An Interview with John Barbour - Part Three

Kliph Nesteroff: March 1966 - Art Linkletter introduced you on the Talent Scouts show.

John Barbour: The producer was a guy named Perry Cross. He booked me because he heard my It's Tough to Be White [comedy] album and he loved it. He called me into his office, "How'd you like to do Talent Scouts?" I said, "Really? Do this material on the air?" He said, "No, no, no. You have to write something else, but I'd love you to be on the show. Maybe in some way it will help your album." I wrote some material and the guy who introduced me was a wonderful comedian named George Gobel. Gobel was an alcoholic, but had one of the great, early comedy shows written by a friend of mine - Hal Kanter.



He was the best one-line joke writer in America and he wrote for the Academy Awards for twenty years. Anyway, George Gobel comes into the dressing room with a bottle of booze and two glasses. "Would you like to share one with me before you go out?" I said, "Mr. Gobel, I don't drink." He said, "Not at all!? Jesus! How can you go up there all alone?" I was one of two people invited to do a second shot on Art Linkletter's Talent Scouts. In one corner seat was Art Linkletter's wife. In the other corner was his girlfriend. That's all I remember!

Kliph Nesteroff: March 1966 your were on The Louis Lomax Show.

John Barbour: Ohhh... yes. Louis Lomax was a Black newsman who had a show in Los Angeles. He had me on to talk about the It's Tough to Be White album and my experience performing at the California Club in Watts. 

Kliph Nesteroff: And then you wrote a few sitcom scripts with a guy named Whitey Mitchell. The Tammy Grimes Show and...

John Barbour: Whitey Mitchell was the brother of Red Mitchell. They were both bass players. He was introduced to me by my downstairs neighbor Mort Lachman. Mort Lachman became the headwriter of The Bob Hope Show. He called me one day, "This kid Whitey Mitchell is tired of being a musician. He wants to be a writer. Can I send him up to talk to you?" I was a struggling stand-up comedian barely making a living. Whitey came up and told me he wanted to be a writer. His real name was Gordon. I said, "Gordon, I don't want to write sitcoms or any of that stuff."

He said, "Yeah, but you're not even working half the time! Do it for me, will ya?" So the first thing we did was a Get Smart script. We wrote a script about counterfeiting S&H green stamps. The producer loved it, but for some legal reason they couldn't do it so they asked us to write something else. So we did that, a Gomer Pyle and The Tammy Grimes Show. I got tired of it, but then we got a call. The Writers Guild used to have this terrific awards show. We were called to come work on it with Hal Kanter and a bunch of others. Hal Kanter had this opening for the Writers Guild show. Thanks for the Memories plays and the curtain opens and Groucho Marx comes out saying, "Ain't it great to hear that music and then not have that guy show up?"

It was a pleasant opening - and Groucho refused to do it. So Hal wrote a different line about Lew Wasserman. "I don't want to do any jokes about Lew Wasserman tonight because I hate to kick a dog when he's up." Another cute line! And he refused to do that. Hal Kanter said, "Groucho, you're a star for Chrissake. Why are refusing to do it?" He said, "Because I like Bob Hope and I don't want to offend Lew."

Neil Simon wrote a thing that night for Walter Matthau. Walter Matthau onstage was so funny and so charismatic. He didn't even need joke lines because his whole attitude was so wonderful. Anyway we did that show and afterword I said, "You know, Gordon, I can't do this anymore. Find another partner." He found a guy named Lloyd Turner, a one-armed writer, and they were eventually on staff at Mork and Mindy.

Kliph Nesteroff: May 1968 - you were scheduled to play the Copacabana, but I don't think it happened...

John Barbour: Oh my God, what a... Yes, absoloo... how did that get... where did you find that information? My God. Yeah, I had just worked at a place called Bimbo's in San Francisco, which was sort of a "hood-ish" club. I worked there with Dionne Warwick. There was some guy from the William Morris office who took umbrage at one of my jokes and talked Dionne Warwick into canceling me from the Copacabana. My agent was a guy at William Morris named Murray Schwartz. Murray was the only agent at William Morris who believed in Merv Griffin.

When Merv was dumped from NBC he ended up playing dinner theaters in the Midwest, but he would sell out. Murray Schwartz went to NBC and talked them into rethinking Merv. He hosted a game show and then ended up with Westinghouse. He became Merv's personal agent and ended up having to sue Merv years later when Merv sold his company to Coca-Cola. Anyway, at one of the agent offices, they had a direct line to a guy named Frank Costello.

He was one of the major mobsters in New York. The guy who ran the Copacabana was named Jules Podell and he talked like [gruff voice]. He really talked like that. Anyway, they booked a girl named Caterina Valente. She had this gorgeous high range voice, was extremely popular and Italian. She was rehearsing and at the end of her first song she puts her arms way up as she hits the high note - and what do you see? Hair under her arms. So Murray gets a call from an associate of Frank Costello's on the private line. "Call Jules Podell." Podell says, "You get somebody down here and tell that broad she has to shave!"

Murray's boss comes in and says, "Murray. You have to go to the Copa and tell Ms. Valente that she's in America now and she has to shave under her arms." Murray says, "I can't do that!" He says, "Murray, if you don't do it then you are no longer with William Morris!" So he goes down there and goes into the dressing room. She's fixing her make-up and you can see the hair under her arms. He goes to Jules Podell, "Please Mr. Podell. I can't tell her to shave. I just can't." "Kid, you do it or I'll see to it you're no longer with William Morris." He said, "Then I'm no longer with William Morris. I just can't do it." Podell says, "Screw you, you coward! I'll do it!" So Podell goes into the dressing room, "Ms. Valente!" "Yes, Mr. Podell?" "Tonight! You... you... you wear a sweater!"

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

John Barbour: (laughs) Anyway, I had really been looking forward to working the Copacabana, but because of the Morris office taking offense at one of my jokes I never got to play it.

Kliph Nesteroff: You played Las Vegas - The Fremont, with John Gary.

John Barbour: Yes I was John Gary's opening act. In 1969 I was Bobby Darin's opening act at the Landmark. He was recovering from a long depression after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. That's when he wrote If I Were a Carpenter. He wanted to wear jeans onstage and the hoods resented that. They made him wear a tuxedo. Working Vegas in those days was an absolute joy.

Kliph Nesteroff: We talked about your minor feud with Johnny Carson. At one point when you had your own commentary show with Metromedia you were called out in the Los Angeles Free Press by the great writer Harlan Ellison. He was calling you "a poor man's Joe Pyne."

John Barbour: Oh God! Yeah! Harlan Ellison wrote a column called The Glass Teat. It was a very literate and well-written column. Well, the night I sat in for Merv Griffin I interviewed Jean Claude Killy, a famous skier. I did my monologue and all the rest. Anyway, Harlan writes this scathing review of me. He came close to calling me a fag... that's how offensive it was.



When I was doing my show for Metromedia, I wanted to be like Jack Paar. In other words, I wanted to find people who were bright and interesting and bring them on the show. I didn't care if they were known or unknown. It made no difference to me as long as they were interesting. I thought, "God, this guy Harlan Ellison can really write." I got the number of the Free Press and I called him. He answered the phone, "Ellison here!" I said, "John Barbour here." He said, "Holy shit!"

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

John Barbour: I said, "How would you like to be on my Metromedia show?" He said, "You're shitting me. After what I wrote about you?" I said, "I think you're wrong, but if you can talk as well as you can write then you'd be interesting." I brought him on the show to talk about television and his article The Glass Teat. After the show he went to the Channel 11 program director and asked for my job (laughs). But Harlan and I became friends and I booked him for years. Every time I had a show I booked him.

Kliph Nesteroff: I want to ask you about a couple other Los Angeles based personalities, one of whom you already mentioned - Joe Pyne.

John Barbour: Joe had a radio show and he called a guy named Chuck Young who was manager of Channel 11. He screamed into the phone. "My name is Joe Pyne and I'm going to be on your station!" Well, Chuck was so taken with that - he put him on. He was the first Rush Limbaugh, the first Sean O'Hannity, the first Bill O'Reilly. He had one leg. When I did his show he sat at one end and I sat at the other end. When it was over he said to me, "John, I'm sorry, but I didn't want you to sit next to me because I like you." He always had to be sort of confrontational, but he was very nice to me. 

Kliph Nesteroff: I read that Bob Hope was instrumental in your getting a contract with NBC.

John Barbour: No, he had nothing to do with that. But the reason Bob Hope came on my show was because I saw a Bob Hope special and it was absolutely dreadful. I was on NBC and I said, "At sixty-five I have to retire because, like those who work in factories, it's compulsory. Well, they should have the same law for comedians - or ex-comedians - like Bob Hope." His show was awful and it looked like he was reading his jokes off of idiot cards. Well, people scattered at NBC! The phone started to ring.



His lawyer called, his agent called and then the general manager comes over to my little shell of an office. "John, you're going to have to talk to these people soon because I'm tired of defending you. I can't do it anymore." The phone rings and this voice says, "Hey, pal! What I ever do to you?" It was Bob Hope. I said, "You bored me, that's what." And I just talked about it. There was this long silence and I said, "Mr. Hope, you were one of my favorites when you were in radio and movies. I absolutely loved you! But you were just God awful on your special and shame on you for not being more professional."



So he said to me, "You know, NBC doesn't want me. You know how I got that hour? I went out and played golf with the head of Exxon Oil." He told me that he was too old for NBC's demographic, so the only way he could get the time slot was if the oil company bought the hour. I said, "My God, you're kidding?" He said, "Yes, that's how it works." So we ended up having this wonderful conversation and talked about his early days in vaudeville. He said, "I have some money, but I'm not as smart as people think. When I was in vaudeville, I thought it would last forever. And it didn't. When I was doing radio I thought it would last forever. And it didn't. But you know what lasts forever? The land they build the vaudeville stage on. The land they build the radio station on. Whenever I negotiated my contract with NBC, I didn't ask for more money. I made them buy land. That land you're sitting on is the land I made them buy."



I said, "Mr. Hope, you know how interesting this is? This is better than any of your jokes. Why don't you come do my show on KCOP? We do it live. Come down and talk about this stuff." He said, "Okay, pal. I'll see ya." When he came down he was with a make-up guy and he brought this case, put it down on the counter, and started to do his own make-up while the make-up guy watched. I said, "Mr. Hope? Why do you do that when this guy is here?"

He said, "John, I've been doing it for fifty years. I used to do five shows a day and not always at the same theater and I'd sometimes do this on the bus or the streetcar. I carried this around with me and it's my good luck. I do my own make-up." Bing Crosby called in. Bing Crosby could remember the first girl singer he had on his show, but Bob Hope could only remember his first sponsor. 

An Interview with John Barbour - Part Four

Kliph Nesteroff: You mentioned comedy writer Chris Hayward. When I was a kid in Canada they used to rerun late at night, back to back, an episode of Get Smart and an episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Chris Hayward's name was in both credits and I was always intrigued by that. He must have been great.

Chris Hayward: He's my son's godfather. Chris Hayward and Allan Burns created The Munsters. Their agent took the idea to Screen Gems and sold it as his idea. It took Chris and Allan ten years  to get the rights to their show back through the courts. Their agent stole the property!



I'll tell you how dumb some of these people are that end up accidental heroes. Barney Miller was originally designed by Danny Arnold and his partner - who he screwed. The first half of the show would take place in Barney Miller's apartment and the second half would take place in the police station. Well, Chris Hayward and a girl were signed. She was signed as Barney Miller's wife. She was signed to a five-year contract. So the show wasn't getting very good ratings.



Chris went to Danny and said, "Remember Detective Story with Kirk Douglas? The whole thing takes place in a police station. Let's have this whole thing take place in a police station." Danny said, "No, nobody at home wants to stare at a dirty police station for the whole half hour." Chris had the next script assignment and he wrote an episode about a snow storm. Because of the severity of the storm nobody can get out of the police station for the whole half hour. And who watched it but a critic from Time who gave it a rave review.



ABC saw the reviews and instead of canceling it as planned, they gave it another thirteen weeks. The next thirteen weeks they stayed inside the precinct and the woman who was cast as Barney Miller's wife only appeared one or two more times. She had to be paid off for the entirety. Danny Arnold had kept her under contract because he never thought the show would work in the precinct. Chris Hayward was responsible for its success and nobody knows it. There are hundreds and hundreds of those kinds of stories in this business. 

Kliph Nesteroff: We previously talked about Joe Pyne. Let's talk some more about the old Los Angeles talk show scene. ABC tried to compete with Carson in the mid-1960s using radio personality Les Crane.

John Barbour: Oh, yes. I remember Les. He was a real nice looking guy, but I didn't think his show worked. There was just something artificial about what Les did. But there was nothing artificial about Joe Pyne because that's who Joe Pyne was. I think Les was sort of manufacturing an image and he sort of disappeared from the scene.

Kliph Nesteroff: 1968 - you appeared on the next Johnny Carson competitor from ABC - The Joey Bishop Show. Regis Philbin was his sidekick. 

John Barbour: Yes, I'll tell you a side note to The Joey Bishop Show. I was not a fan of Joey Bishop. I thought he was a great stand-up and could be charming, but he was a lousy talk show host. A couple times I called Elton Rule and asked him to give me that job because I didn't think Joey could make it. But Joey was famous and he had substituted for Carson a couple of times, so they chose Joey.



The first time I was to do his show I was bumped because Senator Hubert Humphrey was coming on. I remember when they introduced Senator Humphrey, I was sitting in the audience because I was no longer on the show. The entire audience stood and applauded. I got up but my wife did not. 



The show was over and Bishop's panel was God awful, didn't know how to talk about Vietnam or anything. The next day I was booked back on the show and he introduced me. In the middle of my monologue Martha Raye's daughter, who was sitting on the panel, had a panic attack. She was on the sofa and collapsed. So there was all this rumbling around me, but I couldn't turn around to look because there were bright lights in my eyes.



All of a sudden I feel an arm around me and it's Joey Bishop telling me something is wrong. I turned to him and said, "I knew you didn't want me on your show!" I thought because he was friends with Carson he was trying to sabotage me on his show, but it was Martha Raye's daughter and she had a breakdown, a panic attack. About ten years later I was a star on Real People and I was on a plane with my wife and child. Joey Bishop walks on the plane and he looks over at my son and says, "You know, your dad accused me of trying to sabotage him on my own show!" 

Kliph Nesteroff: You hosted a show on KNBC Los Angeles in the same time slot that Saturday Night Live had just a few months later.

John Barbour: Yes, it was called the Nineteen Inch Variety Show. It was only on in Los Angeles. And guess who I hired as my cohost...

Kliph Nesteroff: Bryant Gumbel.

John Barbour: Bryant Gumbel. He had been doing weekend sports. He majored in Russian Literature and I thought that's some bright guy. So I hired him. 

Kliph Nesteroff: I found a review. It said you interviewed Burt Reynolds and a Vietnam veteran who had held three people hostage in Griffith Park.

John Barbour: His name was John Lebron. He was a military assassin who had a severe flashback in Griffith Park and had to be arrested. So I took him back to Griffith Park and did the interview there. Burt Reynolds was a huge fan and he was wonderful. When he came on he was the biggest star in Hollywood and here he was doing this local show for forty dollars. I asked Burt, "How do you like it that a school teacher makes twenty-five thousand a year, a cop makes thirty thousand a year, but someone who pretends to be a school teacher or pretends to be a cop can make a million dollars a picture?" We only did six episodes of that show.

Kliph Nesteroff: You opened for Frank Gorshin in the early seventies.

John Barbour: Yes, I did. He was a wonderful impressionist. That idiot turned down the Dean Martin roasts. They wanted him to be the regular impressionist on the roasts and his wife talked him out of it and they gave it to Rich Little instead. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Rich Little ended up doing a lot of impressions that were just impressions of Frank Gorshin's impressions.

John Barbour: Oh, absolutely. If you look at Frank Gorshin's impressions he is so dead-on. Rich does some nice ones, but Frank was really good. Then there was a guy named David Frye who did Richard Nixon better than anybody on the planet. He appeared at the hungry i too. David Frye was a little bit wacko. The problem with Frank Gorshin was the same as a lot of comics. He had twenty-eight minutes of stuff. He was so stuck on doing the stuff that was already proven and wouldn't do anything new. That would bore me to death. 

Kliph Nesteroff: I wanted to ask you about...

John Barbour: And you know I created Real People? That changed the face of American television with what I called reality television. Gary Deeb wrote a review of it when it first came out saying it would change the face of American television.

Kliph Nesteroff: George Schlatter produced Real People. 

John Barbour:  Alfred Hitchcock said, "I make all my villains smart, bright and witty because that's the only way they can get close to their victims." The first two years I worked for George Schlatter were the most enjoyable, creative times of my life. I literally ran the show. I wrote every episode, supervised the editing of every story and I'm the one who single handedly made that show a hit. George got a contract to do a thing called Speak Up America. I went to George and said, "George, do me a favor. Give me ten percent of your company and I'll create ten other reality shows based on what we do." He said, "I don't have partners." I said, "Okay, fine. I'll just keep on doing what I do."



So he goes on with Speak Up America. One of the hosts was Marjoe Gortner. Schlatter came to me, "I need some help with the show." I said, "George, I've got my hands full." He said, "No, I need help with the show." I said, "There's only one story I'd like to do and if you let me do that then I'll help you." He said, "What is it?" I said, "Jim Garrison, the DA from New Orleans. Two months ago the House Select Committee concluded four shots were fired at JFK, therefore a conspiracy had to exist. This wasn't on the front page, but page thirteen of the Times. This is an important story." He said okay. I took Hal Kanter's daughter, Donna, to New Orleans and did a bunch of stories for Real People while I was there. We went to Jim Garrison's house while Marjoe Gortner stood off in a corner for three hours.



When I called Garrison to let him know I was coming I said, "You know they just ruled four shots were fired. Do you feel vindicated?" He said, "John, I feel like a blind man who has a trophy in a dark room." When I told him I was coming he said, "You'll never get away with it." I must tell you, Kliph, it was the most exhilarating, inspiring and frightening three and a half hours. We finished putting him on tape and then we put Marjoe Gortner on camera and I gave Marjoe ten questions to ask. It was to be a two-partner. The first clip was great. It was Garrison leaning forward with these large eyes and bass baritone voice saying, "Lee Harvey Oswald killed no one. As a matter of fact, he didn't even fire a shot. He wasn't even on the sixth floor of the depository." That's how it opened!



I'm telling you people were rushing to the set to see this. For part two Marjoe Gortner asks, "Mr. Garrison, how many shooters do you think there were?" Garrison says, "Three. It was a triangulation. A military set-up. An intelligence set-up. He didn't stand a chance. He was sent into an ambush." The next question Marjoe has, "How many people do you think knew this was going to happen?" Garrison thought for a minute and said, "It's all on a need to know basis. Probably about thirty-two." That's how we edited it. The show came on. Part two. Here's Marjoe Gortner says, "Mr. Garrison, how many shooters do you think there were?" They cut to Garrison and he says, "Thirty two." I screamed at the set! The phone rings. It's George Schlatter. I screamed at him, "What did you do! What did you do!?" He said, "Garrison is a nut." I said, "No, he's not! You are!" I was screaming at Schlatter. The next morning I called Jim Garrison and I was crying. I said, "Mr. Garrison, please sue NBC and sue George Schlatter for deliberate slander. This was malicious intent." I called Donna Kanter who was the associate producer on the piece. I said, "What happened?" She said, "Schlatter called me at eleven o'clock and I went in at midnight." I said, "Why didn't you call me!?" She said, "He told me not to." Garrison said to me, "John. I get this all the time. I don't expect anything different, but I appreciate what you're doing. Just send us a Real People t-shirt." 



So that is what I think of George Schlatter. He took credit for Digby Wolfe creating Laugh-In. And you'll notice Rowan and Martin ended up suing him. Bob Wood, who was head of CBS after he fired me, called Schlatter and said, "Why is it every time you look like you're going to have something great, you fuck it up? Barbour is your show!" Then Bob Wood called me at Musso and Frank. I was having lunch when he told me I was fired. Only a half a dozen people in America know that I am responsible for reality TV. George Schlatter is an absolute, total pig. 

Kliph Nesteroff: We talked about your first comedy album, but you did a second comedy record years later...

John Barbour: The second album was called I Met a Man I Didn't Like and has some real good stuff on it. The liner notes are by Neil Simon. Neil Simon had written The Sunshine Boys with Walter Matthau and George Burns. The great thing about the original Sunshine Boys when it appeared on Broadway was that it had two Jewish actors, Jack Albertson and Sam Levene. In my review I said, "What did Neil Simon do in order to appeal to America? He turns the characters into Presbyterians! And the movie is God awful! There's nobody likable in the movie! The next thing Neil should write is a letter firing himself as casting director."


I wasn't off the air five minutes when he called. He was laughing. We started to talk. He said, "I love some of the stuff you do. You should put out a book of your reviews." I said, "Well, maybe I should do an album." He said, "If you do the album, I'll do the liner notes." So I put together a bunch of material and he did the liner notes. When I created Real People I announced I wasn't going to do reviews anymore. Neil called and said, "John, you can't quit! How many people are going to tell Neil Simon he should fire himself?" I said, "Neil, I've run out of ways to say "It's a piece of shit." He said, "Well, speaking of pieces of shit, the least successful piece of writing I ever did was the liner notes for your album."

An Interview with John Barbour - Part One

John Barbour: I came to the United States in the early sixties to track down my father. When that didn't work, I ended up at a place called the Castle Theater. I was there for nearly a year, but then I decided I didn't want to escape reality - I wanted to face reality. My two heroes in television were Edward R. Murrow and Jack Paar. Jack Paar was by far the best of all the people who hosted The Tonight Show. He would have people on that no one else would. I remember when he discovered Nichols and May. They had come out of the Second City and he had met them at the Russian Tea Shop. 

Their manager was Jack Rollins. They did this little routine, they were intellectual and low key... and on that first appearance they bombed. Jack Paar literally got up from behind his desk, pointed at them and said to the audience, "These kids are funny and I am going to keep bringing them back until you get it." 

Johnny Carson would never have done that. Not in a million years. Paar had Jonathan Winters on the show, the Smothers Brothers on the show, he had intellectuals on the show. When I started doing stand-up... I bought all the comedy books full of jokes and funny anecdotes. Most of it was absolute crap. The stuff that was good in them, well, everybody knew about those bits. So I decided to write my own material.

Kliph Nesteroff: You were booked into the Hungry i fairly fast...

John Barbour: Yes, it was my second professional job, the first week of November 1963. I did a lot of political material, but remained objective and never took a position. I remember one of Jack Paar's lines. He said he never voted because it only encouraged them. I was so successful for that first engagement at the Hungry i that they booked me back for the last week of November 1963. 

Unfortunately John F. Kennedy was murdered on the 22nd, so when I went back it was empty. The following week I was booked in Fresno - and there were a thousand people there every night celebrating his assassination. That was when I became aware there were people in this country that were glad John F. Kennedy was killed. There was a pathological hatred of Kennedy the way there is now a pathological hatred of Obama. That was extremely disheartening. 

Of course, I could not do my political material in that atmosphere, so I had to write a whole bunch of new material. I remember my opening line. "Nice to be in Fresno, the agricultural capital of California... where the largest crop is Armenians." Half the audience was Armenian and I was a big hit, but I was also very saddened.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was the club in Fresno?

John Barbour: You know, I don't remember the name, but it seated a thousand people. It was huge. It was like a barn. It was absolutely massive.

Kliph Nesteroff: One early gig of yours was the Versailles Room in Verdugo Oaks.

John Barbour: Yes, that's it. The Versailles Room was in a place called Pikes. It was a huge restaurant. Where did you find that? That's absolutely amazing.

Kliph Nesteroff: Another early gig - Angelo's in Anaheim with a woman named Phyllis Inez.

John Barbour: Yeah, I did a couple of shows with her. One in San Francisco. I met my wife in San Francisco. She was quite friendly with Dick Gregory. Dick Gregory and Redd Foxx were friends. Redd was the only comedian I ever saw other than Jackie Mason who never bombed. It wouldn't matter if there were six people in the room or six thousand. 

He never bombed even if he was filthy. He sort of became my mentor. He was so smart. I said to him one day, "Redd, I get so much from watching you." He said, "What you get is me plus six other guys." His real name was John Sanford, hence the title Sanford and Son.

Kliph Nesteroff: You played the Crescendo on Sunset several times...

John Barbour: Yeah, the Crescendo. There was one stage downstairs and one stage upstairs. I worked with a great girl singer there named Joanie Sommers. Redd Foxx worked upstairs and that's where I saw him perform that one time to only six people. Tina Turner worked up there and there weren't too many people for that either, but boy was she a phenomenal performer. 

During the rise of the Black Power movement in the sixties, I came up with an idea for some satirical material called It's Tough to Be White. I wrote it and I went to Redd. I told him, "I have this idea to do this material, but I don't want anyone to think I'm a bigot..." He said, "Shit, man! Write it first - then explain!"

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

John Barbour: We did it at World Pacific Jazz Records, which was the best jazz label in America at the time. It was an invited, integrated audience. Some of the material was good, but I was new as a performer. As I relisten to some of it... I don't sound very relaxed. I sound nervous at times. I ended up on The Merv Griffin Show and Westinghouse signed me as Merv Griffin's replacement. They were paying me six hundred a week for something like six months just to remain under contract. 

My manager Alan Bernard also handled Andy Williams, but I got signed by Westinghouse all on my own. I told Alan I wanted to take a full page ad out in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter that John Barbour has been signed by Westinghouse as a replacement for Merv Griffin. He said, "No, John. You don't want to do that. Your wife is pregnant and you better save that money." I didn't know it, but Alan also represented Bob Newhart and he was negotiating with Westinghouse to have Bob Newhart replace Merv Griffin instead of me. They had me host one show and I got higher ratings than Merv. 

I think that happened because people enjoyed my monologue at the top of the show. Merv didn't do monologues. Maybe he'd play the piano or sing a song or something, but I did a decent monologue and people liked that. You know, I never got to do Merv's show again until years later when I was doing Real People. Anyway, they hired David Frost to be Griffin's replacement. 

I went to Westinghouse and I said, "You can't hire an Englishman or any foreigner to host an American show. Because then he can't be talking about politics or the economy or the culture without sounding like a stranger." I said, "Listen, you have two other guys under contract." They had Al Hamel and someone else. I said, "Let the public make the choice. Give us each a week and let us audition. It will create more interest in your show!" But the main producer of the show wanted to hangout with the Prime Minister and the Queen of England. 

The show bombed. Metromedia wasn't sure that it would work so they hired me to do a Saturday night type of show. I was the first person to put Redd Foxx on the air. Hugh Downs had done a brief interview with Redd when Hugh was host of the Today Show, but I booked Redd on my show. 

I tell you, he got the biggest laugh I have ever heard from a studio audience under any circumstance. The biggest laugh in radio, you probably know, was Jack Benny and "your money or your life." Redd came on my show with Jack Carter and a guy called the Crying Comedian... can't think of his name...

Kliph Nesteroff: Rip Taylor.

John Barbour: Rip Taylor, the Crying Comedian. Charo was also on the show. Anyway, Redd comes out and sits down. I said, "Redd, what do you think of this Black Power movement?" He said, "I don't care about Black Power or white power. I just care about green power." I said, "Green power?" He said, "Yeah, then you got the money to buy the places where they hold their meetings." The audience chuckled slightly. 

Without thinking about it I said to Redd, ad-lib, "Redd, why do you think money is green?" Wthout missing a beat Redd Foxx said, "Because the Jews pick it before it gets ripe." Well! That audience just collapsed in laughter. We couldn't continue! We tried to continue and then Jack Carter would jump up and take his wallet out flash his money and made it like a running gag. I tell you, it was great. 

Redd then went on to do a movie [Cotton Comes to Harlem] and Norman Lear saw that and cast him in Steptoe and Son - and changed it to Sanford and Son. When Redd Foxx had his argument with NBC a couple seasons into Sanford and Son, he walked out and he came to my house. That's where he was hiding out. But unfortunately for Redd, success went to his nose.

Kliph Nesteroff: How did you connect with Pacific Jazz records? I bought your comedy LP at a garage sale years ago and that was my first introduction to you. Dick Gregory contributed the liner notes.

John Barbour: Dick was a huge fan and a very dear friend of my wife. It was Redd who introduced me to a guy - I think his name was Richard Balk - who owned Pacific Jazz and that's how it happened. We were going to tape it at the Crescendo or some place like that, but Richard said, "No, we'll just bring a couple hundred people in here," so that he could control the acoustics. "It's a sterile facility, but we'll just do it here." 

I had this idea. I was a very big fan of Lenny Bruce's album covers. They had the Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce and on the cover he's having a picnic in a graveyard. So, I had an idea for mine of an elegantly dressed Black man on a horse whipping me in a cotton field. They took the picture and it was really funny, but Richard got very nervous. He said, "We can't have this." So then he just wanted a regular picture of me on the cover. They made the cover and I looked at it, I said, "Jesus Christ, Richard. I look like Billy Graham!" So they stuck a cigarette in my hand! And I don't smoke! 

I hated the cover but I loved the liner notes and I liked some of the material on there. If you research the reviews you'll see that the LA Times called it the height of bad taste in albums. But remember the star of Hogan's Heroes? Bob Crane had a radio show on KNX, which was probably the most popular radio show in LA. He had me on and he played clips from the album. The only other guy who had me on was Joe Pyne! 

Joe Pyne loved the album, Bob Crane loved the album, but anywhere else I couldn't get it played. But - everywhere I went around the country Black deejays would play it and interview me. I tell ya, I was booked at the Playboy Club at the time the album came out and then the Watts Riots hit. We had a Black guy named George who was the manager of the room. People were nervous, but they still came to the club about a week after the riots. They would introduce me, "Ladies and gentleman, John Barbour." 

I'd come up and there was this huge picture window in the club that overlooked the whole city. "There's still smoke!" I'd point to George and say, "Before the riots, George here was just a bus boy, but they no longer trust him around the knives and forks." It was a huge hit, but the manager of the Playboy Club - Lee was his name - called me into his office. He pulled out this fucking magnum! He said, "You were out of town when this all happened. You don't know how bad it got." I said, "What? It's okay for you to shoot someone, but not okay for me to make jokes?" 

I got so upset about this that I called the editor and publisher of Ebony. I said, "You book me in the darkest club in the middle of Watts and I'll come down and do my act." So they found a place called the California Club. I went down there with my wife and followed this guy who was sort of a Black Jerry Lewis. I went up and I said, "I'm here tonight under the auspices of the NAACP. The National Association for the Advancement of Canadian People." They chuckled a little, but there was a lot of tension and talking and rumbling. About four minutes in I got them. And I got a standing ovation when I was finished! They took pictures. The editor of the magazine came to me and he said, "I can't wait to run this story. This is going to be terrific."

It was like when Dick Gregory was first booked into the Playboy Club in Chicago. He was only getting fifty dollars to fill in for a night. Time magazine picked up the story and it gave him a career. I thought, "Well, let's see what happens." I got a call three days later telling me that the publisher felt it was just too controversial. I didn't have any controversial material, but it sounded controversial. 

I got a call from Jack Rollins. Jack Rollins and Charlie Joffe were the two best managers in all of show business. I mean, they shaped a weatherman who didn't have an act - David Letterman. His act was talking to an audience. Jack Rollins called me and asked if I would do a set at the Bitter End. I said yes. The Bitter End was owned by Freddie Weintraub. 

He was the guy responsible for doing the documentary Woodstock a few years later. I got up and did twelve or fifteen minutes. I did fairly well, but I didn't do any of the It's Tough to Be White material. I did the kind of stuff I did on Merv Griffin or whatever. When I got off he said, "You should have done the Tough to Be White stuff." I said, "Jack, I keep bumping into resistance." He said, "Yeah, but John, that stuff is what is going to make you different." 

I said, "Maybe I don't want this label. I want to be more like Jack Paar." He said, "Come to my office tomorrow and we'll make you the next Jack Paar." I went to his office and he had a contract ready for me to sign. He said, "You know what John... I can't sign you." "Huh?" He said, "I represent another kid and... I don't think he's as funny as you or as good as you or as likable as you... but I think he's more likely to make it on television." He meant Dick Cavett. I'd heard of him because he'd been a writer for Paar, but that was all I knew about him. 

He said, "But I'll get you booked into a club in Chicago. Mister Kelly's." And he did. I went into Mister Kelly's with Dionne Warwick and it was extremely successful. George Marienthal was the owner and Jeff Wald was sort of his lackey. Jeff Wald discovered Helen Reddy and years later became her manager. Unfortunately, when he got to be a multimillionaire, it also went to his nose. Anyway, he came to the dressing room with George. He said, "You know, Woody Allen was here three weeks ago and he bombed so bad he turned around and did his act to the wall." 

Same thing happened to Woody Allen when he went into the Hungry i in San Francisco. He was always in New York because he was always "New York." Woody said once that he only saved one out of every ten jokes that he wrote. I saved nine out of the ten that I wrote. I trust what I write. All Woody wanted was to be a writer, but Jack Rollins turned him into a stand-up. He said, "No, you're going to do stand-up. Once you become established as a stand-up, then I can get you into films." 

And the first film he did was some absolute piece of crap. Woody said when he handed in the script that the guy dropped it on the floor and the pages went all over the place. Then he shot the film in the same sequence as the pages he picked up off the floor at random (laughs). He told Jack, "Next time I'm going to direct it myself." That's how he got started. I think Woody is amazing. Sometimes he does stuff that is total crap, but much of his work is brilliant.

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you remain with Jack Rollins...

John Barbour: Jack never did sign me. He stuck with Dick Cavett. I returned to Los Angeles. I was trying to work as an actor in Los Angeles. I got an offer from Freddy de Cordova who was producing a pilot for ABC called Manley and the Mob. A friend of mine named Chris Hayward, who was co-creator of The Munsters and responsible for Barney Miller, called me. He said, "They're testing a bunch of people and I've recommended you to Freddy de Cordova because they want a guy who sort of resembles Bob Newhart." 

They called me up the day that George Carlin was auditioning. He bombed. The next day Barbra Streisand's husband, Elliot Gould, was auditioning. He bombed. Anyway, this pilot script was written by these two guys Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso. God, I don't know how I remember that. They used to write jokes for John Kennedy. Anyway, this script was supposed to be about a bumbler. A bumbling detective. But there was nothing in the dialogue that would indicate he was a bumbler. 

There were thirty-three people on the list and thirty-two tested and bombed. Freddy called me and said, "You're testing tomorrow." I said, "Freddy, you don't really know me and nobody has made it yet, right? There's nothing in the script to indicate he's a bumbler. Before I have my first line - do you mind if I invent some business that indicates I'm a bumbler?" "Yes, do whatever you want." Anyway, I did it, the crew laughed and the test was a hit! ABC brass said, "Hey, the script does work!" And they hired Paul Lynde in my place! 

Now I was broke and desperate for a job, but I knew what would work. I said, "Make him the second banana." They said no. They gave him the lead and gave me the second lead and of course the whole thing absolutely died. America wasn't ready for Paul Lynde to be the lead in a series. I said to myself afterward, "I don't want my fate in somebody else's hands. I'm going to stick to stand-up comedy." I was doing that and there was a real nice guy in Los Angeles who was a radio announcer who bumped into me one day. He said, "You know they're auditioning people for the AM Show at ABC." 

They wanted to win points with the FCC. I thought, "Yeah, I'll go." I was extremely knowledgeable about current affairs because of the type of act I did. I went and auditioned and, Christ, there were three hundred people. The guy auditioning us was named Brad Lachman. His only talent was being tall. Anyway, I got the job! I took the AM Show - and you can probably google this - I took it from a .03, which is a nothing rating, to a 5. We bumped heads with the Tonight Show! I had Muhammad Ali on for an hour when no one in the media would talk to him other than Howard Cosell. 

I was the only show that Cesar Chavez would do when he was in town to testify at a trial. The show gave me my first contact with Jim Garrison, the New Orleans DA. I had read his book Heritage of Stone and booked him on the show, but they fired me before we had him on. We had won an Emmy for the show, but I remember saying to Brad, "Listen. I need to have three minutes three times a week to say what is on my mind about movies or television." I did a lot of that kind of thing in my act. I said, "I don't want to do politics or anything like that, but I'd like to do reviews and I want to take phone calls." John McMann, the general manager, called me into his office with Brad. 

He said, "This isn't San Francisco. Los Angeles is a bunch of dummies. No one is going to call into your show." I said, "Mr. McMann, just give us a shot. If we have interesting guests on and interesting conversation, people are going to want to contribute." He said, "You're not going to do reviews. It's intellectual crap and nobody cares." I said, "Nobody cares, but they all talk about celebrities. Let me do it." "You're not doing it." In spite of what he said - I did it. As a result I was invited by LA Magazine to be their film critic. I replaced the two best critics in America. One was a guy named Gary Deeb who worked for the Chicago Tribune. 

He said the very best thing about American television. He said, "American television is the only business where competition does not improve the product." The other guy I replaced was a real good critic for Los Angeles Magazine and he had the funniest one-line review I ever read. It was for the movie Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. He said, "The movie starts with a bang and ends up Chitty." Great line. The news director wanted me on the six o'clock news to do reviews, but John McMann said, "No. Just stick to the morning show."

But we had the best show in television. A friend of Tommy Smothers, a young guy in his thirties, who was a Federal Communications Chairman, wrote a book about the FCC called How to Talk Back to Your Television. He wrote a letter to Leonard Goldenson, the president of ABC and said, "You have the brightest, smartest guy in television on your local station in Los Angeles." Then he phoned me from Washington and apologized for writing the letter (laughs). He said, "I probably I cost you your job." Because it was shortly after that, when I was trying to book Garrison, that I was replaced. I ended up at Channel 11 in 1972. I was doing reviews when the Munich massacre occurred. 

We used to get the feed for The Tonight Show. Everyone got it because they were feeding it back to New York. This was the day of the massacre and Johnny Carson came on and I thought, "My God. He's going to have to say something about what happened to those athletes." He didn't say a bloody word! He was telling jokes about Doc Severinson's plaid jacket and Ed McMahon's beer drinking! I was so offended! 

So instead of doing a review I did a piece about what it must be like to be Jewish in the world today. Within a week we had five thousand requests for it. We were just on a local station! For two years it was used as the official fundraising film for United Jewish Appeal and they made me an honorary Jew. A few years later when I was at NBC they invited me to speak at what they call a performer's synagogue. Walter Matthau and Neil Simon and people like that would come and tell stories. 

They booked me for that - but as soon as I did my review of the Jerry Lewis Telethon they canceled me there! (laughs). But as a result of that I ended up at KNBC for five years where I won the Emmy - and that's how I ended up on the revival of Laugh-In...