June 8, 2025 • 67 mins
Friend of the pod Cam Clarke returns to Toon'd In to chat with Jim about his life with the King family and his new autobiography, Now They're All Here. Stay Toon'd to the end for a new edition of the Voice Swap!
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Support on Patreon: patreon.com/jimcummingspodcast
Order a Cameo from Jim: cameo.com/toondinjimcummings
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're a fan of everything we do here at
tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as early
in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, so go ahead and
join the tuned In family today at patreon dot com
(00:21):
slash Jim Cummings Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Do it now? How you doing out there? It's me Tigger,
I am Doc Wayne Duck. It's me Bunkers Deep Bobcat.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
All right, y'all? Did is it rate your favorite firefly
you desire?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Hondo, old knock Gud.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
My name is Jim Cummings and welcome to tuned In.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Tuned In with
Jim Cummings. We have a really good episode coming up
for you today. Our guest is none other than Cam Clark.
How are you doing today, sir?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Cam Clark is here?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
How did you get him? It was very difficult.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Here's a real yeah. Yeah, don't look him in the eyes. Okaya?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Hi up there ceiling where no one is.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Good to see you, buddy, Hey, Jimbo, how about that?
Who good to be with you?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Again, who better than us?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Says I say, I as well.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, you know, Uh, it didn't take much figuring out.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
But I have known you. Uh, you're you and I
are tied. Well, how am I? I'm putting this in correctly,
aren't I?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
For most?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
For for most longest knowedge? So you know, we took
the first thing I ever did in this area of
the business other than play drums or sing somewhere.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Uh in a strip joint in New Orleans?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Was you were? You were? You were in the strip joint?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Actually, you were in the Sue Blue and Andre Romano's
voiceover acting class.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And we met there.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
And you were this weird guy who always has and
I don't have today, So what is that about?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I feel naked?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But uh but but I left him at home, so
you're safe. But yeah, I mean you you are like
the first guy that I ever met in showbiz.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And you still stayed in the industry. And this is
the kind of people I'm going.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
To have to work with.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yes, and fortunately we worked a great deal together. Yes,
and we were even brothers. Can you name that series
where Cam and Jim were brothers?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And yes, I was the older.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
One then too, do do do do do do do
the California Raisins.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And I don't know if we touched on this on
our last interview, yes, but we were both fired.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Really you don't recall this. I'm sure I blocked it out.
It was a tragic moment in my history.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
There was a right because the music was motown.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Right, I do, I know what you're talking?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
What are these white dudes? And like, people went, well, ray,
if you want to be technical, Raisin started out green
and they end up purple or it's.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
So they dropped us, but they allowed us to re audition.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yes with viames.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, we use numbers.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
We use numbers.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
That's right with I forgot sw of new people. Yeah
and he still.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, we still we still made it. I remember sitting
on the couch and have studio. Yes, And then I
went to a studio. Uh and and I was sitting there,
just sitting there waiting, and I looked in the student
nobody was there.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Nobody was there.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Nobody was but there was a lady sitting on the
couch and and down at the other end and her
phone rang. She goes, yeah, Hi, No, no he's not here.
I don't know where I don't know where he is.
All right, all right, well i'll let you know.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
God, what is DomU? He's gonna get her? And I went,
do you say Jim Cummings.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
She goes, oh, yeah, Oh well I'm Jim coming.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
She goes, You're the nice black man on the tape.
And I went, oh, I've not.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Heard that, Jim.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Isn't that great? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
And I said, yeah, yeah, I've been out of the
sun for a while.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I don't know what do you say to that?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
What you I mean, you remember?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
But the idea danced?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
What did you do? It was?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I think it was for the Raisins?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Well, yeah, nobody. I mean, how did you did you say? Yes? Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Well you said I can't res Yeah, she said yeah.
She said I don't know when Jim coming. He's going
to get here.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
And I go, well, he's he's me If that helps,
because I'm you're sitting.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
But the same year as.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
As we are here, he goes, you're the nice black
man on the tape.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Like sure, why not? I thought I was. I thought
I was a raish, I thought I was purple.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
But but here we are, at this age I bruised
very easily.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Now, Yes, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I gave blood yesterday and I have I have a
blood blister becoming purple.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
That could be the name of my autobiography. If I
didn't already.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Have, I was gonna say, wait a minute, did you
say autobiography.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And a biography about a car? No? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Is that? Is that? What it was?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
For those of you who don't know, Cam is show
business royalty. He is comes from.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
A that's a dynasty family. That's why.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
That's right, That's why I'm looking over here at the
coffee machine. But it's true, and why it just so happens.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
We have them.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
But wait, hold on there this little bella hooter the
baby cam.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Look at that? Stupid How about that, folks? Very cool?
How cool is that to be able to write a
book about your family? See?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I did that too, and they went no, no.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Go away, stop.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
And this isn't your first time writing a book, right,
you've written books before?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Uh? I before voiceovers? What I was planning on pursuing.
I wanted to be an illustrator of children's books, an author.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Wow, I did that.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yeah, I did a one, and like cartoons as well,
not like comic book. But I had a book in
the eighties came out that did rather well called how
to Be a Total Californian And it was an eighties
kind of not as quirky as Gary Larson, but it did.
(06:49):
Oh that's you know one liners.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
With like you got the word total in there too, Yeah,
almost very close to.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Totally yeah, totally got to be a total California tots
And but as far as book book, no, this is
my first like that. But I had a line of
greeting cards.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
And nice, nice, So what was the motivation for this book?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Wow, vanity, I'll explain that. Uh. There was a coffee
table book not unlike this coffee table size that came
out about Bob Mackie. And for those of you who
don't know who that is, he is probably the most
prolific successful Hollywood costume designers, share Carol Burnett, Diana Ross,
(07:42):
the whole run of the series, that famous costume of
hers as Scarlett O'Hara with wearing the curtain rod. As
you know, I made this outfit out of drapes. This
was his idea. We were his first series he'd been
assistant on, I think like Judy gar Carland's series some
other stuff as you know, second in command. We were
(08:05):
his first and this coffee table book came out about
him and we had a page and that's not an
eagle thing. I mean, Share and Carol Burnett are kind
of bigger than we are, right, And we had a page.
The fellow, the person that wrote it, said a joke
(08:26):
about us, that my fragile eagle. Wow, that's freud, my
fragile eagle.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
How is the old egle?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
My fragile ego took offense to it, talked about how
we went on the air and you know, the zeitgeist
of white America, end of Camelot blah blah blah, and
they ended up paraphrasing but but they ended up in
(08:59):
the unemployment line, as in never to be heard of again.
And I took fans, but I went, but look how
cool we look in a fancy, fancy color book. Yes,
And I went, I don't think so. And I started
(09:20):
out thinking it was just I was gonna, for history's sake,
was going to put something together for my family and
maybe you know big fans shutterfly thing, Well that grew
into this and four years a lot of growth in
(09:44):
the making. Yeah, yes, steroids really autobiography.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Four years and.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I had read a book on Truman Capodi by George Plimpton,
who is one of my favorite authors, and in the
beginning of it he said, if you're looking for a
straight up biography of Capodi, I recommend, and then he
lists these other books and their authors like, go over
there this one. There is no narrator. I have just
(10:14):
compiled and done interviews with people from his life and
it is chronological. So he says, imagine yourself at a
cocktail party, drifting from conversation to conversation. So I went,
(10:35):
I love that. So imagine yourself at a Fourth of
July picnic and you're drifting from picnic table to picnic table. So,
as the subtitle on this is, and I have to
look it up, over one hundred years of entertainment from
America's first family of song.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
One hundred years.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
We started whole nineteen twenty five for one hundred Wow
in Vaudeville. So the book itself is all first person. Fortunately,
the moms, the King's sisters, who were famous singing group
on their own right, which is why we even exist, right.
They did diaries, they did journals, so it's a century
(11:21):
of first person.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Anybody else can say that?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Is there anybody else that can make what statement you
just made?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You have the barymours, but they're not still right. Well
I guess well, no Drew is working. But this book
is I me, we like, I don't speak until the
nineteen sixties because I wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
You weren't born. So this is I'll do it every time.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and as it is, and then
it goes on. I'm the last one of having had
a step so a career, which they're chapters on those
that have, which is still going going on in animation
and video games. So you start with vaudeville, you go
to radio, you go to a big band, you go
(12:14):
to jazz, you go to television. You got your sci
fi motion pictures. Well, that's right, that's right, doctor sitcoms
with my cousin Tina Cole. Alvin O. Ray was one
of the Granddaddy's invented the slide guitar.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Right, yeah, tell does everybody know who that guy is
because he's pretty damn cool.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
He is. I mean he's in the museum as Mount
Rushmore of guitarists.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
How about that.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
He worked with Fender directly trying to, you know, reorganize
and make In fact, he had.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
To as in every guitar player you have ever seen
amplifier fender by the way.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yes, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
And in fact, she didn't know.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
When they would on our show, when on The King
Family Show, when they would reel in his slide guitar,
he had a joke. I didn't get it as a kid,
but and if you've never seen a slide guitar, says,
it's a contraption.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And he said, this joke really cool.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I started building this in high school. Started out as
a sugar scoop, which is a little metal thing that
you've built in metal shop to get sugar Da da da. Anyway,
I didn't get the reference, but if you see a
slide guitar, it is a piece of work. And he
(13:37):
had part of his act on the radio and live
was he had a character named Stringy who he would
use the slide guitar and I still don't know the
mechanics you might as a musician. His wife would be backstage,
who was part of the band Louise Aunt Louise King's sister.
(14:00):
She would wear something called a Sono vox and through
the sliding it would talk because he is going like
this backstage, and like he did.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
He had a bit This sounds like sorcery to me.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, kill that phone, yeah sorry, out damn phone.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah sorry.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And so he had a bit called Babysitter Blues that
he did with the guitar with the slide guitar. And
he had to babysit the slide guitar. So he's using
the the that metal sliding thing. I don't know what
that's called.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Oh, the metal slide. They make them in glass too,
Oh do they they do?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well? He would use that and he'd talk to his guitar,
and the guitar would say, I want my mama. And
he did this comedy almost like Edgar Bergen right with
Charlie McCarthy, except he wasn't. His wife was backstage wearing
this thing. And it's a bit he had in the
(15:14):
act since the thirties.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Wow, yeah, that sounds the fact.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I should probably post a bit of alvino.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Are you wearing one right now?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I see you clutching the pearls, So I don't know
what's going on here.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
They make them invisible.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Now, oh okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Anyway, so Alvino was an inventor. My uncle Jim, who
has a Step Out chapter, founded the Grammy Awards, founded
he founded Warner's Records. And that's not bad, not bad, right,
And so the King sisters were asked to do a benefit,
(16:01):
a fundraiser, and my aunt Vonn said, here's a wacky idea.
Why don't we bring the let's just toss the kids
into the act, just for shits and giggles.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Wow, and how did that work out?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Well, I'll tell you, please, my good man. Back in
the fifties, maybe the forties as well, a lot of
the children in recordings were just like the kids of
the celebrities. And when they needed kids on albums, you know,
(16:45):
you call in these particular kids. So my older cousins
were already in the recording business in a fashion like
for those of you who are into your mid century
albums and such. My cousins and others were with Doris
Day on k Sarah Frank Sinatra's High Hopes, which has
(17:09):
a children's choiet. Okay, you've got High Up Boompie and
the by Hopes, And so they are the kids for that.
So Uncle Jim would come home from the office and
go hey, girls, we have a session Friday night with
(17:31):
text Ritter with Doris Day And like Jamie, as I
mentioned earlier, I said that this is all first person.
So each one of my cousins also tells when they
joined the history of entertainment. They speak not again, not
me and my cousin Jamie. She tells a story how Dad,
(17:56):
I have a school dance Friday night. I don't want
I don't want to go and be famous and go
see him make money. Wait a minute, and he would
literally go, oh okay. And of course she jokes about
seriously self what.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, no kidding, and my cousin zan and give up
show biz? Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And she has these wonderful memories of being a kid
with these performers and behind the scenes things of who
had to have every note plunked out and who was
great with kids, like she said, Glenn Campbell, who was
part of the wrecking Crew.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's right, very famous.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And the wrecking crew was the group back Capital or
did they travel?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I don't know, but you should tell people who the
wrecking crew was.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Helped me out here. The record crew was like.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Blaine the drummer, and then oh god, Tony I spec
the guitar player you got me played.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
On every beach. They were the beach boys. Yeah, but
they were everybody started with more of the some of.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
The older stars. It started in the city. Well, yeah,
you're right. But in the sixties, of course, Doris Day
Frank Sinatra text for her. They're still in the thick
of it. There's still you know, a contemporary, I guess.
And she talked about Glenn who was just part of
the wrecking crew at the time, and how he would
(19:30):
go out of his way to entertain the kids between
takes and stuff, and how wonderful he wasn't how cool,
how very cool, not like in a good way, but
how cool Doris Day was. And in fact, one of
our cousins, who wasn't on the session date came just
to watch, and Doris would not let her be, not
(19:57):
only not in the studio, but not in the booth.
She had to sit in the lobby. So these are
stories from a kid's perspective that you're not gonna get anywhere.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
No, like anywhere at all. Yeah, but here but here.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Wow, that's pretty damn cool. What that's see Like my family,
it's like, well, Grandpa was fired from the steel mill.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
That's it all done. That's all you need to know.
Oh wow, man, that's an amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
There's not and you know, I don't who would you
compare your your background to slightly Osmon Dy?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yes, I mean I would think, yeah, they In fact,
I mean there were thirty six of us in Okay
you as you see, as you'll see what was I saying?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
You were talking about being fabulous and not Osmon dy?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Oh oh oh, so we are both both the Osmon
brothers and we are playing Vegas at the same time.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Aha, and we're on the same See that already doesn't
sound right. You're playing where in the middle of Sinville, USA? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:15):
I mean, on one hand, how does the king fan? Well, no,
Osmin's too. They were huge in Vegas and they were
squeaky clean. Oh yeah, hands down. They were amazing musicians
and dancers.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
You know, oh everything. Oh yeah. And so we're on the.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Same episode of whatever local talk show doing pr for
being there, and you know it's so Donnie, how many
how many instruments do you play? And when we rehearse,
you know, this is every day we get up at
this time, you know, like Olympians, you know, and I
(21:54):
played the instruments.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
It was a spark plug, wasn't he.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah, And it comes our turn and we're like, m well, yeah,
we don't want to over rehearse.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Seriously, if you're a fan of everything we do here
at tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the
show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as
early in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, so go ahead and
(22:30):
join the tuned In family today at patreon dot com
slash Jim Cummings podcast.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Do It Now. I took piano lessons for five years,
and I think all I can play is.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
That one.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, that'll chestnut.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Not even chopsticks.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yes, and the left hand to heart and soul boom
boo boom boo boom boo boom poot boom poo boom poo.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Boom Yeah, point point point yes.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
And so we're kind of sitting there with egg on
our face and fingers up our noses.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
It could have been in a worse place, could have
been worse.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Depending how you like stuff. I don't even know what
I just said.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I don't either, And.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
In fact, we younger kids wish we had because we
were so young when we started that we were just
like little monkeys and just toss these five and six
year olds out stage and they're already darling and we
would crack up in the middle of a number, and
(23:42):
that was part of the appeal, right.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I would think, yeah, yeah, I'm well.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
But as you grow out of monkey, your monkey years
somewhat happened eventually one of these days of well, people
relied on our monkey and because I've seen you know,
of course, like with a I've gone over our shows
with a magnifying glass, right, And as we get older
(24:10):
and you're you know, say you're ten in there, you're
not monkey cute anymore, and no one is going kids, smile, Okay,
all right, we're going to go in five for three,
Remember to smile. That didn't happen, mm hmm. And I
(24:31):
even you know, so when you're on the show. Everyone
was the result of that, I mean, well, not as
well performed, because we are not in monkey phase where
you just smile anyway. And I see times where you know,
it's like camp, they're going like yeah, Cam, you know,
(24:54):
don't be thinking about lunch. And in fact, when we're
on the When we were on the series, our first series,
we went to studio school and you're on the set
every day. Sure, so you had your assistant directors in
the script people to go over the lines with the kids.
(25:19):
You know your parents are. They were prison like crazy
and in fact, because of the child labor laws, we
could only work so many hours.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Oh okay.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Kids in film and television, and I imagine theater as well,
you can only work so many hours and then they'll,
you know, drag you off set for a good reason
because there was so much abuse in the early days
of film and such.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I think Shirley Temple inspired that, wasn't.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
She Cogan Cougan, Jackie Cook, Jackie Coogan?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
My gosh, that's right.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
But it is black and white, which is not taken
to fact that the it of the lot. So you
were you know, if you screw up and you can
take another take at uh oh, it's blank. It's something
a clock. You're out of the you're out of the
number anyway, and which I will sidestep to say that
when we did our last Christmas special, I am seventeen,
(26:19):
so I'm still on the clock. It's like it's a
Christmas special.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
We taped it.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I think in October my birthday. I think you're a
scorpio too.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm November sixth.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Yea, how I have room for your birthday in my
brain when I could use it to find my keys?
Understood our birthday?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
There's my keys?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, exactly. So I'm like two months from my eighteenth
birthday where I'm legal. We of course you're running behind
in schedule whatever. There's a number that I'm supposed to
be in, but the clock runs out. Now I'm with
(27:08):
my family. I'm seventeen and ten months almost years old,
I mean, and the teacher on this set, I was like, nope,
So there was no like guys his birthdays in five minutes. Yeah,
and it's my family. It's not even like I'm a
(27:29):
I mean, yeah, we're getting paid, but I'm not a
hired hand. This is and it was a men's number.
It was my uncles and my cousins and my brothers.
So it was like being ripped out of a birthday
party because our time to get there was never work.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, that's right, but to get back like monkey hour
with your it.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Was Monkey hour. Welcome to the King Family. With more hours.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
So when we were little, there were so many people
help us learn our lines. I remember on our Christmas Special,
which for whatever reason, the parents were supposed to do
that stuff. As far as lines and I was, I
would say I was raised by wolves, but that would
imply a lot of structure.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
And oh, I see, so okay my intro.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I'm supposed to introduce this number that my mom's about
to sing and this Christmas special, and the script supervisor
or whoever, or dad I don't know, goes, oh, yeah, honey,
here that's your intro for mom.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I'm tan perfect and you're sitting there.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So if you watch this intro, if you catch some
of the clips of the old show, there's the que
cards and I sound like one of the Charlie Brown kids. Hi,
I'm Cam and my brother Rich is going to sing
a song. My mom is going my mother and that's
(29:05):
my mother Alice, and she's going to sing a song.
It's like if someone had given to me, given these
lines to me. Oh, I don't know, even the.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Day before, an hour before, maybe it.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Just sounded like this. And I can remember another special
where I've got this special poem that I'm supposed to
have written, you know, a goofy you know, oh really,
and I am reading it like this and I've got
the papers, but I haven't even looked at it.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I it was from your heart.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
My heart is with my keys.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, yeah, Jesus, Well that's good. Well good, So there
was no pressure, no pressure, no pressure, No, there was
no pressure. What and give up show biz?
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Well you've probably.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Given your background. Was there ever a time when you said,
you know, I'd like to grow up and own a
general store, or I want to sell shoes.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Or you know, was there ever any doubt? Yeah? As
I said earlier, it's a single syllable answer.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I did want to pursue. My other love was art.
Oh so not something not No, I mean selling, Uh,
you know, working at Wesley's shoes store and selling ps flyers.
How old are you to know what flyers?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
They made attire and your p F flyers?
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Would you say?
Speaker 4 (30:41):
So they made a little comeback when I was in
high school? I don't know if I don't know if people, Yeah,
p F Flyers had a pair.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
That's good to know. There kids that stop stop on
a dime.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Uh, like you could run running.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
They stop on a dime because of their rubber or something.
But we digress. We do.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I had to stand lunch.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I'll be digressing again. What were we talking about?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Geez, your book?
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Have you read? Doing things?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
So I went to always go back to the book.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
So, so I went to Parsons School of Design and
Art school. It's hard, really and an expensive man. And
I wasn't I hadn't worked since I was a kid.
I've done some commercials and stuff, and I was living
at home. And I was the first class of Parsons,
(31:40):
which is in New York, was a New York design school.
They bought a fine arts school called Otis in Los Angeles.
So I was the first class thirty kids, thirty students
chosen for Parsons Design Center.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Oh that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
It's pretty cool. And I'm like list blobberdy blue. I
applied for a loan and they said, yeah, but you
live alone. I'm sorry you live at home. I went, yeah,
because I don't have the rent money. Really, that's why
(32:21):
I am at home. Yeah, well, because you live at home.
I went, let me get this straight. If I go
spend money and get an apartment, then you'll give me money.
Our school is boring now. And I eventually dropped out
because my brother Ricky, who was still in the business
and now he was behind the camera as an associate
(32:43):
producer at Warner Brothers. He said, Hey, cam, we have
this thing called looping, and I can put you in
the loop.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I have heard of that.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Have you ever done to group?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, maybe on some animated maybe Lorraine Newman and uh yeah, like.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Some animated features.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Uh huh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Well for those of you that don't know, it's different
than your animation or anime or radio, TV spots and stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
It's kind of fun.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Oh, it's actually a whole different animal. It is.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
In post production is where they lay in fight grunts. Yes,
that they lay in you know, one out forty. We
have your suspect on Route nine, please respond. And crowd scenes,
crowds of football games, locker rooms, sports bars, what whatever.
(33:43):
It is. All the extras, they're just mouthing stuff. Because
when you go from your master shot to your close
up to your close up, you're gonna hear a bump
in sound if anyone is also talking a din in
the background, and it's likewise, I'm going to ruin your
(34:05):
watching movies.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Now, that's why it is, and it's kind of never
dance local camouflage.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yes, And it's why nobody dances in time because there
is no music playing. Because when you cut from shots
to shots, Oh, there's a bump. And although you have
your script supervisor, who's going to go, no, Jim, your
hand was you know, your arm goes here and you movee.
(34:32):
I just remember this that.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Oh yeah, yeah, music they can't like at.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
The nano second, get bar thirty six to fall organic
or when you're being organic with your line delivery, to
fall in that nanosecond. So if you watch a dance
scene in a movie, unless it's a musical, no one
is in time. Are the clapping gets off? Huh because
(34:59):
there is no music?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Wow? So again because you never pick up on that
if you were just one.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
So you're welcome, and of course I always am aware.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
That and you're hyper aware at this point.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yeah, especially when I'm there and there now is music
and we're supposed to be the people in the cowboy
bar whatever. You'll clap into the music or whatever it is,
and we have to do we have to juggle with
the picture. We're trying to stay in time. With whatever
(35:35):
the music is. But sometimes we have to go like
this to catch the picture. And then when we cut
away from the crowd, we can be back in rhythm.
So that stuff is laid down after the fact. And
that's where I started in voice and there.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
So what what what's your loop? And gig a big
movie that anybody would know. There you got to lay
down a couple of greatest hits here so we can
sit there and go, wait.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
A minute, okay them here here, here's a deep diet. Actually,
I will respond to that first. Back in the early
days that I started in the eighties, local hires, like
say a film or a television show was on location,
they would hire local actors for small parts. We call
(36:28):
them under fives, right, which meant five lines or under
Now there are talented, it means less money. Oh god, yeah,
like way less. Let's because they're local hires. But now
over the last couple of decades or whatever it is,
(36:49):
they're talented people everywhere. Yes, But back in those days
it's like hiring speaking of the you know the general
stores selling yeah, I mean the kid from the general store. Inevitably,
when the footage would get back here, we would revoice them,
(37:09):
and I always felt sad that here's this kid or
this grandma or whoever it is. Whoever, Hey, everybody, come over.
I'm in this episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, which was
one of my first series, okay, that I conducted, and
that one of two things is going to happen, or
like we did North in the South, which was an
(37:31):
early Civil War multi episode.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Patrick swayzey, Yes, dude, Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Find your glasses out. Patrick Swayze out. Yeah, Jimmy Cummings
birthday out. Lets me find my keys, Patrick Swayze out.
Jimmy can find it. And I could picture and I
know there was a young Civil War guy that that
I did, that I revoiced, and one of two things
(38:00):
I imagine happens. One is he's got his mom and
his dad and whoever, his cousin whoever, over to the
house to watch his claim to fame here. Either he
is mortified when he hears that's not me hm, or
damn I sound good.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
That's good? And were you responsible for making him sound
so good?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah? And I will never Yeah, No, I mean you
see how it could go either way. It's not like
we changed the timber.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, and had.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Someone with a big, deep voice, be this sixteen year
old Civil War kid on the battlefield. You know, you
keep it in kind.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Like the Lone Ranger. They did that Clinton Spillsbury when
they made the Lone Ranger movie, and.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
He had a voice like this, I'm the Lone Ranger.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
And and coming through the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
And in the Tarzan movie, famous one with Andy McDowell,
Glenn Close and Annie McDowell became a star. Oh but
I mean, look this up in case I'm a big
fat liar, and you can blame Patrick Swayze stuck in
his head for my lying that Glenn Close revoiced the
(39:27):
entire role of Andy McDowell is Tarzan.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
So it it is a thing.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, and Glenn was pretty big.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Oh yeah it is. Yeah, probably, but you never you
would never know because nobody knew Andy yet.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
No except from that for Cocta commercial before Tarzan. I
think so. I think it was something about her hair.
She had someday, someday I'm on to go to Dallas.
It was something like that.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
She she had a really accent. Yeah yeah, oh god, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Shove that out of my head and make room for something.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Use your phone. Let's find your phone.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
That's fine, that's true, okay, or your last name?
Speaker 3 (40:17):
My name is if found. So you asked, what is
the first show I did? Looping on and it was
a spin off of Dukes of Hazard that my brother
was associate producer on, called Enus No. I said us
(40:38):
the no P right got to end No A, which
is where I.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Went, Okay, okay, well see, okay.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Either one is quite a difference.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yes, it is a show, Yes, but what a great
show that wasn't Yeah?
Speaker 3 (40:56):
I think it lasted a season and a half.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
I thought it was just for up Tommershall and then cut.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Oh they do a rerun story about that and the
King family. Oh you don't jump up track.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Wow, they went to a commercial and said, okay, that's good.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
When we got our second series in nineteen sixty nine,
and guys, shameless plug, Well, this whole interview is a
shameless plug. Yes, please welcome back to Shameless Plugs.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
I'm going to jump in here and just answer a
question that you guys may have watching. How come we're
not talking about mutant ninja turtles? How can we're not
talking about Lion King. This is Cam's second time on
the show. The first time we talked about all that
good stuff, all the good voices, everything like that. So
you haven't seen that episode, then go over and check
that out right now, check that out, and now we're
back to party with cam Clark and skip.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Everything else and come back to me. Why because it's
all about.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Me that you're back.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
So and a lot of the stuff we're talking talking
about is in the book. When we got our second series,
ABC had launched a show called turn On, which was
nineteen sixty nine winter season, so January whatever that used
to start, not September like most of the shows did
back in the day of network TV. It was supposed
(42:21):
to be like a race laugh in like naughtier, pushing
buttons and dot dot da, and I talk about it
here in the book that it was found in that
day to be so awful, I mean, so risk whatever
(42:44):
words you know you want to use that some of
depending on the time zone, some affiliates did cancel, did
take it off the air at a first commercial. Now
the people on the East coast get into this and
it doesn't air at all, or you mean.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
The West coast because then they go from Easter. No,
this was filmed.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Wait, don't ask me math questions. However it travels is
east west, home, has been, you know wherever it is
because of the time zones. Geez, put me on the spot.
Never learned my timestables. By the way, I'll just add
that there. I know that's seven times eight.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Is a fifty is a math equation?
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Is a math equation.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But back to cancellations on television, of which I know
a lot.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
See if you're a fan of everything we do here
at tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the
show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as
early in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, So go ahead and
join the tuned In family today at patreon dot com
(43:59):
slash Jim Cummings podcast.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Do It Now so it get is canceled and they
toss on some rerun of Who Saved My Couch or
I don't know, Oh yeah, I love that show. Yes,
And it's like they're getting on the horn with like,
who can we we got to change this. We can't
got a lot of everybody's you know, saying cancel, cancel, canceled,
and they go like, who do we have in the vault?
(44:25):
And our manager got wind of this and knew a
guy who knew a guy and said, uh, I know,
I know here's someone that Procter and Gamble will and
those folks will get on board. So I mean, who
can be more informative or well, no, squeaky clean.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Oh then the King Family, but that's pretty squeaky.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
So we were already doing we were off the air
weekly and doing our specials and blah blah blah. But
we were back on the air weekly because of this show.
Turned on that and the letters from the networks about
your dirty little shows.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
And your well you solved that, didn't you?
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Yes? And it was the in the days of network
Rulage had the record for quickest cancelation. I don't know
if there was some would be as they came out
of that, but King Family to the rescue. Wow.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
And it's that's a chapter in this, isn't it. Yeah? Yeah?
See you like how I went back.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
To the Yes and it gave us, It gave a
boost to us. You know, it was a little shot
in the arm to get us back on weekly, which
bumped up our touring.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
You know, comes Oh yeah, you guys toured a lot,
did you?
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Oh my god. Also I didn't know that, yeah, every summer.
And in fact, there is a section in the book
as well where I wrote on my site camclark Voices
dot com. That's a good name for it, right, Too
bad it wasn't available what I asked fans to write
(46:18):
in if you had an experience as a fan with
a live memory and experience of seeing us live, can
you send it in?
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Oh and what a great idea.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Oh my god. And so I have a section of that.
It's like, you can't make this ship up. One and
number two, these people submitted stuff written like Earl Hamner.
I mean it reads like Walton's Mountain or mountains or
the elegance I'm sorry, eloquence with which these are written,
(46:56):
and the humor of a teenager and the irony and stuff.
And one guy writes in about he had a crush
on cousin Liza and to get autographs out of the show,
but he didn't have a pen, and Alvino had one
and he loaned it to me. And I had your
souvenir program and I still have the program, but I
(47:18):
also still have the pen. I mean it gets me, like,
you know, like this, yeah, and these stories about we
baby sat and we did lemonade stands and doggie sat
and so we could afford tickets. My girlfriend and I
my little girl, the two little gals, little thirteen year
old girls or whatever. And then they saw the program
(47:42):
and they have these many nickels and dimes in there,
you know, in their little their little pocket books. Sure,
and do we get a program or do we have dinner?
And they splurged for you know, and they'd driven on
the they went on the bus, like a three hour
bus ride or something. So this woman talks about they
(48:05):
bought the program and they split a candy bar oh
for dinner on the drive home because they had that
many Nichols.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
I mean, it's like.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Out of a movie.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Just beautiful. Seven guys, If any of you are watching
Jimmy Show, I know I've told you this a million times,
but your stuff is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Wow, that is nice.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
And I had a gay guy to write in who said,
so believe it or not? Okay, well, all right, we
have just like Diana Ross and Madonna, we have a
bet a bet and with their number one fan right
here in fact, you get by the drawing thing. I
(48:54):
have pictures here in the book because I loved drawing,
as I've mentioned, and I love drawing fashion. And I
have pictures that somehow survived of me sketching King's sister
gowns that I could see, and I have the photo
of the gown they were wearing and my sketch from
when I was like five years old. Holy wow, Mackie, Yeah, yeah,
(49:17):
he learned everything from me.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
And so this man writes in and says that he
had a his favorite King cousin because everybody, there were
so many of us, everybody had a you know, I
love this one.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
I love that one.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
And his favorite cousin was Kathy. And the girl Cousins
released an album of their own of kind of what
they call a term that's come to be in the
music industry called sunshine pop, which is kind of it
what it says.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
It's kind of like slip, not only not quite or
not slip or not Yeah, Okay, I mean I think
you might put someone like Petula Clark.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
I don't know if she is sunshine pots.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
That sounds good, but is that kind of or cows
oh cow sills. Sure you know, so I'm singing yes, okay, yeah, thank.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
Me, happy happy happy Partri's family stuff kind of thing.
But this was earlier in the mid sixties.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
They were imitating y'all. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
And so this man, when he was a boy, he
wrote me that he uh.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
You say, wrote wrote, Okay, I thought I heard something else.
Go ahead, well that was.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
On the sequel sequel to Chris Got It, and goes
that was I thought. He said that too, said when
he was home alone as a kid, he would put
on the girl's album and where his mother's pink, put
on his mother's lipstick, and dance around the house. And
(51:03):
as he says, I swear to God, I was Kathy Cole,
you know. And so these stories are just all over
the map, and people saying I wanted to be a
member of your family. And one girl, one woman wrote
in to say when she was a girl, she would
just was badger her mom about Oh I wish I
(51:25):
was part of that family. And she goes, well, you
can't because you have brown hair. Okay, see end of story.
Speaker 4 (51:32):
Wow, I'm curious. I have two questions. Yeah, sitting here
listening to you talk, what is there any part of
your family that wasn't interested in show business or didn't
partake mercy killing.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Yeah, they're not with us anyway. I was gonna go,
wait a minute, boy took a turn. Did I do
that with too much of a strange face?
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yes, I think so. Yeah, it was you used to
play with them, didn't you. Mercy killing?
Speaker 3 (52:01):
Yeah, ladies and gentlemen give it up for mercy killing.
And no, there was a couple surprisingly the and uh
one in particular my cousin Chris. Fortunately for him, he says,
(52:21):
he was. I mean, I think he's adorable on the
stuff he chose to be on. He didn't dig it,
so he opted. There was no gunpoint. No, you didn't
have to do it if you want to.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Et cetera. Enough people, but if your mom wanted you to,
you have better. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:38):
And the girls, for example, I mean the people that
choreographed our first first series director was Mark brow uh,
choreographer Dede Wood. They choreographed Mary Poppins and sounded so
step in tall him.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
But that's the first thing I thought of. Yeah, but
that's just wow.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
And all it's interesting. All our girls, all the kids
that were girls okay, sorry, could dance anything. We're great dancers.
The boys were like a bunch of high school boys,
and my brother Ricky was great, but most of the
boys did not have.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
The there's no way you a good dancer. Look at
I mean you could. You're right there, now, come on,
you were a good dancer. Yeah, I was, thank you.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
But there was also this period, and to me it
shows in the shows. And again I mentioned it in
here knowing that I was gay and this was my deep,
dark secret, and I was never Donnie Osmond or Michael
(53:49):
Jackson started at the same time. I didn't have the
training or that focus.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
That those are the probably too well they.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Yes, but I was afraid that if I was a
little too Broadway to Broadway jazz hands to yeah, that
whole I don't know. I was afraid I would give
away my secret.
Speaker 4 (54:21):
This is eleven.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Yeah, that's a long time.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
And so although I start out as a monkey, a
durable unlike Michael and Donnie, I disp the the the
performer of me goes undercover for fear of not passing. Sure,
(54:44):
and so you'll see me with my hands like we're
standing there and nobody there's thirty six away. Who's going
to notice everybody? My hands are supposed to be here,
and I've got them like like this, and we uh
in sixty nine on that series, we did always something
there to remind you, remind me al Vino's doing on
(55:08):
the guitar and the boy cousins are in it. I
am sitting there there's risers with my legs like this
and my hands here and my shoulders, shoulders curled in. Okay,
because and I have to keep to keep it from
solode with Alvino Diana, you know this kind of thing
(55:31):
there and wow, but I am confined and you can
see the body language that I don't want to be
anywhere to the underlying truth.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
I am there, but it wasn't until I am there, however,
there the show. But it wasn't until I think I
got to be in the last years of the show,
when I was like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen eighteen, that I
so it was a secret, but I got my body back.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Put your way, got a dance, Yeah, okay, give me
the ball, give me the ball, gotcha?
Speaker 3 (56:17):
Oh man, I did fail home a one oh one. No,
come on, no, it's true. I know my workers won't
believe that.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Wait a minute, but I don't know what them. I
acted like I knew what you were talking about.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
How'd I do the only way I know Broadway tunes? Oh? Oh?
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Is that because I was paid to sing them?
Speaker 3 (56:40):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (56:41):
Well, okay, fair so yeah?
Speaker 3 (56:43):
And also, oh, if we can just get psychological for
a second. Sure I found out not by my own.
A friend told me that I did this. Can I
talk naughty? I'm allowed to say? Than what naughty?
Speaker 2 (56:59):
Probably you sure are here?
Speaker 3 (57:01):
Okay, we're not live, so you can put your little
bleep comes on.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
And that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
That's right, And then the King Family places your podcast.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (57:15):
I used to rent a place up in a local
mountain resort here called Lake Arrowhead. Yeah, that's the naughty word. Anyway.
I'd rent a place in the fall, take all my
friends up for an autumn you know, like weekend contest,
and I would have people drop off firewood for the weekend.
(57:38):
And I'm up there, and y'all know how I speak.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
We do now?
Speaker 3 (57:45):
We do now? Yeah? And I went early with one
of my girlfriends and we're sitting there talking. Knock knock,
knock on the door, and it's the firewood guys. Yeah,
and she's sitting at My friend is sitting just a
few feet away in the in the living room. And
I opened the door and here's these birdies, you know,
(58:09):
yeah lumberga. I'm a lovel.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Actually lumberjair if you think about it.
Speaker 3 (58:12):
And these young guys, you know, just mountain kids. Sure,
and they go, Hi, we're here at the firewood and
I go from this too, Yeah, thanks for coming. If
you'll set that up over there, yeah, just under that
eve there, that'd be great. Uh, yeah, here you go,
thanks for coming over. And I got your number for
the future. Fucking a right, and I'm well done, and yes, fabulous.
(58:41):
I closed the door. My girlfriend Julie goes, what was that?
Speaker 2 (58:47):
And what was what?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
She goes, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (58:52):
You didn't even know you did it?
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Probably a safety measure, and she goes, I know what
you're talking about. She goes, what was that? You're sports
and pussy voice.
Speaker 2 (59:03):
So I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (59:06):
I you know that I was, you know, using this voice,
and uh it's a damn fine one, which I've used
as a cartoon voice over, you know, I've employed that fellow. No,
that's funny, but I speaking a voice the world a
voice I was doing this protection thing, and now what
(59:31):
I use it for besides work is embarrassing my friends
and family. Perfect will be someplace that's maybe like we'll
be on the lake, you know, and there's all the
guys in their you know, speedboats and stuff, and We'll
be just sitting there chatting, and I'll yell out to them, hey,
how's your weekend going? Fucking e bro right on, right on,
(59:54):
And they are between giggling and wanting to smack me
with a baseball back right right right, They're just go
like this, all right, man, we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Yeah, right on, Hey, geez, I feel like changing a
flat tire.
Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Yes, what you do? Because I don't know our time here,
that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
I don't know. I think we're doing damn fun here.
Is there anything you'd like to talk about?
Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
You can get again. It's called I keep using the
name of that one man show. Stop me if I
told you this. No, it's called now They're All here.
The title comes from is the only line my grandmother
ever had on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Now They're all Are? We are all?
Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Now? Now?
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
No, it's they they okay?
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Because it's our Thanksgiving special. She's sitting on the parts
of this big Victorian home that's our family is supposed
to be our family home, right, and everybody comes in.
We're singing over the river and my little cousin Adam
is scheduled to be everybody's inside. There's a beat and
he comes running up the steps, gives her a peck
(01:01:06):
on the cheek and runs in. And Grandma looks at
the camera and says, now they're all here, and the
hills are alive with the sound of music. Wow comes
up in the background, and it is a phrase that
we still use in our family. There are otherwives from
the show that if you're the last to show up,
(01:01:29):
someone inevitably goes, now they're all here.
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Oh that's great.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
It's kind of a goofy titled, but it has yeah
purpose sentimental.
Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
What it's sentimental.
Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
It is sentimental and represents the unity of togetherness.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. That's a nice that's a
nice button.
Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
And I get the same response that as you've I'm
sure experienced at the con. At the com con circuit,
the what kids come up and say to us about
I had a bad home life and you got me
through this.
Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
So you got me through that.
Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
I wish Da Da and the King family, the fans
that are now between the ages of fifty and death
will say the same things, I was an only child
or abusive home.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Bah bah bah.
Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
So my true button out.
Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Here would be.
Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
The insane gratitude I have had for being in your
homes for six a few years, sixty years, I've been
in your living room and to this day I get
(01:02:55):
paid to have you guys say thank you for my childhood.
And same with the King family, thank you for letting
me be a part of your family. So it's an honor.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Yeah, yeah, it is an honor. That's it is never lost. Yeah,
never lost on me.
Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
And I think I know our team, I know our peeps,
and I'm so proud of Geez. I didn't think I
was going to go here. Fah. That it is never
lost on us, you guys, because we don't get it us. Really,
it is not. We don't get heady.
Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
Yeah, it's like, well, we work in a vacuum, we
work in a room alone, and it's moments like this
and as you have mentioned before, the conventions where people
will come up and they can't even talk because all
of a sudden, you know, you launch into this, you
start that forget about it, and you know there's a
(01:04:02):
forty year old who's now five.
Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
Yes, and it's and it's a nice it's a beautiful thing.
It's a really beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
And my old joke is, now that I've done this
for you, I can go back to being a jerk
because I'm and break even, you know, and break even.
Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Thank you so much for being here by.
Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
Yeah, thank you very much, guys, thanks for having me back.
I'm out of this. You can get it at Amazon
or my publishers, which are rarebird Lit dot com, r
A R E b I R D L I t
Rare bird lit dot com. I'm really proud of it,
(01:04:41):
and I hope you like it too. Awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
If you're a fan of everything we do here at
tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as early
in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, so go ahead and
join the tuned In family today at Patreon dot com
(01:05:06):
slash Jim Cummings podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
Do it now, and we have we have to do
a voice swap for the for the fans, we got
to do a couple of voices at least.
Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
So you're gonna sing, baby Cam, thank Heaven for little girls.
Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
Oh oh okay, thank Kevin for little girls.
Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
Remember you're seven?
Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Sure, I'm seven? Oh you know the song?
Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Okay, sure, oh yeah, maybe Gigi, maybe Tess.
Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
Just what your characters singing?
Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
And see that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
This is a musical called Gigi. Yeah, this is one
of the biggest Mariva. Yes, okay, is it gonna be
Tasmanian devil singing things? Thanks for girls? Sure said no
one ever?
Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
Said no one ever. And then you should respond.
Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
As whatever your heart one of your characters, one of
one of your voices doing the station break I would do.
Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
On the I like the one.
Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
I like the one that you did on the farm.
By the way, I shay, we whack them that guy
the oh yes, Friday the ferrets.
Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Yeah he was first. Thank Kevin for little girls.
Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
Well for little girls get bigger every day. Just finish
the phrase.
Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
For lettle girls get bigger every day.
Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
Here some more ladies and gentlemen stay done for usaid
I didn't have a king family show which follows. This
is a minute after people to some commer shows.
Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Okay, that was painful, James, we've done it again to
my purple brother.
Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Yes that's right, I was your older brother still Amy.
Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
Thank well, Thank you very much, and thank you guys
all for watching. If you like this content, be sure
to like and subscribe. We appreciate you all. This will
show the YouTube algorithm that you're into this kind of content,
and it'll show more of that content to you. I
know from personal experience on YouTube, you can really see
a video one time and never be able to find
the channel again. So make sure to turn on notifications
(01:07:30):
so that doesn't happen to you. And if you really
like this content so much that you want more good news,
and if.
Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
You can find Jim and Cam's keys and wallet, thank
you guys, Hey.
Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Buddy, thank you
Speaker 3 (01:07:44):
Very cool
If you're a fan of everything we do here at
tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as early
in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, so go ahead and
join the tuned In family today at patreon dot com
(00:21):
slash Jim Cummings Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Do it now? How you doing out there? It's me Tigger,
I am Doc Wayne Duck. It's me Bunkers Deep Bobcat.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
All right, y'all? Did is it rate your favorite firefly
you desire?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Hondo, old knock Gud.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
My name is Jim Cummings and welcome to tuned In.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Tuned In with
Jim Cummings. We have a really good episode coming up
for you today. Our guest is none other than Cam Clark.
How are you doing today, sir?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Cam Clark is here?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
How did you get him? It was very difficult.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Here's a real yeah. Yeah, don't look him in the eyes. Okaya?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Hi up there ceiling where no one is.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Good to see you, buddy, Hey, Jimbo, how about that?
Who good to be with you?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Again, who better than us?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Says I say, I as well.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, you know, Uh, it didn't take much figuring out.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
But I have known you. Uh, you're you and I
are tied. Well, how am I? I'm putting this in correctly,
aren't I?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
For most?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
For for most longest knowedge? So you know, we took
the first thing I ever did in this area of
the business other than play drums or sing somewhere.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Uh in a strip joint in New Orleans?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Was you were? You were? You were in the strip joint?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Actually, you were in the Sue Blue and Andre Romano's
voiceover acting class.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And we met there.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
And you were this weird guy who always has and
I don't have today, So what is that about?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I feel naked?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But uh but but I left him at home, so
you're safe. But yeah, I mean you you are like
the first guy that I ever met in showbiz.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And you still stayed in the industry. And this is
the kind of people I'm going.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
To have to work with.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yes, and fortunately we worked a great deal together. Yes,
and we were even brothers. Can you name that series
where Cam and Jim were brothers?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And yes, I was the older.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
One then too, do do do do do do do
the California Raisins.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And I don't know if we touched on this on
our last interview, yes, but we were both fired.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Really you don't recall this. I'm sure I blocked it out.
It was a tragic moment in my history.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
There was a right because the music was motown.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Right, I do, I know what you're talking?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
What are these white dudes? And like, people went, well, ray,
if you want to be technical, Raisin started out green
and they end up purple or it's.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
So they dropped us, but they allowed us to re audition.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yes with viames.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, we use numbers.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
We use numbers.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
That's right with I forgot sw of new people. Yeah
and he still.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, we still we still made it. I remember sitting
on the couch and have studio. Yes, And then I
went to a studio. Uh and and I was sitting there,
just sitting there waiting, and I looked in the student
nobody was there.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Nobody was there.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Nobody was but there was a lady sitting on the
couch and and down at the other end and her
phone rang. She goes, yeah, Hi, No, no he's not here.
I don't know where I don't know where he is.
All right, all right, well i'll let you know.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
God, what is DomU? He's gonna get her? And I went,
do you say Jim Cummings.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
She goes, oh, yeah, Oh well I'm Jim coming.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
She goes, You're the nice black man on the tape.
And I went, oh, I've not.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Heard that, Jim.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Isn't that great? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
And I said, yeah, yeah, I've been out of the
sun for a while.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I don't know what do you say to that?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
What you I mean, you remember?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
But the idea danced?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
What did you do? It was?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I think it was for the Raisins?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Well, yeah, nobody. I mean, how did you did you say? Yes? Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Well you said I can't res Yeah, she said yeah.
She said I don't know when Jim coming. He's going
to get here.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
And I go, well, he's he's me If that helps,
because I'm you're sitting.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
But the same year as.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
As we are here, he goes, you're the nice black
man on the tape.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Like sure, why not? I thought I was. I thought
I was a raish, I thought I was purple.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
But but here we are, at this age I bruised
very easily.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Now, Yes, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I gave blood yesterday and I have I have a
blood blister becoming purple.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
That could be the name of my autobiography. If I
didn't already.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Have, I was gonna say, wait a minute, did you
say autobiography.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And a biography about a car? No? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Is that? Is that? What it was?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
For those of you who don't know, Cam is show
business royalty. He is comes from.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
A that's a dynasty family. That's why.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
That's right, That's why I'm looking over here at the
coffee machine. But it's true, and why it just so happens.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
We have them.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
But wait, hold on there this little bella hooter the
baby cam.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Look at that? Stupid How about that, folks? Very cool?
How cool is that to be able to write a
book about your family? See?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I did that too, and they went no, no.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Go away, stop.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
And this isn't your first time writing a book, right,
you've written books before?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Uh? I before voiceovers? What I was planning on pursuing.
I wanted to be an illustrator of children's books, an author.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Wow, I did that.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yeah, I did a one, and like cartoons as well,
not like comic book. But I had a book in
the eighties came out that did rather well called how
to Be a Total Californian And it was an eighties
kind of not as quirky as Gary Larson, but it did.
(06:49):
Oh that's you know one liners.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
With like you got the word total in there too, Yeah,
almost very close to.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Totally yeah, totally got to be a total California tots
And but as far as book book, no, this is
my first like that. But I had a line of
greeting cards.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
And nice, nice, So what was the motivation for this book?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Wow, vanity, I'll explain that. Uh. There was a coffee
table book not unlike this coffee table size that came
out about Bob Mackie. And for those of you who
don't know who that is, he is probably the most
prolific successful Hollywood costume designers, share Carol Burnett, Diana Ross,
(07:42):
the whole run of the series, that famous costume of
hers as Scarlett O'Hara with wearing the curtain rod. As
you know, I made this outfit out of drapes. This
was his idea. We were his first series he'd been
assistant on, I think like Judy gar Carland's series some
other stuff as you know, second in command. We were
(08:05):
his first and this coffee table book came out about
him and we had a page and that's not an
eagle thing. I mean, Share and Carol Burnett are kind
of bigger than we are, right, And we had a page.
The fellow, the person that wrote it, said a joke
(08:26):
about us, that my fragile eagle. Wow, that's freud, my
fragile eagle.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
How is the old egle?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
My fragile ego took offense to it, talked about how
we went on the air and you know, the zeitgeist
of white America, end of Camelot blah blah blah, and
they ended up paraphrasing but but they ended up in
(08:59):
the unemployment line, as in never to be heard of again.
And I took fans, but I went, but look how
cool we look in a fancy, fancy color book. Yes,
And I went, I don't think so. And I started
(09:20):
out thinking it was just I was gonna, for history's sake,
was going to put something together for my family and
maybe you know big fans shutterfly thing, Well that grew
into this and four years a lot of growth in
(09:44):
the making. Yeah, yes, steroids really autobiography.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Four years and.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I had read a book on Truman Capodi by George Plimpton,
who is one of my favorite authors, and in the
beginning of it he said, if you're looking for a
straight up biography of Capodi, I recommend, and then he
lists these other books and their authors like, go over
there this one. There is no narrator. I have just
(10:14):
compiled and done interviews with people from his life and
it is chronological. So he says, imagine yourself at a
cocktail party, drifting from conversation to conversation. So I went,
(10:35):
I love that. So imagine yourself at a Fourth of
July picnic and you're drifting from picnic table to picnic table. So,
as the subtitle on this is, and I have to
look it up, over one hundred years of entertainment from
America's first family of song.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
One hundred years.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
We started whole nineteen twenty five for one hundred Wow
in Vaudeville. So the book itself is all first person. Fortunately,
the moms, the King's sisters, who were famous singing group
on their own right, which is why we even exist, right.
They did diaries, they did journals, so it's a century
(11:21):
of first person.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Anybody else can say that?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Is there anybody else that can make what statement you
just made?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You have the barymours, but they're not still right. Well
I guess well, no Drew is working. But this book
is I me, we like, I don't speak until the
nineteen sixties because I wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
You weren't born. So this is I'll do it every time.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and as it is, and then
it goes on. I'm the last one of having had
a step so a career, which they're chapters on those
that have, which is still going going on in animation
and video games. So you start with vaudeville, you go
to radio, you go to a big band, you go
(12:14):
to jazz, you go to television. You got your sci
fi motion pictures. Well, that's right, that's right, doctor sitcoms
with my cousin Tina Cole. Alvin O. Ray was one
of the Granddaddy's invented the slide guitar.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Right, yeah, tell does everybody know who that guy is
because he's pretty damn cool.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
He is. I mean he's in the museum as Mount
Rushmore of guitarists.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
How about that.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
He worked with Fender directly trying to, you know, reorganize
and make In fact, he had.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
To as in every guitar player you have ever seen
amplifier fender by the way.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yes, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
And in fact, she didn't know.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
When they would on our show, when on The King
Family Show, when they would reel in his slide guitar,
he had a joke. I didn't get it as a kid,
but and if you've never seen a slide guitar, says,
it's a contraption.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And he said, this joke really cool.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I started building this in high school. Started out as
a sugar scoop, which is a little metal thing that
you've built in metal shop to get sugar Da da da. Anyway,
I didn't get the reference, but if you see a
slide guitar, it is a piece of work. And he
(13:37):
had part of his act on the radio and live
was he had a character named Stringy who he would
use the slide guitar and I still don't know the
mechanics you might as a musician. His wife would be backstage,
who was part of the band Louise Aunt Louise King's sister.
(14:00):
She would wear something called a Sono vox and through
the sliding it would talk because he is going like
this backstage, and like he did.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
He had a bit This sounds like sorcery to me.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, kill that phone, yeah sorry, out damn phone.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah sorry.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And so he had a bit called Babysitter Blues that
he did with the guitar with the slide guitar. And
he had to babysit the slide guitar. So he's using
the the that metal sliding thing. I don't know what
that's called.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Oh, the metal slide. They make them in glass too,
Oh do they they do?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well? He would use that and he'd talk to his guitar,
and the guitar would say, I want my mama. And
he did this comedy almost like Edgar Bergen right with
Charlie McCarthy, except he wasn't. His wife was backstage wearing
this thing. And it's a bit he had in the
(15:14):
act since the thirties.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Wow, yeah, that sounds the fact.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I should probably post a bit of alvino.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Are you wearing one right now?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I see you clutching the pearls, So I don't know
what's going on here.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
They make them invisible.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Now, oh okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Anyway, so Alvino was an inventor. My uncle Jim, who
has a Step Out chapter, founded the Grammy Awards, founded
he founded Warner's Records. And that's not bad, not bad, right,
And so the King sisters were asked to do a benefit,
(16:01):
a fundraiser, and my aunt Vonn said, here's a wacky idea.
Why don't we bring the let's just toss the kids
into the act, just for shits and giggles.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Wow, and how did that work out?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Well, I'll tell you, please, my good man. Back in
the fifties, maybe the forties as well, a lot of
the children in recordings were just like the kids of
the celebrities. And when they needed kids on albums, you know,
(16:45):
you call in these particular kids. So my older cousins
were already in the recording business in a fashion like
for those of you who are into your mid century
albums and such. My cousins and others were with Doris
Day on k Sarah Frank Sinatra's High Hopes, which has
(17:09):
a children's choiet. Okay, you've got High Up Boompie and
the by Hopes, And so they are the kids for that.
So Uncle Jim would come home from the office and
go hey, girls, we have a session Friday night with
(17:31):
text Ritter with Doris Day And like Jamie, as I
mentioned earlier, I said that this is all first person.
So each one of my cousins also tells when they
joined the history of entertainment. They speak not again, not
me and my cousin Jamie. She tells a story how Dad,
(17:56):
I have a school dance Friday night. I don't want
I don't want to go and be famous and go
see him make money. Wait a minute, and he would
literally go, oh okay. And of course she jokes about
seriously self what.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, no kidding, and my cousin zan and give up
show biz? Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And she has these wonderful memories of being a kid
with these performers and behind the scenes things of who
had to have every note plunked out and who was
great with kids, like she said, Glenn Campbell, who was
part of the wrecking Crew.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's right, very famous.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And the wrecking crew was the group back Capital or
did they travel?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I don't know, but you should tell people who the
wrecking crew was.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Helped me out here. The record crew was like.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Blaine the drummer, and then oh god, Tony I spec
the guitar player you got me played.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
On every beach. They were the beach boys. Yeah, but
they were everybody started with more of the some of.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
The older stars. It started in the city. Well, yeah,
you're right. But in the sixties, of course, Doris Day
Frank Sinatra text for her. They're still in the thick
of it. There's still you know, a contemporary, I guess.
And she talked about Glenn who was just part of
the wrecking crew at the time, and how he would
(19:30):
go out of his way to entertain the kids between
takes and stuff, and how wonderful he wasn't how cool,
how very cool, not like in a good way, but
how cool Doris Day was. And in fact, one of
our cousins, who wasn't on the session date came just
to watch, and Doris would not let her be, not
(19:57):
only not in the studio, but not in the booth.
She had to sit in the lobby. So these are
stories from a kid's perspective that you're not gonna get anywhere.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
No, like anywhere at all. Yeah, but here but here.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Wow, that's pretty damn cool. What that's see Like my family,
it's like, well, Grandpa was fired from the steel mill.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
That's it all done. That's all you need to know.
Oh wow, man, that's an amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
There's not and you know, I don't who would you
compare your your background to slightly Osmon Dy?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yes, I mean I would think, yeah, they In fact,
I mean there were thirty six of us in Okay
you as you see, as you'll see what was I saying?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
You were talking about being fabulous and not Osmon dy?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Oh oh oh, so we are both both the Osmon
brothers and we are playing Vegas at the same time.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Aha, and we're on the same See that already doesn't
sound right. You're playing where in the middle of Sinville, USA? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:15):
I mean, on one hand, how does the king fan? Well, no,
Osmin's too. They were huge in Vegas and they were
squeaky clean. Oh yeah, hands down. They were amazing musicians
and dancers.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
You know, oh everything. Oh yeah. And so we're on the.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Same episode of whatever local talk show doing pr for
being there, and you know it's so Donnie, how many
how many instruments do you play? And when we rehearse,
you know, this is every day we get up at
this time, you know, like Olympians, you know, and I
(21:54):
played the instruments.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
It was a spark plug, wasn't he.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah, And it comes our turn and we're like, m well, yeah,
we don't want to over rehearse.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Seriously, if you're a fan of everything we do here
at tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the
show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as
early in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, so go ahead and
(22:30):
join the tuned In family today at patreon dot com
slash Jim Cummings podcast.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Do It Now. I took piano lessons for five years,
and I think all I can play is.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
That one.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, that'll chestnut.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Not even chopsticks.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yes, and the left hand to heart and soul boom
boo boom boo boom boo boom poot boom poo boom poo.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Boom Yeah, point point point yes.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
And so we're kind of sitting there with egg on
our face and fingers up our noses.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
It could have been in a worse place, could have
been worse.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Depending how you like stuff. I don't even know what
I just said.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I don't either, And.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
In fact, we younger kids wish we had because we
were so young when we started that we were just
like little monkeys and just toss these five and six
year olds out stage and they're already darling and we
would crack up in the middle of a number, and
(23:42):
that was part of the appeal, right.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I would think, yeah, yeah, I'm well.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
But as you grow out of monkey, your monkey years
somewhat happened eventually one of these days of well, people
relied on our monkey and because I've seen you know,
of course, like with a I've gone over our shows
with a magnifying glass, right, And as we get older
(24:10):
and you're you know, say you're ten in there, you're
not monkey cute anymore, and no one is going kids, smile, Okay,
all right, we're going to go in five for three,
Remember to smile. That didn't happen, mm hmm. And I
(24:31):
even you know, so when you're on the show. Everyone
was the result of that, I mean, well, not as
well performed, because we are not in monkey phase where
you just smile anyway. And I see times where you know,
it's like camp, they're going like yeah, Cam, you know,
(24:54):
don't be thinking about lunch. And in fact, when we're
on the When we were on the series, our first series,
we went to studio school and you're on the set
every day. Sure, so you had your assistant directors in
the script people to go over the lines with the kids.
(25:19):
You know your parents are. They were prison like crazy
and in fact, because of the child labor laws, we
could only work so many hours.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Oh okay.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Kids in film and television, and I imagine theater as well,
you can only work so many hours and then they'll,
you know, drag you off set for a good reason
because there was so much abuse in the early days
of film and such.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I think Shirley Temple inspired that, wasn't.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
She Cogan Cougan, Jackie Cook, Jackie Coogan?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
My gosh, that's right.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
But it is black and white, which is not taken
to fact that the it of the lot. So you
were you know, if you screw up and you can
take another take at uh oh, it's blank. It's something
a clock. You're out of the you're out of the
number anyway, and which I will sidestep to say that
when we did our last Christmas special, I am seventeen,
(26:19):
so I'm still on the clock. It's like it's a
Christmas special.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
We taped it.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I think in October my birthday. I think you're a
scorpio too.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm November sixth.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Yea, how I have room for your birthday in my
brain when I could use it to find my keys?
Understood our birthday?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
There's my keys?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, exactly. So I'm like two months from my eighteenth
birthday where I'm legal. We of course you're running behind
in schedule whatever. There's a number that I'm supposed to
be in, but the clock runs out. Now I'm with
(27:08):
my family. I'm seventeen and ten months almost years old,
I mean, and the teacher on this set, I was like, nope,
So there was no like guys his birthdays in five minutes. Yeah,
and it's my family. It's not even like I'm a
(27:29):
I mean, yeah, we're getting paid, but I'm not a
hired hand. This is and it was a men's number.
It was my uncles and my cousins and my brothers.
So it was like being ripped out of a birthday
party because our time to get there was never work.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, that's right, but to get back like monkey hour
with your it.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Was Monkey hour. Welcome to the King Family. With more hours.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
So when we were little, there were so many people
help us learn our lines. I remember on our Christmas Special,
which for whatever reason, the parents were supposed to do
that stuff. As far as lines and I was, I
would say I was raised by wolves, but that would
imply a lot of structure.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
And oh, I see, so okay my intro.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I'm supposed to introduce this number that my mom's about
to sing and this Christmas special, and the script supervisor
or whoever, or dad I don't know, goes, oh, yeah, honey,
here that's your intro for mom.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I'm tan perfect and you're sitting there.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So if you watch this intro, if you catch some
of the clips of the old show, there's the que
cards and I sound like one of the Charlie Brown kids. Hi,
I'm Cam and my brother Rich is going to sing
a song. My mom is going my mother and that's
(29:05):
my mother Alice, and she's going to sing a song.
It's like if someone had given to me, given these
lines to me. Oh, I don't know, even the.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Day before, an hour before, maybe it.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Just sounded like this. And I can remember another special
where I've got this special poem that I'm supposed to
have written, you know, a goofy you know, oh really,
and I am reading it like this and I've got
the papers, but I haven't even looked at it.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I it was from your heart.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
My heart is with my keys.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, yeah, Jesus, Well that's good. Well good, So there
was no pressure, no pressure, no pressure, No, there was
no pressure. What and give up show biz?
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Well you've probably.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Given your background. Was there ever a time when you said,
you know, I'd like to grow up and own a
general store, or I want to sell shoes.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Or you know, was there ever any doubt? Yeah? As
I said earlier, it's a single syllable answer.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I did want to pursue. My other love was art.
Oh so not something not No, I mean selling, Uh,
you know, working at Wesley's shoes store and selling ps flyers.
How old are you to know what flyers?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
They made attire and your p F flyers?
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Would you say?
Speaker 4 (30:41):
So they made a little comeback when I was in
high school? I don't know if I don't know if people, Yeah,
p F Flyers had a pair.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
That's good to know. There kids that stop stop on
a dime.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Uh, like you could run running.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
They stop on a dime because of their rubber or something.
But we digress. We do.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I had to stand lunch.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I'll be digressing again. What were we talking about?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Geez, your book?
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Have you read? Doing things?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
So I went to always go back to the book.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
So, so I went to Parsons School of Design and
Art school. It's hard, really and an expensive man. And
I wasn't I hadn't worked since I was a kid.
I've done some commercials and stuff, and I was living
at home. And I was the first class of Parsons,
(31:40):
which is in New York, was a New York design school.
They bought a fine arts school called Otis in Los Angeles.
So I was the first class thirty kids, thirty students
chosen for Parsons Design Center.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Oh that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
It's pretty cool. And I'm like list blobberdy blue. I
applied for a loan and they said, yeah, but you
live alone. I'm sorry you live at home. I went, yeah,
because I don't have the rent money. Really, that's why
(32:21):
I am at home. Yeah, well, because you live at home.
I went, let me get this straight. If I go
spend money and get an apartment, then you'll give me money.
Our school is boring now. And I eventually dropped out
because my brother Ricky, who was still in the business
and now he was behind the camera as an associate
(32:43):
producer at Warner Brothers. He said, Hey, cam, we have
this thing called looping, and I can put you in
the loop.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I have heard of that.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Have you ever done to group?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, maybe on some animated maybe Lorraine Newman and uh yeah, like.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Some animated features.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Uh huh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Well for those of you that don't know, it's different
than your animation or anime or radio, TV spots and stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
It's kind of fun.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Oh, it's actually a whole different animal. It is.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
In post production is where they lay in fight grunts. Yes,
that they lay in you know, one out forty. We
have your suspect on Route nine, please respond. And crowd scenes,
crowds of football games, locker rooms, sports bars, what whatever.
(33:43):
It is. All the extras, they're just mouthing stuff. Because
when you go from your master shot to your close
up to your close up, you're gonna hear a bump
in sound if anyone is also talking a din in
the background, and it's likewise, I'm going to ruin your
(34:05):
watching movies.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Now, that's why it is, and it's kind of never
dance local camouflage.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yes, And it's why nobody dances in time because there
is no music playing. Because when you cut from shots
to shots, Oh, there's a bump. And although you have
your script supervisor, who's going to go, no, Jim, your
hand was you know, your arm goes here and you movee.
(34:32):
I just remember this that.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Oh yeah, yeah, music they can't like at.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
The nano second, get bar thirty six to fall organic
or when you're being organic with your line delivery, to
fall in that nanosecond. So if you watch a dance
scene in a movie, unless it's a musical, no one
is in time. Are the clapping gets off? Huh because
(34:59):
there is no music?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Wow? So again because you never pick up on that
if you were just one.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
So you're welcome, and of course I always am aware.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
That and you're hyper aware at this point.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yeah, especially when I'm there and there now is music
and we're supposed to be the people in the cowboy
bar whatever. You'll clap into the music or whatever it is,
and we have to do we have to juggle with
the picture. We're trying to stay in time. With whatever
(35:35):
the music is. But sometimes we have to go like
this to catch the picture. And then when we cut
away from the crowd, we can be back in rhythm.
So that stuff is laid down after the fact. And
that's where I started in voice and there.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
So what what what's your loop? And gig a big
movie that anybody would know. There you got to lay
down a couple of greatest hits here so we can
sit there and go, wait.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
A minute, okay them here here, here's a deep diet. Actually,
I will respond to that first. Back in the early
days that I started in the eighties, local hires, like
say a film or a television show was on location,
they would hire local actors for small parts. We call
(36:28):
them under fives, right, which meant five lines or under
Now there are talented, it means less money. Oh god, yeah,
like way less. Let's because they're local hires. But now
over the last couple of decades or whatever it is,
(36:49):
they're talented people everywhere. Yes, But back in those days
it's like hiring speaking of the you know the general
stores selling yeah, I mean the kid from the general store. Inevitably,
when the footage would get back here, we would revoice them,
(37:09):
and I always felt sad that here's this kid or
this grandma or whoever it is. Whoever, Hey, everybody, come over.
I'm in this episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, which was
one of my first series, okay, that I conducted, and
that one of two things is going to happen, or
like we did North in the South, which was an
(37:31):
early Civil War multi episode.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Patrick swayzey, Yes, dude, Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Find your glasses out. Patrick Swayze out. Yeah, Jimmy Cummings
birthday out. Lets me find my keys, Patrick Swayze out.
Jimmy can find it. And I could picture and I
know there was a young Civil War guy that that
I did, that I revoiced, and one of two things
(38:00):
I imagine happens. One is he's got his mom and
his dad and whoever, his cousin whoever, over to the
house to watch his claim to fame here. Either he
is mortified when he hears that's not me hm, or
damn I sound good.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
That's good? And were you responsible for making him sound
so good?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah? And I will never Yeah, No, I mean you
see how it could go either way. It's not like
we changed the timber.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, and had.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Someone with a big, deep voice, be this sixteen year
old Civil War kid on the battlefield. You know, you
keep it in kind.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Like the Lone Ranger. They did that Clinton Spillsbury when
they made the Lone Ranger movie, and.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
He had a voice like this, I'm the Lone Ranger.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
And and coming through the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
And in the Tarzan movie, famous one with Andy McDowell,
Glenn Close and Annie McDowell became a star. Oh but
I mean, look this up in case I'm a big
fat liar, and you can blame Patrick Swayze stuck in
his head for my lying that Glenn Close revoiced the
(39:27):
entire role of Andy McDowell is Tarzan.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
So it it is a thing.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, and Glenn was pretty big.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Oh yeah it is. Yeah, probably, but you never you
would never know because nobody knew Andy yet.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
No except from that for Cocta commercial before Tarzan. I
think so. I think it was something about her hair.
She had someday, someday I'm on to go to Dallas.
It was something like that.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
She she had a really accent. Yeah yeah, oh god, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Shove that out of my head and make room for something.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Use your phone. Let's find your phone.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
That's fine, that's true, okay, or your last name?
Speaker 3 (40:17):
My name is if found. So you asked, what is
the first show I did? Looping on and it was
a spin off of Dukes of Hazard that my brother
was associate producer on, called Enus No. I said us
(40:38):
the no P right got to end No A, which
is where I.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Went, Okay, okay, well see, okay.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Either one is quite a difference.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yes, it is a show, Yes, but what a great
show that wasn't Yeah?
Speaker 3 (40:56):
I think it lasted a season and a half.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
I thought it was just for up Tommershall and then cut.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Oh they do a rerun story about that and the
King family. Oh you don't jump up track.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Wow, they went to a commercial and said, okay, that's good.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
When we got our second series in nineteen sixty nine,
and guys, shameless plug, Well, this whole interview is a
shameless plug. Yes, please welcome back to Shameless Plugs.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
I'm going to jump in here and just answer a
question that you guys may have watching. How come we're
not talking about mutant ninja turtles? How can we're not
talking about Lion King. This is Cam's second time on
the show. The first time we talked about all that
good stuff, all the good voices, everything like that. So
you haven't seen that episode, then go over and check
that out right now, check that out, and now we're
back to party with cam Clark and skip.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Everything else and come back to me. Why because it's
all about.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Me that you're back.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
So and a lot of the stuff we're talking talking
about is in the book. When we got our second series,
ABC had launched a show called turn On, which was
nineteen sixty nine winter season, so January whatever that used
to start, not September like most of the shows did
back in the day of network TV. It was supposed
(42:21):
to be like a race laugh in like naughtier, pushing
buttons and dot dot da, and I talk about it
here in the book that it was found in that
day to be so awful, I mean, so risk whatever
(42:44):
words you know you want to use that some of
depending on the time zone, some affiliates did cancel, did
take it off the air at a first commercial. Now
the people on the East coast get into this and
it doesn't air at all, or you mean.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
The West coast because then they go from Easter. No,
this was filmed.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Wait, don't ask me math questions. However it travels is
east west, home, has been, you know wherever it is
because of the time zones. Geez, put me on the spot.
Never learned my timestables. By the way, I'll just add
that there. I know that's seven times eight.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Is a fifty is a math equation?
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Is a math equation.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But back to cancellations on television, of which I know
a lot.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
See if you're a fan of everything we do here
at tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the
show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as
early in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, So go ahead and
join the tuned In family today at patreon dot com
(43:59):
slash Jim Cummings podcast.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Do It Now so it get is canceled and they
toss on some rerun of Who Saved My Couch or
I don't know, Oh yeah, I love that show. Yes,
And it's like they're getting on the horn with like,
who can we we got to change this. We can't
got a lot of everybody's you know, saying cancel, cancel, canceled,
and they go like, who do we have in the vault?
(44:25):
And our manager got wind of this and knew a
guy who knew a guy and said, uh, I know,
I know here's someone that Procter and Gamble will and
those folks will get on board. So I mean, who
can be more informative or well, no, squeaky clean.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Oh then the King Family, but that's pretty squeaky.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
So we were already doing we were off the air
weekly and doing our specials and blah blah blah. But
we were back on the air weekly because of this show.
Turned on that and the letters from the networks about
your dirty little shows.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
And your well you solved that, didn't you?
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Yes? And it was the in the days of network
Rulage had the record for quickest cancelation. I don't know
if there was some would be as they came out
of that, but King Family to the rescue. Wow.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
And it's that's a chapter in this, isn't it. Yeah? Yeah?
See you like how I went back.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
To the Yes and it gave us, It gave a
boost to us. You know, it was a little shot
in the arm to get us back on weekly, which
bumped up our touring.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
You know, comes Oh yeah, you guys toured a lot,
did you?
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Oh my god. Also I didn't know that, yeah, every summer.
And in fact, there is a section in the book
as well where I wrote on my site camclark Voices
dot com. That's a good name for it, right, Too
bad it wasn't available what I asked fans to write
(46:18):
in if you had an experience as a fan with
a live memory and experience of seeing us live, can
you send it in?
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Oh and what a great idea.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Oh my god. And so I have a section of that.
It's like, you can't make this ship up. One and
number two, these people submitted stuff written like Earl Hamner.
I mean it reads like Walton's Mountain or mountains or
the elegance I'm sorry, eloquence with which these are written,
(46:56):
and the humor of a teenager and the irony and stuff.
And one guy writes in about he had a crush
on cousin Liza and to get autographs out of the show,
but he didn't have a pen, and Alvino had one
and he loaned it to me. And I had your
souvenir program and I still have the program, but I
(47:18):
also still have the pen. I mean it gets me, like,
you know, like this, yeah, and these stories about we
baby sat and we did lemonade stands and doggie sat
and so we could afford tickets. My girlfriend and I
my little girl, the two little gals, little thirteen year
old girls or whatever. And then they saw the program
(47:42):
and they have these many nickels and dimes in there,
you know, in their little their little pocket books. Sure,
and do we get a program or do we have dinner?
And they splurged for you know, and they'd driven on
the they went on the bus, like a three hour
bus ride or something. So this woman talks about they
(48:05):
bought the program and they split a candy bar oh
for dinner on the drive home because they had that
many Nichols.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
I mean, it's like.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Out of a movie.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Just beautiful. Seven guys, If any of you are watching
Jimmy Show, I know I've told you this a million times,
but your stuff is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Wow, that is nice.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
And I had a gay guy to write in who said,
so believe it or not? Okay, well, all right, we
have just like Diana Ross and Madonna, we have a
bet a bet and with their number one fan right
here in fact, you get by the drawing thing. I
(48:54):
have pictures here in the book because I loved drawing,
as I've mentioned, and I love drawing fashion. And I
have pictures that somehow survived of me sketching King's sister
gowns that I could see, and I have the photo
of the gown they were wearing and my sketch from
when I was like five years old. Holy wow, Mackie, Yeah, yeah,
(49:17):
he learned everything from me.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
And so this man writes in and says that he
had a his favorite King cousin because everybody, there were
so many of us, everybody had a you know, I
love this one.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
I love that one.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
And his favorite cousin was Kathy. And the girl Cousins
released an album of their own of kind of what
they call a term that's come to be in the
music industry called sunshine pop, which is kind of it
what it says.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
It's kind of like slip, not only not quite or
not slip or not Yeah, Okay, I mean I think
you might put someone like Petula Clark.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
I don't know if she is sunshine pots.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
That sounds good, but is that kind of or cows
oh cow sills. Sure you know, so I'm singing yes, okay, yeah, thank.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
Me, happy happy happy Partri's family stuff kind of thing.
But this was earlier in the mid sixties.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
They were imitating y'all. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
And so this man, when he was a boy, he
wrote me that he uh.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
You say, wrote wrote, Okay, I thought I heard something else.
Go ahead, well that was.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
On the sequel sequel to Chris Got It, and goes
that was I thought. He said that too, said when
he was home alone as a kid, he would put
on the girl's album and where his mother's pink, put
on his mother's lipstick, and dance around the house. And
(51:03):
as he says, I swear to God, I was Kathy Cole,
you know. And so these stories are just all over
the map, and people saying I wanted to be a
member of your family. And one girl, one woman wrote
in to say when she was a girl, she would
just was badger her mom about Oh I wish I
(51:25):
was part of that family. And she goes, well, you
can't because you have brown hair. Okay, see end of story.
Speaker 4 (51:32):
Wow, I'm curious. I have two questions. Yeah, sitting here
listening to you talk, what is there any part of
your family that wasn't interested in show business or didn't
partake mercy killing.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Yeah, they're not with us anyway. I was gonna go,
wait a minute, boy took a turn. Did I do
that with too much of a strange face?
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yes, I think so. Yeah, it was you used to
play with them, didn't you. Mercy killing?
Speaker 3 (52:01):
Yeah, ladies and gentlemen give it up for mercy killing.
And no, there was a couple surprisingly the and uh
one in particular my cousin Chris. Fortunately for him, he says,
(52:21):
he was. I mean, I think he's adorable on the
stuff he chose to be on. He didn't dig it,
so he opted. There was no gunpoint. No, you didn't
have to do it if you want to.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Et cetera. Enough people, but if your mom wanted you to,
you have better. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:38):
And the girls, for example, I mean the people that
choreographed our first first series director was Mark brow uh,
choreographer Dede Wood. They choreographed Mary Poppins and sounded so
step in tall him.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
But that's the first thing I thought of. Yeah, but
that's just wow.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
And all it's interesting. All our girls, all the kids
that were girls okay, sorry, could dance anything. We're great dancers.
The boys were like a bunch of high school boys,
and my brother Ricky was great, but most of the
boys did not have.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
The there's no way you a good dancer. Look at
I mean you could. You're right there, now, come on,
you were a good dancer. Yeah, I was, thank you.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
But there was also this period, and to me it
shows in the shows. And again I mentioned it in
here knowing that I was gay and this was my deep,
dark secret, and I was never Donnie Osmond or Michael
(53:49):
Jackson started at the same time. I didn't have the
training or that focus.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
That those are the probably too well they.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Yes, but I was afraid that if I was a
little too Broadway to Broadway jazz hands to yeah, that
whole I don't know. I was afraid I would give
away my secret.
Speaker 4 (54:21):
This is eleven.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Yeah, that's a long time.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
And so although I start out as a monkey, a
durable unlike Michael and Donnie, I disp the the the
performer of me goes undercover for fear of not passing. Sure,
(54:44):
and so you'll see me with my hands like we're
standing there and nobody there's thirty six away. Who's going
to notice everybody? My hands are supposed to be here,
and I've got them like like this, and we uh
in sixty nine on that series, we did always something
there to remind you, remind me al Vino's doing on
(55:08):
the guitar and the boy cousins are in it. I
am sitting there there's risers with my legs like this
and my hands here and my shoulders, shoulders curled in. Okay,
because and I have to keep to keep it from
solode with Alvino Diana, you know this kind of thing
(55:31):
there and wow, but I am confined and you can
see the body language that I don't want to be
anywhere to the underlying truth.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
I am there, but it wasn't until I am there, however,
there the show. But it wasn't until I think I
got to be in the last years of the show,
when I was like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen eighteen, that I
so it was a secret, but I got my body back.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Put your way, got a dance, Yeah, okay, give me
the ball, give me the ball, gotcha?
Speaker 3 (56:17):
Oh man, I did fail home a one oh one. No,
come on, no, it's true. I know my workers won't
believe that.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Wait a minute, but I don't know what them. I
acted like I knew what you were talking about.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
How'd I do the only way I know Broadway tunes? Oh? Oh?
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Is that because I was paid to sing them?
Speaker 3 (56:40):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (56:41):
Well, okay, fair so yeah?
Speaker 3 (56:43):
And also, oh, if we can just get psychological for
a second. Sure I found out not by my own.
A friend told me that I did this. Can I
talk naughty? I'm allowed to say? Than what naughty?
Speaker 2 (56:59):
Probably you sure are here?
Speaker 3 (57:01):
Okay, we're not live, so you can put your little
bleep comes on.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
And that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
That's right, And then the King Family places your podcast.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (57:15):
I used to rent a place up in a local
mountain resort here called Lake Arrowhead. Yeah, that's the naughty word. Anyway.
I'd rent a place in the fall, take all my
friends up for an autumn you know, like weekend contest,
and I would have people drop off firewood for the weekend.
(57:38):
And I'm up there, and y'all know how I speak.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
We do now?
Speaker 3 (57:45):
We do now? Yeah? And I went early with one
of my girlfriends and we're sitting there talking. Knock knock,
knock on the door, and it's the firewood guys. Yeah,
and she's sitting at My friend is sitting just a
few feet away in the in the living room. And
I opened the door and here's these birdies, you know,
(58:09):
yeah lumberga. I'm a lovel.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Actually lumberjair if you think about it.
Speaker 3 (58:12):
And these young guys, you know, just mountain kids. Sure,
and they go, Hi, we're here at the firewood and
I go from this too, Yeah, thanks for coming. If
you'll set that up over there, yeah, just under that
eve there, that'd be great. Uh, yeah, here you go,
thanks for coming over. And I got your number for
the future. Fucking a right, and I'm well done, and yes, fabulous.
(58:41):
I closed the door. My girlfriend Julie goes, what was that?
Speaker 2 (58:47):
And what was what?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
She goes, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (58:52):
You didn't even know you did it?
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Probably a safety measure, and she goes, I know what
you're talking about. She goes, what was that? You're sports
and pussy voice.
Speaker 2 (59:03):
So I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (59:06):
I you know that I was, you know, using this voice,
and uh it's a damn fine one, which I've used
as a cartoon voice over, you know, I've employed that fellow. No,
that's funny, but I speaking a voice the world a
voice I was doing this protection thing, and now what
(59:31):
I use it for besides work is embarrassing my friends
and family. Perfect will be someplace that's maybe like we'll
be on the lake, you know, and there's all the
guys in their you know, speedboats and stuff, and We'll
be just sitting there chatting, and I'll yell out to them, hey,
how's your weekend going? Fucking e bro right on, right on,
(59:54):
And they are between giggling and wanting to smack me
with a baseball back right right right, They're just go
like this, all right, man, we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Yeah, right on, Hey, geez, I feel like changing a
flat tire.
Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Yes, what you do? Because I don't know our time here,
that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
I don't know. I think we're doing damn fun here.
Is there anything you'd like to talk about?
Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
You can get again. It's called I keep using the
name of that one man show. Stop me if I
told you this. No, it's called now They're All here.
The title comes from is the only line my grandmother
ever had on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Now They're all Are? We are all?
Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Now? Now?
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
No, it's they they okay?
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Because it's our Thanksgiving special. She's sitting on the parts
of this big Victorian home that's our family is supposed
to be our family home, right, and everybody comes in.
We're singing over the river and my little cousin Adam
is scheduled to be everybody's inside. There's a beat and
he comes running up the steps, gives her a peck
(01:01:06):
on the cheek and runs in. And Grandma looks at
the camera and says, now they're all here, and the
hills are alive with the sound of music. Wow comes
up in the background, and it is a phrase that
we still use in our family. There are otherwives from
the show that if you're the last to show up,
(01:01:29):
someone inevitably goes, now they're all here.
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Oh that's great.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
It's kind of a goofy titled, but it has yeah
purpose sentimental.
Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
What it's sentimental.
Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
It is sentimental and represents the unity of togetherness.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. That's a nice that's a
nice button.
Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
And I get the same response that as you've I'm
sure experienced at the con. At the com con circuit,
the what kids come up and say to us about
I had a bad home life and you got me
through this.
Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
So you got me through that.
Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
I wish Da Da and the King family, the fans
that are now between the ages of fifty and death
will say the same things, I was an only child
or abusive home.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Bah bah bah.
Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
So my true button out.
Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Here would be.
Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
The insane gratitude I have had for being in your
homes for six a few years, sixty years, I've been
in your living room and to this day I get
(01:02:55):
paid to have you guys say thank you for my childhood.
And same with the King family, thank you for letting
me be a part of your family. So it's an honor.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Yeah, yeah, it is an honor. That's it is never lost. Yeah,
never lost on me.
Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
And I think I know our team, I know our peeps,
and I'm so proud of Geez. I didn't think I
was going to go here. Fah. That it is never
lost on us, you guys, because we don't get it us. Really,
it is not. We don't get heady.
Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
Yeah, it's like, well, we work in a vacuum, we
work in a room alone, and it's moments like this
and as you have mentioned before, the conventions where people
will come up and they can't even talk because all
of a sudden, you know, you launch into this, you
start that forget about it, and you know there's a
(01:04:02):
forty year old who's now five.
Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
Yes, and it's and it's a nice it's a beautiful thing.
It's a really beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
And my old joke is, now that I've done this
for you, I can go back to being a jerk
because I'm and break even, you know, and break even.
Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Thank you so much for being here by.
Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
Yeah, thank you very much, guys, thanks for having me back.
I'm out of this. You can get it at Amazon
or my publishers, which are rarebird Lit dot com, r
A R E b I R D L I t
Rare bird lit dot com. I'm really proud of it,
(01:04:41):
and I hope you like it too. Awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
If you're a fan of everything we do here at
tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as early
in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, so go ahead and
join the tuned In family today at Patreon dot com
(01:05:06):
slash Jim Cummings podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
Do it now, and we have we have to do
a voice swap for the for the fans, we got
to do a couple of voices at least.
Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
So you're gonna sing, baby Cam, thank Heaven for little girls.
Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
Oh oh okay, thank Kevin for little girls.
Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
Remember you're seven?
Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Sure, I'm seven? Oh you know the song?
Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Okay, sure, oh yeah, maybe Gigi, maybe Tess.
Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
Just what your characters singing?
Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
And see that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
This is a musical called Gigi. Yeah, this is one
of the biggest Mariva. Yes, okay, is it gonna be
Tasmanian devil singing things? Thanks for girls? Sure said no
one ever?
Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
Said no one ever. And then you should respond.
Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
As whatever your heart one of your characters, one of
one of your voices doing the station break I would do.
Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
On the I like the one.
Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
I like the one that you did on the farm.
By the way, I shay, we whack them that guy
the oh yes, Friday the ferrets.
Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Yeah he was first. Thank Kevin for little girls.
Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
Well for little girls get bigger every day. Just finish
the phrase.
Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
For lettle girls get bigger every day.
Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
Here some more ladies and gentlemen stay done for usaid
I didn't have a king family show which follows. This
is a minute after people to some commer shows.
Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Okay, that was painful, James, we've done it again to
my purple brother.
Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Yes that's right, I was your older brother still Amy.
Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
Thank well, Thank you very much, and thank you guys
all for watching. If you like this content, be sure
to like and subscribe. We appreciate you all. This will
show the YouTube algorithm that you're into this kind of content,
and it'll show more of that content to you. I
know from personal experience on YouTube, you can really see
a video one time and never be able to find
the channel again. So make sure to turn on notifications
(01:07:30):
so that doesn't happen to you. And if you really
like this content so much that you want more good news,
and if.
Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
You can find Jim and Cam's keys and wallet, thank
you guys, Hey.
Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Buddy, thank you
Speaker 3 (01:07:44):
Very cool
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