November 21, 2023 • 18 mins
Archie Andrews was a teenage sitcom directly adapted from the very popular comic strip of Bob Montana. It began to be heard on NBC Blue on May 31, 1943 and lasted on-air until September 5, 1943—the period during which radio adaptations of comic characters were trending. The show was also broadcasted on Mutual from 1944 to 1945.
Kenneth Banghart served as the announcer, while Bob Hastings played the lead character Archie during the show's NBC times. Other actors that took over the main role include Burt Boyar, Jack Grimes, and Charles Mullen. The other important character role, Jughead, was given to Cameron Andrews and Hal Stone. Up to now, Archie Comics is still popular and loved by many fans.
Kenneth Banghart served as the announcer, while Bob Hastings played the lead character Archie during the show's NBC times. Other actors that took over the main role include Burt Boyar, Jack Grimes, and Charles Mullen. The other important character role, Jughead, was given to Cameron Andrews and Hal Stone. Up to now, Archie Comics is still popular and loved by many fans.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
We've got Bob Hastings sitting here withus, who was taking his some time
out of his busy schedule to ussit down with us, and busy schedule
of doing nothing. It's very hardto fill this in. We are here
at the Friends of All Time Radioconvention here at Newark, New Jersey.
Let's start the question, Bob,how did you get started in show business?
How did I get started? Well, actually, John, a teacher
(00:23):
heard me sing in school, singingat assembly. I even remember singing home
on the range. Nobody ever wenthome since then. Well, but she
heard me sing and decided that Ishould be on radio. This was about
nineteen thirty six, and her mothertook me around and I auditioned and I
started singing on Nick Kenny WMCA.Nick Kenny had a Daily Mirror radio shows
(00:48):
before your time, John, ButNick Kenny had a column in the Daily
Mirror and he had this show everySaturday morning for one hour. And I
started as a kid singer. There. Cool, that's the way it started.
And here we are. So thatwas your your basically your first job
in radio. Yes, that wasthe first job. Has no pay,
but first job. Well, that'sa lot of people call it an internship,
(01:12):
couldn't you sure? Sure? Andthen actually from there where I really
started. I was there for acouple of years and then I auditioned for
Madge Tucker Coast to Coast on abus that was at NBC when there was
not two networks, it was onenetwork. NBC was WEA F and w
(01:32):
j Z, and I started singingthere and then started doing lines. She
had a Saturday morning show called OurBarn, which is never as popular as
Let's Pretend, but we did thesame thing. We did children's children's stories,
and then I just started acting andfrom there went into soap operas.
And that was it so well thatthat was your transition from singing to acting?
(01:56):
Could you go back to the singingat all? I always I still
sang on Coast to Coast on abus that was every Sunday morning from nine
to ten. People will remember thename Milton Cross. Milton Cross was the
MC and Madge Tucker wrote it,directed it produced, it did everything and
we all learned. But we putin a lot of hours with these scripts.
(02:17):
You know, the Sunday morning showwas all singing, but you had
lines going up to it. Wewere on a bus coast to coast on
a bus and we go, youknow, say, oh yeah, look
at that, there's the Rocky mountains, and somebody would sing a song about
the mountains. And that's what wedid from many years. I did that
till I went in the service innineteen forty three. Okay, I did
(02:38):
that, and then I did PrettyKitty Kelly, Hilltop House and Rah Drake
soap operas, all the soap operas. Yeah you toward the end of the
golden age of radio, Yes,don't bring it up. I get so
upset. Well, love, Ishould have said the word end because because
of this convention, because of yesterday, USA Radio, and many other reasons
(02:58):
that it's alive and well, well, it's the best. I've enjoyed radio
more than anything. From a standpointof I feel the best actors I worked
with were radio actors. You hadto be an actor. John Nobody saw
that she was sick. You can'tjust stand there and you had to You
had to be an actor, andpeople had to believe what you were doing.
Because I think I heard Agnes mooreheadused to do her sorry wrong member
(03:21):
or a lot of her especially thatscript. She did it. So I
mean she she she almost tore herhair out and she collapsed on the table
when she was done with it.You know, oh, oh, that's
a little over dramatic, but no, but makes for a great performance.
But you had to be you hadto be able to act. I mean,
nobody saw what you looked like.I mean today looks. I mean
you look at some of the showsthat you watch. You can look at
(03:45):
some soap operas and say, mygosh, how do these people, you
know get these jobs? They learnon the job because they're beautiful and they're
young and what have you. Butthat's television and that's movies. That's right
now. Like I said, towardslater in the fifties, you did some
X minus one. Oh I did, which is what I know you.
(04:06):
Yeah, after the war it wasDimension X X minus one, which was
kind of the same show. Yeah. I don't know where they change the
name. You know, Well,the nineteen fifty nineteen fifty I think was
Dimension X. Then down the Roadand fifty five or so they changed to
X minus one. I think theydid a lot of the same stories.
Yeah, it was the same typeof stuff. It was all out of
(04:27):
space kind of. But yeah,I did a lot of those. It
did a lot of cavalcades. Theywere good shows, Cavalcadi of America.
It used to be an hour show. And that's a funny bit, considering
it was radio that we did itfrom a theater and we had an orchestra,
and the men wore tuxedos and thewomen wore evening dresses, you know,
(04:48):
so formal attire. But you're alsoplaying to an audience too, right,
So you had an audience, soyou're dressing for then they were doing
it at the theater across from theLambs Club, but the Belasco Theater.
It's forty fourth Street. See,you don't remember this, you're just a
child. Well I'm pushing thirty sixhere or so. Oh, oh my
goodness, I'm twice your age.That's frightening. It's just a number,
(05:12):
though, Bob. So they tellus the number. As long as you
think young, you will be.It's what they put on your gravestone,
the numbers you did. This isa nasty word here, of course.
But you did go into television.Oh yeah, Oh we did mention Archie
Andrews, you know, which Idid for ten years. You know I
still do Archie here at these conventionsat this old age. But I did
(05:34):
that right after the war till itwent off the air. Can you still
do an arching impression there? Orwhat we do? Yeah? I guess
so. I have a cold now. But hello, jughead, this is
Archie. Come over right away.It's a matter of life or death or
something like that. Send money,folks. Yeah. I went into television,
I'll tell you kind of interesting.The first television I ever did was
(05:56):
in nineteen thirty nine, experimental atNBC with Madge Tucker bying the third floor
and NBC the what was the RadioCity It was it the Radio City building?
No, what was it there?The musical No no, no,
no, it isn't that awful.The mind is gone. But anyhow,
that's what we did. And wewore almost a grayish makeup and you talk
(06:19):
about hot even the lights even itwas hotter than it was when we when
it's a live you know, doingTV. Yeah, but that was Madge
Tucker again, that was the samegroup of young kids and what have you.
So the broadcast probably didn't go morethan oh no, no, no,
no, no. That was justexperimental. They would just do it
for their own, you know,to see who melted. It wasn't until
(06:42):
like ten years later that year killedthe kids. You know, if the
kids die, we won't let theadults do it if the lights killed them.
But no, it was it wasfun. Yeah. I did a
lot of televisions. Live television wasgood too. Yeah, to do live.
I respect the people that did thatbecause I look at things like h
gream for a Heavyweight by Rob Sterling. I mean doing all that live and
(07:03):
not slipping off. Yeah. Oh, and you look at this is somebody
talk about like you do an hourTV show that takes two weeks or more
some of them, you know,and you think, my gosh, we
did an hour show live. Youdid rehearse exactly and you did it live.
And that was always It's funny.I always think of I should look
(07:26):
terribly old from doing live TV,because every time you did a live TV
show, your career was on theline. I mean, if you did
something really terrible, yeah, youknow you would you're out of work.
The only place evident that I rememberseeing a lot of mistakes that went out
on the air was Dark Shadows.Do you remember that show? Yeah,
(07:46):
the soap op They was shot notlive, but live on tape, so
like one take and if John Fritzscrewed up his line, it went out
on the air. And a lotof these survive. And you have to
remember, I think they did oneevery day live, you know, every
day, so that the eight hoursof rehearsal or ten hours of rehearsal,
(08:07):
right, you know, but livetelevision was good. And then then I
went when did I go to California? I went out to do a pilot
for Paramount in nineteen sixty and thenI stayed and I guess and did a
lot of the your god, whatdo you call the old shows? And
Green Acres and Michael's Navy, right, oh, Michal's Navy from sixty two
(08:30):
to sixty six. Yeah. Thatwas probably the most fun I've had.
Was working with Joe Flynn, whoplayed Captain Bingham, was wonderful. He
was to me, the best talenton the show. He really wasn't in
actuality. He wasn't really as crabbyas oh no, no, no,
no, Joe was. That wasa great guy. We were very close
friends. That was lost him atan early age. He didn't hit fifty
(08:56):
just before and Joe were so funnybecause not that I look young, but
Joe was like five months older thanI was, and I used to say,
stand close to me, I lookso good at the same age as
you, because he got gray andhe's a good guy. Good guy,
so are used to act off.I mean, I haven't done anything on
(09:18):
camera in a long time. Ido some voice overs, and I guess
the most prominent one would be there'sa cartoon series of Batman, okay,
that's on every day, and I'mthe voice of Commissioner Gordon. Okay.
So we just finished doing a bunchof new ones of those, and I
don't know if we'll ever do anymore. But I don't know how many we've
done. I didn't do them all. They probably all know. We've done
(09:39):
over one hundred, maybe a littleover one hundred, and I probably did
about seventy seventy five. Now,when you go in to read for these
like the Batman, do you justjust read a whole bunch of lines off?
Were they then? The way wedid? You know? Radio?
I mean you you everybody has hisown little almost booth and his own track.
(10:01):
Everybody's on a different track. Idon't particularly like it. I liked
radio where you're looking at the actor, even though you're reading it, you
still can you know, get eyecontact and say something. But no,
we all and most of them youjust sit down like I'm sitting here and
I like to stand up. Dothey show you the video while you're no,
(10:22):
they do. They have I guessthe director Andrea Romano. She's wonderful,
good director. This gal knows herstuff and knows how to treat actors
and how to handle them and getthe best out of them. But they
sometimes you don't do it with everybody. I mean I was away at one
(10:45):
time doing something else and I cameback and did my own part by myself,
you know, and there's nobody totalk to, nobody to work with.
But that's all right. You know. They're very accommodating if you have
something else to do. It's fun. Good people. Boy, We've had
some really good people on that show. And it's well done. I think.
I think even the animation of itis a pretty good class of animation.
(11:09):
Yeah. A friend of mine likesit and he's my age, so
I mean it's it's not well.I I must say, John, I
I have ten grandchildren, and Iwould say the little ones, it's a
little frightening for them. Yeah,I mean some of the animation is not
made for kids. I mean they'sgot some violence in it, and there's
some of the silvier stuff like renand stimpy things like that. You know
who's wonderful audience is Mark Hambo playsthe Joker, Okay, and he's wonderful.
(11:37):
He's got everybody, I mean people. Fellow who plays Batman is good.
But I just get a kick outof the Joker. We had Ronnie
McDonell played the Scarecrow, you know, so they well it's a good job,
they pay you well, so everybody'shappy to do it. That's good.
(12:01):
Now you've been actually before I askyou that do you have any anecdotes
any I like to ask us offolks that we interview when you're especially in
radio or maybe live TV where somethingmay have gone wrong. And it was
oh yeah, yes, well thereare you know, any number of the
first one that comes to my mind. I used to do a show just
(12:24):
before I went in the service inforty three called The Adventures of the Seahound
with Captain Silver and Jerry, andI played Jerry and our announcer was Shoe
Doowns Okay, and a very fineactor. One O Hernandez played a villain
for this sequence of maybe a monthor two months. And in those days,
(12:46):
the announcer stood at a little thingagainst the wall, you know,
when he pushed the button and said, you know, ABC presents the Adventures
of the Sea Hound with Seahound withCaptain Silver and Jerry. And just as
we went on the air, JanoHernandez burnt and it just came, I
mean right, and Hugh Downs gotthrough, you know, the Seahound and
(13:11):
Jerry and he opens the door andgoes out into the control room and you
can hear him laughing, and he'sgot the opening narration, and I have
got a first line to compose himself, so he doesn't. He doesn't come
out. He's in there on hystericslike I get. So I had the
first lines of the show after thenarration as Jerry and going through the jungle
(13:33):
and you know, all upset,and I did the narration. I read
the narration and said, you know, and we are in so and you
know, just changed a couple ofwords and I'm now running through them and
went into and then they're all laughingin the control room. And when I
got through. It's like you know, I was, I was about eighteen
years old. I mean, youdon't do this, this is that's a
(13:54):
good thing. Oh yeah, youcould have. Somebody else probably could have
done. But then when I wentinto and I'm looking at them and I
started to go but I'm running throughthe jungle scene captain and that, you
know, so it sounded like hewas scared to cry. Oh a lot
of you know, off the cuff. That was. That was kind of
(14:16):
funny. It was another one thatjust slipped my mind. That was that
was funny. You know. Theydid a thing once, uh, not
to meet but Jack Kelk who wason Superman who played the kid whatever his
name is, Jimmy Olsen and onthe air, but Kyya starts undressing him
while he's doing his lines. Theonly other one was we used to being
(14:39):
a sustaining show, if anybody rememberswhat a sustaining shows no sponsor and much
less money. And they had mein my character doing a promo and it
was for the United States crop carand we had an actor Walter Vaughan,
whose son is Robert Vaughan. ButWalter was the funniest guy. I mean,
(15:01):
he played texts, and he so, I have to do this.
And before we went on are hesays, remember say crop. Whatever you
do, say crop, you know, and I'll be there if you have
a problem. He stood right besideme at the mic, and I'm doing
John the United States crop cort andyou know, John, you get those?
Did I say it right? AndI had to say it three or
(15:22):
four times? But I got throughit. But he was there. You
know, spoonerisms do happen. Oh? Yeah, some of them are rather
embarrassing. Oh I can think ofsome which I can't tell. But well,
it's a family, family channel here. So I remember once on Captain
Silver, the captain had a lineI've got the bow by the horns and
(15:43):
he didn't say horns, and heswore after it, and he said,
do you know what you said?And he I said bow by the horns?
He said, I know you didn'tand that was it. What else
can I do for you, John? I mean, you pay me so
much money here, I mean Ireally can't just you know, go on
like this. What hey, wasn'tthere a show called that double or nothing?
(16:07):
Yes? How often have you beencoming to the conventions like this?
I guess I guess I've been comingto this one probably seven or eight years,
and I missed one. I wasbusy at the time doing a show.
But they keep inviting me back tillI get something right, you know,
and I enjoy it. I ama New Yorker. I live on
the coast now, but I'm fromBrooklyn, New York, and I come
(16:32):
back and it's great. They bringme back. And then I when my
mom and dad were alive, Iwould visit them. I still have a
brother here who's on as the worldturns for those old ladies who watch soap
operas. He's been doctor Bob Hughesfor about thirty five years. Okay,
And now I visit. My wifehas three sisters. So I get a
trip to New York and I enjoyit, and I enjoy the people.
I mean, this is this islike finding out people do remember you.
(16:56):
And I'll tell you. There arepeople here who told me of shows I
did, and I tell them Inever did that show. You just don't
remember I never did it, Andthen they send me a tape and at
the end it's me. And Iknow it's me when I hear it.
But who can remember well when you'rean actor, especially like you, with
the large body of work that youhave done. I don't think there's anybody
that can remember every exact syllable ofevery script. Oh I don't even remember,
(17:19):
you know, I don't remember themesongs from the soaps I did.
I don't remember. Somebody will say, oh, that was such a fine
show. Don't you remember that onein nineteen forty eight. Yeah, I
don't know. You do them andyou erase them and you go on to
the next show. But it wasfun. It's soap operas are fun.
(17:40):
And then I did eight years onGeneral Hospital, Okay with Luke and Laura.
I was there during that. Somebodytold me, well, I know
that they used to have some collegeshad a course in really whatever they called
it. I don't know, butthey used to listen to Luke and Laura
one on one hospital and maybe critiqueit or something. But that's what's happened
(18:03):
to the world I live in unfortunately. Yeah. Oh boy, well that's
that's about all I can Yeah.Yeah, I think we've We've come quite
a bit. Brought me up hereto the top of the Empire State Building
to do this. It's just fantastic. It was the only kidding. We're
on the fourth floor of the Holidayand North. Sorry. It was nice
chatting and I thank you for wantingto talk to me. It brings back
wonderful memories to me. Thank youwell, thank you all for your time.
We've got Bob Hastings sitting here withus, who was taking his some time
out of his busy schedule to ussit down with us, and busy schedule
of doing nothing. It's very hardto fill this in. We are here
at the Friends of All Time Radioconvention here at Newark, New Jersey.
Let's start the question, Bob,how did you get started in show business?
How did I get started? Well, actually, John, a teacher
(00:23):
heard me sing in school, singingat assembly. I even remember singing home
on the range. Nobody ever wenthome since then. Well, but she
heard me sing and decided that Ishould be on radio. This was about
nineteen thirty six, and her mothertook me around and I auditioned and I
started singing on Nick Kenny WMCA.Nick Kenny had a Daily Mirror radio shows
(00:48):
before your time, John, ButNick Kenny had a column in the Daily
Mirror and he had this show everySaturday morning for one hour. And I
started as a kid singer. There. Cool, that's the way it started.
And here we are. So thatwas your your basically your first job
in radio. Yes, that wasthe first job. Has no pay,
but first job. Well, that'sa lot of people call it an internship,
(01:12):
couldn't you sure? Sure? Andthen actually from there where I really
started. I was there for acouple of years and then I auditioned for
Madge Tucker Coast to Coast on abus that was at NBC when there was
not two networks, it was onenetwork. NBC was WEA F and w
(01:32):
j Z, and I started singingthere and then started doing lines. She
had a Saturday morning show called OurBarn, which is never as popular as
Let's Pretend, but we did thesame thing. We did children's children's stories,
and then I just started acting andfrom there went into soap operas.
And that was it so well thatthat was your transition from singing to acting?
(01:56):
Could you go back to the singingat all? I always I still
sang on Coast to Coast on abus that was every Sunday morning from nine
to ten. People will remember thename Milton Cross. Milton Cross was the
MC and Madge Tucker wrote it,directed it produced, it did everything and
we all learned. But we putin a lot of hours with these scripts.
(02:17):
You know, the Sunday morning showwas all singing, but you had
lines going up to it. Wewere on a bus coast to coast on
a bus and we go, youknow, say, oh yeah, look
at that, there's the Rocky mountains, and somebody would sing a song about
the mountains. And that's what wedid from many years. I did that
till I went in the service innineteen forty three. Okay, I did
(02:38):
that, and then I did PrettyKitty Kelly, Hilltop House and Rah Drake
soap operas, all the soap operas. Yeah you toward the end of the
golden age of radio, Yes,don't bring it up. I get so
upset. Well, love, Ishould have said the word end because because
of this convention, because of yesterday, USA Radio, and many other reasons
(02:58):
that it's alive and well, well, it's the best. I've enjoyed radio
more than anything. From a standpointof I feel the best actors I worked
with were radio actors. You hadto be an actor. John Nobody saw
that she was sick. You can'tjust stand there and you had to You
had to be an actor, andpeople had to believe what you were doing.
Because I think I heard Agnes mooreheadused to do her sorry wrong member
(03:21):
or a lot of her especially thatscript. She did it. So I
mean she she she almost tore herhair out and she collapsed on the table
when she was done with it.You know, oh, oh, that's
a little over dramatic, but no, but makes for a great performance.
But you had to be you hadto be able to act. I mean,
nobody saw what you looked like.I mean today looks. I mean
you look at some of the showsthat you watch. You can look at
(03:45):
some soap operas and say, mygosh, how do these people, you
know get these jobs? They learnon the job because they're beautiful and they're
young and what have you. Butthat's television and that's movies. That's right
now. Like I said, towardslater in the fifties, you did some
X minus one. Oh I did, which is what I know you.
(04:06):
Yeah, after the war it wasDimension X X minus one, which was
kind of the same show. Yeah. I don't know where they change the
name. You know, Well,the nineteen fifty nineteen fifty I think was
Dimension X. Then down the Roadand fifty five or so they changed to
X minus one. I think theydid a lot of the same stories.
Yeah, it was the same typeof stuff. It was all out of
(04:27):
space kind of. But yeah,I did a lot of those. It
did a lot of cavalcades. Theywere good shows, Cavalcadi of America.
It used to be an hour show. And that's a funny bit, considering
it was radio that we did itfrom a theater and we had an orchestra,
and the men wore tuxedos and thewomen wore evening dresses, you know,
(04:48):
so formal attire. But you're alsoplaying to an audience too, right,
So you had an audience, soyou're dressing for then they were doing
it at the theater across from theLambs Club, but the Belasco Theater.
It's forty fourth Street. See,you don't remember this, you're just a
child. Well I'm pushing thirty sixhere or so. Oh, oh my
goodness, I'm twice your age.That's frightening. It's just a number,
(05:12):
though, Bob. So they tellus the number. As long as you
think young, you will be.It's what they put on your gravestone,
the numbers you did. This isa nasty word here, of course.
But you did go into television.Oh yeah, Oh we did mention Archie
Andrews, you know, which Idid for ten years. You know I
still do Archie here at these conventionsat this old age. But I did
(05:34):
that right after the war till itwent off the air. Can you still
do an arching impression there? Orwhat we do? Yeah? I guess
so. I have a cold now. But hello, jughead, this is
Archie. Come over right away.It's a matter of life or death or
something like that. Send money,folks. Yeah. I went into television,
I'll tell you kind of interesting.The first television I ever did was
(05:56):
in nineteen thirty nine, experimental atNBC with Madge Tucker bying the third floor
and NBC the what was the RadioCity It was it the Radio City building?
No, what was it there?The musical No no, no,
no, it isn't that awful.The mind is gone. But anyhow,
that's what we did. And wewore almost a grayish makeup and you talk
(06:19):
about hot even the lights even itwas hotter than it was when we when
it's a live you know, doingTV. Yeah, but that was Madge
Tucker again, that was the samegroup of young kids and what have you.
So the broadcast probably didn't go morethan oh no, no, no,
no, no. That was justexperimental. They would just do it
for their own, you know,to see who melted. It wasn't until
(06:42):
like ten years later that year killedthe kids. You know, if the
kids die, we won't let theadults do it if the lights killed them.
But no, it was it wasfun. Yeah. I did a
lot of televisions. Live television wasgood too. Yeah, to do live.
I respect the people that did thatbecause I look at things like h
gream for a Heavyweight by Rob Sterling. I mean doing all that live and
(07:03):
not slipping off. Yeah. Oh, and you look at this is somebody
talk about like you do an hourTV show that takes two weeks or more
some of them, you know,and you think, my gosh, we
did an hour show live. Youdid rehearse exactly and you did it live.
And that was always It's funny.I always think of I should look
(07:26):
terribly old from doing live TV,because every time you did a live TV
show, your career was on theline. I mean, if you did
something really terrible, yeah, youknow you would you're out of work.
The only place evident that I rememberseeing a lot of mistakes that went out
on the air was Dark Shadows.Do you remember that show? Yeah,
(07:46):
the soap op They was shot notlive, but live on tape, so
like one take and if John Fritzscrewed up his line, it went out
on the air. And a lotof these survive. And you have to
remember, I think they did oneevery day live, you know, every
day, so that the eight hoursof rehearsal or ten hours of rehearsal,
(08:07):
right, you know, but livetelevision was good. And then then I
went when did I go to California? I went out to do a pilot
for Paramount in nineteen sixty and thenI stayed and I guess and did a
lot of the your god, whatdo you call the old shows? And
Green Acres and Michael's Navy, right, oh, Michal's Navy from sixty two
(08:30):
to sixty six. Yeah. Thatwas probably the most fun I've had.
Was working with Joe Flynn, whoplayed Captain Bingham, was wonderful. He
was to me, the best talenton the show. He really wasn't in
actuality. He wasn't really as crabbyas oh no, no, no,
no, Joe was. That wasa great guy. We were very close
friends. That was lost him atan early age. He didn't hit fifty
(08:56):
just before and Joe were so funnybecause not that I look young, but
Joe was like five months older thanI was, and I used to say,
stand close to me, I lookso good at the same age as
you, because he got gray andhe's a good guy. Good guy,
so are used to act off.I mean, I haven't done anything on
(09:18):
camera in a long time. Ido some voice overs, and I guess
the most prominent one would be there'sa cartoon series of Batman, okay,
that's on every day, and I'mthe voice of Commissioner Gordon. Okay.
So we just finished doing a bunchof new ones of those, and I
don't know if we'll ever do anymore. But I don't know how many we've
done. I didn't do them all. They probably all know. We've done
(09:39):
over one hundred, maybe a littleover one hundred, and I probably did
about seventy seventy five. Now,when you go in to read for these
like the Batman, do you justjust read a whole bunch of lines off?
Were they then? The way wedid? You know? Radio?
I mean you you everybody has hisown little almost booth and his own track.
(10:01):
Everybody's on a different track. Idon't particularly like it. I liked
radio where you're looking at the actor, even though you're reading it, you
still can you know, get eyecontact and say something. But no,
we all and most of them youjust sit down like I'm sitting here and
I like to stand up. Dothey show you the video while you're no,
(10:22):
they do. They have I guessthe director Andrea Romano. She's wonderful,
good director. This gal knows herstuff and knows how to treat actors
and how to handle them and getthe best out of them. But they
sometimes you don't do it with everybody. I mean I was away at one
(10:45):
time doing something else and I cameback and did my own part by myself,
you know, and there's nobody totalk to, nobody to work with.
But that's all right. You know. They're very accommodating if you have
something else to do. It's fun. Good people. Boy, We've had
some really good people on that show. And it's well done. I think.
I think even the animation of itis a pretty good class of animation.
(11:09):
Yeah. A friend of mine likesit and he's my age, so
I mean it's it's not well.I I must say, John, I
I have ten grandchildren, and Iwould say the little ones, it's a
little frightening for them. Yeah,I mean some of the animation is not
made for kids. I mean they'sgot some violence in it, and there's
some of the silvier stuff like renand stimpy things like that. You know
who's wonderful audience is Mark Hambo playsthe Joker, Okay, and he's wonderful.
(11:37):
He's got everybody, I mean people. Fellow who plays Batman is good.
But I just get a kick outof the Joker. We had Ronnie
McDonell played the Scarecrow, you know, so they well it's a good job,
they pay you well, so everybody'shappy to do it. That's good.
(12:01):
Now you've been actually before I askyou that do you have any anecdotes
any I like to ask us offolks that we interview when you're especially in
radio or maybe live TV where somethingmay have gone wrong. And it was
oh yeah, yes, well thereare you know, any number of the
first one that comes to my mind. I used to do a show just
(12:24):
before I went in the service inforty three called The Adventures of the Seahound
with Captain Silver and Jerry, andI played Jerry and our announcer was Shoe
Doowns Okay, and a very fineactor. One O Hernandez played a villain
for this sequence of maybe a monthor two months. And in those days,
(12:46):
the announcer stood at a little thingagainst the wall, you know,
when he pushed the button and said, you know, ABC presents the Adventures
of the Sea Hound with Seahound withCaptain Silver and Jerry. And just as
we went on the air, JanoHernandez burnt and it just came, I
mean right, and Hugh Downs gotthrough, you know, the Seahound and
(13:11):
Jerry and he opens the door andgoes out into the control room and you
can hear him laughing, and he'sgot the opening narration, and I have
got a first line to compose himself, so he doesn't. He doesn't come
out. He's in there on hystericslike I get. So I had the
first lines of the show after thenarration as Jerry and going through the jungle
(13:33):
and you know, all upset,and I did the narration. I read
the narration and said, you know, and we are in so and you
know, just changed a couple ofwords and I'm now running through them and
went into and then they're all laughingin the control room. And when I
got through. It's like you know, I was, I was about eighteen
years old. I mean, youdon't do this, this is that's a
(13:54):
good thing. Oh yeah, youcould have. Somebody else probably could have
done. But then when I wentinto and I'm looking at them and I
started to go but I'm running throughthe jungle scene captain and that, you
know, so it sounded like hewas scared to cry. Oh a lot
of you know, off the cuff. That was. That was kind of
(14:16):
funny. It was another one thatjust slipped my mind. That was that
was funny. You know. Theydid a thing once, uh, not
to meet but Jack Kelk who wason Superman who played the kid whatever his
name is, Jimmy Olsen and onthe air, but Kyya starts undressing him
while he's doing his lines. Theonly other one was we used to being
(14:39):
a sustaining show, if anybody rememberswhat a sustaining shows no sponsor and much
less money. And they had mein my character doing a promo and it
was for the United States crop carand we had an actor Walter Vaughan,
whose son is Robert Vaughan. ButWalter was the funniest guy. I mean,
(15:01):
he played texts, and he so, I have to do this.
And before we went on are hesays, remember say crop. Whatever you
do, say crop, you know, and I'll be there if you have
a problem. He stood right besideme at the mic, and I'm doing
John the United States crop cort andyou know, John, you get those?
Did I say it right? AndI had to say it three or
(15:22):
four times? But I got throughit. But he was there. You
know, spoonerisms do happen. Oh? Yeah, some of them are rather
embarrassing. Oh I can think ofsome which I can't tell. But well,
it's a family, family channel here. So I remember once on Captain
Silver, the captain had a lineI've got the bow by the horns and
(15:43):
he didn't say horns, and heswore after it, and he said,
do you know what you said?And he I said bow by the horns?
He said, I know you didn'tand that was it. What else
can I do for you, John? I mean, you pay me so
much money here, I mean Ireally can't just you know, go on
like this. What hey, wasn'tthere a show called that double or nothing?
(16:07):
Yes? How often have you beencoming to the conventions like this?
I guess I guess I've been comingto this one probably seven or eight years,
and I missed one. I wasbusy at the time doing a show.
But they keep inviting me back tillI get something right, you know,
and I enjoy it. I ama New Yorker. I live on
the coast now, but I'm fromBrooklyn, New York, and I come
(16:32):
back and it's great. They bringme back. And then I when my
mom and dad were alive, Iwould visit them. I still have a
brother here who's on as the worldturns for those old ladies who watch soap
operas. He's been doctor Bob Hughesfor about thirty five years. Okay,
And now I visit. My wifehas three sisters. So I get a
trip to New York and I enjoyit, and I enjoy the people.
I mean, this is this islike finding out people do remember you.
(16:56):
And I'll tell you. There arepeople here who told me of shows I
did, and I tell them Inever did that show. You just don't
remember I never did it, Andthen they send me a tape and at
the end it's me. And Iknow it's me when I hear it.
But who can remember well when you'rean actor, especially like you, with
the large body of work that youhave done. I don't think there's anybody
that can remember every exact syllable ofevery script. Oh I don't even remember,
(17:19):
you know, I don't remember themesongs from the soaps I did.
I don't remember. Somebody will say, oh, that was such a fine
show. Don't you remember that onein nineteen forty eight. Yeah, I
don't know. You do them andyou erase them and you go on to
the next show. But it wasfun. It's soap operas are fun.
(17:40):
And then I did eight years onGeneral Hospital, Okay with Luke and Laura.
I was there during that. Somebodytold me, well, I know
that they used to have some collegeshad a course in really whatever they called
it. I don't know, butthey used to listen to Luke and Laura
one on one hospital and maybe critiqueit or something. But that's what's happened
(18:03):
to the world I live in unfortunately. Yeah. Oh boy, well that's
that's about all I can Yeah.Yeah, I think we've We've come quite
a bit. Brought me up hereto the top of the Empire State Building
to do this. It's just fantastic. It was the only kidding. We're
on the fourth floor of the Holidayand North. Sorry. It was nice
chatting and I thank you for wantingto talk to me. It brings back
wonderful memories to me. Thank youwell, thank you all for your time.
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