October 22, 2025 • 19 mins
TV WE LOVE is a new multi-part docuseries, debuting Monday, October 13 (8:00-9:00 p.m. ET/PT) on The CW. The nostalgic series celebrates eight of America's most iconic television shows and the indelible mark they left on popular culture. Cast members, creators, scholars and television insiders share rare stories, behind-the-scenes secrets, and surprising insights into the creativity and innovation that made these programs unforgettable. More than just entertainment, these series became cultural touchstones, uniting families and generations in front of the television screen.Featured cast members include Keith Thibodeaux (I Love Lucy); Barry Williams, Christopher Knight (The Brady Bunch) and Gary Cole (The Brady Bunch Movie); Fred Grandy and Ted Lange (The Love Boat); Don Most and Scott Baio (Happy Days); Al Corley, Jack Coleman and Pamela Sue Martin (Dynasty) and Roma Downey (Touched By An Angel). The special also features commentary from Variety Executive TV Editor Michael Schneider, entertainment writer, author and journalist Jim Colucci and super celebrity fans Bob Costas, Carrie Preston, Nicole Sullivan and Kate Flannery.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, if this is the first time that you've joined
me on this experience and this adventure, please visit ero
dot net, A r r oe dot net. There's so
much more than just the conversations, the interviews, the movies,
the rockstars. Ero dot net, A r r oe there's
a podcast for everyone. Jim, I got to tell you,
I am that person that's watching these old programs on HDTV,
(00:22):
I mean every one of them, and I find myself,
even as an adult, I've got to have answers. I
have to know what went on behind the scenes. I
have to know more about the actors. And then here
comes your book, TV we Love and my god, this
is a gift.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, this is a TV show, an eight part TV
show TV we Love, and yes, it's it's a gift
because we delve into each of these shows and the
stories behind their production with some of the people who
were involved. So, for example, in the upcoming Brady Bunch
episode that airs this coming Monday, we speak to Barry
Williams and Chris Knight, Greg and Peter Brady about what
it was like firsthand to be a Brady. But then
(00:56):
we also talk to TV experts, and we talked to
some of the stars of later shows like Kate Flannery
from the Office, who played Alis in a Brady stage
show in the nineties and aughts, but also, you know,
obviously can talk about how the Brady Bunch influenced her
as a performer, and so we see the echoes of
the Brady Bunch in shows like The Office.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I got to tell you the reason why I called
it a book is because I like to go into
close caption and look at it. Because there are times
that people will say things and I totally miss it.
But if I can see those physical words, and so
it's like, to me, everything is a book, and I
get you, yeah, because this is so valuable and so
important to not only me, but I will sit there
and talk with younger adults who are just discovering these
(01:36):
shows that they found on YouTube or me TV and stuff,
and it's like, you need to get you really under
need to understand. Where we are today is because of
shows like this.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yes, it all builds and we go back to things
like I Love Lucy that we covered in last week's
episode about how I Love Lucy invented the modern sitcom
with multi camera filming and putting things on tape and
all the technical stuff that we still enjoy seventy five
years later. But it's just and then of course thematically,
just how brilliant the writing and acting was and how
(02:07):
that is echoed in today's shows. But yeah, it's yeah,
I think if you really love television, it's fun to
go back. If you're discovering stuff and new, it's that
you can you can see what the building blocks were
that led us to the shows that you love today.
And then if you watched these shows back in the day,
TV we Love will bring you back those memories and
bring you back the ceiling of that communal experience when
(02:30):
there were three networks and we watch these shows together
and enjoyed them. So it's just there's so many levels
to enjoy TV we Love. And you know, it's funny
that you mentioned books. That's what I do. I write
books about television, so I certainly love the written word
and seeing seeing all of these shows explained in detail
that really make them make sense and resonating.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
See you see you see the picture. As an author,
while you're putting stuff like this together, you are envisioning
the person that's going to be checking in and most
of the time they're going to be checking in the
middle of it. You've got to figure out how to
get him back to the beginning.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, yeah, And it's fun to tell the story of
these shows from the beginning because so many of them
have weird origin stories. And it's funny because people call
it cookie cutter and think that probably that TV shows
all arise in the same way, and maybe cynically that
they go it's all copycat television. But the funny thing
is some of the shows that have become iconic and
(03:23):
stand out to us the most were the odd balls,
were the ones that didn't fit into the cookie Cutter
mall and somehow made it onto the air, and they
all have such interesting stories to tell.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
You know, you brought up I Love Lucy. You must
have been sitting there in total shivers listening to Keith
talk about his passion for the show, especially since he
was so close to the Arnez family exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I mean, this is somebody who was there. Granted he
was a kid, but I mean he's the last remaining
cast member, and to hear somebody talking about a show
from seventy something, you know, he wasn't there at seventy five.
Years ago, but seventy something years ago. Wow, and you
know he worked first first hand with Lucy and Desi,
And yeah, it gives me goosebumps to hear it when.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
You've got someone like Desi Arnaz and even Lucy. I mean,
the thing is is that, I mean we're talking about
directors and writers and actors. Did they know of this
thing called forever? Because their shows are truly proving forever
does exist.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think they learned it later on before the rest
of us did. But they learned they didn't know it
from the start because the idea that I Love Lucy
was put on film was new and it was really
a practical thing because they needed to have a high
quality tape to show to the West coast after the
East coast had aired it, rather than showing what they
called kinescopes, which was like, oh, we would film literally
(04:38):
take a photo of the TV set on the East
coast and show that on the West. So I think
they were doing things out of necessity. And I know
from interviewing TV producers from over the decades that when
you're in the trenches making a TV show, your concern
is to get the next episode out the door. And
just to keep that conveyer belt, going to use a
lucy in metaphor and wrap the chocolate. And you know,
(05:01):
I don't think you have a sense of forever a
posterity or your place as a classic while you're making
something unless it's got like a really you know, the
groundbreaking guest star that you know it's going to attract
a lot of attention. You just want to get the
sausages dam and then you get the perspective of, oh,
this show is still being talked about five years later,
ten years later, twenty years later, Then you know you've
(05:23):
made a classic. See.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I wish I could have been a fly on the
wall during Desi's meetings where I could have seen the
business side of Desi arnest in the way of doing
what you just explained about the East Coast West Coast,
because that right there is a brilliant mind trying to
figure out how we can extend our outreach. And then
I mean, and then to do what they have done
with it, even with the camera angles and stuff like that.
That's the person I want to know. And maybe that's
just the producer inside of me.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, And I mean, but look at this, this and Granted,
Jess knew to hire all the right people who could
bring this vision to life, so he hired the best
in lighting and camera and whatever, but he was the
team leader. And to think that, I just love the
right brain left brain pature that existed within the same person.
That he could be a businessman and be so detail
(06:08):
oriented and be so bold, and then turn around as
a performer and show that he could stand up to
Lucille Ball of all people in comedy, and he could
be just as funny, and he could have his own
pratfalls and his own catchphrases and jokes. I just admire
that the same man could do both of those things.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Well, I go in there and for I love Lucy
as well as Johnny Carson, and I look at their
facial expressions when things were supposed to go one way
and they go a different direction. I love human just
what it does human emotions in the way of going Well,
that's not part of the script, but we're going to
run with that damn thing anyway.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yes, there was something even built into Lucy's character that
I always point out as one of my favorite things
about her, that when Lucy is messing up so terribly
when Lucy Ricardo is messing up so terribly and we
see that the consequences are going to be terror But
there's that brief moment during the performance where Lucy Ricardo
clearly thinks she's really killing it, and she's got this confident,
(07:09):
smug look on her face that you know is about
to be wiped off her face. That is just the
apex of comedy for me, the way that luci O
Ball could portray in one scene something going so terribly wrong,
but in the beginning her character thinks that's going completely right.
And that just makes me laugh every time I.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Got to ask you something here. I think I came
from a strange family from Montana, But my mom and
dad used to explain all the First of all, I
grew up in the mid seventies. I totally missed the Beatles.
I got the solo Beatles, but I didn't get the Beatles.
And I asked my mother, I said, who were these
four guys? I have no clue, and she said the
Beatles were. I love Lucy to my generation. Do you
agree with that?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Sure? Oh? I mean yeah, but I think that I
love Lucy was still I love Lucy to her generation. Too.
That's the thing, and it has spoken to every generation since.
But yeah, we can all point to this formative moment
when we had that when so and so was the
hottest thing in TV or film or music, and they
will always speak to us. I just was speaking to
(08:08):
an actor yesterday on a set of a show called
Saint Dennis Medical, and he pointed out that from ages
twelve to fifteen, he thinks there's the formative years. This
is David Allen Brier speaking, and I think his theory
is so interesting that the people who were the big
stars from that formative era of your life will always
be rock stars to you. And so for your mom
(08:28):
it was the Beatles, and for me, part of that
was the Bradys.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Please do Not Move. There's more with Jim Calucci coming
up next the eight part series TV we Love Oh
It's going to Change You. We're back with Jim Calucci.
During this eight part series TV we Love You bring
up something that when I heard it, I was like going, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I've got to talk to Jim about this. In radio,
(08:52):
we're always taught in threes. In other words, you have
to have the dick, the dork, and the deer and
you bring up the it has to happen in fours.
So it's like, wow, I've never heard of that term before.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, television. Here's the thing about television. There's a practical
matter for having four types of characters. And really The
Golden Girls was one of the first shows to come
up with that. But then look at we've had designing
women's sex in a city. You could go on of
the number of quartets, and there's a practical reason for
that in one way, because TV, particularly sitcoms, are usually divided.
(09:23):
They call them A plots and B plots. If you
notice on most of your favorite sitcoms, if you take
a typical episode, there will be a main storyline going on,
but then there's a second storyline happening for the other characters.
And to divide up three characters into two plots, it's
hard because you either have to have some character doing
double duty and does that make sense for either story,
or you have to have one character on their own.
(09:44):
But if you can divide four by two much more easily.
So it just was a practical matter. But it also
just the Golden Girls came up with a way, and
I think this probably reflects human nature to divide maybe,
I guess if you want to get technical and call
it the human psyche into four components, and there would
be the promiscuous one, and the dumb one and the
wise cracking one. And so it's just they found these
(10:06):
four archetypes that work really well.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Did you have any of those moments of I wish
I would have known then what I know now, And
what I mean by that is is that Lucille Ball
becoming pregnant and Mike and Carol Brady sleeping in the
same bad dude, how dare you do that on my
dad's TeV.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, there's so many groundbreaking moments of the fact that
Lucy was pregnant on TV nearly got the show canceled,
but Lucille Ball became pregnant in real life because you couldn't.
Can you imagine a world where you can't even say
the word pregnant? Talk about how restrictive things were back then,
and then yeah, Mike and Carol sharing a bed crazy.
You know. Meanwhile, kids watching the show were probably like, well,
my parents, shit, it's show the same bed. Like they
(10:46):
didn't think anything of it. It's just every one of
these shows broke ground in their own way, and it
really changed the time they were in. And then of
course now we look back and say, I can't believe
that they were the first.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I got to tell you, my favorite character on The
Brady Bunch was always Christopher Knight. And the reason why
is because I grew up the middle child, and I
always looked at Peter as being the middle child, and
it's like I needed to know what he was going
to do with his big brother as well as his
little brother, and I just I just needed to know
how to deal with these family situations and live happily
ever after.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Me too, I'm a middle child also three boys, so
I had the same thing going on. Of course, I
you know, I also identified with jan because maybe her
kerbre you are more neurotic note moments where more I
was more jammed than Peter. But I wanted to be Peter.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well and God to have a conversation with her today.
I mean, it is so magnetic because she has a
huge story that is still one hundred percent on told.
We assume we know her because of you know, Variety
magazine and People magazine, but not Ah, She's got something
inside her.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah. Well, of course, I mean, so many of these
actors in our minds will always be associated with these
classic roles, but they have gone on to do other things,
whether they're in television, whether they're acting or not, that
you know, they've had the rest of their lives and
they've been able to use these classic shows and the
goodwill that they got from up from us for portraying
these characters to really change the world in their own ways.
(12:08):
And so I pointed Ted Lange from The Love Boat
who became a playwright and director as well as an actor,
and Fred Grandy who became a congressman based on the
goodwill of having been on the Love Boat so so much.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Well, I still credit those guys for selling tickets to
those cruises. Every time you see them on TV, I'm going, ooh, ooh,
let's go on a cruise. I mean, that's what I mean.
They are so tight casts, it's unbelievable they are.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But you know, then they continue to be brand ambassadors
for Princess. In fact, other than Davin McCloud who's passed away,
the remaining crew member cast members of the Love Boat
will be reunited, reuniting for a cruise on Princess in November,
so they continue to represent the cruise line. But the
love Boat really created the cruise industry because the cruise
industry was really dead before the love Boat because people
(12:53):
viewed cruising as an old fashioned way to get somewhere,
and why wouldn't you just take a plane. They forgot
that cruising can beat the journey as well, and not
just the destination. And so it cruising just thanks to
the aura of the love Boat, became something people wanted
to do again. And now there's this you know, however,
many billion or billion dollar industry based on it.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
So I got to get your inside feelings on Touch
by an Angel, because I mean I realized I was
a kid, and I realized it was a grammar thing
to tune into that, but I didn't realize it it
had the impact with outside generations as well, that this
was just a personal thing, that this was an old
people's show.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, I mean, it had that reputation an airing on CBS,
CBS but always get made fun of by the late
night comedians as being like the old people network. Meanwhile,
I've always loved CBS shows, so you know, I never
took that too seriously. But the Touch by an angel
spoke to who we were in the nineties and the
spiritual connection we wanted to make and the hopes we
had that there were forces that were guiding us that
(13:53):
were greater than what we could see. Maybe in troubled
times every boy, in today's troubled times that I can
see how that would resonate.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Still, all right, man, got we gotta come clean here,
Pamela Sue Martin, you talk to her about Dynasty and
stuff like that, but come on, now, I was that
teenage boy that couldn't get anything off my mind because
she was on she was on a Nancy Drew and
it's like, oh my god, who is this person? I
gotta know more about her?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, and for me, I mean, I'm not old enough
to have seen it in the theaters, but for sidon
Adventure you have seen that in pre russ In so
many times. So yeah, family, Sue Martin was a huge star. Again,
you know in those formative years when I was learning
who was who on television and she's amazing. You know,
I'm fallin on Dynasty as iconic.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah. What's so interesting about this project TV we love
an eight part documentaries is the fact that you're putting
us in an area that the only time we ever
got information was from TV Guide as well as for
writing magazine. Did they depend on these networks to keep
their pages alive?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Well, sure, I mean without without the networks, what would
TV Guide have been? Variety, as of course film and
other parts of the entertainment and the street. But yeah,
this was an era when all of these shows were on.
Touch by an Angel was getting into the nineties when
we were at least at four networks with Fox at
Cable had become a big thing. But before the Touch
by an Angel, all of these other shows were in
the three network era where if you wanted to go
(15:15):
home and watch TV you had three choices and maybe
some local stations with syndication, but in primetime you had
three choices, and so these shows were things that we
all watched because that was what was on, and they
really defined their times.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I had a Donnie most moment, one that I wish
I would have recorded, but I just felt in my heart,
there's no way in hell that I'm going to do
this to Donnie. We went shopping, grocery shopping together, and
then we went and sat down and had coffee together.
And just talked about everyday life. My god, that guy
is just so in love with acting and just people
in general.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah he is. I not only I've met him through
a variety of things, not just for the happy days here,
but he did some love Boat episodes and I just
finished a book on the love Boat, And yeah, he
was such a TV fan himself of being an actor,
but also just of the medium that he went on
the love Boat and took his own pictures in Alaska
and of all the stars having fun on their downtime.
(16:10):
And he's just a fascinating person to talk to because
he was there in the trenches and is a fan
of just a lover of both acting and the medium,
and really has great insights.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
So what is it about these shows that we will
sit there and rewatch an episode the Brady Bunch Seinfeld,
I will say, I don't care how many times I've
seen it, I'm going to sit there and still find enjoyment.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Me too. Some of these shows are so well constructed
that you can discover new things, unrepeated feelings that you
maybe missed the first time. So actually some of them
you almost could experience it a new watching it a
second or third time because there's stuff you missed the
first time. But yeah, it brings you back to where
you were, who you were, who you were watching with,
(16:53):
what the times were like. Maybe if you're having a
tough time of what we're living through now, or you're
just your own personal circumstances, it brings you back to
a safe space. But it also just objectively, each of
these shows is still good when you watch them now.
And I know we've all had the experience where you
watch a show you loved as a kid and you
watch it now and you think, oh, that wasn't did
I like it? But these shows stand up. They're still funny,
(17:16):
they're still moving. Whatever they brought to us back then
they could still bring now. See.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That's what I love about watching it on ME TV,
WE TV and all of those is the fact that
I'm still getting those television commercials like the old days,
and it still has that texture because I I'll watch
Jack Binny every single day of morning, dude, because it's
something that I just feel like that I need in
my life.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, and why not understand the underpinnings of today's culture
by going back and looking at the great stuff from
back then? It just enriches your understanding of everything, of life,
of history, and of the things you're watching now.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Now, I have spent some time with the Coucils and
I have kind of gotten into a moment with them,
and I've said, you know, you guys created you know,
the Poetry's family, and they all giggle. I mean, it's like,
what a moment that the Council has put an impact
on someone to write a television show about a singing family,
and then that dang show takes off and every every
Monday night, I swear to god, I had to find
(18:10):
out what they were going to sing on that show
because it was gonna somehow, some way make it to
my homemade radio station in Billing's, Montana.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I mean, and you know, look again at if
you were a fan of Glee and you watched that
for the characterizations and what are they going to sing
this week? Well, that wasn't the newest idea because the
Partridges had done it. There's so many antecedents that it's
fun to discover. So if you're a kid today who
watched Lee, go check out the Partridges. And exactly for
those reasons that you said, there was a real life
(18:38):
family behind it, and there's such an interesting story there.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Creatively speaking, are you putting this on eight different Mondays?
Because you're saying, uh ah, this is about TV we love.
They had commercial breaks and you're going to have to
wait till next week to find out what's going on
as well, because that's the way we used to do it.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
It is the way we used to experience TV. It
happens to be the way that the CW operates, of course,
that they show things weekly and you eventually will be
able to go back and binge all these as much
as you want. But yeah, it is kind of fun
to watch them week by week and have that anticipation
like we used to have in the old days.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Dude, where can people go to find out more about you?
Because you obviously love television as much as millions of
us do out here, and we've always got to have
this connection of leadership.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Well, thank you, I would say, follow me on Instagram
at just Jim Clucci and you can always go to
Jimcolucci dot com find out more about my books and
my other work.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Well, please come back to this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Jim, thank you. What a pleasure talking with you. I
love talking with somebody who loves this like I do.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Okay, thank you you too,
Hey, if this is the first time that you've joined
me on this experience and this adventure, please visit ero
dot net, A r r oe dot net. There's so
much more than just the conversations, the interviews, the movies,
the rockstars. Ero dot net, A r r oe there's
a podcast for everyone. Jim, I got to tell you,
I am that person that's watching these old programs on HDTV,
(00:22):
I mean every one of them, and I find myself,
even as an adult, I've got to have answers. I
have to know what went on behind the scenes. I
have to know more about the actors. And then here
comes your book, TV we Love and my god, this
is a gift.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, this is a TV show, an eight part TV
show TV we Love, and yes, it's it's a gift
because we delve into each of these shows and the
stories behind their production with some of the people who
were involved. So, for example, in the upcoming Brady Bunch
episode that airs this coming Monday, we speak to Barry
Williams and Chris Knight, Greg and Peter Brady about what
it was like firsthand to be a Brady. But then
(00:56):
we also talk to TV experts, and we talked to
some of the stars of later shows like Kate Flannery
from the Office, who played Alis in a Brady stage
show in the nineties and aughts, but also, you know,
obviously can talk about how the Brady Bunch influenced her
as a performer, and so we see the echoes of
the Brady Bunch in shows like The Office.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I got to tell you the reason why I called
it a book is because I like to go into
close caption and look at it. Because there are times
that people will say things and I totally miss it.
But if I can see those physical words, and so
it's like, to me, everything is a book, and I
get you, yeah, because this is so valuable and so
important to not only me, but I will sit there
and talk with younger adults who are just discovering these
(01:36):
shows that they found on YouTube or me TV and stuff,
and it's like, you need to get you really under
need to understand. Where we are today is because of
shows like this.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yes, it all builds and we go back to things
like I Love Lucy that we covered in last week's
episode about how I Love Lucy invented the modern sitcom
with multi camera filming and putting things on tape and
all the technical stuff that we still enjoy seventy five
years later. But it's just and then of course thematically,
just how brilliant the writing and acting was and how
(02:07):
that is echoed in today's shows. But yeah, it's yeah,
I think if you really love television, it's fun to
go back. If you're discovering stuff and new, it's that
you can you can see what the building blocks were
that led us to the shows that you love today.
And then if you watched these shows back in the day,
TV we Love will bring you back those memories and
bring you back the ceiling of that communal experience when
(02:30):
there were three networks and we watch these shows together
and enjoyed them. So it's just there's so many levels
to enjoy TV we Love. And you know, it's funny
that you mentioned books. That's what I do. I write
books about television, so I certainly love the written word
and seeing seeing all of these shows explained in detail
that really make them make sense and resonating.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
See you see you see the picture. As an author,
while you're putting stuff like this together, you are envisioning
the person that's going to be checking in and most
of the time they're going to be checking in the
middle of it. You've got to figure out how to
get him back to the beginning.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, yeah, And it's fun to tell the story of
these shows from the beginning because so many of them
have weird origin stories. And it's funny because people call
it cookie cutter and think that probably that TV shows
all arise in the same way, and maybe cynically that
they go it's all copycat television. But the funny thing
is some of the shows that have become iconic and
(03:23):
stand out to us the most were the odd balls,
were the ones that didn't fit into the cookie Cutter
mall and somehow made it onto the air, and they
all have such interesting stories to tell.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
You know, you brought up I Love Lucy. You must
have been sitting there in total shivers listening to Keith
talk about his passion for the show, especially since he
was so close to the Arnez family exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I mean, this is somebody who was there. Granted he
was a kid, but I mean he's the last remaining
cast member, and to hear somebody talking about a show
from seventy something, you know, he wasn't there at seventy five.
Years ago, but seventy something years ago. Wow, and you
know he worked first first hand with Lucy and Desi,
And yeah, it gives me goosebumps to hear it when.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
You've got someone like Desi Arnaz and even Lucy. I mean,
the thing is is that, I mean we're talking about
directors and writers and actors. Did they know of this
thing called forever? Because their shows are truly proving forever
does exist.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think they learned it later on before the rest
of us did. But they learned they didn't know it
from the start because the idea that I Love Lucy
was put on film was new and it was really
a practical thing because they needed to have a high
quality tape to show to the West coast after the
East coast had aired it, rather than showing what they
called kinescopes, which was like, oh, we would film literally
(04:38):
take a photo of the TV set on the East
coast and show that on the West. So I think
they were doing things out of necessity. And I know
from interviewing TV producers from over the decades that when
you're in the trenches making a TV show, your concern
is to get the next episode out the door. And
just to keep that conveyer belt, going to use a
lucy in metaphor and wrap the chocolate. And you know,
(05:01):
I don't think you have a sense of forever a
posterity or your place as a classic while you're making
something unless it's got like a really you know, the
groundbreaking guest star that you know it's going to attract
a lot of attention. You just want to get the
sausages dam and then you get the perspective of, oh,
this show is still being talked about five years later,
ten years later, twenty years later, Then you know you've
(05:23):
made a classic. See.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I wish I could have been a fly on the
wall during Desi's meetings where I could have seen the
business side of Desi arnest in the way of doing
what you just explained about the East Coast West Coast,
because that right there is a brilliant mind trying to
figure out how we can extend our outreach. And then
I mean, and then to do what they have done
with it, even with the camera angles and stuff like that.
That's the person I want to know. And maybe that's
just the producer inside of me.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, And I mean, but look at this, this and Granted,
Jess knew to hire all the right people who could
bring this vision to life, so he hired the best
in lighting and camera and whatever, but he was the
team leader. And to think that, I just love the
right brain left brain pature that existed within the same person.
That he could be a businessman and be so detail
(06:08):
oriented and be so bold, and then turn around as
a performer and show that he could stand up to
Lucille Ball of all people in comedy, and he could
be just as funny, and he could have his own
pratfalls and his own catchphrases and jokes. I just admire
that the same man could do both of those things.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Well, I go in there and for I love Lucy
as well as Johnny Carson, and I look at their
facial expressions when things were supposed to go one way
and they go a different direction. I love human just
what it does human emotions in the way of going Well,
that's not part of the script, but we're going to
run with that damn thing anyway.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yes, there was something even built into Lucy's character that
I always point out as one of my favorite things
about her, that when Lucy is messing up so terribly
when Lucy Ricardo is messing up so terribly and we
see that the consequences are going to be terror But
there's that brief moment during the performance where Lucy Ricardo
clearly thinks she's really killing it, and she's got this confident,
(07:09):
smug look on her face that you know is about
to be wiped off her face. That is just the
apex of comedy for me, the way that luci O
Ball could portray in one scene something going so terribly wrong,
but in the beginning her character thinks that's going completely right.
And that just makes me laugh every time I.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Got to ask you something here. I think I came
from a strange family from Montana, But my mom and
dad used to explain all the First of all, I
grew up in the mid seventies. I totally missed the Beatles.
I got the solo Beatles, but I didn't get the Beatles.
And I asked my mother, I said, who were these
four guys? I have no clue, and she said the
Beatles were. I love Lucy to my generation. Do you
agree with that?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Sure? Oh? I mean yeah, but I think that I
love Lucy was still I love Lucy to her generation. Too.
That's the thing, and it has spoken to every generation since.
But yeah, we can all point to this formative moment
when we had that when so and so was the
hottest thing in TV or film or music, and they
will always speak to us. I just was speaking to
(08:08):
an actor yesterday on a set of a show called
Saint Dennis Medical, and he pointed out that from ages
twelve to fifteen, he thinks there's the formative years. This
is David Allen Brier speaking, and I think his theory
is so interesting that the people who were the big
stars from that formative era of your life will always
be rock stars to you. And so for your mom
(08:28):
it was the Beatles, and for me, part of that
was the Bradys.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Please do Not Move. There's more with Jim Calucci coming
up next the eight part series TV we Love Oh
It's going to Change You. We're back with Jim Calucci.
During this eight part series TV we Love You bring
up something that when I heard it, I was like going, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I've got to talk to Jim about this. In radio,
(08:52):
we're always taught in threes. In other words, you have
to have the dick, the dork, and the deer and
you bring up the it has to happen in fours.
So it's like, wow, I've never heard of that term before.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, television. Here's the thing about television. There's a practical
matter for having four types of characters. And really The
Golden Girls was one of the first shows to come
up with that. But then look at we've had designing
women's sex in a city. You could go on of
the number of quartets, and there's a practical reason for
that in one way, because TV, particularly sitcoms, are usually divided.
(09:23):
They call them A plots and B plots. If you
notice on most of your favorite sitcoms, if you take
a typical episode, there will be a main storyline going on,
but then there's a second storyline happening for the other characters.
And to divide up three characters into two plots, it's
hard because you either have to have some character doing
double duty and does that make sense for either story,
or you have to have one character on their own.
(09:44):
But if you can divide four by two much more easily.
So it just was a practical matter. But it also
just the Golden Girls came up with a way, and
I think this probably reflects human nature to divide maybe,
I guess if you want to get technical and call
it the human psyche into four components, and there would
be the promiscuous one, and the dumb one and the
wise cracking one. And so it's just they found these
(10:06):
four archetypes that work really well.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Did you have any of those moments of I wish
I would have known then what I know now, And
what I mean by that is is that Lucille Ball
becoming pregnant and Mike and Carol Brady sleeping in the
same bad dude, how dare you do that on my
dad's TeV.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, there's so many groundbreaking moments of the fact that
Lucy was pregnant on TV nearly got the show canceled,
but Lucille Ball became pregnant in real life because you couldn't.
Can you imagine a world where you can't even say
the word pregnant? Talk about how restrictive things were back then,
and then yeah, Mike and Carol sharing a bed crazy.
You know. Meanwhile, kids watching the show were probably like, well,
my parents, shit, it's show the same bed. Like they
(10:46):
didn't think anything of it. It's just every one of
these shows broke ground in their own way, and it
really changed the time they were in. And then of
course now we look back and say, I can't believe
that they were the first.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I got to tell you, my favorite character on The
Brady Bunch was always Christopher Knight. And the reason why
is because I grew up the middle child, and I
always looked at Peter as being the middle child, and
it's like I needed to know what he was going
to do with his big brother as well as his
little brother, and I just I just needed to know
how to deal with these family situations and live happily
ever after.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Me too, I'm a middle child also three boys, so
I had the same thing going on. Of course, I
you know, I also identified with jan because maybe her
kerbre you are more neurotic note moments where more I
was more jammed than Peter. But I wanted to be Peter.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well and God to have a conversation with her today.
I mean, it is so magnetic because she has a
huge story that is still one hundred percent on told.
We assume we know her because of you know, Variety
magazine and People magazine, but not Ah, She's got something
inside her.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah. Well, of course, I mean, so many of these
actors in our minds will always be associated with these
classic roles, but they have gone on to do other things,
whether they're in television, whether they're acting or not, that
you know, they've had the rest of their lives and
they've been able to use these classic shows and the
goodwill that they got from up from us for portraying
these characters to really change the world in their own ways.
(12:08):
And so I pointed Ted Lange from The Love Boat
who became a playwright and director as well as an actor,
and Fred Grandy who became a congressman based on the
goodwill of having been on the Love Boat so so much.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Well, I still credit those guys for selling tickets to
those cruises. Every time you see them on TV, I'm going, ooh, ooh,
let's go on a cruise. I mean, that's what I mean.
They are so tight casts, it's unbelievable they are.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But you know, then they continue to be brand ambassadors
for Princess. In fact, other than Davin McCloud who's passed away,
the remaining crew member cast members of the Love Boat
will be reunited, reuniting for a cruise on Princess in November,
so they continue to represent the cruise line. But the
love Boat really created the cruise industry because the cruise
industry was really dead before the love Boat because people
(12:53):
viewed cruising as an old fashioned way to get somewhere,
and why wouldn't you just take a plane. They forgot
that cruising can beat the journey as well, and not
just the destination. And so it cruising just thanks to
the aura of the love Boat, became something people wanted
to do again. And now there's this you know, however,
many billion or billion dollar industry based on it.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
So I got to get your inside feelings on Touch
by an Angel, because I mean I realized I was
a kid, and I realized it was a grammar thing
to tune into that, but I didn't realize it it
had the impact with outside generations as well, that this
was just a personal thing, that this was an old
people's show.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, I mean, it had that reputation an airing on CBS,
CBS but always get made fun of by the late
night comedians as being like the old people network. Meanwhile,
I've always loved CBS shows, so you know, I never
took that too seriously. But the Touch by an angel
spoke to who we were in the nineties and the
spiritual connection we wanted to make and the hopes we
had that there were forces that were guiding us that
(13:53):
were greater than what we could see. Maybe in troubled
times every boy, in today's troubled times that I can
see how that would resonate.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Still, all right, man, got we gotta come clean here,
Pamela Sue Martin, you talk to her about Dynasty and
stuff like that, but come on, now, I was that
teenage boy that couldn't get anything off my mind because
she was on she was on a Nancy Drew and
it's like, oh my god, who is this person? I
gotta know more about her?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, and for me, I mean, I'm not old enough
to have seen it in the theaters, but for sidon
Adventure you have seen that in pre russ In so
many times. So yeah, family, Sue Martin was a huge star. Again,
you know in those formative years when I was learning
who was who on television and she's amazing. You know,
I'm fallin on Dynasty as iconic.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah. What's so interesting about this project TV we love
an eight part documentaries is the fact that you're putting
us in an area that the only time we ever
got information was from TV Guide as well as for
writing magazine. Did they depend on these networks to keep
their pages alive?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Well, sure, I mean without without the networks, what would
TV Guide have been? Variety, as of course film and
other parts of the entertainment and the street. But yeah,
this was an era when all of these shows were on.
Touch by an Angel was getting into the nineties when
we were at least at four networks with Fox at
Cable had become a big thing. But before the Touch
by an Angel, all of these other shows were in
the three network era where if you wanted to go
(15:15):
home and watch TV you had three choices and maybe
some local stations with syndication, but in primetime you had
three choices, and so these shows were things that we
all watched because that was what was on, and they
really defined their times.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I had a Donnie most moment, one that I wish
I would have recorded, but I just felt in my heart,
there's no way in hell that I'm going to do
this to Donnie. We went shopping, grocery shopping together, and
then we went and sat down and had coffee together.
And just talked about everyday life. My god, that guy
is just so in love with acting and just people
in general.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah he is. I not only I've met him through
a variety of things, not just for the happy days here,
but he did some love Boat episodes and I just
finished a book on the love Boat, And yeah, he
was such a TV fan himself of being an actor,
but also just of the medium that he went on
the love Boat and took his own pictures in Alaska
and of all the stars having fun on their downtime.
(16:10):
And he's just a fascinating person to talk to because
he was there in the trenches and is a fan
of just a lover of both acting and the medium,
and really has great insights.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
So what is it about these shows that we will
sit there and rewatch an episode the Brady Bunch Seinfeld,
I will say, I don't care how many times I've
seen it, I'm going to sit there and still find enjoyment.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Me too. Some of these shows are so well constructed
that you can discover new things, unrepeated feelings that you
maybe missed the first time. So actually some of them
you almost could experience it a new watching it a
second or third time because there's stuff you missed the
first time. But yeah, it brings you back to where
you were, who you were, who you were watching with,
(16:53):
what the times were like. Maybe if you're having a
tough time of what we're living through now, or you're
just your own personal circumstances, it brings you back to
a safe space. But it also just objectively, each of
these shows is still good when you watch them now.
And I know we've all had the experience where you
watch a show you loved as a kid and you
watch it now and you think, oh, that wasn't did
I like it? But these shows stand up. They're still funny,
(17:16):
they're still moving. Whatever they brought to us back then
they could still bring now. See.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That's what I love about watching it on ME TV,
WE TV and all of those is the fact that
I'm still getting those television commercials like the old days,
and it still has that texture because I I'll watch
Jack Binny every single day of morning, dude, because it's
something that I just feel like that I need in
my life.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, and why not understand the underpinnings of today's culture
by going back and looking at the great stuff from
back then? It just enriches your understanding of everything, of life,
of history, and of the things you're watching now.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Now, I have spent some time with the Coucils and
I have kind of gotten into a moment with them,
and I've said, you know, you guys created you know,
the Poetry's family, and they all giggle. I mean, it's like,
what a moment that the Council has put an impact
on someone to write a television show about a singing family,
and then that dang show takes off and every every
Monday night, I swear to god, I had to find
(18:10):
out what they were going to sing on that show
because it was gonna somehow, some way make it to
my homemade radio station in Billing's, Montana.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I mean, and you know, look again at if
you were a fan of Glee and you watched that
for the characterizations and what are they going to sing
this week? Well, that wasn't the newest idea because the
Partridges had done it. There's so many antecedents that it's
fun to discover. So if you're a kid today who
watched Lee, go check out the Partridges. And exactly for
those reasons that you said, there was a real life
(18:38):
family behind it, and there's such an interesting story there.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Creatively speaking, are you putting this on eight different Mondays?
Because you're saying, uh ah, this is about TV we love.
They had commercial breaks and you're going to have to
wait till next week to find out what's going on
as well, because that's the way we used to do it.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
It is the way we used to experience TV. It
happens to be the way that the CW operates, of course,
that they show things weekly and you eventually will be
able to go back and binge all these as much
as you want. But yeah, it is kind of fun
to watch them week by week and have that anticipation
like we used to have in the old days.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Dude, where can people go to find out more about you?
Because you obviously love television as much as millions of
us do out here, and we've always got to have
this connection of leadership.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Well, thank you, I would say, follow me on Instagram
at just Jim Clucci and you can always go to
Jimcolucci dot com find out more about my books and
my other work.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Well, please come back to this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Jim, thank you. What a pleasure talking with you. I
love talking with somebody who loves this like I do.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Okay, thank you you too,
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