Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 114. Sonny Fox

Episode Date: August 1, 2016

Gilbert and Frank take a trip down memory lane with a fixture of their childhoods, beloved "Wonderama" host Sonny Fox, who shares his memories of the quiz show scandals of the 1950's, recalls his life-changing experience as a prisoner of war and reminisces about his years-long friendship with Robert F. Kennedy. Also, Sonny hosts "The $64,000 Challenge," gets cut from "The Nutty Professor," takes a stand for Jack Gilford and revives the Golden Age of Television. PLUS: Army Archerd! Allen Funt! Mickey Rooney holds out! Patty Duke spills the beans! And Jack Klugman steps in for Bogie! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexontario.ca. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe on iTunes so you don't miss a single episode. And if you like the show and think we deserve a five-star rating, and obviously we do, a five-star rating, and obviously we do, rate us and post a review. Also, although our main purpose in life is to entertain you, producing this show costs actual money, so please help out by going to patreon.com slash Gilbert Gottfried and pledging your support to receive all sorts of goodies, merchandise, personalized roasts, and shout outs, advanced access to episodes or personal messages from me, Gilbert Gottfried. And if we raise enough, maybe I can finally get a new co-host. I'm thinking of the Scarlett Johansson robot. hi this is gilbert godfrey and this is gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast This is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Fertorosa. Our guest this week is a broadcaster, radio and TV personality, actor, game show host and Emmy winning producer who has done a little bit of everything in show business.

He's hosted game shows like The Price is Right, Beat the Clock, The Movie Game, and the $64,000 Challenge. He's produced talk shows like The Tomorrow Show starring Tom Snyder, TV movies such as And Baby Makes Six with Colleen Dewhurst and Warren Oates, and Bronte starring Julie Harris, as well as Emmy-winning specials including The Golden Age of Television and the songwriters. In his long and varied career, he's worked with and befriended people like Robert F. Kennedy, Muhammad Ali, Carl Reiner, Jerry Lewis, Richard Rogers, Jason Robards, and John Frankenheimer. But for a generation of kids, especially kids born in the tri-state area, he'll forever be known as the beloved host of the legendary children's show, Wonderama. Please welcome to the show, the versatile and ageless Sonny Fox. Thank you, Vat, for that terrific introduction. I can't believe I'm still alive. We're glad you are, Sonny. Thanks for doing the show.

Now, first of all, I mean, we all remember Wonderama. That was – now, that was a time period of like the idea of kiddie show hosts, which don't exist nowadays. Now, I mean – and you've worked with all of them and produced for them like Sandy Becker and Chuck McCann. Yeah, didn't you produce a show for Chuck McCann, Sonny? I did briefly and tragically out here. That's another story we'll get to later. Okay. There were three really great performers with me on Channel 5, Chuck, Sandy, and Soupy. Right.

Sales. Right. Now, you know, I used to say, Sonny, Sandy, Chuck, and Soupy. There's not a decent name among us, you know. I like that. And there were also these shows like, oh, well, of course, Bozo the Clown and Captain Kangaroo. Well, and more importantly, all across the country, there were local kids shows. That was sort of something that was happening all across the country in the 50s and the 60s. And then the finances, the financial realities changed all that. Anytime there's a lot of change in programming, you know, follow the money and then you'll understand why.

It's like there once was a time when all the programming, most of the nighttime programming was coming out of New York, and it was all live. And then it moved to the coast and became recorded. So all of those things happened because of the changing dynamics of the financial situation. How did Wondorama come into your life, Sonny? Because it wasn't the first kid's show you had done. You had done Let's Take a Trip.

Yeah, Let's Take a trip was a very good show it was it was cbs it was the first remote live show on network television every week we were out in a different location now in those days we didn't have the miniaturization of equipment you have now uh we trundled the studio cameras on their damn dollies out wherever we were going with the turret cameras and the cables. The cables were yay thick, the coaxial cables of those days. So that was really a pioneering show. And CBS kept that on for three years with no sponsors. It was what we used to call sustaining. And it was a really good show. And then it finally went off. So that was that show. Then I did a whole bunch of stuff.

And then I was approached by Channel 5. Bennett Korn said, we want you to class up the show. The big thing in the show at that point that was going on was turtle races. That was the high point. Right. The kids would get like dime store turtles from a pet store and then race them. Yeah. Well, yeah. And they'd put numbers on them and everybody would share.

So when I first took over the show, I was so self-consciously educational that three weeks after I got on, Bennett Korn, the station manager, called me and said, we didn't hire you to drive away audiences. From now on, three minutes live and a cartoon. I walked out of there thinking, oh, my God, I can't do this. But I did have a wife and four children and a large mortgage. And I thought, I better stick this out for a while. In between takes, when live, when they would stop the thing for the taping, for the cartoons, I started talking to the kids in the studio.

And then Mel Bailey came out one day, the producer, and said, why don't you try that on the air? I said, yeah. He said, yeah, try it on. So I started doing that little by little and then finally realized, it took me maybe six months to figure this out, that that was the show. It was the kids. I had a four-hour spot to fill. I had no production budget, and more importantly, I had no talent. You say that in your book.

It's interesting to see that. Yeah, seriously, because Chuck and Soupy and Sandy were great performers. I didn't do puppets. I didn't throw pies. I couldn't do funny characters. That's what they did, and the kids were their audience, and the kids loved them appropriately. I didn't do any of that. What I found out, though, was that the interior lives of kids, and they all have wonderful interior lives,

the interior lives of the kids were just wonderful. You didn't know where it was going to take you. You had to be brave to start that journey. But we built up over a period of time because I respected them. They trusted me. And then we were able to have conversations, which I swear they never had with their parents. And that was the meat of the show. We got inside the heads of kids better than – I will tell you this, and I think I write about this in the book too. There were shows that entertained better than we did, maybe educated better than we did. But there was no show that listened better than we did. That's well said.

And you made sure to keep the parents separated from the kids. Oh, you got to. That's the thing. You got to take the parents and put them on the other side of the moon. Then it's you and the kids and nothing comes in between us. And you mixed entertainment. I mean, as you said, you mixed entertainment with education. The kids would have to tell a joke or try to stump you by telling a joke.

I mean, it wasn't solely an educational show. I mean, I remember that aspect of it. No, no. We did the – It was fun. I mean, we brought – Joe Papp came on with the Shakespeare troupe at one time. One time I had Roberta Petersplein, you know, being an opera star and dying four times in four different ways on the show to show you how we kill off opera stars. But no matter what we did, it was really essentially going to be about their kids and their lives.

And they taught me as much as I was able to teach them. But, you know, I'll tell you how absurd it got. First of all, I gained their loyalty. Every week I could look at the ratings. And every week, no matter what I did, we kept going up and up and up. So I got very bold about that. And I said, okay, I can do interesting. They'll go with me wherever I take them.

So, you know, Bobby Kennedy would come on and talk with them and Joe Papp would do Shakespeare. I decided one insane time I was going to teach them aspects of the theory of relativity. How's that? For a kid's show. I mean, that brought us on insanity. So I thought through for months, how am I going to do it?

What, a little bit of here and a little there? I could teach them that, you know, that at 90% of the speed of light, a yardstick becomes only 18 inches long. I could talk about the clock as a, the heart, rather, as a clock, in addition to a muscle. Little things, little aspects of it, you know. So the Sunday came. And in between cartoons and commercials, here was Sonny trying to do this bit.

And as I was doing it, I looked at my cameraman on the floor. And I could see their jaws hanging slack and little drooling coming out of the side of their mouths and their eyes glazing. And I thought to myself, I started hearing in my head little kids' voices saying, Marty, what's he talking about? And the older brother saying, that's all right. Bugs Bunny is coming up. Anyway, you know, I thought that was about as big an overreach as one has ever done for kids. I'm going to look at those ratings on Monday and see the result.

We didn't lose a point. the result. We didn't lose a point. They really were so loyal and so committed to me that they allowed me to take them wherever I wanted to. And you told a story where you were talking to a boy who was like the head of the girl haters club. Mm-hmm. Little George. George had invade. I found that kids, boys did that. They had girl. By the way, girls had boy-hating clubs too, I turned out. Yes, yes.

Goes back to the little rascals. But little George had just been carrying on for about five minutes about girls, and he could not find one valuable thing about girls. I mean, he just had. And so I said to him, so you're never going to get married? He says, yeah, I'm going to get married. I said, sure. You just told me how much you hate girls. Why would you get married? He said, well, my parents aren't going to live forever. Who's going to take care of me when I grow up? And I thought to myself, that's why a

lot of us get married, isn't it? That fascinates me, that a little kid had that thought. You know, they have wonderful thoughts. You ask them about God. I love talking about the kids. I did a whole side of a record album in the 60s about this. God. Kids don't deal in abstracts, abstraction. They have to, you say God, they have to know what he looks like. You ask about God, and I remember one of these things, a bunch of boys, I said, what does God look like? And they were telling me brown beard, white beard, what he wore, you know. I said, how tall is he?

And the first kid says, 5'8 1⁄2". And the background, the other boys say, 5'11". And then I would say, and I have videos of this, what is, you know, what, oh, they were talking about God and he and God and he and he. So I stopped this 10-year-old boy. I said, oh, what makes you so sure God's a he? It could be a girl.

And you could see flitting across that 10-year-old face all the perplexities and that question presented. And finally he said, well, God's a man's name, so he can't be a girl. I deployed that. Did you guys do a mock presidential primary on the show, too, son? We did. We did. And I also got Kidd reporter credentials and sent them to the UN and sent them to dinners to report back.

I sent Kidd to one of those great dinners of all of Astoria for some political reason, you know, to report back. He came back with the menu, and all he could talk was what was on the menu. Forget what everything else went on. That was his reportage. Now, I got to ask you a question that chilled me when we were talking about you, and that's that you were in World War II, and you became a prisoner of war to the Germans. Yeah, and you were still, what were you, 19, all of 19 years old?

I was 19 by the time that happened, yeah. Well, we will come back to Wunderama, but we both found this a fascinating part of the book. I mean, if I have this story right, you went into basic training on the promise that you were going to do a couple of weeks and then go away to college? No, not a couple of weeks, 13 weeks of to college? No, not a couple of weeks. Thirteen weeks of basic training. Thirteen weeks. That was the deal.

And then, because I was in this Army specialized training program because of my IQ, et cetera, and then I could go back to college. So I chose that over several of the Navy wanted me to put in. In other programs, I chose that. Now, my life has been an adventure, and very little that I determined would happen has happened the way I thought it might. This is an example.

The week we finished basic training, the Army decided they needed cannon fodder more than they needed college kids who could speak Spanish. I don't know why Spanish, because we weren't fighting anybody who spoke Spanish. That was one of the things. And they took it down. And within that one, I was now in the infantry for the rest of the war. So, yes, that changed my life too.

And in a way, I wasn't unhappy about that. I really wanted to feel what it would be like. This was an adventure to me. I wanted to taste it all. Now, having lived through basic training, where in Fort Benning, Georgia, the little redneck, scrawny, red-haired corporal was just waiting for these guys to come in the air, come down from New

York. And if he found out you were a Jew from New York, that was even better. You're a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, we should point out to our listeners. Yeah. And if you were a fat Jewish kid, you were dead. So I figured if I lived through 13 weeks of that, the war would be a relief. So I wasn't that. So they took me out to Louisiana, stashed me there.

Then my big fear was the war was going to be over. I mean, I woke up one morning on June 6th in 1944, and it was D-Day. They had landed, and I thought, oh, God, you know, the war is going to be over. I don't know if they're going to make the war. I've been all through this lousy training, and I'm never going to make the war. But the war waited. And I was assigned as a replacement to fill in the 28th Infantry Division up in the Hurtgen Forest, which was not a good place to be. And then after that was over, they sent us to a quieter place in Luxembourg,

a little town called Hosingen, and it was the front line. The Germans were a mile away, but it was quiet. There had been a pause while we got retrofitted, and everybody caught up with the supplies to the front, and then they were going to do another surge, and then the battle, what we now know as the Battle of the Bulge, happened. I woke up. Oh, I have to tell you this.

Why did I become a squad leader or a sergeant? This is my life. This is the way my life happens. We're lined up, groups of 12, each making one squad, to go up to become the replacements up for a company that was on the line. And the guy in charge said, okay, we need an acting squad leader. Do I have a volunteer? Well, the one thing all of us learned in basic training, no, you don't volunteer. So nobody volunteered.

So he said, all right, we'll go by how long you've been in there, how much time. So I said, okay, I was first. I said 11 months. And I said, that won't cut'll go by how long you've been in there, how much time. So I said, okay, I was first. I said, 11 months. And I said, that won't cut it. I'll never do it. And they went down the line 10 months, 8 months, 7 months, 6. You are the attack. Now I became squad leader.

They didn't know me, thank God. They didn't know I was the wimp from Brooklyn who couldn't hit two sewers and was always picked up last for the teams. So thank goodness they didn't know that was me. And so they let me lead them. Anyway, ended up in Hosingen, and I woke up one morning at about 5, 20 in the morning. I had guys outside.

We always were on guard. Some of my guys were out there. And I heard shells whistling overhead with astonishing regularity and hitting the town, which we were about 800 yards out toward the Germans ahead of the town. And that was the start of the Battle of the Bulge. And how were you captured? When did that happen? Well, we didn't know what was going on. I had two guys with me, and the rest of the squad was on the other side of this farmhouse.

I had no contact with them and no contact with the town. And we held our position, and then it got quiet. And about 3 in the afternoon, I heard tanks coming up from the town, which we had held. And I didn't know if we were still holding it. And I didn't know which tanks it would be, ours or theirs. Well, it turned out there were two of our tanks. And they reestablished communications with me at that point.

So the two tanks were now under my command. I had little Irwin Fox from Brooklyn now had two tanks as well as his squad. Then they sent me a squad, a ranger squad, which was like the tough guys. Now I had two squads and two tanks. And I was waiting to be commissioned field marshal. And I spent the night deploying. That's what you do when you have a lot of things. You deploy.

So that night when I was still in the middle of the next day and that went on. Oh, I know what I did. After the tanks came, I went back to town to speak to the captain and said, well, we were fine when we didn't take any care. He says, well, it's not so good because they're behind us. Their battalion is gone. Regimental is signing off.

That meant that the Germans were way behind us. They had crashed through a very thinly held line with 22 divisions and just overwhelmed everybody. The fact of the matter is I had and later found out not only me but a lot of people had been saying for weeks, there's something going on. We're hearing a lot of tanks, a lot of trucks, a lot of movement up there on the other side. Something is going on. And I don't think Shafe, Supreme Headquarters, ever believed that the Germans could marshal that kind of an attack.

So they didn't take it all that seriously. Anyway, by the third day, we were still holding a few houses left in the town. And I had moved my squad back into town. And we were 50 miles behind the German lines. We hadn't moved, but that's where they were. So the captain said, OK, 11 o'clock, we're coming out and we surrender, destroy your weapons and blow up the jeep and all that stuff, which we did. And that's how we surrendered. We just, I was captured. We surrendered.

And it was the day we surrendered was the day the Germans captured the most Americans in the entire war, because they had just destroyed that whole part of the field. And where were you originally held prisoner? Well, first of all, we had a walk three days and most of three nights with no food, no water. And one night we slept sitting in a church for about three hours. The next night we slept in a barn for a few hours. And then we got to a railhead. And then one guy and I were singled out and we're

given shovels and told to go in to that box car and shovel the shit out, which is what we did. It was a 40 and 8, and they carried animals, and the animals did what animals do. Now this was going to be our home. So we did the best we could shoveling that out, and then we climbed in. And then they locked us in. There was 75 of us in what used to be called a 40 and 8, which is either 40 men or 8 animals.

We were now 75. There was not enough room for everybody to lie down at one time. The doors clanked shut, and we were locked into that boxcar for seven days and seven nights. Wow. Because everything, you know, the Allies were bombing the rails all over the place and so on. So we were low priority for the Germans. They didn't give a damn if we arrived or didn't.

So we were the ones who were shunted aside as needed. And it was cold. We had about maybe a few hours a day. But it was cold. There was rime on the inside. And if you had to relieve yourself, you went to the door and sort of tried to make it outside. That didn't quite work. And that yellow stuff built up inside.

It was a tough eight days. No food again and no water. And then we arrived at the German prison camp. Then we arrived at the German prison camp. And then when you arrived at the prison camp, then they first started separating the soldiers, the Jewish soldiers from the other soldiers. Yeah, that's something that they hadn't done at any other time in any other prison camp. We were not prepared at all for that. When I got off out of that boxcar after seven days, seven nights, it was snow on the ground. There were ankle deep in snow. It was cold.

I was hungry, obviously. I just wanted to get inside. But you had to go and be, you know, the Germans, of course, with their thoroughness of making sure they had a record of everything, had little lecterns set up on the hillside and clerks to register you in. And most of them were German, but they didn't have enough of those, so they had impressed some other Americans who had been there before to take down. I drew an American, fortunately. So he said, you know, name, rank, serial number. And then he said father's name. I said, I'm only supposed to do name, rank, and serial number.

He said, listen, kid, you don't give them what they want. They'll put you over there and stand in the snow until you decide. You want that? That's what you're going to do. So I figured, okay, if they knew my father's name was Julius Fox, that wouldn't change the course of the war. That he was in Texel, that wouldn't change. So I answered those questions.

Then came the question I had not calculated on hearing. He said, religion. Religion. Now, here I am, 19 years old, you know, in the shape I'm in, standing alone on that hillside, and I'm facing this question right outside a Nazi prison camp. question right outside a Nazi prison camp. So I think because I had already surrendered once, I didn't want to do it again. I answered, Jewish. He looked at me, he said, Protestant. And I said, Jewish. And he said, Protestant, and waved me away. Now, I just went in. I had no idea what was going to go on. I went in to the prison camp. Now, they took anybody who said they were Jewish

to a German or had a Jewish-sounding name or looked Jewish and put them in another barracks. So I was in the barracks with the other guys who weren't separated, because I was waved in as a, I guess he said they took Protestant down. And Fox is not a name that reveals that. So that night, lying in this first night in prison camp, I heard, hurled into the darkness of the night in that barracks, anti-Semitic jokes from the American GIs, including one guy who said, I never thought I'd be in a Jew-free zone. So you see, the Germans didn't have a lock on anti-Semitism. Wow. When were you liberated, Sonny? How long were you in there all told? Oh, can I just ask a question that they said

when they were separating you, there would be one prison camp for the soldiers, and for the Jewish soldiers, there'd be what they would call a labor camp. No, not in that camp. Let me tell you what happened there. They just put them in another barrack for the moment, okay? So they were in one, and I know all these, because two of my best friends were in the Jewish part there, in the camp. And we went on for a couple of weeks, and then they decided to move the non-coms, corporals and sergeants, to another camp.

They took everybody, including those that they had isolated as Jews, and put them back with us, and we all went to the second camp. Now, in the second camp, there was a master sergeant who was with the 106th Division, which had been just north of us, and poor 106th Division. who was with the 106th Division, which had been just north of us, and 406th Division, they had come onto the line for the very first time on December 12th and got hit December 16th with the bulge. And they just were in no position to even – they didn't know anything. We had been on the line before and we were somewhat battle-hardened,

but they didn't have that advantage. had been on the line before and we were somewhat battle-hardened, but they didn't have that advantage. Anyway, that was, and they, in the second prison camp, the commandant of the second prison camp went to this master sergeant, of course, he was the top-ranked non-com of all of us, and said, I want you, tomorrow morning, I want you to put all the Jews outside, line them all up outside the barracks. Now, I didn't hear this. I was in another barrack entirely. But my friends who were there were there, told me about this. And this not Jewish master sergeant turned after the guy left.

He said, tomorrow morning, we all fall out. He said, tomorrow morning, we all fall out. And the next day, they all fell out. And the commandant came and said, they can't all be Jewish. And ultimately, with a gun to his head, this heroic Roddy Edmonds sergeant said, we're all Jewish. Oh, my God. We're trying to get this guy a medal now. You know what?

They don't consider that kind of action, because it was not in battle, heroic. So that's what's stymieing us now. But at any rate, he did get the highest award from Israel recently in January. I was there when they gave it out. Yeah, we saw it on your website. Yeah, that was for Rodney. It went to his son. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history. Thornton Prince was a ladies' man.

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When were you finally liberated? We knew that they were coming close, that our guys were coming close, and the Germans did do that too. So they decided to move everybody to that camp. There were Russians, There were British. There were French. There were Africans. They had all kinds of compounds.

Everybody was going to be moved the next day. Now, we didn't want to be moved for two reasons. One is we were not in very good physical shape by that time. When I was liberated, I weighed – I'm 6'3", 3 1⁄2 at that point. I weighed – when in weighing 165 pounds, I came, I'm six foot three, three and a half at that point. I weighed, when in weighing 165 pounds, I came out weighing 105 pounds. So we were not in great shape. And also the Allies planes were shooting up everything that was moving on the roads in Germany. So who knew that they could tell us from the Germans what would happen. roads in Germany. So who knew that they could tell us from the Germans what would happen?

So I guess it came out of Roddy also, but the word came down the next day, a third of us were to stay in our bunks, in the bed things, and say we're too sick to leave. The second third, if they pulled us outside, when they said move, they would drop into the cold, wet pavement and say they can't move. And if they still moved the last group out, we would organize in groups of 10, and the first night out, we would have jumped the armed guards. Go figure out how that would have worked out. Anyway, the day came.

We cast the roles. Everybody knew the part they had to play. And they came in and said, house, house, you know, let's go. And then these guys would say, no, we can't move. And they sort of, okay, left them alone and got the rest of us out. And then they started, we watched the British move out. We watched the Russians moving out. We were still there.

And then they said, okay, start to move. We started to move and bodies started to drop in a cold, rainy day on the pavement. I started to giggle to myself because I couldn't believe this was actually working. And then the guy, the commandant, came with his gun and shooting in the air and told Rodney, well, give me 240 guys so I can save face. Rodney said, the Americans are right over that hill. You shoot anybody here, you do anything, you're going to be a war criminal and we know who you are. Anyway, they finally took off and left us alone. We went back to our barracks and we just stayed out of sight because now the defeated German army was coming by. And the defeated army has no discipline.

You don't know what they're going to do next. And then about four, then it was deserted. Then we knew it was really deserted. I climbed up on the roof of our barracks along with a couple others and we saw that two rows. I'm going to cry again when I see this. Two rows. I'm going to cry again when I see this. Two rows of Sherman tanks coming down the hill from Patton's 3rd Army.

I think it was the 6th Armored. And about an hour later, here came a Jeep load of GIs in. And my first reaction, I turned to them, I said, my God, they're fat. Of course, they weren't fat at all. You know, that's the way that looked to me. We stayed in that, we were the first camp liberated. They didn't know what to do with us. We stayed in the camp for another whole week.

But they asked if anybody would volunteer to be a guard because they were using that area to round up Germans and hold them there. And they didn't want to leave their own guys behind. They wanted them to get on with us. So I volunteered. I figured wherever I'm going to be better than I am. I moved into where the German guards had been. They gave me a German prisoner now to be my guy to make up my bed. And I would climb up to the watchtower with a.50 caliber machine gun and guard, you know, overlooking the German prisoners now and promptly fall asleep because I had no energy. I had no staying power at all. Finally, a week later, they took us and flew us out of home. By the way, when I was nine years old, both Hitler and Roosevelt came into being, into power. Roosevelt was my president for 13 years.

And then when I was in the staging area on the way home, he died. Yeah, that's in the book. It's a fascinating adventure. I tell you what, I came out a different person, both from the war. I can't see how you wouldn't. And from them. I came out so confident in myself. I was the wimp.

I kid around. I said, actually, the reason World War II was started was to get me out of Brooklyn. I'm sorry so many people had to die to do that. But I had a whole new start and a whole new, I was, people pay to go to outward bound, you know, to test themselves. And that's what this whole thing was. The whole two and a half years was sort of testing. And by the way, when I came back into the army, of course, I wasn't out of the army yet after I came home. After home leave, I went back in Fort Benning. I had a different specialty number.

The Army has a specialty number for anything you do. 755 is a rifleman. I was one of those. 756 is a branding automatic rifleman. I was one of those. When I came back, my new assignment was 288. You'll never guess what that was. It's playwright. Oh, that's funny.

The army had a number for playwright. It's amazing. You know, I was writing radio scripts then for the rest of the time I was there. And then I called up the son of my mother's best friend, whose name was Alan Funt. Oh, Alan Funt, right. I hear just, this is how fate plays into my life. He had just started, was going to start this new show called Candid Microphone on ABC Radio. I knew Alan because I knew him, I knew the family. And by the way, his name growing up was Sonny.

Okay. But I knew him and so I called him up and said, okay, you ready to go to work? I said, yeah. He said, okay, come in and see me. I started on candid microphone just as it was starting up at $35 a week. I got a lot of raises until it went off the air a year and a half later. I was up to $65 a week. I worked 80 hours a week. I never worked harder in my life, but it was wonderful. What kind of guy was fun because he had a certain reputation?

Yes, he deserved it. Alan could be brilliant. If he wanted to be a cabinetmaker, which he did on the side sometimes, he was brilliant. Once he – when he got richer, he decided – went up to Croton, bought a house. He decided to become a master horseman. He did that.

I mean, he was – what he set his mind to, he was brilliant. He was also – I don't know what to use the terminology. He could be terrible with people. He would hurl pencils. He would just yell at them. At one point, this 23-year-old kid who he had taken on, I went up to him and said, Alan, I don't think that's nice what you're saying to these people. I don't think that's a good way to act. They talk about chutzpah. He sort of leaned back and smiled because I think he was you couldn't believe i was

taking him on that did you know he had that reputation gill oh i heard rumors i had a friend whose father was a director at candid camera and he didn't have very pleasant memories of the man tell us about the you want you want to know about the you want to know we discussed it beforehand you want to know about his adventures in game shows. Oh my God. Yes. How did the 60, was the $64,000 challenge the first one that came into your life? We will now talk about my failures. Well, it's, it's, and Gilbert's obsessed with Vincent Price. So it has a, is that part of the story that. It is part of the story. It was the climax almost of the story, but no, you know, my book is about failures as much about success. Somebody said, I'm so happy to read about your, you know, the book which has failures as well

as success. I said, if I took the failures out, the book would only be half the size. So yeah, it's part of the book, the leitmotif in the book is how to fail without being a failure. You show me somebody who's never failed, I'll show you somebody who never took a risk. Right. I'll plug the book who never took a risk. Right. I'll plug the book, by the way. It's called But You Made the Front Page, Wonderama, Wars, and a Whole Bunch of Life. Remind yourself to ask me about that title also. I will at the end.

Terrific, terrific read. People can find it on Amazon. Right. And a lot of other places. And a lot of other places. I was very good at doing pilots because I was very quick at learning the rules. Did I love doing game shows? No. Was I comfortable doing game shows?

No. Because game shows limit you. Game shows limit you to doing the rules, getting things moving, and you're like a traffic cop. moving and you're like a traffic cop. So unlike what happened like later in Wondorama where I could be me and totally express myself and what I wanted to do and control that part, the opposite was true of game shows. Anyway, so I did so many pilots for Goodson, Tom and others. And as a matter of fact, I will never totally die away because there are bits and shards of my life in hyperspace that will always be there. And some of them are those game show pilots. Somebody will say, ooh, look what I found.

What is that? I say, I have no idea what that is. Finally, I get in 1956, I get an approach about doing $64,000 challenge. $64,000 question is now the big hit on television. It's a CBS show. CBS now wants me to come in and try out. So I walk in and I do an audio version as a pilot. And Joe Cates is the producer director. And he says, calls me later,

he says, come on then, let's listen to it together. I said, okay. So we listened to it together. He said, what do you think? I said, I wouldn't hire me. And he said, yeah, I think you're right. You're not ready for it. I mean, all I had done in the meantime as a performer, because I never was going to be a performer, that was by accident on Let's Take a Trip. And that was a not commercial show, remote, no studio audience, nothing. Couldn't be different than the high price. So you're a little fish out of water here at this point. And $64,000 challenge would be 10 o'clock Sunday nights on CBS. So that went by. Now they're getting closer and closer to when it's going on.

I'm going on with my show. I'm ready to go out to California to do five Let's Take a Trip's out there. I get a call. They want you to do one of two pilots. It's down to you and somebody else, a guy named Brown, who was a disc jockey on Channel 5. Oh, Ted Brown. Ted Brown.

Yeah. You're going to do yours on Friday. I couldn't believe where that came from. Absolutely startled me. And this is 10 days before the show was going on the air. So I sent my wife and my five-month-old to L.A. and get to the hotel to wait for me there. And I went and I did the pilot.

We go out afterwards for dinner, and at the dinner, my Asian son, and also Mr. – who was the guy who was the big commercial sponsor? Oh, was it Revlon? Revlon. So Mr. Refson and Mrs. Refson are at dinner too with me. Charlie Refson turns to me at one point and says, you know, if you do the show, we're going to have to change your name. I said, why?

He said, nobody's going to believe anybody named Sonny is giving away $64,000. And I, with my smart, flappish ass, my smart ass flappish, Mr. Refson, for what you're going to pay me, you can call me anything you want. I got on the plane, flew out, did that weekend, that Sunday I did my show. Monday the phone rings. I pick it up in my hotel room and the voice says, Bill Fox, please. I said, I'm sorry, you have the wrong number. He said, wait a minute, don't hang up.

This is your agent. That's your name. You got the job. I said, Bill Fox? I thought maybe they'd ask me what I wanted to be called. So the first Sunday, the announcer says, ladies and gentlemen, your host, Bill Fox. So I go out there doing the show. Middle of the next week, I get a phone call from the producer. Say, we have a problem about your name. I said, what?

Well, there already is a Bill Fox on the after a role. And according to the rules, if you've established that you have that, use that name commercially, even if it's not your name, somebody else can't come along and take it. And there was already a Bill Fox on there. I said, all you guys, the network, the three sponsors, all the – nobody checked that? No. So I said, so what's your real name?

So I said, Erwin. And there was a silence that went on a beat too long. He digested how that would work. And I said, hey, I got a great idea. Why don't we just change my name every week? And people who don't even like the show will tune in and say, what are they calling the schmuck this week? So the second night, the second Sunday night of $64,000 challenge, the announcer intoned, and ladies and gentlemen, here is your host, Sonny Fox. And Bill Fox disappeared without a word.

That's funny. Never heard from again. That's funny. Never heard from again. That's so funny. And nowadays, audiences have become very cynical about what goes on behind the scenes. But you barely escaped the major scandal back then. I didn't know. I knew how they picked their contestants. They gave them thorough four-hour, five-hour tests about their professed expertise, whether it was poetry or whatever. And so they knew what the contestant knew.

what the contestant knew. And if they, they would, no matter how difficult the question they would build, if it would go into the strength of what they knew the guy knew, they would expect to have an outcome that would be favorable for him or her.

If they wanted to dump a guy, for instance, there was a guy who came on and said, my expertise in 18th century literature. And they took him on, but they gave him a category of English literature. At some point, maybe $16,000, they decided to dump him. And they suddenly gave him a question about Beowulf.

Now, that's English literature, but it's not 18th century. And the guy blew it because he didn't know a very complicated question about Beowulf. Now that's English literature, but it's not 18th century. And the guy blew it because he didn't know a very complicated question about Beowulf. That's the way I assumed they were controlling the show. It was only later when this whole thing broke and the congressional hearing started, I thought, oh my God, I could not believe what they were doing. I just, it was such an example of arrogance and power. And of course, I got to know the guy who started it, who was doing 21, and who was producing that. And I did a show with him for CBS that he was producing in the 19, for CBS that he was producing in the 19 – when the heck was it? I don't know.

It was the 1970s or something. You're talking about Dan Enright. Danny Enright. Yeah. And Danny and I would – we would be at his house. We'd have brunch and things like that. I said, Danny, you know – he said, I didn't do anything wrong. It was only entertainment. I said, Danny, you know, he said, I didn't do anything wrong. It was only entertainment. I said, Danny, of course you did things wrong.

You lied. You professed that this was a legitimate, and you did it. So we agreed after a while not to talk about it. But later on, in a documentary, he finally said, he said, you know, he'd started it because the first show they did, every, the contestant got, the two contestants got everything wrong. They didn't get one thing right. And the sponsor said, that happens next week. You're out. I'm canceling the show. So they decided the best way to do it was to make sure that they would play it totally

scripted and everybody would act out their parts, the contestants. And it worked, and it became a big hit show. I don't know if that was the inspiration for others or the others just kind of got there because they were getting pressures to control the show. For instance, one of the stories I know is that Refson was looking at Brothers. Oh, Joyce Brothers. Joyce Brothers, who was the professor. She was this cute psychologist who was an expert on boxing. Yeah, we've talked about it on the show.

Remember that, Gilbert? She studied up on it. She went and met them first, and they said they'd like her, but what she was proposing to be an expert on, they said, that doesn't work. We love the opposites. We love the unexpected. I mean, if you were to, hmm, boxing, and she went home and became an expert on boxing.

So funny. And they took her on. And they tried to dump her at 16 because Refson said she doesn't wear makeup. And that was not the model he was selling because that's what he was selling was makeup. Ah. They switched at 16 to referees instead of boxers. And she knew it.

And then she went on to win the whole thing. They tried to dump her with a question about referees. Yeah. And it didn't work to win the whole thing. They tried to dump her with a question about referees. Yeah. And it didn't work. It didn't work. But that all came later. I knew none of this, of course, when it was happening. Right.

And what was the name of the girl who – the wonderful actress who just died? Patty Duke. Yeah. And we had lunch and she told me about her life with them. She was a spelling bee champ. and they gave her the answers. Do you know this, Gil? Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

And then years later, when she was 15, she was one of the witnesses called by the Senate for the hearings to testify. I think because she was a high-profile name, they wanted to have stars. But anyway, she was taken in hand by somebody from the staff and taught how to lie to the Senate. Unbelievable. That's how corrupt this thing became. And she did. She lied.

And as she was about to step down, this is Patty telling me the story. As she was about to step down, one of the avuncular members of the Senate staff said, now Patty, is everything you told us true? And she said, no. And they put her back on the stand and then she told them what happened. Wow.

But that corruption was so pervasive and and and a lot of guys got all free you know the guys from 21 got eggs jack barry and dan enright yeah did you see the movie quiz show by the way uh i did and i was and and it was produced by a guy who had with redford by a guy who had – with Redford – by a guy who had done a wonderful documentary on this, which is why he ended up with Quiz Show. I see. And I was on that. And so was – and that – it was on that one that Danny Enright finally told what had happened. I called the lady he had been living with at that point after he died.

I said, why did Danny finally decide to tell the truth? She said, I think he knew he was near the end of his life. Tell Gilbert how you washed out a $64,000 challenge with Vincent Price. He'll find that one entertaining. Well, it turned out I had a predilection for asking the answers. It turned out I had a predilection for asking the answers. I mean, I was inventing, what's the game show where they ask the answers? Oh, Jeopardy. I was inventing Jeopardy.

He got rich and I got fired. There's no justice to this. So once I did it, maybe twice, and then the big one was at Vincent Price and the Jockey. What was his name? Oh, I can't remember. It's in the book. Yeah. Vincent Price and the Jockey.

Both were art collectors. So that was a wonderfully odd pairing. This autocratic, tall Vincent Price, right? And this little, you know, wiry jockey. Both of them were very skilled on, and they had a lot of knowledge. Now I'm at that $64,000 level. The jockey had gone through and answered all the things correctly, I believe, and that was on Vincent. And there were like, it was like a 12 or 15 part, one of those things where there were 12, 15 parts. So I had questions on one side and I had to flip over to the other side. So I said, okay, let me review the ones you still haven't answered.

I go down, flip the card. And the first thing I look at is Van Gogh. And I say, Van Gogh. And that was the answer. Oh. And, you know, I was waiting for the heavens to open up or the stage to open up, so I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do,

and so they finally decided to give them even money, but after that, they said, no, you got to go, and you know what? They were right. I never was comfortable doing that show. It just didn't work for me. I was under such intense pressure.

I was getting called in by the head of Young and Rubicam saying, you know, when you say $64,000, you're not saying with enough, you know, I'm going to take $64,000, $1 bills online. So you see how you visualize what I, and then they would say, and they say, get rid of the losers. Get rid of the losers fast. I mean, these guys would come out who had lost, let's say, the $32,000 level. And they had just blown $32,000. They came out of the booth. And I just wanted to hug them and say, that's okay.

Life is going to go on. You know, that was me. They said, get rid of them fast. There were those strictures and those – and I had so many people giving me advice, so many people, you know, handling me about all these things. That was not me. I was never comfortable. I never should have done it. I knew it when I said earlier I wouldn't hire me. I was right.

And I just knew that. I just was never comfortable doing games. And yet you did a handful of them after that too. I did one major syndicated one, the movie game. You remember the movie game? I liked the movie game. With Army Archer? Yes.

I thought it didn't last long, but I liked that. Well, it lasted long. I didn't last long. I did the first two cycles. And then I said, you know what? I tell my agents, I said, tell them I want to double the fee. I said, that's good because I want to go back. I want to produce.

I really want to produce. And I don't want to be out here in California. My family's in Connecticut. Just get me out of this show. But anyway, again, it was one of those shows that I didn't have any great interest in doing or find it any... I got no joy out of doing that show, let me put it that way. I really wanted to produce. I really, really wanted to produce by that time. And it's a funny thing, getting back to how you wanted to hug the people who lost. So you being human worked against you.

Yeah, I guess. You know, you're put into a compressor. And when you're a game show host, you're a traffic cop. And you've got to keep the thing moving. You've got to say the right words. You've got to keep the rules right. So you're a traffic cop. And you got to keep the thing moving. You got to say the right words. You got to keep the rules right. So you're a traffic cop. And it doesn't leave very much room for being you. And now with Patty Duke, was she traumatized by that for the rest of her life? I don't think so. I mean, Patty went on to do great things after that.

So I don't think she was traumatized. But it certainly, I think, stuck in her craw that she had to go through that. And that was not a graceful moment to have to live through both being a cheater on national television and then lying to the Senate. That's got to be some pretty traumatic stuff that never quite leaves you. So along the journey, you found that you really were good at producing and you wanted to produce original television. I loved being, yeah, I love being in charge. Right. I love that.

I love shaping things the way I wanted them to come out. While I was doing Wonderama, I produced a musical called The Cowboy and the Tiger, which was on. With Jack Guilford. One of our favorites. Is it really? Thank you. We love Jack Guilford. Now, I cleared the...

Jack was on the blacklist still when I decided to use him. I didn't know the 63. 1963, I said, you know, Kennedy's the president. This is not the 60s. This is 19, what did I say?

This is not the 50s, the 40s. This is now, today. I couldn't believe there was still a black blacklist. So this was the communist blacklist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because Jack had been a communist and Jack had been a left winger. And for 10 years, he could not work

on television or in the movies for 10 years. He could do Broadway, but he couldn't do those two things. Now, I say, I want Jack. So I put his name in and the agent, and it gets very quiet. I called the agent. I said, what's happening with Jack? You better get somebody else. I said, why? He said, they won't clear him. I said, you go back and tell ABC that if Jack Guilford is not cleared, there ain't no show. I'm not doing the show without Jack. Just tell him that.

And then a few days went by, and finally he called up and said, okay, it's cleared. I got him off the blacklist. No. Oh, I, it's cleared. I got him off the blacklist. No. Oh, I remember one wrinkle. He was on television for a year doing the Cracker Jack commercial. Oh, sure. Yes. I remember those.

And I said, wait a minute. He's been all over the country. He's been on. What is this? No, no. But we didn't use his name. I said, oh, so the message I get if I use those two words, Jack Guilford, the Republic crumbles, is that what you're telling me? I just was furious with that.

I couldn't understand that. Tell us about, too, speaking of producing, Sonny, I think Gilbert would find this interesting, too, is the golden age of television, one of your pet projects. Yeah. And I remember it. I love doing that. And I remember it. I love doing that. Somebody in my staff said, why don't we do – I know Rod Serling's widow.

So I know her too. But he said, well, she's willing to have that. I said, oh, what a good idea. But instead of just that, why don't we do all of them? So I got a hold of Carol and she agreed to the terms of using that as the pilot. Requiem for heavyweight. Yeah. But what we did, what I did is I took out all of the commercials and all the promos and opened up anywhere between 9 and 15 minutes of the time.

And then I went to the people who did it, who wrote it, produced it, acted in it, directed it, and had them talk about what it was like 25 years earlier to do these shows. Now remember, these shows had never been seen in 25 years. And they weren't copyrighted. And I had a big problem on how to handle that. I did not want to just put them on. These were just for our listeners to clarify for our listeners. These were live television shows from the fifties. That's right. Like Days of Wine and Roses. They were only on once and that was it. Marty, right? Requiem for Heavyweight, Marty, Days of Wine and Roses. Right. Twelve Angry Men. Right. So I went to AFTRA and I worked out a deal with them.

I said, look, you got to give me – I want to pay these people, but you got to give me a realistic rate because this is PBS, folks, and I can't do it if you go. And they gave me a very good rate. And I made most favored nations and five lines and over, five lines and under. And then I went to the Writers Guild. They said, no, we don't have any control over that. It was so wild. The Directors Guild said, no, we don't have any control over that. It was so wild. The Directors Guild said, no, we don't have any control over that either. I mean, these were the days.

We didn't have residual agreements until 1959. And all the shows we did were 58 or earlier. So there were no residual. But AFTRA said to me, okay, we'll give you this thing, but you have to get current consent. That meant I had to go to every actor or the estate of every actor in every one of the nine shows I did and get their agreement to this new deal that after. It's like putting a puzzle together. It's 22 guys times nine, you know, and figuring out that was.

And you had to call Mickey Rooney. Wasn't that an obstacle? Oh, yes, Mickey Rooney, who, brilliant actor and wonderful in The Comedian. But his lawyer called me back and said, okay, Mickey wants $150,000. Now, the top that I was paying was $187.50. He's a little off. That was the agreement with after. I said, that's more

than, that's about twice what I'm getting from ABC for doing all nine shows. This went on for months and finally it ended up, he's saying, okay, he'll take the $187.50, but you have to make a $2,500 contribution to Talent Town.

Talent Town. Talent Town. Do you know what Talent Town is? No, I don't. Oh, I remember. Talent Town? Yes, I remember Mickey Rooney was starting a summer camp to train, like, kids to be singers. Mickey Rooney said he was starting. Oh, like named after Boys Town.

Right? That's where the name came from? I don't know. But I was able to keep the 187.50. So that whole town town was bullshit. I don't want to make that statement on the air. You're the only

one who I have spoken with who has ever heard of talent. I remember him talking. I can't believe you know that. He would go on TV shows and talk about talent. Maybe it was. I don't know anything about it. But anyway, I loved meeting Johnny Frankenheimer and Colin Dewhurst

and all those wonderful people. Cliff Robertson. Cliff Robertson. E.G. Marshall. Hearing those stories about what it was like and the guy who wrote Days of Wine and Roses and talking about how that happened and capturing the enthusiasm and the joy of what they were doing in those days when it was, as somebody put it, every night was opening and closing night when you did those shows. And just is so wonderful to have encountered and gotten to know so many. Now, I was contemporaneous with those shows in the 50s.

I was also on CBS. We were seeing it, but they were in a different level. I didn't know them. So it was only 25 years later that I got to know them. But to watch them, their eyes glow and relive those memories was really great. I love the story in the book where you call Jack Klugman. Oh, that wasn't for that. That was for, I, that was for a show we did in Philadelphia when they were doing their 40th anniversary. And then I, they said, we want to do, uh, we're thinking about doing, um, Days of Winter Roses in a new production. I said, really? That's very expensive for a local station to mount that. No, no, we have

a very good acting company here. I said, oh, if you're going to do a new class A presentation, you're going to have to go back and get the rights from the writer. And I can tell you, he's not going to be thrilled to know that the first time it's on television again is with an acting company that's of uncertain origins. But I'll give you his name you can get was what would you do so right then on the phone i said well i would recreate what it was like to do this and show the steps of doing live and then at the very end go live and they bought that and that's i won an Emmy for that. And I got Jack, called Jack up, and I said, the show I would do this with is Petrified Forest. Now, Jack Klugman was in the 1956 version of Petrified Forest,

which, what's his name, who did it on stage, originated the part. Bogey. Huh? Was it Bogey? Bogey. He did that as a favor to his wife, who wanted to come back to performing again.

And even though she was really too old for the part, they took her in because they got Bogey at the same time. They did it as a live production on NBC. at Bogey at the same time. They did it as a live production on NBC. Jack Klugman was in that show as one of the sidekicks. Did you know that, Gil? Petrified Forest, the movie with Duke Manty.

Yes, yes. But they did it again for television with Bogey and Bacall, and Jack Klugman was in it. Oh, wow. Now, I knew Jack was in it because I knew Jack. He was a good friend of mine. I called him up. I said, Jack, you know, in 1956, you played Jackie in – right.

How would you like to play the part of Duke Mantee? He went – and I knew I had him because I didn't have very much money to pay him. Because I didn't have very much money to pay him. So I called up his agent and I said, I told him how much money. He said, he makes more than that taking in air when he's doing a commercial, for God's sake. And he started that. He said, you've already spoken to him, haven't you? I said, absolutely.

I'm going to call you first. Very smart. So Jack Klugman did that and then we got a hold of who hosted it um i'm see this is 91 year old here but one of the great performers e.g. marshal oh hosted it and then the guy who had written it was there too so i got this reunion of the guys who originally did it and we started it with actors that we had cast for this recreation around the table for the first read. This is the way they did it in those days. And then we followed it when it got on its feet for the first work through.

And I, oh, then I got a hold of the original director. Was that Delbert Mann? Delbert Mann, who I knew, who was a friend of mine. I said, Delbert, I want you to come back and do this. Do the live portion, but I want you to be there for the whole thing, putting it together and rehearsing it. And he said, oh, I don't know if I want to do live television again. I said, yes, you do. So he did it. So Dell was there with the people recreating with the writer who had written it what it was like and then putting these people through the paces. Now we had to teach the boom guy and the camera guys who only knew how to do news shows, how to do drama, how to navigate live doing drama. So we had to educate them too.

navigate live doing drama. So we had to educate them too. And then we followed it all the way down to dress rehearsal. And then we went live, at which point Del got into the director's seat and directed the three scenes that were done live on that night, you know, on Climetime Time in Philadelphia. That was a talk about shoes to fill to be in Humphrey Bogart's part. Well, and that was his dream. That, you know, I could have paid him nothing.

He would have done that. We got to wind down, Sonny, but we got a couple of more questions. We've got a question. We're dying to know. You are an extra in a Jerry Lewis movie. Yes. By the way, and I was on the cutting room floor when that was over. What was the movie?

Well, The Nutty Professor, I think. Oh, really? That's good trivia. And I wanted to see what it would be like to show the kids how a movie was shot in Hollywood. So I made a deal to go out and be in Jerry's movie. I wanted to see what it would be like to show the kids how a movie was shot in Hollywood. So I made a deal to go out and be in Jerry's movie. And it was a one day on, you know, but they followed me with a camera. And they followed me when I was sitting with Jerry when he was doing stuff around there and talking about what he was doing.

And I knew I was not going to be in the movie. That was not the point. The I knew I was not going to be in the movie that was not the point the point is I was there I was an extra and able to show the kids what it took to make a movie just in that one day of shooting and then I showed it on camera on Wonderama on Wonderama yeah and to to this day to this day you say that people in their 50s and 60s come over to you and they revert to being little kids again. Including us. Yes. Exactly. You know, we knew while we were doing the show that the show was very successful.

You could read the ratings every Monday. You could read the ratings every Monday. What we could not know then, and what has come to pass in the intervening time, was what a powerful, what a long-lasting thumbprint we left on those malleable minds. Four hours every Sunday, eight and a half years. And it manifests itself. I went to hear the editor of the New Yorker. He was flogging a book in 2008 on Obama. And he was at the Radieskel Theater in L.A.

And I said, let's go see it. Let's go hear him. He's a bright guy to my wife. And she said, no, I can't. So I took a friend's go see it. Let's go hear him. He's a bright guy to my wife. And she said, no, I can't. So I took a friend. We went down. Indeed, he was very bright and very funny and very sharp. And in listening to him, I heard he grew up in Passaic, New Jersey. I figured how old he was.

I turned to my friend. I said, one of my kids. He said, what do you mean? I said, he watched the show. He said, how do you know? I said, I know. When it was over, I went into the lobby and he was signing books. So I invested $31.95.

I bought his book. And then I stood on line, second line, and shuffled toward the Holy Grail where he was sitting signing books. And I put my book down in front of him. He said, good evening. I said, good evening. I put my book down in front of him. I said, just sign it to Sonny Fox. Sonny Fox!

Now, this is the editor of New Yorker. He stood up, Sonny Fox! Oh, we got to have lunch and all that. And he signed it to the master. Oh, thatny Fox. Now this is the editor of New Yorker. He stood up, Sonny Fox. Oh, we got to have lunch and all that. And he, he signed it to the master. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. That's nice. I mean, it is wonderful. And watching, of course, then there's the other guy who was coming in earlier. He was, I was doing a show with, with, um, in New York at the Henry Hudson theater. Um,

and, and I was standing on stage. We were loading and getting ready for the, and I was staring at the empty audience area. It's just, my mind was just going early in my, the door opened up from the wintry weather outside and somebody was coming in the stage door. I didn't, I just knew somebody had come in. I didn't look, but whoever it was stopped like that.

So that drew my attention. It was a double bass player coming in with his coat all buttoned. He looked at me. I looked at him. He said, the toy you gave me broke. Not hello. Gee, look who's here. The toy you gave me broke.

I looked at him. I said, how old are you? He said, 35. I said, by now, the toy I gave you should have broke. That's great. One of those kids, by the way, was our friend Whoopi Goldberg. And she sends her love. Thank you. I saw her interview you at the Paley Center here in New York a handful of years ago.

And I also want to – Gilbert and I were two of those kids watching Wonderama. And I want to wrap, if I can, Sonny. I just want to read a quick letter. This is from – this is one of those letters from – a short letter from one of your kids. Dear Mr. Fox, I hope you're doing well. I, like hundreds of thousands of other baby boomers, remember you from hosting Wonderama back in the 60s. I was one of the lucky few who got to tell you a joke,

which I still remember. The joke was, why is my father the luckiest man in the world? Because he has a cigarette lighter and a wife, and they both work. She writes, I won a prize, but most importantly, I was struggling with epilepsy at the time.

I was inspired to pursue a career in comedy. I did The Tonight Show three times. I've written The Golden Girls and even won an Emmy for a show called Arrested Development. Thank you, Sonny Fox. The 20 seconds I spent with you changed my life forever.

This is Jim Vallali, who's a comedy writer. Oh, yes. I know him. Gilbert knows Jim. Oh, my word. Isn't that wonderful? Yeah. You bring me to tears now.

Would you send me a copy of that? I absolutely will. Thank you so very much. A lot of people, when we mentioned that we had, and I didn't know this. I thought Wonderama was a local show. Yeah. I didn't know that eventually it was in Florida and California. No, not my version.

Oh, was that McAllister's version? That was McAllister's version. They talked about doing it. I think they tried it once as a two-hour version somewhere over in summer. That didn't seem to work. I tell you, it didn't work for a lot of reasons. Its show was really oriented to the New York area and the New York kids.

I would have changed it if it was national. I got approached in 1990s by a big company out in LA wanting to know could we do the new version of it. I said, well, I'm not going to host it, but we could try it. I could produce it. Well, it was associated with a big company. And I thought with them and with me and then Universal came in, maybe.

So I did a quick tour of the possibility of getting two hours on a Sunday. We cleared three markets. Wow. Period. Well, I personally like it better knowing that it was now just that this version, that Sonny's version was just in the tri-state area. Wow. Period. Well, I personally like it better knowing that it was now just that this version, that Sonny's version was just in the tri-state area. Yes. Just for us. Yeah, it was. It was. And when I meet, I've met people, one is from the tri-state area and said, and his friend is standing there and is very unmoved. And he looks at him and says,

that's Sonny Farrell. Well, of course I said, on where did you go up he said Detroit I said see everybody assumes that everybody around the country was watching right and and uh I I I distinctly remember my sister Harleen saying that when she was a little girl she had a crush on Sonny Fox from Wondering. I get that a lot. That's great. You were my most crush. That was one thing. The problem is when they got to be, you know, really interesting, I wasn't their crush anymore.

You want to tell us the Hebrew national story if I'm not giving away too much? Oh, yes. Oh, my little brown eyes. Let me make a plug here for SunnyFoxTV.com. Okay. That's my website, and there's a lot of stuff up there if anybody cares. SunnyFoxTV.com. That's it.

That'll get you right up there. And by the way, I just, while I was in New York last week, I did the graduation speech at PS217, the school I graduated from in 1938. Wow. When I was there, the school and the neighborhood was half Jewish, half Italian. 50% of the kids at PS217 are from Bangladesh and Pakistan now. It's so marvelous. It's so wonderful. I had so much fun being there. That stuff will be up on this.

I have a lot of pictures coming up on that. Anyway, go up there. But now, okay, so little brown eyes came up to me. She said, off camera, she said, I know who I'm going to marry. This seven and a half year old adorable child shows up and stands at my desk. I'm sitting. She's standing there eye to eye. Now, as the conversation goes on, all the cameras disappear.

The studio melts away. The lights are gone gone the other kids disappear it's me and little brown eyes there is such trust and and and between her and and me and she's telling me that he is seven and three quarter years i said oh i always nice to have an older man and then she i said and she nice she She said, no, he's fresh. She sticks his finger through the bread and everything. But he's strong and he's cute. And then I said to him, you know, so we have this conversation.

At the end of which I said, would you like to take a gift home for him? She said, okay. I said, how about some Hebrew national salami or whatever it was. And then, and you're on the package, so you don't see her saying this, but I mean, you hear her say, but he's not Hebrew. I like that one. That's my favorite one in the book. Sonny, this is a treat. Your life has been an adventure. It has been an adventure. It has been an adventure.

It has been totally – anything I did in my professional life has almost always been unplanned. I matriculated to go to North Carolina State. I was going to be a textile tycoon. That didn't happen. It's been a very interesting journey. This has been an amazing one for me because I was just expecting, you know, lovable Sonny Fox, a fun

game show. And we get into the game show scandals, the house of un-American activities, World War II, World War II. We never even gotten to Bobby Kennedy. Oh my God. Well, tell us, tell us real quick about your, about your friendship with him. He was on Wondorama several times. Several times. More important and other things I'll tell you about quickly. I, in 1968, no, 1964, I'm sorry, 1964, he's elected senator. He's senator-elect now in New York. I get a call from his people. The senator wants to do in New York what he used to do in Washington.

Every Christmas he used to go out to the poorer neighborhoods. Here he wants to go to the barrios and the other areas and give out toys and celebrate Christmas with the kids. We want you to go with him. Now, here's chutzpah. That's one of the things I learned from Alan Funt, chutzpah that's one of the things i learned from alan fund chutzpah i said oh here's this guy you know a year away from the assassination of his brother he's now senator-elect he's mythical bobby kennedy robert f kennedy and i say okay my response is okay here's my deal if he'll come on my show and talk to the kids. I'll go out and do the bit with him.

They called me back an hour later and said, you got a deal. So the first year we went out and did that for about two or three days. And then every year we did that. But then he started coming on the show and he loved talking with the kids. If you see a clip of him, and you'll find it on my website,

watch him. He never takes his eyes off the kids, If you see a clip of him, and you'll find it on my website, watch him. He never takes his eyes off the kids, even when I'm talking. He was talking with the kids, not to the kids, with. That's something that a lot of adults never do. So he loved being with the kids. And then he and I began to have this relationship that grew up around that. And he did a number of shows for me, but then I'd go to Washington and be there. And I'd call him and say, well, come by the Justice Department. I'm leaving at about five and I'll pick you up to take you to the airport. I said, great. And he said, well, you want to come home and have dinner with the family? I said, actually, I really do want to get back to my family up in Connecticut. But it was that kind of relationship that we had. And we talked about the politics. Then I did, I stopped doing Wonder Hour. I was doing the other shows and he came on the show with teenagers. He came on this. And the last time I

saw him, oh, and then they asked me to come down to DC when I were still living there and do a show that they did every year for the children of the consuls and the ambassadors. And so I did a show for them down there. And I remember being up in his bedroom watching all the kids. He came home late from the Senate, and we were looking out the windows. We were sharing a drink. He made very good martinis. That's good information. And I said, and all these kids swarming over. He says, isn't that great? And he really meant it.

He really meant it. And through those years of 64 to 67, I watched him grow. He really grew. He missed what the power he had when he was in the White House. Being the junior senator and only one of 100, I could feel his frustration in not being able to shape events. So he got himself, you know, so he was nominated. He would have been a great president. When we were in that, I was invited to the funeral, to the services of St. Patrick's. Yeah, it's in the book. The letter's in the book.

Going down. But we're seeing those crowds that gathered at every stop, and they were all different. They were the white people. They were the black people. They were the other minorities. They were the workers. It was a unique in-gathering that he had around him by then

and was able to speak with and to. And that's what we will miss, I think, and have missed. It was a tragedy. Very much so. Well, the minute we think we've run out of stuff to discuss. Well, like I said, you had a long career, a long life. We could keep going. So the second hour we'll talk about – oh, never mind.

Well, I also want to – No, know you know what it's a joy speaking with you guys because you're good listeners too and thank you son i appreciate that well we're interested in your life we're interested in your career you were two guys who were affected by you as kids you know and as i was starting to say when i put out on social media that sonny fox is coming on the show you we got a lot i I'll send you the reactions. And when the episode is up, we'll send you people's responses to it. Please. Let me know when it's on. A couple of weeks.

And I want to thank our mutual friend Randy Bucknoff also for setting this up. Randy, who runs my website, by the way. So he manages it for me. Thank you, Randy. This is one of my fans who's become a friend. I mean, I have. Oh, well. It's been a great life. All right. It's one of my fans who's become a friend. I mean, I have... Oh, well. It's been a

great life. All right, it's going to be on in a couple of weeks. At my age, I want to make sure to be alive when it's on. Okay. We'll rush it through the process. So, I got to wrap this up. So, this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast

with my co-host, Frank Santopadre at Nutmeg Post with our engineer, Frank Fertorosa. Thank you, Frank. We have been talking to the great producer, writer, director. Host. And game show host of Wonderama. TV executive. Yeah.

Everything. And smart-ass kid from Brooklyn. And a skinny Jewish kid from Brooklyn. Yes. Former prisoner of war, for Christ's sake. Ladies and gentlemen, Sonny Fox. Thank you, Sonny. Thank you both.

This is a joy. Thank you all for listening. Oh, thank you. Thanks, pal.