear someone.
If you want to sit for four hours and listen to, I invite

(56:00):
anyone, I mean George Carlin forfour hours, one of the most
amazing for ever spent in my life.
Just they're not sound bites. They're not trying to evoke a
response this way. You're not leading with
questions. It's a, you know, it's a
different kind of form of interview, much like what we're
doing today. You're listening, you know,
you're asking things about certain perspectives, but it's
not from a journalist's perspective.

(56:21):
It's just just talk. Just tell your story in your
words the way you want to tell it and the way you want to be
remembered. That's what we tried to do and
we did, I think 63 interviews, Bill, Dana and I, for the Comedy
Archives, and they're still doing them today.
There's one, it's about 2 1/2 hours with Bill and there's
another it's about an hour and ahalf and then there's another

(56:42):
one that he did with. With Jeff Abraham.
Abraham for the Academy. It is a fascinating thing just
to hear him explain a lot of that whole era and hearing any
of these people recount their stories in their words because
there are always books coming out by so and so who work with

(57:02):
them or so and so who knew them.And the most important way to
deal with that is two things. One is have a lot of these kind
of accounts of things. And the other thing is don't
just use one book as your guide.Even some of the approved books
don't always paint a flawless picture.
But there's also some really terrible books don't even waste

(57:24):
your time with, and so it's important for this sort of thing
to be happening. I used the Joe Barbera interview
from the TV Academy, and it was loaded with stuff that isn't
anywhere else that he talked about because he talked in sound
bites. A lot of these famous people
have canned stories they can tell over and over again, but

(57:45):
when you sit them down and relaxthem and they get a little bit
loose, then they start talking about things they hadn't thought
about in a while. And that's what these things do.
And they're so tremendous. So.
So you said Bill had this idea Emerson was his alma mater.
They was his. Alma mater and there was a Teddy

(58:05):
Cutler was on the board of Emerson and he loved Bill, was a
huge fan, was a friend and bankrolled it.
Really to get it started. It was just me and Bill, and we
used Emerson's students as crew and that was it.
I mean, it wasn't really. It hadn't just to an actual
manifestation of the idea until we did the first one, which was

(58:27):
Dick Cavett, which was horrifying to do the first
interview you're going to do with Dick Cavett.
But yeah, I did the research andhad the questions, and Bill just
went in and just freestyled it. Things that were brought up.
He was there for some of the stories he was hearing for the
first time. Because that happens when you
sit someone down for four or five hours.
You know, you get a lot of things that they hadn't thought

(58:49):
about for many years and or madethe connection before.
But this was all his idea. He said this is such an
important art form that's not being given.
It's due. There's no study of comedy.
And now, of course, after he passed, Emerson founded the
first comedy chair in the country.
You know that you could actuallyget a degree right in the

(59:11):
comedic arts? Wow.
Yeah, like Evie said at the beginning of this, he was 30-40
years ahead of his time with everything, with the
environmental stuff, with a lot of the humor, and with this just
foresight of you've got to get these people before they're gone
to tell their story. The first interview we did in LA
was Louis Nye, and I think he passed later that year.

(59:33):
A lot of the people we everyone we interviewed has since passed
except Lewis Black. But that was his vision is get
the ones who are my age or olderof my generation and Bill coined
it is circling the drain project.
I think I said that earlier. I hope you get what he meant.

(59:54):
But he had to lighten it up. No matter what.
It's important, but we'll just call it circling the drain.
Yeah. Yeah, and the candor and trust.
Jenny, that was stunning and silly.
Just was overwhelmed with love. He had no idea people would do
this, turn out for him like theydid.

(01:00:15):
Remember the day we called LarryGehlbart because we had some
extra time at the end of the dayin Beverly Hills?
Oh, and he just came out. Yeah.
Oh, he said, oh, yeah, I'm up here by the pool.
Come on, let's do it. Yeah, we did.
We went to his house. That was amazing. 45 minutes
later, Larry Gelbart sitting there telling, oh, the richest

(01:00:36):
stories. Yeah, Carl Reiner.
The list is amazing. So yeah, hopefully people will.
If they're interested, we'll turn.
They're mostly online. Like Steve Allen and Carl
Reiner, there are handful, and Bill Dana should be in that
group. There are a handful of comedic
performers who are also historians and connoisseurs of

(01:00:59):
historical coming. Steve Allen wrote extensively on
that, the various forms of comedy and what it meant and
analyzed it. There aren't that many who, you
know, go all the way back and what made it great, all the way
back to the silence and to vaudeville and understanding
what they did and why they did it and how it relates to what is

(01:01:20):
being done now. And Bill was like that when it
came to knowing what comedy was,knowing what the great routines
were, things like that. So it's only fitting he'd have
this established. And Greg, every interview ended
with one final question. And Jenny, you tell Greg, was it
worth it? Was it worth it?

(01:01:41):
I mean, the responses to that alone could be a movie.
I mean, for, I think every single person we talked to,
there's nothing else they could have done.
There's no other profession theycould have entered.
It was that or die that or just give up.
This was the pattern of needing the validation, needing that,
the applause, but having the fear of hurting someone or

(01:02:02):
saying the wrong thing or not getting a laugh.
That duality existed, I think, across the board, except Tom
Poston, remember, he has, he's like, I never had a problem.
It's the only one. I never had depressed.
I was never depressed. I don't know what you're talking
about. He always played characters that
were depressed. And.

(01:02:25):
I don't want to get into the weeds again too much.
But as the spouse of a comedian,and I know from his interview
that after the Jose retirement in the 70s and all, and after
all in the family, things got a little bit lean and he got very
depressed. And you know, and I'm sure that
carried off for quite a few years.

(01:02:46):
How do you boy the spirits of your partner when they're going
through something like that? If it's all love based, it's
quite easy. You extend yourself, you
understand it, you communicate. Love is a function of
communication. Throw us back to the 60s.
Greg, Billy and I were old soulstogether is how I would speak

(01:03:11):
for us and it was the joy of ourlives, Greg that we got.
We had 40 years together. He woke up every morning and you
went, well, it's a different person and it's different what's
going to happen today. And in the midst of all that was
the horror of financial. He took a big toll of health, of

(01:03:36):
concern, all of the all, every aspect of depression.
You just simply had to find the humor in it, find the joy, make
it a friend, and keep moving forward.
The the one person, the most valuable person in my life in

(01:03:58):
the entire history is my wife, Evie Evelyn Schuler Dana.
That's that's a big thing. But if you love someone, you
find the way. And if you can't, you still will
find the way. Just you have to stay together
and positive and optimistic evenwhen you don't feel it really.

(01:04:22):
You know, you got to make depression a friend.
But it has long tentacles for sure.
Still such a part of our mental health community today.
And all of us. I mean, it's just a human thing,
but it's about love, intelligence, trust.

(01:04:43):
There's therapy and there's medications.
It is something that you can't treat, but when you have it,
it's there. And you have to, like you said,
know it's there, but know how you can deal with it and face up
to it. And there are therapeutic things
that can help take it, you know,lower it.

(01:05:05):
And humor, once again, is a way of doing it.
And you know what's funny? You talked about how he didn't
like to do topical things as much.
And I've listened to the albums because there's a stack.
In fact, there's a photo of him.And I think that's on the
Facebook page with a whole wall full of Bill Dana albums,

(01:05:27):
including Alice in Wonderland, almost all the humor in it.
I mean, there's references to like the the Hollywood album,
which is a really funny album. There's references to current
films, but for the most part, itcould be any films.
You know when he had. The No news network.
I mean, he was. Yeah, and the the child star,

(01:05:47):
that's just so funny, but it's basic.
Then the on the Family episode he wrote, on the one hand it was
Sammy Davis Junior. It hit every mark when it comes
to what that show was saying andwhat it was about and what the
issues were. But it wasn't an issue episode.
That's the thing about All in the Family that isn't really
unless you watch it isn't totally understood.
Whenever they do a retrospectiveof All in the Family are MOD,

(01:06:11):
they always show the pivotal episodes, the very special
episodes. But what they don't show is the
Cling Peaches episode, you know,where Edith, the station wagon
full of nuns and the Lima beans.Gloria eats a Lima bean, think
she's going to have a rash. You know, All in the Family was
mostly a comedy show. They would talk a little bit
about things like people do. But every week, it wasn't always

(01:06:36):
hammering you with a relevant thing.
And I think that's what is not understood.
And a lot of current things is it's like, you can make your
point, but if you overmake it, then you're going to even turn
off those who agree with you. And that was the beauty of
classic comedy. One of Billy's favorite things,

(01:06:57):
and he really loved it, which hedid.
The dating game, Remember that? #3 Tell me your favorite thing
to do when you were little. I love to go to the candy store
and, you know, reach out and touch all the different kinds of
candy because it made the man who owned the candy store the
menace. And I always wanted to upset him
as much as I could because everytime I bought a pop bottle in,

(01:07:17):
you know, and wanted to collect $0.03 on it, he looked at me
like I was taking his last penny, you know, and all I.
So I used to finger all of his candy.
Number one, what would you do when you were little?
Your favorite thing? When I was little, the favorite
thing I used to do was to watch my daddy kick this guy out of
the candy store. Which one is it going to be?

(01:07:39):
I'm afraid I'm going to have to choose #1.
Bachelor #1 Any particular reason why you selected him?
He was so funny. All right, well, I think you're
going to have a great time with him on the date, and before you
meet him, I'd like to tell you about the other two gentlemen.
All right? You did not select bachelor #2
who had some answers for you. He would love you for yourself.
You had selected him. He's with the sales department

(01:08:00):
at CBS from Santa Ana, CA Dean Lagraw.
Dean, come on and say hello to Patty Foster.
You did beautifully. Thank you so very much.
You were just outdone there, I think by humor.
You did not select batcher #3 either, Patty.
And this gentleman is a local disc jockey.
You. I'm sure you know him.
For two years, he was the host of Shebang, a new movie called

(01:08:23):
2000 years ago when he plays a DJ, Casey Kasem.
Casey, come on and say hello to Patty Cluster.
Casey, come on over here and accept condolences.
Well, I he had some tough competition.
Yeah. Well, you listen, You 3 played
beautifully and a very funny man.
Let me tell you something else about him.
He should be funny because he isa comedian.

(01:08:45):
He produced the Milton Berle Show this season.
And you probably know him a little better from his own
television series as Jose Jimenez.
You have a date with Mr. Bill? Dana.
Bill. He was himself.
He wasn't doing the Jose voice, so they didn't know.

(01:09:05):
But he made them laugh. He didn't sound the same and
when he did an episode of Get Smart, I guess Don Adams wasn't
available for some reason. I think he was ill, Greg, I
can't quite remember. And they only would bring Bill
in to replace Don. And Bill Dana basically plays
the lead with Barbara Feldon. General, this is the chief of

(01:09:26):
control. I'm in Miami, and I won't be
able to get out because we're under 12 feet of snow.
Oh, that's bad. Let me talk to him, Chief.
Hello, General. This is Maxwell Smart.
I'm stuck down here, too, but that's good.
I'm assigning Agent 99 to the case, and the CIA is sending one
of their top men. They should be reporting any

(01:09:46):
minute. Good luck.
How do you do? Quigley 99?
I'm General Christian. Colonel Quinton.
Admiral Cricken. General Crichton.
Admiral Christian. Admiral.
Christian. Oh, I'm.
Christian. Oh, you're Admiral Christian.
I'm General Christian. Oh, then you must be Colonel
Crichton. No, I'm Quinton.
Admiral Quinton No. He's Colonel Quinton.

(01:10:12):
The general's name is Christian,the admiral's name is Crichton,
and the colonel's name is Quinton.
Hi fellas. The only time that Don did miss
the show and they only would allow Bill to come in and
replace him. Do you either of you know why
The Bill Dana Show has not been available for streaming or DVD?

(01:10:35):
Well, Evie can tell you why it hasn't been, but we have good
news for you. It's about to be available on
DVD this spring. All 42 original episodes are
finally coming out on DVD Special Edition with bonus
features and one of the interviews with Bill.
And, yeah, it's going to be coming out this spring.

(01:10:56):
But, Debbie, you can tell why it's taking so long.
There were some attempts at it, but it simply wasn't the right
time. He was very busy, too.
You know, the 4th Network started up.
He's the host of the first show.Billy never stopped working.
Different projects, different things.
As I told you, everything involved with the astronauts and

(01:11:17):
inventions and toys. He never stopped creating,
never, never stopped right to his passing, writing every day.
There was number retirement. He saw no end to anything, you
know, he just had to write it and it all came through him and
he had to write it down. Greg.
Did a lot of things make him laugh, or did only special

(01:11:39):
things make him laugh? Oh no, he laughed at.
Oh my, that's a big question. He loved to laugh and he's like
I say, he saw funny. He how to see funny and
everything. But of course the serious side
of life was very serious. So he wasn't afraid of any of
the emotions and and he really liked people.

(01:12:01):
He never gave up on people. And but he really liked
politics. That was just in his blood, very
political. I'm not saying involved, but
understanding it, knowing it. Of course, he knew so many of
the players in the early days. At one point, he made it onto
Nixon's enemies list. So did Carol Channing.
So did Norman. All of them, you know.

(01:12:23):
I interviewed Carol Channing a few years in many, actually many
years ago, And I said you were on the Nixon anyways, How did
you feel about that? And she says, well, what do you
think about that? Which was a great answer.
And I said it's a pretty impressive list, you know.
But he was concerned and he was active, but he was never
militant. Oh no, no, he marched with

(01:12:46):
Chavez and he didn't stand up front with the other celebrities
during those times. He was in the back with the guys
and the people, his amigo friends.
He. Didn't make a public show of all
of those things too. You had asked earlier about the
Make Nice Billy did a fun thing in the early 60s of Jose Jimenez

(01:13:09):
for president before Pat did it when The Smothers Brothers and
he was standing in front of the UN and his Pope political
platform was Make Nice Jose for president.
Make nice. So that's what the recording
was, part of the campaign. Exactly.
Herb did it. Herbie Alpert did it for.

(01:13:30):
It he did. No kidding.
He recorded it. Yeah, I make nice.
You know, he helped him. That's a whole other whole other
chapter of with Herb Alpert. And he and their records was
started in Bill Dana's living room on Franklin Ave. in
Hollywood Hills. There's like so many chapters to
this man. That's an onion that will never

(01:13:51):
finish unraveling. It's.
Crazy. Oh yeah, It's like 1 revelation
after another, and that's a beautifully produced record.
Make nice, make nice, be good, be good.
Don't fight, don't fight. Is that any way?
For grown up countries to act. Come on kids, let's tell them

(01:14:15):
make nice, make nice be. Good.
Don't. Fight 'cause if you fight, you
are. A Sinner Besides, with the bombs
there can't be a winner. But worse than that, if you
don't make nice, you go to bed without dinner.

(01:14:36):
So please. Nice make nice.
One other thing, too, is in the movie The Right Stuff, there's
references to Jose and Alan Shepard and all of that.

(01:14:57):
Did Bill find that a good thing or did he find it like not
necessarily the most flattering thing because it was pointing
out the how some people found it?
Phil Kaufman, who directed it, spoke with Bill about it.
And who was the Pinot football player in the movie?
That was the nurse's aide. He would walk the guys when they

(01:15:18):
had their enema bags, you know, down to the room.
Anthony Munoz. OK, so his line clarified
everything. I hear they got some 50 some odd
guys trying out for seven spots.After they pick us 3 there's
only going to be 4 spots open. That sounds right to me.
You. Bet.
Where do we go from here? You go in that door.

(01:15:40):
Who are you? My name Jose Jimenez.
You talking to us, buddy? All Air Force pilots go in that
door. When they all go in, they all
look the same. But when they all come on, they

(01:16:03):
all look. Scared.
Buenos Dias, Gonzalez. Yeah, Buenos Dias herself.
Oh, there you are. Would you come this way?
You know, Mr. Shepherd, me and my friends think you're Jose
Jimenez. Imitation is a OK, but what

(01:16:27):
you're doing with it is. BAD.
Oh, you're right. You're absolutely right.
Tell me something, Mr. Gonzalez.Do you ever have any explosions
doing this? All the time.
It's a mess. Tell me something else, Mr.

(01:16:48):
Gonzalez. How am I doing?
I think you're going to make it,man.
I think you're going to be an astronaut.
That was it exactly what somebody's going to do with the
character you create, you know, take it however they want.
And Alan was always a wonderful friend, dear, dear brother to

(01:17:11):
Bill. But Alan, you know, would do the
put down parts of it, making up his own stuff.
But that's what got Billy down there in the beginning.
And it's what established, and it's what we should speak to, is
the first words from an Americanto an American going into space.
It was Deke Slayton at Capcom saying, OK, Jose, you're on your

(01:17:32):
way. And there's Alan sitting on the
tin can, not knowing if it was his last day being shot into
space. And they were playing Jose's
album Bill Danis. And I'm very happy to be any
place. Was he the astronaut?

(01:17:54):
Yeah, Uh huh. OK, Jose, you're on your way.
Time Warner has it courted in their space population.
They did for the whole era. Wow.
You had to have fun to survive what they were putting them
through. I don't think there's anything.
I don't think there are very fewpeople that that had the

(01:18:14):
uniqueness of privilege that I have because Jose Jimenez became
the 8th Mercury astronaut out ofa possible 7:00 on May 5th,
Cinco de Mayo 1961, Al Shepard became America's first man in
space. Deke Slayton, the Capcom the

(01:18:37):
first words from the ground astronaut going into space says
OK, Jose, you're on your way. You see the right stuff, the
movie, you see Jose through the the whole thing.
So that by far that's my my mostproud accomplishment that that
corny phrasing by bringing the light stuff to the guys with the

(01:19:00):
right stuff. I'm on the Advisory Board of the
Astronaut Scholarship Fund and they, all of these guys remained
extended family. The whole truth of that era is
still not been told. That's a fascinating era, and
the fact that he was part of it is extremely notable.
There was so much more than justa silly throwaway thing.

(01:19:23):
You know, children. I was a kid, you know, when Jose
was really popular and kids loved him because he was very
childlike. So many young of folks today say
I read around all day going my name Jose Jimenez.
Yeah, this has been one of the most memorable things.
There are certain performers that feel like family.

(01:19:44):
You never know them, but you seethem.
And whenever you do, like I said, you go, oh, there's that
person that I really like to seeagain.
And he always seemed that way. And especially with television,
that does make you feel closer to a lot of personalities and
finding out what a great person he was, that really touches me.
And I think it probably touched a lot.

(01:20:06):
Of people listening and to hear more of this, if you would tell
everybody how they can access this material.
Sure, Emerson has its own website, but you can actually
access the Bill Dana interviews that I conducted with him for
the Comedy Archives, as well as the one that Jeff did for the
Television Academy at televisionacademy.com.

(01:20:27):
Interviews. Just search Bill Dana's name.
But there is a whole collection for Emerson Comedy Archives that
the Television Academy actually hosts those interviews that
we've been talking about on thatwebsite, and everyone's listed
alphabetically by name. Or you can just search Bill
Dana's name or search Joseph Barbera.
He's in there too. I mean, Carl Reiner, everyone

(01:20:50):
we've been talking, Norman Lear,everyone we've been talking
about today. What I like to do with them is
you could put them on your phoneand you don't have to
necessarily just stare at the screen because they're talking.
You can go about your business and you can just listen.
It's almost like an audio book, the stories.
Put them in chapters you could just Click to what listen to
them all at once, but you can also skip around.
They're all time stamped, so if you just want to hear them talk

(01:21:12):
about a specific show or story or a topic, you can easily just
listen to a few minutes if that's all you have time for.
Can we tell about the video? DVD Yes, Jim Pearson's putting
it out. Oh, yes, I know, Jim.
I know, Jim, so yeah? I asked what to call, he said
The Bill Dana Show complete series on DVD out in spring, all

(01:21:33):
42 episodes in the full originalformat.
They were shot on 35mm, so the the quality is still really
great that he was able to get the transfers from and there'll
be a ton of bonus features on that.
That's such great news. MPI Entertainment.
MPI Entertainment, which just did the complete Ozzie and
Harriet Linus the lionhearted Jim is working on and that's

(01:21:54):
coming out soon. And folks, if you love Bill,
Dana and the Jose character, if you love Lost in Space, Jonathan
Harris right before a Lost in Space at his most, Doctor
Smithist plays the hotel manager.
And the scenes they do are so funny.
And then when you add Don Adams to that, it's just comedy magic.

(01:22:15):
It really is. It's so great that that's going
to be out there for people to enjoy again.
So that's 'cause for rejoicing there, but I'm rejoicing for the
fact that you guys spent so muchtime sharing with this.
Oh. My goodness, you're honoring the
love of my life. Greg, this is easy.
Thank you so much Evie Dana and Jenny Matz for visiting our our

(01:22:38):
fantastic world, regaling us with the glories that are Bill
Dana during his month long 100 birthday celebration.
Well, actually it's going to be a year celebration and you are
invited anytime. And I thank you too, Jenny.
I appreciate you being part of this.

(01:23:00):
Oh, thank you and thanks for doing.
This is so much fun and we're just thrilled to talk anytime
about Bill. Thank you all for listening,
thank you again for all the nicethings that you post about the
show, it means so much. And until next time, bye bye.
We hope you enjoyed the fantastic world of Hannah and
Barbera with Greg Airborne. Please join us again and Many

(01:23:23):
thanks for listening.