Hi, check, Hello everybody.
Hi Jen hie.
Yeah, well you can ask me just about anything you want relative to the music and the show.
Uh, certainly.
Uh, I'm happy to be thank you for inviting you today, and and uh and talk about something that really is unfair, and it's unfair to the people we care about the most, which is our fans.
Well you I want to hear it. Yeah, tell tell me everything I want to hear.
All right, Well, let me start with with one element about the show.
And and I think you guys.
Certainly Tory and and and Jenny can corroborate this. Amy is that the first five seasons that I was there, I did basically five different television shows.
Wow. The first show was called The Walsh Family Show.
Yeah. Second show was called High School Hijinks as we just threw ball in the era, did twenty nine episodes. The third show was called Senior Year Yeah. The fourth show was College Yeah. And the fifth show was Goodbye Brenda, Hello Tiffany.
Wow.
There were five completely different television shows with the same characters but with different vibes, yeah, goals, different budgets. And that's where we should start. On season one and two, we had the lowest license fee in network television being working for the Fox Broadcasting Company, which really at that point was a broadcasting service, not in network. Yeah, as I used to tease Peter Chernan a lot, anytime we asked you to pay for something, you became a broadcast service,
and anytime something controversial you were a network. You know, you know. But we did not have enough money, and you guys can remember, you know, some of the scenes that we had. We had a lot of montages, and we had long scenes.
With very few setups.
Unlike the movies that you've been in your TV that had much more production value. We didn't have that.
So I had no idea.
We thought you guys just liked writing those putting those in that it was a choice.
Your father would roll his eyes every time I would say to him, Aaron form follows function, Man, if we don't have any money, we got to do it this way, and he would Yes, Amy.
Here's my question just so people can understand. So, like, especially since we were talking about Aaron, so compared to Dynasty, Love Boat, Fantasy Island was nine two one zero, like like Peanuts, compared to those shows.
Half well from a budget.
Listen, we you know, for of all, I want to acknowledge to your fans that listen to your podcast week and week, this one's a little different than most of them because the business it becomes dominant, and especially when you're talking about music, but his music is not free. But yes, I mean, you know they used to call and I'm sure you mentioned on this show before ABC stood for Aaron's broadcasting company in the years that I started in the business in nineteen seventy seven, Yeah, and
moved it through to two thousand and seven. That was my run of television. But you know, the.
Network business was a very flush.
Business, and Aaron, you know, was a very cost oriented producer.
He didn't like to waste.
Money, but at the same time, when he wanted to spend it, there was really no holding him back on that.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, someone, now.
This is super interesting. Okay, keep going. So you're you're talking about so, you know.
Seas So the idea being that how would we have a production that would appeal to our core audience, which was teenagers, which was kind of a brand new thing. I mean, Fox was experimenting with a lot of different things, and if you look back to what Fox had its first season.
It wasn't teenage kind of stuff. It was really some high end talent.
George C. Scott, the famous actor. It was sitcom. James Brooks was there doing Tracy Omen which led to The Simpsons.
Was twenty one Jump Street toward the beginning and twenty one Jump Street.
Could you bring that up?
Because I was going to bring that one up because twenty one Jump Street had a lot of pop music, and that so much pop music that they actually put the credits of what songs they were using on during the end credits.
Oh yeah, that's sort of familiar to me.
Wait, can I ask that question? Like back back then, what were budgets like, what was an appropriate budget for a million dollar the shohow?
Yeah for whom? No, The budget that we proposed to make.
For the show was a was just over a million dollars and that was rejected by uh Duke he By, by the you know, the person who really would talk about the mudget and that so our original license fee from Fox was about seven hundred thousand dollars and and.
It was Ali mcbeil on then.
Later break Break My Heart. There were two great pilots one year for Fox. One was written and produced by David Kelly called Ally mcbeil and the other was written produced by me called Soulmates and Alan McBeal one and Salmates. He ever, did not get its ten year run. But anyway, that's water under the bridge.
Wait, since we're going there. This is very interesting. So if the network pays essentially like Spelling Productions, seven hundred thousand dollars to make this show, do you have to make it for five hundred thousand to have profit?
Oh? Well, the other amount that the Spelling company put in I even think it was lower. I think it was like Court, closer to five hundred thousand dollars. But they were smart enough company and had a big enough foreign sales that they added that money into it, and that was about one hundred and fifty more. But we were one hundred to one hundred and fifty to two
hundred thousand dollars less than any other television series. The other thing that you have to remember from seasons one and two, which I know Tory and Jenny most likely remember, is that our crew was not a union crew.
It was a non union crew.
And that was a real gamble both on Fox Broadcasting Company and Spelling being a willing participant in that to go and try to effectively make a low budget television and an effect break the Alliance for Television Studio Engineers Flatsy the below the line.
That was the plan, and that is.
Really the only reason that I'm talking to you both today so many years later.
Because Aaron could not and Duke, they were the Spelling production. They had great relationships with unions, they did not put their name on. They could not put their name on the show. So instead they found a company to work with propaganda of course, the CIA Company, and they worked together and I and since Aaron couldn't put his name on, he had to find someone who would here, and fortunately he high me.
Why he hired me, by the way, is because of I did a lot of movies for television. That's how I really got by it. There were a new series saying Elsewhere in Northern Exposure before I came to nine o two and oh. But pretty much I wrote movies for television. I wrote movies about women, I wrote movies about kids. And you know, Tory, your dad. He's a complex human being, but boy did he could he scrutinize a problem and figure out where he would have to land.
You look, you know everybody. You go back to season one and the older fans who remember that there was Ferris Bueller's Day Off and French Prince of bel Air and Parker Lewis Can't lose on the Fox Broadcasting Company, which is a show that they loved as opposed to us. They had to get used to and and uh and there were others as were whole high from Disney, and Aaron looked at that lineup and went, hey, I cannot compete. They all want me to be MTV. I am not MTV.
I don't know how to be MTV. I know how to be good television. And he had that in his background with a show from the sixties called Mod Squad, which was one of the few things I watched when I was a teenager. It was Mod Squad, the Smothers Brothers in Mission Impossible. Those were my show.
When you say Aaron's name wasn't on the show, Aaron's name wasn't on the show.
For the first five seasons. Not as an executive producer. I was the sole executive producer for two seasons. In their season, he made a deal with Darren Starr to get his name as an executive producer as well, but it was front credits, not end credits. And I stayed on the show for the two years of college. I did one hundred and forty three hours of television in five seasons. That's cramming six and a half years of television into five seasons. Boy with the writers guild like
orders like that right now? Huh?
But we you know it was a very hard working.
Show, and and I knew about two thirds of the way, half of the way through season five that and I would tell this to Karen. You know this show is really trying to kill me. Karen, I got even you can't do this anymore. This is the best thing that's happened to us creatively and financially. But I can't do it. I can feel that. And I and just too hard work, too small a staff, too many episodes. I leave the show in May, and at forty three years old, I have a heart attack in the first week of July.
Tory and Jenny, do you feel that way? I mean, I know you love this show, right, but do you feel like it worked you really hard?
Oh?
Yes, yes we did. We're both nodding our heads. Yes, but we had nothing. It was gruel and we we We've got to go home. At the end of the night, you guys had to write.
Are you're talking about check? Like, Jen, do you remember this about it being non union the first two seasons.
I remember the non union now he's bringing it up definitely, because that was a big hubbub around when the show decided to go union.
I can't remember my part. I remember the propaganda. I'm like, oh, is that where that they came in?
Yes, And it was a very big thing. You guys.
You guys were waiting in the wings when they were having their meeting and to vote, and you know, they were having the conversation among themselves and the only people in the room who weren't union were myself and and Paul Wagner, who had just come on as the line producer at that point, and we uh and you know uh, and Shannon had actually taken the microphone and urged everybody to go on strike, that they deserved more money that they did in these hours were too long. But blah blah,
blah blah. And I got on the night and said, well, you know, just realize that we are a terribly low rated show. We've only had two three episodes airing by that point, even though they were really good.
Hello, but we were low aired, so what did it matter?
And I said, if you vote to strike, I can't guarantee you that we'll be working tomorrow.
And we won by one vote. Well, if one vote did they come back to work.
You cut to season two and they decided to try to go on strike again and go on it become a union television show. And I remember Paul Wagner, my dear friend and really my production partner and all of this, saying to them, look, if you go union, that means that we can hire anybody we want for any job.
We're not struck to that.
And they passed it by one. It passed by one, and the next year that came back. Your friend, You guys friends, remember that he was such a nice guy. And I know is Eric Lopez Eric Lopezeah the golfer and Jason he was if you remember from seasons two to three, he was the only one who was brought back, and I think it was because he was Jason's golf partner.
Tell you the truth, Okay.
He hung out with you guys.
Yeah, I have another question for you, Chuck, so well, okay two actually too. So as shows go, and we're talking season one ish before it blew up that summer, right, Sure, were they Tory Jenny, the whole cast paid significantly lower than say, twenty one Jump Street when they started, like, oh.
I'm sorry, I don't know that.
If they were paid being paid, they were being paid lower than had the show been on ABC.
Okay, okay, yes, I can't.
Judge from the other, but I didn't know bringing since you brought up Judge Street, and since I know the focus on this is music that we that we knew that if we that if we did some music and we had the propaganda people, and let's understand something about propaganda. They were the hippus people in town. They were doing all the music videos for for Madonna. They had the great director David Fincher under contract, they had Michael Bay
under contract. They were just they were and they had and they were doing twin Peaks the production right, right, so come on.
They were They were really something else.
And they had brought us some people to say, these people know what the hip songs are and you can license them and they'll be your your your company.
Before you start talking about this sixties episode that we really want to talk about. Of the of you know, how you describe like your your your time on the show, how it was five different seasons. Do you have a favorite of those? Of the different incarnations the Walsh family, the high school years, senior year college, the Tiffany years, Do you have a favorite?
Yeah?
Well, yeah, there was you know, uh, sure I do.
But I love that all my children. I love them all, and I love things that you all did in them. You know, it's it's you know, some episodes worked better than others in this. But I again go back to this. I was hired to do basically bring a movie of
the week sensibility exploring teen issues. Yeah and so, and we were in for a big surprise when we turned in when Darren Starr and I and our staff turned in our first proposal for the first six episodes, and they were all rejected, Wow, single one of them rejected because they did not want a serialized television show.
They wanted individual episodees that each had a beginning, middle, and end, which at that point was because it was better for syndication, right, you know, the soaps and and I'm sure this came from, you know, the experience that your dad had with Dynasty and the others just didn't play as well when it wasn't first run. And by the way, that was what nine o two and zero didn't play as well when it wasn't first run. So because of that, Barry Diller said, let's bring them back in the summer.
Let's do twenty eight episodes. Let's just do more and more because the kids want to watch new material. They didn't want to watch repeats, and so that was you.
Know, he still avoided my question there where he said he can't pick, He can't pick, do you because I would say, right now with the episodes were in, because we're we just talked about divas. I mean this it is thriving right now. Like I love season five, I love it so yeah. So to me, this is like season one was not my favorite, and it then it's just gotten better and better. Do you did you feel like it was because everyone was firing in all cylinders.
You guys just finally knew exactly what the show was like. Can you pick.
My favorite season? The season three senior year by far?
Okay, this is a high school.
Series and that's how I perceive it, and I'm really glad that you liked season stings.
In season four, the fact is is that.
We were blown away by the divas, the the three the three episode arc of it. It was and and you know, I'm sitting here talking and because I consider Jenny a friend, I can say, okay, here we do we put Jenny now that he says, look what you did to Kelly Taylor, especially after I left.
They made her go through this.
He left me.
They did, I did.
They did not Charlie. Charlie didn't do that.
They did. But but the fact of the matter is is that when we wrote, uh, you know, okay, Kelly Taylor is going to go on and be the lead of.
A Tennessee Williams play, I didn't know if you could do that.
Jenny. I didn't come You didn't come to my mouth, Jenny, would you like to do Tennessee Waives? I didn't function that way because we're gonna do it. Well, it'll work, we'll cut around. But the the great performances by you, Shannon and Tracy Middendorf, I agree, I mean.
They were they were some of the things.
And by the way, when I and people who know that the podcast that I do with Pete we often talk about that.
We were just astounded that h Shannon found her in season four, found her Sea legs. Yes, and she.
Found it starting with the Time has Come Today and then through Divas and then through the end she she reconnected.
With the character that she had.
It was so ambivalent about, Yeah, you know, how can you play the part Brenda when you know that there's a bunch of people out there for whatever reason saying I hate Brenda and you're Brenda?
Is that I hate Kelly? And Jenny played it.
No, not like, not like, not like. It wasn't organized in the same way. That was a that was a thing,
and it was double and we had this argument. I think Tory certainly remember this, Jenny, you might but A Current Affair was on every night and at seven o'clock we come on at eight other shows that come on in eight hosted by Bill Riley, and Bill Riley went after Shannon every week every week whatever he could he would And it was the only time I ever called the President and said, back off, what are you doing?
You have this guy?
And then and then the other one was great about season one. You know season one that one of the reasons Amy that you liked season four so much more than number one one. I had to battle, I had to have conversations with censors. I had We were talking about high school kids, and that was what, you know, the focus was, so what they would say, what they would do was was it was really was you know,
really part of the uh gestalt of it. But but I, you know, I loved the senior year because I thought that that really had the it was Season two was the hardest season for me of the five because it wasn't in real time. You know, it's you know, when you're in high school, you know, you're most kids are talking about when they get to you, what was my SAT score? What college are going to? Where am I? This?
And this? And and that was uh and we started that out and and I and I personally, just because of my nature of writing movies for television, I particularly liked episodes that were not serialized movies having an end.
So so interesting. I mean, I love the serial. I could talk to you all day because this is so fascinating. I love the serial aspect of the show.
Well, let you talk to iHeartRadio. Let's just talk about.
But I Jenny and Ian and I had a fascinating conversation in the last week or whatever about that episode when he outs Mike Ryan and just how even though it's dated a little bit, it still feels so current and the issues and addressing abortion with with Andrea, and it's just like, you guys were so ahead of your time in leaning into these.
You know what's numbers number one in that And it's really crazy because I didn't know, you know, I didn't watch most I put these episodes on, I watched them every night when they were on live, and then I put them away, and so I didn't really watch a lot of the episodes for a lot of years.
And then you know, started getting back to it.
But our second episode, which was a female centric episode, and it was because that's what we had to do. Then season one one for Brandon, one for Brenda, one for Brandon, one for Brenda, one for Brandon, oops one for Kelly, which was perfect mom, and that changed it all up, believe me. And then and really the only two she had that one. And then of course Dylan
got his breakthrough with Isn't It Romantic? The Ages episode, and Tory Yours came along a little later, but still in season one with the SAT and the idea of your of a learning disability, the fact that a show is you know, so the show could be dated. Right. Third, we're talking about these shows that we made thirty years ago, and that's going to be really part of my argument about why the music has to be restored.
But nonetheless, the second episode we did was Every Dream Has Its Price Tag and it was about shoplifting and in there you will hair dialogue spoken just perfectly natural and in the time about white privilege. That to me was how do we know to do that?
Well? The writer was into that, she wrote it, and Amy's p's and so it was.
It was that. But we had all of these issues and Aaron. Aaron thrived on it. He loved this part of the show. He wanted this, It was his, it was his vision.
So when we finally connected after with the Gulf War and our shows came back and all of a sudden we were getting seven hundred and fifty thousand viewers more a night, he was so he was thrilled with it. And I really loved the first year and the second year because that's when I really got the chance to work with your dad, Torri. After that, he got so busy. He wanted so many you know, he's your father, you know the man so much better than I did.
But what motivated him? What he wanted? And I just lost my access to him.
I mean, when it were the only show that was there, he and I were on the same floor in the same building.
I'd walk down, we'd hang out, we talk about the things.
I remember very clearly when he said to me, you know with Donna, you know that Donna should be a virgin, And it was like, yes, absolutely she should.
There was so that was his idea.
That was that your idea or hear his idea?
Not fine, I never knew where I always suspected and people say like he kept his daughter a virgin? But was it literally his idea?
Oh? Absolutely?
And by the way, the entire first writing staff just went, yeah, that's that's I think. I think it was the second rise that was the Wasserman's and I we just went, yo, yeah, that that makes perfect sense because we were able now to differentiate yourself. And when I loved about it. I watched an episode U yesterday, the one where not my favorite in season one, but surprisingly holds up well where an old boyfriend comes back into Cindy's.
Like, oh yeah, that's a good one, and yes one, and and and you know, and seeing that and seeing you know, you you you would be dressed, you know, provocatively stylishly, but you know, a girl and so but it didn't matter because certainly, if you were, for whatever reason a virgin at that point, you could dress like that, you just you know, would blend in, but not actually be doing the deed as it were.
So, you know, it was so I you know, I really did miss that aspect of it. And I think that part of the problems that we had with our music and losing our music in the way we did, had to do with the fact of how much was on the company's plate at that point, how much time had a lot, and that neither.
Darren or I were around to make a case.
Whose idea was it to do a sixty slashback show mine.
That's why you don't like that. I didn't like it.
Wasn't just you that didn't like it. None of us are really crazy about that episode.
Well, I'm gonna go more to the quick on this Amy, And this is not a criticism of the three of you or anyone iHeartRadio or anybody else's names are up here in this. You're not watching the television show I made, right right, you didn't watch it.
Here's what songs.
Let me just go through something. Here's what songs you didn't hear on this episode that you didn't like.
Monday, Monday, Monday by the mom.
And I'm talking about about now we're talking about the soundtrack.
And were these in the original airing?
Yes, these were the original airing.
This was the second most music that we had in the entire five years I did the show. The only show that had more music license was Commencement and that in season three our graduation, and that was a two hour episode was and that was That's.
An amazing, brilliant, perfection episode.
I'm glad you think.
So sorry, I still don't like this one.
Well, I still don't think. I'm gonna send you. I'm gonna have Pete send you the episode and you can hear it.
But keep keep explaining the music, because I I'll still give my argument why I don't love it, But go I'm sorry, So, I'm sorry, I'm freaking out. This is such a fascinating This is like should be a pullege class to me, like you are passionate about it.
I taught. I taught in college, so I know those classes.
I took classes like this, and I would if I could have taken this class or take it now, Oh my god, I would go back to school for this class.
Yeah, but but Berkeley wouldn't carry it.
They would tell you have to go to u. C. L. A. Amy. Anyway, Woodstock. It opened with Joni Mitchell singing Woodstock, Mama's and Papa's doing Monday Money on the jukebox. These boots are making for walking by Nancy Sinatra, which was the song. There were two songs in the sixties that had to do with the soldiers, and that was one of them, and the other was I Ain't No Fortunate Son or ad Moon Rising was also any guy who was served in Vietnam,
here's that song, and yeah, back in the Fields. So anyway, we had for what it's worth with the Buffalo Springfield on the radio. We had the coolest song that really catches the sixties. For your audience, to write this one down. It's called reach It Out in the Darkness, and it's I think it's so groovy now that people have finally getting together. That was the number one teeny bopper sixties song of the time, Everybody get together by the Love
Young Bloods. You know chance time has come today, which was the psychedelic song, and many people probably took their not Charlie, but many people probably took their psychedelic trips on that. I was not a partake in psychedelics, by the way, because I was fit.
I was fearful that I would lose my mind, so I never did that.
Same don't same, same little, same over it.
We had where you loved like Keaven by Donovan. We had all we are saying is give piece a chance by John and Yoko God.
That was all this is expensive music.
And then we had the last thing, one of the most beautiful songs.
It's a Dylan song.
We had it by Richie Havens saying the times they are changing, which is when Brenda drives and meets the woman.
Who wrote had the Diary. That's by Richie Havens. You didn't hear one of those songs, so it's pretty.
Hard for you to get see where the music supported the dramaturgy and the two connected.
And we're very much and this happens you know.
The stuff that that CBS puts out there and people watch is a lesser product.
It's not the.
Show that that I made with your father and I and I made that argument to David's staff at CBS. I made that argument to the National Academy of Television. I made that ad argument again and again and again to episodes by people by CBS. And the response, and this one is really going to infuriate you, especially you, Jenny, is when I really finally I had a good agent, you know who I didn't for long years, but an old agent of mine became a very powerful agent.
And and and and.
When I said I wanted to talk to somebody at CBS on the distribution side because they keep saying no to these reasonable proposals.
And I talked to a guy.
I'm gonna let his name out of it, but he's the man who claims that he told Paramount to buy Spelling Entertainment. And he's the man who told me when I talked about all this music and all this stuff and that how our loyal fans are, etc. Etc.
He said, yeah, but it's too bad none of your stars really are big. And one week.
Later, Luke Perry died, oh one week later from that conversation where the whole world stops to remember our brother in.
Arms, our friend, our lover, our the soul of this television show and this is and that doesn't jive with the corporate mentality on looking at an issue.
That is a money issue. And I kept trying to go back to them and say, let's just take twenty shows from Heis School. Let's just take twelve shows from high school. Because what it mattered of those three seasons, just pick them so that the audience can understand.
What was about this show.
You watched the original episodes of this show with the nineties in order not thrown out the way that they do and decide not to show them, and you realized that you are watching a documentary about what life was like in the nineties. Yeah, that's what mattered to me. You know when I went into television, when I went
and excuse me, first news and then television. I did that instead of becoming a history professor, which is what I wanted to be part of me and was actually accepted the University of Texas to do that program and be part of that. And so here we we create this show that is a direct reflection of the nineties, and there's nobody to see it. There's no way to see it because CBS won't take twenty episodisodes, fourteen episodes.
I don't care many episodes and donate them to UCLA or Wisconsin and let our fans know that.
It's going to be there. So what's going to happen.
I've got all the ones I've got, and the my heirs will be instructed when they read my will just let them all put them all on on the internet.
So in Layman's terms, like just kindergarten explanation, the reason so the first airing it had all that music and then the reason it doesn't now is just purely because it would be too expensive to continue to license the music in those episodes like what's the kindergarten?
That was well, that was okay. That is a good question. That is the question why did they do this? And one of the reasons that they did it the cup I don't want to get into some of them because I just don't in this form. I'll tell the four of you that when we're not being recorded, if you don't mind, if you understand, I want to protect people's feelings and things like that.
But the fact don't protect our feelings. We're fine, not us.
We have pretty much. Yes, I understand at a certain point.
But the television had always gone. It was interesting, you know what, what really bothers me about the television industry. And I compare this to music and film. In music, working with the federal government and the Library of Congress, they have all the great tunes that they add thirty pieces of music to it, and they say, these are the great songs that were written in the twentieth century. They do the same thing with film. Hello, the American
Film Institute. Television doesn't do this. Television is about the quick hit were popular, We're hot, We're making money. God bless the world. And so when they get to a point when the business starts to change, people get real worried. In the late eighties, right before Fox started. Fox started in nineteen eighty nine, and they started because they knew
that network television was in decline. They could see there was a way there that what had been for all of those years wasn't going to be happening in the same way, well the same at the end of the nineties, what we had was HBO in showtime, and that's where the heat was. The heat was not.
On network anymore, and the networks didn't how are we going to do our stuff?
What are we going to do? And so what happened also during this period in the late nineties, sir, Oh yeah, And what.
Napster did was take away a.
Huge profit zone from the recording industry, and they decided that the way they were going to get it back was to.
Charge much more.
To the television people.
Oh really, And and that's what happened.
You know, interestingly enough, as you know, and I the only the show that I did after nine o two and zero was I.
Did Dawson's Creek for one season.
And I was not really very much of a creative producer on that one, all things being twothful, But I was a bit used to the business stuff that I had learned, and I had worked with the president of Warners who basically said, we're not going to pay that much for our music anymore.
We're paying way too much. Why should we pay so much?
If we're giving them an opportunity to.
Get the promotion, why should we do that?
And that was Bob Daily, and that's who had I felt I worked for even though I was Sony.
I mean, there's some sense that makes sense, there's some that makes sense.
Absolutely, But the thing was is that you were paying no matter what you were paying for, you were paying for a song you wanted, a song you went after. And there was something about what gets me a little bit, and what I think the Spelling Company is complicit in this one area is that those first people from Propaganda only bought our music for two airings, got it because nobody believed the show was gonna last, so then he did two errings.
So is that the difference between like a show like Grey's Anatomy that has so much amazing music is because they're licensing it in perpetuity or something from.
The retting correct amy And then what happened after that instead of Spelling when Kenny Miller, who who was really uh was so important to me while I was making the show, he was as I was as close to Kenny as I was to Paul, And yet after I left the show, it was Kenny who supervised stripping all the music away. Really yeah, and he worked for the company. He had to do what the company told them to do, but he never told me that was going on or that it was be doing.
But but be that as it may. The the music.
It's itself that that was there were you know, we were songs that we had made a deal with, we had when it was acceptable to the seller. So you know some of the songs, for instance, some of the songs when you think of Season two, Losing My Religion, Arim, Other Side of Summer, Elvis Costello, Rick and Gage, Chris Isaac, Happy Shiny People.
Are huge songs.
Friends in Low.
Places, Garth Brooks, My God, and then moving forward, Damn, I wish I was your lover? Why Kathy Dennis from prom That Night, Blood is Thicker Than Water and and Me and Mourray from Color Me Bad. So those were songs that were were we paid for.
We did it. I came.
When I came to CBS, I thought, okay, let's just double the price of it and they'll do that.
But they did. They wouldn't. So the idea of saying to all.
Two hundred and ninety eight episodes, forget about it, right, That's when I picked working with Darren Martin, Sarah.
Page Hall Uh, you know some of our real real super friends and fans who may be listening as we speak to help me select what episodes to use.
And these were the ones that I just wanted preserved, some of which had good music to it too. For instance, if you were going to do a music cent trick episode, you have to do Fame is where you find it because there's Brenda Laverne nice doing that. You know, it's my party and whatever else was being done, all the
fun stuff that was there. But the episodes that we looked at, the twenty two episodes we asked them to put away was the first time Darren, And do you need me to describe what the episodes were?
Well?
Wait, so here's what I have to tell you. I screwed up because I've been asking so many questions that we ran out of time. So can we have you back again in a couple of weeks to continue this conversation because we.
Have Yeah, but I probably won't be as nice.
That's okay, that's okay, you can that's okay. You're in a good mood today, so can we continue. We're going to do a part two of this because it is so fascinating. Can we get me back?
And it is very.
Different for your audience, So I appreciate your patience.
No, I love it, and I do want to get into I do want to get into I think the music would have improved the sixties episode. I started to.
Yes, for sure.
I have a question, Amy. I don't even know if you can remember, but when you watched it the first time through, do you remember liking this episode when I had the original music back here?
The episode is like.
See, this one stands out so much to me. But it's because of the wardrobe. I think that we got to wear it, so that's how I remember it originally.
And the music. I mean, the reason that we're talking about any of this is because the music is just as as important to the storytelling as any of the other elements of it.
And we needed it, and we did it, and we put it together and we out it. What you're saying to the fans, I didn't. When I come back, I will read you what our fans wrote about what they write about not having the music there.
Yeah, if we get a lot of comments.
Because this is about the fans, and if we and by the way, it's about one other thing too, uh minor. This is very minor. And I know you got to go, but this is this is this. I would like my grandchildren to profit from the hard work that I made. I am a proper participant on this show. That's why I could be retired and live in Venice Beach and I God bless.
The giving tree.
Yes, I for all you know, as I remember the day that mister Spelling when he decided that the Bachman is head of.
Business affairs, kept running in and saying to him.
Charge, Aaron, are you sure you want to pay him this amount? If you pay him this, this is for the rest of his life. And your dad did you quote your dad on this story? He said, I like his wife and kids.
Ah. I get it, though, if you create something, it's like taking a book and changing the middle pages.
It's just a really fundamental lack of disrespect. And they didn't make the show. Yeah, I guess come Out did the same thing to Happy Days. They did it too.
I mean, beyond the profit sharing of it all, which it strikes it a little trigger in me, I'm gonna move past that, and I'm going to say it's really about preserving an iconic show.
That said just take a sliver of it, start with this, see how it does, and beg them to become the industry leaders. And if anybody knows the book Unscripted by James B.
Stewart, you should read it.
It's about some of the Redstone and less Moonfest and you understand where the money went.
Well, we're going to continue this for sure. I'll email you and we'll have you back in two weeks because I want to talk more about this. It's really interesting.
Well, I just like you are so knowledgeable. We miss this sort of voice on our show because our show is not really This isn't the temperature of our show usually, and you understand that we're we have a lot more fun with it. To all the details, but to each their own, but we we really appreciate when you come on and you give us this insight and all the real And I like.
Coming on because I get to be with both of you. Yes, these too, I spend a lot of time with.
It's always the best to see you, always the best I have.
I have a load more questions. Thank you for I know me too.
Love you, Love to Karen.
We'll talk to you soon.
We'll see you then, Bye bye bye bye