“Bob, Get the Wig!” — The Man Behind the Legend - Little House on the Prairie 50th Anniversary Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
If you're listening right now to the Little House fiftieth
Anniversary Podcast, we know something about you. We know that
you're obsessed with Little House of the Prairie.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
For more than half a century, Little House on the Prairie,
the series, and the books have been bright lights for
people all over the world who seek out goodness, decency,
and human connection.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Here on the Little House fiftieth Anniversary Podcast, we celebrate
everything that made Little House so special.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
The stories, the characters, the actors, and the messages that
have made Little House iconic family television and a.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Perfect counterpoint to a world that feels like it's going
off the rails every day.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Where's Michael Landon when we need him most?

Speaker 4 (00:43):
I'm your host, Pamela Bob And I'm your Prairie bitch
Alice at Aringrem and I'm Dean Butler, our hashtag imaginary boyfriend.
Join us for our loving, quirky, and often irreverent conversations
about the finest family drama in the history of television.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
And the imperfect people who made it that way.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
In this third season, we are extremely grateful for the
support of visit Seemi Valley dot com for their continuing
sponsorship of Little House on the Prairie and The Little
House fiftieth Anniversary podcast. Well, Hello, Hello, hello, bonnet heads.
How are you doing you, guys? I'm Pamela Bob, your
host and creator and star of Living on a Prairie

(01:24):
and super fan, and I'm here with our lovely beloved
prairie bitch Alice and Rangroom. Hello Allison and our wonderful
hashtag imaginary boyfriend Dean Butler. Hi, guys, it's always so
nice seeing you. Yes, what what good? How's your week?

(01:45):
What's going on?

Speaker 5 (01:46):
Are you what are you eating? Allison drinking?

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Sorry we're interrupting your meal with the podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Let us go. We're sushi from No Boo because they
gave us too much food.

Speaker 5 (02:00):
Wow, okay, delicious, that's fun.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
And Trader Joe's Rice Cracker Medley And if you have
not bought the Trader Joe's Rice Cracker Medley.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Are you a Trader Joe's person?

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Dean, Oh my god, I live for Trader people.

Speaker 6 (02:17):
I definitely have certain things that I that I really
like at Trader Joe's. Yeah, so no, It's it's an
amazing company. I think they do a great job.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Well, the Trader the Breakfast cereals. You can't eat the breakfast.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
I haven't had the breakfast cereals.

Speaker 5 (02:32):
I think everything they do is really delicious.

Speaker 6 (02:34):
I think they you know, they present the store in
a really fun way, and yeah, it just works.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, they have some stuff is so good. The coffee
blast ice cream, the Trader.

Speaker 5 (02:46):
Oh my god, that's talk about talk about rich.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Oh my god, and certain finds like these rights crackers
are like to die far so just.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, unfortunately we hadn't had I mean, they have Trader
Joe's in Manhattan, I'm sure they haven't brow but they
did not have them in my area. And it was
too much of a like a schlep to go to
Manhattan to get even the Mananta parway, but you don't
want to do your groceries and have to go then
on a subway. But they did just open one close
to me. So my son goes after school with his

(03:19):
friends to go to the Trader Joe's. That's how much
people love Trader Joe's. And Joe Oh, he gets all
of these snacky type stuff, like he gets the peanut
like the many peanut butter cups that are like those
are to die or and he's and he'll come home
and be like, Mom, we have to go to Trader.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Like okay, okay, we'll go to do the research reconnaissance
thing and come back and tell you one of the
best things.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Okay, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I have to explore Trader
Joe's more than I have been exploring it. But anything else,
anyone have anything to promote or things coming up? What's
happening in the Prairie world or your wor.

Speaker 6 (03:58):
Well, I mean we've got you know, we got appearances
coming up.

Speaker 5 (04:01):
I know, Allison, you're getting ready to head off, head
off to France. Really ten shows?

Speaker 7 (04:10):
Is this?

Speaker 5 (04:10):
Is this one of your largest I think so dance
bookings ever, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Six and eight or no. But we've been getting more
and more requests and they keep selling it. Well, last
year Window extra shows because it was so hilarious it
was they said, well, it's a really small theater. So
they sold out of Friday, so we'll do Saturday. Okay,
Well can we do a Sunday matinee? Well all right,
I guess it is Friday. Saturday sold out? And then
they went, can you do a show on a Monday?
Who does the show on a Monday? They go well,
the other three are sold out.

Speaker 5 (04:34):
Somebody's working on a Monday.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
So you go.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
But I also, I also just said that you're going
to be in the Berkshires in May, right, why do
you come to New York? I love it? First of all,
have you been to the Berkshires before?

Speaker 5 (04:46):
They're in the best.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
They're the best, it's the best. You're gonna love it.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Place called the Boundary, the Foundry, which is supposed to
be great. All these people I.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Know Farrington, which town is it? Do you remember? Anyway,
the Berkshires is awesome. And it's a huge theater town
because when New Yorkers vacation over the summer, that's where
they go to. They go to the Berkshires. And so
there are tons of amazing theaters and theater companies out there.

(05:14):
It's a big theater scene out there. They're gonna love you.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
It is a very cool theater. And all these oh,
Bob's handing me the thing. Now the Foundry, Yes, West
Stockbridge Bridge Shortires and West stockbirds there, and so it's
a theater called, yes, the Foundry. There's community tickets, general admission,
pay it forward, et cetera. So I'm doing actually, how

(05:39):
many shows there? Am I doing?

Speaker 7 (05:40):
Now?

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Three? And I think I'm doing three shows there?

Speaker 5 (05:43):
Yes? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
The first show was booked at seven and got sold out,
and then a second show later and then a matinee
earlier and there's a few tickets left. So that is
so now there's set. Yeah, I'm doing three shows.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Then it's gonna be great in English and go. So
we go to the Norman Rockwell Museum, which I believe
is in Stockbridge, and it's incredible. Uh, there's there's stuff
to do, there's stuff to do there. It's it's a
great it's a great.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Other acts promoted by spin Cyclo performed there with great success.
So I get to it. Then May, of course to
do the cutting room in May, as always on Mother's Day,
I'm going to I'm going to France room a tension
And then they come back and aren't we all going
to Tombstone Arizona?

Speaker 6 (06:24):
Is everybody on March twenty seven? No, I'm sorry on
April tenth to twelveth.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Say, indeed, April ten through twelve, we will be in Tombstone,
Arizona Hotel toombs.

Speaker 6 (06:38):
I'm going to be in on Long Island at the
Chocolate Expo March twenty second with you guys.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Are going to be there for my birthday week.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
And whoever it is is going Todd Bridges and Pat
and it's gonna.

Speaker 5 (06:54):
Be where the three of us are going.

Speaker 6 (06:55):
Yeah, we've all been trying to decide who gets to be,
you know, who's going to be Ma, who's going to
get well, you know, like why that was why it
was important to figure that out.

Speaker 5 (07:05):
But that's that's been one of the things we've talked.

Speaker 6 (07:07):
Who gets who's going to be because you know, the
idea initially was that it would be you know, well
it would be a different mix. But Pat and Todd
want to come and enjoy the chocolate, and it's it's
going to be great.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
It's they're gonna love it.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
It's just do you know how how far outside of
the city are you and where is it?

Speaker 7 (07:26):
Long?

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Island is long? I mean it could be hours out
I'll figure it out.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
It could be how far.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
I mean it can be hours hours. I mean the
Hampton's can be a four hour drive from the city.
So it's it's a long island. It's very long.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Are you doing cherry blossom? I don't know some of
us I'm doing Cherry Blossom Festival, Marshieldsouri.

Speaker 6 (07:47):
Yeah, I know it's come up because Jonathan Parker is
showing his film The Move. That's that you know he
directed Twins, right, Yes, I think the Jennifer Naughty will
be there, is going to be there.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Is great, It's gonna be nuts. So Tombstone, Oh no, no,
Isa coming to Chairman, He's coming to Tombs of Navies,
coming to Cherry The girls are coming to Cherry Pam
coming Yeah, yeah, I think yes, and then I don't
know who's going. It's yes, Tombstone and Cherry Blos will
be full full of people. Sure.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
And well, once I get all of these dates and
people and stuff, this will all be in the show notes,
so you guys can follow this.

Speaker 6 (08:29):
Yeah, thank you because it's so funny. Allison, you always
know your schedule pretty encyclopedically to not know you don't know.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
What's happening tomorrow. Yes, no, I know this about you
is that.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
I don't know what keeps handing me the Nelly news.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Here and you know we talk about them.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
What's happening?

Speaker 3 (08:59):
So what's on the Dean.

Speaker 5 (09:02):
Eating?

Speaker 3 (09:03):
What his scheduling?

Speaker 5 (09:04):
Else is coming up? Okay, I see my book is due.
You know, my book is due on Ay eighth.

Speaker 6 (09:10):
That's that's like a you know, that's a big one.
We're doing it. We're doing an event in Malone, New York.
It's going to be a Wilder And in Malone, New
York July twenty fourth through twenty six and will.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Charles Bloomy at that one as well, Early Day Wilder Day.

Speaker 5 (09:28):
Yes, Yes, I think we're going to try and resurrect
some music.

Speaker 6 (09:31):
I think Allison, you've maybe doing a show and you know, so, Yeah,
We're going to make a fun weekend of it.

Speaker 5 (09:36):
I think people have no one's been me.

Speaker 6 (09:39):
Lucy's been there before, Lucy Flippan's been there before. But
really it's not because it's an Almonzo thing. It has
not been widely seen by other members of the cast.
This will be a nice gathering of of caste experience this.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
I'm sorry, when did you say that was in July July?

Speaker 5 (09:55):
Yeah, July twenty fourth through twenty sixth.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
I'm going to go to Borrow.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
I might have to come to Malone, New York.

Speaker 5 (10:02):
You should, I think you should. It's it's absolutely gorgeous.
Maybe we could do the miles from the Canadian border. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
maybe and maybe we could you know, we ah, maybe
we could do a podcast.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well I just looked at my calendar and it looked
like my husband was planning on being in the Adirondecks
that during that time, which is so maybe we'll all
go up and and all. Yeah, that would be fun
if we.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
Could do it. It's about forty miles north of Lake Placa.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, yeah, it's a great area. That's a beautiful area,
absolutely beautiful. Okay, great, great, great, great. So once I
get dates, I'll put them on in the show notes.
Let's let's tentatively plan a Wilder family reunion podcast.

Speaker 5 (10:42):
And yeah, I think you can people as this gets it.

Speaker 6 (10:45):
I don't think it's been formally announced yet by them,
but it's Almanzo Wilderfarm dot com.

Speaker 5 (10:50):
I think is the is the website? Great Almanza Wilder Farm.
What is happening? This is Almonzo's childhood home. I've been
there many times. It's it's beautiful.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
Very atmospheric. So I recommend always recommend it to uh to.

Speaker 5 (11:05):
Laura Aficionado's reason is showing up the yes.

Speaker 6 (11:09):
Exactly because you have to be always have to be
where the action is.

Speaker 5 (11:16):
Yeah, No, it's just it's it is what it is.
You just have to be there. So what are we
doing today?

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Okay, so today we're taking a break from a recap
because we're going to talk to a real person. Not
only are we talking to a real person, we're talking
to the to the real Percival in Nellie's life. We're
talking to thee, the one, the one and only that
loves Nellie Olsen unconditionally. Who could it be? Hint my

(11:48):
T shirt? Hint my T shirt. But first from Udimo
and Prairie Partners and visit Seni Valley dot com and
of course are wonderful patrons on Patreon. This is a
Little House on the Prairie fiftieth Anniversary podcast. All right,

(12:19):
we're back and listen. Fans have been wanting this episode
since the beginning of the podcast. It is the most
requested episode we've ever gotten. I believe is they want
to see this person, They want to hear from this person.
He has become a legend. He is a slogan, a meme,

(12:39):
a catchphrase. Yeah, indeed, his own legacy will endure Dean.
Who are we talking about?

Speaker 6 (12:48):
Well, so, well, I'm actually going to save that for
Allison to do that introduction. But I think what you've
said as we start this is very true. I mean
he has been become a fixture in the lore that
surrounds all of us, certainly with the podcast, because you've
taken full advantage of it.

Speaker 5 (13:08):
And this really launched, well, this really kicked off.

Speaker 6 (13:11):
I mean, this relationship has been going on a long time, but.

Speaker 5 (13:16):
But this really happened.

Speaker 6 (13:17):
This meme moment happened at the fiftieth anniversary in Simi Valley. So, Allison,
why don't you introduce our special guest today who I.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Have managed to talk into doing this And he's like, no,
it's all right. So how many of your out there
get the Nilly Newsletter? You know who writes Nilly Newsletter? Right? Okay?
And so the person who manages to keep all of
this information somehow together and write this epic Nelly newsletter,

(13:51):
and the person who created the yes, the saga SoC
monkey that's in the newsletter, and the man we all
know Bob get the wig. Yes he's real. Yes, someone
actually did Mary Nellielson Least Bank Heavens and thirty two years.
So it's what thirty three this year we'll be married
thirty three years.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
But how long have you known each other?

Speaker 8 (14:11):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, I met him around nineteen eighty six. So oh
it's for it's a forty anniversary when we met. Oh boy,
you have to figure out like what day then?

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Oh boy?

Speaker 1 (14:25):
So I have indeed, yes, yes, from straight out, straight
out of Akron Ohio, I have with me. Yes, writer
of the Nelly newsletter, the guy who had the nerve
to Mary Nelli Elson himself. Yes, Bob scoot over.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Bobus for this.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Fighting over pillows and things. I said, this is all
very sort of John and Yoko in the beds kind
of thing.

Speaker 5 (14:54):
It's eleven, So why are you sitting in the spot
you're sitting in? I'm curious.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
This is because, well, we're in the living room and
I have this lockup set up with my microphone and lights.
But you see, some of you on Facebook have been
following my fabulous kitchen renovation and today the nice man
is grouting. He's grouting the backsplash. Its pain n So

(15:18):
there's painting. There's one more cabinet to put up. The
rest of the cabinets are done. The slighty drawers, the
slighty drawers are in and they're all done, and then
the sink is done, but he has to grout the
famous backsplash, the sort of mermaidy tail looking backsplash, and
paint some things. So they're they're doing that. He said,
can I come in on Monday and finish up this spart?
And I went, uh oh. So we're in the bedroom.

(15:40):
We just packed the whole thing up and moved it
to the bedroom, and so we're trying to like figure
out how to sit on some pillows here and be
in the shot. And we locked Raws well, we all
love Ross. Well, we did lock in the bathroom because
she would be like on the keyp right now, what
is happening now? And more Titius actually, who normally doesn't
want to be on camera, has been acting up quite
a bit, so you might get a little black cat
in this thing. We don't know. So we're sitting here

(16:01):
semi comfortably or not on the bed, John and Yoko
next and some leftover sushi and are just hanging out here.
But we actually got Bob to do the show.

Speaker 5 (16:10):
So Bob, thanks for doing the show.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Got the day off from work because he never had
always working that's.

Speaker 5 (16:17):
Right, because yeah, so we are shooting up. We're recording
our show is a little out of sequence.

Speaker 6 (16:22):
So yeah, so yes, we are a little ahead of
the actual dates here.

Speaker 5 (16:26):
So but that's what's happening, Bob.

Speaker 7 (16:32):
What is it?

Speaker 6 (16:32):
I'm just curious, you know, in the in the big
picture here, what's your recollection of what it's been of
how you stepped into the little house world, because it's
you've had quite an adventure being married to Allison.

Speaker 5 (16:49):
You could not have an adventure. What's it been like
being in our in our little world?

Speaker 7 (16:54):
How'd you get shanghai I mean it started. I think,
well I got shanghaied into doing things with you pretty quickly.
I mean we got together and she was doing the
comedy stage at the Paramount backlot for a p l
A's big benefit.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
It's a huge summer party. We produced the comedy stage.
So I said, yeah.

Speaker 7 (17:16):
She asked me if I wanted to do sound I said, well,
can I make it sound like rock and roll? And
she said sure? So I did.

Speaker 6 (17:24):
What does that mean? How do you make it sound like?
Was it just loud or or well?

Speaker 7 (17:31):
You go down there and you get the stuff that
they picked out to rent you at the store, and
you say, yeah, that's nice, but I'll have that.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Stands Yeah, yeah, stand up coming. It's for rock stars
who can't see. People wanted to be rock star but
couldn't sing become stand ups. So actually having a more
rock and roll kind of feel comedies actually.

Speaker 7 (17:53):
And then I got that and we rented that, and
I augmented that with my own equipment because of course.

Speaker 5 (18:00):
Because you've been playing music for years.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, cata Hula named after the state daughter of Louisiana.
And you guys, you did the whole thing, the whiskey.

Speaker 7 (18:10):
The Roxy whisky, Roxy Yeahubidour.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah yeah, wow, Kings Kings, there's two you played.

Speaker 5 (18:19):
Just saying you played the Troubadour is like hell yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Whiskey Go go everything. Wow a couple of times they're awesome.

Speaker 7 (18:28):
We got two CDs.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
You can get a CD. Wait, two CDs. I was
so happy because we got to go to the Whiskey,
and I've been My first apartment of seventeen was like
across the street and down two blocks with the whiskey.
So yeah, I look, you know, Whiskey go absolute. All
the punk bands I finally got at the age if
I don't know, got to walk up the stairs to
the dressing of the whiskey and say it's okay, I'm
with the band and carrying a guitar.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Roadie too, Yes, totally flash groupie. It was a group,
a groupie road and a group.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
You know, like if I'm doing my stand up he's there.
Like when we've done stand up shows. If I use
the wheelchair as a psychic that he'll put the wheelchair
in the truckle drive down to San Diego to local.
So he supports me with that, and yeah, and you
know that's the thing. And then if the band was playing,
I would be sitting in the back with the T
shirts and the CDs and get the drink tickets and

(19:31):
get very so we you.

Speaker 5 (19:32):
Know, back your team effort.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (19:36):
It's a little like a little like Charlotte uh Stewart
and Michael Santos that you know, the Little House shows
and the Mineral show and pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
And there they're prime example of like what we're shooting for,
because yeah, he'll have his gems and meteorites and she's
got her books at her beatle legs and chill. Then's
when her show. He's got a little table at the meet.
So yeah, we try to do that, you know, cross
support thing.

Speaker 5 (19:59):
So, Bob, what I think people really would be are
fascinated to know this because this has been a high
demand program for us. What is it.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Like to be married to the woman who was world
famous as.

Speaker 5 (20:18):
This iconic character, Nellie Olson, iconic iconic villain? What is
how does that occur for you?

Speaker 7 (20:28):
What do you know? It started out kind of weird,
like when but a surprised yea, he volunteered to work
on the hotline. Oh yeah, all of my other volunteers
came and said, oh, an actress is coming. You'll lovers.
You're in a little house on the prairie And I'm like, yeah,
whatever can chancewer the phone? And you know, and then

(20:50):
it escalated from there. And she works as a secretary
for a while and at the Age Project and whenever
there's a difficult call, she would give it to me.
So you know, we became friends.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Well it was crazy because's where I met as Project
Los Angeles because, as you know, Steve Tracy Beer Perceval
died of AIDS in nineteen eighty six and when he
got sick, I wanted to help, but he had his
family was standing by him. He had people, and he'd
signed up for every service and agency, so he had
you know, Shanti and Angel Food. They wedy coming to
the door, so he said, but other people didn't. So

(21:21):
I went and signed up age Project Loss Sande and
I signed up for everything, you know, the food Bay,
and I wound up in the hotline training and he
was director of the Southern California AIDS Hotline. But I
worked the front desk when they said, well, the next
class isn't open for blah blah blah. So I would
work the front desk, which was supposed to be north,
but people would call the front desk sometimes with insane
crisis calls, and I would go, oh, bab bab, are

(21:42):
you upsei? How do I do it?

Speaker 9 (21:44):
Like?

Speaker 1 (21:46):
That was hilarious.

Speaker 6 (21:47):
So, Bob and Pamela, I'm sure you have questions here,
but I've just wanted to get some deep background here. So, Bob,
what brought you into the into the AIDS hotline world?
What's that story for you? Clearly Allison has her story.
It's Steve Tracy that was the magnet for for her.
What was what was your draw?

Speaker 7 (22:09):
Well, it started and known and ago when I was
in Afron Ohio. I started to volunteer at a local
drug abuse hideline and I started working there and I
was a volunteer and the training when I got there
consisted of me sitting there for a couple of shifts,

(22:30):
observing what happened, and then walking in one day in
the phone ring and they go, well, that was yours,
and that was my throw intensive training.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
It's not good, so.

Speaker 5 (22:39):
They just threw it at you. This is yours, okay,
which is.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Why you created such a complicated training at APLA because wow.

Speaker 7 (22:49):
You know, as kind of revenge for that, I worked
my way up and became their director of training and
we developed a training program and then and honed it
and worked out and it was good. So then, you know,
time goes on and I'm more interested in my music
and all that, so I decide, well, I'm going to

(23:10):
move to Los Angeles. I figured Los Angeles supports a
lot of working musicians, and you know, I can go
whiskey giver. Of course, they broke my guitar on the plane,
but we won't talk about it. So when I got
here looking for a job, I found an ad in
the paper saying the Age Project Los Angeles was looking

(23:32):
for a hotline director. Well that was my title when
I was in a while. Wow, I thought this might
even be meant for me.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 7 (23:43):
Off we went and I had a two hour interview
with a couple of social workers, and twice in the
interview they told me I was as nutty as a fruitcake.
So I figured, well, I got this one.

Speaker 5 (23:57):
I'm so dope occur that way.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
What do you you know?

Speaker 3 (24:01):
To meet you at once in time.

Speaker 10 (24:04):
With you, you'd never say, note us a fruitcake is
never a descriptor I would use for you, you know, intellectual, thoughtful,
maybe a little quiet, but none use the fruitcake, not
not it.

Speaker 5 (24:19):
So I mean, how does that present itself?

Speaker 7 (24:21):
A younger?

Speaker 3 (24:22):
Then I was the younger.

Speaker 7 (24:29):
So and then I had a in do with the
the director of the project, who said, I'm not allowed
to ask you this, but how do you feel about
working with gay people? And I said, you know, since
I don't plan, don't having sex at work, I think
we're fine. Sure.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah, but a great answer, great perfect answer.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Something's all these answers were like that. They're like, who
are you dude? What is yours?

Speaker 5 (24:54):
That's awesome? I think that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
And you went up with a lot because wasn't your
first office for the game, your real office in what
had been a converted closet.

Speaker 7 (25:02):
What do you mean converted?

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Oh it's still a closet. Closet, and so the hor horror,
Hey Bob, he's in the closet. Yark yark yark. I mean, yeah,
of course, imagine them.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
So how long were you there before Alison showed up?

Speaker 7 (25:19):
Oh, let's see, I started in eighty four.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Oh my gosh, so you were there at like the
height of everything.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
I should have eighty six. People go, oh, it's a
big deal of today six I said, he'd been there
for eighty four. You had to write a train here?
Do they have a training manual? When you got no?

Speaker 7 (25:35):
I took the training I did at the drug hotline,
and it was kind of modular. After plugged in the
medical stuff and off we went.

Speaker 11 (25:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (25:44):
Yeah, So what was the source of your If you're
plugging in medical, you've got to have some background.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
There is there a background or are you just a
good researcher and you find these.

Speaker 7 (25:57):
Things a good researcher? And I use people pretty effectively.
I find doctors who are willing to share their information
do lectures for my training classes, that kind of thing.
And of course I'm there and I listened to all
those lectures and I talked to them in between, and
they're on speed dial when I come up with something
I can't answer.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Wow, that's what the training was epic because it's okay,
this week's class is on blah blah blah, and with
us is doctor so and so from USC to explain
to you blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
And at that time they were still discovering things too.
I'm sure I can imagine absolutely well.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
When you first started, there wasn't there wasn't a place
you couldn't send people to testing because there was no
test and the limited.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
Easy even for you, right right right.

Speaker 7 (26:51):
They related immune deficiency.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Right and the way when I got there, and as
time went on and we started to get drinks, there
was a whole book of like all the new description drugs,
some of that we're currently used, trying to be used,
going to be used. And so someone would call and say,
I just I just got on blah blah blah. I
have no idea what this is. Nobody does with this
as I just go and you go, ah hang on.
You'd either look in the book or you'd ask to
Scott Ruggo. We had this one hotline who memorized the

(27:15):
entire prescription book, and so you'd have that info. But
we had scary things then that you wouldn't have now.
The list of dentists, all six of them in LA
who would touch anyone with HIV. The list of funeral
homes that would touch anyone with HIV. I think there
were four.

Speaker 9 (27:31):
It was ridiculous, it was, and that's not there touch
a cruel time.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
It was cruel these poor people. And I mean, I
just you know, I was a kid during this, but
I remember it so vividly because it was so horrible
how cruel people were, and everyone was so scared. It
was all fear based.

Speaker 5 (27:55):
Terrified, horrified.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
They were terrible. I mean we did have people call
and ask am I going to get it from a mosquito?
Am I going to get it off a door knob
and every and we were very well trained, so I
would calm them down, but I usually if they called
it something really silly, I had them laughing by the
end of the call. I would kind of like y
because I would try and I would like the big
one that we always like to say if someone started

(28:17):
going on about mosquitos is sir, I'm sorry, but if
you're having sex with mosquitoes, bigger problems, then we can
help you with you. Yeah, and so we say not
walk them down. We go, Okay, here's the facts. This
is the fluid, this is the thing, this is the thing.
Go oh oh, well, then that means I got the
exact Oh, we'd like talk them down. It was always
talking people down off a ledge, sometimes literally, yeah, usually

(28:39):
just figuratively. But yeah.

Speaker 5 (28:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
And he had a whole thing of a class on
every possible There was the bomb threat class, there was
death and dying class.

Speaker 5 (28:50):
It was I mean, Bob, it must have been for
both of you.

Speaker 6 (28:53):
It must have been amazing because the pool of knowledge
on this is growing so rapidly exponentially.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
Yeah. So, I mean to know what you could say
or what you did say last week could totally change
this week, yeah, coon, or slight changes, subtle changes in.

Speaker 7 (29:16):
Well, we were hoping for changes, of course.

Speaker 5 (29:19):
I mean.

Speaker 7 (29:19):
The way the way I set it up was there
was a clipboard hanging by the door, and I would
do memos every day or every whenever I needed them,
and the rule of thumb was if you haven't read
the clipboard, you're not ready to answer the phone.

Speaker 5 (29:32):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
And it was a rule. Its like you come in,
did you read the clibbud and because sometimes you it's
a new thing. We're doing what now? And then also
his memos were really funny. Your April Fool's Day memos
on the clipboard epic, epic, but he would he would
do it was medical stuff, but there was always stuff
about people on the hotline. There was always something funny,

(29:53):
and the April Fools won with There were like fake
medical journal reports on completely bonkers things. So you gotta
have your gallows humor during.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well, you have to, otherwise you wouldn't survive that. You
wouldn't it.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
Something an arctic mouse, some arctic mouse or it was
it was just made knows it was. Yeah, you started
reading it when yes, this is very important and I
what the what?

Speaker 7 (30:19):
So pretty serious time. I had volunteers who would quit
the training to say, this has caused me to take
a long look at my life and is seriously interfering
with my quality of life. So I can't do that.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
You could make it how much they dropped it too often,
like our class or class, everybody remembers their class number.
I was class thirty two, and everyone who took the
training conditionally I was seven. And while they all know,
but people would drop out. There would be like thirty
of us, and they go, if fifteen are here at
the end, will be thrilled.

Speaker 5 (30:50):
Really so wow? So what so I'm sorry? What's the
What was the attrition rate?

Speaker 1 (30:56):
It was a lot, said say, because some classes more
than drop out.

Speaker 7 (31:02):
No, no, maybe maybe maybe Out of thirty people, four
or five wouldn't finish the training, okay, and then of
that number, two or three of them would only last
a couple of months on the highline.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah, and there were people who bailed day one. There
were people panicked.

Speaker 7 (31:16):
I had an intensive, extensive, let's say, interview procedure. First,
they had to sit down and talk for me for
a while together, like forty five applications, interview everyone, and
of those select the top thirty that I thought would
be able to handle.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
What wowow?

Speaker 1 (31:33):
And oh and I didn't get my interview with you.
I had an interview with the other guy, Tom Mosley,
who is one hundred times meaner than anybody there. He
gave me the mean guy.

Speaker 5 (31:45):
Well, how perfect you can handle the mean guy?

Speaker 1 (31:47):
It was perfect six six, I forget six.

Speaker 7 (31:52):
He was a dancer, and he was black and athletic.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Tall, black dancer, really nice guy with a two attitude
for days and literally took me to a room with
a light bulb hanging from the ceiling and shut the door,
like I was getting the third drinkers, WI are you here?
Why do you want to be on the like of
this close to I thought, I thought I've been arrested.
I was like and and interrogated me and apparently I passed,
and he's like, yeah, yeah, put her on a long

(32:18):
and Bob said, okay, she can come to class. She
got locked in a room with Tom Mosley lived.

Speaker 7 (32:23):
You may not know this, but he was you were
always one of his favorite.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yeah, well we loved him. We loved him, and yeah,
but he was a holy terror. And he was like, okay.
She she got locked in a closet with Mosley for
an hour. I guess she could do anything.

Speaker 6 (32:37):
What's yours? What was the trajectory of the AIDS hotline?
I mean, obviously there was a very huge window of
important significance and impact of this.

Speaker 5 (32:48):
What was the what was the tracking on the time
of this, because obviously you're not doing this now, right, No, no, yeah,
what was the timing?

Speaker 7 (32:56):
One? Well, when I started in eighty four, right, twenty
five volunteers taken about one hundred and forty calls a month.
When I left, we had one hundred and twenty five
volunteers taking four thousand calls a month.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Wow.

Speaker 7 (33:10):
Wow. And that was in ninety three. That was right
at the point where things were shifting to where you know,
you didn't have to go down the street to a
phone booth anymore. You had it in your.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Pocket, right right, right, right.

Speaker 7 (33:24):
Information wasn't shared by phone as much. There were computers,
there were a lot of other ways to get information.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
And things are also changing because now that it was
in the early nineties that the cocktail arrived and nothing
like that had existed before that could keep people eying
me definitely, and just everything kind of went and then
they started doing it became like eventually a hotline like online,
it's all online now if you do any other stuff
now the olden days.

Speaker 8 (33:52):
Yeah, So after doing all that, Bob stepping into you know,
stepping following Allison joining with Alison as she is entertaining
this Little House world?

Speaker 5 (34:04):
What's that like for you?

Speaker 3 (34:07):
And also did you know who she was? Did you
watch the Little House on Prairie? Did you have any
idea of who she was?

Speaker 7 (34:14):
I will confess when it was on, I didn't do
much watching of Little House on the Bridge. I would
click you had to click the dial back if you.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Had a remote. We did not even have a remote in.

Speaker 7 (34:31):
Anyway. Yeah, so I would be clicking along and I
would find a Little House on Prairie and go cute girls,
and then I pass and I'd go to, uh.

Speaker 6 (34:43):
You watch, Oh my wife Catherine was on black there
you know, yes, there you go.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
But yeah, he was not about it at all at all,
like little what?

Speaker 7 (34:55):
Yeah, so you know that when we get together, I'm
realizing I'm going to be immersed in this Little House
on the Prairie world, which which you know anyway?

Speaker 5 (35:04):
And what's the EMERGI what? What? What's the takeaway for you?

Speaker 3 (35:09):
And it also probably works in your favor that did
you that you did not watch a Little House in
the pair.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
Now, that's the thing. I had to make a point
of dating people who did not watch the show, because
they either were terrifying with me and didn't want to
go out with me, or they were really weird and
like wanted me to wear the Yeah yeah, yes, yes
I can't. And then okay, he got excited to meet
my mom because you're my mom all the cartoon voices

(35:35):
because he found out my mother was sweet poll purebred
underdog's girl friend and she had to come down to
the hotline and give him an autograph. But that's what
he cared about. But we were we were friends during
all this. It was right, it's when Harry met Sally.
It's the whole told when Harry met Sally.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
It's how long were you friends before you realized? It
was something more.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
About seven years?

Speaker 7 (36:00):
Yeah, we got married, what ninety nighty three three and
you came to the hotline in like eighty six.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Eighty six.

Speaker 5 (36:07):
Yeah, yeah, wow.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
We went. Our were friends that we were everywhere. We
were on panel, just go like okay, UCLA blah blah blah,
doctor so and so so and so Bob Scoon over
the hotline, Alison are So. That was like the panel.
So we were constantly around, but we were friends. And then, uh,
we didn't go on a date until March thirty, first
of nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
And then we that's wow then and then how soon
after were you married? After that?

Speaker 7 (36:35):
Okay?

Speaker 12 (36:36):
We uh went out on a date in March, moved
in together in June. J Jane June, yeah, yeah, wow,
got the marriage license in September.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
Barely got the marriage like it's game divorced and it's
the whole thing. And it was supposed to be. They said, oh,
it'll be done into September, like October second, and were
set the wedding for November, and so we said, well, never,
November is fine, and then it didn't show up. Oh god,
And it was so bad that the Reverend Steve Peters,
who did our wedding, said, well, I've been doing holy

(37:10):
unions because you remember there was no gay marriage that I
would do a holy I got the holy union paperwork
in my back pocket, so I can give you get
So I said, we're gonna have like a gay we're
gonna be gay marriage. And so he said, I get
the Holy Union in the back pocket if we have to,
if you don't have the paperwork yet. So then I
finally I just went downtown and I said, and they said,
oh no, of course, it's been done months ago. It's
been sitting in a drawer. No, you've been divorced for months.

(37:32):
It's fine, it's just it's been sitting in a draw
We didn't mail it, and I'm like, what is wrong
with you? And then they got it out and they
stamped it, so the ink is wet on the stamp
and I say it, thank you, Now, which way to
the marriage? That's amazing. They still ink on the divorce thing,
which shouldn't have been because it was. But yeah, so
it was hilarious. So that's how fast that was. And
then we got November. November six was wow. It was

(37:55):
like the.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
Woosh quick but not quick right, because it was seven
years of friendship.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
And then it was the I could have had a
V eight experience. We had gone through all these relationships
fins and then we finally go out and go, oh
my god, we're like idiots.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Why have we not?

Speaker 3 (38:11):
Yes, it never occurred. Was there ever a moment where
it even occurred to one of you?

Speaker 7 (38:18):
Like?

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Nothing, nothing, until all of a sudden boom.

Speaker 7 (38:23):
I almost went to her first wedding.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah I did.

Speaker 7 (38:27):
Oh yeah, this is my girlfriends so you know this
was Yeah, he.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Thought it was cute, but it wasn't like a thing,
but like, no, nothing, nothing, And.

Speaker 7 (38:38):
Time goes by and she's in the middle of a
divorce and I'm dumping my girlfriend because she was actually crazy.

Speaker 5 (38:47):
Well she was, she was actually crazy.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Not good, crazy bad crazy yeah, actually crazy.

Speaker 5 (38:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (38:56):
Well I'm lucky to get out alive.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
So one of the well, that's one of the games
we used to play when we first started going out.
We had a game we called Who's a Bigger Idiot?
Where we would tell the war stories from our relationships
gone wrong and things we believe that we had been
told by our exes that turned out to be massively
not true. You know how that is you.

Speaker 5 (39:16):
Talk about like what like what stuff.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
It was just like, okay, this is so dumby. He
once told me you believe that I did know.

Speaker 5 (39:25):
And you go, wait, wait, I gotta go it.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
She told me that. No, and you like tell each
other stupid things that towards the end when things get
really bad and your exes like lying to you and
doing terrible things when they lied to us, and that
we were so devoted an innocent that we attempted to
believe what they had said. And so we played a
game called Who's a bigger idiot, and that we weren't
going to have to do that anymore because we were

(39:50):
married to people who lie to us and do terrible things. Wow,
we've both had kind of been through it. Let's long
lives and had been through the mill and up and
under the bridge and over it.

Speaker 11 (40:04):
So we're like that all of those experiences and all
those people in your life are there to teach you
something about yourself so that you don't so that you
don't repeat same mistakes, so that you break certain patterns.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
So by the time you're at that place where everything
is good and solid, you attract the person you're supposed
to be attracting, right, Like you attract the person, But
it's a law of attraction. You tracked, you attrack, the
vibe attracts the tribe, right, So I think it's really
very You've learned what.

Speaker 5 (40:35):
You don't need around. You're right, that's what works.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Like It wasn't you know, young kids for romance. It
was two people who had already been through it and
been beaten with a shovel and and then are romantic
meeting slogging through it on the hotlines, talking about disease
and death all ding yeah, good times. But you know,
and then we had that some were party fundraisers for fun,
and so that's a hell of a way to like

(41:02):
come up to a relationship. So there's not a lot
of like illusions. Yeah right, And as we said, we
got all the small talk out of the way. I
guess we can get married.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
So yeah, totally. I remember when I was first dating
my husband, I had a slight panic, private panic moment
because it felt so grounded, like it felt so it
scared you. It scared me for a minute, Like I
legitimately had a moment of like, wait, do I actually
like him? Or do I just think I like him?
Because this is so normal and it feels so I

(41:35):
feel so at home that it didn't feel like any
of the other relationships I had been in, which were
you know, like the the high you know, those peaks
in the valleys, you know. This one was just so this.
Oh I had a moment of like, oh wait, what's
going on? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Well and oh and there were people who didn't think
we should get married, which is freaking hilarious it'll never work,
and which is funny because other relationshpeople were like, oh yes,
this is fine. And then it was like, oh, no,
you're rushing into things, Bob schoon over, what what are
you two doing to get? No?

Speaker 7 (42:09):
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Except for my father, of all people, Oh really, he
thought it was a great idea. He was like Charles
with Olmonzo. He was like, yeah, he talked about us
moving in together, and I said, we just started dating.
Good heavens, we haven't even been to the movies. And
my father said something like so take in a couple
of flicks. And then it's like why would we Some

(42:30):
like like he knew of certain people knew well, and
then other people were like I didn't get it.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
I don't know if you have this, I definitely have
this where I can I can intuitively sense when it's
the person or not right. I've had girlfriends that have
been dating and I intuitor who was like, no, they're
not and they thought they were the one and I
was like, he's not it, that's not it, that's not it,
and unbeknownst to them, and then the relationship wouldn't work
and they'd be devastated. And then the second it was

(42:57):
the right person, the first time I meet them, I'm like,
that's it, he's here, that's the guy and it's I
don't know, but your father obviously felt that.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
He totally, he totally knew. He's like, you know, because
they were moving. It's like you should move into the house.
I'm like, movement when not even moving into it? Well
yeah yeah, yeah, technicality, it was like so crazy. So yeah,
but people and then I mean when we first started
going out, let's okay, it was very perceval in Nelly.
It was a love match. And that's why there are
also people going, oh, this is your just on the rebound,
all this mad pass ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous. You can't

(43:29):
get married. And you know, thirty two years later, it's
great that.

Speaker 6 (43:33):
You've it's great that you found each other. You know,
for all of the Allison, you're such a presence in
our world and you have such this this enormous, expansive
personality that just sort of goes out and with force
and you know, and touches people. I always wonder, I

(43:57):
always wonder what it's like when the doors loads and.

Speaker 5 (44:02):
And the showdops. What is that like? Because you've got
to shut it down.

Speaker 13 (44:09):
Sometimes you have to take naps.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
I take naps. I can't I'm going to bed, like
I give up and go to bed, and he's like, fine,
I'll take the coach. I'll see you later. I mean
sometimes we just get exhausted and burn out.

Speaker 7 (44:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (44:26):
Yeah, you both you've done exceptionally well with each other.
I mean, Bob, you're involved in a project now that
is really going to transform the way people travel in
and out of Los Angeles. Just very quickly tell us
about that project, because anyone who comes to Los Angeles

(44:48):
is going to interface with this.

Speaker 7 (44:50):
Sure, everybody has seen my work. You know. I'm part
of a joint venture of several large I mean huge
construction companies, and we are building the automated people mover
at LAX, the whole system of trains and then trams
and things that get you in and out of the
airport in so you won't any longer have to drive

(45:13):
into that mess of an airport. You can pull up
at one of the places outside, take your luggage upstairs.
The tram comes by like every five or six minutes,
and that's just about to open.

Speaker 5 (45:25):
Is it really?

Speaker 7 (45:26):
So?

Speaker 6 (45:26):
I guess as I looked at all this, because you know,
as yes, since you've been going as all of us
have been going in and out of lax for years.
You see this thing growing. So now is it actually
functioning yet or testing? Or is it actually running now?

Speaker 7 (45:42):
Well, it's testing, okay, testing and running successfully. You know.
Of course, our new CEO of my personal company arrived
for a test drive and Tram decided not to work.

Speaker 5 (45:55):
Perfect, of course, perfect, okay.

Speaker 7 (45:59):
Oops. You know it's a billion dollar project and we've
been working on it forever.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
What's forever? What are we talking about?

Speaker 3 (46:08):
A decade since I've known you?

Speaker 5 (46:10):
Right, It's it been a decade.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
At least a decade. It's been a really long time.

Speaker 7 (46:16):
Yeah. It was supposed to have been done two years ago,
so I started working on it. I think, Oh jeez,
I hard to remember.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
It was you were already there a time when the
pandemic hit. So that's five years ago. Oh okay, and
you were already there a long time. And that was
so crazy because like, do you still have a job.
He's like, oh, I got declared an essential worker.

Speaker 7 (46:38):
I still have the memo I had to carry with
me to pro who I was essential?

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Yeah right, yeah, well.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
So yeah, no, ten fifteen years what were you what
were you doing? You were at BALPHABETI before that and
you got your many. Was that your fifteen twenty year pin?

Speaker 7 (46:54):
Just twenty five? I think twenty.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
Twenty year pin something somewhere, Yeah, forever.

Speaker 6 (47:01):
So, Bob, what do you actually do for this as
part of this project?

Speaker 5 (47:07):
But what is your job?

Speaker 7 (47:09):
I'm not telling you Yes, yes, right, I want to
kill all of you now.

Speaker 6 (47:17):
So my sense that it's always been your sort of
You're a problem solver, You're a think tanker, You're you're
you're figuring out how to do something that maybe hasn't
been done before.

Speaker 7 (47:27):
Well, I'm basically I'm the assistant to the regional director
of a billion dollar construction company who's on this project,
and I do a lot of things, payroll, submittals. As
the project was coming along, they sent me over to
help him out on the project, and my first assignment
was get samar with the project and see what's needed.

(47:50):
You know. So if they needed help with submittals, I
would do that. They needed help with payroll, I would
do that. Whatever needed to be done, I would do it.
And the thing I like about my work is I'm
not stuck doing the same thing every day. I had
to do payroll every day for the rest of my life.
I would just yeah nuts, you know, yeah, yeah, but

(48:11):
it's something new, and we're developing new systems now, there's
new pieces of software. I got to learn. It's it's
fun actually.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
And they like him and he gets like raises and stuff,
and you got a pan, you got a point.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Imagine that and stuff.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
It's hard to listen. It is hard for actors to
imagine what that's like to be like health insurance. I
get raises and you know I do health insurance.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Yeah yeah, ye, now you got You did get dragged
into this perty thing pretty hard. Okay, So yeah, I
made you watch an episode right before we went to.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
When did you first start borrowing?

Speaker 1 (48:48):
In ninety something when we did that first film festival
up and up in and it was all about the
Lord is My Shepherds. Okay, we're going a thing. Whole
cast going to be you should have seen an episode
or two of they're all going to be talking about
this one because here watch this one. And I sat
him down and said, this is Lord is my Shepherd

(49:10):
And what did you say?

Speaker 7 (49:12):
How do you people stay awake to film.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
The Wowow.

Speaker 5 (49:22):
You got a little ahead of it, Bob, I think.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
And then it's like there's other episodes. There's other episodes,
and then like you watch some of the funny ones,
some of.

Speaker 7 (49:30):
The very I've seen a lot of them.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Now them you like that was the one with the
lady fakes your death with Doctor Baker and everything.

Speaker 6 (49:39):
Oh yeah, if you should wake, if I should wait
before I die, or like that one lovely episode.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
I found it.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Interesting that the first that the first episode you showed
him was not a Nelly episode.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Well, I've got to get him ready for the thing.
And then Benny start watching Nelly episodes and that was
good because at one point I went turned and he looked,
and she seen that look, and I'd like, you understood?
And then who you like Nils and Doc Baker?

Speaker 7 (50:08):
Oh yeah, Nil and Doc Baker. She likes the guys,
and I got to meet him in person.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
So yeah, So curious though, what was your I mean,
when you first saw Alison then in these curls and
this horrible, horrible, villainous character, what what was your takeaway
from that? What did you think, Wow, she's a great actress,
obviously because she's not anywhere close to that in real life,
but did you understand the loure around her? After you

(50:37):
started watching these shows.

Speaker 7 (50:40):
Well, once I got into it and started watching them
and read some of the background and some of the books, yeah,
I kind of got it.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Then what happened when you called your parents to tell them?

Speaker 7 (50:50):
You? We just say, did he get married? So I thought, well,
do you know I've I was a avowed lifelong bachelor
to my parents, and you know, so it's time to
let them know. So I called home. My parents live
in Ohio, rural Ohio kind of So I called and

(51:12):
I get them on my phone. On the phone. They're
both on the phone. They haven't heard from me, and
so I said, well, I got some news for you guys. Okay,
well it's at Well I'm going to get married right away.
You can like hear my mom and the rosary beads
in the background, and you know, it was kind of cool.
She's calling the pulpits So then well that's not she nice? Yeah,

(51:35):
she's very nice. What does she do? She's an actress? Oh,
she's an actress. Has she been in anything we've seen?
I'm like, yeah, probably maybe, yeah. Oh really, Well, well
who did she play? She was Nellie Olsen in a
little house on the prairie, a pin drop complete utter

(52:02):
silence long time, and then my father finally said, uh,
she's not like she was on the show? Is she? Yes? Yes.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
They went from he's getting married, where is hello?

Speaker 7 (52:24):
Are you still there? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (52:31):
With you?

Speaker 3 (52:32):
Yeah, of course right, And then they met you and
they loved you and everything was good.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
And then then well they found out.

Speaker 7 (52:39):
It could cook.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
They came to the house and I made spaghetti and
meat balls and they went nuts.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
But like when your friends were meeting Alison at first,
when you were you know, first together, knew that you
were getting married? I mean, what how many people in
your circle knew of Allison? Or did not many? Because
you weren't in a circle that was watching Little Prairie.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
That helped.

Speaker 7 (53:01):
That's yeah. That my recollection is that not many did
They weren't. On occasion someone did. Yeah, there was some
very extreme reactions in some cases.

Speaker 5 (53:14):
I'm sure. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (53:16):
I went to one of my office Christmas parties some
of the work people. It was a a friend's office
Christmas party, and they invited us, so we went.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
That was that a Mexican restaurant? Yeah, oh, dear.

Speaker 7 (53:27):
And one of the receptionists that worked for the company
was a complete and total little house on the Prairie. Fan,
I did not know that you found out? Oh, she
lost her little mind, started screaming and running around in circles.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Do you remember let's make a deal when people go
nuts and jump up and down. She turned into that,
started screaming and jumping up and down and run like
a little little wind up doll that had lost it
to distance circles in the middle of this huge Mexican
restaurant with like hundreds of people going.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
And that girl was me. No, that would have been me.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
My Bob was like okay, and I'm like, what don't
we do? What don't we do? We just wait for
it to stop.

Speaker 7 (54:13):
No, they got security and they had they calmed her.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
They did, you have to stop, and she had. She
calmed down and eventually did sit down and have a
margarite and eat and she was okay. But uh, And
I was used to this sort of thing, and he
thought it was like funny. Now he has been great
with comebacks to like Cuckoo fan killer Shrimp. So we're
killer Shrimp and she st hanging at me. And as
we're leaving, I go to the ladies room and he's

(54:37):
waiting for the valet and what did that woman come
up and say?

Speaker 7 (54:40):
I was waiting for you get out of the restaurant.
And the waitress came up and said, do you know
who that is? And I'm like, no, who is it?

Speaker 1 (54:48):
We've been eating here, we've been there for two hours,
stuff in our faces, tripidly like we don't know who.

Speaker 7 (54:54):
And she's like for a little house on the pay around.
I'm like, oh no, really whoa on and on until
she came out of the restroom of course yeah, and
then she's.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Like, wait, you guys were like yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
But he would pull stunts like that. What was the
one he said I needed to come back with others?
Do you still speak to the other actors? No? I
didn't speak to them. Then why would I start? Now
I start like that and they still won't listen. They'd
like to start making that it was.

Speaker 7 (55:24):
They won't listen, just.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Like start making stuff up because yeah, of course he
was there. You know some of the famous autograph show
moments like when the woman said I forgive you.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Oh, you were there for that, right.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Next to me when that woman did that, And that's
when he's like, that actually did happen? Like we got
to bring the camera. You've seen it.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
You've seen it. We should take a quick, quick, quick break,
and then I want to talk very quickly about fan
experiences that you have been witnessed to. Okay, well, take
a quick break and we'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
The Little House on the Prairie fiftieth Anniversary Podcast is
presented in part by visit Seeneye Valley dot com. In
the movie and television capital of the World, seem Valley
is the television home of the og Little House on
the Prairie television series, and people come to Seeney Valley
from all over the world to feel the Little House love.

(56:16):
Seemy Valley is the home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library,
celebrating the legacy of an Iconiccamerican who embodied the can
do spirit of California. Visit Seeye Valley a warm, friendly
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and affordable. Seeey Valley is a great place to live

(56:37):
and a great place to start your next California adventure.
Seemy Valley is Hometown America in the Los Angeles Basin.
For more information about your Semi Valley visit, go to
visit Seeneye Valley dot com.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
All right, all right, we're back. He's been there forever.
You must have seen, yes, all of it. Are there
any standout moments for you in the Prairie fandom universe
that that you will never forget?

Speaker 7 (57:14):
Well, now, we'd mentioned being in Swallow Me up there,
and they were doing the autographs up there, and oh
my god, I noticed there was one young woman at
the end of the line and we knew they were
going to cut the line off and weren't going to
get to everyone lunch. Once they did, she had a
complete meltdown. She broke down in tears, was sobbing in

(57:36):
the corner. So I got hold of her and I said,
come with me. She just come with me, and we
snuck around to find out where everyone was having lunch,
and I took her in.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
So she wow because she was just shaking and crying.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
It was so that was the week and you learn, Yeah,
you started bringing Kleenex and he was calming people down
and making sure Kleenex was on the table because we
had so many criers that weekend and people were shaking,
and so he's like contents.

Speaker 7 (58:04):
One time in Walnut Grove there was a stalkers who
uh wanted to get on the bus and talk to Nellie, but.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
He was gonna get the bust with us.

Speaker 7 (58:13):
He couldn't get through the door and I was the door.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
But also you were so funny about it. What did
you say? He was so intent because this guy, okay,
he was just over enthusiast. Turned out he wasn't a
murder or anything. He had some box he needed a
little box autograph for his daughter, and he just had
lost his tiny little mind. And we give was time
to go to lunch, and so we all got on
the bus and he said, ah, he'd been creeping around.
We're like, who is this guy? Why is he being

(58:38):
so aware? And then he just ran He just like
threw him ran at that bus and security was they thought, well,
there we're done the bus. Everyone's fine, and they'd started
to walk away. So the guys and you suits are going,
oh my god, what is happening? And I see them
all start to book, but it's too late because this
guy is right there and he is hitting that door

(58:58):
and everything and Bob stead door Writney actually looks at
him and says, as if speaking to a small dog, no.

Speaker 5 (59:10):
Stoped that's great, Bob.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
No yeh. Note to fans everywhere, please don't be jogging.
Don't stop. Bob is gonna be there to stop you.
Every time came, they.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
Calmed him down and we got him sort of just
go for this simple solution.

Speaker 7 (59:28):
Like one time we were driving home between airport flights
out post and we noticed that there was a car
with the engine running and rag stuffed in the windows
and a hose running from the tailpipe into the car.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
And we realized, to our horror, someone was indeed trying to.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
Take care of my life right in front of us.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
So we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, back up, back up.
So we're like, oh my god, oh my god. Nine
to one one. So yeah, we're calling the cops together.
What do we do? What do we do?

Speaker 7 (59:55):
I get out of the car with the flashlight. The
first thing I do is I take the hose out.

Speaker 5 (01:00:00):
Out of the window.

Speaker 6 (01:00:01):
Yeah, just out of the rights.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
And it was great. So the cops are like, is
she in a garage. No, they're not in a garage.
They're on the street, on the street. Oh my god,
can you break the wind? Could you break the window?

Speaker 13 (01:00:15):
Us?

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
And I break the window. I just took the hose
out of the pipe. What are you talking about? Break
the window? She's fine, And so we interrupted the whole
thing and the police came, and as far as I know,
she may still be with us, but boy, she she's
sure is survived that night, whether she wanted to or not,
we weren't having it. But yeah, he didn't break a window.

(01:00:36):
He didn't yell, he didn't scream we're calling the police
and the paramedics. He just went, you're living tonight.

Speaker 5 (01:00:45):
Take the drama away. And that's you, Bob, that's you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
That's the technique. That's the technique.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
So has the has the fandom? I mean, I know
you're used to it now, this is not the first
time at the radio but at the rodeo. But at first,
were you really surprised by the intensity of the fandom, Like,
especially for someone who had never watched the show before, Like,
this was not you, This was not in your scope,
in your worldview at all.

Speaker 7 (01:01:14):
Yeah, And it's not like something like I don't get
nuts over people out of their actors. I enjoy their work,
but I don't go nuts.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Wasn't going to comic book cons or, right.

Speaker 7 (01:01:27):
I was quite startled at the intensity of a lot
of people, people in the lions who would be crying
and the people in the lines who would be shaking.
To actually be able to touch someone, it was amazing.
But after a few autograph shows, I got used to that.
You know, Yeah, we go to things. You know, when

(01:01:50):
we first started going to these autograph shows, there wasn't
much enthusiasm. There were the Raycord shows to sit there
and sign a few autographs.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
But we used to have lulls. You had a moment,
a break, right.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
So over the over the years it's intensified. It has
not done.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
In the nineties. Uh, even Comic Con wasn't Comic Con yet,
and things were not as they are, and there weren't
half these autograph disease. It wasn't a thing, and people
were very so much so we go to the the
Beverly Garland and you'd hang out and you talk to
your friends and you have a flurry of activity, and
then you kind of hang out and you go get
a sandwich, and it was like what and the idea

(01:02:30):
of being mobbed didn't really And then it started to escalate,
and then around the fortieth things started to get nutty.
And then they just.

Speaker 13 (01:02:39):
Is that the d decent was around the forty So
do you think that it was remastered in twenty fourteen
because they were Indeed.

Speaker 5 (01:02:50):
That the first one.

Speaker 6 (01:02:51):
I did bonus content for one that came out in
two thousand and six.

Speaker 5 (01:02:55):
Yes, I did covered, I did all that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
I'm a vision the French. Yeah, and there was there
was some irvy DVDs in a lot of the caps.
In the nineties, I started getting recognized more as that,
and then it started and as we got into the
forfeit then at some point everybody just lost their damn mind.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
When do you think that what I mean DN two, Like,
when do you think the notch up happened? In terms
of the intensity of the fandom?

Speaker 6 (01:03:23):
I think I think the fortieth anniversary, because what.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Did we do with the thirtieth Nothing, There's no thirty
three years Like.

Speaker 5 (01:03:31):
Fortieth was a real turning on this at Walnut.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Grove Big we did the Waldgrove because.

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):
I have a picture that you did the Today Show.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
I had that photo that crazy Frederick touch. It's so
gorgeous as French guy took and where I came out
the door and I'm doing this, I'm like Mussolini or something,
and they did. They went they went crazy, and we
were like, WHOA, what is going on? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
So was that a total surprise to you guys? I
just like, WHOA, what is happening? Were you aware of?
Like something is happening.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Something was in the air, something was in the air,
something was happening. Thing more people recognize escalating and then
everything just kind of went blue e.

Speaker 5 (01:04:08):
Yeah. Yeah, it has been. It has been a remarkable ride.

Speaker 6 (01:04:14):
I mean, Allison, you've been You've been with it, you know,
right from the very beginnings of all of that.

Speaker 5 (01:04:24):
I've said this for years. You have been the welcome
wagon on this and you have or Bob.

Speaker 6 (01:04:30):
You either enrolled yourself or you were enrolled to be
you know, to create this newsletter and to throw.

Speaker 5 (01:04:40):
That awareness that way. You really have been a wonderful
team on this.

Speaker 7 (01:04:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
The first thing he did that was dreadfully clever was
heading out on our pictures. She said, yeah, you know,
we should put something on the back of the photo,
because then how do people reach you? And phone numbers
or a little stick or just use just an address label,
but make a thing blah blah website blah blah, phone
number blah, blah, where to get that fan mail? Well agent, yeah, whatever,

(01:05:09):
but contact some kind of contact info, where to write,
where to get old and stick that stickering the photos
is still a ritual where he must stick her the
photos and put the sticker on the back. And it
worked because there was somebody wanted to get in touch
with me for like an independent film. He said, I
was at somebody's house at a cocktail party and they
had the little Nelly on the fridge and I said, wow,
I want to meet her. I said, oh, we heard

(01:05:29):
Info's on the back, so totally. But he invented the
pocket Nelly. Why did you invent the pocket Nelly?

Speaker 7 (01:05:35):
Oh? We would be standing in line to go somewhere
and someone recognize her and she would end up signing
a wet cocktail napkins just falling apart, you know. So
I thought if I had something I could put in
the pocket of my jacket, it would be great. So
we picked the most horrendous face she ever made.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
That one.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
That's the one one one that's on the toe back
that everybody wants and just.

Speaker 5 (01:05:58):
A little chronic look it's just fits.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
In that one or whatever that just got on it. Yes,
small enough sticker information back. And also we were getting
for some reason everyone's emailing. They were mailing and let
us small over the world. The Germans would send really
small return self as ovelops. Why I do not know.

Speaker 5 (01:06:21):
But this fit, this.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Fit, wouldn't you put fit sennim and eight by ten?
Let's she used your own envelope, but this this would fit.
So it fit in the tiny envelope and it fitness pocket.
So no matter where we were in line in the movie,
wherever where you didn't have anything with you nothing.

Speaker 7 (01:06:36):
So each photo starts with two stickers, one about getting
in touch with her, one about getting the newsletter. It's
a blank space in the middle. And if there's an
event she's going to go to do, we make up
special stickers and sticker a bunch of them and she
can go out a night or two before the gig
and pass them out to the.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Stand up shows. We'd get a whole batch of them,
and he'd run off a sticker that would say eight
thirty at the Red Room blah blah blah the address
and where to get tickets and slap that and then
I go out to the bars like the night before
the show, and so I not aggress for people with
the ticket.

Speaker 5 (01:07:09):
Information, you too have really yeah, you've really made this.

Speaker 6 (01:07:17):
You've organized it in a way that is that you've
generated an audience. And the two of you, I mean
the two of you have been hugely responsible for or
enormously helpful at the very least in making it possible
for all of us to be out there.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And you said
this month was a little short, and it's seven pages
the newsletter, and he said it's a little light.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
Before Yeah, before we go, two things. Tell us about
the newsletter and how people can get on it, and
then we told this story at the very practically be
practically beginning of when we started the podcast. But we
need to recap the story of Bob get the wig.
So yes, So first talk, tell us about the newsletter

(01:08:08):
and how do you get on the newsletter? How do
you get the newsletter?

Speaker 7 (01:08:13):
Well, send us an email or a Facebook message or
something saying I want the Nelly newsletters address.

Speaker 5 (01:08:20):
And what email are they sending it to?

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Oh, at this point all of them but.

Speaker 7 (01:08:26):
Loose Facebook pages travel at aol dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Allison Argram, Yeah, yeah, gravel. It was the easiest. And
then yeah, there's three of them, and all of them
will get it eventually. But if you tell us and
you give us your email address.

Speaker 7 (01:08:43):
And then I will add you to the list, and
you will get one of these once a month, and
no more than once a month, except on Christmas Eve.
It's a special message. So there you go. I never
know what I'm doing on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
You'll know, yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
And we include prairie tids, we include everything about the
cast to think days over here in Dean's doing this.
We plug everybody's stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:09:12):
Fantastic, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
So we were the fiftieth anniversary, tell us the story,
the Genesis story.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
It was all over with Sunday and we're all freaking today,
and we moved in Wednesday night.

Speaker 7 (01:09:29):
Or thursdayiculous thousands of people, and she would have to
go do things, and I would have to entertain this
unruly crowd as they wanted to get her autographed, but
she wasn't even there, yep. So I would entertain them,
and we would have to find it was, and then
we would go home to the little hotel room and

(01:09:51):
then restock, restack, reorganize all the photos and stuff to
go back to it the.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Next day, some Chinese food, pass out, get out.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
It was the craziest three days of my life. Yes,
for sure.

Speaker 7 (01:10:03):
Who was there and.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
We were there. Oh so then the whole thing where
Jonathan shows up and that all hell breaks lots right,
So end of the end of the end of the
end of the day, we've loaded the car. There's almost
not room for me to sit.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
I was there. I was next to you guys when
this was happening. I was next to you.

Speaker 7 (01:10:20):
Yes, we were ready to go.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
I was there.

Speaker 7 (01:10:24):
Let's go back and say goodbye, and were.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Said by to Olan and everybody, that whole gang were
there wrapping up, and we went. We walk in and
the lights are low and everyone's being really weird and quiet,
and what's going on? They win?

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):
It's Jonathan.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
Jonathan is changing, I said, changing into weast. What are
you talking about?

Speaker 7 (01:10:47):
A butterfly?

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
And Lord help me god, if Jonathan Gilbert doesn't come
out around the corner in full full Willie Olsen get
up and I mean he's all drink of water. Yeah,
a big ground and he somehow gone and found the
red check shirt. He's got pants that only go to
his knees and the little socks, the little socks of
the garters. He's the whole thing down to the shoes.

(01:11:10):
It's insane. He's got a hat and his long hair
flopping everywhere, and he's in Willie dress and we gasp,
and he starts taking pictures in the mercantile. Oh my god,
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
And I realized one.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Thing to do what I said, Bob, get the wig.

Speaker 9 (01:11:29):
And I'm kind of like, oh man, yeah, I could be.
It's in the bottom of everything in the truck. Went out,
and then she again says, Bob, we.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Must, we must, we must get the wig. And you
went to the car and I went to the car, and.

Speaker 5 (01:11:49):
We'd just been giving them.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
It's not my regular this was a gift that we
were Grgis at the weekend with the biggest boat in
the world and the girls and the curls, and it's
all there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
Oh my god, that is insane exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
And because we were just being given this enormous insane
with a lot of pitts, you know, I'm putting it
on hand. There it is, and there we are. There
we go, Yeah, you are not putting this on no,
And so then I said, okay, and I did this,
and then I simply walked on over into the mercantile

(01:12:26):
where Jonathan was in Willie Drag. And we had not
discussed this. I did not know he was going to
do that, and we still didn't. I marched up in
this and I just stood there and he went. And
then we got next to each other at the mercantile
and I picked up peppermint stick and he went and
he picked up a pepmint stick, and we started vamping
and taking pictures, and then we picked up the ledger

(01:12:47):
and he went yes, and we looked at Linder. He said,
our parents have left us the store. We've lefted lott
Of and we just went into the freaking zone of
this thing. And then we went over to the schoolhouse. Again,
no words were spoken. We'd look at each other, he'd
hand me book, we'd nod, and we just did this insane, psychic,
weirdo performance and got the best pictures ever. And this this,
this is the wig that Bob went and got, and

(01:13:10):
it's become a thing. Bob.

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
Now I was. I was in the parking lot also
about to go home. And when I say we were exhausted,
we were exhaxhaust exhaustion. And Jonathan is next to me,
his car is next to me, and he's rummaging through
his trunk. I'm like, what what is he What is
he doing? And he pulls out the output and I

(01:13:34):
was like, oh, he's he's going cosplay right now. And
I was like, yes, I'm turning back and going inside.
I was like, damn it. And it was worth it. It
was just incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
It was insane. And after that day get the wake.
Yeah it stuck.

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
It suck catchphrase. Ever's just it encapsulates the fandom, the
excitement of it. It just it's just perfect. It's perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
You need a shirt? What color?

Speaker 7 (01:14:12):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:14:13):
We need to Yeah, we need to get you a shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
You have one?

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
Come on, come on.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
We'll get a shirt. Do we have black with like white?

Speaker 7 (01:14:23):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
No we do, Yes, we'll hook you up. I know
I know a guy who knows the guy.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Okay, Bob does not have.

Speaker 3 (01:14:34):
Yeah, no, you need the shirt. And then you need
to wear the shirt when you go to your events
with with Allison.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
That's just they say so meta.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):
And have you noticed the fandom now recognizing you, Bob
because of the catchphrase and the and the podcast and
everyone knows how much you help Alison and I mean
you're so much a part of this now.

Speaker 7 (01:14:56):
Yes, I mean people come up and go, are you Bob,
I get your newsletter? Yeah, they do that. They tell
me to get the wig a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:15:08):
I love it. Oh my god, it makes me so happy.
How does it make you feel? Are you glad about that?
Or is it weird for you?

Speaker 7 (01:15:17):
Well, it's it's odd that people are asking me to
sign autographs. Even when I was in a band, it
felt odd they wouldn't make sign things. Yeah, but this
is it's even odder.

Speaker 3 (01:15:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:15:29):
But I guess now that you know the newsletters, that's
not just a little five minute toss it off there.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:15:37):
I mean there's research that goes in because nobody sends
me info and and I find stuff and yeah, it's fun.
It's a labor of love. Then I have to write
the sock monkey story, yes, and that's always fun.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
And he just started that as this stream of consciousness
thing about secret Asian sock monkey. It just came to
him one day. I am write to no, it's my monkey.
But he just started making this.

Speaker 3 (01:16:03):
And people love it. At the December event and seeing
people were talking about sock Monkey, I mean, people love
this so you've you've tapped into the Nelly fandom quite well, Bob.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
And you've never, i mean, the only time you've denied
certain things when like somebody tried to call you like
mister Nelly alson kind of thing. Yeah, Oh what was
it at work when somebody said, are you the Prairie guy?

Speaker 3 (01:16:25):
Oh god, yeah, no, you have your boundaries? My god.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
Right, somebody who had just heard about it called hey, hey,
are you the Prairie God?

Speaker 7 (01:16:37):
Someone called me mister Well, that time you earned it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
That was the night you had it coming. That was
it was at summer party. Would doing the thing and
breakdown of the stuff after an event, as we well know,
is the big pain in the butt right now. So
it was summer party and it was everything with all
the sound equipment, all the stone and three o'clock in
the morning on the back lot of the tearing all
this down. And we were promised volunteers every We were
always told, oh yeah, we're sending over these four big

(01:17:02):
guys and then they never show up. But we always
wound up having to him winding up on a ladder
doing everything. And so he said, you swore and have
people tonight, and they said, yeah, yes, so he finally
just I can't take it anymore, and he snatched up
the walkie talking and got on the channel like all
channel guy said listen, I need volunteers over here at
the Comedy States like now, and there was a long silence,

(01:17:23):
and then it was Joe Joe Joe America came on
attention to everyone, would someone please go assist mister Nellie
Olsen at the Comedy State and even at the TI
It Yeah, yeah, I deserve that, but yeah, sometimes it's weird.
I mean the prairie thing he's had to explain to
people was, oh the weird reporter.

Speaker 7 (01:17:45):
I was interviewed once. Yea, well tell me what role
do you play in Nelly's life? And I said, uh, none, actually,
but I I do play role in Allison's life.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
Yeah, and that prairie got he said, yeah, if you mean,
am I the person who is married to the actress
who is on Little House in the Prayer? Yes, you
are correct. This does not, however, make me the prairie guy.

Speaker 5 (01:18:08):
Yeah, that.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
Literally the prairie prairie man.

Speaker 5 (01:18:15):
But well that's yes, Michael's the ultimate prairie man.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
But yeah, yeah, he has set boundaries. If someone calls
him mister Nellie Olsen or the Prairie guys, like kind
of draws the line there that you know, he has
a name and the life, but he's he's used to
he's become accustomed just about damn he or anything.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
Yeah, I bet, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:18:39):
This is uh, this has been a full, rich conversation,
as is our normal practice.

Speaker 5 (01:18:46):
Talk about this as being like forty five minutes.

Speaker 6 (01:18:49):
It's now an hour and sixty.

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
Sorry, Well, let's thank you, Bob, thank you so much
for doing this. I know you're oftentimes resistant to wanting
to be the center of attention, but we thank you
so much. The fans, honest to God, have been asking
for you since practically day one. You are a very
special person our lives, so we appreciate you so much.

Speaker 6 (01:19:16):
Keep reading that newsletter, you know, newsletter there you go,
especially on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 5 (01:19:24):
Yeah, I think I think Pamela may be frozen.

Speaker 6 (01:19:28):
Sorry, okay, so I hear you now.

Speaker 5 (01:19:33):
But your your pictures pros.

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
All right, and I know my I know my wife.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
You are you're very pcerge.

Speaker 3 (01:19:38):
All right, am I back.

Speaker 5 (01:19:42):
You are?

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
Sorry it's being strange ones, all right now I'm back.
All right, I'm back and I'm going to leave everybody
now here. We go. Listen, guys, thank you for being
with us. Thank you for being with us. Check us
out on Little House fifty podcast dot com, Little House
fifty Podcasts. In our socials. We will get it and
everything up and running. Get the Nelly news letter. It's

(01:20:04):
fabulous and fantastic and ready, Bob, We're gonna say it
unless you want to say it. Do you want to
say it already?

Speaker 1 (01:20:12):
Do you want to say it?

Speaker 5 (01:20:14):
I think Allison, you should say it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
I say it. We'll do as it happened. Are you ready, Bob?

Speaker 5 (01:20:21):
Get the wig?

Speaker 3 (01:20:24):
So serious, that's why everybody this time, the intensity, the in.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
Fly fly, he flew.

Speaker 3 (01:20:37):
He's fine. I'm so seriou

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“Bob, Get the Wig!” — The Man Behind the Legend

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}“Bob, Get the Wig!” — The Man Behind the Legend