Episode 73

Fritz Coleman (00:00:04):

Welcome to Media Path everybody. I'm Fritz Coleman.

Louise Palanker (00:00:06):

And I'm Louise Palanker

Fritz Coleman (00:00:07):

you know, here in the Media Path Podcast, we're happy to deliver some early holiday treats to you in the way of entertainment options, fabulous guests, just in case everything else you've ordered for Christmas is stuck in a tanker in Long Beach Harbor <laugh>. Today we have the Man who produced a couple of my television shows on Channel four, Barry Krick. We broke a little ground in spite of ourselves, and Barry and I are gonna turn over a few rocks and unearth some great memories. He went on to produced Rick Ds late night talk show, as well as his own really interesting podcast these days with a big successful Emmy-winning television show in between. We're gonna dive in with Barry in just a few minutes, but first wheezy, what do you have for us?

Louise Palanker (00:00:49):

Oh, a lot. This week I watched tick, tick, boom.

Fritz Coleman (00:00:51):

This is, I started that.

Louise Palanker (00:00:53):

Okay, keep going. It's on Netflix. This is Lin Manuel Miranda's directorial debut from screenplay by Stephen Levinson. And it is based on the stage musical by Jonathan Larson. It tells a story of gifted and aspiring composer Jonathan Larson toiling and grasping for achievement in his chosen field. Before it's too late, he obsesses about running out of time, consistently comparing himself to where others were at his age, or where others are who chose a more conventional path. We are also prone to assessing ourselves within the framework we collectively create. Marian Ross describes the same compulsion in her autobiography, but Marian's trajectory was to log those hours of stage and screenwork in preparation for breakthrough stardom. As Missy unhappy days at the age of 54, we each have our own path, and we should strive to measure our progress against only ourselves. Are we doing better this year? Have we learned?

(00:01:50):

Have we grown? Are we building good bridges, relationships and processes? When Larson assesses his 30 year old self, in contrast to the progress of Steven Sondheim at a similar age, he's neglecting the detail that Sondheim met his mentor Oscar Hammerstein at the age of 10. That's a key factor. Each path has its own start point. Okay, I'm digressing with my compulsion to dispense life advice, but this is a beautiful piece of work, and not just for nineties theater nerds. It is packed with fantastic music, memorable scenes and cameos. Hashtag no spoilers. Jonathan Larson is played by Andrew Garfield, and you can watch Tick Tick Boom on Netflix.

Fritz Coleman (00:02:32):

I've started watching it. What blew me away was how talented Andrew Garfield is. Yeah, cuz he played in the movie The Eyes of Tammy Faye. He played Jim Bakker. Oh. And I thought, wow, how's he gonna pull this off? It's really good. He's a very skilled actor. Oh yeah. So I can't wait to see the rest of it. I just, I'm old and I fall asleep before the thing

Louise Palanker (00:02:52):

<laugh>. Okay. And now Fritz, before you introduce our guest, after you do your pick, come back to me cuz I'm gonna talk about what I'm in the middle of

Fritz Coleman (00:02:58):

Watching. I can't wait to hear that. Yeah. It's all, it will. Maybe it'll be impetus for me to start something too. Yeah. I wanna talk about House of Gucci. This is at the Langley Theater, but it's gonna be streaming soon. Apparently. You know, I'm not supposed to review, but this is a great movie and, and if I'm recommending, I'm recommending, right. So I'm saying,

Louise Palanker (00:03:15):

I mean, we, basically, what you and I do, Fritz is like, without even like acknowledging that this is our process, we only talk about things that we're giving a good review. Yeah.

Fritz Coleman (00:03:23):

Because

Louise Palanker (00:03:24):

We're

Fritz Coleman (00:03:24):

Recommending, okay, so I, I didn't need to say that this movie was adapted from the book House of Gucci by journalist Sarah Gay Forden. It's the shocking, true story of the rise and fall of one of fashion's most famous dynasties. The Gucci Patricio Regana was an outsider with humble beginnings who married into the Gucci family. Her obsessive ambition was greater than the ambition of the family member. She married Maurizio Gucci. Now, when Patricio meets Maurizio, he didn't want anything to do with the family business, wanted nothing to do with leather. He had emancipated himself from all things Gucci. Then as he and Patrizia got more serious and ultimately married, she infects his thinking like the Delta variant and goes back to work at Gucci, which leads to his demise and the demise of the company temporarily. All I'm gonna say is Maurizio is assassinated. It's all on public record.

(00:04:28):

Again, it's a true story, but if you're not gonna read any of the raft of online stuff, I don't wanna give away too much about the plot. He doesn't make it through the end of the movie. But I think her role as Patrice a Ucci is probably gonna get Gaga, an Oscar nomination, maybe a win. She is so good at playing a woman who is gorgeous and manipulative and not to be denied what she wants. Truly an all-star cast Adam. Driver Maurizio excellent as well. Al Pacino plays Mauricio's uncle Aldo Gucci, Jeremy Irons as Rodolfo Gucci Selma Hayak plays a psychic that Patrizia has befriended and is mysterious and wonderful as a co-conspirator. But the pivotal role is Paolo Gucci, the sad loser, black sheep of the family played Unrecognizably by Jared Leto. If he doesn't get an Oscar, there's no justice on the planet. I'm telling you this. He is so good. It's crazy. This movie is about a toxic family tension along with betrayal and revenge and murder directed by Ridley Scott. Really good movie. Oh

Louise Palanker (00:05:33):

My goodness. I wonder if Gaga walks away with an Oscar and a free purse

Fritz Coleman (00:05:37):

<laugh>. Oh my God, she looks good. She, but I mean, there are times in this movie where that switch flicks and she goes a little crazy and really brings it. She's, she's quite talented. She reminds me of Barbara Streisand. You know, we all thought she was a singer. Then when the Funny Girl and all those came out, we said, oh my God, this woman's like three-dimensionally talented.

Louise Palanker (00:05:56):

Same with

Fritz Coleman (00:05:57):

Cher and Cher too. Yeah. And, uh, that's what I, that that's what I saw when I saw this really good movie.

Louise Palanker (00:06:04):

All right. That sounds unbelievable. But before

Fritz Coleman (00:06:06):

We, what are you delving into

Louise Palanker (00:06:07):

Before we introduce our guests? I would like to hint at what I am working on, the real story of Abba Bright Lights, dark Shadows by Carl Magnus Palm. Thus far, even more intriguing than the plot of Mama Mia. Although I have not yet encountered an ABBA member with three possible fathers.

Fritz Coleman (00:06:23):

<laugh>, I've,

Louise Palanker (00:06:24):

I've also begun watching The Beatles get back from Peter Jackson featuring tons and tons and tons of footage that would decorate any other cutting room floor. But it's The Beatles. And so Ringo ordering mashed potatoes and Yoko quietly sewing her fur coat are endlessly fascinating.

Fritz Coleman (00:06:40):

<laugh> fantastic.

Louise Palanker (00:06:41):

There's absolutely nothing on the cutting room floor. That's all in the movie.

Fritz Coleman (00:06:45):

Wow.

Louise Palanker (00:06:45):

Yeah. And in preparation for next week's guest, Fritz Cindy Williams wrote a book called Shirley I Jest by Cindy Williams.

Fritz Coleman (00:06:54):

And have you started reading?

Louise Palanker (00:06:55):

No, I downloaded it and that's the first

Fritz Coleman (00:06:58):

Step. I can't wait to talk to her. Yeah. You know, we had, um, we've had a couple of the people from Happy Days and, and, and people under the, uh, the Gary Marshall umbrella. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And every single one of those people just says that it was the pivotal old time in their life getting there, getting to work for him. So I'm looking forward to talking to her. Yes. Alright. I'm, I'm so happy to have this man. He's been a part of my life for many years. Barry Krick. He's a host and a producer of a much awarded television and podcast content series. He hosted his own show on p b s stations all around the country for 25 years. It was called Between the Lines with Barry Krick. The show won three Emmy awards. He interviewed the most famous authors in the world and turned the show into a multimedia enterprise and has brought it into the 21st century as a podcast.

(00:07:45):

By the same name between the lines of Barry Kibrick. He chatted with colorful global players like Queen nor of Jordan and Robert Rice of the Secretary of Labor with the Clinton Administration, Ron Howard and Rice of Stott Vampire Fame, Walter Mosley, Ray Bradbury, Elmore Leonard, and James Elroy, probably the, the four-legged stool of American, uh, letters right there. <laugh>, it's really a who's who really does a good job. And I, but I think he would probably agree that his greatest accomplishment, which he could only consider as a gift to himself and his family, was to come to Channel four <laugh> in Los Angeles in 1984 and produce two, but actually three. When, when you add what, a week in your lengthy bio you left out what, A week? I forgot what A week. Which is the precursor to John Oliver. I think we did just as good a job. Yes. Anyway, on the Fritz, it's Fritz, which followed Saturday Night Live and what a week, which was a weekend review where we lampooned the news, which was, honest to God, the best two or three years of my career. Barry, nice to have you.

Barry Kibrick (00:08:47):

Nice to have be here guys. I've been watching and listening to you guys and uh, I beg to come. So it's, uh, it's is why I wanted, wanted to be here. And I'm,

Fritz Coleman (00:08:56):

We love your podcast too. You really, um, we're gonna get into it, but you drill down. I mean, your John Densmore interview was really interesting. I mean, you're talking to one of the iconic rock drummers about quantum physics. I thought, wow, we'll never do that on our podcast. Cause anyway.

Barry Kibrick (00:09:12):

Well, he brought it up actually. No,

Fritz Coleman (00:09:14):

Cause he, no, it was

Barry Kibrick (00:09:15):

Great. You know, he heard my podcast with Nobel Laure at Frank Wilk. Yeah. And that's what made him wanna talk about it.

Fritz Coleman (00:09:20):

Yeah, no, it was, it was impressive. I'll just start him off with a question, cuz I want to dig way back in his career, cuz you had a really interesting start.

Barry Kibrick (00:09:27):

But before you do, I wanna say something, cuz you talked about Gucci, my wife who was sitting across from us, she is, was when we met the import supervisor for all of Gucci. No knows all of the people you talked about in that movie. And just for the record, I thought I'd share that with all and has a free purse. <laugh>. No, we, we did get a free piece of luggage when we got married. That was it. Wow.

Fritz Coleman (00:09:50):

I wish I knew that we would've included you in that in my, in my review. Have you seen the movie? No. No. It's mandatory that you see it

Barry Kibrick (00:09:57):

Now. Oh yeah. We plan to,

Fritz Coleman (00:09:58):

Yeah. And I'm sure you're gonna be able to pick it apart. The guy,

staff (00:10:01):

I just don't know, you know, I know, I know the names, but I don't know all the dirt and I don't know, I

Fritz Coleman (00:10:07):

Didn't even Wow. It, it's really a fascinating story. But there's a character in the movie Tom Ford, who is the Tom Ford who came and saved Gucci once they went bankrupt. And you know, he, he, he picked it apart as a review. But you can't look at it that way because it's a movie and, you know, it's Ridley Scott. It's not gonna be a reality. Completely. Anyway. Wow.

staff (00:10:25):

I'll be interested to see, cuz you know, they used to come from Italy and Yeah.

Fritz Coleman (00:10:31):

Oh, there the, it's like a, it's like a masterclass in acting the whole movie. So let me just ask you one question about the Iditarod and then we'll include wheezy in the conversation. Seven <laugh>. You started your career in Anchorage, Alaska Yes. As an anchor person and assistant news director. Right. And you covered the oddest, yet one of the most popular sporting events on the planet, the Iditarod race, which was a 1400 mile dog sled competition, and it was covered by the wide world of sports. Talk about

Barry Kibrick (00:11:00):

That. Yeah. Well, what happened was, uh, we had a, I had a great news director named John Valentine who just tell you the story about how I even got involved. It was one of those things, Fritz, where I was visiting my dad, who got tr who transferred up to Anchorage to work. And I met, I decided what is, he asked me, what did I want to do? And I said, I want to be in television. He says, well, here, you're in Alaska, maybe this will happen here. And I said, surely didn't happen in New York or New Jersey. So I went up to, uh, literally drove up the Stewart Highway. There was a building, it said a, b, c on a big scaffold. K I M O T V walked in, knocked on the door. I went on the air that night as the sportscaster. It's a good thing you got there when you, and as I say this guy, John Valentine, I'll give you,

Fritz Coleman (00:11:48):

They wouldn't had a sports caster.

staff (00:11:49):

They,

Barry Kibrick (00:11:49):

To show up this guy, they

staff (00:11:51):

Were vamping for

Barry Kibrick (00:11:52):

Hours. Let me, me just say, as I describe him, he makes Clint Eastwood look like Woody Allen. Wow. This was a, that's quite a sense. An animist, macho <laugh> man on the planet. And in fact, when I, all I did was talk to the receptionist to get the gig, and I said, you know, listen, I'm interested in, uh, working. I'll sweep the floors, I'll mop the, I'll carry the cable, whatever it is. I'll, I'll do it all. It doesn't matter. And I hear from the back and he goes, asshole, get in here <laugh>. And I say to the woman, I said, you know, I would never let anyone talk like that to you if I were you. And he goes, she goes, he's not talking to me that way, <laugh>. I go, well, I don't mind. I'm talking to

Fritz Coleman (00:12:33):

You.

Barry Kibrick (00:12:33):

That way's great. Walked into the room. He said, what's your name? I said, Barry Krick, you had no sports. I said, well, you know, I played football. I was the president of my varsity club. Yeah, I know sports. He says, you wanna go on the air tonight? I said, yeah,

Fritz Coleman (00:12:47):

That's the way to do it,

Barry Kibrick (00:12:48):

Ray. And he walked me into the room, went up to the person who was the sportscast. I said, you are fired. He's hired, went on the air. The main reason was he believed my New York accent would give a certain air of sophistication to the station because

Fritz Coleman (00:13:04):

Scare the crap outta the Eskimos.

Barry Kibrick (00:13:05):

Well, no, I had my biggest fans with the illusions and the yes of it. But

Fritz Coleman (00:13:10):

That's, that's how you start. You're have to sweat every mistake.

Barry Kibrick (00:13:14):

You don't. And then, and then I went, and it was his idea. He says, you no one ever covered this from start to finish. You wanna do it. I said, sure. And literally, we covered the Iditarod race from start to finish. Wide World of sports. We were an ABC affiliate. They heard about this going from start to finish. And they sent up a team and they caught the ending. And then what happened was, make a long story short, the ending, they couldn't capture because they didn't realize that the lights went out at 11 and it turned 12 o'clock. They had all these major cranes up there getting ready to shoot the finish line. We had a broken harness, so we couldn't even, and they wouldn't give us a tripod. So I called, called my news director and he said, don't worry, they'll get screwed. And I said, why? He says, wait till the lights go out. You'll be the only one on the ground. And sure enough, they ended up having to pay for us to get the footage. And my John Valentine said, oh, you're gonna pay, we were able to buy three cameras with what he charged us because they couldn't get the finish of the race. What

Fritz Coleman (00:14:14):

A cool guy from

Louise Palanker (00:14:15):

You got it. No, you're on a dog sled this

Barry Kibrick (00:14:18):

Whole time. No, I was in a, he, I had a fly in a helicopter. Okay. And to get, this was kind of strange, to get the shake out of the camera, they would roll me down, <laugh> on the helicopter, off out. So I would dangle and I would shoot and they would roll me back up and I would get back in and I couldn't press the trigger with the gloves on. So I took it off and I come back up into the helicopter and I said, geez, how could you break your finger by just pressing the camera? He goes, my God, why'd you take your glove off? I said, I couldn't fit it in the little hole there. And he said, you got frostbite. Wow. And that's, uh, but we covered the race. And, uh, and we saw, all

Fritz Coleman (00:14:59):

I can say is, thank God you covered it before global warming. It's a lot more boring now as a race.

Barry Kibrick (00:15:04):

<laugh>, it's a shorter

Fritz Coleman (00:15:04):

Race. <laugh>,

Louise Palanker (00:15:05):

It portage over a lot of grass. Wow. That, that's a story. Well, it just shows that you're that guy who just says, gimme a gimme a chance. I'm going for it. Open a door, you're plowing.

Fritz Coleman (00:15:17):

That's exactly what we did with our TV show. And

Barry Kibrick (00:15:19):

That's, that's exactly what we did to

Louise Palanker (00:15:20):

Do. That's one of the keys to success, is you just look for opportunities. And then when you, when when you find them, you don't hesitate. You just go,

Barry Kibrick (00:15:28):

Every gig I ever had, I never used a resume. Never once has anyone seen a resume of mine. It was always a knock on the door, put my foot in there and let them slam it, and then insist that I get an opportunity. And that's how it, that's how it's been.

Fritz Coleman (00:15:45):

So your TV show was on the air for 25 years on many markets?

Barry Kibrick (00:15:49):

Yeah. We were actually, we were in every market.

Fritz Coleman (00:15:52):

Wow.

Barry Kibrick (00:15:53):

But not on all the primary mar stations? No. So like on in Los Angeles, rather than being on K C E T mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we were on K L C S. So we were in a lot, in, in many of our markets, we were in what they would call their second tier p b s station. Some their first tier. Uh, but in many, we were also on their second tier. So, but we were in every market.

Fritz Coleman (00:16:11):

Right. Who were a couple of the, uh, of your best interviews, people whose experience with you stuck with you.

Barry Kibrick (00:16:19):

I will tell you that at, so we did over a thousand conversations. And what I, I think rather than say what was the best, cuz it's hard. I'll tell you though, the interesting people that I thought made an impression on me because they had an aura about them. One of them was Richie Havens.

Fritz Coleman (00:16:39):

Mm-hmm.

Barry Kibrick (00:16:40):

<affirmative>. Oh yeah. Richie Havens, when you meet him, he has a presence about him. Uh, when you talked about, uh, John Densmore, I had him on my show. He has a presence about him. One in particular fellow that you never would've heard of was John O'Donohue. He was a former Catholic theologian who be, who left the church and became, um, a poet. And his poetry and his sense of spirit and soul was so powerful that when he was sitting in the Green room again, there was like something around him

Fritz Coleman (00:17:21):

That it factor Yeah.

Barry Kibrick (00:17:22):

That it factor mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, and in fact, when he died at a very young age, and we were invited because he, he, we really loved each other in a certain way. And he, he came and I was invited to his little private home that was held in Mike Farrell's house. You know, Mike Farrell from Mesh. Right. And Steven Spielberg was there, there were a lot of people influenced by his words. And if I can recommend, there's a book called Between. In fact, it was after my show. He came up with this title I thought. But the space between us, and it is a beautiful book of blessings that you give to other humans. Hmm. Not to in service of God, but to other humans. So I would say that those two particular people, and as I said John Densmore, there were, and there were a few others, but they had an aura about them. Oh, Ramas another gentleman that had Oh, him or Yeah. You know, be here now. And, uh, he had also that little [inaudible] that makes you a little special.

Fritz Coleman (00:18:21):

Who was a nightmare, like pulling teeth.

Barry Kibrick (00:18:24):

Oh, I, I I I'm not gonna mention the name, I just won't do it cuz I don't know if they're alive. But I'll tell you, you may get it. Okay. Okay. It was someone who claimed to be a psychic. Oh, okay. Oh. Claimed to be a psychic. And, uh, I didn't want her on the show because I didn't believe in any of of that. But yet she wrote a book that was very spiritual. Is

Louise Palanker (00:18:49):

It Shirley

Barry Kibrick (00:18:49):

McClean? I'm not gonna say <laugh>, but it wasn't Okay. It was not, no. That was a good guess. Good guess. But, um, the, uh, and I said to her, I said, listen, if you want to do this, just whatever you do, don't do any psychic mumbo jumbo <laugh>. And cuz I know how to do that. I was a producer and we, we knew that there's a trick to do that. So she goes, oh, promise, I promise. I said, okay, great. She sits down and before I ask a question, she goes, I see an R <laugh>. Oh. And I said, I geez, you don't see no r i telling you I know how this is done. She goes, I see an M. Yes. Now there's an m Of course. You know, so that was the, the, the nightmare one. And then a strange one, two of them actually, one was supposed to be with Pete Rose. And this, I'll say, because I'm not angry at Pete, but Pete rather than coming sends the co-author of the book after I'm promised, wow. That Pete's coming. And that's true. The guy sits down and he says, well, Pete sent you a video tape. I says, what do you mean? He said, and he sets a video tape, a VHS tape shot out a frame all blurry that says, Hey bar, I'm glad I could be here with you today, <laugh> talk to so-and-so. And I said, nah, this ain't gonna work, fellas. Wow. That's the, that's

Fritz Coleman (00:20:07):

Why he's not in the Hall of Fame. You

Barry Kibrick (00:20:08):

Know, <laugh>, again, I don't, I I, because I I kind of hope he would get in the Hall of Fame. Yeah. So I, I I don't wanna be, I'm not taking No,

Fritz Coleman (00:20:18):

That was a cheeseball thing to

Barry Kibrick (00:20:19):

Do, man. That was a cheeseball thing to do. But maybe he was taken over by this power of the author that he wrote the book with. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the death. Okay. I'm not gonna be an anti Pete Rose Guy

Louise Palanker (00:20:32):

<laugh>. Well, Barry, I notice on your YouTube channel that one of the most popular videos that you've got up there is called The Art of s Seduction.

Barry Kibrick (00:20:40):

Oh yeah. Robert Green was just on the show last week again.

Louise Palanker (00:20:43):

Yes. So this guy has, I think people are just kind of seduced by that title and describe what it is that he, that, that, that he recommends, or that he advises, or what he thinks are impo important human values. That, and that take the creepiness out of the word seduction.

Barry Kibrick (00:21:00):

Well, first of all, he's most famous for a book called The 48 Laws of Power. Okay. And he was on the show just yesterday, literally yesterday we taped his new book called The Daily Laws, which is beautiful. You're seeing Robert Green, I can tell there mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, by the way, one of the key things he wants everyone to know. And if you read the book, it's truly about seduction. Not so much like, how do I get in your pants when you're at the bar. This is a true strategic book on how to use the art of seduction. This is the, and the bottom line is how he says, it's the ability to make the person you are with feel the wonder of being a child. Hmm. So it's what he's doing in his, when he studies seduction, he's not studying it as a way of getting

Fritz Coleman (00:21:54):

Romantic se it could be getting a job or just trying to convince somebody to be a

Barry Kibrick (00:21:57):

Friend. Exactly. And how to, how to get, how to get things ahead. Because when he wrote the Laws of Power, most of that was a, uh, what we'll call of a macho kind of bent. And he thought that women had as much power as men. And even if it was using a seductive form. And then he says, it's not sexist because he gives you men that use the seductive power and like a Rudolph Valentino and things like that. And, um, but he, it's sed and it's not, as I said, it's about a way of getting power That's his specialty. That's interesting. Is he studies power and he studies it on all levels. And he's brilliant. And he's just a wonderful, if you ever have an opportunity Yeah.

Fritz Coleman (00:22:39):

All your episodes are great. You, you've got a wide range of personalities on there.

Louise Palanker (00:22:44):

Yeah. You had a really nice conversation with Ron and Clint Howard, who have written a book together about their childhood.

Barry Kibrick (00:22:50):

They were so gracious. I, I, Ron and I, I had Ron on my show years ago, and I had his wife, Cheryl, his wife Cheryl, is a brilliant writer and really they have a, a wonderful relationship. And when we had Cheryl on, she saw my wife and my relationship and it, we bonded. So I've been in touch with Ron all these years and he's just, he's truly one of those guys that they say is the nicest guy in showbiz. And he really is.

Fritz Coleman (00:23:19):

And if you knew his dad, and I knew his dad because his dad would do the same thing I do. And same thing that lots of old men into Luca Lake do. They'd go sit at the counter at Patty's restaurant and look like they're homeless. And his father used to do that. And I would talk to him all the time. He was the nicest man talking

Louise Palanker (00:23:33):

About seduction. That is hot.

Fritz Coleman (00:23:35):

Yeah. You know what <laugh> <laugh>, uh, but you, you, you just, he was just a real human being and he went out of his way to raise his sons as real people with their feet on the ground. It's just a Burbank, you

Barry Kibrick (00:23:50):

Know? Yeah. And that's, and that's what the book's about. Yeah. It's really about his dad, Vance Howard mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it's all about how he looked after the boys and how he, he really also, you know, you're amazed at when you really get to know it. He did things for them. I'll give you a quick example that's in, in the book. Um, he would pull Andy Griffith aside and say, I don't think Ron should say it the way you are thinking he should do this. And he goes, who? You talk. And he, but he wouldn't do it in that kind of a manner. He was, he had a, he had a [inaudible] about him. He had

Fritz Coleman (00:24:27):

A seductive talent.

Barry Kibrick (00:24:28):

Yes, he did. And he, and, and he was able to change the way they viewed Ron in everything that he was in as a child. And it really helped Ron's career in, in many ways. And by the way, virtually all of the money you hear about stuff like with Britney Spears and things like that mm-hmm. <affirmative>, virtually all of the money except for them driving a 12 year old beat up car, went to the kids, the parents kept nothing. Yeah. To not even a small percentage, just enough to pay the bills. Father worked to get money and they never took the money from him. He

Fritz Coleman (00:25:04):

Gave his dad shots in his films and stuff, and it was cool.

Barry Kibrick (00:25:06):

Yeah. And his brother too, Clint plays in a lab.

Fritz Coleman (00:25:08):

His Yeah, I see Clint Clinks. Clint and I are Starbucks addicts and I see him at the Pass Avenue Starbucks at,

Barry Kibrick (00:25:14):

Yeah. He, they were both very charming. It was really a lot of fun.

Louise Palanker (00:25:17):

That's

Barry Kibrick (00:25:18):

Really, really. And then you had Marion on your show, right?

Louise Palanker (00:25:20):

We did. We've had, we're going, we're working our way through the cast. We, um, <laugh> we had Henry Henry's a friend of Fritz and I from, from way back. And then we had Anson and then we had Marion. So, uh,

Barry Kibrick (00:25:34):

And now you say you're getting, can I say Cindy?

Louise Palanker (00:25:36):

Is that Oh yeah. So Cindy Williams will be here next week's spinoff <laugh>. And we'll have Scott Beau. Sure. We'll talk why, why not? So

Fritz Coleman (00:25:44):

Well, before we start talking about the Fritz Extravaganza, I want to ask you about one more thing, cuz you broke ground in a couple of other areas. You also developed the first interactive transactional TV show on the sci-fi channel. What was that about?

Barry Kibrick (00:25:58):

That was crazy. After I did the Studio 59, which we, when we took over the Rick d Show at a abc, I did, um hmm. I have to admit, I I will say I behaved in a way that people thought was inappropriate. I wasn't, by that, I don't mean any sexual appropriation or anything like that. But because I was working at a B C, I had to fire Rick Dees.

Louise Palanker (00:26:24):

Okay. I I'm kind of like living vicariously through you because he fired me twice. <laugh>. Okay.

Barry Kibrick (00:26:29):

So, and by doing that, I had to fire his agency, which was William Morris. And I had to fire his management firm, which was Gall and Mory.

Louise Palanker (00:26:40):

Oh my

Fritz Coleman (00:26:41):

Goodness. He just lopped off the

Barry Kibrick (00:26:42):

Top of the, off the top

(00:26:44):

Of it. And I couldn't get a, a job if your life depended on it, you know, it was just, I was there, there was, nobody would return a call. Nobody would do anything. And then Phil Bu, who is, we both know, I called him up and he said, so you need a gig. I said, Phil, I need a gig. And he turned me on to this fellow Earl Greenberg who ran a company called Transactional Media. And he was a big player at NBC at one time. And they had, uh, he was an infomercial guru guy, did all these things with Susan White, I forgot her name with the short hair, and did a whole bunch of different things. Yes. Oh. And, uh,

Louise Palanker (00:27:26):

Wow. Dina.

Barry Kibrick (00:27:27):

And did a whole bunch of things like that. And what the sci-fi channel asked us to create an interactive selling show. So we would have a gimme give you an example. So we would have Scotty from Star Trek on the show. Okay. And Scotty would bring a chair that he was selling. Right. Which had, uh, his name on the back. Okay. And then we would talk with Scotty and we would sell his chair and we would do all these different things. So we'd have, like, if you had, um, R Shatner on the show, we would sell his books. If you had this guy, we would sell all the different things that would come on the show. And I'll never forget a

Louise Palanker (00:28:07):

Funny, the channel would take a piece and then he would give some, so it was like a hybrid talk show shopping network. Yes,

Barry Kibrick (00:28:12):

Exactly. Okay. It was a hybrid talk show shopping network. And the funniest thing was we, uh, had a buyer <laugh>, and, uh, he, I mean, this comes right out of a joke book practically because it's, but he, he had, he was the buyer and he found out that in Malaysia, something like that, they were actually created Star, star Trek stamps. And we had, again, another star Trekk, and I forgot who it might have been Officer Hulu. I don't remember who the heck it was. But we had somebody else on the show and we were then selling, and these Star Trek stamps flew out of there like you could believe Oh, bad. Yeah. But the problem was when he started to calculate, he put one extra zero oops. At the end, like, you know how you get confused with Italian money? Okay, well, Malaysian money I think has like, a billion dollars is 10 cents. You know what

Louise Palanker (00:29:08):

I mean? It's like their currency is

Barry Kibrick (00:29:09):

Pennies. It's pennies. Yeah, exactly. And so I'll never forget, every time we sold, we were losing money and we couldn't pull it off the air. Sci-fi channel didn't give a crap, you know? And, but we couldn't pull it off the air. And his response was, don't worry, we'll make it up in volume.

(00:29:28):

<laugh>. And I said, it's seven, it's a billion stamps later.

(00:29:32):

So we, it's basically, you know,

Louise Palanker (00:29:33):

Yeah. We had, you guys are still printing stamps, right? <laugh>. Wow. Wow, wow.

Fritz Coleman (00:29:41):

Alright, let's talk about

(00:29:43):

Our experience. You did three shows with me on the Fritz What a week, which was a retrospective. But the one that I really liked, which I thought was Cutting Edge, was It's Fritz, which was an hour variety show that followed Saturday Night Live for a couple of years. I did a monologue, we had comedians and we had bands, and we had sketches. And it was so much fun. It's the classic thing where you look back and understand how much fun you had when you're way too old to appreciate it. You know what I mean? Yeah. I look back, it was unbelievable. Talk about some of the people that we had on there, including Adam Sandler in his first television appearance.

Barry Kibrick (00:30:20):

And not only first television appearance, but obviously Saturday Night eight Live saw him Yeah. On our show. Yeah. And you know that, that character remember Yeah.

Fritz Coleman (00:30:29):

Eats Free. I know.

Barry Kibrick (00:30:31):

That became his character in

Fritz Coleman (00:30:32):

The waterway. It was so, it was so

Barry Kibrick (00:30:34):

Irritating. It was, it was. So that's what I thought. It was so irritating. But he was, and I didn't even

Fritz Coleman (00:30:39):

Want, we also run all running Bob Levitan booked him and we said, you know, this guy, well he, he's wasting our time here

Barry Kibrick (00:30:44):

<laugh>. But he becomes,

Fritz Coleman (00:30:45):

In the meantime, three weeks later, he is on Saturday Night Live.

Barry Kibrick (00:30:48):

Yes. And he becomes this ma you know who else we had on that, you know, we didn't discover him, but who was Sam Kinison? Remember

Fritz Coleman (00:30:55):

I'll, I'll, I'll tell you a story about Sam. We had Sam, we had Jim Carey, we had David Spade as comics, but Sam Kenon another, another interesting figure that people misunderstood. He scared people because of his, he was loud. He was loud. You know, I I, when I first met him, he was the manager of the Westwood Comedy Store and nobody got Sam Kenon. So at the end of the night when he wanted to clear out the room, he would go up on stage into a set and the audience would run for the Doors <laugh>. Cuz they were so freaked out. But he came to our show and, you know, he was knee deep in his cocaine addiction at that point, and hadn't been to sleep in like four days and smelled awful. And, but he brought me a gift. And at the Comedy Store, I don't know if she still did this when you worked there, wheezy, but Mitzi Shore, the owner of the Comedy Store, used to hand write the lineup of the comics and thumb tack it to the door. And that was like the iconic thing, her handwriting with your name on it. So he brought me a list of performers from the Comedy store, and on this rundown were Howie Mandel, Andrew Dice Clay, uh, Sam Kenon and Fritz Coleman. I said, okay, who is the lowest on the tax bracket on this whole thing now <laugh>. It's gotta be Fritz Coleman. And I thought, and I framed it and it's in my house now. But it was such a great gift. He had taken it and gave it to

Barry Kibrick (00:32:25):

Me. Let me tell you how great he really was. Cuz all I knew I met him that one time. Yeah. On your show. I had to do a sh I got the opportunity to do a show for Comedy Central. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and Oh, I'm not gonna talk into that. Cuz again, that's another story that will get me trouble. We comedy many Central Story. But, um, um, make a long story short, they, they said, you gotta get me somebody big. And I said, okay, we'll I, I'll see if I can reach Sam Kinison, Sam Kinison for no money. Aw. Came down, did the show left and just thanked us for giving him the opportunity. Didn't charge us a dime. It was low budget, we were funding it ourselves. The pilot got picked up. But, uh, Sam was just beautiful like that. He was such a beautiful

Fritz Coleman (00:33:10):

Soul. I'm still friends with his brother Bill, who with his wife owned a theater in Upland. A beautiful, they they bought this old movie theater and refurbished it and made it a performance space. And I did all my shows out there. It's a really cool space. And you feel like you're talking to Sam cuz he looks like him. He's a little bit older, but they're both evangelical ministers. And that's where Sam learned his chops. All that stage ing, yelling and screaming was, he used to preach on Sundays that way, except plug-in Bible verses instead of, you know, curse words. <laugh>. Yeah, right, exactly. So he was interesting. But, but, um, we, we, we gave a lot of people their first pop on television.

Barry Kibrick (00:33:48):

Mc Hammer,

Fritz Coleman (00:33:49):

MC Hammer. Wow.

Barry Kibrick (00:33:50):

The Proclaimers I'd walked 500

Fritz Coleman (00:33:53):

Miles. That's like, yeah. Yeah. And we had big bands. We had the Commodore, we had the Edgar winner band on there. But, but, but what comedically what we backed into not realizing it was gonna be successful, but it turned out to be successful, was we allowed standups to come on and flesh out a sketch based on one of their successful standup pieces. And so the punchline worked. You you knew the bit was gonna work. We just fleshed it out. And we had some hysterical, uh, John Mendoza in that funeral sketch,

Barry Kibrick (00:34:23):

John. Oh, we've had, we did some When you Ron Richards? Ron Oh, Ron Richards,

Fritz Coleman (00:34:28):

Who run an Emmy for writing on Saturday Night

Barry Kibrick (00:34:30):

Live. That was the one that wasn't, he did the Robinhood,

Fritz Coleman (00:34:33):

The Robert Hood. Yes. Mennonites.

Barry Kibrick (00:34:34):

Mennonites with you. And, uh, we had so many of them that did great bits that we would then Larry Miller remember as the doctor he had. Yes. And, and we, we took their bits and then we built a sketch around it. A sketch around it. Yeah. And it really was.

Fritz Coleman (00:34:51):

And it was great cuz you knew it was gonna work. Yeah. And they'd been doing these bits and clubs for years, but it just had many characters in

Louise Palanker (00:34:56):

It. Okay. So I have a question for the two of you. Where do those shows exist? Who owns them? And could we put them up on YouTube for everyone to

Barry Kibrick (00:35:03):

Enjoy? Uh,

Fritz Coleman (00:35:03):

Well, in Barry's

Barry Kibrick (00:35:04):

Garage no, I I actually do have all the masters. Yeah. But no, I gave them to Bob Levitan. Yeah. Cuz he then made DVDs of it. But n NBC owns them. Okay. So I didn't think, unless you've got some pull with K N B C and you want to try it, there

Fritz Coleman (00:35:18):

Was a period of time, you remember when David Letterman went on e they were doing reruns of David Letterman on E and our general manager had some inquiries about putting our show on E The problem was we didn't do enough episodes. We had to have like 65 episodes and we only had 25 or something. Yeah. But we, so we didn't get to, to do it.

Barry Kibrick (00:35:37):

So, you know, I, we, I have them. Okay. Or at least Bob Levitan has the masters, but I have the

Fritz Coleman (00:35:42):

DVDs. So you, you know about rights. If, if it, if it's our show and it's already broadcast, could we put 'em up on YouTube without NBC's specific? I

Louise Palanker (00:35:50):

Think we get 'em digitized, we put 'em up and we wait to be told to take 'em down.

Fritz Coleman (00:35:54):

That's interesting.

Louise Palanker (00:35:55):

No one's gonna take us to court. No one's gonna spend money on that.

Fritz Coleman (00:35:58):

Now, would we have to get permission from some of the stars that were on there to use their likeness or anything? No,

Barry Kibrick (00:36:02):

Not for you two. They already signed, already

Louise Palanker (00:36:04):

Signed that it's, we won't be making money. It's just sharing that with the world. Yeah. It's

Fritz Coleman (00:36:08):

Just for fun.

Louise Palanker (00:36:08):

Yeah. Yeah. So there's all kinds of stuff that goes up. Oh

Fritz Coleman (00:36:11):

Man. People still talk to me about that. Oh, you know, and another success we backed into Weezy was, you know, uh, the, the representation of new bands were looking for ways to get them exposure and give them television experience. So we had these record companies that would call it, I don't know who was booking the bands, Levitan or somebody was booking the bands. But we started to get these bands that were just on the verge of breaking, like drama. Rama Marys, Damon Marys Daners, Stevie Salas, color Code. These are all bands that went on to have national reputations, but they needed TV exposure for themselves. And we gave 'em their first pop.

Barry Kibrick (00:36:52):

Well, let me though, I have a little drama Rama story that goes right in with that. Okay. I was presented to bands Drama Rama by Bob and the crew and another band, and they said, which one do you prefer? And I love that drama Rama song. Right. Last cigarette I think it was called. So we didn't have the Red Hot Chili Peppers, just so you know. Well, no,

Fritz Coleman (00:37:14):

I remember that. We voted on that. No, we, no, we voted on that. You asked me my, somebody asked, Bob asked me, Bob was our, one of our producers and bookers, he asked me his opinion. He said, I, I think Ray Scholar would be too big for the room. We did it on stage five at nbc, which was slightly bigger than this room <laugh>. And they would've blown the roof off the place. And I thought, I don't know, are they too loud to be in

Barry and Fritz (00:37:38):

This? That's what I thought too. And I said, and I like drama, Rob. I know. I said, and then I know. Well, that's all. I'm glad I'm not the O I've, I've been bearing the guilt No. All this time that

Barry Kibrick (00:37:49):

I'm the one that screwed us out

Barry and Fritz (00:37:50):

Of the red hot.

Fritz Coleman (00:37:50):

No, you didn't.

Barry and Fritz (00:37:51):

Now

Barry Kibrick (00:37:51):

It's you.

Fritz Coleman (00:37:52):

If they were the red hot Chili Peppers of now, we would've, they would've been in no argument.

Louise Palanker (00:37:56):

All right. Let's talk for a moment, Barry, about how you continue to build more career pathways in a changing media landscape and how you advise for people to, to similarly, um, move their careers forward.

Barry Kibrick (00:38:10):

You know, it's, I think if you do everything, no matter what it is with enthusiasm and passion, and you don't stop, you can't fail. You know, it's now, I I don't make, I still don't make money really on the show. But, you know, you do it because you want to. And you, you love to be creative. You love to, and, and, and I think this would would hold true if you were an attorney. If you were an accountant, if you do your thing with enthusiasm, you can see pathways opening up. And in this case, I was resistant to do podcasting. I've came on very late to the scene. It's only, I think I only have 12 original podcasts done. And, um, but my son said, you know, dad, you got to, you're, and at the time, you know, thank again, a thank, but, you know, COVID came in and the studio, I, we couldn't do anything anymore.

(00:39:02):

So it was a, you know, when one door closes, another always opens up. And if you keep your eyes open for that, you'll be okay. And so I really just recommend that if you love what you want to do, and you, you do it, and you just put it out there and you know, if it clicks, it clicks. And if it doesn't click, it doesn't click. You could always stop and try something else. Or you can still do it if you enjoy it. So that's how I do it. Fortunately, because of the rep I had from my show on pbs, I'm able to still get great guests all the time. Which sometimes people can't really do. They can't get the, the kind of caliber guests that I happen to get on my show. But, uh, outside of that, you know, again, that's because a door closed and I just opened up another one. So I think that's the key. Do everything you can, no matter what it is with enthusiasm, keep your eyes open. And you know what also, and this is, I I, I learned this from, uh, John Densmore and Robert Green. Live your life with Wonder. If you live your life with Wonder and open yourself up to the miracles around you, you'll be able to pick one of them out. And, you know,

Fritz Coleman (00:40:21):

I I I give advice, which is sort of an adjunct to what you're saying to, uh, young interns at N B C when I was still employed. Um, and it, it's, it's, it's, you know, pursue your passion with enthusiasm because that enthusiasm will become infectious, particularly for people who are watching you to see if they want to give you an opportunity. But also I say the kid of your success is not necessarily talent. It's it, but it's drive and it's works well with others. I say, if you are somebody that people enjoy working with, uh, because it's such a small business, later on in the next project, people will remember it being a pleasant experience. Having you on board and you'll get hired, so works well with others, is at least 50% of the success of somebody in the, in the entertainment business.

Barry Kibrick (00:41:10):

You know, I heard a great line too, Louise, where, you know, the classic line is it's not what you know, it's who you know. But I heard it flipped a little bit and it was, it's not what you, it's not, it's not what you know, it's who knows what, you know. And that's also, that's kind of an interesting thing. If people, when I, when I, when my company hit that roadblock after abc, the station at K L C S T V saw my work in Chicago, they knew that I was working with no money and I made it look good. And that's when they said, can you do that for us? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I said, sure, I can do. Because they knew what I could do. And that, that's a another big thing. And yet, and you, and you don't wanna do it by publicizing yourself. You wanna let the work mm-hmm. <affirmative> be what, what stands out? Not your publicity about the work.

Fritz Coleman (00:42:01):

Well, we did that with our show. It's, Fritz was $30,000 a week. Am I right? That's the ballpark.

Barry Kibrick (00:42:07):

I, I think, but not, but not above, you know, part of

Fritz Coleman (00:42:10):

That, not, not above

Barry Kibrick (00:42:10):

The line. I was gonna say it only cost them about 10,000.

Fritz Coleman (00:42:13):

No. Cuz we were crossing over news crews, everything we crossing over, we have to stop the comedy now because there's a helicopter chase.

Barry Kibrick (00:42:19):

Exactly. Yeah. But it, so it wasn't really, it was a little lower

Fritz Coleman (00:42:22):

<laugh>. But what I wanted to say was, because I've, I've sat back and watched this guy's career with astonishment, and that is Byron Allen actually blew us out of our gig because Byron Allen created this business model that has been enormously successful to him. Um, even though the shows he creates are just, you know, they're okay. But he came in with his business model and my boss told me this story. He said, this is why I have to take your show off the air. Byron Allen comes in and says, I will give you my show for free. All I'm asking is that you would air three Ford 32nd spots in the middle of that hour, and the rest you can have, you can sell your own spots and I won't charge you a dime for the show. So Byron Allen makes his money with Ford or whatever the advert, Paul Mal, whoever the advertiser was, and that's the one that kills me, said, I, I can't afford to pass up this opportunity. John Roach told me. And I thought, wow. And so now Byron's a billionaire and he owns movie companies and the Weather Channel and everything else. So apparently it worked out well

Barry Kibrick (00:43:23):

For him. Yes. And I tried it and I made no money <laugh>. So it's, you know, again, it's just the way it is. I did that with between the lines. I said, listen, I'll give you the show for free and I'll get the sponsors.

Louise Palanker (00:43:35):

And that's how Premier Radio

Barry Kibrick (00:43:36):

Operates. Yeah. But I didn't get sponsors <laugh>. So just <laugh>. But it's, but that's

Louise Palanker (00:43:40):

Because you were on pbs. So there's a, there's a diminished audience. Yes. So it's, it's

Fritz Coleman (00:43:45):

Really, yeah. You had to go out and find Underwriters.

Barry Kibrick (00:43:47):

Underwriters and boy, they, that was, it's a nightmare. Right. It was a, for me it was. And you know, I, I never had a staff to really compliment. So what I did, here's something, I think if you talk about advice, Louise, you asked mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I said, one thing I give advice is I did something was I hired a lot of people on, on your show. And that was, I did forever that I liked mm-hmm. <affirmative> that I wanted to work with. And unfortunately were kind of like me. We had the same talents. What I should have hired was businessmen, accountants, you know, all sorts of different people who could surround me with the things that I didn't have salesmen, things like that. That's where if I, I can give somebody advice from what I didn't do, although I'm not complaining. I, my life still turned out wonderfully mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But it's just, you know, I didn't do that. So Byron created a business first Yeah. And then a,

Fritz Coleman (00:44:42):

A show, and then he became irritated so people couldn't turn him down. Yes.

Barry Kibrick (00:44:46):

Right. And we, we, we concentrated more in our lives, by the way, in all of our lives. I know that you, with your standup and you with your, the work that I saw you do, even with to teenagers, you give advice with we,

Louise Palanker (00:44:56):

Well, no, no, no. Nothing ever made any money after Premier, premier was a miracle where I tumbled into people who were good at business. Right. I was the creative energy, but I just kind of collided with them at Kiss fm when I was writing for Rick Ds. That was a miracle. I wouldn't have figured that out on my own. But it's exactly what you're describing. Where there were people who are strong, where I am weak, and we were just a magical,

Fritz Coleman (00:45:20):

Uh, and and that perfectly describes the conundrum that Barry and I were in at Channel four. Had, we had somebody that knew the syndication business Right. Or knew how to take this thing to the next level who said, okay, we've only done 24, but if we could do another year's worth and sell 60 episodes mm-hmm. <affirmative> to e entertainment. Right. Then we have a national platform. But there was just nobody around that had that experience. And I'm just a goofy weather man. What do I know? And so I I, I always sort of lamented that we didn't have a mentor to sort of guide us through that process a

Barry Kibrick (00:45:52):

Little bit. I, I think that's, and I, I found that in, in almost <laugh>, everything I've done is I charge ahead and ask questions later. Yeah. But there's something fun about that too. That's why I'm saying I don't wanna put that down because, you know, it, it's, it, it's kind of an exciting way to live. I, I think Ray Bradberry told me this when he was on my show and mm-hmm. You talk about it, one of the pillars of mm-hmm. Of literature. And he said, you know, sometimes I just jump and then I build my parachute on the way down, <laugh>. Oh my goodness. And that's what I kind, kind of find that I do. I jump and then I figure out how I'm gonna land. And it's supposed to be the other way around. And most financially successful people do it the other way around. But I don't know if happier people do it the other way around. That's

Louise Palanker (00:46:39):

Interesting. Also, it could be that the innovators do it the way you're doing it. You, you're forced to innovate when you need a parachute in mid-air. Exactly. And you're, you're the one that's guiding the way for, for other people, inspiring other people that maybe, you know, will kind of align themselves early in life with a, you know, like a Steve Wazniak and a Steve Jobs kind of a combo where there's someone that's just like gifted at business and someone who's just a, a genius and they, and they mash up and history is made. But I wanna talk to you for, for a moment about your interviewing technique, cuz I, I, I did find it very engaging that you immediately get to the heart of what matters to the people that you're talking to. And then I read an article that said, you don't actually ask any questions, you just make statements. <laugh>, can you talk

Barry Kibrick (00:47:28):

About that a little bit, bit? Yeah. I, um, I, I don't ask you, I won't be asking you guys questions. You're gonna be on the show in, in a couple of days. Uh, unless by the way, I, I don't, I don't, it's not that I don't ask questions if a question comes up endemically within the conversation Sure. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but for the most part, it's, it's the opposite of what Larry King did. Larry King always believed that he wanted to be like his audience and never read the book and just make believe he didn't know anything. And I thought that seemed like I would be cheating. If I'm having that guest on, I should know what it is. And then what I do is, I, it's, it's ego. I take the things that are interesting to me mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I tell 'em, Hey, this is what you wrote, but I find this very interesting. And therefore it automatically gets right into the thing. You know, it's never all those other types of questions that really, the publicist basically give you the, the sheet and you can just read the talking points. I've never had one of those identities.

Fritz Coleman (00:48:28):

Well, see, you're already a winner because first of all, and we experienced this on our show, wheezy is meticulous about reading every book. I try to, but I I, I can't get through them all. But first of all, the guest is more comfortable when they understand that you took the interest to read the book. They love that. And so the Larry King thing may be on a subconscious level. Well, you know, I'm the audience and I'm, I just wanna be inquisitive about it. But when the guest finds out that you, you took time to learn the material, they love that. And it's an easier

Barry Kibrick (00:48:59):

Interview. And in fact, Larry King asked to come on my show. Wow. And I said to him, literally, I said, why would you even want to come on my little p bs show? Because you're Larry King. You just, you're on cnn. And he and his, I'm not gonna try to imitate Larry King, but it was because Nancy Reagan said, you gotta go on this guy's show. Oh. And he said, why? He says, because he'll be the only one that'll get you and read the book. So it was, you know, and that's, that's, you know, that that was it. And, uh, and, and as I said, it's not just reading the book, but it's how you put how I put my spin on the material mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that's what I do. So therefore, even if you don't have a book, like neither of you guys are gonna have a book. But I'm gonna put my How do you

Fritz Coleman (00:49:49):

Know I'm not gonna have a book?

Barry Kibrick (00:49:50):

I I Well, you book Well, you better give it to me because, uh, you're coming on in two days <laugh>, by the way. Oh,

Fritz Coleman (00:49:55):

You mean, oh, I, oh, I, I

Barry Kibrick (00:49:56):

See what you're saying. You see. So, um, but I, I, I will find out things that interest me about you. Right. And like, for instance, listening to all of your podcasts for the last gosh knows how long I've been, I think you're ready. I'm ready. But, um, so that's how, uh, I do it. And, and that's, uh, the enjoyment I get out of it.

Fritz Coleman (00:50:13):

Uh, we have found that, uh, if, if, if you show an interest in the material, it really puts the guests at ease. And they, they love

Barry Kibrick (00:50:20):

It. Yeah. Well that's what you guys do. So beautiful here. And that's, that's why we're doing this together, even because we, we, we share a certain sensibility sometimes when I, when I listen to you, I, I go, you know, that's how I would approach things. So again, I wish you were a business person so you could get us all money. Louise. I wish. Come on. Weezy, <laugh>, Fritz. We were already ruling

Fritz Coleman (00:50:42):

You out. I, I'm clueless. I good. I should. Well,

Louise Palanker (00:50:45):

Maybe, maybe there's a business person

Fritz Coleman (00:50:46):

Listening, you know, maybe. So

Barry Kibrick (00:50:48):

Yes, we could all use that. We can

Fritz Coleman (00:50:49):

Make you a lot of money before we, uh, leave the topic of my show, because it is all about me. I don't think we're ever leaving that <laugh>. Okay. Um, I, there's just a couple of things that I'm proud of, and I, there aren't that many people I can commiserate with and be, uh, communally proud with. And you're the producer of the show, but was our amazing band. We had a house band that was like an all-star band. Tell, tell him about

Barry Kibrick (00:51:13):

That. We had, well, it was first of all, formed by Lawrence Juer, who was the lead guitar player for Paul McCartney in Wings. And, um, he formed the band he had on, by the way, all of these people live right in this neighborhood. We had on, uh, Bruce Garry, who was the drummer for the Knack and the classic sound of my Sharon. He was our drummer. And then we had D Bassman, Phil Chen, who was Rod Stewart's spaceman for, do You Think I'm Sexy

Fritz Coleman (00:51:44):

And Now Does The New Doors Tour

Barry Kibrick (00:51:45):

News. Him and John Densmore. We, in fact, if you listen to the whole thing, we talk about Phil in the, in the podcast, even just this great guy. And then Lawrence, God bless him, and he does, he is literally one of the legends of guitar. Yeah. People know Eric.

Fritz Coleman (00:52:04):

He's 12 string guitar Virtuoso. He's had like 30 albums.

Barry Kibrick (00:52:07):

Oh, yeah. But he is truly a master. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and his wife Hope also very creative. And in fact, his daughter is up

Fritz Coleman (00:52:15):

For, she's a producer now,

Barry Kibrick (00:52:16):

Uh, for an Emmy. Yeah. She's up for, uh, not an Em a Grammy. Grammy a Grammy.

Fritz Coleman (00:52:21):

His, they're a big, and, and his wife, uh, hope Juer is the daughter of, um, Sher, which what Sherwood Schwartz, who did, you know, the Brady Bunch. Yeah. The Brady Bunch. And Gilligans Island. Gilligans Island. And

Barry Kibrick (00:52:34):

Very talented,

Fritz Coleman (00:52:35):

Really talented family. And now their daughters are Grammy

Barry Kibrick (00:52:37):

Winning. And by the way, you know, if you, Lawrence makes me sick for one reason. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he's so damn handsome. It's unbelievable. He looks a little bit like a Paul McCartney even. Yeah. But emer, I know that sounds funny. And as he gets grayer, he looks handsomer and handsome,

Fritz Coleman (00:52:53):

But he, but he's so dialed into the music industry. We had all these great guest players, you know, well, John

Barry Kibrick (00:52:58):

Mayhaw

Fritz Coleman (00:52:58):

Played his John Mayhaw. Oh. Played Booker t Booker t played Booker t Jones. I have a picture of him.

Barry Kibrick (00:53:03):

Bobby Krieger of

Fritz Coleman (00:53:04):

The War, Robert Krieger. Um, and, and then, I can't remember the guy's name, but he was the keyboardist for Bonnie Rate. What was his name? That was, he sat in with us, maybe every other show. I can't remember his name. That's

Barry Kibrick (00:53:18):

It. Do you

Fritz Coleman (00:53:19):

Remember? I don't know if he was the traveling keyboardist, but I'll think of it before we're done

Barry Kibrick (00:53:23):

Here. Okay. But yeah. Well, we had some delay. We had, uh, we had some great sit-in musicians. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, Mike Finn.

Fritz Coleman (00:53:29):

Mike Finnegan.

Barry Kibrick (00:53:32):

No, I don't think so. Doesn't that doesn't sound familiar. No. But we, but we did have some, uh, there were, who were some of the others? There were a few more that we cat fit who I know who we had that was so great. The saxophonist for Pink Floyd. Oh, yeah. Remember? And he did Harlem Nocturnal Right. With this bass saxophone. Oh my God. And then we had, uh, Herman's Hermit who, who, who did a bit with us, Peter Noon.

Fritz Coleman (00:53:56):

Yeah. He was great. Yeah. I love him. And my co-host was Max Alexander. God rest his soul. Oh, max. Yeah. And Max came up with one of the best bits that probably could have ended up on Saturday Night Live. He played a Scottish weatherman. Oh God. Where he wore, where he wore, you know, he weighed like 400 pounds and he wore a kilt. And you talk about Haggas. Yeah. Well, every forecast included Haggas.

Barry Kibrick (00:54:18):

Well, I, I, I, I'll, can I tell a funny story that we did? Well, one of the things was at N B nbc, the sensor that we had to show all the material to mm-hmm. <affirmative> was blind. Okay. It will build something. He was a blind sensor. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So nothing with words we could ever get around him, but images <laugh>, we could. And one of the, and he, he didn't see it, but one of the bits that Frid Fritz would do was he would show, we, he would show the materials that were out that he thought were interesting little tchotchkes or something like this. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And we had, I'll never forget this, we had a Magic Johnson coffee mug Okay. That had a last La lat that you could wear around you and carry it along. And Fritz's line was, he, he doesn't remember. He goes, and he points down, he goes, who wouldn't want a Magic Johnson <laugh>? And, and the place goes up laughing. And before we were a little delay. And the, and, and Bill, the guy says, what is so funny about that <laugh>? And I says, beats me, they must love Michael j Mika, uh, magic Johnson, because he didn't see what Fitz was doing. But, uh,

Fritz Coleman (00:55:36):

But about sensors, one night by accident, you know, we, we posted the show like you do with yours, and we, we somehow, the raw tape, the unedited tape made it on to broadcast. Ooh. Do you remember that night? No. Oh, of course you do. And, and Aaron called me at like one o'clock in the morning, said, this is the wrong tape. Oh, oh, yes. And, and there was profanity and there was, it was awful. And don't you remember that?

Barry Kibrick (00:56:07):

Oh, I, I, I, you know, I remember the panic. That's all I remember. <laugh>. Oh

Fritz Coleman (00:56:12):

My God.

Barry Kibrick (00:56:13):

Wow.

Fritz Coleman (00:56:14):

But anyway, well, we're gonna have memory. Thank you for allowing me those memories. Not that that's your entire life, but it was almost mine.

Barry Kibrick (00:56:20):

Uh, no, come on. It was a beautiful, it was really, we had a camaraderie on that show that, um, that was really just beautiful, as I said, because we hired people that I liked. Yeah. But you know, there's a benefit there.

Fritz Coleman (00:56:33):

We had great writers on this show. Yeah. Randy Fe

Barry Kibrick (00:56:35):

And Randy was great. Yeah. But did

Louise Palanker (00:56:37):

Fritz ever like really piss you off?

Barry Kibrick (00:56:39):

Never. Fritz could never piss anybody.

Louise Palanker (00:56:42):

Gimme one Good story.

Barry Kibrick (00:56:44):

I

Louise Palanker (00:56:44):

Can't. Or he comes in drunk and just railing at all the interns.

Barry Kibrick (00:56:47):

No. I could tell you when I produced took over abc, I could tell you some. Richard Belzer. Oh, yeah. Rib Bells. I love the bells. But he threw two things at my head. He threw a TV

Louise Palanker (00:56:58):

And

Barry Kibrick (00:56:58):

Missed, missed. He threw a TV at my head. Wow. And the remote control at my head. I had a dodge and duck, you know, but I love him still. He was still, he was a great guy and a great talent, you know? Yeah. But no, Fritz, I don't recall Fritz. I don't, I don't remember you raising your temper.

Fritz Coleman (00:57:16):

I was anesthetized at that moment.

Barry Kibrick (00:57:18):

<laugh>, I just, I, I, he was just, he's just a, he's, you know, we talk about Ron Howard. Yeah. As far as local men go, <laugh>, nationally, Fritz would be one of the nicest men.

Louise Palanker (00:57:30):

A gentleman.

Barry Kibrick (00:57:31):

Yeah. A true gentleman, a mench and just a, a good man.

Fritz Coleman (00:57:34):

I would be, I would be the nicest in a very specific geographic area.

Barry Kibrick (00:57:38):

<laugh>.

Fritz Coleman (00:57:39):

But Max Alexander, and I'm not saying this is a criticism, because this is a, this is a disease, but Max was narcoleptic. Oh. And we used to have writer's meetings and Max would not out during the writer's meetings. Oh. And at first we thought it was boredom, and then we realized it was narcolepsy. He would just, he would just go to sleep.

Barry Kibrick (00:57:59):

Oh, I'm telling you, we had a narc tic cameraman at K L C sst. Oh my God. And it was my camera that he was on <laugh>, so I'm not saying who, but he was narcoleptic. And I'll never forget, cuz I as the producer and the host, you have to watch the monitor and you have to watch the guest. You have to do everything, you know, and all of a sudden I see the camera just going up, <laugh> up and him going down, <laugh> down down. And, uh, so yeah, that and Oh, yeah, I do remember Max, that was very, you know what, Jerry was funny, but he'd wake up and he'd be right in the middle of it. He'd like, he'd know. We, we know

Fritz Coleman (00:58:36):

He didn't miss. And honestly, I'm not criticizing, he was so funny and so naturally funny. And he was Jerry Lewis's famous fav favorite standup comedian.

Louise Palanker (00:58:43):

I just wanna give Max credit for this line because it's been lifted by both large people and skinny people. Max's opening line, he gets on stage, he moves the mic stand, and he said, I just wanna make sure you could see me <laugh>.

Barry Kibrick (00:58:56):

I've

Louise Palanker (00:58:57):

Seen large people do it. I've seen skinny people do it. Yes. It gets a laugh. It's Max's and you've stolen it. Yeah.

Barry Kibrick (00:59:02):

Thank you. I remember Max, that's when he auditioned for the show. That was how he opened up the, the audition.

Fritz Coleman (00:59:09):

He was one of those guys. And the person who I think does this the most brilliantly is Stephen Wright, but Max was funny with the fewest possible words.

Louise Palanker (00:59:19):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> economy. It's

Fritz Coleman (00:59:21):

So funny. And just kill you. And that's sort of that dead bang hang dog look. Anyway, those are all my memories. Thank you for letting me relive a few of 'em.

Louise Palanker (00:59:28):

Oh God. All right, Barry, I'm invited. Any time for that before we talk about, uh, or beg people to review our show. Uh, where can people find and review your

Barry Kibrick (00:59:36):

Show <laugh>? They can, uh, uh, we are, it's between the lines with Barry Krick. In fact, all you have to do is put my name in any podcast, uh, provider, and you'll find it. It's on iTunes, it's on Spotify, it's on Google, it's on every app. Or you can actually just go to my website, barry krick.com and see all the episodes there. They're, and they're

Louise Palanker (00:59:57):

All on

Barry Kibrick (00:59:57):

YouTube too. And they're also all on YouTube, so, uh, yeah, they can find them. Anyway, it's just easier to use my name because I stole between the lines. I mean, that's been a name. That was just a saying. And then I stuck my name on it. And then if you Google my name, by the way, everyone says, you know, you have to have that, or, well, there is no other Barry Krick, so it's beautiful. Just Google Barry Krick, and you'll find all my podcasts and, um, and, uh, hopeful. Well,

Fritz Coleman (01:00:22):

You do a good job. You're, you're a great interviewer.

Louise Palanker (01:00:24):

Yes. You really are. Thank you. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yes, go ahead,

Fritz Coleman (01:00:27):

Fred. Well, if you enjoyed this episode of Media Path, it would help us to be more discoverable by potential new listeners. If you leave us a quick review on Apple Podcast, and if you're new here and this is your first time with us, please check out our back catalog. Most of it has been proclaimed binge worthy by people who know. We did a whole show about Motown and just a couple of weeks ago did a show with Mark Miller, whose father was the first white songwriter on the staff at Motown. We did a show about Mark felt, who was identified just before he died. It's the famous Deep Throat of Watergate Frame. It was a great show. We did a show, a very revealing hour with Michael Reagan, the son of Ronald Reagan. He was so honest and really, uh, forthcoming with some very personal stuff. We had a great chat with Yeezy's Close friend, and maybe the one of the greatest songwriters in history, Diane Warren. They're all there. So please check those out, and I know you'll find something that will make you happy.

Barry Kibrick (01:01:20):

Can I give a plug too, real quick, please, for you, when I listen to your guys podcast, the chemistry that you have brings out the best in every single guest you have. And that's what makes it so special. It's not the guests, it's the chemistry that you two have and how you relate to your guests. I've been enjoying it so much. It's been just a thrill. Thank you

Fritz Coleman (01:01:42):

Guys. That's, that's a nice compliment coming from you. Appreciate that.

Louise Palanker (01:01:44):

Really nice compliment. Thank you so much, Barry. We would love for you to join us online on Instagram and Twitter, where we are at Media Path Pod, and on Facebook where we are. Media Path Podcast. You can find full episodes with all kinds of bonus visual content on our YouTube channel Media Path podcast. We would love to know what media you have been enjoying, so you can contact us at our social media or email us at Media Path podcast@gmail.com. We wanna thank our wonderful guest, Barry Krick. Our team includes Dina Friedman, Francesco Demond, John Maddox, Sharon Bello, bill Fiac, Thomas Hubble, Mason Brown, and you. Our theme music is by me and John Maddox. I am Louise Lanker here with Fritz Coleman and Barry Crip and Barry Krick. And we will see you along the media. Cat.

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