Just about everyone recognizes that music. It means for the next few minutes, you’re going to be entertained by longtime favorites Like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, or the Roadrunner. Helping create all of those iconic characters, and many more, was it brilliant animator Chuck Jones.
Starting in 1933, Jones and his colleagues at Warner Brothers came up with hundreds of cartoons, including some of the classics everyone remembers.
In 1989, Chuck Jones finally wrote his memoir, a heavily illustrated book called Chuck Amick. And that’s when I had the chance to meet him.
It was on this date 66 years ago that one of the most popular, most durable, and most iconic situation comedies in television history was born.
Taking place mostly in a tiny two room apartment in Brooklyn, The Honeymooners set new standards for television comedy.
Captained by the comic genius of Jackie Gleason, the show also featured the versatile Art Carney, Joyce Randolph, and, of course, as Ralph Kramden long-suffering wife Alice, Audrey Meadows.
A classically beautiful actress who purposely downplayed her looks for the role, Meadows also proved to be a formidable counterpoint to the Ralph Kramden character.
In 1994, Audrey Meadows wrote a book called Love, Alice. And there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to meet her and talk with her. After all, I had grown up with The Honeymooners, and I confessed, I was more than a little starstruck.
So here now, from 1994, Audrey Meadows.
Audrey Meadows died in 1998, just five days before her 74th birthday.
It’s September 29th. And on September 29th, 1954, a young baseball player made a name for himself with a defensive play that to this day remains one of the greatest ever.
It was the first game of the 1954 world series, between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians. Playing center field for the Giants that day at the Polo Grounds was the young Willie Mays.
In the eighth inning of a tie game, Vic Wertz of the Indians came to the plate. He lofted a Fly ball to deep center field, and maze made a heroic run for it. With his back to home plate, Mays reached up and caught the ball over his shoulder.
The play was so amazing that to this day, it is usually simply referred to as The Catch.
In the years that followed, maze quickly established himself as a superstar, not only for his ability to smash home run after home run, but his speed on the bases, he was so fast, he was actually run out from under his cap. More on that in the interview you’re about to hear…
In 1988 Willie Mays finally wrote his autobiography, and that’s when I had the chance to meet him.
First, a little context. You’ll hear a reference here to Willie Mays being banned from baseball. What? Yes, in 1980, the commissioner banned Willie Mays because he had signed a deal with and Atlantic City casino, to be a greeter and autographed signed her. He was eventually reinstated.
Also, this interview took place at a time when the Baltimore Orioles, under the managerial leadership of Frank Robinson, we’re having a horrible year.
And we did this interview just a few weeks before the historic first ever night game at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.
So here now, from 1988, Willie Mays.
Willie Mays is 90 now. He’s been in the Hall of Fame since 1979.
In 1935, a young actor, screenwriter, and dancer had an idea.
He started a weekly amateur night competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, in New York City. And before long, Ralph Cooper and his amateur night at the Apollo became a major influence in Black Entertainment.
Over the next five decades, Cooper’s amateur night made hundreds of previously unknown performers into Stars.
I met Ralph Cooper in 1991, when he wrote A Memoir of his many years at the Apollo.
Remember those ads in the back of magazines and comic books back in the day, promising to show you how to do tricks that will Amaze your family and friends?
Well, fast forward to the 1990s, when magicians Penn & Teller start revealing a few of the old magician’s tricks. And then, in 1992, they actually wrote a book of their own, called Penn & teller’s how to play with your food.
And that’s when I had the chance to meet the talking half of the duo, Penn Jillette.
And something happened during this interview that has never happened before, and has never happened since. Was it something Penn Jillette put together, as a practical joke?
So here now, from 1992, Penn Jillette
Penn Jillette is 66 now. Penn and Teller remain one of the most popular acts in Las Vegas.
If you were a regular viewer of NBC’s popular soap opera Days of Our Lives in the 1970s and 80s, you know instantly who I’m talking about when I simply say Doug and Julie.
Actress Susan Seaforth joined the cast in 1968, followed by Bill Hayes two years later. And 4 years after that, their on-screen romance turned into reality, when they married in real life.
And while Bill and Susan Hayes have lived happily ever after, unfortunately the same was not true for Doug and Julie. Oh yes, they suffered the usual soap opera tribulations, but then in the mid-1980s, MBC decided to take it soap operas – including Days of Our Lives – in a new, much younger Direction.
Doug and Julie – I mean, Bill and Susan Hayes – were fired.
I met them in 2006, when they wrote a dual autobiography called like Sands Through The Hourglass.
So here now, from 2006, Bill and Susan Hayes.
Bill Hayes is 96 now. Susan Seaforth Hayes is 78. And both still appear from time to time on Days of Our Lives.
In the mid-1980s one of President Ronald Reagan’s favorite speechwriters was the talented wordsmith Peggy Noonan.
She crafted some of Reagan’s most impressive speeches, including the one he delivered on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, as well as his televised message to the nation after the Challenger disaster in 1986.
And then, working with the presidential campaign of Vice President George HW Bush, Noonan came up with even more phrases that have stuck in our memories.
Along the way, Noonan became an accomplished speaker in her own right, and in 1998, wrote a book to help others facing the prospect of speaking in public.
She and I had many conversations over the years, of which this was one. So here now, from 1998, Peggy Noonan.
Peggy Noonan is 71 now, and still writes, speaks, and is often seen on TV. And, I suspect, she still gets butterflies or stomach.
In the 1970s and 1980s, perhaps no one was more popular on Christian television than Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
Founders of the PTL club, and later the Heritage USA Christian theme park, the Bakkers also espoused a Theology of prosperity. God wanted you to do well financially, they told us.
But in the 1980s it came out that the Bakers were prospering a little bit too much off of the donations their viewers had set in. And after Jim Bakker was accused of sexually assaulting Church secretary Jessica Hahn, prosecutors moved to charge him with fraud.
Bakker was convicted, and in 1989 was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
But powerful allies, including famed defense attorney Alan dershowitz, came to Bakker’s Aid, and he was eventually paroled in 1994.
But not before Tammy Faye divorced him.
2 years after his release from prison, Bakker wrote a book based on things he says he learned about the Bible while in prison. The book was called I was wrong.
So here now, from 1996, my conversation with the Reverend Jim Bakker:
Jim Bakker is 81 now. He is still seen by millions on TV on The Jim Bakker Show with second wife Lori Bakker. Tammy Faye also remarried — she died in 2007 at age 65.
