THE DAY RICHARD DAWSON FINALLY MADE JOHN BANNER SNAP ON SET
The host leans forward, the studio lights reflecting in his glasses as he holds up a grainy, black-and-white production still from the late sixties. “Richard,” he says, “we’ve…
ROBERT CLARY REVEALS THE HILARIOUS REASON THEY COULD NEVER FINISH FILMING
The room was quiet for a second, the kind of respectful silence you only get at these nostalgia conventions where the memories are thicker than the air. I…
THE DAY COLONEL KLINK RUINED A HIGH SOCIETY DINNER PARTY
The studio lights were dim, and the audience was hushed as Werner Klemperer leaned back in the plush leather chair. He didn’t look like a man who had…
THE COLONEL AND THE SECRET AGENT IN THE CHICAGO AIRPORT
It was the late summer of 1988, and I found myself sitting in a small, dimly lit television studio in Manhattan. I was there for one of those…
THE SECRET STRUGGLE OF COLONEL KLINK AND HIS INFAMOUS FLYING MONOCLE
The interviewer reaches into a small wooden box on the table between them and pulls out a single, circular piece of glass attached to a thin black cord….
THE LAUGHTER FADED BUT THE WEIGHT OF THE HELMET REMAINED
The studio lot was too quiet for a Tuesday afternoon. The ghosts of Culver Studios were everywhere, tucked into the long shadows of soundstages that once echoed with…
THE DAY SERGEANT SCHULTZ WAS RECRUITED BY THE REAL UNDERGROUND
The studio lights were always a bit too bright for John Banner, even years after the show had finished its run. He sat there on the talk show…
THE COFFEE MUG WAS EMPTY BUT THEIR HEARTS WERE FULL
Werner Klemperer stood in the back corner of a dusty storage unit on the Paramount lot, his fingers hovering over a wooden crate that hadn’t been opened in…
THE TRAPDOOR WAS JUST A PROP UNTIL THE LIGHTS WENT OUT
The old studio lot in Culver City was quiet, a graveyard of stories and rotted timber. Robert Clary walked slowly, his eyes scanning the dry California dirt where…
DAVID OGDEN STIERS RECALLS THE SURGERY PRANK THAT BROKE HIS DIGNITY
I was sitting in a dimly lit studio for a podcast called The Creative Path just a few years ago. The host was a bright-eyed fellow who clearly…