Exploring The Hollywood And Entertainment Industry

Speaker A 00:05 Welcome to the Wisdom Parlor, a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. This is a gathering of leaders from a variety of industries, and our role here is to help you reach the top 1% of your field of choice. I'm Jim Cathcart, so come with me and let's discover how much more successful you could be. Speaker B 00:38 Welcome back once again to the Wisdom Parlor. And today we have a very, very special edition with you. Jim Cathcart, of course, is our host, the author, speaker, globetrotting expert, and mentor and friends of so many different people. And today, he will have one of his favorite friends beaming in tonight for a great conversation. We want to welcome special guest Bruce Bellad. He's an actor, producer. And that's about all I'm going to do here, Jim, because you've got stories after stories, and I want you guys to get into it. So here he is once again, your friend and my friend, Jim Cathcart. Speaker A 01:10 Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Welcome, everybody. The book Icons, Idols and Idiots of Hollywood was recently penned by our guest today, Bruce Bellon. And I had the special privilege of being in the sort of the preview group that got little snippets of the book, as Bruce would get each part of it written. And so I would see a piece here, there and everywhere. And. And I know a lot of backstories in there, but oh, my word. Ladies and gentlemen, we have today a guest that you're going to say, I had no idea. Oh, my gosh. Give me the book. I got to be around this guy more often. So welcome with me from the. The whole arc of Hollywood, Bruce Bellend. Glad to have you here, amigo. Jim Cathcart 02:08 Thank you, Brother James. Good to see you, pal. Since you moved away, we don't. We don't have lunch together no more. Speaker A 02:13 That's true. Yeah. It's kind of hard to commute from Austin, Texas, to Hollywood. First, could you give us, just for the. For the benefit of those that hadn't met you yet, the major moving parts of your career, because it's been a long and varied career, but generally in entertainment, which is helpful. Jim Cathcart 02:35 Okay. Well, I think it makes the most sense to say how I ever got interested in being a singer and being in show business. My father was a minister, fundamentalist preacher in Chicago with a small congregation. And at age 4, I sang my first solo. When I finished singing God Bless America, the crowd, the audience yelled, amen, Amen. Hallelujah. Well, I got so inspired by that, so tickled by that, I decided at age 4, I want to be a singer. That's it. Of course, being a singer in Chicago was a little more difficult than what happened to me. At age 10, my family moved to West Hollywood. I had a paper out delivering to all the big stars in Beverly Hills. The Capitol Tower was being built in my neighborhood. And my dreams became more intensified as I watched the lifestyle of all these famous, rich entertainers and said, that's what I want to be. I got lucky with my high school group, signed a contract with Capitol Records, youngest group ever decided with a major label at the time, where the first boy band had a lot of hits. After the group disbanded, and 20 years after we started, I became a network executive producer, director, wrote a couple of flop Broadway shows in and wrote, and then ended up writing a book about it all. And that's what we're. That's where we are now. Speaker A 03:49 Wow. Wow. Now, I know the complexity of all of what you just said. Others won't be nearly as sensitive to how significant that was. But let me just point out a few things to notice along the way, and then I'm going to go to Bruce for more detailed stories. First boy band. Literally. Literally. The four Preps. First boy band. They were on Ed Sullivan show before Elvis was, he says, network executive. Not only network executive, he's the guy that put Wheel of Fortune on the air. Jim Cathcart 04:28 You know, nobody's perfect. Speaker A 04:30 Yeah, I've been in movies. He, his band for preps acted and performed in the movie Gidget, the original Gidget movie with Sandra D. Wow. I mean, that was a real iconic movie of that. That period. When he talks about all of these various things that he's done. He's written songs that have been performed at the opening of Mount Rushmore on a. On a 4th of July, you know, at major venues and special events in Washington D.C. and around the country. He's written songs that have been covered by Willie Nelson and other artists over the years. And he is main song to me is his first big hit, which was 26 miles across the Sea, Santa Catalina is waiting for Me. That put the island of Catalina on the map. So much so that today in the Avalon Ballroom on Catalina, they have a. The Memorial Museum, kind of a section that's dedicated to the four Preps and that song because prior to them, nobody had heard about it. Bruce, why did you write a song about Catalina? Was it that you had been there before? Jim Cathcart 05:53 Good question. I think you can know the answer. When I was 4 and 5 and 6 and 8 years old in Chicago, I was A diehard Chicago Cubs fan like every other kid in my neighborhood. And when I'd go to the movie theater during the war, we watched the newsreel and there was always a newsreel section devoted to baseball and sports. And in March and April, when there's still snow drifts outside in Chicago, I'm watching the newsreel with Chicago. Here they are, our Chicago Cubs, far away, Catalina island, enjoying baseball workout for the new spring sea. And here's my Chicago Cubs while it's snowing outside here. They've got short sleeves, shirts on a sun kissed island with girls in the background in shorts waving with palm trees and horses in the background. And if you know 8 years old, I say, wherever this place Catalina is, it must be magical. Look at this. So the name Catalina, that magical word was stuck in my mind at a very young age. Quite a time later, my parents moved to West Hollywood. I went to Hollywood High, I cut school. One day I'm out on the beach with my buddies. We were body surfing all morning. We're laying around kind of kicking back and I've got my ukulele because I always took it to the beach because it was a chip magnet. And somebody said, wow, look, see Catalina. As clear as look, there's Catalina. And I said, how far is it? And some guy said, Ah, 25, 26 miles. So I picked my ukulele up. Now I. Catalina had been implanted in my brain with all the magical images. I had never been to the island, but I knew water all around it, tropical trees, the saltier, beautiful girls, romance. So I wrote this rhapsodic tribute to this beautiful island I'd never been to. Put it in a drawer for about two years. Then we signed with Capital. We had four or five releases that didn't hit. And finally I said, I'm going to show Capitol this little song I wrote in high school. I showed him 26 miles. He said, fine, we'll put it out on the B side. It was the B side of our next release, but thank God, a disc jockey in Hartford, Connecticut in the middle of December when the record came out, it was snowing outside in Connecticut. He turned a record over and played the B side 26 miles while he went up the hall of the men's room and when he came back to switchboard was lighting up like a Christmas tree. Everybody say, what is that song? Where did you get that song? Speaker A 08:09 Who is that? Jim Cathcart 08:10 Thank God, I've always wished I knew who he was. I'd send him a check. He picked the phone up the next morning and called the Capitol Tower and said, you guys are on the wrong side of the record. It's the B side. I played it last night and got a hell of a response. Turn it over. Thank God the tower heard, called all their promotions and it's the B side. It's the B side. Turn it over. And we were on the way. The rocket was launched. Speaker A 08:35 Wow. And the fourth four preps, was that. That your buddies from high school, right? I mean, you, you, you and that club and. Yeah. Glenn Larson. Jim Cathcart 08:47 Yeah. Speaker A 08:47 Who was the fourth one at first? Jim Cathcart 08:50 Marv Ingram. Speaker A 08:52 Marv Ingram, yeah. Jim Cathcart 08:53 Was our high tenor. Yeah. There was a talent show to Hollywood High every year. It was very well attended by talent scouts because Hollywood High had turned out an awful lot of stars over the years. Shining with Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Ann Miller, Carol Burnett, James Garner. So the talent show that year, 35 girls, no boys showed up to audition the next day. The school bulletin said, gotta be some guys out there that can do some kind of talent. So I went to Glenn Larson, my buddy since grammar school. I said, you want to put a court set together? The four, four man grooms were at the time. So we grabbed two guys from the choir, we learned shaboom from the crew Cuss record overnight, auditioned for the show, got on and stole the show because everybody else, an accordion player, was playing lady of Spain, you know, we came on and the place went nuts. So we come off stage and Glenn looks at me and says, we got something here. There's something going on here. And that was the beginning of Glenn and me then enlisting our two prime candidates to fill the permanent spots, Ed Cobb and Marvin Gum. And that was how the group was formed. Speaker A 09:56 Wow. And at what point did Ricky Nelson come into the mix? Jim Cathcart 10:03 Well, I went to high school. Ricky. I went to high school with David first. David and I were in the same graduating class we're supposed to be. And my senior year, I got elected David Nelson. Yeah, my senior year, I got elected head cheerleader to Hollywood High. And I cut so many classes, I have to go down and work on the PA system for the game, you know, so I. I missed more classes that I went to. Consequently, I flumped and didn't graduate with the rest of my graduating class. I got a hang. I had to hang over an extra semester to get my graduation diploma. And that extra semester is when David's little brother, Ricky Nelson, came to Hollywood High. And David said, look up Bruce Bellard. He knows all the scams on campus. He knows all the best teachers. He'll get you through it. So Ricky came over to me on campus and said, hey, what classes should I take? Help me out here. And that started it. We became friends. We'd sit around for hours listening to top 40 records on the radio. Little Richer, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, and Rick and I became fast friends. Then he gets a recording contract, and he calls me home and says, would you guys like to come on the show as my backup group and my fraternity brothers? Well, I thought it over for a fast five seconds. Yeah, what do you want us there? Speaker A 11:16 And let's pause for a second for the benefit of our viewers who don't remember the Ozzie and Harriet show. The Ozzy and Harriet show owned afternoon or evening television. I mean, they had. That was. That was the. Like, the Cosby family was for a while, or Father Knows Best was for a while, or like, gosh, I don't know what it would be today, but. But, you know, Leave it to Beaver. Jim Cathcart 11:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker A 11:45 Leave it to Beaver was in that genre, but Ozzy and Harriet was a big deal, and I watched it every time it was on. And Bruce was Ricky Nelson's sidekick. And it was almost a reality show in that it was a real family playing their real selves in a setting like that. This was before Lucille Ball had figured out her formula perfectly and she was still growing that, you know, so. So this was a major event for Bruce and his group to get on the show and then for Bruce to become Ricky's sidekick in the show for what, like 100 episodes, is that right? Yeah, yeah. And then, like a Seinfeld are friends. Speaker D 12:31 Like Seinfeld are friends. Speaker A 12:32 Yeah, yeah, that's a good. Good analogy. Thank you, Robin. It's. So as Ricky's. Ricky's career skyrocketed, so did yours, but separate from each other, not. Not, you know, together. Jim Cathcart 12:45 Yeah. Speaker A 12:46 Tell us just a little bit more about the. The Preps rise to fame. So, you know, how did that go? Jim Cathcart 12:54 Well, we decided very early on in our career we hadn't even had a record contract yet, but we were absolutely determined to be entertainers, not just singers. All the four man groups were out there. And now our next song will. And they'd sing pretty straight show. We like the last of all. I'm fighting like that. Yeah. I'm five foot six. And our bass, Ed Cobb, my friend since grammar school is six, is six foot five. So on stage right away, you got comedy and I'm a hambone. We wanted to do impressions. We wanted to do Funny comedy material. We didn't want to be just four guys who got up and sang. Well, that strength of our act got us booked on a lot of big gigs before we ever had a hit. We watched Rick's career take off and start to happen. Ours began to happen as well. And before we had a hit, we had very powerful agents who got us on the Edsel Show. So before the Preps had a hit or no, we were on a show called the Edsel Show. Introducing the car. We'll pause for a laugh now as the name Edsel is mentioned. Speaker A 14:00 Yeah. Edsel Ford. Jim Cathcart 14:02 Our agent at the time was a gentleman named Ned Tannen, who would go on to head Paramount Studios and make things like Bruce Brothers, Crocodile Dundee, all the great movies. But at that time, he was a struggling young agent. We were a struggling young group. He talked us on to the Edsel show, and at the beginning of the show, we were billed equally with Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Cooney, and the four Preps. We sang. We backed up Lindsay Nelson, Lindsey Crosby, big son who was terrified and didn't want to be on the show. But we backed him and got to watch for a salad week. Crosby and Sinatra and Armstrong all interact with each other. How they rehearsed, how they ran down a song, how they put the routines together. And we were just in heaven, but we. Speaker A 14:48 Let me. Let me get. Get you to pause for another second, because I. You may not realize how blow your mind impactful that is to those of us who know who you're talking about. Sinatra. Jim Cathcart 15:02 Yeah. Speaker A 15:02 Well, that's. That's like Mount Rushmore of. Of. Of entertainers. The people that Bruce just rattled off as if they were, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah. He lives next door. Yeah. I babysat for his family. Jim Cathcart 15:14 And. Speaker A 15:14 Oh, yeah, that's the guy who. Who adopted me for a month when my parents were out of town. What. I mean, you look at the names he's throwing out there. These are the guys he ended up hanging with. Now look at the wall behind Bruce. I don't know if that's virtual wall or it's a real one, but he has a real wall that. That's a photograph of. Those are his gold and platinum records. And this guy has made his mark in so many different ways that on the inside. Pathways in Hollywood, you mentioned, you go up to a veteran person that's got a pretty big name and you mentioned Bruce's name. They'll go, hey, Bruce builds. Yeah, I remember him very well. Jim Cathcart 16:00 He. Speaker A 16:00 And then they'll tell you what part he Played in their successes. So jeepers. I mean, when you were. I love the stories about your paper route, but I don't want to eat up a whole lot of the time here with. With each of these stories. Just give us a book. Yeah. Jim Cathcart 16:19 Run. Speaker A 16:20 Run down the neighborhood lanes and just rattle off a. Yeah. Jim Cathcart 16:26 I grew up in West Hollywood, which is very much a working class blue collar community. The members over my dad's congregation were plumbers and bus drivers. And so we're just regular everyday working people. But we were butted right up against. Three blocks from our front door was where Beverly Hills began. So at the age 14, I ran into the circulation manager of the local newspaper, the Hollywood Citizen News. And with my gift of gab, I convinced them. I know Beverly Hills like the back of my hand. I'd be just the guy you're looking for for Rodeo Cannon and Beverly Drive between Santa Monica and Sunset, which is called Stars Row. Yeah. The first time I came home with my receipt book for the people I delivered to and my mom sat at the kitchen table going through it. We saw Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lucille Ball, James Stewart, Harbo Marx, Ira Gershwin, star after star to whom I delivered newspapers. And during the course of those two or three years I had that paper out, which I dearly loved. I couldn't wait after school to get in my bike and ride down the streets of Beverly Hills, throwing my papers left and right. One day Gene Kelly came out. I didn't realize who he was at the time. When he started our conversation, he did a little tutorial for me about the better way to fold and throw the newspaper so it wouldn't go under the bush but go on his porch. Spent about a half an hour talking to me, getting to know me, Gene Kelly. Only when he turned to go back in his house and I realized, oh my God. Because he introduced himself as Gene. That's Gene Kelly. A couple of days later, I read Jimmy Durante, who had a beautiful conversation with a dear sweet man. So I was exposed to the opulent, lavish lifestyles of all these famous people. I'm a kid in West Olivet. More and more it's burning inside of me. I'm going to get there. I'm going to do this. I'm going to make it happen. There's nothing else in life I want to do. My father wanted me a gospel singer. Of course, that was his ambition for me. But that was the beginning of my exposure to what started meant, what it was about. And I never looked back after that. Speaker A 18:26 Wow. Wow. Do any of you other folks have a quick question we could ask Bruce? Speaker B 18:31 I mean, going through your IMDb and I mean mind boggling, and I've been on your website. Mind boggling. I mean, you're talking about the singing. But you did switch over into TV producing. Now I'm just going to throw out one show. We all know the show. Knight Rider. Jim Cathcart 18:49 Yeah. Speaker A 18:50 How, how in the world did you Speaker B 18:51 get about with Knight Raider? Jim Cathcart 18:52 Well, I didn't have anything to do with Knightwater being created. Created by my partner in the press, Glenn Larson. Yeah. And I, I, you know, I wrote a couple because knowing Glenn from the Preps, he'd call and say, hey, I need a script. We got any ideas? And I'd shoot them a few. And he'd say, yeah, write it up. Let's go. So, you know, I wrote a lot of television. I wrote McLeod, NBC Mystery Theater, Nakasha, Thief, a lot of it. Many of them I wrote while on the road touring with the Preps. I'd bring my typewriter on the road and sit in the hotel because I can't come home after a two hour concert and go right to bed. Nope, no performer can. You're keyed up. So I'd go home and fire up the typewriter and pound out a script and get back to LA and get it to Glenn and he'd say, yeah, let's go. So that's how I ended up doing that in National Lampoon Vacation. I wrote some music for that. And, you know, things came in all with the Transom that I wasn't even expecting to say, you want to do this or that. I never turned anything down. Whether I knew how to do it or not. I say, off, I can fake my way through this. So I got very lucky in a lot of different areas of endeavor in the industry. Speaker A 19:57 You wrote scripts for some of the shows I love the most, like To Catch a Thief. Was that the one with, with Fred Astaire and Robert Wagner? Jim Cathcart 20:08 Yep. And I remember, I remember Glenn and I talked regularly after I was doing other things and he was at Universal and he said, I got an idea. He said, I want to do a deal. But Monday, the Robert Wagner character's father, who was a retired jewel thief, as is Robert Wagner, and I'm going after Fred Astaire. I said, oh my. Come on, Glenn. Glenn always thought big, believe me. Glenn never thought small, which is how he became a billionaire, if you will. He said, no, I'm going after him. When he called me, I got him, I got him. I got Fred Astaire. And I think the way they got him was that he said, we're going to shoot most of next season in Europe. We'll put you up in first class apartments in Paris or wherever we happen to be shooting. Would you be willing to do it? The stairs at all? It sounds like fun. I'd love to. So that's how a stair got on that. On that show of Glenn's. Speaker A 20:57 That was a great show. I really enjoyed that. And Glenn, speaking of him, didn't he also produce, create and produce Battlestar Galactica? Jim Cathcart 21:08 He did. He produced Battlestar Galactica for the first season. It was on. Interestingly enough, it did not do well in his first and only season with Glenn producing it. After Glenn retired and left Universal, some younger people got the idea of reviving the show. And Glenn was always a little bit bitter because when they brought the show back, they did not get him put in one word of consultation or advice. They simply took the title, walked away with it, and put their own show on. Of course, the bitter irony to Glenn, which further embittered him, was the. Became a huge hit when they took it over and redid it after Glitter had bombed with it. So it was a mixed blessing in a way. But still, it was his idea. Glenn was a Mormon and was based very much on the Mormon faith, the context of that show. So, you know, he. Wow. Satisfaction. Speaker A 21:55 But it wasn't all this amazing, amazing. And then one day you were sitting with your friend Dick Clark. Pause for effect. And yeah, you and Dave Somerville, who had done Little Darling that day. Somerville, right. You and Dave Somerville, who were dear friends and were singing together, performed on a show with Dick Clark. And he turned to you and said, I smell money. Is that right? Jim Cathcart 22:31 Oh, yeah. Well, it wasn't on a show, Jim. It was. It was Glenn Larson's 50th birthday party. By then he had a wonderful mansion in Holmby Hills with a bowling alley and a movie theater and the whole thing. He really. And so for his 50th birthday, he did a major blowout. Roy Rogers was there, David Hasselhoff, Dennis Weaver, Jacqueline Smith, I mean, a lot of celebrities. And his patio. Patio, it looked like a football field in his backyard with Les Brown's band. And at some point in the evening, knowing that David Somerville was there, that I was there, that Glenn was there, that Ed Cobb was there from the original preps. Dick Clark came over to me and said, come on, get up and do a number, you guys. Come on. It had been 20 years since we'd Sung together. We got up on stage and stumbled through a couple of hits. The crowd went crazy afterwards. I'm backstage cooling off when I hear a voice behind me say, I smell money. And I turned around. It was Dick Clark said, if you don't put this group back together and go back on the road, this is 1989 after a 20 year hiatus, you're nuts. There are people out there dying to hear this kind of harmony. You guys do a great, entertaining show. You got to do it again. So I called Ed Cobb the next day, and he had written a massive hit by then called Tainted Love, which is the. One of the biggest hits in all of rock and roll. He was a successful record producer. But I said, do you want to do this? You want to try put it. He said, absolutely. Boy, Larry, I got an idea. We'll get David Somerville from the Diamonds and we'll get Jim pike from the Letterman. He left the Letterman and we'll do a super group. And we put it together in 89. And for two years we traveled in that room with Jim pike and then Jim Pike. I'm sorry, yeah, with Jim pike and the Letterman. He retired. We got in Jim Yester from the association and did eight more years of touring until the group disbanded around 1999. But that was my experience with those guys. Speaker A 24:22 Well, one of the highlights in my life has been the opportunity to hang backstage and side stage with all of the people you just mentioned, you know, because of my friendship with you. Some years ago, when I still lived in San Diego, I got a call from Liz Erickson of one of the major speakers bureaus, and she said, jim, I've got a client, his name's Bruce Belland and he's an entertainer, but he wants to start doing speaking engagements for pay. And I told him you'd be a good guy to talk to. And so I get on the phone with Bruce and you can tell how likable he is. We just hit it off like that and we got together a few times and we, you know, shared ideas and it was. It was just absolutely fabulous. And so I was able, with Paula, to show up at these performances and to be backstage with Bruce, with David Somerville, with Ed Cobb, who by the way, produced Pink Floyd the Wall with Jim Yester later on with. I mean, it was just such a. It was like, ooh, you know, I'm walking on holy ground. Like, you mentioned Roy Rogers. Oh, my God, that's. That's filet of childhood from. For me, Roy Rogers was my. A number one youth hero. And I finally met him years and years and years later in 1990. Jim Cathcart 25:53 Oh, no kidding. Speaker A 25:55 I did. I met him at the. At his museum in Victorville, Apple Valley, California. I had been on a motorcycle tour from San Diego to Wyoming and back, a solo tour. And I saw the Fort Apache kind of a design to it with the big statue of Trigger, his horse out front, and I thought it was stuck. That's. That's got to be Roy Rogers place. So I pulled off, but it was early, early in the morning, and so I got a cup of coffee nearby and just waited until it opened and went in. And sure enough, my hero was there. So I got my little nano moment with him, but I didn't get to hang with him and others like you did. Wow. Wow. Well, tell us about the book. I mean, I know you're telling us about the book already, but. But did. Tell us about icons, idols, and idiots of Hollywood. Tell us. Yeah, I want everybody to get a copy and send all your friends a copy for Christmas, and I guarantee you it'll keep you occupied for a long time because you won't want to stop. Yeah, Yeah, I understand. I'll be there in a minute. Just one more story. Right. It's a great. Jim Cathcart 27:07 Well, thank you, Jim. I. You know, I know that you have been so actually effective in helping people live their lives to the fullest in accomplishing what they dream of accomplishing, and I certainly used a lot of your lessons in that area to apply to writing this book. It took me eight years to write it. The Prep's career kept interfering, and next thing I know, I'm out on the road not finishing the book, But I wanted to tell the story of, number one, believing in yourself. My father implanted in me from a very early. He was a wonderful man. He was a very learned man. He had two or three degrees, and of course, he wanted me to be a gospel singer. But whatever I chose to go into, he said, believe in yourself. You've got that self belief down inside of you. If it's really entrenched firmly there, nobody can take it away from you. They may criticize you and lambast you, but if you believe in yourself, you got it made. Well, I never gave up on that. Many times when I walked up and down Sunset Boulevard as a kid with that demo tape, trying to get somebody to listen to our group and give us a contract, I'd go home at night discouraged, bruised and beaten if the dad said, keep it up. Believe in yourself. So I never gave it up. And I wanted to Try to implant that in people who read it about, hey, dreams. Dreams can come true. Believe in yourself. Don't give up. Go after it. And look, we were lucky. I mean, had my parents not moved from Chicago to West Hollywood within the shadow of the Capitol Tower, it might never have happened. But it was a wonderful ride. I mean, I got to rub shoulders, as you say, with all the biggest stars, idols of mine. I mean, first time I met Dick Clark, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't talk with. And he was a great guy. He became a great friend. So in this book I tell all the funny escapades with Dick Clark, all the Ed Sullivan shows, all the American Bandstand, all the things with Crosby and Sinatra, things that happened at the Capitol Tower. We were a major influence on both Brian Wilson and Jimmy Buffett. Jimmy Buffett did a chapter in his book, his biography, about 26 miles. Brian Wilson later wrote that he was influenced by an assembly we did at his high school before the Beach Boys were created that inspired him to do it. So the book is about the many travels that I took, the many things or obstacles we ran into. There's a chapter or two about at the very peak of our career, we have a top 10 single and a top 10 album. JFK activates our national Guard unit for a year of active duty with the top record. So for six days a week, from six in the morning till four in the afternoon, we would be in fatigues. My job, believe it or not, in the Air Force, was cleaning the latrines on the airplanes. I'm not kidding, you can't make this up. And I wrote a movie eventually about the fact that during that year, enlistment, we had a headline engagement in Vegas. So we had a private plane. We had our own plate at that time. We would park it at the air base where we were stationed. At a 4 o' clock when military duty ended, we had permission for the base commander to get on our plane, fly to Vegas, take off our grungy fatigues, put on mohair silk tuxedos, go out on stage and be an star for two shows with chorus girls and standing ovations, get back in the plane at 4 o' clock the next morning, fly in for 6 o' clock duty, clean latrines all day, get back that afternoon, get back. So I wrote about that in the book. Speaker A 30:29 I guarantee you, humility is, is, is not a problem for you. After that, you absolutely, emotionally, psychically and and otherwise understand what it means to be humble. Jim Cathcart 30:46 Yeah, it was quite an Adventure. I wrote a movie called Weekend warriors, which is all over HBO these days. Weekend warriors, about the invention, about this weird double life that we live for a full year. We average four hours sleep a night. I don't know how we ever did it, but we did it. And you know, the book is about all those adventures and in some cases, misadventures. And of course, the book, as you know, Jim, concludes with the night we're scheduled to do a two hour concert at the Ohio University. And that afternoon, JFK is assassinated. And we get a call from the dean at the university saying, I hope you'll please come ahead and do the concert. Regardless of what's happened, our kids really need some relief from all this gone down and would mean so much to us if you'd come and do the show anyhow. So we were a wreck, as everybody was, from what had happened. And we, we manned up and went there and did the show and got through two hours of it. And the final song we had chosen to do was called He's Gone Away, which is a Civil War song about a soldier who's died in battle. And we get to that number and say, he's gone away for to stay a little while. And I look at the guy, look at me, I'm choking up now. I looked at the guys and we didn't want to make eye contact because the dam would break. We had a man up and finish this song. When we finished the two hour concert with that song, this is wonderful to me, there was not any applause, There was simply a kind of group sigh. And the crowd got up and slowly filed out to a very different world than they had woken to that morning. And we got through it. Then we went back to the dressing room afterwards and fell apart, crying, laughing, hugging, making morbid jokes, trying to deal with what's going on on the van on the way back to the hotel. Usually you're after a hit show, you're up, jumping around, yelling, screaming, high fiving. We were totally silent. Every one of us was thinking the same thing. Camelot is over. Yeah, things change, times change, things move on. Maybe it's time for the four of us to think about what else we want to do with our lives. It was a pivotal moment to us. To me, it was the capstone of the book and the story of these four kids from Hale Wahai who got together and went to that point in their lives. And it was meaningful for me to write. And I hope people I share it with get a little bit of what it was like to be that camaraderie. 50 years later. Jim, 50 years later, after that concert, I got a letter from a man saying I was on my first date with the woman who became my wife and the mother of my children that night at that college concert. I have wanted for 50 years to try and find you guys, let you know how much it meant to me and all of us because you helped us get through that evening. Fifty years later, you can't beat that. I'm ready to call it quits after that. Speaker A 33:36 Leonard, isn't that the church? Jim Cathcart 33:37 As good as it gets. Speaker A 33:39 That's just beautiful. Trigger had a follow up question just a moment ago. Speaker B 33:44 Yeah, Yeah, I just want to go back for the book because you're also describing why you wrote it to how people understand that they can get their dreams and they can do it. We now live in an age where we're all on camera. We're doing podcasts, streaming TV shows. What would you say if you had a young dreamer here with us today that said, I have a dream, but no one believes me, but I want to do all this media stuff? What would you say because you've been there, done it yourself? Jim Cathcart 34:10 Well, you know, media wise, I come on guys like my friend June Cathcart with the Zoom interviews of the podcast. I don't have a podcast myself. I didn't know what a podcast was when the book came out. Why? Sure, learn fast. But, you know, I do get occasional contact from striving performers, in particular singer songwriters, and I know how much advice I give about media in general. But as far as anybody with musical talent that wants to make it, I've said it a dozen times to a dozen wannabes, and I'll say it as long as they'll listen. Do every chance you get to sing anywhere for anybody at any time, if it's your neighbor's birthday party and there's 15 people, get your guitar, go over and sing. Because those 15 people say, man, I heard a guy named Jim Cathcart at a party last week. This guy is killer. You never know where it's going to lead. So don't give up. Expose yourself as much as you can to as many people as you can. And as far as the media thing, I got to bow out of that because my wife hooked up the Zoom this morning. I couldn't do it if my life. But media television, of course, I, you know, help put Wheel of Fortune on the air and produce $100,000, name that tune, yada yada. And that was just a matter of getting an idea developing we made on some of the shows that we finally got on the air. We ended up making three pilots before we got it right and got it on. Don't give up, okay, you made a pilot, it didn't work. What was wrong? How do you fix it? How do you do it next time? The main thing, the number one thing, is perseverance. You just can't give up, you can't back down. I had blue days, right? Saying, oh, boy, this bombed out. What am going to do it. You pick up, you move on. But don't give up. Keep at it. Speaker A 35:50 Boy, that's perfect advice. Perfect advice. Because in, in the world of speaking, the people I've known that have become big, you know, they. They did exactly that. There was one guy who was dirt poor when I met him. He was. He was living in an apartment with rafts, literally, in New York City. And he said, yeah. He said, I. I need your guidance. I put together some money and I want to buy some of your time. I said, gee, I said, I hate to. To accept money. Let me see if I can help you for free. I did a little bit of that. And he said, no, I want to buy some of your time. I want to concentrated attention on me for the following things. I said, number one, do a hundred presentations. He said, do 100 presentations. Where? I said, anywhere. It could be on a street corner while people are walking by. Like speaker's corner in England, you know, it could be at the neighborhood grass fires. It could be at the dedication of the next intersection. It could be anywhere. Just get out there and get mileage. Because you need three things in speaking. You need a message that people are worth the figure is worth paying to hear. You need a market, a group of people that will directly benefit from that message. And you need mileage. Mileage. Mileage. Mileage. Mileage. Which is exactly what Bruce was saying, man. Jim Cathcart 37:24 As you know, Jim, through your kindness and your contacts, you lined up a great many, excuse me. Speaking engagements for me. And as you know, at the time, the name of my speech was congratulations, you struck out. Which only meant you congratulations. Number one, you didn't sit in the bench or up on the bleachers. You got a bat, you got up to the base and took the swing at the ball. That's number one. Congratulations. Speaker A 37:47 Yep. Jim Cathcart 37:47 Number two, Fooled you with an inside curveball. He's never going to fool you with an inside curveball again. You're a smarter batter than you were when you got up and struck out. Another reason for Congratulations. You got to get enough to bat with a bat in your hand. So congratulations. You struck out. You learned something. Next time, it'll be over the fence. And that's what I've always been my credo. And there you go. Speaker A 38:09 One of the really treasured moments for me that you. I'll get to you, Robin. Thank you. Treasured moment for me that you may not realize how treasured it was, was when we were on the boat going to Catalina for the 50th anniversary of the song 26 Miles. That was with you and the four preps. And we're on the ferry going across to the island, and David Somerville grabbed a guitar and started singing, and he and I sang together. You probably participated in the song, too, but I remember I was directly in front of him. It was, let me tell you the story of a man named Charlie on that tragic and fateful day. You know, it was a Kingston Trio tune about riding on the Metropolitan Transit Authority mta. Jim Cathcart 39:01 Never returned, though. He never returned. Speaker A 39:08 I love it. Look. Look here. Icons, idols and idiots of Hollywood. My adventures in America's first boy band. This is the book, and I have the honor of having my name mentioned in there. That is so cool. Jim Cathcart 39:24 All right. Speaker A 39:25 And this is part of it. That's some stories right there. Lots of great leisure reading. The only problem with it, it is literally so sticky, so compelling. It draws you in, and you don't want to set it down. And I've read that about other books that's absolutely factual on this one. Robin Kriseman and then Pete Monfrey. Okay, Robin. Speaker D 39:53 Bruce, I want to. Yeah, Bruce Rich brought up the idea of the new media. What's going on? We were talking about podcasts and so forth. What do you think about the new music industry? I've been in the music industry as well over my career, and I produce a lot of music shows. We have a family friend, Bailey Jell, if you guys can see that. Bailey Jell, she's the daughter of one of a girl that was in one of my groups. And she's a beautiful girl, a beautiful singer. She's young, and she just sent out this today. She on Instagram, on Spotify. She's done a lot of just, you know, home recordings, and she's on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and so forth, putting out content all the time. Music. She's had 24. She's not signed. She's not signed. She's an independent artist. She's had 24.4 million streams. She's got 4 million listeners. She's 1.1 million hours of listening, 183 countries who have listened to her. And her total number of Streams has been 24,498,800. 587 times. She's an independent artist. Speaker A 41:06 Wow. Speaker D 41:08 How does that happen, you know? Jim Cathcart 41:11 Would she be willing to give me some advice? I'm a new coffee business. I'll take it. I'll take it. Speaker D 41:18 I know, it's crazy. I produce a show called Troubadour Texas. Behind the scenes look at singer songwriters on their journey to success. Similar to an American American Idol, but much smaller, more organic. Was on the CW network and as singer songwriters trying to get a break. And it's so hard. It's so hard. And that was in 2014-2017. But now with so much opportunity online and just, you know, I was doing Facebook lives during COVID and getting 2,000 viewers just, you know, in an afternoon, playing my guitar on right here in my office. But that was not the way it was when I had a record deal or when you had a record deal, certainly. And it's amazing what is available to us today. And yet it's still so hard for even an artist like Bailey to get distribution. It's just all online. And it's not on radio. It's just online. Jim Cathcart 42:17 Well, yeah, I can't imagine that she couldn't go to a record label. Western record label. These days, there are no brick and mortar anymore. I understand the Capitol tower going to go condominium, although they can't tear it down. It's been deemed a historic landmark. Yeah. With that kind of viewership or listenership, I suppose you should say, I can't imagine she couldn't go to some label somewhere and. And get a deal. I understand there are people now like her who have that kind of viewership and have managed to figure out a way to monetize it on their own label or no label. I don't know anything about that. But she certainly ought to explore with that kind of following. And I thought you were going to ask me, in addition to the modern, you know, media that's available, what about music these days? Because I can't tell you how many interviews I do with just say, you must hate the crap that's on it. Are you kidding? Have you listened to Taylor Swift? You listen to. You listen to boys. There's some great Mariah Carey. I mean, my God, talk about shops. There's some great singers out there. I don't know. You know, one interviewer said, what about rap? Music. I said, well, I've heard rap and I've heard music. I've never heard rap music. And the fact that those guys get paid by ASCAP or BMI for writing a melody, that is what you want. Don't turn well, you don't jump. And I don't like that. I'm not in favor of. That's not a song to me, that's a poem being recited. Give him half credit for writing half the song. They didn't write a melody anyhow. Don't get me started on that. Speaker A 43:49 Well, Pete Manfrey had a question here a moment ago, Pete. Speaker E 43:53 Yeah, well, and so many things have been covered since I thought of my questions. So I'll make a couple quick statements first, you know, nice to meet all of you guys. Thank you, Jim, for inviting me today. I try to show up when I can and I just appreciate it. I wanted to tell the folks too that I also had Jim come out to one of my shows and sit in. And I usually don't do that because it's usually a very dicey proposition. And Jim slayed the room. So that's all. It was really fun and I hope you'll do it again. You know, I only have one more show left, so. Yeah, I'm retiring after 44 years performing live and I've been an independent artist for my almost my whole life. And I, I've heard of Robin, I do Stories from the Road here in Austin out of Saxon Pub and we're going six years of that. So yeah, we have 58 artists. But to Bruce's point about this, not giving up. I have a thought about that and also about monetizing the new music business. And I'm just a club player. I never really had any aspirations beyond that. I just love to perform. But I have a friend named Greg Cock who's a guitar player and guitar players have even a worse time than singers and songwriters. And he is a jaw dropping, you know, he's the next Danny Gatton really. And what he's really has done, you know, touring is still where the money is, tours constantly. He's younger than me and funnier, but he does a lot of endorsement deals and he does a lot of clinics and he has a lot of products and that not just like the regular merch, but there's an amplifier company called Cock Amplifiers and they got with him. And now Amplifiers means Greg Cock, you know, so I have pickup set from Fishman that's a Greg Cock signature fluence, you know, pickups. And so I'M I'm amazed at that. He's doing what he loves and he's brilliant at it, but he has not taken that traditional route. Mostly I think also because record companies don't sign. I mean, look at Danny Gatton, what happened to him, right? It was tragic. Danny left this world thinking that he was a terrible guitar player. And it's just because the record companies are so far up their own asses that it's nuts, really. And then just. And then I have a question, but a final thought about this not giving up thing. So I started doing a podcast a little over a year ago. We do it every single week. Live video podcast, LinkedIn. Now we're on a whole bunch of platforms and syndicated. But we, we decided to do it for a year before we even tried to measure anything. And the, and the commitment was every single without fail. And then when we did measure it, it's driven a ton of revenue to my firm. When we syndicated it, you know, the uptake is still. It's steady but slow. Right. But I have zero doubt we do this another year, we'll have tens of thousands of listeners, no doubt about it. And we have the technology to stream on multiple plat. I think we're on five platforms all at once. And then of course, the audio goes out everywhere. And so I really, I really dig that. But about songwriting. So I have a producer who's convinced me that I can write songs. Never written any songs. This is my 9th album, but didn't write any of these songs. I'm trying. He wants to do a jump, post war jump blues album. And so Bruce. Speaker A 47:29 Yeah, Speaker E 47:31 I want to take like traditional themes and, and maybe modernize them a little bit. You know, the traditional themes of jump music. Basically booze and Cadillacs and women and, you know. Jim Cathcart 47:42 Yeah, the usual. Speaker E 47:43 But it's like I just, I'm not sure how, how to start. I mean, it's like I, I really have no idea. And the producer's name is Matt Smith. I mean, he's ridiculous, I think. Jim Cathcart 47:54 Jim, you don't how to write about what song to write? Is that what you're saying? Speaker E 47:58 Well, it's lyrics, really. It's like, you know, for some reason, even though I produce content, I'm a storyteller, I gigged for 44 years. I can't even begin to figure out how to write lyrics. Jim Cathcart 48:12 Well, you know, I, I heard a wonderful story once about a famous writer who was lecturing a class of aspiring writers in a college class of young people. And somebody said the proverbial question, which writers get all the time? How do you get your ideas? He said, let me give you an example. How do you get. Your ideas are all around you? He said, I was sitting today, this morning in my breakfast nook in my kitchen, looking out of the window up towards the front of our property where our mailbox is. And the mailman came along and parked his truck. And instead of putting the mail in the box, he had a special delivery letter. He parked his truck and he walked up and rang the doorbell and gave me that special delivery letter. I want to catch a look at you. And he says, can you. What an idea. What an idea. You know how many ideas you can get from a postman dealer with special delivery letter? Your girlfriend is breaking up. Your mother died. You've got a record contract. You're going to join it. Come on. They're all around you. What do you mean? Where do you get your ideas? A pope. So, you know, that's. I won't be labor, but you can write songs about the darkness. Things that. We once had an assignment. My writing partner and I have Disney studios to write 10 songs on a weekend for the Mickey Mouse club. They wanted 10 songs to perform the following week. So we spent a sleepless weekend writing things. I wrote a song called have you ever thanked your thumb? Have you made your thumb your chum? Not to do so it would be dumb if you don't thank your thumb. You couldn't hitchhike. You could, you know. Have you ever thanked your stuff. Come on. Where'd you get that? Well, I looked at my. Speaker A 49:49 In a Mickey Mouse Club show. Jim Cathcart 49:52 Oh, yeah. It's in a Mickey. And we got it. Speaker A 49:55 I remember that from the Mickey Mouse. Jim Cathcart 50:00 Have you ever thank your child? Have you made your thumb your charm? Not to do so would be dumb. So you better thank your thumb. Yeah. Anyhow, that's all. Speaker A 50:11 By the way, another little bit of trivia about our special guest today. How many of you saw the Disney cartoon movie Jungle Book? Okay, so pretty much everybody saw that Bruce was one of the voices. Were you one of the blackbirds or multiple voices or what? Jim Cathcart 50:34 Not a blackbird, Jim. It was a buzzard. And he said, oh, my. He said they were cognizant. Oh, my. Who's that coming down your road? I freakish a little boy. And I also did the elephant. And then we sang. I can't remember. The song we sang is three buzzards on a. Out of the limb of a tree. And it was great fun. I had more fun at Disney. Also did the theme from a great movie comedy they made introducing Kurt Russell, called the Computer War. Tennis shoes. Speaker A 51:06 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 51:06 And we wrote a title, software. There again, you go, my friend, give me an idea. We'll write about the computer wearing tennis shoes. Where do you go with that lyric? But you run with it and, you know, the ideas come at you. Speaker A 51:18 Well, let me just say again, it just blows my mind. I mean, all the familiar things of my life, you know, the things that seem the thousands, 10,000 miles away from me. I sit down with Bruce and oh, yeah, I did that. Or, oh, yeah, I was in there. Yeah, you should see how they did that because I was there in the room that day. Or who. No, that wasn't who it was. It was this person. And I'm just so. You know, that's. That's what I mean. This book is filled with those things, so icons, idols and idiots of Hollywood. And you've got to get it and just go on Amazon and grab it and get a copy for at least two or three of your closest friends, because they're going to thank you. Jim Cathcart 52:10 Jim, I want to say, too, that, you know, I. I very often get asked by interviewers, what do you mean by idiots? Who are the idiots? Well, you read the books low, but on several occasions, the idiots were four young, ambitious, striving, headstrong strivers called 4PreP. So some of the idiotic things that occur in the book were performed by yours, Julian, my three, and my three bandmates. You know, I'm not calling everybody else an idiot without taking a share of that credit myself. Speaker E 52:39 You know, I forgot to mention also, best book title ever. You know, and we're in a creative business here. And so the irony of me struggling with songwriting, I think is really funny because we ever demanded to do, like, what, you know, the client says, I need this by this date. You can't sit around and be like, well, I'm not very inspired, so, you know, oh, no. But I try to write a song and I'm, you know, I'll keep you posted. I did share a link with y' all that you can download my. My album if you're interested in alternative Christmas music. And there's a lot of people you'll probably recognize on there, but, you know, it's also for sale and makes, you know, very little money, but all of it in Europe. So there you go. No one cares. Jim Cathcart 53:21 Well, if I may, do I have a minute to tell a quick story about writing a song? Speaker A 53:26 Absolutely. Jim Cathcart 53:28 My partner, I ran Ralph Edwards Productions for five years and produced Over a thousand hours of television. But I got tired of it and I resigned to write a Broadway show. Every lyricist, every songwriter, I know the ultimate goal for them is to write a hit Broadway show. So we were, my partner and I were in our studio in Hollywood late at night, walk up studio, really the funky part of town. We were trying to save money until we got the show on the, on the road. And we got a phone call about 11 o' clock at night from a hysterical producer that said, oh my God, we're shooting a scene tomorrow for this movie we're making at Warner Brothers called National Lampoon Vacation and we need a song written for the family in the station wagon driving to Wally's World to the museum park. They're all so excited. No, for joy, they wanted to brush them to a song. And it's the Wally World theme. I said. He said, we need the Mickey Mouse theme. Side words, that's what we need. Sideways, the Mickey mouse theme. It's 11 o' clock at night. I said, well fine, I think we can do that. He said, one problem I needed at 8:00 tomorrow morning. Oh, okay. So we went downstairs to the liquor store across the street and got some Snickers to give us energy and went back and we're sitting at the piano now. Wally World's theme. How do you get, where do you start with that? Well, we were, we were punchy by that time and I'm doing all these really vulgar, you know, funny make believe lyrics to this song, but suddenly we start to brew. Who's the movie his. It's Wally, he's a moose. Who's the mooseiest moose of all? Marty Moose. So we began to write this song at about 7 o' clock that morning we had it finished. We made a demo tape, ran over to the front gate of the Warner Brothers studio at 8 o' clock in the morning where we had prearranged to meet the producer. We handed him the demo tape and the lead sheet of the song through the gate. He turned around and went back in the studio. We went back to our office and lo and behold, it ended up in the National Lampoon movie. And I probably made as much as on that song as I did on 26 miles. But the point of. How do you write? You sit down, you're writing, you put words on paper and if you got a good, if you're writing yourself, that's. I think it's more difficult if you're writing both melody and lyrics. I always had a sounding board, so you Know, you sure that's what you want to say in that line? You know, that's a story about delivering on a moment's notice when the pressure is on and you, you figured a way to do it, you know, sooner or later. Speaker E 55:52 Well, I know Jim said he's good at lyrics and so I'll probably hassle him. And then my producer is pretty good too, so it is a co writing thing. Jim Cathcart 55:59 So you also, you also know now you know how to find me Bruce Bell. Seriously, if I can be any help, man, I'd love to. Speaker E 56:07 Thank you. I love jump music. So I was really fired up. Jim Cathcart 56:12 Right? Speaker A 56:13 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 56:13 Good. Speaker A 56:14 Awesome. Speaker E 56:14 Awesome. Thank you, sir. Speaker A 56:16 Well, Dennis Madden, do you have any quick questions or comments you want to interact with Bruce while we've got you here? Jim Cathcart 56:25 I don't have any questions. I've just been enjoying this. This is great. And as Bruce has talked about some of the film work that he's done and in television shows, I remember all of them as a kid. I just wrote down, I'm going to have to go get Ozzy and Harriet and, and take a look at that again because I love that show but I haven't seen it in a long time. But now I'm gonna go find it. This was terrific. Thank you so much, Bruce. Speaker A 56:51 You bet. By the way, Dennis and I are co authors of this book. Hi, Rev for Small Business. Dennis Madden and me Jim Cathcart 57:03 got a learned bunch. All you people are cleaning up. We got a learned bunch here. Well, you know, Ozzy and Harriet, interestingly enough, I got call about a year ago from the head of the television and film archives at UCLA and said, yeah, this should have been done a long time ago. We're going to finally restore and clean up all 435 episodes of Ozzie and Harriet. It ran longer than any sitcom in history, ran for 14 years. And he said, would you be willing to do a 20 minute introduction about your experiences on the show and with Ozzie Nelson and so forth? So I went over and filmed that and it should be out, I think, right after the holidays. All 435 episodes, you know, sanitized and cleaned up and refreshed. And it's an American institution. I mean, you think about the name of that show has become part of the American jargon. If you'll say, well, things are different now. It's not Ozzy and Harriet anymore, you know, or that. So it represents a certain generic kind of wholesome family comedy. That family became part of my life later on in. I found out when I was at NBC that Ozzy was terminally ill. I got a call from David, his son, and I went to my studio, at my office, at the studio at NBC that day, and I closed the door. I wrote a letter to him and I said, there's not a day that goes by that I don't draw as an executive and a producer on something I learned watching you function. I don't know how to thank you enough. And Ozzie sent a letter back to me. I think Jim seen it. It's on the wall in my den. Dear Bruce, I've always thought of you as family. You are a surrogate son of ours. NBC is lucky to have your talent and integrity and enthusiasm. I was happy that you could apply anything that you learned from me in your career. Now, best of luck. I send my love, as does Harriet. And 10 months later, he was gone. But my experience with that family and that show is more meaningful and richer to me than, than George Burns or Dick Clark or anybody else with whom I interacted. They were just marvelous people to me and went way beyond a professional relationship to dear close friends. Speaker A 59:11 Wow. Wow. Oh, so many directions I could go and so many things I could say to tell people how wonderful you've been in my life, Bruce. But I don't think gushing is the best approach to this part of the show. Grateful. I mean, you wrote, you wrote a song for me, a parody of 26 miles for my 40th business anniversary in Westlake Village, Tuscany Restaurant, celebrating my 40th business anniversary. And, and you wrote a parody of your own song for me. Thank you for that. Jim Cathcart 59:52 Where are my royalties, Jim? Speaker A 59:54 Ah, let's see. I tell you what, I'm going to give you 100%. So all the income I've gotten from that, I'm going to share it all with you. Speaker E 60:03 It's funny, a real musician right there. Jim Cathcart 60:07 Yeah, right, yeah, whatever I can. The Catalina Museum. If any of you are going or have been to Catalina, there's a marvelous, beautiful new 11 million dollar museum they build on Catalina about the history of the island in order to raise funds for the museum, which is of course a non profit. I offered when they had their last fundraising dinner at the auction to raise money. I will write a custom lyric for anybody out there for their sweetheart or their wife or an anniversary or your birthday. If you'll bid $500 to the cause. And three people bid 500. And now I'm getting the notes and. Okay. My wife's name is Joyce. We met at so and so High school. If you can mention that my first car was a Ford. It broke down on our first day. If you can work that into the lyrics. So I'm sitting here now. I'm not getting any money for it, but I'm happy to do it. It's a fun exercise figuring out how I tell the story of this couple who bid $500 for a personalized version of this song. It's great. Speaker A 61:03 So I've got a friend here in Austin who does Santa Claus very convincingly. I mean, he could star as Santa Claus in the next iteration of Miracle on 34th Street. He does that. He sits at home in his studio in full regalia and takes a script from a person that says, you know, daughter Janie, age 6, loves Taylor Swift, you know, and all that. And he's got all the details. And so he says, ho, ho, ho, you know, and then he says, I want to wish all of you a merry Christmas. And by the way, Janie, you know, I was talking to Taylor Swift the other day just as I was dropping off her gifts, and she said that she really appreciated the sentiment that you expressed in your. Your note. And the little girl's just going like that. So I'm sure your. Your viewers were doing the same thing to yours. That's cool. I like that. Tell us about. Jim Cathcart 62:00 I got citywoman. Speaker A 62:02 The lovely Cathcart is dropping in. Bruce, I haven't. I haven't heard everything you have talked about all your stories, but have you told him about your first paid gig as a child and what you got paid with for your dad? Jim Cathcart 62:20 Oh, well, that was. That was that. That solo? I sang my first solo underneath 4 my dad's Sunday. Sunday service. Well, the reason he got me to get up and sing it was because he had promised me if I do it straight through without a mistake, Ruby Berlin's new song, God Bless America. He would give me ready drumroll. My own stick. Showing up my own stick. Well, I had a brother. My mom would tear it in half and give us each a half. I'm going to get my own stick. I sat at the piano with my mom for a solid week and rehearsed it. I had it down cold. I got up there Sunday morning in front of the congregation. Lean into that mic. Got through God got to the God. My home sweet home. Where's my gum? Of course, the whole congregation. The whole congregation broke up. So that was. So that's my story about. And the other quick story. People are buying the book at Amazon and I've got instructions on my website how you can send it to me. I will autograph it, inscribe it to someone you want to give it to as a gift, and mail it back to you. And I'm getting by the dozens. We're getting them every day to sign to my wife, Victoria, happy birthday. I love you. And I'm. I'm doing a fine. The other day we got one from a woman that said, please sign it to my husband, Jane. And you know, send it to my daughter's address because if it comes to our house, my husband will see it. It'll ruin the surprise. So sign it to G, to Paul, my husband, and send it to my daughter. The same day. The same day I get an E, I get a book from her husband saying, I want to surprise my dog, my wife, with this. So sign it to her, but don't send it to me. Send it to my daughter. So I'm part of a big family. I said I could just imagine on Christmas morning when they open those two, they're going to be a howl, I'm sure. Speaker A 64:14 Thank you. I love that. Oh, folks, I have had the opportunity, the privilege and blessing to sit around in my living room with a guitar with Bruce, and sing songs into the night. Oh, do you talk about special treasure? What? You know, like, Chicken Soup for the Soul. This is more like, like, oh, gosh. Elix Golden Elixir for. For the heart and soul. Just. Just a beautiful set of experiences. Well, Bruce, I've sat in your audience on. On a blanket out in a public park. I've been in a folding chair in a state fair rodeo arena kind of a setting. I've been in a theater. I've been at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza with you in Thousand Oaks, California. And one of his audience members, folks, one of his audience members who came there just to hear him came over to the autograph table and said, hi, Pat Boone. Now, if you're really young, that's not going to mean much to you, but if you're a little bit older, you look up Pat Boone. That's a substantial show up. One of the great entertainers of all time. Do you have something to say, Robin, or are you just waving? Speaker D 65:38 Been to Pat Boone's house and had lunch with him, with Christian, who I used to work with. Jim Cathcart 65:42 Oh, wow. Speaker A 65:43 Oh, wow. Speaker D 65:44 And I had a crush on Debbie Boone. Speaker A 65:46 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 65:47 Who didn't? Speaker D 65:49 And I got to play tennis with him. Jim Cathcart 65:52 Oh, he's a wonderful guy. He's been. Speaker A 65:54 Yeah. Closest I got to Debbie Boone was. Was in a shop in an airport. I Walked near her. Go ahead, Bruce. Jim Cathcart 66:04 I. I got a laugh out of Pat. We did a show at the Thousand Oak City Plaza, and our opening act for several years in this last version of the Preps were the Cornets. Speaker A 66:13 Who. Jim Cathcart 66:13 One of them was married to one of the guys in the. In the press. And we did a show, Thousand Oaks, and Pat Boone was there because his daughter was there, and he wanted to see the Preps. And he came over to the bench afterwards, where I was signing autographs and selling CDs, and he came up and he said, I want. I want to buy a couple of CDs. Will you take a check? I said, do you have any photo id? Speaker A 66:34 I was standing there when that happened so I can validate. That's the truth, Man. You might. You must have had a thousand people there that night. That place was packed. Jim Cathcart 66:49 Well, that was a great experience. That was. You know, there were three versions of the four preps. The original version from 1956 at Hollywood Hyde, in 1969 when we disbanded amicably. And then the second group from 1989 to 1990 that I was supergroup with. Yes, sir. From the association in Somerville, and two of us from the Preps. And then from 2007 to 2019, I had a third version of the four preps, which is the one that traveled and toured with the Cordettes, which is how I got to know Pat more closely. So, you know, there have been three versions, and if Covid sort of closed US down in 2019, we canceled a year and a half of bookings. We did mostly at that point, you know, retirement communities all through Florida and Arizona, and they were wonderful audiences. It was a great experience. I miss being in front of a crowd, but, you know, you make adjustments and move on. Speaker A 67:41 Yeah, well, when you were young, you were playing for high schools. When. When you were a little bit older, you were playing for entire arenas and theaters across America. You know, then you were on stage, you were on. On screen. You were on Broadway. I mean, your own show that you wrote. You. You wrote movies that other major stars were in. You participated in the epic moments of our lives, like the Disney movies and the Ozzy and Harriet show and all these other things. And then in your 70s, you're touring again, and that was Civic Arts Plaza. You were in your late 70s at that time, weren't you? Or thereabout. Jim Cathcart 68:27 I was. I just heard 87, so, you know, I'm still. Speaker A 68:33 So this was. This was when. When Bruce was around 80 years old, or at least he was scaring the daylights out of it. And he's on stage with the four preps in front of a thousand people in this beautiful auditorium there in Thousand Oaks. And he has a standout moment. He's the lead singer, by the way. He's not just a bit of harmony in the group, he's the, the main voice you recognize in all of these iterations of the group. And he's, he's standing up there and, oh, my love, my darling I hunger for your touch. And he gets to the top of that and blows it out. Still at virtually 80 years old, able to nail it and have everybody in the audience go, wow, Bravo. Jim Cathcart 69:29 By the way, that's it on YouTube if you want to see Unchained Melody concert or I think it's concert version with 105 piece orchestra. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. You know, it was quite an evening and I've always loved that song. And of course a lot of people say, why didn't you do what Bobby Hatfield? Because Bobby already did that. Do it my own way. Thank you. Speaker A 69:53 Yeah. By the way, Bruce knew Bobby Hatfield and, and Bill Medley, the other half of the Righteous Brothers, is a dear friend of his who wrote one of the endorsements for the book Icons Idols and Idiots of Hollywood. And again, I want to remind everybody, please go online today and order multiple copies of that to send out. Because I guarantee you the people you give it to for Christmas will be happy campers. They will call you back and say, Speaker B 70:22 jim, it's in the chat. Click on the Amazon link, go directly to it and order it. Also, Bruce's website is in the chat as well, so make sure you grab all the information. Speaker A 70:31 And if you look at the link in the chat, it's only like 187 characters. So you could just memorize it if you want or go to Amazon and look it up. Jim Cathcart 70:42 Wow. Speaker A 70:43 Wow. I'd say we've got so much talent represented in this room, I could spend all day interviewing the others and Bruce would get a kick out of that too. But we're here for Bruce today. Robin, you had one final question. Speaker D 70:57 One quick question, Bruce, do you know Frank Oz? Jim Cathcart 71:01 Well, I sure know the name. I don't know him. I know his work. I've always admired him a great deal. He's a wonderful. Speaker D 71:06 You remind me a lot of. He's a good friend of mine. His wife just actually texted me. I'm having a phone call with her at 4 o'. Speaker A 71:12 Clock. Speaker D 71:13 But I just. Speaker A 71:13 You. Speaker D 71:14 Since I've met you, Here today. I keep thinking of Frankie. He's so. From the Muppets and from. What about Bob and Yoda. He so outgoing and you remind me the same. And then yet I get a text here from Victoria. Crazy. Anyway, I'm sorry. Jim Cathcart 71:28 Thank you. Speaker D 71:28 It's been a joy, Bruce. It's been a joy, man. Speaker B 71:30 What I'm. Jim Cathcart 71:31 What? Speaker D 71:31 This was great today. Jim Cathcart 71:32 Oh, thanks. Speaker D 71:33 So cool. Jim Cathcart 71:33 So. Well, thanks to my buddy Jimmy. We make to work. You know, Speaker A 71:41 career is. Is to be able to bring people I love together and to share the beauty of each one of them. And that's exactly what I'm looking at here on this screen and what. What I'm doing through the Wisdom Parlor podcast. So, Bruce, you've made the Wisdom Parlor podcast better than it ever had been before. So thank you for that, my dear friend. Anything you would like to leave us with. Any last comment or. Or suggestion? Jim Cathcart 72:08 No, not really. I. I do hope that if you get the book, you enjoy it. It's been a real culmination of a pretty colorful ride that I've had, and I'm just so glad that I have the opportunity to share it with people and give them some of the background of what got me to this point in my life. And Jim, I've said it in the book, and I'll say it again for posterity. I owe so much to you. You give it a great friend, a supporter. When I start to lose my mojo on the book, I'd call Jim and next thing I know was back on top again. So thank you and all of you that were here today and shared it with me. It means a lot to me that people still remember what we had to offer in the way of music. And I'm a lucky guy. I guess I'll end by saying that, really. Speaker A 72:49 And you've blessed us. And by the way, a sequel to that book has already been mostly written. So stay tuned. There's more coming. Jim Cathcart 72:58 Great. Speaker A 72:58 Well, Trigger, take us home. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Pete. Speaker B 73:02 Jim. Speaker D 73:03 Thank you, Pete, for your record. Jim Cathcart 73:04 Oh, you're welcome, buddy. Thank you for buying them. Speaker B 73:08 Jim Cathcart with another amazing wisdom. Again, just so everyone remembers as we wind down here, Bruce Bellon is an actor, producer, singer, the original boy band vocal group hall of Fame. I don't think we mentioned that he's in the vocal group hall of Fame. The Four Preps was the group screenwriter. He has worked with a lot of favorite TV shows, including Knight Rider, McLeod's Catch a Thief, and the new memoir is out. Icons, idols and idiots of Hollywood you do want to get it, you want to subscribe to it. And that's gonna do it for this edition of the Wisdom Part of the we'll be back next month kicking off 2024. Come back once again January 3rd, and Jim Cathcart will have something new up the sleeve then. For now, I'm Rich Bottrigger saying hello, goodbye for Jim Cathcart. We'll see you next month. Happy New Year, everybody. Speaker A 73:57 Thank you for joining us today in the Wisdom Parlor, a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. If you are committed to making more success happen in your own life, go right now to my website, free.carcart. and download my free ebook and then watch the video. If you decide that you'd like my assistance in helping grow your success, then come with me and let's discover how much more successful you can be.