Burt Sugarman

It seemed like the right thing to do. Talk to our son. He loved the idea, said go for it, and here we are Bob. Okay. Those in the music business know they're huge rights issues. Did you have all those rights issues in the original contract to do whatever you wanted with Midnight Special? Or do you have to go back to these acts and get the rights? Well? I had the rights from the get go, but to go back to as many acts as we've had on the show, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds would

have not been practical. But then years ago, in nineteen seventy two to nineteen eighty one or two, we really did get the contracts working right and signed properly, and I have every single one of them that I have kept. Okay, so is every performance from the Midnight Special on YouTube. Not yet, that will come in the future. Some performances are and we've put them up early, but as time goes on. It's only been two weeks since someone had to type in Midnight Special TV show to find our channel.

But now we're ready to go, and every Monday we had new songs, new artists, new people, and it's been fun. And I read the comments and I really really enjoy them. The comments are terrific. They're intelligent. They're people who said I was ten years old and watched that show and hit under my covers with a little small TV, and I remember so much of it. And other people say that I'm just getting used to it now for my

own family, and it's very exciting to me. It really is truly exciting to go back and look at some of those performances. I remember of the over four hundred ninety minute shows, I was at every single show and down on the floor with the artists. So how are you so pressing to get all these musical rights, because this has certainly been an issue in movies when they wanted to go to DVDs to streaming, they could include certain songs. Do you just have a good lawyer or

did you see the future? Well, maybe a combination. But again, the performance on Midnight Special, I have the copyright too. If it's a matter of the song. On occasion I have to go back on the song and take a look, or someone will contact me and say we have to give you the rights to this song or charge you or this or that. And when that's happened, which hasn't been much, when it's happened, we've worked with them. But

the performances, I have the copyright too. And the show okay, if one goes on YouTube, there are many performances from the Midnight Special that are not on your channel. So are you compensated on that? Are you planning to take those down? What's going on there? Well, from what I understand from YouTube and our attorneys, we have the right to take them down. Somebody has a club with an awful lot of people on and I called him up and talk to him and after having a great phone

call with them, we're going to work together. He's going to let his fan club know about what I'm doing, which is terrific. And he's building that fan club and I'm behind him. So we've got a good relationship. But they have to subscribe to the Midnight Special TV show to come on Mine. No issues. I've not run into any issues that I've been unhappy with so far. Now there are many different deals with YouTube. Did you negotiate a deal with YouTube? Or is just this the straight

compensation deal that YouTube gives. I know that our attorneys have been in touch with YouTube, know them, talk to them, have other deals with them, and I'm not really versed on that yet. I will be in the future. Okay, let's go back to the origination of the Midnight Special.

How did it come together? Johnny Carson was on at that time every night until one pm and or one am, actually one in the morning, and I would watch the Tonight Show and then I had to look at one in the morning an American flag and something like that, which was beautiful. But there was no television. There were no movies all night. There were no television shows, and it made me wonder, what the heck I'm up. I

can't watch any more TV. I'll read a book and I did that often, but I thought, what could I put on there that people could be interested in? And I thought music. Music, music, that's what to put on. Johnny always had on comics that were terrific occasionally some good musicians, and I came up with the idea of musicians, and I wanted to put that show on. And the first person I actually talked to about it was Johnny Carson.

He was my neighbor and he and I played tennis two three days a week before he went to work. And Johnny would go to work around five thirty and shoot that show around six. And I started talking to him and mentioning that I was thinking of putting a TV show on, and he said, well, if you do that, that'll help my last half hour. Obviously, my last half hour, the ratings kind of go down as people Paul fall asleep, but they may stay up to watch your show, and

it'll be good for me and good for you. Develop it, work on it and tell me how I can help. I gave it a lot of thought, talk to some friends about it, and I went to NBC and told him when I had mine, I expected a wonderful, warm welcoming because I knew them all at NBC from the president down, and I had put television shows on NBC, but I wanted to be on NBC to follow Johnny And the immediate answer was no, No, we can't do that.

They'll never show up. Those rock people they're they're on drugs and they're drinking, and they're bands are falling apart. They'll never come. I said, they will come. Maybe one or two or three might not come, but I think a group of them will come. Well. Meeting. After meeting and talking to the right people, a friend of mine said to me, you know, Bert, NBC and everything everybody else in that business wants to be on the good side of the FCC. Why don't you talk about getting

out to vote? Because remember last year, eighteen year olds were voted to be able to vote, and not many of them are right now. I thought that was a wonderful idea. My next meeting with NBC, I said, listen, I'm going to have my host and some of the guests discuss the fact that we want to get young people out to vote, and you'll be a real help. They're an NBC that really did get their attention. Bob.

Once I said that, they started thinking more seriously, and they were still on the fact that maybe all the acts wouldn't show up. But all right, how do how do we solve the problem? I said, I'll tell you what. I will pay for it. I'll do the show at your NBC studio and I'll pay for it. You will, yes, I will. Well, we own the tonight show, I know, but you won't own this one. If you want me to pay for it. You want to pay for it,

you'll own it. We don't. We are not sure it's going to work, but if you're going to pay for it, we'll give it a chance. What about the advertising time, I said, I'll sell it. I will go to some sponsors. I've got sponsors from all the different shows I've done, and I'll get advertising. I will sell it. It can't be too expensive that time, because it's never been on before. How do you sell advertising on one thirty and two and two fifteen in the morning. Finally, after I'm going

to say, three months of meetings, it got put together. Bob. So at that point in time, what did you budget for the initial show? I budgeted about one hundred and eighty thousand to do the first show, and I also felt that if I went to the record companies and asked them about the acts as well, they would want the axe on because if you're on television and these rock acts really they toured, they traveled, they flew around, they were in busses. The country acts especially were always

touring live. But I felt that the record companies could help me get the acts because they knew that next day Saturday Sunday money they would start selling more records. So they were helpful, and I thought for one hundred and eighty thousand I could put that together as well as sell airtime to some sponsors. I had used, example, Chevrolet for a lot of my shows, and I went to them and talked to him. There was a fellow

whose name is well known. His name was John Delian, and John Delian I can't remember at this moment if he was still at Pontiac or had moved to Chevrolet, but he thought the idea was great because he said, young people have an influence on their parents about what kind of park car they buy. So there we went, and that helped me sell the time, and I built a show around it. It was one hundred and eighty thousand dollars of your own money, which is like a

million dollars today. Did you ever think of taking in a partner or you wanted to go all in on this yourself. I really wanted to do it alone. I had been doing television shows and really game shows for years and years, a lot of specials, and I had made some money and done well with it, and I wanted to do it alone. I felt that I had an idea of it. I was creative with it. I love rock and roll, I love country music, all kinds

of music. I just really loved so much deep in me that I thought I'm gonna do it myself and not have somebody tell me what not to do. Okay, you get the green light? Was the show already formatted or did then you say, well, now I've got the time, let me figure out how to do it. That's exactly what happened. Now I've got the time, how do I do this, Let's go. I brought a couple of people in to talk to about it. Some of them have had terrific careers. Dick Ebersol, the name of NBC. Dick,

was a friend of mine. When he came from the East Coast. He actually stayed at my house for a while. When he first came out there, I knew him well, and Dick was absolutely terrific. He then went on to go to NBC and run sports for them for years and years and years. But Dick was involved in suggesting acts and timing on. It was great. Another fellow named Kenny Erlick, who now is the producer of the Grammy Show. Another fellow named Rocco or BC, a young guy that

came in who knew a couple of the acts. We all sat around tables, and Susan Richards was the booker with Titia Fine, and Tisha still books the Grammys. And I'm talking about back in nineteen seventy two when we did this show in August of seventy two, the pilot, we talked about who might be the host, why this person should host it. We had to get some people who could talk because we wanted to talk about get out to vote, And over a couple of weeks we

came up with a show. And I did some of the softer rock earlier following the Tonight show, and the harder rock would come on at one forty five maybe or later. I thought those people might be up a little bit later, and that came the first show. But then we had to find a host. Okay, tell us the story. Well known producer at the time named Jerry Weintraub knew I was working on this show, and he said, I've got a young guy named John Duchendorff. And he said,

John's name is being changed now. He's just come out with one or two records. They've done very well. We're calling him John Denver. Beautiful voice, whitebread looking, young fella, not rock and roll, with funny looking and tattoos on his forehead, none of that. He'd be a great host. Well, he brought him over. I met him and liked him, and he actually sang some works in the office, some things he wrote, and he was terrific and he could talk and enjoy the conversation. I started asking him about

Get Out to Vote. He knew about it. He said, oh, yes, I can talk to some of the acts about that. So I said, you know what, Jerry, Let's have him on, but not have him host. Jerry said, no way. If I could do something with Elvis Presley, I'm telling you, this kid's going to be a major star, and you're going to look back and say he was the right one. So Jerry talked me and do it, and John Denver was the host of the very first show. Okay, do

you remember who was on the first show. Well, we had Mama Cass, Linda ron Stat and the Everly Brothers Argent. We had some great acts on that show. I called. Some of them had little trouble with the agents, but then the record companies pushed and they helped. And then on one or two of them, when I told Johnny, he said, I'll book them a week in front and just sit there and talk to him and we'll talk

about what's going to happen to the show. And they get on and Johnny was extremely helpful, very supportive, very helpful and a good friend of mine. So it worked out well. And that's how the first show obviously did absolutely terrific because the NBCM immediately came to me and said, this is working. Everybody liked it. The FCC liked it because get out to vote, all of our executives liked it. The ratings were there. When can you start and do a weekly Well, I said, give me a couple of

weeks to think that over. So I really started terrific and I said I need five or six months. Let's put it on late January, early February, and that's what happened. Okay, let's go sideways for a second. To Johnny. He had his public persona and then he had his off screen persona, and different personalities have been described since you knew him so well. What was Johnny like off camera? Johnny was

an extremely competitive person. The days that we weren't playing tennis, he actually went into his downstairs what he called his man cave, and he played the drums and he was absolutely terrific at it. Johnny was much of a loaner, very much so competitive a tennis We had a wonderful time playing and if he didn't win, he was very very vocal about it. He wanted to win every game. I was less vocal because I wanted to promote the show. But we had We really did have some laughs in

a great time, and I enjoyed him a lot. Do you remember how you met him? Let me think back to that one. I don't think i've been asked that question. I think I met him pulling into the driveway where I was pulling in in a fancy car, and he had his little Mercedes Coop that he drove, and he wanted to take a look at the car I was driving, and he came over and visited and introduced himself. Of course I knew him and he knew me because I

was the neighbor. And we sat there and talked. We literally sat there for over an hour just talking generally. And was he aware of who you were once you told him what your name was. He didn't know which shows I had produced, but he know I had knew I had produced some, especially because they were at NBC and I often used the NBC studio across from Johnny's to do my shows, even though we never got together.

Then he knew the name and he knew I was around, so it was he was comfortable with talking to me. Do you remember what kind of car it was you were driving? I do. It was called a Gia Gia, a Gia four fifty SS that I was driving, and he just loved the car. How'd you end up getting that car? It's another show, Bob. I actually had that car built in Italy, and I had fifty eight of them built because I saw one on a cover and Gia made bodies but not the engines. And drive frame.

And again it's a long, long story, so we'll do that one another time. Okay, just to stay for one more second. If you had fifty eight built, what happened to the other fifty seven? They got sold? They were sold, I would say roughly half of them in Europe and half of them in the United States. And I had a retail sales operation right on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, willsher and Cannon, the Ferrari dealer happens to be in that building now, and that's where I sold him from.

And it did not take very long. I sold him very very quickly. You remember what the price was, approximately thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars. And do you still have your Gia? I do? And was it a good car? Irrelevant performance? A lot of these Italian cars are known for being for breaking down. Shall we say it's another it's another show, I'm telling you. But it was a Chrysler drive train and it was terrific. And are you a car collector? You just had that one experience with Gia.

I was a collector, Bob. At one time I had sixty two cars and I collected them and enjoyed them and loved it, and I know you enjoy the midnight special, right, And what you do with all the cars over over the period of years, I've sold about fifty five of them. And what was the favorite car you ever had? A nineteen thirty three Dusenberg. Wow. Okay. So this neighborhood we're meeting Johnny is approximately where for those of us it was, it was in bell Air. Okay, So you have this

relationship with Johnny you put on the show. I'm just interested since you did the first show, when you sold the advertising yourself, how did the economics end up working out? They worked out well. I think on the first show all over, I broke even and I was happy about that, but I actually broke even. Okay. For those of us who weren't in the business, there were a number of shows at the time. There was your show, There was in concert, There was ultimately Don Kirshner's show. Do you

believe you were the first? What was going on there? They basically came after me. There was one for me, and that was Dick Clark's show. And if you were on Dick Clark's show, you were lip syncing. And when I watched it, and I noticed that the voices and the faces were not matched to the words always, and I thought it was so great of Dick to be able to do that so early and have some terrific acts on. But I wanted everybody to sing live. If they felt they couldn't sing live, I couldn't put them

on the show. That's how I felt, and that's what I did, and everybody sang live, except just a couple of over the years. A couple of acts were in another country or somewhere, so they sent me a tape a tape of them doing it, and I knew that one or two or three of those tapes they were lip syncing on their own tapes, and I would have Wolfman Jack say something about that because I wanted everyone to sing live. And I also had to go and find the best audio people to work on the show

show for me who were working on records. They worked for Universal, for Warners, for an M, etc. And I would bring them in to help make the audio as good as I possibly could. And that was really important to me because I knew the acts cared about that. Okay, So you know, even back then, an act would come in for a sound check when they're playing a live gig and the acts usually would not be good from the very first note. So how long would it take

to record an act? Some country acts immediately they were just ready. They had been the night before someplace, working live on a stage and they were ready. A few of the acts needed a little bit of time and we were patient, and to tape a ninety minute show. Of course that included commercials, so the show itself went about one ten. We took about six hours to do that show because of exactly what you're saying. Some acts needed a little bit more time than others get the

voices right. I mean, I can just remember somebody like Paul Anka, who was also on Dick Clark some years before. He'd come out in the first note. He was sensational. He just did it. He knocked it out and I had him host a couple of times, and he was involved in booking the acts and who they were and who he wanted, etc. But there were a lot of

acts that just came out and did it. David Bowie, I went to England and the Marquee Club was very hot at the time for some of these acts and the Stones etc. And I taped him there and from the first note, David Bowie was on it, just on it. During that taping in or the Little Things, you remember, Mick Jagger came in and under his arm was merry unfaithful. Wow. That probably might mean more today than it did then. And then David had a long haired lady come in

named Dushenka, and Dushenka was just beautiful and sang. And then I found out later that Dushenka was a man. Wow, We've got some tape on that that's really really interesting and we'll put it up on Midnight Special So rock acts, we'll all acts at this point in time, are never happy with their performance and they want to tweak it after the fact. Did people who want to do that? What was the Midnight Specials policy? I didn't find that.

I really didn't the acts when they came on. I think they had rehearsed with the record companies before in order to get whatever songs they were going to sing. And of course many of them had number one or top ten hits. They were ready, a lot of them, a few of them that weren't, and we'd take a half hour, forty five minutes whatever it took to make it right. And the name Richard Prior, I know, of course,

you know. And Richard was a dear and close friend of mine and I hadn't yet, but I had produced Richard Pryor's for NBC television shows, and Richard and I were dear friends, and he would come to a lot of shows and if we were having a little issue with an act of some kind or another, Richard would knock on their door, walk inside, talk to him, relax him. Nobody could believe that was in Richard Pryor, but he

did that, and he was hanging around the show. And then I had three stages going at the same time, and one would be lit and that's where we would shoot, and the other two were kind of rehearsing quietly getting ready, and Richard would be standing around getting the audience up and happy because they were all sitting on the floor. People lined up outside to come to the tapings. And so I didn't have a lot of trouble like that. I think I was fortunate, Bob. So it was all

shot in one day. Yes, yeah, at NBC. Yes, Okay, what was the commitment? How many shows for the year? When once NBC said yes, roughly forty eight. Oh wow, so it's old school, Yes, yes, old school, and we repeated about four shows. Okay, yeah. How did Wolfman Jack get involved in sitting with that group of people that I told you about? The Susan Richards, that Tisha, that

Dick ever saw all of them? One of them, I don't know which one, said you know, there's a there's a DJ that works out of Tijuana by the name of Wolfman Jack. He's got an incredibly unique voice. The artists are just crazy about him, and of course they want him to play their songs. So if we could get him involved, the artists would like to come and meet Wolfman they didn't all go to Tijuana, and he would know them more apt to play their songs during

his DJ week. And then he was in a little thing all American graffiti, and because of it, I just felt that was a great idea. They showed me some pictures of him with a big smile on his face and I loved it, called him, had him come out to the studio, met him, and instantaneously we really connected. He was always always a favorite of mine. He and his wife, Lew were wonderful people, and wolf Man was there, and he would call acts to come to do the show.

If somebody was shy, he'd get him on stage, or he'd talk about him on his radio show. Come on, you gotta come out and see me on this night I'm taping and you gotta be there, things like that. So Wolfman was part of my life for those ten years and a welcome part. And in terms of ratings, although at that lead time, it's a whole world unto itself. Did it Bill? Did it fade? Over the ten years?

What were the ratings? Like? The ratings seem to get better, and I think what we call sets in use, and I think that what happened is sets in use were growing. So I was part of that and part of the Tonight Show afterwards. And for a while I was the only thing on the air after one pm and one am. I keep saying PM one am. That was it. And then later all of a sudden you saw some people talking doing not podcasts but videocasts a little bit, and you had a couple of alternatives. But I was the

only game in town. And so if you like music and Wolfman Jack all the acts we had, the music was being promoted by the record companies themselves. So it was, I must say, a party, and I never missed a show. To what degree did Johnny going to an hour affect the show because you were on a half hour earlier that after that, it did not affect it, And I was fortunate that that happened. But I'm glad you mentioned that because I was concerned talked to John about it.

He was tired. He was just getting tired of doing it constantly, constantly, didn't know where he'd find the next act, the next person. So as you probably know, he had a lot of regulars who were wonderful there. Don Rickles was a regular, and some of these people were just wonderful regulars because he was tired. So I was fortunate that he did talk about the show even after when it was not my lead in. John talked about it,

and of course he beat me at tennis all the time. Then, to what degree were in concert in Don Kirshner's rock concert competition? They were not. Donnie Kirshner was a very good friend of mine. I adored him. We talked about the acts, and I would always say, look, if you go back to the East Coast near New York go to rock concert. It'll be great for you. He did the same thing for acts coming out the West Coast, and I never looked at them as competition. I just didn't.

Some of those shows, like in concert, had to lip sync. They couldn't get quite the audio that I did. And one of the reasons was because I had the sound men. So many of the records were coming out of Hollywood, out of the recording studios in Hollywood, a few of them in the Valley, and there was a guy named Bill Cole who everybody said, can you get Bill Cole? And I kept saying, no, I've asked Bill, he just

doesn't seem to want to. And in the pilot, the pilot was done by a fellow named Bill Davitski, who was very well known. He did it, but he couldn't do it anymore. He was too busy during records and then fortunately starting a show too, I had Bill Cole. So the acts were as happy as can be, and

they love the fact that the sound was sensational. Okay, this is a business that's reactive, So at first you get a certain number of acts and as you say, then the records start to move on Saturday and Sunday did then the relationships change such that acts were hounding you to be on. That really happened. Of course, if he looked at the top six or seven acts in the world, they all they came and they did it, but they didn't hound me. But other than that, it

wasn't a matter of hounding. An example, somebody said to me one of the I think it was Susan Richards, said, you got a book Christopher Cross. Well, who's Christopher Cross? Well, this record company is saying that he is going to be the next big thing. We've heard of. His record coming out, I believe was called Sailing and listen to this and listening to it it was absolutely terrific. Well what does he look like here? Let me get a picture from the record company. Took a look at Christopher

Cross and he can sing. Let's book him. So I would put him on at two fifteen. He wasn't well known, but he just knocked it out. I mean I could see the audience sitting on the ground there and the floor, and Richard Pryor there, etc. And a comic or two that we had a Steve Martin would say, Wow, this kid is fabulous. And that's what would happen on new acts. I did put them on often for the record companies because they wanted to break them, because they believed in him,

and they were usually right. Okay, so you said you were there at every show. A lot of people don't know how these shows are ultimately created. What were you doing at every show? Well, the director, who was a Stan Harris or Dick Eversol or Kenny Erlick or Rock or BC whatever, they would be upstairs directing. I would basically be on the floor, but moving from around the dressing rooms, talking to the acts, making sure they were comfortable.

Did they have anything they wanted? If they drank something, whether it was a mountain dew or whatever it might have been, did we have enough for them? Could we do anything for the people who brought them over? Just

make everybody comfortable. I guess you'd call me the executive producer and I would walk around and if I saw something that I didn't like, if it might be a drug or something, I made sure that I put a stop to that immediately and would not allow that that didn't happen often NBC could not believe it, but it didn't happen. Often, and I was a floor manager. Then what I was doing was making sure everybody was ready to come out on one of those three stages. Next,

when we went live, you talk about drugs, What about alcohol? Yes, same thing, same thing, And you know, you can't really control it. You can't tell somebody who's twenty five years old what to do or how to do it. But they wanted it. They wanted to look good, and especially

they wanted to sound good. And then a lot of them brought their own sound people and they went and talked to Bill Cole about what they wanted a little more trouble here and this part of it, and cut it down to bass over here, and here's what I want you to do here. And Cole was a pro at it. And so when an act like that, who's a hit on records, is happy with their sound, the evening goes, well, okay, how did you end up getting

comedians on the show? That stem from Johnny? Johnny said, you know, I break it up off and with a comic. You know, it might be a Rickles, it might be this one or that one. So I decided I'd do the same darn thing, and the comic might be a little different For me. It might be a George Carlin. Steve Martin was young and new. Then Bill Caused was on. Andy Kaufman was on, and I just had fun with him. It was just like a little bit of a break. For some people it might have been a bathroom break.

Other people it might have been a music break. But I at home and I just thought, that's terrific. Theyre if they're fun. Everybody loosens up a little bit. The music can stop for twenty thirty minutes and everybody relax a moment. And it worked out well in the studio as well. Now this is fifty years ago, and the younger generation may not be able to comprehend. It aired once and then you couldn't see it again. Right, It

aired once. I did repeat some shows because I did, as I said, about forty eight a year, and that was it. That was it, and I put him away, locked him up, and for whatever got me really seriously late, after about six or seven years, I decided that I was afraid of the tape. Johnny had told me that some of the tape of his early shows, which he didn't really own because NBC paid for his show, the tape went bad, and they looked, try and look at an old show or in our act to bring back,

and the tape went bad. So I looked for the latest, which I did then I have done since then, put on what they call hard drive, and now it's all protected. Every bit of it's protected. And every time we had a signed contract, they went in these boxes and took care of those things and stored them in storages that I paid for. And you were that much of a music fan at that time. You were just shy of forty, which sounds young when you're on the other side of it.

But that was an era where it was you say was driven by twenty five year old Well, I think I started around thirty two or thirty three is where I started. And then of course, obviously age went, but the music stuck with me, and I was a major, major country fan as well. I respected the country acts when they came in and talked, and I remember sitting down with Loretta Lynn and knowing that she wrote most of her songs. How in the world you do this?

She said, Well, you know, he'd come home drunk at night and I'd just sit there all night and he'd give me a little whack on the side of the head, and I'd write a song, and if you listen to those songs, that's what happened. It's exactly what happened. She said. It was life. And then when one or two people got killed in these plane crashes, and I would write very much about them, how I loved them, and what happened and how I lost them. And it was wonderful

listening to that. And then somebody like Chris Christofferson, who's still around. I don't think he's ever really been appreciated for the songs he wrote, some of the songs that Johnny Cash covered in George Jones and whoever it might have been. Chris just had a way with lyrics, and you know, I put on my dirt, my clean his dirty shirt, remember some of that stuff that was all out of Christofferson. So sitting with these people I really

really enjoyed. I think I learned a lot from them about their life and how they banged around and how Chris said he worked in a hotel in Nashville when he went there, and just these stories about these people, where they came from, how they were brought up. I was just knocked out by it. And it made me just be so sympathetic to where they came from, and they remained good, good people. Okay, to the degree you can slice and dice. Tell us about a couple of

peak experiences on the show. I had never gone on camera and never wanted to. I felt that I was always behind the camera, not in front of the camera. And all of a sudden, I'm sitting out there with the audience and I'm watching it, watching an act and he was getting a record, he was getting a gold record on stage, and he said, where's Bert. I don't want this record company to hand it to me. I want I want Bert Sugarman to give it to me. I said, no, no, no, I don't really, I don't

go on camera. I just I just don't. But let's we'll tape it with a record company and I'll make sure we shoot it beautifully. And Jim Croach he said to me, well, then I'm leaving. What if you can't hand it to me, and you're the boss of the show and I'm your star here, I'm out of here. I said, where are you going? He said, I'm going to my next gig. Are you serious? I'm very very serious.

I got up out of the audience. I took the record from the record person and I handed it to him, made a little speech for him, and that's in the show. And I gave Jim Crochey his gold record and he said to me, I love it. I love you coming up and doing this, and you don't know how much I appreciated Bert. And I want to come back and host again. I said, you got it, no question, you will come back and host, give me some dates your

free and will do it. And unfortunately he was then killed in a plane crash, and so he could never do that again. So it started out as the Midnight Special, but ultimately was build as Bert Sugarman's Midnight Special. How did that happen? I didn't realize that was ultimately. I thought that was in the beginning. You know something that I don't know about it, Bob. Well, as I say, my memory only works so well. But when you go on YouTube, it does say Bird Sugarman's and on some

of the early videos I think it doesn't. But let's leave that alone for a second. So where are you from? Where were you born and where did you grow up? Born in Beverly Hills. My father was a pharmacist, and I lived in a one bedroom, a two bedroom apartment, a tiny little apartment right off Sunset Boulevard, and my dad would go to Sunset and Vine where he worked

in a drug store. And my wife and I recently, just recently, we're looking through old pictures of her family and my family, and I've got some pictures of my dad would Tyrone Power, who wrote a note on this picture saying, al you give me my prescriptions when I really want them, And my dad would tell me that Sinatra was in there all the time, Tyrone Power, all these major actors I'd always heard about, and they had their own drugs, and he said, yes, we'd give them

a drug here, into something there and this and that, and they came and hang around, and they were absolutely wonderful coming in the drug store that I worked in. So I was a local. Then I didn't go to Beverly High. I thought it was a little snooty and the kids had money, and we didn't have too much money off any kind. And so I went to school not far on Fairfax and Melrose called Fairfax High School, and that's where I went to school and grew up there, and then went to USC and didn't go to the

film school. And that's my that's growing up. Okay, So were an only child. I was an only child, yes, okay, And you've had a lot of success. Were you always the straw that stirred the drink that made things happen? What was your personality in these aerience is growing up? I think I could say nicely aggressive. I was a self starter, extremely curious about whatever I was going to do.

I was very very curious, and that led me to go into things like hamburgers, later, paper companies, cement companies, all just different kinds of things. Something about these different businesses appealed to me. Later when I was young, it was pretty much the same thing. I had friends who were in the entertainment business. Glenn Campbell was a friend of mine from the time I was very very young, and Glenn and I would travel and goof around. And he was not known then because he was a guitar

player for some of the major acts. He was known as the real guitar player in the studio, so he wasn't known as Glen Campbelly didn't have a TV show then, etc. I do remember Glenn's TV show in on the air and he came to meet me in Aspen, Colorado, so we could ski for a three day weekend. And John Denver, this is later John Denver was having a party. We ran into him and asked, but he said, look, here's where I live, etc. Etc. Come on out to my party.

It'll be tonight. Well, it started snowing in the afternoon, a massive snowstorm. So Glenn and I. I'm driving and Glenn's looking and we're having trouble seeing the front of our car. And he said, look, there's a light there. Let's pull into that light. We'll find something. This looks like a little ranch house. I said, Glenn, up here, you'd get shot. It's now eight thirty nine at night. You just don't walk into something. He said, come on, come on, you're a city slicker. Pull in. So I

made a right turn. I stopped about twenty feet away. He opens a car door, and I opened my door and I'm just standing in the door of my car. He knocks on the door and a little lady, probably seventy five years opens the door, looks at him. She said, hi, Glenn, come on in. Well, you could have knocked me down. I started realizing the power of television there. It was amazing to me. So we went in sat with her. She had no idea where John Denver lived. We spent

an hour with her and went back home. Never went to the party. Okay, so you go to USC before you graduate from USC, are you already an entrepreneur? Or did that not starting to laughter? You graduated from college? That started off after I joined a zb. I joined a fraternity and I was there a year and I didn't like it. Everybody was drunk. I was stunned at that At USC, they were drinking every night and it was it was a mess. They didn't study very much,

and I was not a real good student. I was what you would call a C student sometimes when it was a something math, trigonometry, math, I was good. Other that history, English, those wonderful things I barely got to see. So I had to study and I didn't didn't want to stay, so I dropped out of the fraternity. I wanted to graduate, which I did with that kind of a weak scholastic record. And then I just started looking around TV trying to come up with something I could.

I saw game shows I thought were cute. How could I come up with one? And do one. I started doing that stuff. So what was your first break? What was your first show? First show? I can't answer that, Bob. I can't remember the exact first show right now. I had one cost celebrity sweepstakes. That was one of the early ones. You're an outsider. How you go from outsider he grew up in Beverly Hills to having a show on network television. Well, I had a lot of friends

in the business. Ronnie Burns, who was George Burns's and great see Allen's son. Ronnie was my buddy Glenn I was with all the time. And I ran into a lot of these young people that were in the business at the time and would spend some time with them, learn a little bit, go on a movie set, going a TV set, And I realized that I liked TV much much more than I liked films, because you could be working on a film and it was, as you know, a year before it came out by the time the

editors finished six months later. And this and that I didn't like that you could do a game show, a quiz show, and if you did it on Monday, and you taped a few of them, they aired starting the Monday after many of the mayor the same week. I love that. I love that instantaneous thing happening, and so I just gravitated towards TV. A fellow named Chuck Barriss was a friend of mine, and Chuck started the Newlywood Game, the Dating Game, etc. And I bought those shows from Chuck.

He had been doing him a few years, got tired of it, and I bought those shows and I produced him and I started working on those shows and I owned them then, and then I created some of my own. I did a special call Miss Black America. There was Miss America, and I did Miss Black America out of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. I enjoyed the Philharmonic, and when Zubin Maida was our conductor years and years ago,

I produced Zuban Maide in the La Philharmonic. I had Jack Benny as a guest and got some emmies on that show and did that. They just came out of relationships and this and that. Henry Mancini, how's that. Hank was a good friend of mine, and he's always said, you do all these shows? What should I do? I said, do you be yourself? Come on. He had a wonderful personality,

just so likable. He was just a terrific guy. And so I produced one year of shows with Hank, which I have protected and still have them, of course, and I enjoyed every single thing I did with him. So what you told me earlier really tickles my heart, because he was a knockout man. He was terrific and things like that. And I did things that have not come out.

Did a show called City Versus Country. I did a bunch of those, and I would take country people from the south against city people from more in the north, and I would have them do athletics together and see who won. Just a silly show, but it went on the network and did well. I remember in seventy one and seventy two I used to produce the Grammy Awards, and I remember how I got the show. I knew

a man named Bob Wood. Bob Wood at the time was president of CBS, and I would see him socially because of friends and liked and he liked me and another man well known in the business named George Slaughter. George produced the Grammy Awards, but he didn't air him till a week later. They were just shot on tape. I wanted to do him live, so I went to George. I said, what do you want. I want to buy this. He said, well, gimme X and you own it. It's a pain to do it anyway. I gave him X.

I owned the show. I immediately went over to Bob Wood, talk to him a little bit and said, I want to put this live on your network. He said, let me look at one of them on tape. Showed it to him. He said, I like it. I'll bet you'll do a great job. I saw you do X and X, and that's how I got seventy one and seventy two. I did the Grammys live on CBS and they stayed

live after that. Just unusual, unusual things would happen, and I would I don't want to say I fell into it, but I was friendly and aggressive, and if I saw something I thought might work, I would jump at it, jump at it. So you were involved with Richard Pryor from an early day before most people knew who he was.

How did that come together? I met Richard when he was doing something at the comedy show and Sunset Boulevard, and I went late at night a couple of nights and met him, and I thought he was the best talent comedity talent I had ever seen. I went backstage, talked to him, introduced myself Tom, I've done some TV shows and this and that. And from that we met the next day and the next day and the next day,

and we just became pals, just became buddies. I know Richard did drugs and I never ever, in all the years with Richard, ever saw him take a drug. He did not allow me to see him take a drug. He respected me for that, and I respected him for that. We did shows together. Boy one day he called called me up and he said, can you come on over?

And he had MS at the time. This is later, and he said, I've got a friend that'll answer the door that you've known for years and years and haven't seen him in a long time, but come on over the house. And I said, I want to bring my wife. He said, okay, And my wife is a lady named Mary Hart who was on Entertainment Tonight for twenty nine years. So Mary and I go over to Richard's house, knock on the door, and Mary didn't want to go. She said, Richard of all the people in twenty nine years. Richard

was the worst interview I ever had, just horrible. I don't want to go, don't want to go, and I said, you gotta come, come on, you'll see a different Richard. He's my pal. I want you to see Richard with me, please Mary. So Mary came along, not happy about it, and I knock on the door and who opens the door but Muhammad Ali And I knew Muhammed had met him early, and he also was not real well at

the time. So we had Richard Mohammed there, and Mohammed was great, and Richard was my buddy still, and he was a little bit weakly talking, and he said, come on, Mary, come on, Mary. I know I was with you one time. And Mary looks at me and she goes over and sits next to him, and I go off with Mohammed and Mohammed and I are talking for about thirty minutes in another room and I come back and see Richard and Mary, and I swear to you, they both had

tears in their eyes. I said, what in the world happened? Look at the two of you? And Mary said, Richard asked me, who was the worst interview I ever had and I told him him, and I told him why and what had happened. And I was in Oklahoma then on a talk show working and Richard came through early in the morning and he hadn't gone to bed, and this is not where he wanted to be. And we discussed it, and he put his arms around me and started crying and said, I oftentimes hurt the people I love.

And I just started to crying. Here we are. And after that, when Mary would interview Richard for entertainment tonight, which he did, He'd always got a couple of hundred letters and she would go over to the house, oftentimes without me, and read the letters to Richard. They were sent about him to the studio and they became best best friends. At his funeral, he left directions that he wanted Mary to be the speaker and the host at

his funeral, which she did. And I loved him. I just loved him, and so did Mary, and he was a dear, dear friend till the end. I once gave him as a gift, I gave him a miniature horse. I had a ranch out in Hidden Valley and had a couple of miniature horses, and he admired when he came out, So I gave him one and his great dane ate it the little miniature horse. You can't talk that story, and you can't make it up. I can hear him telling that story. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Bob, Wow,

there's some things that happened. They're just mind boggling. Now you have a long history of being involved and married to very famous, desirable women. You talk about Mary Hart. You were married to Mary. Mary is thirty four years married, Bob. Okay, but there were people before. Supposedly you were engaged to Anne, Margaret married to Carol Wayne. What's your magic for the guys out there? Well, do us a trick? Oh wow, Bob left Sets asked me that question. I don't think

there's any magic except maybe me being me an. Margaret was on stage with George Burns in Las Vegas. Ronnie Burns told me about her, said, come on, let's go see the show. My dad says, she's a wonderful, wonderful talent. I went up there backstage afterwards, George and Margaret, Ronnie and I, and then she and I went out a few times. You know, when you're around town, like that, and you're in different nooks, different corners, different shows here and there. You meet a lot of people, and you

have a few dates. But you had more than a few dates. You say you're married. How'd you meet Mary? I had produced a movie called Children of a Lesser God for Paramount, and Paramount wanted the producers of three or four of the films coming out that next year to go to Las Vegas to meet the theater owners. They had a couple of thousand come to Las Vegas

every year, and the producers would talk about their films. Well, I get on a Paramount plane and I look across the aisle and there's Mary Hart, who I watch on TV every night and always saw it. Gosh, I'd sure like to go out with Mary Hart. And she's sitting alone with papers on her lap. I go over. I sit down in the chair next to her, and I said, and there's only a few of us producers and then Mary and I said, Hi, I'm Bert Sugarman. Mary. It's nice to meet you, she said, Hi. Say can we

talk to a few minutes? She said, no, we can't. I'm going through all of these papers about your movies. Of you producers who you are what the names are, so I can't right now, maybe another time. Thank you. Well, that was a great one. I went back to my seat and sat there, and then on stage I couldn't talk to her, just couldn't. And she was working and I was getting ready for my speech. All these theaters

her owners, and that was the end of it. And going home, I went home a different I didn't go home. I went to New York, and I guess she went back to Hollywood, so I didn't see her for quite a while. And then what was next? Right next was I'm in New York laying on the beach, and my host at their house says, you got a phone call, Bert, come on, get up here. You got a phone call. I go up and it's a friend of mine at Beverly Hills. Do you even know what the share party is, Bob, Yes,

I do, Okay. The share Party is where it's a charity and everything goes to mental health and it's tied to Cedar sign I Mental Hospital, and the wives of many male executives and a few of the husbands of female executives run this group called Chair and they give a party where you were tree Western clothes boots, guns and all kind of Levi's fun party to go to every year in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills, usually at the Hilton. And this friend of mine says, listen, I'm

going to the share party. And this is on a Wednesday. And he said, you know it's Saturday night. And he said, I'm taking Mary Hart and Jackie Smith. I'm really mad about Jackie Smith. I'm just I'm in love with her, and Mary's gonna come along. Would you like to join us? I said absolutely positively. Okay, he said I'll come by. He doesn't even know where I am. He said, I'll come by and pick you up about six thirty or six o'clock and we'll go get married first. And then

Jackie I said, great, wonderful. Well, I'm thrilled. I fly right back to LA and we go by and pick up Mary. Hi, Mary, how are you? Hi? Bird? You never called me? Oh my gosh, what a start. Mary. I feel terrible. I never called you. Thank you for saying that. Okay, we go out that night. He goes over with Jackie, leaves the table, so I'm sitting with Mary and we talk all night long, had a great time.

Go home, drop Jackie off, drop her off. Next morning, about ten o'clock, my phone rings and it's Mary Hi Bert, Hi, Mary. Weren't you gonna call me? We had a great time last night. Of course I was gonna call you. How about dinner Tuesday? And Mary Hart says, how about dinner tonight? I said, Wow, you have got it. I'll pick you up tonight. We're going to dinner. We literally have never been apart since that dinner. Wows that incredible love story,

and it's true, it's one hundred percent true. Thirty four years, Bob, thirty four years. That's a long record. Did anybody never mind Hollywood? So you talk about producing children the lesser gone? How'd you get into movies by reading a couple of scripts that I like? I read the script. I didn't read the script. That's a real interesting question. Because I heard about the play, and I was in New York and I heard about the play, and I wanted to see the play. So I went to see the play.

And I'm sitting there and I see Norman Lear sitting in front of me, Ray Starks sitting across the aisle, and I'm thinking, Wow, these are two of the biggest producers in the business. I knew them both, Ray extremely well, Norman Little and I watched the first half and it broke for fifteen twenty minutes. I went downstairs. I called the playwrights agent Stan Cayman at William Morris and Beverly Hills and the phone downstairs, and I said, I love this.

I want to buy the movie rights. He said, well, Bird, you may not know, but but Ray Stark is there, and Lear is there, and he named another producer I never heard of. And he said they're all there and I'm probably going to hear from him. And I said, I want to buy it, and I want to buy it now, right now on the telephone. What does he want for the rights the film rights? And he said, I don't know. Hold on, I said, not too long.

I got to go back. He obviously called the playwright and he called me back and he said, look, I think from one of those guys he'd take three to four hundred thousand. But you you've you're not known for producing a film. He wants a million dollars. I said, you got it. A million bucks, he's got it. I want the film rights, he said, but he's got to meet you. I said, where is he? He said, New Mexico. I said, okay, I'll meet him for breakfast wear Los crucis New Mexico. I said, let me call me later

and tell me where to meet him. I'll be flying in private. I'll go there. Okay. I saw the play, said a load to Norman's said a load of Ray, how are you? What's doing? Went back to the hotel, checked out, flew to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and I had an airplane. Then flew there. I met the playwrights, sat with him for an hour. He said, we're going to get along, but will you let me write the first draft to the screenplay? I said one hundred percent yes, of course. I owned the rights and that's how I

got involved. How long from that date till the movie is made? Well, it was probably a year till the film was made, but a couple of things. The next day, I get a phone call in La from my friend Ray Stark. He said, I'm gonna do you a big favor. He said, I'm going to give you the million dollars back, You'll have nothing invested, and we'll co produce it together. I said, I can't do that. Ray, you're terrific. Well why not. You won't have anything invested, I said, I know,

but you're one of the biggest producers. You produce Streisand's films. Everybody knows it. They'll never know me. I'll never get a reputation of any kind. This is a quality film that I want to make, and I appreciate it very much, but I'm not going to do that because I want my name out there so I get some reputation to make more films. He said, I get it, I get it.

I then went back to New York and I wanted Robert Redford to play to play the star in it, and Bob Redford and I were together for about two weeks in a row, day in and day out, going over what the play would be like and what would happen in each scene. And he was fabulous to work with. I mean, he was such a gentleman. And one day, sitting there after about two weeks, he said, Bert, I can't do it. You know where the lead climbs up this tree and look at her and tries to make

noise and get her attention on the second floor. I said yes, he said, Bob Redford wouldn't do that, and I said, I know, but you're the character. You're not Bob Redford there. He said, no, but I've got to live with being Bob Redford. And he just wouldn't do that. He'd shoots somebody, he'd do this with Paul Newman, but he wouldn't do that. I can't do it. I thanked him, We hugged, and I thanked him so much for spending all that time with me. And that was it. So

we cast it Marley Matlin. Yeah, this is Marley Matlin's big breakthrough. How'd you end up using Marley? Because she came through with other non speaking and not hearing actresses and there was a light about her. There was something about Marley that was absolutely amazing. Now you know that that was thirty eight years ago, thirty nine years ago, and she was wonderful. And I will also tell you that last October Mary and I took Mary and her husband to a Dodger baseball game. We are still friends

with Marley. She's as wonderful now as she ever was. But we met her. She went to god Debt College, I believe it part of Juilliard, and she just she was alive and then of course she gets nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. I go to the Academy Awards and Marley wins Best Actress of the Year. Non speaking and non hearing lady. Nothing like that had ever happened, and I was so proud of her. She was wonderful. And if you've seen Coda, then you know

Marley was in Coda just terrific, as wonderful as ever. Okay, hey, the playwright, he wrote the original script. How close was that to the shooting script? Not that close. It was interesting, it was good, but it didn't quite hit me. And when we went over talking about it, he understood it and he was terrific about it. He just I didn't know how he'd act. And I felt I did know because he was such a gentleman. But it just didn't get there. And then after a couple of drafts and

this and that, I felt we had it. Okay, you went on earlier than you were a TV guy. It was very immediate. Now you're working in the movies, are you still ultimately disillusioned because my interestandings, you don't go on to make a whole bunch of movies. That's true. I made about five movies, and I really liked TV better. It was it suited my personality better, which was immediate and go for it and do it and aggressive, and so TV fitted better. But I had to deal with that,

and I had. Then I saw a script and I went to see a play called Extremities, and Extremities was absolutely wonderful. It was a story about a woman that was watched by a man who wanted to get her and beat her and rape her. And he watched her leave her house, go to work, come back and work, and so he goes and captures her, gets her in the apartment, and lo and behold, this woman turns the tables on him and somehow you got to see the film. What she does is take him prisoner, and it was

fair a faucet in the film. And she did a fabulous job, just fabulous job. I did another film called Crimes to the Heart with Jessica Lang's Sissy Spacek and just some fun things that I did because I liked the scripts. And then I after that, I started getting out of that business and kind of leaving the entertainment business and going in some businesses, Like I say, I went in the hamburger business. How do you do that? Well, I did it when the hamburger business a little slower.

What was the name of your hamburger, Jane? What were you doing in the hamburger business? I went. I was in New Orleans and I had a meeting in the afternoon. I was in Nolands and I wanted to get a quick burger and go by McDonald's. And I was driving by this McDonald's and I see in their line there was like twenty five cars and I didn't have that much time. And across the street was a little place that had a line on each side of the building

double drive through. This is like nineteen eighty six, eighties, eighty seven, eighty eight, and I had never seen that. In the line were only four or five cars. I went there, I got a burger, I got fries, milkshake. I loved it. I ordered some more fries. Loved that. You couldn't sit out inside. He had two or through tables outside. There was no inside. Small little building called Rallies.

Oh well, Rallies. So I went back that night after my afternoon meeting with a man named al Copeland, who owned some restaurants in New Orleans dinner restaurants and was very well known. And I went back and I said the guy who's a manager, He said, I am, and I own it. Talked to him for a while, and I bought that store. You bought it? Yes, I bought it.

And from there I started a chain called Rallies. And after I had about forty of them, there was a chain that was similar, double drive through called Checkers, and that started in Alabama. I bought that and I merged it with Rallies, kept both of their names, and I went from that one store to about nine hundred and twenty stores and sold the two chains. How do you decide when to sell? Gut? That's it? Gut? Did I

want to continue to build them? Mary and I, and as I said, I had an airplane used to fly to two and three cities a day, because before I built a store which was a Rallies or a Checkers, I wanted to see the location, and I wanted to be on the proper corner, and I wanted to know what traffic was under thirty eight miles an hour going by there, and I wanted to be near a McDonald's right if there was McDonald's close by with one drive through who they'd always have a line and I'd get

some of their business. And so I was really working at it, and I thought, that's enough, that's okay maybe now, and gut told me to leave it and do something else. So it was obviously very successful. What was the thrill relative to entertainment personally? Major? Major? Because I enjoyed what I was doing. I thought the product was terrific. I had battered fries and I thought they were absolutely wonderful.

And I told my staff in there, and they didn't all know me because I had so many, so I could go buy them and mystery shop, I could walk in make sure that John's were clean and the place was okay. They didn't know I was. And I found out a few things. I found out that my managers were better as female than male. There was less thievery, almost none with females males. They would be given up twenty burgers out to their buddies or this or that,

and you had to watch that kind of stuff. And so I love to have female managers at the stores. And I just enjoyed the fries. I thought they were really good, better than McDonald's and the burgers. We were careful to make sure we had the right amount of meat, that it had the proper heat, and how we put burgers with automatic heaters on top of them so nobody ever get eat kohli or whatever. I enjoyed the whole process.

I just really loved it. How are your arteries? Well, I'm still around today, right with you, Bob, And then mine are not that great. So you said you got in the cement business. Another another podcast, Bob. Okay, just I love talking to you too, because you ask me wonderful questions that really make me think back, and I really appreciate that I do. But we've got another part of my life maybe again. Okay, but before we wrap up a couple of things. With so much experience in hindsight,

what do you think about today's television business? What do we know? Television drives the culture in a way that no other art form does movies or music. It's moved to streaming. There's a plethora of product. What do you think about today's landscape? I think streaming. I just think streaming is absolutely the way to go. There used to be a show that you could look at at eight o'clock on a Tuesday night and it was wonderful. But

the next Tuesday night you couldn't. You weren't in town, you were working, you had a meeting, you had a birthday party something, and so you'd missed the week's later show. Streaming you see him when you want to see him. I think that so many of them do it well. Netflix has done it well. And the management and Netflix look back where they started from. You know, read hastings,

ted surrenders. They started out with DVD's in the store and they're still putting out music and product and great shows. But a lot of them do you know, they're not just that paramount. Plus, my friends all watch Yellowstone love it. Who are these people? Who are some of them? Who are the writers of some of them? It's just streaming is the way to go. And if I was going to go back in that business now, which I never know what I'm gonna do next, streaming is what I

loved to do. Chess love to do. Make a show that you can let ten of them out on the same day and people can watch all of them on a weekend if you love it, or watch them when they can watch them. So and there's so many gray have you seen Yellowstone, Bob tell you the Truth? That's one show I haven't seen. Yeah, it's worth looking yet. It really is. Kevin Costner's terrific. The show is just great. In eighteen eighty three, and where it goes from there

in nineteen twenty three, all spinoffs, all terrific. I think that's paramount plus. But I'm pretty familiar with it. You know. It's kind of like succession. You fall behind and then it's monolithic to start up. And you know, I have a list of all the stuff that I'm watching. There's so much good television from around the world. Especially you mentioned that you don't know what you're doing next. Are you still actively involved in businesses? Absolutely, morning to night,

seven days a week. You can call me and tell me you've got an ID and let's try and do it together. The other thing, especially in this era of financial unpredictability, you've made a lot of money. Where do you invest your money? I don't think I'll go there. I will tell you. The philanthropy is very important to Mary and I. Right now, Mary sits on the board of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. That's important to us. And there's a group of charities that are really really important

to us. We're always looking for others and we focus a lot on that and if there's something that we can do in the entertainment business to make some of

these things better known. While Vince Scully was alive, Mary talked to Vinny and he was the voice of Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, and I have videotape of Annie and Mary on the floor at Children's Hospital with Paul Viviane, the president, playing with some kids whose hair is shaved because of operations, who are healing and this and that with these children, and that just gets my heart just so wonderful to

see in Vince Gully's voice. And now a lot of the Los Angeles Dodgers come over, and it's interesting because the six years olds, six years and seven and eight year olds, they don't know who the players are. The fourteen year olds that are in the hospital they do. So it's seeing some of them come over there and they're attracted to the little bit the older ones. So we just enjoy that so much. Now, you mentioned your health is good. What's it like having so many of

your contemporaries pass. It's depressing, that's what it is. I see some of them do, and I see some of them are alive. I talked to a fellow yesterday by the name of David Permott. David's been a producer around for years. He just called me and said, I saw the midnight special TV show on YouTube Bert fifty years congratulations, Why did you wait so long? And we were on for forty five minutes last night, late last night, with him telling me about a show that he's gonna stream now,

which I can't tell you about. I wish I could, but it sounds fabulous and the star that he's got gonna be in that it's wonderful. And again, I just really enjoy streaming, whether it's looking Have you looked at by the way Succession there in their last year, right, And of course Mary and I watched Succession. Love it. Have you seen poker Face? You'll get a kick out of that, you know, I know poker Faced. I've watched about a few episodes. I must say, I'm very into

this foreign television. The Israelis in the Danes I find make you know, have the reputation of making the best international television like foud Oh found unbelievable. Unbelieve one of the best ever, right, and then the show that Homeland was based in Israeli show Schu Green. We're watching on Amazon right now, an Indian show South Asian, shall we say, called Fakes Farsi. It's really good. There's a new season

of this English show. It's not in America yet. That I always say is my number one recommendation called Happy Valley? Have you seen Happy Valley? It's a crime. Oh, I don't even know the title. This is a number one show in England. Mary sitting next to me writing that down right now, Okay, how about Spiral Have you seen? Spiral? No? No is a French show co production with the English basically the best cop show you'll ever see on what streamer?

Do you remember? I think you know? These things move around. I watch one or two seasons for free on Amazon. I think the restaurant m ac Mega hurts. Okay, Spi r ala absolutely. Now, let's be clear, since you're a pro, they don't make them every year, and they've now made the final episode, so when you watch the first season, the transfers won't be as possibly good, but they're great. I mean, I could go. The other classic show is called a French Village, which is another French show about

during the Resistance. If we know that one. Oh yeah, we know French Village, Yes, great and tremendous. The original border in the Killing from Denmark. They've been remade as American shows. Mary is shaking her head. Yes and I can't remember it. How about Occupied? If you watched Occupied Occupied? Yes, Occupied, we know exactly I mean these show. How about Fauda? How about this last season of Fauda? Wasn't that amazing? Okay,

explain that guy Duran so much charisma. He's like an anti hero because by American standards, they wouldn't even cast him. You're right, good, look, right whatever. You know that he used to be a bodyguard in America before he was the Starfire. I didn't know that his name is Lere and boys something. Wow, he's a star. It's just you know, usually when the shows play multiple seasons, they get worse, but not this show, and it's sad. Second, Mary, come on, Mary,

come on one second. We're not using the video so it doesn't just no videos. Just come up, just come take a peek to see you. We can television forever, you know. There there's just so many good shows and you and you see it there and I you know, a lot of people depend on the algorithm. I study it. I say, it's such an investment to watch these shows that I want to owe the other show that is unbelievable. Did you watch this French show The Bureau? No, no, no,

we don't write it down on the Bureau. No. The Bureau is the French Cia. Okay, now I'm gonna warn you right up front. It starts off slow. It's an intense show, but it is just like a movie. It is unbelievable. The Bureau. Yes, okay, while we're talking, did you watch Borgan? Yes, yes, yes, unbelievable. There's this sweetish show called Bonus Family. It's on Netflix about a blended family. Really good. I don't know that one. You've watched narc obviously, yes, yes.

Could I give you a book? I have a book for you to read, Okay, well, I know you. I know you'll love it. It's called Easy Writers Raging Bulls. I read it, of course, I read it. Okay, all right, Peter watched his name Peter begins, Yes, yes, Peter biskind right, right. I've even seen him speak about that really phenomenal Oh, this is a magical show Ethos. Did you watch Ethos? No, we've seen it advertised, but have not seen it. Oh it's really intense Turkish show. Listen. I'll leave you with that.

But uh, you know that's my highlight of the day watching streaming television. No. And I love these suggestions, honestly, I really do. But most of all, I like your questions because they've never been asked some of these before. And I really enjoy this, this hour or whatever it is, I love it. Thank you are you know you've been the air and done that. To me, that is fascinating.

I mean we didn't go really deeply into it, but I know how hard it is to be successful, and most people are a successful saying, oh, it wasn't that big of a deal. Oh, believe me, it was. So I'm a student of the game. What is the personality? What the relationships? You know, I grew up on the East Coast and the East coast, it's all about where you went to college, who your parents are whereas in LA the most important thing is what kind of car you drive, which is just phone enough. But none of

that matters. Everybody's a self starter and the people who have made it to the top. They're always very intelligent and they have an amazing story. I won't keep you any longer. Bird, it's been wonderful talking to you. Thanks for taking the time to speak to my audience. Bob, a pleasure visiting with you. Thank you so much. And as we say, you know I was watching last night that I not that I haven't watched them. Some of these performances are just utterly riveting. I mean there's stuff

you see. You know, forget the big hits, you know, like Linda Ronstad doing Long, Long Time, etc. But Redbone come and get your Love. I mean, I know that's on to see them perform that live. And there were a couple of old Jerry Wright doing Love Is Alive. That's my favorite song. And to watch him play you know, the keytar, the keyboard. You know, it's very hard to turn off. And I'm not blowing smoke up your Rearran, it's you know, it's great that this stuff is available.

Well every week, every week on Monday mornings, I'm going to put up another ten or fifteen that are unique, and you love you all love them all. But there'll be some that will be favorites of yours. Okay, just to be very clear, because I was in preparation, I was going on you Tube to watch your channel. Specifically, you have to search to me on your channel. What's the name of your channel? Again? Midnight Special TV Show, So for those at home, go to Midnight Special TV

Show for the authorized versions. Although Bert is very up to date, he doesn't want to kill the other people. He's realized in building the audience, he's in business with them and Bert. I'll leave it at that, Thanks again, my pleasure. Until next time. This is Bob left Sets