Podcasts about Ernie Kovacs

Today on part two of another brand new encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Suzanne Lloyd, granddaughter to silent film comedy icon, Harold Lloyd. Suzanne, as you heard in last week's episode is quite the steward for her grandfather's work and his legacy. She's the one who controls it entirely and she's done a tremendous job keeping it all alive, nearly a century after his career was at the very top of young Hollywood. Aside from the creative genius of the comedy of Harold Lloyd in films like Safety Last, which has the famous scene of his dangling from a clock, Suzanne tells us about the almost fairytale existence her fun loving grandfather provided in their estate known as Green Acres. We hear about all his passions – including Christmas, bowling which he did with Howard Hughes, the Shriner's hospital, early hi-fi audio and a very specific type of photography. 3-D photography. Did you even know that existed? Harold Lloyd sure did. This episode should come with a pop culture handbook of a who's who in the entertainment industry from the last century. We hear first-hand stories about the Rolling Stones, Debbie Reynolds, Disneyland, Roddy McDowell, Rick Nelson, Paul McCartney, Marilyn Monroe and many more. Much of it revolves around the Green Acres estate and an almost Barnum-like extravaganza for bringing the circus to your front door. The conversation begins mid-stream (which we salute Suzanne for btw) comparing her grandfather, the silent film star with early television icon Ernie Kovacs, Television's Original Genius. The parallel universe of these two comedic giants begins now, on the Rarified Heir Podcast with Suzanne Llloyd. Take a listen.

Today on part one of another brand new encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Suzanne Lloyd, the granddaughter who was raised like a daughter of iconic silent film star & business mogul Harold Lloyd. Suzanne is the steward of the Harold Lloyd estate and runs the archive of her grandfather's groundbreaking early Hollywood silent films which the creative genius and shrewd businessman almost single handedly owned throughout his career. Ah a preservationist in the mold of Edie Adams, host Josh Mills' mother who did the very same thing for the career of television's original genius, her first husband, Ernie Kovacs. Be still our hearts. Suzanne was incredibly gracious with her time when we talked to her and it was evident early on that she had so much to say about her years growing up, her grandfather's career, her parent's lives, the preservation of Lloyd's films as well as his opulent and ridiculously large house and grounds in Beverly Hills, we knew this conversation was a two parter. Suzanne was an eager guest who wanted to talk about her grandfather's work which ranks right up there with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Perhaps to the causal film fan, Harold Lloyd's name isn't as well-known some 90 years after the apex of his career simply because he owned his own films, not a film studio. So showings on television and screenings at film festivals were more sporadic through the years. But no doubt, with Suzanne's help, more fans than ever are able to see Harold Lloyd's comedy in 2026. This episode is a film lover's dream as we talk about early Hollywood icons like Mary Pickford, Daryl Zanuck, Hal Roach and many more – including her grandmother, Harold's wife, Mildred Davis. Davis gave up her own career once she married her comedic genius husband. Why? You'll hear about that shortly. Suzanne's ability to talk about the legacy of Harold Lloyd is only matched by her recall of facts, dates, productions, screenings, studios and more that it's almost uncanny how anyone could have total recall like that. So buckle up, this is only part one. Part two has stories about the famed Christmas tree that lived year round in the living room, the estate they lived on and the Paul McCartney party she attended after the estate was donated to the city. This episode spans decades. Take a listen.

Join hosts Tim Hamilton and Kevin Kablasto as Seddy Bimco explores the bizarre and hilarious world of the cult movie, Devil's Express. They also talk about TV shows, and pop culture. From 70s kung fu flicks to British comedy, this episode is packed with insights, jokes, and nostalgic moments.Keywordscult movies, TV shows, pop culture, comedy, 70s movies, British humor, nostalgia, movie analysisKey TopicsCult movies from the 70s and 80sBritish comedy and TV showsHidden gems and obscure referencesGuest NameTitlesThe Most Bizarre Cult Movies of the 70sExploring British Comedy and Classic TV ShowsSound Bites"Ernie Kovacs pioneered comedy on TV.""British comedy has a unique charm.""Pop culture is a reflection of society."Chapters00:00Introduction and Episode Overview02:06The History of Ernie Kovacs and Early TV Innovation04:08The Evolution of Comedy on Television06:04Discussing Classic and Modern Cult Films08:01The Influence of Star Wars and Nightmare on Elm Street09:54Analyzing Cult Movie Tropes and Parodies11:52The Rise of B-Movies and Low-Budget Classics13:47The Role of Nostalgia in Cult Film Fandom16:08Humor and Jokes in Cult Movie Discussions18:03The Impact of 70s and 80s Pop Culture19:57Favorite Cult Films and Hidden Gems21:55The Future of Cult Movie Appreciation23:59Closing Remarks and Listener EngagementResourcesErnie Kovacs - WikipediaBritish Comedy - BBCStar Wars Official SiteNightmare on Elm Street - WikipediaCult Movie DatabaseSee the Seddy Bimco watchlist! Email us at seddybimcoe@gmail.com Most art by Tim Hamilton Music by Tim Hamilton Check out the Seddy website. Website: https://www.seddy-bimco-part-2-the-re... Links: https://linktr.ee/seddybimco Check out George O'Connor's books: https://www.georgeoconnorbooks.com/ Check out Tim Hamilton's books: https://timhamiltonrwf.gumroad.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

April's almost over but we're not done talking all things comedy just yet:   We present to you an exclusive, long-in-the-making tribute and retrospect on '50s TV host, visual gag perfectionist & awe-inspiring comedian ERNIE KOVACS.   Who knew that Jack Lemmon was part of the Nairobi Trio?   What influence did Kovacs' abnormal style have on Kids in the Hall, Monty Python, MST3k, Pee-Wee Herman, Mr. Show & even Conan O'Brien?   Aside from Kovacs, how did Edward R. Murrow, Tex Avery, Andy Kaufman, Stan Freberg, David and Amy Sedaris & Mike Nesmith change the realm of meta-humor possibilities?   We also share trivia, a review of his TV biopic movie starring Jeff Goldblum & where you can get his CD recordings/DVDs!       CLIPS USED: "Ernie Kovacs Theme Song: Oriental Blues" by Robert Maxwell Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter TV spot

  Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to San Francisco television journalist Claudia Cowan whose parents were the actors Barbara Rush and publicist Warren Cowan. And as we learned on this episode, once wasn't enough for this Hollywood power couple as Claudia tells us. Her parents got hitched twice. The second time, was slightly more clandestine as you will hear. So what was it like to have a father who represented clients his mother starred in films with? We dig into it and a lot more on this whimsical episode. Claudia tells us what it was like to have a father whose clients included Ronald Reagan, George Burns and Kirk Douglas among many, many other A-list celebrities and a mom who starred in films with everyone from Frank Sinatra and Ernie Kovacs to Bob Crane and Hope Lange. As you may remember, we spoke to the children of both of Crane and Lange on recent episodes, so this episode comes full circle. Along the way we discuss things like Top Ten lists & celebrity golf tournament PR which her father invented, her mother finding love late in life after Warren's passing as well as things like The Rat Pack, The Beatles and other pop culture icons. Claudia was open and honest and a lot of fun as a guest and we covered everything from her home life, to her personal life behind the scenes as well as her career in local television in the Bay Area. It's all here on this episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Everyone has a story.  

Broadcasting from a parallel universe, Lionel dissects the absurdity of modern life, tearing down the "priesthood" of legacy media and mocking those distracted by the Super Bowl and Bad Bunny. He takes a dark dive into the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell saga, with callers theorizing that Maxwell was the operation's true "guiding force," before switching gears to celebrate the genius of Ernie Kovacs and rant against the "forced fun" and norovirus nightmares of cruise ships. The conversation turns combustible as Lionel tackles the NFL's diversity hiring controversies, defends Donald Trump's stamina, and debates the elusive definition of "white culture". Finally, he touches the third rail of talk radio, arguing with callers about "white privilege" courses, the concept of "sounding white," and why modern racial discourse has devolved into "absolute gibberish". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Lionel on The Other Side of Midnight for an eclectic mix of conspiracy, nostalgia, and sharp-tongued commentary. In this episode, Lionel bypasses the "boring" government shutdown news to explore unexplained aerial phenomena and classic cryptid legends like the Flatwoods Monster. He celebrates the visual genius of Ernie Kovacs and the soulful rock of Three Dog Night, while offering a cynical guide to media success: steal, fake honesty, and hide. The conversation takes a dark turn as Lionel dissects the Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein saga, theorizing that Maxwell was the true "guiding force" behind the operation. He also reminisces about Rudy Giuliani's NYC, from the failed "Let's Be Nice" campaign to the eradication of squeegee men,. Finally, Lionel rails against the horrors of cruise ships—preferring to "lick a belt sander" than endure norovirus and forced fun,—and interviews a bartender who claims to be a "functional" alcoholic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Today, we are doing something different but  not totally unprecedented. Last year in 2024, we presented a bonus episode, recorded live at the Texas Theater in Dallas, Texas with Ernie Kovacs award winner, Gerald Casale from Devo at VideoFest. This year, we'd like to present this year's VideoFest's Ernie Kovacs Award recipient, comedian Fred Armisen. This is just one of the ways we keep the legacy of both Ernie and Edie Adams going and frankly, it's really a major impetus for this podcast itself. How better to keep someone's legacy alive than via the children of those who knew them best, their children? Recorded on November 23, in the very same theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, exactly 62 years prior, this episode exists only because of one person and we wanted to thank Dev Shapiro of Selig News for his recording. You see, we recorded this directly from the sound board for ideal sound quality but when we got the digital files, they were corrupted and unusable. Thankfully, it was Dev to the rescue and while Dev was not recording directly from the sound board, I think we can all forgive the minor audio issues because well, he saved our bacon by just being there. Preservation is key and we thank Dev for making that happen. And thank you to yours truly for some of the audio fidelity we goosed up for this episode too. Big thanks to VideoFest's Founder Bart Weiss, the VideoFest team including Kelly Kitchens (who is also a Patreon supporter), Reid Robinson, Elijah Cruz Barron, Janeth Farnsworth, Jessica Spawn, Andy Streitfeld and Mark Wickersham as well as Barak Epstein of the Texas Theatre and Erin Barros of Concord Hospitality. More big thanks to Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams archivist Ben Model for the tip to bring up the Ernie in Kovacsland book on stage prior to the interview as well. And now, here's Fred Armisen. Take a listen. Everyone has a story.

This week, Bart Weiss returns to share an inside look at the upcoming event An Evening with Fred Armisen for The Ernie Kovacs Award, taking place November 22nd at the historic Texas Theatre in Dallas. Co-hosted by Dallas VideoFest's artistic director Bart Weiss and Josh Mills—son of Edie Adams—the celebration honors Armisen's inventive comedic legacy. It's a rare chance for fans to experience both his latest creative endeavor and a career-spanning tribute in one unforgettable event.   Get your Tickets here: https://thetexastheatre.com/film/an-evening-with-fred-armisen-for-the-ernie-kovacs-award/     Catch up with us on Twitter: @ILTMPodcast   Instagram: @ILovethatMoviePodcast   Support us on Patreon:   https://www.patreon.com/Ilovethatmovie

Starting our Witches Month early with Bell. Books, and Candle (1958) Eileen Jones of Filmsuck and Jacobin joins Forrest, Conan Neutron, and Kristina Oakes to talk about the Jimmy Stewart + Kim Novak Romantic Comedy "Bell, Book and Candle" Coming the same year as Vertigo, a 50 year Jimmy Stewart and 25 year old Kim Novak were once again paired up in the last film where Jimmy Stewart would star as a Romantic Lead. Also starring Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, and Elsa Lanchester For Spooky October, we are covering a month of movies about Witches!! #jimmystewart #jamesstewart #kimnovak #bellbookandcandle #zodiac #witches #witchcraft #spooky #october #vertigo #witchcraft #spookyseason #hocuspocus Filmsuck on Patreon: patreon.com/filmsuckWe are also streaming on @thisspacetv throw them a follow Join our discord: https://discord.gg/ZHU8W55pnh Join our Patreon to get all our After Parties https://www.patreon.com/MovieNightExtra

September 24-30, 1955 FALL PREVIEW This week Ken welcomes actor, comedian and film fan Josh Fadem to the show. Ken and Josh discuss being the first TVGC dandy, being swell, the age of guests, the 1950s, blacklisting, film noir, Ida Lupina, Columbo, John Cassavetes, Josh's Tulsa Noir Night, Oklahoma, German Expressionism, Eddie Muller of TCM, TV vs. Films, old Hollywood gossip rags, loving old ads, Doom Flipping, Touch of Evil, late period trashy Noir, The Killing, Jim Thompson, Ben Casey, Micky Spillane, Kiss Me Deadly, Mike Hammer, The Girl Hunters, Chuck Connors, The Rifleman vs Branded, Robert Mitchum, Old Gringo, Gregory Peck, Humphry Bogart, Rod Steiger, acting styles, the 2000s sketch comedy voice, Candy Clark, Twin Peaks, being seduced by Angie Dickinson, Fall Previews, Peter Laughford, Winky Dink and You, Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams, Playhouse 15, Live television, Backlash, Richard Wydmark, The Lucy Show, Ed Sullivan, Night of the Hunter, Lillian Gish, Pearl Bailey, The Outside Man, Ann-Margaret, Howard Hesman, Billy Jack improv, updating IMDB for other people, The Love God, bad acting choices, Three for Bedroom C, Adventure Walks with Mark Sabre, free diamonds, rocket ships, the singing rage of Patty Paige, Robert Shane, Shaggy, defective detectives, Racket Squad, big time arsonists, Studio 1, NY City Dramas, Counterfitter Detectives, The Little Rascals/Our Gang, Mr. District Attorney, expensive 1950s long distance phone calls, Mercedes McCambridge, Cleveland's Cafe Intime', The Alcatraz Hotel, the pictures, lavender bath soap, James Cagney, echo tape recorders, American Poem Songs, Charles Bronson, Vernon Chapman, and how Andy Griffith should have been in a version of The Killer Inside Me.

Eddie Brill joins me to discuss watching Jackie Gleason, Ernie Kovacs, & Bill Dana as a kid; going to Emerson college; Andy Kaufman; creating a comedy major at Emerson; trying stand up, quitting, and going back four years later; running the Paper Moon Comedy Club; Fright Night; Bill Gonzalez' Cable Comedy Show; watching the '86 World Series in Boston; minor league stadiums; his dad catching Sandy Koufax; hockey; 1969 - year of 3 NY championships; friendships with Sam Kinison & Robert Schimmel; doing warm up on Saved by the Bell; Louis CK gets him job as warm up at Letterman; subbing for Alan Kalter; Dr. Katz; first warm up after 9/11; doing bits on the show; doing stand up in UK, France, and Amsterdam; Mitch Hedberg and Stephen Wright; meeting Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield, and Redd Foxx; Flip Wilson; Police Squad; booking ventriloquists; meeting childhood crushes Farrah Fawcett & Sophia Loren; Don Rickles compliments him; appearing on Never Mind the Buzzcocks & The Jonathan Ross Show; doing a character, Jackie Shecky and being recognized by the Beastie Boys; The Chevy Chase Roast; Richard Belzer; Robert Klein; David Brenner & Joan Rivers help him hone his first Letterman appearance; Cleon Jones, Roberto Clemente, and Sid Fernandez; and eating mustard on baked potatoes

1959's It Happened To Jane was the rare Doris Day film that didn't hit with audiences at the box office.  Columbia attempted a re-release in 1961 under a new title, Twinkle and Shine, with similar results.  In the film, Day plays a Maine lobster farm owner pitted against a large railroad company when they damage her reputation and livelihood.  The comedy co-stars Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, and Steve Forrest and was shot on location in towns throughout Connecticut. Dan and Vicky discuss the film along with some recently seen like Elio, Bride Hard, Megan 2.0, 28 Years Later, Unitl Dawn, Sorry Baby, and The Woman in the Yard. Our socials:  hotdatepod.com FB:  Hot Date Podcast Twitter: @HotDate726 Insta:  hotdatepod

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to musician Jon Klages, grandson of musician and Hi-Fi proponent and record label owner Enoch Light. Our conversation with Jon began with understanding just who his grandfather was. A classically trained musician, Enoch founded his first group, Enoch Light & His Orchestra & later Enoch Light and the Light Brigade before World War II. Wildly popular in upper class New York society, Light went on to found one of the most unique independent record labels, well, ever. Vinyl collectors today will know Light's Command Records & Project 3 firstly for its unique, minimalist artwork from renowned artist Josel Albers. From classical to pop to Space Age Bachelor Pop to popular soundtrack hits and more, Light was nothing if not proficient. From albums like Persuasive Percussion to The Private Life of a Private Eye, Lights albums were visually stunning first and foremost. But take a listen to any of his albums from composers as varied as Doc Severinson, Dick Hyman, Tommy Mottola & the landmark album from The Free Design, the albums were recorded for the best audio fidelity available. The albums sound terrific. We discuss this with Jon & loved hearing about how his own mother played a role in all these recordings too. If you love the Moog, horns, Bossa Nova and more mid-sixties exotica, you must find these albums for your collection. We also talk to Jon about his experiences in the studio with his grandfather as well as his own recordings. Part of the fabled Hoboken indie scene of the 1980s, Jon release a new album in 2021, Fabulous Twilight and has a new album coming in 2025 as well. We discuss how Jon became a singer/songwriter, how his passion for being around music led to a career in it and much more. Plus, we hear much about Jon's father, a seven-time Emmy winner for lighting design who worked with everyone from Muhammad Ali to Ernie Kovacs. This is one episode you do not want to miss and it's happening right now. Take a listen to the Rarified Heir Podcast with Jon Klages, right now.            

Support us on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/user?u=4279967Jack Benny TV Videocasthttps://open.spotify.com/show/6BDar4CsgVEyUloEQ8sWpw?si=89123269fe144a10Jack Benny Show OTR Podcast!https://open.spotify.com/show/3UZ6NSEL7RPxOXUoQ4NiDP?si=987ab6e776a7468cJudy Garland and Friends OTR Podcasthttps://open.spotify.com/show/5ZKJYkgHOIjQzZWCt1a1NN?si=538b47b50852483dStrange New Worlds Of Dimension X-1 Podcasthttps://open.spotify.com/show/6hFMGUvEdaYqPBoxy00sOk?si=a37cc300a8e247a1Buck Benny YouTube Channelhttps://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrOoc1Q5bllBgQA469XNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNncTEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1707891281/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2f%40BuckBenny/RK=2/RS=nVp4LDJhOmL70bh7eeCi6DPNdW4-Support us on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/user?u=4279967

Comedy on a MondayFirst a look at the events of the dayThen The Charlie McCarthy Show, originally broadcast March 31, 1946, 79 years ago with guest Roy Rogers.  Bergen is the new truant officer! Mortimer recites "Hickory, Dickory, Dock." Charlie and Edgar join guest Roy Rogers for a visit to a ghost town. . Followed by the news from 79 years ago, then The Fred Allen Show, originally broadcast March 31, 1946, 79 years ago, Charlie the Chicken with Monty Woolley.  The Allen's Alley question: "How do you think new scientific developments are going to affect you?" "McGee and McGee" (the songwriters) appear in the alley. Fred is trying to buy a radio, guest Monty Woolley wants to give his away. Fred and Monty act in "Mr. Mob-Buster," a combination of "Mr. District Attorney" and "Gangbusters." Monty is trying to capture "Charlie The Chicken."Then You Bet Your Life starring Groucho Marx, originally broadcast March 31, 1958, 67 years ago, The Secret Word is Name. Wait, what is Ernie Kovacs doing with Groucho?Followed by The CBS Radio Workshop, originally broadcast March 31, 1957, 68 years ago, A Dogs Life.   Tony Schwartz, with his ever-present portable tape recorder decides to adopt a dog and finds that there's more to it than first appears. Finally, Lum and Abner, originally broadcast March 31, 1942, 83 years ago, Diogenes Leaves $10,000.   Diogenes has confessed all, says goodbye, and leaves Pine Ridge $10,000. Thanks to Honeywell for supporting our podcast by using the Buy Me a Coffee function at http://classicradio.streamIf you like what we do here, visit our friend Jay at http://radio.macinmind.com for great old time radio shows 24 hours a day

Today on another encore edition of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to illustrator & cartoonist Drew Friedman, son of the great writer, screenwriter and author, Bruce Jay Friedman. Known for his pop culture writing, including screenplays like Stir Crazy with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor and Doctor Detroit, Bruce Jay was part of the well-heeled Manhattan literary, pop culture and social scene, with his own table at the once-fashionable & paparazzi friendly Elaine's restaurant in the 70s and 80s. Bruce Jay Friendman was also a novelist with books like The Lonely Guy (which became a film with Charles Grodin and Steve Martin) & as well as a playwright for productions like Scuba Duba &Steambath which became a PBS production in 1973. This literati scene rubbed off on Drew who was always obsessed with drawing and cartoons from a very early age. This passion led to a career as a cartoonist for magazines like The New Yorker, National Lampoon, Spy, Newsweek and many more. In turn, this led to caricature books & illustrations with titles like Old Jewish Comedians, Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of underground Comics and All The Presidents. Drew Friedman became famous for his lifelike if sometimes slightly demented images of B-movie actor Tor Johnson, public access television host Joe Franklin, comedian Ernie Kovacs (ahem) and Groucho Marx and many more. The aptly named Drew Friedman is our guest this week because this is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story. This one is fascinating. Take a listen.

Today on bonus edition of the Rarified Heir Podcast we are dropping a special episode in addition to this week's episode with Brendan Wayne. Our guest today is Ben Model who in addition to being a silent film accompanist, is also the archivist for the estates of Edie Adams and Ernie Kovacs. We spoke to Ben today because (drum doll please) (Add drumroll)*, on Ernie's birthday, Thursday January 23 at 7pm EST, we will be screening the previously lost, final episode of the Ernie Kovacs gameshow Take a Good Look on the YouTube channel of Clown Jewels. And if you tune in, join the live commentary with Ben and host Josh Mills, the son of Edie Adams and grand poo bah of the Ernie Kovacs estate. The very next day, on Friday January 24, Clown Jewels is releasing a brand new, Ernie Kovacs album of previously unreleased material from his radio show entitled Mayhem in the AM: The Lost Radio Comedy of Ernie Kovacs on all digital outlets. Both these projects are years in the making and we can't wait to share this with both our podcast fans as well as Ernie

Today on part of one of another encore edition of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Brendan Wayne, the grandson of none other than John Wayne. While we share many connections (one of which is that Ernie Kovacs and The Duke starred in the film North to Alaska together) there is a deeper one that's existed between Brendan and host for some time now. Turns out that while Brendan is literally The Mandalorian on the Disney+ hit series The Mandalorian, he also happens to be the coach of Josh's daughter's soccer team. It's our 4th year working with Brendan in fact. Better yet, Brendan is a terrific father himself whose girls not only play on the team, one of them co-coaches with him! We totally lucked out with our soccer coaches. Wacky stuff indeed, right? Well, it's no more wacky than Brendan himself who talks to us about anything and everything on this first episode. We discuss his relationship with The Duke, Wayne's relationship with director John Ford, Brendan hanging with grandpa sans toupee and Brendan's classical acting training. Still, it's hard to wrap our heads around the fact that somehow our soccer coach also happens to be The Mandalorian as well as being the grandson of one of America's most iconic actors. So if Capezio dancewear and the difficulty of dating a girl whose dad only wants to talk about your grandad is something that seems noteworthy, take a listen to this episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast. We promise you will dig it. Everyone has a story.

Today on an encore edition of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to siblings Deb Scott Studebaker & Stan Warnow about their musician/inventor Raymond Scott. Like our good friend Ernie Kovacs, some of you might have heard the name Raymond Scott but don't really know who he was or what he did. Others however, might be salivating knowing that one of the 20thCenturies musical geniuses is the subject of this episode. Either way, both Deb and Stan graciously sat down together to do this interview & wowed us with tales of their complex genius dad. Vintage cartoon fans might know Scott from his songs “Powerhouse” and “Toy Trumpet,” classic television and radio fans may know him and his orchestra from the show “Your Hit Parade” and others may know him as the Godfather of the modern synthesizer & inventor of the Clavinex & Electronium. A performer, a demanding band leader, a composer and the Director of Motown's electronic and research department, Raymond Scott was nothing if not prolific. In addition, we discuss Deb's mother, entertainer Dorothy Collins who was a Broadway star, a nightclub performer and a television star on shows like The Hollywood Palace. We get the lowdown on a father so driven by his creations he gave up performing for tinkering in his office and being one of the founders of electronic music as well as fax machine – decades before it became a reality. It's positively Looney Tunes on this episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Everyone has a story.

We answer listener questions about Al the hoopster, his parents big time involvement in the temple in Queens, Al going to Paul Simon's bar mitzvah, and the origin of title of the Kapusta Albums is revealed… via Ernie Kovacs. After each answer from Al, Nilly the Dog adds a brief comment of her own. Ask Al questions at www.alkooper.com on the Kooperkast page.

Today on Part Two of our conversation about silent film stars Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis on the Rarified Heir Podcast, we continue our conversation with Suzanne Lloyd, their granddaughter who was raised as their daughter. Last week we laid the groundwork on the life and legacy of one of the silent era's greatest comedians. This week, we discuss the life Suzanne led in the family's Green Acres 16 acre estate in Benedict Canyon. Harold seemed to have a way with money and he indulged all his passions with abandon. Although retired when Suzanne was growing up, Harold remained very active in his passions. Be it photography, the Shriners hospital, the estate itself or even his passion for bowling with Howard Hughes, we get into it all. Topics discussed in this episode include: Harold's passion for Stereo, Rick Nelson, TV director Richard Correll, Debbie Reynolds, the Blacklist, Paul McCartney & Wings, Disneyland, the Rolling Stones, Marilyn Monroe, Roddy McDowell, Harmon Kardon audio and more. Along the way we discuss 3-D photography, pipe organs and an almost ridiculous obsession with Christmas and Christmas trees you have to hear to believe. But we get into it, oh yes we do! We pick up our conversation with Suzanne mid-interview as we compare Ernie Kovacs to Harold Lloyd on this episode, of this episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Everyone has a story. Enjoy.  

  Today on another brand new episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we give you part one of our conversation with Suzanne Lloyd, the granddaughter of silent film comedy star & Christmas tree obsessive, Harold Lloyd. Now, if the name (or the image) of Harold Lloyd doesn't immediately ring a bell like Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, this is one of the reasons we do this podcast, to make sure the legacy of legendary (or sometimes just working actors) are not forgotten. And after you hear Suzanne's lengthy and almost encyclopedic remembrances of the man who raised her and why his name isn't always mentioned as one of the three silent film comedians, you will understand it after listening to part one and next week's part two. There is a reason. One we know all too well ourselves with the Ernie Kovacs estate. On today's episode, we discuss the silent era of film and names like Hal Roach, Colleen Moore, Mary Pickford, Daryl Zanuck, Irving Thalberg, Snub Pollard and more are bandied about like so many of Suzanne's colorful stories about Harold Lloyd. We also hearabout Suzanne's grandmother, actress Mildred Davis who was a pretty huge silent film star in her own right. It's a whirlwind of information that fans of silent films won't get enough of and fans who love old Hollywood but maybe don't know the silent era well will want to learn more about. Suzanne was a marvelous guest – someone who knows dates, places, studios, names and more like these things happened just yesterday. It's clear that because she now controlls the Harold Lloyd Estate and his production company that she learned all this while also genuinely loving her grandfather who raised her like a daughter. It's terrific stuff. So now podcast listeners, we bring you the story of Speedy aka Harold Lloyd on this episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Take a listen.

Welcome to another bonus edition of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Today we bring you something a little different. Just for fun. On Saturday September 28th and Sunday the 29th, 2024 the good folks at the VideoFest in Dallas presented Devo's Gerald Casale with the Ernie Kovacs award. Since the 1997, Bart Weiss and the Video Association of Dallas has given out a (semi) annual Ernie Kovacs award with the help of Edie Adams and since her passing in 2009, her son, Rarified Heir Podcast host Josh Mills. Past recipients include Joel Hodgson, Paul Reubens, Amy Sedaris, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Mike Judge, George Schlatter, Kevin McDonald & Dave Foley of Kids in the Hall, Al Franken, Martin Mull, Michael Nesmith and more. Thank you to Kyle Riche for recording the event, Bart Weiss and the VideoFest in Dallas Texas for holding an Ernie Kovacs award annually, Gerald Casale for being such an Ernie Kovacs fan, Jeff Winner for making this event happen, the good folks at the Texas Theater, DJ George Gimarc, all the VideoFest volunteers and everyone who has attended any of the Kovacs Awards through the years. So Rarified Heir Podcast fans, this is not your typical episode, but we thought you all might want to hear some of what happened that weekend. And here it is.

Welcome to another bonus edition of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Today we bring you something a little different. Just for fun. On Saturday September 28th and Sunday the 29th, 2024 the good folks at the VideoFest in Dallas presented Devo's Gerald Casale with the Ernie Kovacs award. Since the 1997, Bart Weiss and the Video Association of Dallas has given out a (semi) annual Ernie Kovacs award with the help of Edie Adams and since her passing in 2009, her son, Rarified Heir Podcast host Josh Mills. Past recipients include Joel Hodgson, Paul Reubens, Amy Sedaris, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Mike Judge, George Schlatter, Kevin McDonald & Dave Foley of Kids in the Hall, Al Franken, Martin Mull, Michael Nesmith and more. Thank you to Kyle Riche for recording the event, Bart Weiss and the VideoFest in Dallas Texas for holding an Ernie Kovacs award annually, Gerald Casale for being such an Ernie Kovacs fan, Jeff Winner for making this event happen, the good folks at the Texas Theater, DJ George Gimarc, all the VideoFest volunteers and everyone who has attended any of the Kovacs Awards through the years. So Rarified Heir Podcast fans, this is not your typical episode, but we thought you all might want to hear some of what happened that weekend. And here it is.

Agents Scott and Cam, along with guest operative Lachlan Page, author of Magical Disinformation, slam back shots and play a high stakes game of checkers against Alec Guinness while decoding the 1959 Graham Greene adaptation Our Man in Havana.   Directed by Carol Reed. Starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ernie Kovacs, Noël Coward, Ralph Richardson, Jo Morrow and Grégoire Aslan.  Learn more about Lachlan's work over at his website. All of his books, including Magical Disinformation, are available on Amazon.  You can also follow Lachlan on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Become a SpyHards Patron and gain access to top secret "Agents in the Field" bonus episodes, movie commentaries and more! Purchase the latest exclusive SpyHards merch at Redbubble. Social media: @spyhards View the NOC List and the Disavowed List at Letterboxd.com/spyhards Podcast artwork by Hannah Hughes. Theme music by Doug Astley.

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to journalist Claudia Cowan who grew up the daughter of actress Barbara Rush and pioneering A-list publicist Warren Cowan. Claudia spoke with us about growing up with a mother co-starred with Paul Newman in The Young Philadelphians and whose father was Paul Newmand's press agent. It was a difficult task to focus on both her mother and father because they both did so much personally and professionally – including marrying and divorcing – twice. Along the way we hear about Claudia's favorite LA restaurants, her mother's disappointment at not singing a duet with Frank Sinatra in Robin and the Seven Hoods, how her father invented the “Top Ten list,” what it was like being on tour with her mother while she was starring in regional theater in Chicago and how her parents met The Beatles at a garden party the night after their famed Hollywood Bowl performance that her father was publicizing and so much more. So what is it like to have a father who represented Clint Eastwood, Kirk Douglas, George Burns, Ronald Reagan and others while her mom was starring in movies with Rock Hudson, Dean Martin Marlon Brando, Hope Lange and Ernie Kovacs? You'll just have to listen to this episode and find out. And let us say this, in honor of her father, when asked, who his favorite client was said “The next one,” let us just say that our favorite episode is the next one, which in this case is THIS one with Claudia Cowan. Another child of a celebrity interviewed by a child of a celebrity. Everyone has a story.

May 3-9, 1997 This week Ken welcomes comedian and man behind the comedy special "Harangue" (watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9qlvlgkiJs), Kevin Casey White. Ken and Kevin discuss being live in Mexico City, international waters, loving John Carpenter, Big Trouble in Little China, smokers coughs, homaging the Thing title car, growing up in St. Louis, Xena, loving Lucy Lawless, The Evil Dead, growing up without cable, The Nanny, twist endings, why TV Guide writers should avoid writing comedy, Rob Schneider, Men Behaving Badly, terrible US remakes of UK shows, Jack Parr, Conan O'Brien, Johnny Carson being a dick, YouTube Rabbit Holes, Ernie Kovacs, The Simpsons, the wonder of Saturday Morning cartoons, the rarity of demographic TV Blocks, comic books, X-Men '97, Batman, wanting video games that look like actual cartoons, The Mask, how cartoons can feel timeless, Waynehead, Freakazoid, Ricardo Montalban, what your favorite Ninja Turtle says about you, Tales from the Crypt, the Cryptkeeper hosting a kid's game show, revealing the existence of the "dirty" edits of TFTC, the history of HBO's original programming, Rosie O'Donnell's stand up, people coming out of the closet, SNICK, staying at your grandma's because she has cable, the turning point in Simpsons' history that IS "Homer's Enemy" the Frank Grimes episode, downbeat endings, smart writing, COPS, America's Most Wanted, the novelty of consumers having VHS Cameras, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, iconic child actors and confusing the world of Cuba Gooding Jr. 

A widow (Doris Day) who runs a lobster business in Maine ends up in a legal battle with a powerful railroad company.  Co-starring Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs and Steve Forrest.

GGACP celebrates the recent release of the musical documentary "Killing Me Softly with His Songs" (now streaming) by revisiting this memorable interview with Grammy and Emmy winner Charles Fox. In this episode, Charles looks back on a six-decade career of writing top 40 hits as well as themes for TV shows (“Happy Days,” “Wonder Woman,” "The Love Boat"), feature films (“Barbarella,” “9 to 5”) and game shows (“Match Game,” “What's My Line?”). Also, Charles teams with Barry Manilow, pens a tune for Burt Reynolds, witnesses the Ed Ames tomahawk incident and remembers friends Neal Hefti, Jerry Goldsmith and Henry Mancini. PLUS: “Love, American Style”! The Charles Fox Singers! The inventiveness of Ernie Kovacs! Gilbert sings the soundtrack from “Zapped!” And the boys pay loving tribute to Paul Williams! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ferris Butler and his biographer D.B. Frick joined me to discuss his garage band version of SNL "Waste Meet News"; his love for Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs; Brooklyn in the 50's and 60's; his pilot for the Vintage Seltzer Hour with Michael O'Donoghue and Garrett Morris; going to NYU film school and being taught by Martin Scorsese and classmates with Billy Crystal; creating Waste Meat News; having Radames Pera on; the budget; New York Magazine says Waste Meat is being copied by SNL; getting hired by Jean Doumanian; how the crew was excited for new season. but the press was already hostile; not getting anything on the premiere; getting Leather Weather on the Malcolm McDowell show; writing the tag to Eddie Murphy's first appearance; writing Tort-U-Matic and her monologue for Jamie Lee Curtis; co-writing Reagan Co for the Robert Hays episode; Howard Stern has beef about his Leather Weather Girl vs. Ferris' sketch; writing the Kung Fu prostitution sketch and slipping a watersports joke by the censors; the difference between head writers Mason Williams and Stevens and Moore; writing one joke for Weekend Update; Brian Doyle-Murray; Bill hosts; he was recommended by Letty Aronson; more Bill Murray stories; is Ferris Butler, Ferris Bueller - Del Close wanted to do a movie about him, Quentin Tarantino believes it; writing "Prison Confession" sketch for Ray Sharkey episode; writing a sketch that got cut at dress; writing the "Big Brother" sketch for Deborah Harry episode; the re-evaluation of season 6; Name That Sin; musical guests; saving his sketches; not being surprised Dick Ebersol didn't as him back; not getting credit for writing for SNL; not being invited to any anniversary; Waste Meat News is in the Paley Center for Media

Renowned for his expertise in 19th-century history, Nevada & Las Vegas welcomes a distinguished historian to the show to delve into the rich history of Tropicana. Beginning our discussion with his experiences in Las Vegas and his tenure at The Valley Times, which intersected with organized crime, we segue seamlessly into his initial impressions upon hearing the name "Tropicana."Set to become the new home of the Las Vegas A's baseball stadium, Tropicana has a storied past intertwined with the city's underworld. Initially touted as "The Tiffany of the Strip," its true colors were revealed following a failed assassination attempt on Frank Costello in New York.From Joe Agosto's oversight of the Folies Bergere, operating without a license, to Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal's residence at the Tropicana, which sparks anecdotes about Michael's father's views on Sharon Stone's portrayal of Geri in "Casino," the property has navigated a complex path to the present day, often contending with larger competitors.The integration of a new resort alongside the baseball stadium prompts reflections on past events, such as the 1984 labor dispute that culminated in a bomb explosion in the Tropicana's parking lot. The venue has hosted a myriad of legendary performers, from Ernie Kovacs and Benny Goodman to contemporary acts like Wayne Newton and productions like "Mamma Mia." Notably, the Tropicana also served as a backdrop for iconic television shows like "Charlie's Angels" and the filming of "The Godfather" in 1972.Contemplating the announcement of the Tropicana as the stadium site, concerns arise about preserving the essence of old Las Vegas amidst the city's rapid evolution. The fate of the iconic stained-glass ceiling in the casino is pondered, along with reminiscences of what will be missed about the Tropicana.In summary, the discussion illuminates Tropicana's multifaceted history and its role in shaping the identity of Las Vegas, while also raising questions about the city's future direction and the preservation of its nostalgic landmarks.Michael Green Link:https://www.unlv.edu/people/michael-greenTropicana Links:Hotel Site (if still operational): https://casinos.ballys.com/tropicana-las-vegas/Folies Bergere Last Dance Video: https://bit.ly/4bXpRSlPhoto of Iconic Stained-Glass Ceiling: https://www.casino.org/vitalvegas/say-aint-tropicana-casino-lose-stained-glass-ceiling/Before the Lights Links:A Heartbeat & A Guitar: Johnny Cash & the Making of Bitter Tear Docuseries: https://www.beforethelightspod.com/docuseries/bitter-tearsHire Tommy to Speak: https://www.beforethelightspod.com/public-speakingBecome a BTL Member: https://www.beforethelightspod.com/supportBefore the Lights Website: https://www.beforethelightspod.com/Get Tommy a Glass of VinoSupport the showFollow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beforethelightspodcast/Follow the show on Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/beforethelightspodcast/Follow the show on Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@beforethelightspodcast?lang=enFollow Tommy on Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/tcanale3Rate & Review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/before-the-lights/id1501245041Email the host: beforethelightspod@gmail.com

TVC 641.2: Josh Mills and Pat Thomas talk to Ed about Ernie Kovacs' many collaborations and longtime friendship with Jack Lemmon; how the format for Ernie's successful morning show in Philadelphia inspired NBC to develop The Today Show; how Kovacs was the first to understand that television was an intimate form; and how Ernie's influence can be seen in the antics of comedian Soupy Sales. Josh and Pat are two of the co-authors, along with Ben Model, of Ernie in Kovacsland, a marvelously conceived book that not only gives readers a true glimpse into the mind of Ernie Kovacs, but shows the many media outlets for Ernie's creativity that went beyond television. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 641.1: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Josh Mills, son of Edie Adams and the curator of the estates of Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams, and Pat Thomas, author of Invitation to Openness: the Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann, Material Wealth: Mining the Personal Archive of Allen Ginsberg, and Did It! Jerry Rubin: An American Revolutionary. Josh and Pat are two of the co-authors, along with Ben Model, of Ernie in Kovacsland: Writings, Drawings, and Photographs from Television's Original Genius, a marvelously conceived book that not only gives readers a true glimpse into the mind of Ernie Kovacs, but shows the many media outlets for Ernie's creativity that went beyond television. Topics this segment include the back story of Zoomar, the satirical novel about advertising and television that Ernie published in 1957, but which is still timely today; Take a Good Look, the “anti-game show” that Ernie hosted (ABC, 1959-1961) that, in many respects, is also the essence of Ernie Kovacs; and the perforated, three-page foldout in Ernie in Kovacsland that pays homage to Ernie's long association with MAD magazine. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 640.1: Ed welcomes Josh Mills, son of Edie Adams and the curator of the estates of Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams, and author Pat Thomas (Invitation to Openness: the Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann, Material Wealth: Mining the Personal Archive of Allen Ginsberg, Did It! Jerry Rubin: An American Revolutionary). Josh and Pat are two of the co-authors, along with Ben Model, of Ernie in Kovacsland: Writings, Drawings, and Photographs from Television's Original Genius, a marvelously conceived, non-linear book that gives readers a true glimpse into the mind of Ernie Kovacs. Topics this segment include how, in many ways, Ernie in Kovacsland is an outgrowth of Edie's tireless preservation of all things Ernie Kovacs; how she recognized that Ernie was doing something special before anyone else did; and how Kovacs' influence extends to such counter-cultural figures as Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Alice Cooper, and the original writers and performers of Saturday Night Live. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 640.2: Josh Mills and Pat Thomas talk to Ed about The Silent Show, the iconic NBC special from January 1957 that is the only Ernie Kovacs television show to be broadcast in color. Other topics this segment include how Kovacs was a constant presence on television from 1950 until his death in January 1962 (even though he never had a “long-running” series, per se); his incredible knack for generating publicity; and how the Percy Dovetonsils poem “Thoughts While Falling Off the Empire State Building” is one example of how Kovacs came to influence the Yippies and the Beat generation. Josh and Pat are two of the co-authors, along with Ben Model, of Ernie in Kovacsland, a marvelously conceived book that not only gives readers a true glimpse into the mind of Ernie Kovacs, but shows the many media outlets for Ernie's creativity that went beyond television. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mike Mills of R.E.M. takes us out to the ball game with his concept supergroup, The Baseball Project. Also, Josh Mills shares the story of one of the most innovative television comedians ever – the one and only Ernie Kovacs. And Alex Pappademas takes us inside the brilliant minds of Steely Dan.

June 19 - 25, 1953 This week Ken welcomes professor, writer, producer and director Jack Solder (Nightmare on Elm St. 2, By Dawn's Early Light, The Hidden, 12:01, Alone in the Dark) to the show. Ken and Jack discuss growing up in Philly, growing up playing trumpet, being a classical musician, realizing you're good but not GREAT at something, becoming an editor, the rhythm of cuts, working at New Line Cinema, Caroline Biggerstaff, poses vs pauses, editing The Burning, learning by doing, creating suspense, revival art house cinema, the genius of Buster Keaton, exploitation films, Ed Sullivan, Uncle Milty, 1950s music shows, the cultural scene of the 1950s, Uncle Pete Boyle, Chief Halftown, kids shows, Life of Reilly, Magnavox, The DuMont Network, newspapermen, The Big Story, The Big Picture, the strangeness of modern day network TV, the personal nature of TV, working with Harvey Keitel, swapping India for Eastern Europe, the fake Indian word for "Roll 'em" Easta Sasusaway, never being Mr. Wizard, Big Top with Jack Sterling, Wrestling, boxing, You Asked for It, Fearless Ed, Variety Shows, New York Socialites and Intellectuals, Dinah Shore, representations of gay people on TV, Ernie Kovacs, Red necks, Farmers, how your car key fob is more powerful than the computer that sent men to the moon, the world after cell phones, Alan Funt, Candid Camera, Kids Say the Darndest Things, UHF stations, Dragnet, American Bandstand, 12:01, The Hidden, the gayest Nightmare on Elm St film, Robocop, working with Jake the Dog, and the strangeness of The Omen The Series pilot. 

TVC 631.5: George Schlatter, creator and producer of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and Real People, talks to Ed about casting Robin Williams for the 1977 revival of Laugh-In; his hopes for launching a contemporary edition of Laugh-In in the near future; and why his friend Ernie Kovacs likely would've been proud of Turn-On, had he lived to see it. George's memoir, Still Laughing: A Life in Comedy, is the story of how a kid from Missouri forged his way out of the rough and tumble world of Las Vegas nightclubs and wound up working with some of the most fascinating people in the history of show biz, including Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Eddie Murphy, Cher, Elton John, Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson, Doris Day, Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, Shirley MacLaine, Bill Cosby, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Diana Ross, Lena Horne, Dinah Shore, and Nat King Cole. The print edition of Still Laughing is available wherever books are sold, while the audio edition is now available form Audible. The first two episodes of Turn-On are now available for viewing on demand, for free, on the Clown Jewels channel on YouTube. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to someone who frankly, we didn't know we absolutely needed to talk to a month ago. We are talking to actress/voice over artist Pamela Dillman. Pamela's father was actor Bradford Dillman and her stepmother was supermodel, Suzy Parker. Yes, THAT Suzy Parker. But what makes this episode so special, at least for host Josh Mills, was that Pamela grew up with and was best friends with Josh's sister Mia Kovacs. Sadly, Mia passed away in 1982 so there are very few people who remember Mia and who remember what she was like. So it was a true thrill for Josh to be able to ask Pamela questions about his sister as well as his mother Edie Adams. We do our best to try and make sure we connect about Pamela's life growing up in Beverly Hills at the very prim and proper John Thomas Dye school where she met Mia but also to talk about everything from how her father considered himself a working actor who just did his job and was honored to be an actor but how much of a cultural impact her stepmother Suzy made as literally the world's first supermodel. Hell, The Beatles wrote a song about her! So mea culpa (or would that be Mia culpa?), this episode does focus heavily on someone other than Pamela's career and her famous parents. After all this is a podcast where a child of a celebrity interviews a child of a celebrity. But when you can finally talk to someone who knew your sibling when they were in elementary school, I hope you can forgive us for indulging a bit. Part therapy session, part remembrance and part fascinating foray into the San Francisco 49ers, RADA, moldy Chanel couture garments, Caesar's Palace and Morgan Freeman, this episode of the podcast was a real thrill. Everyone has a story.

Book Vs. Movie: Bell Book and CandleThe Original 1950 Play & the 1958 Film"Bell, Book, and Candle," released in 1958 and directed by Richard Quine, is a romantic comedy that intertwines the ordinary and the supernatural. The movie revolves around Gillian Holroyd, a beautiful and free-spirited witch who resides in Greenwich Village, New York. Her magical world turns unexpectedly when she develops feelings for her neighbor, Shepherd Henderson. This story takes place on Christmas Eve, making it a unique holiday classic. The film is based on the 1950 play by John Van Druten and stars James Stewart and Kim Novak (who had also filmed Vertigo the same year). It showcases the hip world of the late 1950s with an unusual romance full of flights of fancy and, of course, cats!In this ep, the Margos discuss:The work of John Van Druten.The use of witchcraft as a theme in mid-20th Century America.The cast of the 1958 film: James Stewart (Shep Henderson,) Kim Novak (Gil Holroyd,) Jack Lemmon (Nicky Holroyd,) Ernie Kovacs (Sidney Redlitch,) Hermione Gingold (Bianca De Pass,) Elsa Lanchester (Aunt Queenie Holroyd,) and Janice Rule as Merle Kittridge.Clips used:Gillian casts her spellBell, Book, and Candle (1958 trailer)The “Club Zodiac”Shep realizes Gil loves himShep gets meanGillian is now a humanMusic: George DuningBook Vs. Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts. Join our Patreon page “Book Vs. Movie podcast”You can find us on Facebook at Book Vs. Movie Podcast GroupFollow us on Twitter @bookversusmovieInstagram: Book Versus Movie https://www.instagram.com/bookversusmovie/Email us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Margo D. Twitter @BrooklynMargo Margo D's Blog www.brooklynfitchick.com Margo D's Instagram “Brooklyn Fit Chick”Margo D's TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@margodonohuebrooklynfitchick@gmail.comYou can buy your copy of Filmed in Brooklyn here! Margo P. Twitter @ShesNachoMamaMargo P's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shesnachomama/Margo P's Blog https://coloniabook.weebly.com/ Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5406542/advertisement

Book Vs. Movie: Bell Book and CandleThe Original 1950 Play & the 1958 Film"Bell, Book, and Candle," released in 1958 and directed by Richard Quine, is a romantic comedy that intertwines the ordinary and the supernatural. The movie revolves around Gillian Holroyd, a beautiful and free-spirited witch who resides in Greenwich Village, New York. Her magical world turns unexpectedly when she develops feelings for her neighbor, Shepherd Henderson. This story takes place on Christmas Eve, making it a unique holiday classic. The film is based on the 1950 play by John Van Druten and stars James Stewart and Kim Novak (who had also filmed Vertigo the same year). It showcases the hip world of the late 1950s with an unusual romance full of flights of fancy and, of course, cats!In this ep, the Margos discuss:The work of John Van Druten.The use of witchcraft as a theme in mid-20th Century America.The cast of the 1958 film: James Stewart (Shep Henderson,) Kim Novak (Gil Holroyd,) Jack Lemmon (Nicky Holroyd,) Ernie Kovacs (Sidney Redlitch,) Hermione Gingold (Bianca De Pass,) Elsa Lanchester (Aunt Queenie Holroyd,) and Janice Rule as Merle Kittridge.Clips used:Gillian casts her spellBell, Book, and Candle (1958 trailer)The “Club Zodiac”Shep realizes Gil loves himShep gets meanGillian is now a humanMusic: George DuningBook Vs. Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts. Join our Patreon page “Book Vs. Movie podcast”You can find us on Facebook at Book Vs. Movie Podcast GroupFollow us on Twitter @bookversusmovieInstagram: Book Versus Movie https://www.instagram.com/bookversusmovie/Email us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Margo D. Twitter @BrooklynMargo Margo D's Blog www.brooklynfitchick.com Margo D's Instagram “Brooklyn Fit Chick”Margo D's TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@margodonohuebrooklynfitchick@gmail.comYou can buy your copy of Filmed in Brooklyn here! Margo P. Twitter @ShesNachoMamaMargo P's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shesnachomama/Margo P's Blog https://coloniabook.weebly.com/ Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine

Cha' Calla. Sounds outta my face. Never go full Bishop. Adobe Fresca. Love me an Underage Ward. Moon Knight AKA Phil Spector. I WILL be Going There! Click. I need to Gummy and Think. Ernie Kovacs and his Freakin' Monkeys. Randy Quad's World is Stupid. Why don't you just give them the answer!?!?! The Cadence of Nonsense. Tom Cruise/Hanks. Experimenting with Tom Merritt. Pretending Randy had a Charlie with Nicole and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cha' Calla. Sounds outta my face. Never go full Bishop. Adobe Fresca. Love me an Underage Ward. Moon Knight AKA Phil Spector. I WILL be Going There! Click. I need to Gummy and Think. Ernie Kovacs and his Freakin' Monkeys. Randy Quad's World is Stupid. Why don't you just give them the answer!?!?! The Cadence of Nonsense. Tom Cruise/Hanks. Experimenting with Tom Merritt. Pretending Randy had a Charlie with Nicole and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Mills of R.E.M. takes us out to the ball game with his concept supergroup, The Baseball Project. Also, Josh Mills shares the story of one of the most innovative television comedians ever – the one and only Ernie Kovacs. And Alex Pappademas takes us inside the brilliant minds of Steely Dan.

Peter Strauss burst on to the scene in the wildly popular 1976 miniseries "Rich Man, Poor Man" as successful entrepreneur Rudy Jordache, alongside Nick Nolte as the hard luck brother, Tom. He went to a prolific career on film, television and stage. His most recent role was headlining "Love Amid the Ruins" with JoBeth Williams at the Laguna Playhouse, and he also recently starred in "The Outgoing Tide" here for the Ojai Performing Arts Theater nonprofit group. He won an Emmy in 1979 for "The Jericho Mile" about a prison lifer who trains for the Olympics. It was Michael Mann's first directing credit. In a sign of his range, Strauss also played the President of the United States opposite Ice Cube in "XXX: State of the Union." We talk about his wide-ranging career with hundreds of acting credits. He has called Ojai home for more than 35 years and is deeply involved with horticulture, and was the spokesperson for Miracle-Gro for years. He travels widely collecting plants, specializing in succulents. We talk about Ojai and climate change, how the town has changed over the decades and what we need to do to secure the future. We did not talk about the transmigration of souls, Ernie Kovacs or summer homes in Nantucket.

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast, we talk to musician and ace copy editor Jon Klages, whose grandfather, musician/producer/record label owner Enoch Light likely was the genesis of the Stereo revolution. Yes, you heard me right, classically trained violinist Enoch Light was one of, if not the first, to realize that by placing more than one microphone in a recording studio, you could create a fuller, more dynamic sound to your then, Hi-Fi, and now Stereo system today. Whoa. While Enoch released 25 plus records in his career, it was his record labels Grand Award, Project 3 and Command that really are his legacy. The labels, specifically Command, were known for their audio fidelity as well as their groundbreaking abstract artwork, gatefold sleeves and extensive liner notes that make them so unique. Be it space age pop, jazz, classical, film scores, Bossa Nova or anything else under the sun, Enoch Light was a pioneer in bringing the best music to the consumer in the best light (pun intended) possible. We talk about Jon's being in the recording studio with Enoch and mother Julie Light Klages at many sessions Enoch oversaw with his pipe at the ready. We also spoke about Jon's father, lighting designer William Klages, winner of seven Emmy awards, who worked with both Ernie Kovacs and host Josh Mills' mother Edie Adams at NBC in the early 1950s. We talk to john about his own musical career in the 80s as part of the “Hoboken Sound” with The Individuals, his move to Los Angeles and playing with the LA music scene surrounding the Paisley Underground and his 2021 solo debut Fabulous Twilight. Oh and did we mention that Jon copy edited the upcoming Ernie Kovacs book Ernie in Kovacsland from Fantagraphics coming July 18? Or that he's copy editing Edie Adams second autobiography as well? No? Well, take a listen to this episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast for some serious greatness.

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to master illustrator, painter and cartoonist Drew Friedman, son of writer/screenwriter Bruce Jay Friedman. And when we say writer, we mean a writer – short stories, essays, Broadway plays, films, novels – you name it and Bruce Jay Friedman did it. From screenplays like hit films like Splash and Stir Crazy to less, how do we say this, successful films like Doctor Detroit, Bruce Jay Friedman walked in both the literary and pop culture worlds, seamlessly. We also talk Bruce's novels like Scuba Duba and A Mother's Kisses, which were lauded for their humorous look at social and societal issues of the day. With contemporaries like Joseph Heller and Thomas Pynchon, you are in some pretty impressive company. We also talk to Drew about growing up in New York with a father who had his own table at the fashionable Elaine's in Manhattan for 30 years as well as his own obsession with drawing as a child. It's led Drew to be known as one of the most well-known portrait artists and cartoon artists of the last 50 or so years. His works have appeared in everything from the Wall Street Journal to Heavy Metal. His latest book, Maverix and Lunatix : Icons of Underground Comix is out now on Fantagraphics books. His other books you might ask?  How about Old  Jewish Comedians? Or Heroes of the Comics? Or All The Presidents. Somehow we talk find time to talk to Drew about Topps baseball cards, Groucho Marx, National Lampoon, Joe Franklin, Tor Johnson, Sammy Petrillo, Dick Shawn, Ernie Kovacs and much much more. It's a lively interview that became a conversation and that's always a great thing for this podcast. So sit back and take a listen to the latest episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast with Drew Friedman. Everyone has a story.

Episode one hundred and fifty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs is the last of our four-part mini-series on LA sunshine pop and folk-rock in summer 1967. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifteen-minute bonus episode available, on "Baby, Now That I've Found You" by the Foundations. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources There is no Mixcloud this week, because there were too many Turtles songs in the episode. There's relatively little information available about the Turtles compared to other bands of their era, and so apart from the sources on the general LA scene referenced in all these podcasts, the information here comes from a small number of sources. This DVD is a decent short documentary on the band's career. Howard Kaylan's autobiography, Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, Etc.,  is a fun read, if inevitably biased towards his own viewpoint. Jim Pons' Hard Core Love: Sex, Football, and Rock and Roll in the Kingdom of God is much less fun, being as it is largely organised around how his life led up to his latter-day religious beliefs, but is the only other book I'm aware of with a substantial amount of coverage of the Turtles. There are many compilations of the Turtles' material available, of which All The Singles is by far and away the best. The box set of all their albums with bonus tracks is now out of print on CD, but can still be bought as MP3s. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript We've spent a lot of time recently in the LA of summer 1967, at the point where the sunshine pop sound that was created when the surf harmonies of the Beach Boys collided with folk rock was at its apex, right before fashions changed and tight sunny pop songs with harmonies from LA became yesterday's news, and extended blues-rock improvisations from San Francisco became the latest in thing. This episode is the last part of this four-episode sequence, and is going to be shorter than those others. In many ways this one is a bridge between this sequence and next episode, where we travel back to London, because we're saying goodbye for a while to the LA scene, and when we do return to LA it will be, for the most part, to look at music that's a lot less sunshine and a lot more shadow. So this is a brief fade-out while we sing ba-ba-ba, a three-minute pop-song of an episode, a last bit of sunshine pop before we return to longer, more complicated, stories  in two weeks' time, at which point the sun will firmly set. Like many musicians associated with LA, Howard Kaylan was born elsewhere and migrated there as a child, and he seems to have regarded his move from upstate New York to LA as essentially a move to Disneyland itself. That impression can only have been made stronger by the fact that soon after his family moved there he got his first childhood girlfriend -- who happened to be a Mouseketeer on the TV. And TV was how young Howard filtered most of his perceptions -- particularly TV comedy. By the age of fourteen he was the president of the Soupy Sales Fan Club, and he was also obsessed with the works of Ernie Kovacs, Sid Caesar, and the great satirist and parodist Stan Freberg: [Excerpt: Stan Freberg, "St. George and the Dragonet"] Second only to his love of comedy, though, was his love of music, and it was on the trip from New York to LA that he saw a show that would eventually change his life. Along the way, his family had gone to Las Vegas, and while there they had seen Louis Prima and Keeley Smith do their nightclub act. Prima is someone I would have liked to do a full podcast episode on when I was covering the fifties, and who I did do a Patreon bonus episode on. He's now probably best known for doing the voice of King Louis in the Jungle Book: [Excerpt: Louis Prima, "I Wanna Be Like You (the Monkey Song)"] But he was also a jump blues musician who made some very good records in a similar style to Louis Jordan, like "Jump, Jive, an' Wail" [Excerpt: Louis Prima, "Jump, Jive, an' Wail"] But like Jordan, Prima dealt at least as much in comedy as in music -- usually comedy involving stereotypes about his Italian-American ethnic origins. At the time young Howard Kaylan saw him, he was working a double act with his then-wife Keeley Smith. The act would consist of Smith trying to sing a song straight, while Prima would clown around, interject, and act like a fool, as Smith grew more and more exasperated, and would eventually start contemptuously mocking Prima. [Excerpt: Louis Prima and Keeley Smith, "Embraceable You/I've Got It Bad and That Ain't Good"] This is of course a fairly standard double-act format, as anyone who has suffered through an episode of The Little and Large Show will be all too painfully aware, but Prima and Smith did it better than most, and to young Howard Kaylan, this was the greatest entertainment imaginable. But while comedy was the closest thing to Kaylan's heart, music was a close second. He was a regular listener to Art Laboe's radio show, and in a brief period as a teenage shoplifter he obtained records like Ray Charles' album Genius + Soul = Jazz: [Excerpt: Ray Charles, "One Mint Julep"] and the single "Tossin' and Turnin'" by Bobby Lewis: [Excerpt: Bobby Lewis, "Tossin' and Turnin'"] "Tossin' and Turnin'" made a deep impression on Kaylan, because of the saxophone solo, which was actually a saxophone duet. On the record, baritone sax player Frank Henry played a solo, and it was doubled by the great tenor sax player King Curtis, who was just playing a mouthpiece rather than a full instrument, making a high-pitched squeaking sound: [Excerpt: Bobby Lewis, "Tossin' and Turnin'"] Curtis was of course also responsible for another great saxophone part a couple of years earlier, on a record that Kaylan loved because it combined comedy and rock and roll, "Yakety Yak": [Excerpt: The Coasters, "Yakety Yak"] Those two saxophone parts inspired Kaylan to become a rock and roller. He was already learning the clarinet and playing part time in an amateur Dixieland band, and it was easy enough to switch to saxophone, which has the same fingering. Within a matter of weeks of starting to play sax, he was invited to join a band called the Nightriders, who consisted of Chuck Portz on bass, Al Nichol on guitar, and Glen Wilson on drums. The Nightriders became locally popular, and would perform sets largely made up of Johnny and the Hurricanes and Ventures material. While he was becoming a budding King Curtis, Kaylan was still a schoolkid, and one of the classes he found most enjoyable was choir class. There was another kid in choir who Kaylan got on with, and one day that kid, Mark Volman came up to him, and had a conversation that Kaylan would recollect decades later in his autobiography: “So I hear you're in a rock 'n' roll band.” “Yep.” “Um, do you think I could join it?” “Well, what do you do?” “Nothing.” “Nothing?” “Nope.” “Sounds good to me. I'll ask Al.” Volman initially became the group's roadie and occasional tambourine player, and would also get on stage to sing a bit during their very occasional vocal numbers, but was mostly "in the band" in name only at first -- he didn't get a share of the group's money, but he was allowed to say he was in the group because that meant that his friends would come to the Nightriders' shows, and he was popular among the surfing crowd. Eventually, Volman's father started to complain that his son wasn't getting any money from being in the band, while the rest of the group were, and they explained to him that Volman was just carrying the instruments while they were all playing them. Volman's father said "if Mark plays an instrument, will you give him equal shares?" and they said that that was fair, so Volman got an alto sax to play along with Kaylan's tenor. Volman had also been taking clarinet lessons, and the two soon became a tight horn section for the group, which went through a few lineup changes and soon settled on a lineup of Volman and Kaylan on saxes, Nichol on lead guitar, Jim Tucker on rhythm guitar, Portz on bass, and Don Murray on drums. That new lineup became known as the Crossfires, presumably after the Johnny and the Hurricanes song of the same name: [Excerpt: Johnny and the Hurricanes, "Crossfire"] Volman and Kaylan worked out choreographed dance steps to do while playing their saxes, and the group even developed a group of obsessive fans who called themselves the Chunky Club, named after one of the group's originals: [Excerpt: The Crossfires, "Chunky"] At this point the group were pretty much only playing instrumentals, though they would do occasional vocals on R&B songs like "Money" or their version of Don and Dewey's "Justine", songs which required more enthusiasm than vocal ability. But their first single, released on a tiny label, was another surf instrumental, a song called "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde": [Excerpt: The Crossfires, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde"] The group became popular enough locally that they became the house band at the Revelaire Club in Redondo Beach. There as well as playing their own sets, they would also be the backing band for any touring acts that came through without their own band, quickly gaining the kind of performing ability that comes from having to learn a new artist's entire repertoire in a few days and be able to perform it with them live with little or no rehearsal. They backed artists like the Coasters, the Drifters, Bobby Vee, the Rivingtons, and dozens of other major acts, and as part of that Volman and Kaylan would, on songs that required backing vocals, sing harmonies rather than playing saxophone. And that harmony-singing ability became important when the British Invasion happened, and suddenly people didn't want to hear surf instrumentals, but vocals along the lines of the new British groups. The Crossfires' next attempt at a single was another original, this one an attempt at sounding like one of their favourite new British groups, the Kinks: [Excerpt: The Crossfires, "One Potato, Two Potato"] This change to vocals necessitated a change in the group dynamic. Volman and Kaylan ditched the saxophones, and discovered that between them they made one great frontman. The two have never been excessively close on a personal level, but both have always known that the other has qualities they needed. Frank Zappa would later rather dismissively say "I regard Howard as a fine singer, and Mark as a great tambourine player and fat person", and it's definitely true that Kaylan is one of the truly great vocalists to come out of the LA scene in this period, while Volman is merely a good harmony singer, not anything particularly special -- though he *is* a good harmony singer -- but it undersells Volman's contribution. There's a reason the two men performed together for nearly sixty years. Kaylan is a great singer, but also by nature rather reserved, and he always looked uncomfortable on stage, as well as, frankly, not exactly looking like a rock star (Kaylan describes himself not inaccurately as looking like a potato several times in his autobiography). Volman, on the other hand, is a merely good singer, but he has a naturally outgoing personality, and while he's also not the most conventionally good-looking of people he has a *memorable* appearance in a way that Kaylan doesn't. Volman could do all the normal frontman stuff, the stuff that makes a show an actual show -- the jokes, the dancing, the between-song patter, the getting the crowd going, while Kaylan could concentrate on the singing. They started doing a variation on the routine that had so enthralled Howard Kaylan when he'd seen Louis Prima and Keeley Smith do it as a child. Kaylan would stand more or less stock still, looking rather awkward, but singing like an angel, while Volman would dance around, clown, act the fool, and generally do everything he could to disrupt the performance -- short of actually disrupting it in reality. It worked, and Volman became one of that small but illustrious group of people -- the band member who makes the least contribution to the sound of the music but the biggest contribution to the feel of the band itself, and without whom they wouldn't be the same. After "One Potato, Two Potato" was a flop, the Crossfires were signed to their third label. This label, White Whale, was just starting out, and the Crossfires were to become their only real hit act. Or rather, the Turtles were. The owners of White Whale knew that they didn't have much promotional budget and that their label was not a known quantity -- it was a tiny label with no track record. But they thought of a way they could turn that to their advantage. Everyone knew that the Beatles, before Capitol had picked up their contracts, had had their records released on a bunch of obscure labels like Swan and Tollie. People *might* look for records on tiny independent labels if they thought it might be another British act who were unknown in the US but could be as good as the Beatles. So they chose a name for the group that they thought sounded as English as possible -- an animal name that started with "the", and ended in "les", just like the Beatles. The group, all teenagers at the time, were desperate enough that they agreed to change their name, and from that point on they became the Turtles. In order to try and jump on as many bandwagons as possible, the label wanted to position them as a folk-rock band, so their first single under the Turtles name was a cover of a Bob Dylan song, from Another Side of Bob Dylan: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "It Ain't Me Babe"] That song's hit potential had already been seen by Johnny Cash, who'd had a country hit with it a few months before. But the Turtles took the song in a different direction, inspired by Kaylan's *other* great influence, along with Prima and Smith. Kaylan was a big fan of the Zombies, one of the more interesting of the British Invasion groups, and particularly of their singer Colin Blunstone. Kaylan imitated Blunstone on the group's hit single, "She's Not There", on which Blunstone sang in a breathy, hushed, voice on the verses: [Excerpt: The Zombies, "She's Not There"] before the song went into a more stomping chorus on which Blunstone sang in a fuller voice: [Excerpt: The Zombies, "She's Not There"] Kaylan did this on the Turtles' version of "It Ain't Me Babe", starting off with a quiet verse: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "It Ain't Me Babe"] Before, like the Zombies, going into a foursquare, more uptempo, louder chorus: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "It Ain't Me Babe"] The single became a national top ten hit, and even sort of got the approval of Bob Dylan. On the group's first national tour, Dylan was at one club show, which they ended with "It Ain't Me Babe", and after the show the group were introduced to the great songwriter, who was somewhat the worse for wear. Dylan said “Hey, that was a great song you just played, man. That should be your single", and then passed out into his food. With the group's first single becoming a top ten hit, Volman and Kaylan got themselves a house in Laurel Canyon, which was not yet the rock star Mecca it was soon to become, but which was starting to get a few interesting residents. They would soon count Henry Diltz of the Modern Folk Quartet, Danny Hutton, and Frank Zappa among their neighbours. Soon Richie Furay would move in with them, and the house would be used by the future members of the Buffalo Springfield as their rehearsal space. The Turtles were rapidly becoming part of the in crowd. But they needed a follow-up single, and so Bones Howe, who was producing their records, brought in P.F. Sloan to play them a few of his new songs. They liked "Eve of Destruction" enough to earmark it as a possible album track, but they didn't think they would do it justice, and so it was passed on to Barry McGuire. But Sloan did have something for them -- a pseudo-protest song called "Let Me Be" that was very clearly patterned after their version of "It Ain't Me Babe", and which was just rebellious enough to make them seem a little bit daring, but which was far more teenage angst than political manifesto: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Let Me Be"] That did relatively well, making the top thirty -- well enough for the group to rush out an album which was padded out with some sloppy cover versions of other Dylan songs, a version of "Eve of Destruction", and a few originals written by Kaylan. But the group weren't happy with the idea of being protest singers. They were a bunch of young men who were more motivated by having a good time than by politics, and they didn't think that it made sense for them to be posing as angry politicised rebels. Not only that, but there was a significant drop-off between "It Ain't Me Babe" and "Let Me Be". They needed to do better. They got the clue for their new direction while they were in New York. There they saw their friends in the Mothers of Invention playing their legendary residency at the Garrick Theatre, but they also saw a new band, the Lovin' Spoonful, who were playing music that was clearly related to the music the Turtles were doing -- full of harmonies and melody, and inspired by folk music -- but with no sense of rebelliousness at all. They called it "Good Time Music": [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Good Time Music"] As soon as they got back to LA, they told Bones Howe and the executives at White Whale that they weren't going to be a folk-rock group any more, they were going to be "good time music", just like the Lovin' Spoonful. They were expecting some resistance, but they were told that that was fine, and that PF Sloan had some good time music songs too. "You Baby" made the top twenty: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "You Baby"] The Turtles were important enough in the hierarchy of LA stars that Kaylan and Tucker were even invited by David Crosby to meet the Beatles at Derek Taylor's house when they were in LA on their last tour -- this may be the same day that the Beatles met Brian and Carl Wilson, as I talked about in the episode on "All You Need is Love", though Howard Kaylan describes this as being a party and that sounded like more of an intimate gathering. If it was that day, there was nearly a third Beach Boy there. The Turtles knew David Marks, the Beach Boys' former rhythm guitarist, because they'd played a lot in Inglewood where he'd grown up, and Marks asked if he could tag along with Kaylan and Tucker to meet the Beatles. They agreed, and drove up to the house, and actually saw George Harrison through the window, but that was as close as they got to the Beatles that day. There was a heavy police presence around the house because it was known that the Beatles were there, and one of the police officers asked them to drive back and park somewhere else and walk up, because there had been complaints from neighbours about the number of cars around. They were about to do just that, when Marks started yelling obscenities and making pig noises at the police, so they were all arrested, and the police claimed to find a single cannabis seed in the car. Charges were dropped, but now Kaylan was on the police's radar, and so he moved out of the Laurel Canyon home to avoid bringing police attention to Buffalo Springfield, so that Neil Young and Bruce Palmer wouldn't get deported. But generally the group were doing well. But there was a problem. And that problem was their record label. They rushed out another album to cash in on the success of "You Baby", one that was done so quickly that it had "Let Me Be" on it again, just as the previous album had, and which included a version of the old standard "All My Trials", with the songwriting credited to the two owners of White Whale records. And they pumped out a lot of singles. A LOT of singles, ranging from a song written for them by new songwriter Warren Zevon, to cover versions of Frank Sinatra's "It Was a Very Good Year" and the old standard "We'll Meet Again". Of the five singles after "You Baby", the one that charted highest was a song actually written by a couple of the band members. But for some reason a song with verses in 5/4 time and choruses in 6/4 with lyrics like "killing the living and living to kill, the grim reaper of love thrives on pain" didn't appeal to the group's good-time music pop audience and only reached number eighty-one: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Grim Reaper of Love"] The group started falling apart. Don Murray became convinced that  the rest of the band were conspiring against him and wanted him out, so he walked out of the group in the middle of a rehearsal for a TV show. They got Joel Larson of the Grass Roots -- the group who had a number of hits with Sloan and Barri songs -- to sub for a few gigs before getting in a permanent replacement, Johnny Barbata, who came to them on the recommendation of Gene Clark, and who was one of the best drummers on the scene -- someone who was not only a great drummer but a great showman, who would twirl his drumsticks between his fingers with every beat, and who would regularly engage in drum battles with Buddy Rich. By the time they hit their fifth flop single in a row, they lost their bass player as well -- Chuck Portz decided he was going to quit music and become a fisherman instead. They replaced him with Chip Douglas of the Modern Folk Quartet. Then they very nearly lost their singers. Volman and Kaylan both got their draft notices at the same time, and it seemed likely they would end up having to go and fight in the Vietnam war. Kaylan was distraught, but his mother told him "Speak to your cousin Herb". Cousin Herb was Herb Cohen, the manager of the Mothers of Invention and numerous other LA acts, including the Modern Folk Quartet, and Kaylan only vaguely knew him at this time, but he agreed to meet up with them, and told them “Stop worrying! I got Zappa out, I got Tim Buckley out, and I'll get you out.” Cohen told Volman and Kaylan to not wash for a week before their induction, to take every drug of every different kind they could find right before going in, to deliberately disobey every order, to fail the logic tests, and to sexually proposition the male officers dealing with the induction. They followed his orders to the letter, and got marked as 4-F, unfit for service. They still needed a hit though, and eventually they found something by going back to their good-time music idea. It was a song from the Koppelman-Rubin publishing company -- the same company that did the Lovin Spoonful's management and production. The song in question was by Alan Gordon and Gary Bonner, two former members of a group called the Magicians, who had had a minor success with a single called "An Invitation to Cry": [Excerpt: The Magicians, "An Invitation to Cry"] The Magicians had split up, and Bonner and Gordon were trying to make a go of things as professional songwriters, but had had little success to this point. The song on the demo had been passed over by everyone, and the demo was not at all impressive, just a scratchy acetate with Bonner singing off-key and playing acoustic rhythm guitar and Gordon slapping his knees to provide rhythm, but the group heard something in it. They played the song live for months, refining the arrangement, before taking it into the studio. There are arguments to this day as to who deserves the credit for the sound on "Happy Together" -- Chip Douglas apparently did the bulk of the arrangement work while they were on tour, but the group's new producer, Joe Wissert, a former staff engineer for Cameo-Parkway, also claimed credit for much of it. Either way, "Happy Together" is a small masterpiece of dynamics. The song is structured much like the songs that had made the Turtles' name, with the old Zombies idea of the soft verse and much louder chorus: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Happy Together"] But the track is really made by the tiny details of the arrangement, the way instruments and vocal parts come in and out as the track builds up, dies down, and builds again. If you listen to the isolated tracks, there are fantastic touches like the juxtaposition of the bassoon and oboe (which I think is played on a mellotron): [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Happy Together", isolated tracks] And a similar level of care and attention was put into the vocal arrangement by Douglas, with some parts just Kaylan singing solo, other parts having Volman double him, and of course the famous "bah bah bah" massed vocals: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Happy Together", isolated vocals] At the end of the track, thinking he was probably going to do another take, Kaylan decided to fool around and sing "How is the weather?", which Bonner and Gordon had jokingly done on the demo. But the group loved it, and insisted that was the take they were going to use: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Happy Together"] "Happy Together" knocked "Penny Lane" by the Beatles off the number one spot in the US, but by that point the group had already had another lineup change. The Monkees had decided they wanted to make records without the hit factory that had been overseeing them, and had asked Chip Douglas if he wanted to produce their first recordings as a self-contained band. Given that the Monkees were the biggest thing in the American music industry at the time, Douglas had agreed, and so the group needed their third bass player in a year. The one they went for was Jim Pons. Pons had seen the Beatles play at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964, and decided he wanted to become a pop star. The next day he'd been in a car crash, which had paid out enough insurance money that he was able to buy two guitars, a bass, drums, and amps, and use them to start his own band. That band was originally called The Rockwells, but quickly changed their name to the Leaves, and became a regular fixture at Ciro's on Sunset Strip, first as customers, then after beating Love in the auditions, as the new resident band when the Byrds left. For a while the Leaves had occasionally had guest vocals from a singer called Richard Marin, but Pons eventually decided to get rid of him, because, as he put it "I wanted us to look like The Beatles. There were no Mexicans in The Beatles". He is at pains in his autobiography to assure us that he's not a bigot, and that Marin understood. I'm sure he did. Marin went on to be better known as Cheech Marin of Cheech and Chong. The Leaves were signed by Pat Boone to his production company, and through that company they got signed to Mira Records. Their first single, produced by Nik Venet, had been a version of "Love Minus Zero (No Limit)", a song by Bob Dylan: [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Love Minus Zero (No Limit)"] That had become a local hit, though not a national one, and the Leaves had become one of the biggest bands on the Sunset Strip scene, hanging out with all the other bands. They had become friendly with the Doors before the Doors got a record deal, and Pat Boone had even asked for an introduction, as he was thinking of signing them, but unfortunately when he met Jim Morrison, Morrison had drunk a lot of vodka, and given that Morrison was an obnoxious drunk Boone had second thoughts, and so the world missed out on the chance of a collaboration between the Doors and Pat Boone. Their second single was "Hey Joe" -- as was their third and fourth, as we discussed in that episode: [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Hey Joe"] Their third version of "Hey Joe" had become a top forty hit, but they didn't have a follow-up, and their second album, All The Good That's Happening, while it's a good album, sold poorly. Various band members quit or fell out, and when Johnny Barbata knocked on Jim Pons' door it was an easy decision to quit and join a band that had a current number one hit. When Pons joined, the group had already recorded the Happy Together album. That album included the follow-up to "Happy Together", another Bonner and Gordon song, "She'd Rather Be With Me": [Excerpt: The Turtles, "She'd Rather Be With Me"] None of the group were tremendously impressed with that song, but it did very well, becoming the group's second-biggest hit in the US, reaching number three, and actually becoming a bigger hit than "Happy Together" in parts of Europe. Before "Happy Together" the group hadn't really made much impact outside the US. In the UK, their early singles had been released by Pye, the smallish label that had the Kinks and Donovan, but which didn't have much promotional budget, and they'd sunk without trace. For "You Baby" they'd switched to Immediate, the indie label that Andrew Oldham had set up, and it had done a little better but still not charted. But from "Happy Together" they were on Decca, a much bigger label, and "Happy Together" had made number twelve in the charts in the UK, and "She'd Rather Be With Me" reached number four. So the new lineup of the group went on a UK tour. As soon as they got to the hotel, they found they had a message from Graham Nash of the Hollies, saying he would like to meet up with them. They all went round to Nash's house, and found Donovan was also there, and Nash played them a tape he'd just been given of Sgt Pepper, which wouldn't come out for a few more days. At this point they were living every dream a bunch of Anglophile American musicians could possibly have. Jim Tucker mentioned that he would love to meet the Beatles, and Nash suggested they do just that. On their way out the door, Donovan said to them, "beware of Lennon". It was when they got to the Speakeasy club that the first faux-pas of the evening happened. Nash introduced them to Justin Hayward and John Lodge of the Moody Blues, and Volman said how much he loved their record "Go Now": [Excerpt: The Moody Blues, "Go Now"] The problem was that Hayward and Lodge had joined the group after that record had come out, to replace its lead singer Denny Laine. Oh well, they were still going to meet the Beatles, right? They got to the table where John, Paul, and Ringo were sat, at a tense moment -- Paul was having a row with Jane Asher, who stormed out just as the Turtles were getting there. But at first, everything seemed to go well. The Beatles all expressed their admiration for "Happy Together" and sang the "ba ba ba" parts at them, and Paul and Kaylan bonded over their shared love for "Justine" by Don and Dewey, a song which the Crossfires had performed in their club sets, and started singing it together: [Excerpt: Don and Dewey, "Justine"] But John Lennon was often a mean drunk, and he noticed that Jim Tucker seemed to be the weak link in the group, and soon started bullying him, mocking his clothes, his name, and everything he said. This devastated Tucker, who had idolised Lennon up to that point, and blurted out "I'm sorry I ever met you", to which Lennon just responded "You never did, son, you never did". The group walked out, hurt and confused -- and according to Kaylan in his autobiography, Tucker was so demoralised by Lennon's abuse that he quit music forever shortly afterwards, though Tucker says that this wasn't the reason he quit. From their return to LA on, the Turtles would be down to just a five-piece band. After leaving the club, the group went off in different directions, but then Kaylan (and this is according to Kaylan's autobiography, there are no other sources for this) was approached by Brian Jones, asking for his autograph because he loved the Turtles so much. Jones introduced Kaylan to the friend he was with, Jimi Hendrix, and they went out for dinner, but Jones soon disappeared with a girl he'd met. and left Kaylan and Hendrix alone. They were drinking a lot -- more than Kaylan was used to -- and he was tired, and the omelette that Hendrix had ordered for Kaylan was creamier than he was expecting... and Kaylan capped what had been a night full of unimaginable highs and lows by vomiting all over Jimi Hendrix's expensive red velvet suit. Rather amazingly after all this, the Moody Blues, the Beatles, and Hendrix, all showed up to the Turtles' London gig and apparently enjoyed it. After "She'd Rather Be With Me", the next single to be released wasn't really a proper single, it was a theme song they'd been asked to record for a dire sex comedy titled "Guide for the Married Man", and is mostly notable for being composed by John Williams, the man who would later go on to compose the music for Star Wars. That didn't chart, but the group followed it with two more top twenty hits written by Bonner and Gordon, "You Know What I Mean" and "She's My Girl". But then the group decided that Bonner and Gordon weren't giving them their best material, and started turning down their submissions, like a song called "Celebrity Ball" which they thought had no commercial potential, at least until the song was picked up by their friends Three Dog Night, retitled "Celebrate", and made the top twenty: [Excerpt: Three Dog Night, "Celebrate"] Instead, the group decided to start recording more of their own material. They were worried that in the fast-changing rock world bands that did other songwriters' material were losing credibility. But "Sound Asleep", their first effort in this new plan, only made number forty-seven on the charts. Clearly they needed a different plan. They called in their old bass player Chip Douglas, who was now an experienced hitmaker as a producer. He called in *his* friend Harry Nilsson, who wrote "The Story of Rock & Roll" for the group, but that didn't do much better, only making number forty-eight. But the group persevered, starting work on a new album produced by Douglas, The Turtles Present The Battle of the Bands, the conceit of which was that every track would be presented as being by a different band. So there were tracks by  Chief Kamanawanalea and his Royal Macadamia Nuts,  Fats Mallard and the Bluegrass Fireball, The Atomic Enchilada, and so on, all done in the styles suggested by those band names. There was even a track by "The Cross Fires": [Excerpt: The Cross Fires, "Surfer Dan"] It was the first time the group had conceived of an album as a piece, and nine of the twelve tracks were originals by the band -- there was a track written by their friend Bill Martin, and the opening track, by "The US Teens Featuring Raoul", was co-written by Chip Douglas and Harry Nilsson. But for the most part the songs were written by the band members themselves, and jointly credited to all of them. This was the democratic decision, but one that Howard Kaylan would later regret, because of the song for which the band name was just "Howie, Mark, Johnny, Jim & Al". Where all the other songs were parodies of other types of music, that one was, as the name suggests, a parody of the Turtles themselves. It was written by Kaylan in disgust at the record label, who kept pestering the group to "give us another 'Happy Together'". Kaylan got more and more angry at this badgering, and eventually thought "OK, you want another 'Happy Together'? I'll give you another 'Happy Together'" and in a few minutes wrote a song that was intended as an utterly vicious parody of that kind of song, with lyrics that nobody could possibly take seriously, and with music that was just mocking the whole structure of "Happy Together" specifically. He played it to the rest of the group, expecting them to fall about laughing, but instead they all insisted it was the group's next single. "Elenore" went to number six on the charts, becoming their biggest hit since "She'd Rather Be With Me": [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Elenore"] And because everything was credited to the group, Kaylan's songwriting royalties were split five ways. For the follow-up, they chose the one actual cover version on the album. "You Showed Me" is a song that Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark had written together in the very early days of the Byrds, and they'd recorded it as a jangly folk-rock tune in 1964: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "You Showed Me"] They'd never released that track, but Gene Clark had performed it solo after leaving the Byrds, and Douglas had been in Clark's band at the time, and liked the song. He played it for the Turtles, but when he played it for them the only instrument he had to hand was a pump organ with one of its bellows broken. Because of this, he had to play it slowly, and while he kept insisting that the song needed to be faster, the group were equally insistent that what he was playing them was the big ballad hit they wanted, and they recorded it at that tempo. "You Showed Me" became the Turtles' final top ten hit: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "You Showed Me"] But once again there were problems in the group. Johnny Barbata was the greatest drummer any of them had ever played with, but he didn't fit as a personality -- he didn't like hanging round with the rest of them when not on stage, and while there were no hard feelings, it was clear he could get a gig with pretty much anyone and didn't need to play with a group he wasn't entirely happy in. By mutual agreement, he left to go and play with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and was replaced by John Seiter from Spanky and Our Gang -- a good drummer, but not the best of the best like Barbata had been. On top of this, there were a whole host of legal problems to deal with. The Turtles were the only big act on White Whale records, though White Whale did put out some other records. For example, they'd released the single "Desdemona" by John's Children in the US: [Excerpt: John's Children, "Desdemona"] The group, being the Anglophiles they were, had loved that record, and were also among the very small number of Americans to like the music made by John's Children's guitarist's new folk duo, Tyrannosaurus Rex: [Excerpt: Tyrannosaurus Rex, "Debora"] When Tyrannosaurus Rex supported the Turtles, indeed, Volman and Kaylan became very close to Marc Bolan, and told him that the next time they were in England they'd have to get together, maybe even record together. That would happen not that many years later, with results we'll be getting to in... episode 201, by my current calculations. But John's Children hadn't had a hit, and indeed nobody on White Whale other than the Turtles had. So White Whale desperately wanted to stop the Turtles having any independence, and to make sure they continued to be their hit factory. They worked with the group's roadie, Dave Krambeck, to undermine the group's faith in their manager, Bill Utley, who supported the group in their desire for independence. Soon, Krambeck and White Whale had ousted Utley, and Krambeck had paid Utley fifty thousand dollars for their management contract, with the promise of another two hundred thousand later. That fifty thousand dollars had been taken by Krambeck as an advance against the Turtles' royalties, so they were really buying themselves out. Except that Krambeck then sold the management contract on to a New York management firm, without telling the group. He then embezzled as much of the group's ready cash as he could and ran off to Mexico, without paying Utley his two hundred thousand dollars. The Turtles were out of money, and they were being sued by Utley because he hadn't had the money he should have had, and by the big New York firm, because  since the Turtles hadn't known they were now legally their managers they were in breach of contract. They needed money quickly, and so they signed with another big management company, this one co-owned by Bill Cosby, in the belief that Cosby's star power might be able to get them some better bookings. It did -- one of the group's first gigs after signing with the new company was at the White House. It turned out they were Tricia Nixon's favourite group, and so they and the Temptations were booked at her request for a White House party. The group at first refused to play for a President they rightly thought of as a monster, but their managers insisted. That destroyed their reputation among the cool antiestablishment youth, of course, but it did start getting them well-paid corporate gigs. Right up until the point where Kaylan became sick at his own hypocrisy at playing these events, drank too much of the complimentary champagne at an event for the president of US Steel, went into a drunken rant about how sick the audience made him, and then about how his bandmates were a bunch of sellouts, threw his mic into a swimming pool, and quit while still on stage. He was out of the band for two months, during which time they worked on new material without him, before they made up and decided to work on a new album. This new album, though, was going to be more democratic. As well as being all original material, they weren't having any of this nonsense about the lead singer singing lead. This time, whoever wrote the song was going to sing lead, so Kaylan only ended up singing lead on six of the twelve songs on what turned out to be their final album, Turtle Soup. They wanted a truly great producer for the new album, and they all made lists of who they might call. The lists included a few big names like George Martin and Phil Spector, but one name kept turning up -- Ray Davies. As we'll hear in the next episode, the Kinks had been making some astonishing music since "You Really Got Me", but most of it had not been heard in the US. But the Turtles all loved the Kinks' 1968 album The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, which they considered the best album ever made: [Excerpt: The Kinks, "Animal Farm"] They got in touch with Davies, and he agreed to produce the album -- the first time he did any serious outside production work -- and eventually they were able to persuade White Whale, who had no idea who he was, to allow him to produce it. The resulting album is by far the group's strongest album-length work, though there were problems -- Davies' original mix of the album was dominated by the orchestral parts written by Wrecking Crew musician Ray Pohlman, while the group thought that their own instruments should be more audible, since they were trying to prove that they were a proper band. They remixed it themselves, annoying Davies, though reissues since the eighties have reverted to a mix closer to Davies' intentions. Some of the music, like Pons' "Dance This Dance With Me", perhaps has the group trying a little *too* hard to sound like the Kinks: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Dance This Dance With Me"] But on the other hand, Kaylan's "You Don't Have to Walk in the Rain" is the group's last great pop single, and has one of the best lines of any single from the sixties -- "I look at your face, I love you anyway": [Excerpt: The Turtles, "You Don't Have to Walk in the Rain"] But the album produced no hits, and the group were getting more and more problems from their label. White Whale tried to get Volman and Kaylan to go to Memphis without the other band members to record with Chips Moman, but they refused -- the Turtles were a band, and they were proud of not having session players play their parts on the records. Instead, they started work with Jerry Yester producing on a new album, to be called Shell Shock. They did, though bow to pressure and record a terrible country track called "Who Would Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret" backed by session players, at White Whale's insistence, but managed to persuade the label not to release it. They audited White Whale and discovered that in the first six months of 1969 alone -- a period where they hadn't sold that many records -- they'd been underpaid by a staggering six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. They sued the label for several million, and in retaliation, the label locked them out of the recording studio, locking their equipment in there. They basically begged White Whale to let them record one last great single, one last throw of the dice. Jim Pons had, for years, known a keyboard player named Bob Harris, and had recently got to know Harris' wife, Judee Sill. Sill had a troubled life -- she was a heroin addict, and had at times turned to streetwalking to earn money, and had spent time in prison for armed robbery -- but she was also an astonishing songwriter, whose music was as inspired by Bach as by any pop or folk composer. Sill had been signed to Blimp, the Turtles' new production and publishing company, and Pons was co-producing some tracks on her first album, with Graham Nash producing others. Pons thought one song from that album, "Lady-O", would be perfect for the Turtles: [Excerpt: Judee Sill, "Lady-O"] (music continues under) The Turtles stuck closely to Sill's vision of the song. So closely that you haven't noticed that before I started talking, we'd already switched from Sill's record to the Turtles' version. [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Lady-O"] That track, with Sill on guitar backing Kaylan, Volman, and Nichol's vocals, was the last Turtles single to be released while the band were together. Despite “Lady O” being as gorgeous a melody as has ever been produced in the rock world, it sank without trace, as did a single from the Shell Shock sessions released under a pseudonym, The Dedications. White Whale followed that up, to the group's disgust, with "Who Would Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret?", and then started putting out whatever they had in the vaults, trying to get the last few pennies, even releasing their 1965 album track version of "Eve of Destruction" as if it were a new single. The band were even more disgusted when they discovered that, thanks to the flurry of suits and countersuits, they not only could no longer perform as the Turtles, but White Whale were laying legal claim to their own names. They couldn't perform under those names -- Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman, and the rest were the intellectual property of White Whale, according to the lawyers. The group split up, and Kaylan and Volman did some session work, including singing on a demo for a couple of new songwriters: [Excerpt: Steely Dan, "Everyone's Gone to the Movies"] When that demo got the songwriters a contract, one of them actually phoned up to see if Kaylan wanted a permanent job in their new band, but they didn't want Volman as well, so Kaylan refused, and Steely Dan had to do without him. Volman and Kaylan were despondent, washed-up, has-been ex-rock stars. But when they went to see a gig by their old friend Frank Zappa, it turned out that he was looking for exactly that. Of course, they couldn't use their own names, but the story of the Phlorescent Leech and Eddie is a story for another time...

GGACP celebrates the 40th anniversary of one of Gilbert's favorite comedies, "Zapped!" (released July 23, 1982) with this 2019 interview featuring Grammy and Emmy winning composer Charles Fox. In this episode, Charles looks back on a six-decade career of writing top 40 hits (“Killing Me Softly with His Song,” "Ready to Take a Chance Again") as well as music and themes for TV shows (“Happy Days,” “Wonder Woman”) feature films (“Barbarella,” “9 to 5”) and game shows (“Match Game,” “What's My Line?”). Also, Charles praises Ernie Kovacs, pens a tune for Burt Reynolds, witnesses the Ed Ames tomahawk incident and remembers friends Neal Hefti, Jerry Goldsmith and Henry Mancini. PLUS: "The Green Slime"! “Love, American Style”! The Charles Fox Singers! And the boys pay loving tribute to Paul Williams! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices