The
late broadcasting pioneer and creator of Meeting of
Minds for PBS talks about the lessons for new media
from early TV..
Broadcast television
pioneer Steve Allen is recognized as a modern Renaissance
man.
Steve Allen pioneered the talk show format that played
a key role establishing television as the dominant
entertainment and information medium in America and the
world. In the wild early days of live television when
almost anything could happen in the studio (within the
bounds of Standards and Practices), Steve Allen's
inventive humor and ready wit opened minds to the vast
potential of the medium. Half a century later, he offers
a priceless view into the problems now facing the
creators of interactive TV.
A humorist known for his smart, ad lib comedy, Steve
Allen began as a radio disc jockey in the Forties. He
made history as the creator and first host of "The
Tonight Show" on NBC (1954-56) with incarnations of "The
Steve Allen Show" for three decades.
His list of talents is legendary, Steve Allen is a
jazz musician who has written thousands of popular songs,
among them his signature piece, "This Could Be the Start
of Something Big." He's written film scores, and he
starred in The Benny Goodman Story (1955).
Steve Allen is the author of more than thirty books,
including Bop Fables (1955), The Wake
(1972), Explaining China (1980), Beloved Son
(1982), Dumbth (1989), Hi Ho Steverino
(1992), Steve Allen on the Bible Religion &
Morality (1990), and Reflections (1994). He
carries a pocket recorder everywhere to help track his
ideas.
A dedicated advocate of reasoning and effective
education, Steve Allen's most enduring creative work may
be the award-winning PBS series, "Meeting of Minds"
(1977-81), scripted discussions among historic figures
portrayed by actors sitting around a table and talking
about their lives and principles. Steve Allen served as
moderator. His wife Jayne Meadows played Cleopatra and
other roles. Allen's masterpiece.
Steve Allen spoke with me by phone from his Beverly
Hills home in August 1995. His comments are as timely
today as they will be five years from now, or 500. Our
transcribed and edited conversation inaugurated the
monthly "TV Visions" columns I produced for the
Interactive Television Association though 1996. We did
another interview in-person a year later when he was in
Denver to speak. A delightful man.
.
Freed: When you
first entered broadcast TV, what was the industry
like?
Allen: Well, I came out of radio, which was a
marvelous school for television because the two had a lot
in common, apart from the very obvious difference that
one has pictures and the other has not.
Freed:
I suppose the chief similarity was that almost
everything was live. Can you describe the atmosphere in
an early television studio?
Allen: There was no particular atmosphere. If
you had to be in the studio at four o'clock in the
afternoon. You went to work just as you would go to work
at a drug store or a bank or a school. Nobody every say,
"My God, we're doing this live!" That never came up for
us because there was no alternative.
Freed:
Was there any sense of history at the
time?
Allen: Not in the least. Generally, I don't
think people ever stop to think that what they're doing
may someday be seen as important. Even when involved in
things that clearly are very important, such as wartime
activity, all you care about that day is not getting
shot, and maybe killing somebody who's trying to kill
you. And then maybe four years later you go home and
write a book about it.
Freed:
What was your first TV show?
Allen: It was called "The Steve Allen Show."
I've done seven or eight series that had that same title.
It was a strange little live, largely ad-libbed 30-minute
comedy show on CBS in the early evening.
To this day, I'm the only comedian in the business who
does not have an act, which doesn't make me any better or
worse than others. It's like saying I'm the only one with
size 13 feet. I had writers, but there wasn't much for
them to do since mostly the show was ad
libbed
.
Live
from New York
Freed:
What about the commercials?
Allen: Many of the commercials were on film,
and we'd never see them because during those 60 seconds
we were racing to get into a cowboy suit or else getting
ready to play the piano. None of us in the studio had any
real interest in commercials, the exception being the
commercials we did live, and I did a good many of those
over the years.
One thing I've noticed recently when I've been in
audiences being shown television programs from the early
Fifties, when the exhibition includes the original
commercials, the commercials get hysterical laughter.
They seem so old fashioned, so stiff, so phony, so dumb.
Of course, no one ever laughed when the original material
was viewed.
Freed:
Radio has been called the theater of the mind.
You stimulated the imagination by sound effects or vocal
characterizations. In television, you had visual and
audio. How did that change what you did?
Allen: The most obvious change was that you
didn't walk around with a script in your hand, the way
everyone did on the radio, except those who ad libbed a
great deal. All those old radio shows involved people
just standing up at microphones with their scripts in
their hands. There was never any more of that once
television started.
In TV, in case there wasn't enough time to memorize
the scripted material, the solution was handwritten cue
cards, which were held up next to the camera. Eventually,
cue cards were augmented by a device called the
TelePrompTer.
Something else is that it was tougher doing comedy on
television as opposed to radio. The audience did not
laugh as much. You used the same words, and you were the
same performer, so the cause had to be all the
distractions.
By now, studio audiences are used to them, but in the
days when a television camera was a brand new and
wondrous device, the people in the audience stared at the
camera instead of the performer. Another terrible
distraction was the microphone boom. The operator would
stand on a platform four or five feet above the stage,
and the platform would be pushed around by an
assistant.
And then, off to the side, were twelve dancers in
costumes getting ready for the next number. And the sound
effects men were visible, and the announcer was standing
nearby. So, there was a lot going on to distract the
audience.
Fred Allen described television as a "bloody
commotion." Of course, he was conditioned by his years in
radio where background silence was necessary, and before
that by his years in vaudeville where there would be
nothing moving on stage but the comedian's
mouth.
.
Funny
Business
Freed:
As television became more popular and entered
more homes, did that effect what you did or how you did
it?
Allen: No. I stayed pretty much the same as a
performer. Of course, there were ways, if you were
creative, you took advantage of the visual factor.
In fact, I remember the first routine I wrote
specifically for television shortly before I got to New
York to start my own TV show on CBS. In those days there
was a technical problem we called "rollover," where the
picture slides up or down on the screen. It was so common
then you couldn't watch an evening of television without
having that problem six or seven times. I had been
annoyed by this as a viewer.
So, I wrote a routine in which two technical people
were to take a two-by-four piece of lumber wrapped in
black velvet and hold it above my head out of the
picture. On a prearranged signal, they were to slowly
lower this black bar into the camera shot. By watching
the monitor as the bar came down, I flexed my knees and
lowered my body to stay below the bar while I went right
on with whatever I was saying, which had nothing to do
with what the viewers were looking at. And there were
other routines of that sort.
.
Mock
TV
Freed:
You were spoofing the medium itself.
Allen: Yes, and Ernie Kovaks would later
specialize in that sort of thing, but with me it was one
of many forms of comedy.
Freed:
I remember as a kid seeing Kovaks' routine
with a half-full glass of water on a slanted table
aligned with a slanted camera, so the waterline in the
glass was off kilter to the rest of the world, Kovaks
held a pitcher directly above the glass, tred to pour
water into it, but the water poured out diagonally,
missing the glass and hittling the table.
Allen: Of course, that bit came from an earlier
Chaplin film, and later Red Skelton also played with the
same idea.
Freed:
Seems there's been a lot of borrowing.
Yes, but it was a more serious crime in vaudeville
where people had one act that did not change. If somebody
stole four minutes from the 14 minutes you did as a
career, that was a serious crime. Morally, it's also a
crime in television, but for economic reasons it's not as
serious.
Freed:
There seems to a be a lot imitation in
television today. Somebody gets a good idea that makes
money, and suddenly everybody gets that same good idea,
ad nauseum.
Allen: That's always been true in the
entertainment field, come to think of it, in the
marketplace itself. Some company was the first to market
toothpaste, but when that sold well, 19 other companies
rushed to market with their equivalent. There are
economic reasons for that.
We're now getting into moral and ethical issues. The
copyright and patent laws say people can be creative in
the context of a generic idea. Suppose a TV show is a
hit, say a western, you can be sure that all the studios,
all the agents, all the creative people will say, "Hey,
maybe cowboy shows are coming back. Why don't we do one
here at Universal?"
Freed:
That same phenomenon may be at play when it
comes to interactive TV. The TV industry today is seeking
what's called the "killer application," which sounds like
gunfighters in the street at high noon. But it really
means that undefined "something," a program or game or
service, which spurs market demand for interactive TV so
that it's irresistible. Once the fabled killer app is
found, goes the myth, everyone jumps on the
bandwagon.
Allen: I doubt they'll ever find a solution to
that problem by thinking that way. Generally, what
happens is that, out of the blue, you get a creative
idea. A thought strikes you that never struck you before.
And you might find it's never occurred to anyone else
either. But you cannot predict the success of your idea.
You could if ours was a rational planet, but that's not
even conceivable, much less possible.
In fact, that is the very point made in one of my
short stories, "The Man Who Turned Back the Clock," which
is about a man who learns how to turn back the clock of
his life. He finds himself at age 32 in the Sixties with
knowledge of the big "killer applications," as you say,
that are coming. He tries to sell the idea of a Hoola
Hoop to a toy company, and he's thrown out of the office.
He next tries to sell the Beatles to the head of a record
company, and he gets thrown out of that office, too. My
point here is that the big successes almost always come
as a surprise to everyone.
.
Cucumber
Talk
Freed:
Let's turn back the clock to look at something
you did that turned into a "killer app" for broadcast TV,
namely the talk show. Where did you get the idea for The
Tonight Show?
Allen: In a sense, there was no idea, per
se. In fact, at the time, it was no big deal.
If you pretend that you've never seen television
before, and someone shows you this thing called a talk
show and tells you it's the biggest money maker that's
ever happened, if you're a rational person, you will ask,
"What the hell is it?" Almost nothing is happening. A man
comes out on stage, tells a couple jokes and interviews a
few people. This takes creativity? This takes talent? It
doesn't.
There's another story I wrote a little while ago,
called "The Cucumber," and it goes like this: On tomorrow
night's evening newscast, Dan Rather interrupts himself
and places a cucumber on the news desk. The camera picks
up a tight close-up for ten seconds, then he puts the
cucumber away and goes back to the news. The next night,
Ted Koppel does the same thing. A few nights later, so
does Sam Brokaw. They do it without explanation.
Well, you know the media. You know human nature.
Within a week, the entire nation is fascinated by that
goddamn cucumber. And soon there's dirty jokes about
cucumbers, and songs, and there's a movie called
Cucumbers. Now, remember, its' nothing but a plain old
cucumber, and nobody ever walked into a grocery store and
looked at one and said, "Oh, my God, I don't know if I
can stand the thrill, an actual cucumber!"
My point is that just by putting it on television, it
becomes a Big Deal. And the end of my sermon is that all
of us on television are cucumbers. It's being seen on the
screen that adds the glamour, excitement and
fascination.
The only reason a talk show seems like a big deal is
because it's on television. You put one in a college
gymnasium and nobody will show up, unless, of course,
it's a talk show already popular from television.
Freed:
I like that, especially since people
interacting is the essence of interactive TV.
Allen: It's the media that lends excitement. If
you take two strangers, put them in an empty room with
two chairs, they may not have anything to say. But if you
put them on TV, the wondrous technology makes the thing
seems interesting. In the absence of all the technology,
if they passed on the street, they wouldn't give each
other the time of day.
Freed:
So, you think the technology itself is
encouraging the interaction?
The technology makes it possible. Of course, you can
add an infinite list of other factors, like great humor,
or sex, or religion, or sports, or whatever you want to
throw into the pot. But doing it with technology makes it
more fun.
Freed:
The fun factor is fairly important?
Allen: Yes, but it could be vital information,
such a show on the best insurance agent in Seattle.
Depends on your interests.
.
Da
Dumbth Dump
Freed:
With Meeting of Minds, you hosted a
talk show with actors playing figures from history. Would
you say that show has influenced the kinds of
conversations we're able to have on the media today?
Allen: I wish that glowing example of
rationality and civilized discourse had been instructive,
but I see no evidence that it has.
I wrote a book a few years ago called Dumbth, a word
based upon length and breadth and depth. The book
addressed the deteriorating intelligence of the American
people. We are now demonstrably dumber than we were even
25 years ago. There's occasionally a glimmer of hope with
news of an effective teacher or school, but the general
direction is still quite sharply down on the chart.
So, while I did have an ethical and philosophical
purpose with Meeting of Minds and although millions of
viewers may have been improved by the series, that just
was not the case for the general population. It appears
the whole country now is double-parked altogether.
Freed:
You're talking about what many call "the
dumbing down of America." I spoke recently with Joseph
Esposito, head of Encyclopedia Britannica, and he said
the advent of online information services heralds a new
enlightenment.
Allen: The potential is certainly there, but
I'm afraid that I'm a bit more pessimistic. By
coincidence, I heard earlier this week that the
encyclopedia market itself &emdash; all those upscale,
thoughtful parents who think they should have this great
library resource in their homes for the benefit of their
children and grandchildren &emdash; is noticeably
dwindling.
Still, when we discuss the collapse of education in
our country, the good news here is that a small minority
of people are somehow contriving to become well educated.
Thank God for them. In fact, there ought to be more
studies into how they are doing it, into the individuals
or schools who ought to be credited. But for most people,
its' still just a very depressing situation.
One of my comedy routines, which grew out of my
disgust with the fact Americans cannot seem to express
even the most simple thoughts without injecting such
clutter-up phrases as "you know," or "like," or all those
other substitutes for thought. Try to imagine Lincoln's
Gettysburg address, the greatest short speech ever
authored, as if it was delivered today. "Four score, and,
you know, like, hey, seven years ago..."
.
Moving
the Shakers
Freed:
Perhaps this clutter is because people in our
media age can't tolerate the silence of being alone with
themselves. Sitting still and listrning the quiet at the
center of our heads is too scary. Who has the time and
energy to pause and think clearly?
Allen: People ought to be trained from
childhood to think better and faster and more rationally.
I've just finished taping with my wife an audio cassette
of my book, Gullable's Travels, for Prometheus. The book
is an extension of something I did over 30 years ago as a
record album, called, How to Think. It's been remarketed
as a booklet and audio cassette, and now a multimedia
version is in development.
We present short scenes designed to interest children
in what they think with, that mushy thing inside the
skull, the brain. We cover what the brain does, the parts
of the brain. We cover reason, logic, common sense, how
to recognize common factors, even the idea of mutual
exclusivity. It's all very basic, but even such
rudimentary learning has eluded 90 percent of the
American people.
Freed:
I've spoken in public schools, and I felt
stunned by a lack of desire for learning. Is that true in
your experience, too?
Allen: Yes. That's the terrible part of it. A
lot of them just don't seem to give a damn. I spoke a
year ago at a religious university to a group of
freshmen. Except for one boy who asked sharp questions,
the rest seemed on space patrol. They knew who I was, so
it wasn't that they didn't care about the old man talking
to them. In fact, they seemed like nice kids, but there
just was no intellectual spark there.
Freed:
This column is being read by movers and
shakers in the interactive TV industry, I'm told, so what
can you say to spark their interest in smarter
television?
Allen: I hope they would not be motivated only
by their economic self interest. It's understandable to
be so motivated. I mean, we do have a little problem
called eating, and unless you're very fortunately
situated, you need to earn money to buy your food, grow
your crops, whatever. So, economic self interest is not
only justified, it's necessary. The tragedy comes from
the fact that in too many people's lives, that's all
there is for them.
And so my advise is -- knock it off! Such thinking is
hurting you, it's hurting your society. It's hurting your
world. In fact, it's giving capitalism a bad name. And
Adam Smith was perhaps the first to point that out.
We favor a free-enterprise economy because we've seen
how the alternatives work, which is not so hot. We need
to preserve capitalism. But to do that we must
acknowledge the percentage of scoundrels who work their
way into the marketplace, and who are very comfortable
there. To counter their negative influence, we must work
harder to make a positive difference.
Freed:
In that regard, it seems to me, we do have
positive educational programming for children: PBS, The
Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, Nickelodeon, to
name a few. Quality content is out there that not only
educates the young, but actually inspires them to
think.
Allen: Yes, there's plenty of marvelous stuff
on TV. In fact, I once proposed, as an experiment, that I
or anybody could conduct a class where the only resource
would be TV programming. We would use the Meeting of
Minds tapes. We would use shows like Nature ,
Civilization and Connections and those other brilliant
series that have tremendous educational value.
Freed:
Yes, the shows with layers of meaning, where
each time you see it, you catch something you missed
before.
Allen: Exactly. It could be done, but sadly,
all this valuable, exciting television fare constitutes
only a very tiny fraction of the TV total amid all the
other garbage that most people watch.
Freed:
Yes, that is a big concern. I know you need to
go soon, so thank you for being so generous with your
time. Is there anything else you want to add?
Allen: No, I think that's enough for
now.
.
