 This is the SF Productions podcast network We used to tape shows. Let me see. There's a tape already in here. Let me hook this up here. Let me see what we got. Back with us to the 60s and 70s, the dwelling place of the lost generation. An era whose heroes, role models, and very lives were molded and formed by weekly installments of favorite television programs. Welcome to the place your parents didn't understand. Welcome to the vast wasteland. Welcome home. Another exciting episode of Vast Wasteland. I'm your host Mark Schmidbauer along with Wilbur Neal and Marty Wiley, and we're here to talk about 60s and 70s television. Before we jump into today's exciting episode, just want to tell you we're on Tuesdays at 6, Wednesdays at 10, and Thursdays at 3 here on ACTV Gable 21. Also, for some reason if you want to write into us, our box number is 151526 Columbus, Ohio 43215. Well, this week on Vast Wasteland, something very exciting. It's our first actors retrospective show, and we couldn't be more happy and pleased. And for our first actors retrospective, certainly a guiding force, one of the hardest working men in 60s and 70s television, Bill Bixby. Bill! Yes, Bill Bixby today on Vast Wasteland. Certainly a man of many talents and many credits and lots of shows, and we're going to go through him starting with certainly his first starring role. Let's talk about that, Wilbur. Well, let me just go back here a little bit. Now Bill's first big break in Hollywood wasn't quite what he expected, because he was a struggling young actor in the 50s. Then he was working part-time as a lifeguard, and a Detroit auto executive recruited him to travel to Midwest for his first screen roles in some industrial films. And so then he went on from there, and he went on to the West Coast from there, and he did some small parts, and he did some small parts in things like the many loves of Dolby Gillis. But even before that, he was an actual regular from 1952 to 1960 on a game show called Masterade Party. He was listed as a regular panelist for that show. No, but according to my information, he was on the 1975 version of that show, and not the 1950s version. I thought he was in the 50s version. Well, let's check there. Let's check. Actually, it wasn't his first starring role actually on Joey Bishop. That's right. That's true. In January of 62, he landed his first continuing role as Joey Bishop's boss on the Joey Bishop show. He replaced another actor who was fired in the middle of the season. And his big break, his first of three hit series, came the following year as a reporter on My Favorite Martian. But there is a sad one. There is a sad one. In 1980, all the copies were destroyed. Yeah, I read that. Joey Bishop requested all copies. This was really a bad show. So we've got some lost footage of Bill Bishop. The loss of Bixby tapes. That's sad. Yes, My Favorite Martian is probably the first big hit that everybody recognizes from. You can see that on the channel. It's on USA or some cable channel. 10 o'clock in the morning. TNT. I think it's on TNT. I don't know. USA TNT. Somebody showed it. It's a fun show. It's one of my favorites. And certainly it almost seemed to symbolize the really silly sitcom concept. This is true. Even more than Idiot sitcom. Right, even more than Mr. Redd or Bewitched. It truly was just a completely ludicrous concept. You've got a reporter, he's young, he's ambitious. He has the hottest possible stories. He knows a Martian, he's got the evidence. No, he doesn't bother telling anybody. Because he's his buddy. He just feels that he can't because who would believe him, you know? That's right. Well, I think journalists were different in those days. But even so. They had something like scruples or something. Yeah, something like that. Rubbles? What are those? Journalistic scruples, my goodness. Sounds like a breakfast cereal, doesn't it? But along that same time is when he also popped up on Doby Gillis. I've caught a couple of shows. Well, during that time, he was on a lot of stuff. I'm sure, because he did Twilight Zone, I'm sure. Everybody did Zone. Twilight Zone, he was on, in 1963, in January 1963, the title was The Thirty Fathom Grave, and he played the Officer of the Day. And the more exciting parts you couldn't have. It was a speaking role, come on. Okay, well. Yeah, I think you're not a true actor of the 60s, 70s, if you didn't do Zone. I know. Either Zone or Gallery, pretty much. Gallery. Yeah, you've got to have Outer Limit, one of those. Outer Limit, you've got to have something like that, or even Alfred Hitchcock. That's right. Any one of the three, or maybe all of them. Yeah, all of them. If you've done all of them, you get a gold statue of something, I don't know why. We haven't made that part up yet. And so he did the Zone. He did the Doby Gillis in about 63. That's when my favorite Martian hit and ran until 66. And he took some time off between series. And then we got one of my real favorites after my favorite Martian in 69, the courtship of Eddie's father. Oh, yeah. Eddie's father. Which I almost think is like the first warm-ity. It's real close. It's real close. Yeah. I mean, it was touching. It was a favorite of mine, really. It just had a charming cast. Gee, Dad, if you ever get married again, you're gonna have to get dressed up and stuff. Could I be just like I am? Yeah. Just like you are. Boy, that's a relief. He's my best friend. Da-da-da-da-da. You did that. You did that. Harry Nielson. Yeah, there you go. Did Harry Nielson do it? Yeah, it was like cool music. People let me tell you about my best friend. He's a wholehearted person who loved me to the end. That's a show. That's a show I'd like to see reunion of. Yeah. Well, there was one. There was one at least being produced or being written. And I mentioned this on an earlier show about the fact that they were supposed to do one. And I saw in some talk show, Brandon Cruz, they had, oh, yeah, it's being done. And they were like in production of it. And it's been shelved somewhere. Oh, that's too bad. Because I really thought that was... Let me just go home. They're on their own. Yeah. Oh, there we are. Uncle Norman. I would love to have Mrs. Limmickston working for me. Wasn't she like the best housekeeper? Sure. Housekeeper's Hall of Fame. Oh, yeah. Mrs. Limmick, right there next to Hazel. Mr. and Mr. French, pretty much. You know, I think his role as Tom. It was Tom Corbin on the show. Yeah. His role kind of... It was a real positive fatherhood role. You know, he wasn't a scatterbrained, goofy father. Right. He was a real solid man. But he was still the swinging kind of bachelor guy. Well, it was a little boy. He was trying to fix things. Yeah, but see, it was still the... Yeah, it was a very toned-down version of that. But he was still like, hey, you know, hey. Well, hey, hey, you know, hey, guy. Yeah, that was Uncle Norman. That was Uncle Norman. Yeah. Because he was Mr. Hey. Hey. He was a photographer for magazine. Yeah, he was a photographer. That's right. He was a photographer. Tina was the secretary. Secretary. I was wearing the mod out there. He was always out there trying to find a new mom for his... somebody to marry his dad. Oh, my. He'd go to stores and hang out in the frozen food. No, I think, you know, he wasn't a goofy kind of single parent. No, he was. There was really a decent shot. I guess it was about the same time as what Julia was on or something like that. You know, Tom and Julia should have got together. Wow. You have Corey and Earl J. Waccador. Corey and Eddie would pretty much, you know... And then you'd have the first interracial marriage deal that would have been... Which was just now being done. Right, yeah. Right. True colors. Years before, it could have been an innovator, but... But in a way, it kind of was. Because I really think it paved the way for the idea of the warmity. Yeah, because it was always like... The happy comedy. But it wasn't, you know... It was a little kind of thing. But it really, I mean, it really, in a way, went back to the old shows, the old standards of... Making for Dad. Well, even before that, more of an Ozzy and Harriet thing. But it was a single parent, but it was still the whole idea of, you know, well, everything's lovely and everything works out. And there's never really any big problems, you know. So just find somebody for Dad to sleep with. Yeah, that was about it. Except they never said that. Yeah. Eddie's old purpose. Somebody to come over. Yeah. Come over for dinner. And also an early appearance of Jodie Foster on that show. She had a kind of regular reoccurring. She was Joey. Yeah. She was a little girl that used to slug Eddie all the time. Because she liked him. Because she liked him. And I guess Eddie would always go over to Joey's apartment because, you know, it's like, hey, the girlfriend's coming over. Well, how do we get any out of the house? Go see Joey. Little girl down the lane. You can come back about that, Alan. What do you say? It was surely a step up for Bill, for my favorite Martian father. Oh, yeah. It was a better show. I was expecting to see Uncle Martian. Uncle Martin pop in there somewhere. I was always waiting to see him pop in, you know. Just kind of pop in. Tim? Tom thought you'd get away from me. Yeah. Change of name. No, I won't work. Well, let's see. If Tim O'Hara had just gotten married right after the series, and you could almost figure it out. Or a relocation witness program. Well, yeah. They never showed the final episode where, well, they finally found out about Uncle Martin and said, well, you know, we're going to have to separate you two. Well, Uncle Martin didn't leave. Well, it was never seen, of course. Uncle Martin fixed his ship and was able to leave, but he didn't leave. It was a touching moment. I'm still studying those darn earthlings. Silly earthlings. No, he was a friend. You know, he considered Tim his friend. Okay. I've watched the show a lot. All right. Who was that that was always making brownies, lady downstairs? Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown. I mean, the brownies. That makes sense. It all fits in there. Well, let's move on then. He did a magician. There you go. 73 to 74. Neat show. Oh, yeah. Bill Bixby's actually an amateur magician himself. Yeah, that's what made the show. And then that would take place at the Magic Castle. Yes, quite a bit of it did. I thought I was real amazed by that place. That was neat to see that. Did he like travel around in that one? He had his own 747 or something? Well, he's a private jet. He had a private jet. But then he had a really cool car. And they showed her. That was in the title sequence. Wasn't the premise of that show he'd spent time in prison? For a crime he did not commit. And I know every one of those guys in prison, I know y'all didn't do it. I know you didn't do it. If not, how could you have all these fine shows with people who had crimes they did not commit? Right, right. No one ever commits these crimes. Not the stars. Not the stars, at least. He's a bad guy to do it. I think I mainly watch that show, though, for the magic, the illusion. Right. And he always, you know, like, hey, you know, the bad guys would have him cornered somewhere. And it's like, hey, look, there just happens to be a magic box over here. And something is like, I just happen to be on a stage or some sort of deal. Right over there. Hey, we got him now. Let's go get him. Where'd he go? Oh, Robin! And the bad guys applaud, drop their guns, and he can run away. All right, baby. He's got to drop your gun to applaud. Yeah. Well, that was really wonderful. Hey, wait a minute. A deck of cards! I'm Marshall Brodina, a professional magician. You can do these cards at home in your own time. Well, but he did his own magic. He did. He really did it. He did his own illusion. Go stand in. Actor, director, magician. Directing. Yeah, he did a lot of directing this time. Yeah, there's a whole big thing about directing. He's big on that. Well, we go on here, and indeed it does say that he was in the 1974-75 version of Mass Great Party. Okay, he wasn't in the early one? Not on the early one. Okay, I misread that then. Whip me. We don't want to get anything wrong here. Well, after the magician. All the people, well, maybe he was in the early one. Okay, I misread that then. Whip me. We don't want to get anything wrong here. Well, after the magician. Yeah. Well, maybe somebody will write us a letter that you were wrong. Yeah. It could be male. Whip. We won't beg for it. We'll just screw up and you can write us a complaint. We can come on the show and say we got a letter. Well, that was 1974-75 for that Mass Great Party. Then in 1976, he was in the rich man, poor man deal. 12-hour novel for TV. The first one. Yeah, I believe it was the first novel. Right. But Roots kind of overshadowed the whole thing. Yeah, Roots was, right. It hadn't been for that. Rich Man, Poor Man would have been like the big trail setter or whatever. And Bill Bicks would play Willie Abbott in that. Yeah, not that we know exactly who the character was or anything. He must have been a major character because he was fairly far up in the cast list. Yeah, and plus I never saw Rich Man, Poor Man. It was either above my head, which was probably still in. The only person I'd never heard about really that people always talk about on Rich Man, Poor Man was the character that Nick Nolte played. I think he was in that. Well, anyway. Well, we have one here. This is really obscure. Bill did a pilot for a sitcom, which obviously didn't make it, The Natural Look. This aired July 6, 1977. The Misadventures befall the newlywed Harrison's bud, played by Bill, a doctor, and Edie, played by Barbara Felden, a cosmetics executive. The pilot depicts Edie's marriage, Edie's feelings as she prepares to meet Bud's ex-flame, a glamorous girl played by Karen Kay, who exhibits a domestic flair she feels she can't match. Now, why didn't... This was 1977. Now, and this was NBC. And boy, why didn't this make a series? Boy, this is such, sounds like such a rich concept that you could just go on for years with. Gee. But the man didn't rest. That's the point. The man didn't rest. That's right. He went right on from there. But the thing is, all through the 70s, he was doing directing all over the place. I see a show here called Spencer's Pilots. He directed. This was in 1976. I've got to see some references for... Well, there's an incredible Hulk, but that's not what we're talking about here for the second. At least not yet. Not yet. That's right. Let's see. Operation Runaway, the Oregon Trail. The point is, he did lots of shows, because obviously, things weren't working out very well for him. And so he said, oh, what the heck? I'll go do some directing. Well, it's not. He obviously did very well. The acting thing wasn't working out. He wanted to branch out from that, as many actors do. They want to branch out from the acting. They want to get behind their camera. They want to get some other people. But he had the experience to do it. I mean, look, the man started out in the early days. Back in the early days. Oh, yeah. Truly the actor of the 60s and 70s. And turn on that TV, what? There's like maybe a couple of years in here where you could turn on the TV and not see Bill Bixby. At least not in the current thing. But you did get those reruns. That's indication. Hey. Once again, proves that Bill Bixby is the hardest working man in the 60s and 70s TV. But anyways, he was on lots of shows. I'm looking for another reference here. Well, we ought to move into the best known. I suppose. The one that people probably know him the best from, well, the younger people now. The incredible Hulk. Bill Bixby played David Bruce Banner. Doing the wonderful Metamorphosis into Loophering now. Originally called Bruce Banner. Just Bruce Banner, as he was called in the comic book. In the comic, right. But at the time it was felt by the network that it was too feminine a name. Ooh. All you Bruce's out there. Get upset right now. Well, yeah. Feel free to get upset because this is what the network felt. What CBS felt. Oh, that's too feminine a name. So they slapped David in front of it. Yeah, I used her name to my girl Bruce. Yeah. Well, that doesn't make any sense. But the thing was, I remember seeing a mad parody of Incredible Hulk. And just as they were explaining this, like a commercial in the background saying, and here is Bruce Jenner, Olympic athlete. You know, it was like, it just shows you how silly the network is on things like this. Anyways. Incredible Hulk ran from 78 to 82. Certainly, what's that? Close to his longest running series, I think. Just about, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Well, the one, as far as ones he started. And he was. I mean, still today I think that's what most people identify him with. Yeah. That part is David Bruce Banner. Right. Well, hey, only because of the fact that that darn show doesn't die. Right. That's right. It's still on. It's still going on. Incredible Hulk and the damn thing's not dead yet. We've just, it's like, found out. The trial of the Incredible Hulk, the return of the Incredible Hulk. No, no, doesn't Bill Bixby right? Oh, I'm sure he does now. Oh, yeah. He's got the camera on that much. It's like, do-do-do, ooh, ooh, I'm getting, ooh, and then he's done. Oh, I'm so angry. All the action sequences, he's not even there. He can be behind the camera. Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Err, err, err, the eyes go wide and then, you know, there's something wrong. Why is it neat? He starts busting his teeth. There's a question. How much did this guy spend on clothing? Yikes. I just wondered, that's something I always wanted to hear. Here he is. He's traveling around the country. Yes. Basically, he's a homeless person. Living out of a roll bag. Yeah, he's got a duffel bag with a lot of clothing in it. Where does he get the money to buy all the clothes? And a couple of times, you notice he, no matter what, this is, and this is a thing that's also in the comic book, is no matter what David is wearing, and when it turns into Incredible Hulk, Incredible Hulk is always wearing jeans. Yep. It doesn't matter what, it's just like, it turns them green and it changes his pants into jeans. Powerful. I mean, from polyester into jeans. Yeah. It's all in the jeans, I guess, basically. Incredible. Science is amazing. That's right. That's radiation, by Golly. But this show is one of the, unlike a lot of shows like the superhero shows, number one, he couldn't control what was going on, obviously. And two, it was this very introspective kind of thing. Kind of like the stuff we're seeing now on Beauty and the Beast. Kind of, because it had to do this nice piano theme and it was, you know, it's like the tragic stenogothic story of this guy who turns into a green Hulk. I always got the feeling of incredible sadness from this show. Well, yeah. Because he could never stop, although he should have, because he was never going to get fixed unless he stopped and stopped at some decent scientific facility to hide him out. The reporter was going to find him. Yeah. The reporter, whatever his name, Darren reporter, but he went to the Marriott Hartley Institute a few times. Yeah. She about fixed him up. And then just into oh, no, no, no, no. And just when everything's working out, ooh, that darn Hulk comes out and smashes the machine. So he has to wander around the country again so she can make another machine to help him out. She always found him too or he always found her and it's like, well, I'll go back and give her another try. And sure enough, she's got another machine there. Well, those de-gamma machines, the de-gamma, the de-gamma machines, the de-gammarization. De-gammarize. It seems like the roles he's had have gotten more serious. Well, except, except for... Tim O'Hara was like a doofus, okay? He was pretty goofy. Well, except for his next show, this, this, the very short lived, the Book of Lists. Remember the Book of Lists series? The series of books, and it was just lists and lists and lists and lists all over the place. That was 1982. Yeah. Yeah. And it was so, it was like a, kind of like, I don't know, almost like a candid camera, real people kind of show where it was like, here's another list. Da-da-da-da. And, and billed real list or, or co-host. It was like, Steve Allen was a co-host and, you know, it was just like, and here's this list. Da-da-da. And it was like a half hour list. And of course, it was like, oh, this is exciting. I'll go buy the book. Thanks. The book was pretty popular. I still have my first copy. I think I do too. Somewhere. But this, this is just not something to work as a television show. It's worked for David Letterman, though, having lists on the show. The beginning of the top ten lists. Yeah. But look how, look how long it took him to hit back upon that idea to do lists or it took somebody to hit back upon the idea of doing lists. I mean, since it was, it was how many years there were looking at almost ten years? Right. Well, I can't say really ten, maybe a good six years old. That's right. Well, I wasn't counting. I'm sorry. Then we move on to his last big role other than the incredible Hulk stuff, which is still going on. Good night, Bean Town. And this was teamed, teamed him up again with Married Hartley to the point that everybody was convinced they were married, I think, in real life. They weren't, were they? No. They would never were and yet everybody was convinced they were. But then that Married Hartley, I mean, they just linked her up with everybody. James Garner, they did. They named her Garner, Leonard Nimoy in the Star Trek episode. It had Married Hartley by golly. Good night, Bean Town. It was all right. It was okay. It was on for, what, it was on for a while. I think it's still in syndication. Somewhere, probably a lifetime It actually was, it wasn't too bad a show, really. I mean, it was just like, they were trying to do kind of a, well, it's another new show within a show kind of thing, like Mary Tyler Moore show, where they just, it was this guy and he's a respected anchor in Boston and this new woman co-anchor moves in, who just happens to move into the same apartment building he moves in. What a coincidence. It makes things convenient for them. Yeah. They're driving across town. And so they, and so they had, you know, it was like the witty banner kind of stuff, like Cheers, which of course was based in the same city. I was amazed. I guess if it had been on the same network, it was on CBS, I suppose eventually they would have had them dropping it on Cheers, like, That's what I mean, if it had been on the same network, like St. Elsewhere dropped in on Cheers, because they're all in the same town. Well, you can definitely say though that in 1962, until 1982, 20 solid years of TV. And I'm sure there is there's And have you noticed Bill Bixby still looks kind of the same. I mean, he doesn't really age. Ooh. I mean, he's mature. It's scary. The Dick Clark School of Nine. I think Bill got Dick Clark beat pretty much. Because look, we were seeing Dick Clark the other night and he's getting that crevice of a part in his hair. Well, that's true. I mean, hey, we don't know if Bill's wearing a wig or not. It's a good one if it is. It's like you could sneak into that dressing room and see Bill's ball as a billiard ball or something. Anyway, there we go. Stretching out and running up those crow's feet. Well, no, he hasn't, I'm not saying he has not aged at all. He's aging gracefully. Yes, that's the word. There's the term. Yeah, he's still a very handsome man. I mean, he's somewhere, somebody's working on another pilot for him because those incredible Hulk things aren't coming all that far between. Well, they're doing like one every year and a half. Well, no, about one every year and you really don't take a year to do one of these episodes. I mean, I'm sure he's doing some other, he's investing heavily in the stock market or something, you know. He's probably still directing, right? Yeah, he's doing another Bill Dixby series. Or even a reunion show. I mean, you've got enough here to choose from, Bill. We don't need any more Hulk though. No. Oh, the Hulk, the Hulk will keep going. Yeah, but yeah, we don't really need that. No, we need a big, we don't need another here. We got incredible, I mean, favorite Martian, a big favorite of that Martian again. You're real bitchy, Uncle Martin now. What do you want, Tim? Go away. Bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, for him too. That's right. Because, I mean, any channel you turn to, there'd be Bill Bixby. The hardest working one in 60s and 70 TV. Well, anyways, we're giving the signal to get out of here. So for all of us here at Bass Wasteland, we'll see you in three...