WBCA Podcasts
City Talk with Ken Meyer (Gary King)
(upbeat music) - WBCA Radio is proud to present CityTalk, where fascinating conversation is alive and well, with your host, Boston radio veteran, Ken Meyer. - Hello again, everybody. Welcome to CityTalk here on WBCA Radio. And my guest is somebody whom I used to listen to on WBCA with Morgan White Show here, and also to work with Jordan Rich. And who can talk about him was born in, I think, the Golden Age of Hollywood. And his name is Gary King. Gary, it's great to be able to do this and talk with you. - Oh, likewise, likewise, Kenny. - Tell me about drawing up. You were born a few years after I was, but you were still in the Golden Age of Television and the Hollywood. So talk about what that was like for you. - Well, I was born in 1950 in Kingman, Arizona. And my parents had lived here while my dad was working on Davis Dam during the, just after World War II. And when I finished the project and I was born, then they headed to Southern California. And my dad was a construction guy. And he ended up through his connections building a lot of homes, tracked homes. And the home that he eventually bought was one that he had constructed. And that's a house in Hawthorne that my brother's and I grew up. And Hawthorne is about, oh, maybe an hour away from Hollywood. And all of the studios, Fox studios, MGM studios, Culver City studios were all in a very close area. My dad became a carpenter in the studios as what they call a prop maker. And he also worked, he first started, I think in live stage theater building the sets for, you know, Peter Pan when they were in LA. And my mom was a wardrobe lady in that same business. But my dad got a call from a neighbor of the street who was a, he was a studio prop maker. And he said, Billy, you gotta get in the studios. So my dad put in applications and got hired at, I believe it was MGM studios, when they did Mutiny on a Bounty with Marlon Brando. And he was building the sets for that. He also got a job, an early job working on the TV show, Daniel Boone. And that was out, I believe that was out of Fox studios where he was. And he got into the prop making carpenter business. And then he started working with the special effects guys. - All right, tell me about some of your first experiences and maybe if you can remember back, maybe one of the first or second celebrities you ever met in your entire life in this business. - Well, I remember my dad was working on the TV show, Bonanza over at Paramount Studios. And they had a Christmas party every year for the studio people. And I remember going over on the set, it was closed to everybody, but my dad dropped my four brothers, my mom and I. And said, "Come on guys, we started walking around the studio a lot." And he opens up this studio door and turns on all the lights. And inside is the interior set of Bonanza. And we walked around through there and we said, "You sure it's okay?" And he says, "Yeah, it's no problem, come on in." Anyway, we kind of walked around the whole studio area looking at these different sets. And after I got into the business, I realized, if you worked on a set, you kind of knew where the lights were to turn things on. And, you know, security guys would recognize you. And they say, "Yeah, go ahead, check out the set." So that's kind of what we did. But I think one of the first shows my dad was working on and I got to take off during the summer. I got to go to work with him as so well did my brothers. And he would take one or two of us each time. So we go, I went with him to work one morning and he said, "Well, we're doing this show." What was it, it was either time tunnel, maybe voyage to the bottom of the sea. And it could have also been lost in space. It was one of those shows. And I remember, I think it was lost in space because we were watching one of my heroes from zero TV series, Guy Madison. - Actually it was Guy Williams. - Guy Williams. And I remember watching the set. They had the ship and they were setting up some creatures and June Lockhart and Billy Mummy, Angela Cartwright, who was Dr. Smith. Anyway, I got to stay there and watch all day long while they were filming. And there was times when my dad and my mom, and we'd all go together and we were on the set for Fantastic Voyage. They had that big spaceship underwater sub. And we got a family photo of us standing in front and sitting on the leading edge of the sub. I can't even think the name of it right now, but it was a futuristic movie. They were basically surgeons that were miniaturized with this spaceship put into the human body through a syringe. And they traveled through to try to get rid of a blood clot in the brain of this scientist that was a Russian scientist. And so that's one of our family photos. It's pretty cool. I remember Morgan had June Lockhart on the air one night. And I called her because I was a big fan of hers and also of Guy Williams. And I said, "What can you tell me about Guy Williams?" And she said, "The one thing she remembered is that he was a nut about classical music. He always enjoyed talking about classical music. And I loved Zorro myself. My dad bought me a mask and a hat for 50 cents." (laughing) And that was high priced at the time. - That was high priced fan of my mother. My mother made a cape out of an old bed sheet one year. I went around to Halloween as San Yorro Zorro. Who is his sidekick with son? - Gene Sheldon was Bernardo. - Bernardo, his friend and George Lewis played his father. - That's right, that's right. I loved those shows. I grew up in the '50s, early TV days. And I loved comedy shows. I liked watching The Little Rascals, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Charlie. Let's see, who else? - Yeah, there's a biography out on Buster Keaton. I haven't read it 'cause I really don't know that much about him, but I know there's a book out on him. - I tried to follow him whenever I could. Any of his shows, you know, in that time in the '50s, they had already done all of their stuff mainly in the '20s and the '30s. So by the time I got to see those shows, they were already, you know, 20 years old. - Yeah. - And, you know, maybe wasn't even making those movies anymore. But also, you know, at the time, Culver City, where MGM Studios is located, that was about a 45-minute drive at the most from my home in Hawthorne. And that's where I love to work between there and 20th Century Fox, which was another 20 minutes away from MGM. I basically worked between those two studios quite a while, a majority of my time in the studio business. And I got to work one time, we were doing a movie called "Not Cover Up." I'm sorry, it was about Coma. And it was about this underground company that was robbing or taking people in the hospital while they were in surgery. And they would put some gas through the gas lines of the hospital, and they would cause these people to go into a coma. And for treatments, they would take these comatose patients and put them into a lab and keep them on life support systems. Anyway, this movie was, it was pretty interesting sci-fi. And I was given the job of going into the MGM Studios collection of faces, plaster castings of all of the major actors that were on contract for MGM. And there was, you know, hundreds of these plaster castings that they could pull molds off of and do face add-ons, whatever they needed. So my job was to go and pick out at least a dozen of these faces to use on the bodies that we were making for the movie coma. And I just finished a story on it. It's called "Pick a Face Any Face." And that was my job for, oh, we worked on that project probably two months at least. And myself and a labor were given the opportunity to spend, you know, all three or four hours up into the area where they had all of these masks, like their mask library. And I got to look at all of my old favorite actors. I got to pick out the best ones I thought for details. And mine, my favorite was Wallace Berry. I think he had the best plaster casting of his face and anybody else in that whole collection. So it was obvious. I picked him as one of the faces to use. - I'm not sure of the relationship. - Go ahead, go ahead, I'm sorry. - Well, their plaster castings were so high detailed in their face features. You know, either their texture of their skin, the size of their ears, their nose, their eyes. It was something that I felt more connected to those actors at that time, being that I was so young when they were in their heyday. But I was able to pick out, you know, a dozen or so of these faces. And we used the heads, we plastered casted heads and made molds. And we would take each feature, each head feature and put them on a different body that they had made full size body castings. And we could put 10 different heads on one body if you wanted, you know, different features. But it was a weird process. It was just making gummies that would be floated in the air on wires and look like they are on a life support system. And these were all background pieces that we would use. Foreground towards camera, they would have actual bodies, you know, stunt people that were supported on these wires hanging from the ceiling and they had life support systems for breathing and watching their body functions. It was a weird, weird movie. - No, you mentioned Peter Pan a little while ago. - Yeah. - I just got a book about J.M. Berry, a guy that wrote Peter Pan. - Oh. - Yeah. - I haven't read it yet, but I think that I'm going to because I loved Peter Pan. - Oh, yeah. You know, my dad, I think the show he had at the time was working on was with Mary Martin. - Mary Martin, yeah. - Yeah, Mary Martin. My dad got a job to help the special effects guy who was doing the water flying on the theater set. And he was from England. I think he was, it wasn't like 84 type of family. - Uh-huh. - The fabulous Foreys. - Yeah. - That was a Jimmy, was a Jimmy Cagney. - I think so, yeah. - Yeah, he did the feature of it. Well, one of the Foreys became a special effects guy out of England and he taught my dad how to set up a wire flying gags for special effects. - Well. - That's what my dad worked on. - It's interesting. We were talking yesterday about the real McCorries and Cathy Nolan. - Yeah. - And if my information is correct, Cathy Nolan played Wendy. - Oh, really? - In Peter Pan. - Oh, wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know it either. I forgot, I forgot where and how I found that out. But let's talk about special effects. - Oh, sure. - It seems I would guess today that it's much easier to do some of these things than it was when the Golden Age or Hollywood or when you were around and first game started, it must have been a lot harder than it is now. Or it was, like nowadays, they're using computer graphic CGI, computer graphic imaging. And they can take an actor and they can record his body shape size and they can put back shape and size into any type of a character just using the actor's motions and his voice. But it would show them as a giant creature. It didn't matter, but CGI does something like that. Whereas in the days that my dad was working and I was working and my brothers, we had to do everything mechanical rigging. We were using wires, music wires and cables to flip, lift up things, flip cars over, do explosions, do the big, Godzilla type structures. It was all mechanical rigging. They would build a set and then the special effects guys would either blow it up or make it fall apart. Whereas now they just touch a few keys on the computer and they'll get the CGI screen, whatever they want. It's just a lot different now. What I found is in special effects, especially, they still have to have a campfire. They still have to have a fireplace in a interior set. They still have to have rain, smoke, fight scenes, breakaway furniture, breakaway windows, bullet hits, stuff like that. They can't do it by computer, really that good. And they need the special effects guy even today to do a lot of that rigging. It's just a whole different type of a system, but the special effects guys back in the early '70s, I remember a guy coming into the special effects shop and he's saying, "Guys, we've got this stuff called computer graphics coming out." And he says, "And in about 10 years, you won't even need a special effects guy. It's all gonna be done by computers." Well, he was kind of right in a way, but he was also wrong because we still have special effects guys working on every show. My brother, Jay, but the youngest one, he was doing all of his Spiderman and Batman and what was this one, Life of Pi. He worked the longest, like 43 years or so and was the last one of my four brothers tonight to be in the business. I now have a nephew who is into producing. He's a son of my older brother, Bill, who's here today with me. And he's doing really good in his stuff, but as far as the special effects rigging, we still do that, but it's in a lot lower level. The bullet hits, stuff like that. It's all pyrotechnic rigging. And they're still doing that today. - That's interesting because I just finished reading a great book on the Godfather. - Oh, yeah. - And one of the things that they discuss in great detail is the scene where Sonny Colleone gets shot. - Yeah, yeah. - And they have to use all this kind of stuff and it had to come, luckily, it had to come out perfect. They did it in one take and it worked out just great, but all the elaborate precautions that they had to take and talk. - Oh, absolutely. I think that part he was inside of a car. - Yes. - And they shot all the bullet hits through the car and into him and that rigging alone, it definitely had to be a one take scene unless they had the budget that they could have another car set up standing by and then they re-rigged all of the blood hits, all of the bullet hits, you know, blood hits on a person. That's pretty heavy duty rigging. - Right. - It's serious business to make sure that those shots go off on a predetermined timing sequence and that the actor is safe, the people around him are safe. Any bullet hits coming through the car, we had to drill holes in each car that we were doing bullet hits on and we would basically load in a small, almost like a miniature firecracker into the body of the whole of the car and then they would cover it over in plaster and then the painter would come in and paint it. If you didn't know what was happening, you wouldn't see those bullet holes, but they're all connected to wires that ran off of the set to a firing board that the special effects guy ran. And I mean, it's a, it's a lot of rigging. - According to this book, which I'm crazy about, I don't know if I'll ever get the author, but according to him, this movie saved Paramount Studios. - Oh, absolutely. - At that time. - Yeah, you know, it reminds me of the 20th century Fox Studios when they did Cleopatra. It basically broke Fox Studios. It worked the reverse of how the Godfather had saved that company, but Fox at the time, damn near went under because of Cleopatra. It was such a humongous budget. You know, they take a chance. Every movie, every TV show that's done on any studio lot is like an investment. You know, you buy a house and you want to make sure that the house stays, you know, improves and then you can sell it for a higher price. Well, that's how the movies and TV shows are. They get an idea. And the guy says, well, I think it'll do all right. Let's do a pilot. So they'll shoot, you know, maybe for a month or a couple of weeks, they'll shoot a few scenes and do a pilot TV series. Well, features are a lot different because there's so much longer time and production, so much more expensive. And they don't know if it's going to be a hit or not. You know, so that goes to their advertising and their release, how many countries they're going to release them. You know, not just cities, but how many countries it's released in. And now with the internet, they could put it instantly on the internet and sell it that way. But, you know, in the earlier days, they were, the studios had their own theaters. You know, Fox Studios and Paramount Studios. They all had-- - RKO too, I think, was another one. - Yeah, so they had their own studios that they would show their movies in. Now it's changed. You know, it's all internet. - Do people still go to the theater anymore? - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And in fact, I have some friends that go up to Laughlin, which is about a half hour north of me in across the Colorado River. They're in one of the casinos they have a movie house. And these people were going up there yesterday to see, you know, one of the movies that are out. I don't know if it was Batman or if it's, what shows are out right now? - Elvis. - Elvis. - I think Elvis is one. - Yeah. - So yeah, people do go up there and it's, wow. You know, Kenny, you and I growing up at the time, we'd go to a movie and you'd see a double feature. And you'd also see either a cartoon or something in between. And at that time, it was what? 50 cents, 75 cents at the most. - Something like that, yeah. - Yeah, yep. - And drive in theaters. That's when they were doing really good 'cause you could take the whole family and pull up and they would show the movie. They still had more money making in their pizzas and their drinks and their popcorn. But, you know, movie houses, they still do exist. (laughs) - That's what they're only showing. - They're only showing one feature at a time for what, $17 or $12, whatever per person. And they're still selling popcorn. - I was just going to ask you that. Nothing like going to the movies and getting popcorn with extra butter. - That's right, that's right. You know, I remember the first night Jordan Rich called me and wanted me to be on his movie and TV night crew. And I told him, I said, "Can I bring in anything?" And he says, "Well, you know, just bring yourself." Well, I decided to bring in some popcorn. I brought in a couple big bags of homemade popcorn. And I brought that in and Morgan White was finishing up his show. And Jordan comes out to meet me and I've got this shopping bag full of popcorn. And he said, "What's this for?" And I said, "Well, you know, it is movie night. You got to have popcorn." (laughs) So I did that continue. It's going on, you know, even when I met you, I think I was bringing in some cookies and fruit and roll-ups, all kinds of things. I was like a craft service guy. (laughs) - You know, I loved it. - When you're talking about special effects, I keep going back. I'm a big fan of the old Superman TV shows. - Oh, yeah. - With George Reeves. And imagine how much easier it would have been with all those special effects that we have now that we didn't have back in 1953. - You know, absolutely, you're right. The rigging back in the '50s, you know, that for Superman, they had him laying on a table. They would have a wind machine in front of his head. He had his arm stretched out on this table. And the camera was taking a picture of him with his cape flying and they could tilt the camera to make it look like he was moving, you know? But what we've gotten into now with CGI, is you can hang any actor on wires, music wires and cables. And they just digitalize those cables out of the way. And they have the the actor flying in the air as if there's no wires attached. So that was a big thing. And even in the '50s, when they were doing special effects, those guys had to figure out the best way to make it as real as they could. And that was their process was to do something like that. You know, it was just the best that was available at the time. - Yup, yup. But you know, one of the things that I don't watch too much television anymore except for old shows. - Yeah, yeah. - One of the things that's disturbing to me is that when we were growing up in that time span, you had shows that ran 36, 39, maybe even 30 shows a season. - Oh yeah. - You don't have that anymore. I think that's very sad. You know what, they're down to, I believe, the last TV series I worked on, we did probably maybe 12 shows in a season. And it would take for a half hour show, it would take probably six days of production, even a full week of production to maybe get a half hour show in the can, which what I call finished. Now they're doing basically one hour TV shows and they could be a comedy, they could be a Western or whatever. And those take 10, 12, 14 days of shooting to get that finished product in the can. And they'd have to film, you know, a month or two months in advance. They'd have to get those jobs done before they were shown on TV now. - That's how far in advance they are. - I'm no expert on television today. Morgan will tell you that. But, you know, again, going back, there were good shows that I always used to watch like Quincy, Marcus Wellby. - Yeah. - The Detectives. - Yeah. - One of the great shows, yep. One of the great shows that I wish was being run now, and you can find on YouTube, is The Defenders with-- - Oh, sure. - With E.G. Marshall. Those were great, great shows. - Yeah. - And they don't seem to have that kind of stuff today. - No, the closest I think to one of those I did was L.A. Law. - Yeah, that's pretty good. - And I did the pilot. I worked the pilot on that, and I worked the series for the first, I think it was, went three seasons. - But that was the last kind of a show I did. Billy, I think, was doing Colombo. - Oh, yeah. Yeah, Colombo was good. Law and Order is good. - Yeah, Manics. - Oh, God, I was just talking to Morgan about Manics. I love that show. - Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, they're great shows. But, you know, you had mentioned The Real McCorries. - Yeah. - Currently, I watched those almost on a daily basis for about three hours straight. They do a half-hour show. They do another half-hour show back-to-back from two in the afternoon till seven o'clock. They'll do The Real McCorries. And preceding that is a couple hours of the Beverly Hillbillies. And I always believe that the Beverly Hillbillies was basically an updated version of The Real McCorries. (laughing) That's how I see it. I used to watch The Real McCorries all the time, but I could never get into the Beverly Hillbillies. I loved Buddy Epson. I loved him more as Georgie Russell with Davey Crockett and Barnaby Jones. - Yeah, absolutely. The old TV Westerns, again, you know, I was watching Bonanza and I was watching Zorro and I was watching Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett. I loved all those shows. - Oh, I, you know-- - The Lone Ranger. - The Lone Ranger and Bill, what was it? It was Wild Bill Hillcock. - Well, now that was with Guy Madison. - With Guy Madison, yep. And I worked with one of his brother, he was a studio prop maker. And he used to tell me how his brother was, you know, always working, keeping real busy. - Now-- - Yeah, I loved all those shows. I have a friend who was a big fan of "Mash." And one of your brothers, I understand, worked for five years on that show. - You know what? I worked on that probably off and on for three, four, five years. But my youngest brother, Jay, did the five, the last five years of "Mash." And in fact, my brother, my prop master, Brother Bill, who's here, and my youngest brother, Jay, was here. We all worked on "Mash." Even my older brother, Bob, was a studio special effects prop maker. We all worked on "Mash." It ran there at Fox for 11 seasons. - Yeah. - And that's like a record for any TV series. You get a season run like that. It's doing pretty good. - I think the only one that could top it was gun smoke. - Oh, yeah. Yeah. - It ran 25 years. - Yeah. - Yeah. - You know, I think "Mash," because of it was, they said "Mash" lasted longer than the "Real Korean War." (laughs) You know, but yeah, you get to shows that run like that. It's really hard to not get to see them, but to miss them now, because they were on the air so long. You know, that's one thing I really like about the, what's on cable now is all these different channels that are showing, you know, they'll show one series for three seasons, four seasons of, you know, any TV show that they've got. And that's, you know, like "Me TV." Morgan has quite a connection to that. He interviews a guy that runs "Me TV," I believe. - Yeah, Neil Saban. - Yeah. And, you know, you get something like that to be able to watch nowadays. A lot of the kids growing up, they want to see all sci-fi and, you know, the Marvels. But you get them to sit down and watch some of these old TV shows, and they start getting hooked on that, you know? - One of the people that I never interviewed and I regretted, but a guy that I admired because of the many series that he was in, and he just seemed like a good guy, was Harry Morgan. - Oh, yeah, absolutely. I loved Harry Morgan, anything he was in. And in fact, you know, Loretta Swit was asked a question by Jordan, I believe, or Morgan. He asked her, he says, "What's, who do you think out of all the characters on "Mash, who was your favorite?" And Loretta Swit, with no doubt, she says, "Everybody on here would agree. It's working with Harry Morgan." - Yeah, he did some great stuff. He was in "On Touchables." He was, of course, in "Dragnet." - Uh-huh, oh, yeah. - With Jack Webb. - Yeah. - Yeah. - December bride, spring binding thing. - Yeah, yeah. - And also, a show that I liked that didn't last too long was Pete and Gladys. - I remember that one, absolutely. Of course, I remember that title. - Yeah. - And he was a great show. He was, you know, he was brought into as a guest star on a number of shows. I can't even begin to name him, but I do know that he had quite a background. I think even in live stage theater, where he probably started out. You know? - You know? - It's just that somebody with that experience, they can't fail. - Yeah. (laughs) - And another aspect of television that we haven't touched on yet are the variety shows. - Oh yeah. - Carol Burnett. - Yeah, I love that show. - Yeah. - Hollywood Palace. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Steve Allen. - Yeah. - And, of course, when you talk about shows like that, naturally "The Tonight Show." - That's a big one. - Johnny Carson, who did it for 30 years. - What a classic. - Did you have any connection with any of those at all? - Not really. I didn't get a chance to work on any of the comedy shows like that that were already established. I got to work trying to think maybe with Harry Morgan, and not Harry Maureen, but with, oh, what's his name, him, they were on the Carol Burnett Show all the time. They were like a partner team. - Harvey Corman and Tim Conway. - Exactly. Those two guys, I got to work with them on a show one time. And it was, I think it was maybe a test, might've been a pilot for a series, but it didn't, I don't think it sold, but I remember working on the set with those guys, and they cracked me up. (laughing) You know, I think they cracked each other up, but I watched the Carol Burnett Show, and I think one of my favorites was where they were playing a dentist scene. - Oh, yeah. - And Harvey Corman was the patient, and I think how was it he was? You know, I'm sorry, my memory right now, I think. - That's all right. Conway was the doctor. I know he was the doctor. - He was the doctor. - He was the doctor, and I watched that. Every time I watched it, I still laugh. I laugh so hard, and Harvey Corman's laughing because he knows what's happening. And it was just the way that they worked with each other. Any sets, any gags that they did was hilarious. And that to me was a favorite thing for that whole show, Carol Burnett, and they could do any characters, and their scenes, their stories were so funny. You could tell when they were laughing, because it was like telling the joke, and you already know the end of it. You know, so it's like red skeleton. There's another favorite. - Yeah, yep. - He can start telling the story or a joke, and he started laughing, and he'd have to stop and say, I'm sorry, he says, but I already know. I already know the end of it. - I know how this is gonna come out. Well, I'll tell you, I have seen Carol Burnett on tour. And once, first time was at City Hall in Boston, and unfortunately, we were way in the back. And I had my hand up through the whole program, and she didn't see it. But when she came out here, my wife, God bless her, bought two of the most expensive seats in the house. And we were in the front row. - Did you raise your hand? - I did, and I was the first guy that was able to ask her a question. I talked to her about the time she appeared with Jack Benny on his program, and she loved the question. - Yeah? - She loved that. I mean, I could have run up on stage in Kister if I'd have wanted to. - Wow. - I had done her show, Burnett. - I would have. (laughing) - I definitely would have. - One of the best Jack Benny shows I ever saw was one where he had this, he had a rooster on the top of his roof, and they gave him a summons because the rooster was making a lot of noise. So he had this dream about falling asleep and being charged with the murder of the rooster. (laughing) And he hired Perry Mason as his lawyer. And one of the best lines in the show, every time Perry Mason would make an objection, he was always overruled. And Jack got very upset and he said, how come on your television show, you win all your cases? What's the problem with mine? And he said, maybe my writers are better than yours. (laughing) - I can see that happening. - It's a great show. I never thought that could make Perry Mason into a comedy. - You know, I think that he would work as a guest star on a number of shows. And he was always good. I loved watching that anytime, the comedies were always my favorite. Any team in the comedy, Jack Benny, I loved him. Love that show. - Yeah, I like the comedies too. And of course, again, you're gonna talk about shows like I Love Lucy. - Yeah. - Another comedy that was available when we were growing up. - Yeah. - Was that show? - I Love Lucy. I remember my dad working on that show where they had gotten snowbound in a cabin. They would all gonna go up skiing. And I think Ethel and Fred and Desi and Lucy were stuck in this cabin. And they'd open up the door and it was just solid snow outside. They thought they were doomed. They were working on what food they have left and how they were gonna portion it out. And everybody's sneaking nets out of their pockets and everybody's, you know, it was a hilarious show. But they were rescued by a group of, what were they, Oompa, Oompa Band, that was coming through the mountains and they came through and rescued them out of the cabin. - Well, one of the shows that I remember after the half hour series had expired. - Yeah. They did some hour long episodes and each one featured a guest star. - Oh, huh? - And one of the best was with Danny Thomas and his family. - Yes. - And I interviewed Thomas about that and he said, he said that was the best voted the best comedy of 1958. Was that show that they did. And it was funny 'cause they all took each other to court and Gayle Gordon was the judge. He was the judge and if you can ever get a hold of it, it's a great show to watch. - I gotta check that out. Now is the, I love Lucy. - No, it was a Desi Lou Comedy Hour. - Oh, okay. Okay, Desi Lou Comedy Hour. - Yeah, I'll have to check that out. I like that. - It's a great show, you're gonna love it. I've showed that to a lawyer friend of mine as well as the Jack Benny, you should check that Benny show out too. - Oh, yeah. - 'Cause it's the vibe, I mean, that was only one line. There are some very clever lines. I remember I was at a radio convention and I met one of the Benny writers and I told him about that show how much I enjoyed it and he said, "Good, because I wrote it." - Ah, what timing, huh? - I thought that was kinda neat. - That's perfect, that's perfect. Well, you know, Kenny, with your background, being around and getting to interview so many people, I wish I would have listened to WBC back in the '70s and then, you know, all through all that time. I didn't get to listen to Larry Glick and I didn't get to listen to anybody before that. I started listening to WBC when I moved to Massachusetts to Duxbury and that was one of the, you know, it was definitely one of the strongest stations to hear and I loved listening to Jordan Rich on a night that I was working, I was working at night and I carried this little pocket radio with me and I was able to hear Jordan Rich talking about Frankenstein and Towering Inferno and the Titanic or, you know, all of those shows and I'm listening to him goin', damn, I worked on some of those and my brothers and my dad worked on some of those. So I called in and Jordan, you know, started asking me, he says, what'd you do? And I said, well, my family, everybody, we were all in the movie and TV business. And that's when he said, wow, Gary, he says, can you join our crew? We do movie nights and TV nights and I said, sure, you tell me when and that's when I got to meet you. - Yep. - And Gary Armstrong and, you know-- - From Channel Seven, yeah. - And Casey Lemarka. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - All of those guys and then I met Dan Ray 'cause he was, you know, they're in the same studio and then I met Morgan and I thank God I got to meet you. (laughing) - Well, I don't know about that but it's the stuff on TV as good as it was. - I think the reruns, I think the reruns are but, you know what, I get lost on so many different shows now. It's mainly now it's more CG or not CGI. It's the LA, what's I trying to think of all of the cop shows and the rescue shows and the legal shows that are going on. - Oh, wow. - You know, they're doing all of those shows and they're just giving them different titles, different areas, NCIS, and I can't say-- - NCIS, yeah. - NCIS. You know, they've expanded those shows to so many different areas and those shows that just keep going on and on. They're exiting. - I did, NCIS. - Yeah, yeah, my brother Billy said he got to work on NCIS. - Oh, that would make-- - And the pilot. He did the pilot on that, yeah. But, you know, that's one thing. All of those shows now are like spin-offs from original shows. - Yeah. - And I love watching the rescue shows, the cop shows, all that, but I've missed the comedies and the comedies, I've missed all of the comedies and I'd rather sit and watch Turner Classic movies when they're showing Buster Keaton and they're showing Laurel and Hardy and they're showing the little rascals. Again, I'm a '50s kid where I love those comedies and I got to meet a lot of the special effects guys that either they worked on them or their parents worked on them. - Is there's much care? - Yeah. - Is there's much care taken now as it was back in the '50s and '60s and '70s on movies or television? - You know what, it's more like an investment to the producers. They got to come up with some fresh ideas and these guys now, I mean, they're out hoping they can get a story, basically like a true story that they can feature about the airline pilot that saved all those people landing on Hudson River. - And the Hudson River, yeah. It still shows that I really like two life stories and it's the same thing like Zorro or like Daniel Boone. It was based on characters, fictional characters or non-fictional characters, historical facts. Those are the type of shows that I like to follow and I'm watching these now that are Gold Rush, people out searching for lost treasures, history channel, the discovery channel, Turner. Those type of shows I like to watch, stuff based on real activities. - It's funny, you mentioned Bonanza, which is one of my favorite, I love Bonanza. - Oh yeah. - And when I was working at BZ, I had the chance to meet both Michael Landon and Lauren Green. - Were they in town on different projects? - Yes. Landon was there, had something to do with drugs, getting off drugs and getting straightened out because that was one of his problems. Lauren Green was there because at the time, Westinghouse was promoting an animal series and Green was the narrator of it. - Oh, okay. - And the one thing I always regret is that I never asked him about Ringo and the song Ringo. - Yeah, I love that song and I never didn't ask him about it and I always felt bad about that later. But I was so awed by hearing Ben Cartwright mention my name, I couldn't get over that. - You know, I love the old Westerns and the closest I got to working with an old-time Western hero was Ben Johnson. And Ben Johnson, you know, when I first saw one of his shows was Mighty Joe Young. And you know, he was a roping champion in his hey days and he did this movie called Cherry 2000 and we were all throughout Nevada area filming. Started in Las Vegas and we moved like 10 times but Ben Johnson played a part of a guy that lived on the river and he lived basically on a raft that was built out of a big street sign that was floating on the river and he had a little hutch built on it. And his character was called like Three Fingers Jack and the storyline incorporated him as being one of the heroes of the show. But we had to find some props to hang on this raft that prop master said, you know, we've got to get some fish and we're at Hoover Dam at the time. And so the prop master asked me, he says, hey Gary, says you're working on the effects today? And I said, no, we don't have stuff to do today. He said, I've got some fishing poles. He says, you think you can go catch some fish down there and I'll get permission for you to go through the dam and fish down in the bottom of the dam and catch some carp, whatever's down there. And while he was asking me to do that, Ben Johnson come walking by and he said, hey, he says, you need some fishing guys as an algoa. And so Ben and I and another laborer were given these fishing poles and we headed down to the, through the guts of the dam to get down about 20 feet off of the surface of the river. And we caught these big carp. They were like 10 pounds, five pounds. We were catching fish between Ben Johnson and I and the other guy. We had enough fish to put for the set dressing. And Ben says, Gary, he says, this is pretty cool. We're getting paid to go fishing. You know, I loved it. I loved it. He was neat and one of my heroes. - Before I let you go. - Yeah. - When we first talked a long time ago, one of the series that you mentioned to me after Jordan had interviewed Linda Evans was The Big Valley. - The Big Valley, yeah. - I still watch it. And I matter of fact, I got to talk to Peter Breck one day because of Jordan who played Nick Barkley. And I'm curious if any, if you have any memories about any of those people. I mean, there's a great quote about Barbara Stanwick that went something like, when she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad, she was terrific. (laughs) - Oh God, I can, I think out of all of those actors, I got to work on the show Dynasty. - Oh yeah. - And so was it Linda was on that? - Yes. - She played Crystal. - She played Crystal Herring. - Right, right. - And what a lovely lady. You know, that show alone, we did the pilot. Of Dynasty. And then we filmed the whole series there at Fox Studios for, I think it went probably, I wanna say at least five years. It was a great. - Yeah, I think so, yeah. - And they had all the high tech, you know, brand new cars that came out, everybody. And it was a very expensive set, a very expensive show. But I, you know, I got to work with all of those actors. And they were all pretty well established at the time. But yeah, that was, that was the only character out of the ones you mentioned that I got to work with. - Oh, who was the lady Collins? - Oh yeah. - Of her last name, she had an English accent. - Yes, yeah. She played the former wife of Crystal's husband. - I can't think of who it was. - That was, well, her and her sister, Joan Collins. Joan Collins, yes, Joan Collins. And she was, she was a neat lady. - Oh yeah. - She had a bunch of charities that she, she sponsored. But her character was always the, - The villain. - The villain. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You remember there is a scene where her and Crystal had a fight and they both went into a swimming pool. And we had to film that up at, there was a location in a Hollywood Hills area, some big mansion. I think it was, I want to say it was a Hilton, the Hilton family had a mansion on the top of the hill. And they were using that a lot for different shows. But that was one of the locations and they had to do the pool scene where they fall and fight into the swimming pool. - Oh, that was one of my favorites. (laughing) It was definitely on my list. - I got to tell you, we got to have you back again. - Oh, I'd love to anytime. Maybe discuss the Oscars and the Academy Awards and all that kind of stuff because it's stuff that doesn't grow old, especially now with all the controversy and everything that's been occurring in the last couple of years. - Oh, yeah. - But this is something I've always looked forward to. It's having you on. - Well, Kenny, when I heard you mentioned my name the other night on Morgan's show, that just rang a bell for me big time. I said, "I've got to get in touch with Kenny." 'Cause I would love to do an interview with you anytime, anyway. That's definitely on my top of my bucket list. - Well, I appreciate that. I only wish it could be in person because you're a good guy. 'Cause I have said to so many people, you're a credit to the movie and television industry and just a great guy to know and have around. - Thank you, Kenny. I really appreciate it and all the same goes back to you. - Well, sir, I thank you very, very much. I was, as they say, in the right place at the right time. - You got it, man. That's exactly right. - We could tell each other a lot of stuff. A lot of wine could get consumed one night. - Anytime Kenny, even off of the show, you wanna call and give me a holler? I'll chat with you. - Oh, man, I'd take you up on that part. And it's the same with Gary Armstrong, with Jordan and with Morgan, any time. It doesn't have to be on the air, but any time, I'd be thrilled to talk with you guys. - All right, my friend, you take care of yourself. Enjoy that hot weather in Arizona. And you know, you can call me anytime as well. I appreciate it so much. - Well, thank you, Kenny. I appreciate getting this opportunity to spend with you again. And that will do it on another edition of City Talk. Good night, everybody. - Thanks for listening to another great conversation with Ken Meyer and friends. You can contact Ken by email. He addresses KJMyers7@gmail.com. That's KJ-M-E-Y-E-R7@gmail.com. Tune in next time for more conversation with Ken Meyer on City Talk. (upbeat music)