#290 Plunging 1000 feet to the Land of the Lost with Wesley Eure

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:27

All right, Kathy, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get this show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 290 of classic conversations. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Joining me this week as Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition made the greatest earthquake ever known. That's right, Wesley yours here will marshal himself. You loved him on land with a loss. You loved him as Michael Horton on Days of Our Lives, co creator of Dragon tales grab onto the raft because together we're plunging 1000 people Oh to the land of the lost and that's coming up in just a few seconds, but not before I apologize for my singing in these few seconds. John Barbara was here last week, creator of real people, we dived into his documentaries on the assassination of JFK. Lots of amazing stories in that episode. Do not miss it. But before that, we're time traveling. We're going back in time Ortles time crystals. This episode has it all. You're gonna love my conversation with Wesley, your that's coming up right now. All right, everyone, I'm excited to introduce you to my next guest, actor, author, producer, director, educator, dinosaur and time travel survivor, Mike Gordon on Days of Our Lives and of course will martial on the cult classic Lando loss. Welcome to the show. Wesley your Hey, how are you?

Wesley Eure 2:04

I love that. I love it suddenly, you know, within the last few years, cult has been cult classic has been added to classic. It's kind of interesting.

Jeff Dwoskin 2:13

I think it's worthy of it. It's interesting, isn't it? Like just random things from the 70s that nobody let go Finland to the last is just one of those. Well, you

Wesley Eure 2:23

know that success not only to sit Marty Krofft but it's to the Star Trek writers. Do you know David Gerald, who was our head writer, he wrote if you're if you're a Trekkie, like I am he wrote trouble with triples with and he because he created the triples and Walter Konak who played the original checkoff in Star Trek he created Enoch are talking sleepsack way DC Fontana, Larry Niven spinnerette all these amazing sci fi writers that were at the beginning of their careers, David brought him on board and that's why the scripts hold up so well. I mean, of course, the effects are from the 70s There's no CGI but but it's the scripts, you know, like Shakespeare said, the stories that thing? Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 3:00

I mean, it's it's great. It's great. You dropped the name. David, Gerald The trouble with triple so the same guy that did that created the sleaze sacks, which we all know and love. And

Wesley Eure 3:11

Mike Westmore, who did it the beginning of Star Trek and early seasons. He also did all the monsters create all the monsters and makeup if and Mike Westmore did all our makeup and monsters the sleep stack the puck Cooney Chaka. So we have this really sort of intertwined Star Trek connection. In fact, Sid Krofft said the other day that they were on the lot at Paramount right after Star Trek ended and they were talking about doing level Austin stuff. And he asked Gene Roddenberry if you'd be our head writer, and Gene says I can't I'm just too busy doing some other things. He said, But I've got this young writer named David Gerald. That's why lambda laws became such a sci fi show as opposed to like a Swiss Family Robinson with a father and a son. Like in the wilderness, David brought that sci fi element, which is, of course, this is the reason that so successful.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:56

It was interesting, because it got me thinking, do you think Land of the Lost would have been treated differently, remember differently gone on longer had it not been thought of as a children's show?

Wesley Eure 4:09

Absolutely. David said at a panel once he said, I told my writers that we're writing a sci fi show that airs on Saturday morning, we're not writing a Saturday morning sci fi show. So write it like an adult show that we just happen to air on Saturday morning. And that's why if you watch the old shows, they never talked about time doorways and matrices and multiple universes and all sorts of things. And they never they never talked down to kids. They never said, Alright, this is what that means. They just say I tie in doorway and it's going to you know, we got doppelgangers. And kids had to sort of catch up and learn and I think that's again why it was such a big hit back in the day.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:48

You know, when you watch something as a kid and then I started rewatching a bunch of the episodes and as you kind of dive in Landa the loss had a very deep mythology right the crystal Those pylons that just the whole how they how you guys got there? You can sing that later if you know but like but it was it was a pretty rich mythology. So when I when I learned about the whole Star Trek background, that wasn't it wasn't a shock to learn that there was some real pedigree behind the concepts that went into lambda law so that's why I started thinking had it been thought of is not sitting Marty Krofft you know, like puff and stuff like that. Maybe it would have would have gotten the same respect to like star tracking or like, like the it's because if you think about lambda, the laws, that's why the remakes all kind of failed, right? They didn't they didn't actually extend it and create what you created. They created what the memory of someone who remembers a dinosaur kid show.

Wesley Eure 5:45

Exactly. I remember the, you know, the scripts would unfold every week for me, I'd get a new script. And I remember when because Enoch, which Walter Koneko checkoff created, he was this we had the giant green lizard sleepsack and Enoch was a small sort of orange brown sleaze deck. And you assume that the green lizards you know, D evolved and became Enoch, it got smarter. Well, it was reversed. It was Enix culture that became more like and savage. And they evolved into the war like giant green lizard, it was a total reverse. And EDA kept saying, I've got to go back in time to warn my people, we need to stop this or will become these green monsters. And that mythology to me was extraordinary.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:27

Right. But Enoch didn't realize that right away. He no he didn't. He had to

Wesley Eure 6:31

discover it during the show. And he didn't discover it right away. It took it took some It took some time. And like the pot Cooney language that Shaka spoke, you know, it was an actual language. I think it was one of the first like, you have the Klingons. Now you have all the different languages for different shows, but they went to UCLA linguist, and they created the peculiar language. And I think it's based on eight different languages combined, some synapses, and some, you know, different verbiage and things like that. But there's an actual dictionary, that Makueni dictionary. So the words that were spoken, they meant something in fact, Phil Paley, who play Chaka, he was only 10 years old. He was the youngest black belt in karate at the time. His his teacher was Chuck Norris. In fact, there's a clip of of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, where he actually goes on with Chuck Norris, and Phyllis about like four foot zero, it will type thing and he flips Johnny on his back onto the floor, and it's hysterical. And every once in a while, they'll put they'll post it on YouTube, but Phil at 10 years old, he wasn't just making up like CVSA taka Wira Irie. I mean, he wasn't making that up. It was he had to learn it verbatim. And there's a couple of episodes where we're Chaka talks the whole time. I just found it extraordinary his performances when I look back and see what Phil

Jeff Dwoskin 7:46

did. That was an incredible discovery to find out that I think Victoria Fromkin either as Victoria pumpkin. Thank you. Yes. Like just created this whole thing with the whole goal that they wanted children to learn it like people do speak, cling on. I mean, that's a thing. That's I say, there's so many like little parallels, like you said, with Star Trek,

Wesley Eure 8:06

Kathy, Kathy Coleman, who played my sister Holly, who's one of my best friends. In fact, she just moved to Palm Springs. So we're now in the same city. We do the Star Trek convention. We've done it for the last eight or nine years. And we're the only other show that they allow in other than Star Trek, as you know, they're very strict about who gets into a Star Trek convention. But they allow us to come because we are so connected to Star Trek. In fact, Walter Cohn ik I see him every year at Star Trek, and he's got his fedora hat on. He's sort of sort of shuffling a bit these days. And he walked by our table with Kathy sitting there and he goes, those damn Sid, Marty Krofft, I should have gotten residuals for Enoch, I should have gotten residuals. So

Jeff Dwoskin 8:45

he created a very important character.

Wesley Eure 8:48

It was a huge character. Marty Krofft at one point said that I think this least that came in on the giant green ones came in on the third episode, I believe, and the ratings went through the roof it became NBC is number one show not Saturday morning show became NBC number one show and to this day, I'll turn on the news of somebody talking about a tall person. Oh, it looks like asleep stack. He looks you know, it's referenced in pop culture all over the place from Jake Gyllenhaal is Disney's bubble boy where he pretends he's me. And his favorite show is Lana velocity seems the theme song, you know, but there's all sorts of even Will Ferrell who did the movie he had played a character called Marshall Wilson Holly. His last name was William Holly instead of martial will and Holly, which was the theme song to lead to the loss so it has been referenced from Peter Griffin actually auditions with Lois for community play and he seems the theme song to land the loss. It's had this life outside of it. That's

Jeff Dwoskin 9:45

how you know something touched on culture in a very deep way. I mean, just breaking bad Bob's Burgers Robot Chicken Archer 30 Rock. I mean, sometimes it's just oh, he looks like Chaka or this Lisa I can reference and like you said sometimes it's like Peter just and that's worth googling by the way Peter Griffin thing singing the theme song

Wesley Eure 10:09

they just I love it so much

Jeff Dwoskin 10:12

Malcolm in the Middle but yeah bubble boy I think when all in all a bubble boy

Wesley Eure 10:17

was amazing with Jake, you know and they will they showed some clips of us to from the original show he watched on TV. It was you know he was a bubble boy I one of my favorite movies by the way. Because unlike the Travolta version, which was very serious about the boy with the disease that couldn't live outside the bubble, check Yellin Hall is a comedy, and it's very funny, but he pretends his favorite shows Land of the lost and he pretends he's me and and his girlfriend sometime just like happy like Holly, and it was a real homage, which I loved.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:44

Why were you just credited as wisely? Well,

Wesley Eure 10:48

the crops were really cheap. And the extra four letters for EUR II, they just couldn't afford they were so cheap to go into to share route. Listen, it was the worst decision in the planet. Mike was my manager at the time. I had been recording for Motown. He asked me Motown, thank you very much. There was a boy band that we put together, or Mike Curb for the micro congregation. And Mike then became the lieutenant governor. And now he's one of the biggest record producers of all times in Nashville. They thought, I don't know it was the 70s. It was the early 70s. There was all these people and they said, let's just do ously that changed. But I think the second year, I added the uer back in, but yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 11:26

I'm coming at you from just outside of Detroit. So besides the Motown connection, Bill lamb beer, one of our Detroit piston bad boys was asleep stack.

Wesley Eure 11:38

He sure was there us UCLA basketball players, they're there, you know, and they make a few extra bucks on the side. So they were all the sleepsack were giant and you know, so when these two like build when he put on the costume, it was almost 10 feet tall. Because they had stills, they were standing on these big green stilts, and the head was pointed. So and Bill is almost exactly seven feet tall. And they were huge. And it was made out of wetsuits, the largest wetsuits they could find, and they stuck to the green scales and things on them Mike Westmore, but it was so hot, they can only stay in there for maybe two minutes, they rip them off of them, and that would be pouring down sweat. But a couple of years ago, Kathy and I were at the Star Trek convention in Vegas, and the head of the league, a building that was coaching the aces, the ladies basketball team and Vegas, and we snuck over there we left the convention. And we surprise bill hadn't seen him since Lanza. Last did he become the bad boy of you know, here's the bad boy of basketball. You know, his reputation was a little gnarly. So Kathy and I walk in and the girls were girls, the women from the team. They all knew we were coming and they had eight by 10s of Asli stack and they had hidden it from Bill and beer. And as soon as we walked in, they held up the police Tech head in front of themselves. So they all had sleaze take a look like a bar. And they would come in I have a sleeve stack head and he finally gets it takes him a moment because we don't look like we used to. And we had the most fun we did press and the you know the networks and all that kind of stuff. We're filming. We gave him some gifts and we chatted a bit that he had to go zag. I remember I gotta go. Gotta get a pouch. And the head of the league came up to me afterwards said Listen, I gotta tell you something. I've known them beer, since he was a college ballplayer. I have never seen him smile this much.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:24

That's awesome. That's really cool. Yeah, I can. I've been in an elevator with basketball players, and they're ginormous. Anyway, so when you learn that they're standing on stilts and the head I mean, they must have like, how tall are you? I mean, they must have towered over you guys.

Wesley Eure 13:39

But yeah, I'm not I'm not just I'm not the tallest guy. In fact, I Kathy by the third year was taller than me, Holly. So but yeah, they were recently we did our lands the last reunion in Milwaukee first and only one we've ever done and three of the original stacks. Now Bill Laimbeer didn't come. I think he wanted $60,000 cap or D to cover something you know, he's just too rich for his own good and, but some of the other guys did. You know, it's amazing that unlike a lot of casts, we all love each other. We're like family Cathy's like my sister. As I said, She just moved to town with me. We got I think 10 more comic cons to do this year. Phil Paley played Shaka is like my brother Spencer Milligan about everybody goes he's he's still alive. Yeah, he's still alive. He has lives on a beautiful estate in Wisconsin. He'll call me up and he goes to Hello, Wesley. This is your proper speaking. Just like public Can you hear me? But you know, I've always said that cross didn't just cast my TV family. They gave me a real life family. And we've all been extraordinarily close since Kathy just left, right. I mean, she literally just left right now. We had to get a bigger suitcase because these autograph shows we actually bring our yellow wrap like in the opening credits with the oars of the light jackets in the sleeves tech heads and haulage so all across the country. So I had we had I did get a bigger red suit that bigger suitcase suitcase to put the raft in,

Jeff Dwoskin 15:04

we're gonna need a bigger raft. Yeah, exactly. Sorry to interrupt what we have to take a quick break. I do want to thank everyone for their support of the sponsors when you support the sponsors, you're supporting us here at Classic conversations and that's how we keep the lights on. And now back to my conversation with Wesley or I it's one of these days I need to find a Comic Con where you guys are at because the picture in the raft that I saw on like your Facebook or one of your one of your socials. I mean, it seems that the other stars at the Comic Cons get off just as much as the people there to see you to take pictures with you in this raft. I saw Lydia Cornell Loni Anderson Howard has been Sam Jones, Mindy Cohen. I mean, just just to name a few

Wesley Eure 15:49

Neider Don wells, but it's so funny. If you've never seen it what most celebrities that come to these shows like The comic cons, they you know, they bring their their little baby a banner, and they sit there with photos. Well, Kathy and Phil and I decided a long time ago that we're going to do this, let's make it special. So we bring up this giant blow up yellow raft with the oars and the light jackets. And people get in the RAF we put life jackets on them on ourselves. We have the yellow oars, it's on the floor, somebody would tell you that taking a picture of a blow up raft with everybody in it on the floor would come out great. You'd go oh, that's just nuts. But it does. It's like they get to be in the scene with him. I direct them where you're screaming you ever go screaming going over the waterfall, the hands in the year up. And it's quite, it's wonderful with some of the celebrities at the conventions. Most of them just always want to get into it. But there's a few that I don't want to get into that. By the second day. They're coming out. Well, you know, maybe I should get that route. I remember Peter Wayne, John Wayne's son, he was at a show. And he was like, I don't want to get out. Well, his manners that get in the rap. Just get in the rap so that he got in the rap took a photo next day he comes over says, Hey, I need to get back in the rap. I need more photos. He said everybody's loving these photos. I need that to understand Patrick Wayne, excuse me for that, Patrick, right. And so Patrick gets back in the raft and we do a whole photo shoot with a but it's a lot of fun. It's you know, it's a lot of work to do it. 10 years ago, this was a good idea. And now 10 years later, as I've gotten older, it's like, Oh, I did a hydraulic raft that comes up and down. But we really have a good time and we just want to make it special.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:23

I mean, like I said like no joke. Those photos look amazing. And I I can feel for you. I imagine every year the judge and jury that is your back. decides what maybe we just

Wesley Eure 17:37

I find that I'm crouching more in the back of the raft than being on my knees these days. I think at Monster Bash Buster, a we broke the record of people in the raft. We had all the volunteers that that was the raft was to match him packed with people. And also people around the wrap. Some of them actually pretending they're swimming in front of the raft on the floor. This just on the floor of the of the convention center. I think we had almost 50 people and there's a video of it up on Facebook. So it's a lot of fun

Jeff Dwoskin 18:07

as I was rewatching the opening and you know you notice things when you're you know, when you rewatch things the most impressive thing I think in the show isn't the pylons time traveling crystals paradoxes, it's the fact that that raft fell 1000 feet and was fully inflated not broken when it landed. And thank goodness

Wesley Eure 18:26

it was right side up. Oh my gosh. Well, you know, it's so it's so weird, because remember, it was it was it had a Saturday morning budget even though it had it had primetime writers and we shot which was unheard of we shot two episodes a week. It's two and a half days per episode, but we had two soundstages one was jungle, really with so many plants and the exterior of our cave, which was a took a high bluff and we had to climb up to the the opening of the cave and a lagoon and the other soundstage was the interior of our cave and then the biggest chroma key set which is green screen now but it was blue chroma key blue back then disappeared. It was the floor of the half of the soundstage the walls of the soundstage. And we had that was so we had all this playground to be it and they would just move us around really quickly. It was quite a heady experience and it was the first time in television history that the dinosaurs were suffering motion and they were on film and we shot on videotape and they had to meld the two together instantaneously. So we would see on a monitor the dinosaurs and then we'd be on the green screen, blue screen Chroma Cree chroma key and they would then you know, film us and shrink us down proportionate to the dinosaurs and try to meld those two images together well it didn't work the first time the first time we shot we shot the episode Chaka it didn't work and they were panic the network and the Sydney crowd for panic. They called in all the Disney engineers and all these people and within a week they had solved the problem. And it made history in Hollywood. It was actually the very first time that that technology ever happened. So it was way ahead of its time. Wow.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:03

If you're shooting to a week, it must have gone by really fast. There's only like, what, like 43 episodes? Yeah. I mean, I know it was three seasons. So that was probably over

Wesley Eure 20:15

14 porks about basically 14 A season. So within seven weeks it was done. It's like, whoa, zip. It was fast. And I was doing js for our lives at the same time. I was playing my cord and I did for about a decade.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:26

Well, we'll get into we'll get into that. We'll get into that. Hang on a second. I got plenty.

Wesley Eure 20:31

Excuse me the breakdown. God forbid I shouldn't be smart, Davey.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:39

I just say I got two more landed.

Wesley Eure 20:41

Oh, yeah. Okay. You know, we're celebrating next year is our 50th anniversary Atlanta the last 50 years. And its fan base continues to grow. It's wild. It's, you know, you do something 50 years ago and you know, you say the lines you do the stuff you you move on you think well, that's, you know, that was wonderful. We had a great time the show was a hit for a while. But then to go to conventions now and see little kids coming up to us singing the theme song and talking about the characters. A bunch of little girls will come dressed like Holly with blonde hair pigtails in a checkered red and white checkered shirt pretending it's it's pretty astonishing. To be honest. It's a great homage to Sid and Marty Krofft, who created this amazing thing, which was their most successful show, by the way of all their shows. They ran the longest. And it is it's just weird. After 50 years that there's still a buzz about the show.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:34

Oh, it's incredible. I think the only I know huff and puff got HR huff and puff got a shout out on TED last so but I think you're right in terms of pop culture, longevity landed last is got a hands down with most of any of those children's shows from that timeframe. HR

Wesley Eure 21:51

Puffin stuff was I think their first big one and a curse I think to their heart that's that's the one that kicked them off. So there they have a great affinity and affection for that show because it it got their got their foot out of the live puppet shows that they were doing it the World's Fair and different things like that. That got them to become household names.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:09

Yeah, it was definitely a unique style that they had. And

Wesley Eure 22:13

the famous lawsuit that with McDonald's, back in the day, McDonald's asked them to create a like the hamburger or one of the characters and the Cross did that they didn't go with it. But it suddenly when they they created it suddenly

Jeff Dwoskin 22:26

looked like puppet stop maybe may or make cheese. Yeah,

Wesley Eure 22:29

well and the Krofft suit and they want it was a it was the biggest selling was like a million dollars with McDonald's at the time. Because they basically just taken puppet stuff and, you know, put a hat made a hamburger head out or whatever. I don't remember.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:41

So you mentioned the tight family that you created when you join Lana, the loss. How did you guys feel when Spencer left at the end of season two? Uncle Jack Ron Harper from Planet of the Apes. So that was cool. Yeah, joined. I mean, you got to sing a new song. That's one thing I got

Wesley Eure 22:59

to sing. Well, it was sad. I mean, we had hit show and it was very sad. Spencer, in the last few years has profoundly apologized for leaving, he left because we got nothing for this most people did back in those days, anything for Merchandising, and stuff like that. And they were making, you'd go to a grocery store, and there'd be a board game or a View Master or so many games and puzzles and things with land the loss in our picture on it. And he asked for a piece of that for all of us. And he had a any Akela so it was sad, and not to talk about days of our life. But Ron Harper's wife was on Days of Our Lives at the same time. So I had was doing scene was in the days of our lives with his wife, and they come in the afternoon. And that was was Ron Harper. So at Atlanta, the last Dr.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:45

Mike Horton to the the I wanted to give days of our lives. It's due because it was quite a I didn't want to skirt it and then go back to Atlanta last and Barry Days of Our Lives. That's that's a big piece of the story. So did you talk have you guys I know you mentioned you're like sisters with with Kathy, were you guys close this whole time? Or did it take time before all of you kind of?

Wesley Eure 24:10

Well, it took time because when I didn't learn to the last I was older. I was I was actually like 22 I was playing 16 But I was 22. So I and I was off to do other shows. So and Kathy was a little girl. And when when the show ended she was she was 14. So our lives didn't parallel very much after that. And it was only in these conventions. Years and years ago, she Kathy was doing them and I ended up doing one in guy to remember where it was, but really reconnected. And it was just like brother and sister and it's kind of hard to explain how close the two of us are. Well let you know we do the Star Trek convention at the Rio hotel every year and we share a room. We get to two queen beds. And that's how close we are because we just have fun together.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:55

It's great. I think it's I think it's super cool. It's like because so many people never talked to the people they work with Again, it's like to do a job you move on?

Wesley Eure 25:02

Well, I know, listen, I know a bunch of shows, not only do they not talk to each other again, they won't do a show together, they won't sit next to each other. If one's doing a show, they won't. It's so silly. You know, everybody should be so grateful for that moment in time when you know, when the magic happened, and people remember you. And I always get very upset or disappointed with people when they they pretend that they don't want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about the past. I don't want to talk about that show. Oh, no, that was something else in my life. And I'm thinking, you know, gratitude is a huge part of life for me. And it annoys me what I will do the shows and people go, okay, you can talk about everything except don't talk about that. I want to talk about that. It's like, why are you here? I

Jeff Dwoskin 25:45

totally understand what you're saying you, you were blessed with a lot. And not everyone who acts is given the opportunity to play something or someone that everyone remembers forever.

Wesley Eure 25:57

You know, I'm always reminded that I happened to walk through the right door that day, I didn't have the sniffles. The car didn't break down that somebody else could have walked through that door that same day and had that part. Anybody like your William Shatner somebody, had he not been able to make that appointment, whatever, there was appointments that day, somebody else would have been there. And that's the case for every job. I mean, every job in the world even even, you know, being a banker or whatever, there's always somebody else could have walked through that door that day. That could have been a different candidate for that, that job. So the fact that I did walk through the door that day, I did get the job. I want to celebrate that that was such a great game changer for my life, not only for my professional life, but for my extended family life. I

Jeff Dwoskin 26:38

love the embrace it. I need a picture with you in the raft. So amazing. Oh, and then I heard a rumor. Tell me if this rumors, yes, you were on days of our lives.

Wesley Eure 26:47

No, no, no, I that was a rumor. And I don't want to talk about that. Okay. I you know, before this start, I said, Let's not talk about that. This is ridiculous. Michael

Jeff Dwoskin 26:56

Horton is it's an interesting character for days of our lives. It's the most recast character in Days of Our Lives history. Wow, you're the most renowned person to play at and the longest, but you are the 10th person to play it. And there's been 18 It's crazy. The world was

Wesley Eure 27:14

the first adult there was a little kid before I played it. Right? You were

Jeff Dwoskin 27:18

like, they time jumped in there. I think I read that, like right now. He's 50. Or,

Wesley Eure 27:21

oh, my gosh. But that was a wonderful job. I loved it. And it was, I mean, it was the cushiest job on the planet was, you know, a lot of lines to learn. But it was, it gave me it gave certainly gave me a platform to do other things. And I sure am grateful to it. And I'm still very close friends with some of the cast Bill Hayes, who just retired after 90s 97 years old. He did his last show. And Bill and Susan Hayes and I went to their house, I stopped by last Easter, and I stopped by their house and he said Bill says well, as long as I can still remember my lines, I'm still going to do this. And I understand that he found his last show. So Wow. It's amazing.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:59

It's amazing. The Careers people have what they go along Long Term and soaps. Like you see so many people that are just there forever. Teacher hold

Wesley Eure 28:07

now is the granddaddy of days of our lives.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:09

And does your lecture woman. Go ahead. Thank

Wesley Eure 28:12

you. I was filming. I'm gonna go back to land with lost again, assuming level loss and teacher comes up to me says, Hey, I have an audition for days. I realize I know you're on days of our lives. And I said Deidre, I know what they're looking for. I you know, I have lunch with the directors and producers, and I know exactly what they're looking for. And how would they judge a performance by an audition? So she had the sides, we worked on the sides a little bit, she wouldn't audition. Not that I helped her got the job at all because she's so talented. But she got the job. And to this day, she's still on the show. And I guess the most popular of the characters and when I was on the show didn't She became my therapist. She's She's a shrink on the show. But that's another crossover of things that happen walking through the right door

Jeff Dwoskin 28:54

and knowing the right people. She's like, Oh, I know. Well, Marshall, you can hook me up. Well, Marshall knows Mike Horton. So I was looking at I looked at the admittedly I didn't watch Jason realize back then but some of this stuff. Is it Mickey? Is that Mickey or Vicki Maggie and Becky so you, you you cause Mickey to have a heart attack and you felt guilt? Let's see.

Wesley Eure 29:17

When I first got on the show, a wagon fell on my chest and crushed it. Then I found out that my father wasn't my father. He was really my uncle because my uncle had raped my mother years ago at the hospital then I had an affair with Trish the mafia was asking me that I couldn't get it up. I thought I was having sexual problems. Then my father is excellent. Melinda proved that I was okay that I met a girl she got leukemia. We got married she died. I mean, that was the first week of the show.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:38

Right? You went into debt you then so when I'm reading all this, you know, the first thing that goes to my head is is like and it's like, people think Landa the loss is the improbable.

Wesley Eure 29:49

Oh my gosh. Well, what was so funny was, you know, there were both NBC shows. So NBC let me do both shows. And for those three years, I was on land of the lost. I would go in in the morning Is it NBC Burbank and shoot all my days of our live scenes? So the cast hated me because I got to walk in, block my scenes, shoot them and get the heck out of there. Well, they had to wait around and then shoot their sins. So in the morning, I'm crying. My girlfriend is leaving me and I'm having all these problems and stuff. And then the afternoon I'm over it Goldwyn studios going. Well, I'm Holly rod, there's a dinosaur so it was it was the best time I gotta tell you, I was very happy and grateful

Jeff Dwoskin 30:27

plus your teen idol this whole time to write it like on Tiger Beat all that kind of stuff like Kirby 16 magazine. Do you remember any Do you remember any of the headlines?

Wesley Eure 30:37

Yeah, went a date with Wesley. I remember that. I remember I had to go to a restaurant this with this girl watch this. You know shall chaperone at the time. Everybody's underage. But I don't remember all of them. No,

Jeff Dwoskin 30:48

I'm just a million of them.

Wesley Eure 30:52

I just did. We just did. There was a special show a tease from the 70s teenagers from the 70s with Chris Atkins from Blue Lagoon, Greg Aragon PJ the bear, Kristy McNichol and Jimmy McNichol and myself, we were at the Nixon library in March for a special event of the five of us reminiscing with with a bunch of people. But back in the day, the town was smaller back then. And we all knew each other pretty, you know, most of us, and we would go to the same parties like locker publications, we'd have a party, which were publishing like 16, or Tiger Beat or whatever. And we got to know each other. I remember one day I had rented a house, I finally made some money because I didn't have a car, but I rented a house in Beverly Hills. And you know, Shaun Cassidy and Lake Garrett come over to go swimming. And this before Shawn even had a teacher's his brother, David Cassidy was the big star at the time. But Shawn came swimming late came came over swimming, you know, just, you know, that kind of things was going on, Greg Gaffigan. I hadn't seen Greg, gosh, decades. Graham, remember, you came over to my house, you said, I'll teach if you teach me to act. I'll teach you how to play the piano. So, you know, those were just those those were kind of the relationships we all had back in those days.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:01

That's amazing. Oh, and then speaking of David Cassidy, you were up for him. You were going to replace them maybe on the Partridge Family like they had

Wesley Eure 32:08

I was at Yes, David had decided to leave the show. They were really upset ABC because the show was so popular that they decided they were going to cast a character which was gonna be the next door neighbor, his best friend with a single dad. So I went back went to Bobby Sherman, SAS and other teen idol. So Bobby, I went to Bobby's house, he had a recording studio where I recorded a song for ABC. I went and performed it for ABC. They filmed it, I got the job. And David heard I just got to do it. Because you know, I think I'll stay so. So he didn't leave the show. They didn't let me go. They didn't write that kept that character in so they 86 that and just continued with David. Man, I don't I kid a bit of Partridge Family.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:52

Man, that's funny. Oh, and then during this time, too, you're like hot into the game shows. And one of the things I read was you got to hang out with Lucille Ball and teach her how to play and then you hooked your mind. I want to hear it. Yeah, to hear about this. I

Wesley Eure 33:08

mean, I auditioned for password, and I got it. And I remember the first day that I drove into NBC, it was Saturday. And I said, Please don't let it be Elizabeth Montgomery. Please don't make me play against Elizabeth Connery because I would watch password as a fan. And she was the hardest player. She was the best player. So I pull in and they've given me Johnny Carson's parking spot because it's a Saturday I put my name over Johnny's name. I look to the right and it says Elizabeth Montgomery Ah, geez. I ended up playing a lot on Password Lizabeth and I ended up being pitted against each other many times. I packed a bunch of TV I think I was on yesterday with Elaine Joyce, but with Betty White. I played with Betty White and Oh, Vicki, Laura and Susan Richardson, Debra Lee Scott. I mean, everybody and I can kind of assume my regular on the show. Alan leaden had said that Lizabeth was the best female player and he's he said in print that I was the best male player. But so one day I'm at NBC Burbank, it's in the morning, we're about to shoot our five shows because with game shows, you should have all five a whole week's worth in one day, each half hour show we'd bring five different outfits. So it looks like it's a different day three in the morning lunch than a new audience two in the afternoon. So the producers come in my room and said, Hey, Wesley, listen, would you mind teaching Lucille Ball how to play password, and she'd play password in the black and white days. But there was a thing called alphabetics which was the new end game. And I said, Lucille Ball. Are you crazy? Of course, teacher so they left the room and I call my mother and my mother lived in Burbank down the street from NBC, and I call my mother go, Mom, what are you doing today? She goes nap ed. I got what I spent the day with Lucille Ball. She was like 10 minutes. She was through the guard gate. She was in my dressing room. And Lucy came in because he I got to call it Lucy. Thank you very much. It was I was like so happy. So Lucy stayed the whole day in my dressing room with my mom and I would go film the half hour she'd walk Watch it on the monitor, I'd come back and changing clothes in front of her taking everything, putting everything on, and we're talking about the clues and how it plays and all that stuff. Because the alphabetics game was pretty hard. You had 60 seconds to get 10 words correct from Ada, whatever J or power were they started in the alphabet. They started the letter, it's 10 letters down, and it was for like five or $10,000 in which was a heck of a lot of money back then. So we spent the day and had lunch with her and and I had known little Lucy and Lucy arnaz for years in the past. In fact, Lucie arnaz lives here in Palm Springs. Now before we look into her husband, in fact, I saw Lucy little Lucy, few years ago ran into her. I think the I don't remember where getting mail or something is and as I said, you know, I taught her motherhood, play password. He goes she goes, I know you did a good job. Because Because Lucy Lucille Ball was a backgammon player, she would love games, and she was notorious for back end. It was just one of those moments in time you go, how the heck did this happen? I'm from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I was born in Louisiana. And here I am with Lucille Ball teaching her to you know, obviously it was was trippy. I

Jeff Dwoskin 36:05

love that and it was just to me like Lucille Ball is so amazing. I mean, it just like to be able to even just spend a day with her. Wow. Sorry to interrupt, have to take another quick break. And we're back with an amazing story about red fox. Okay. And then there was this one line that I read and you wrote and then there was that day I shared my dressing room with red fox. That was

Wesley Eure 36:29

oh my god red fox. I love to Oh my gosh. I'm laughing because if you if you can see what's in my head, the picture in my head up laughing so red coming here. He's got to share a dressing room with me and he needs the dressing room. I know he's doing a talk show or a special. I'm there for password. If they do have a sterile dressing room and he takes his shirt off. Oh, read forgive me. At tattooed on his nipples was a face. The nipple was a nose and above it were two eyes and a mouth below the nipple. Both of them. They looked I mean, they were like, like prison tattoos. They were very rough. He had his shirt off. And he he he had his nipple Sing to me. He was covering these heads and juggling up up or down and making them sing to me. I have never in my life laughed so hard. That was Fred Fox doing that with me. I was like really? Oh my god, he was so much fun.

Jeff Dwoskin 37:29

I'm trying to picture that tattoo. And I'm not trying to picture it at the same time.

Wesley Eure 37:33

I know. I know. You have to it's the crude. It was the crudest thing. It wasn't like I end with beautiful eyes, the lovely lips. No, it's just like, you know, stick figure. But it was it was funny. The man was, you know, you get to meet. Some people are just so genuinely funny that everything they do is like going out to dinner with Sally Struthers. Sally Struthers one of the funniest people ever she brings, she brings a fork that extends out it's a little fork, but it's like a car antenna that you can pull out make it longer. And you'd be sitting across the table and she'll pull out that fork extended. reach across the table and grab a french fry off your plate. I mean, you just are out like laughing. So it's those moments. And I think the greatest gift with the success that I've had in my life is the access I've had to be able to hang out with some people that I am just odd of. And I've always I counted myself extraordinarily lucky. Even when we do these shows. I mean, we'll be sitting next to Lou Ferrigno or Gil Gerard or Lou Gossett, Jr. I mean, it was spend the whole weekend it's like how does this how it to me it's like a kid in a candy store it I can't believe it. Who

Jeff Dwoskin 38:37

of those people. I want to hear this version the story like you were you're like, Oh my God, that's Lou Ferrigno. Oh my god. That's Lou Gossett, Jr, who of those people went, Oh my God, that's Wesley you're like, Oh, boy. Oh my God, I want you know, where they just get so excited that they're like, oh my god, I watched Atlanta the last one who gets go got get in front of you?

Wesley Eure 38:56

I don't I you know, I truth is I can't remember anybody. I think everybody still holds that back a bit. I've had some people come out, you know, we've got to know each other goes, Oh, my, you know, you know, by the way, I was a big fan of yours, too. You know, they're kind of like make it like it was a secret that you're keeping. But my fun is was we're at Dragon Con, which is a huge event in Atlanta. It's a really big name event. And we're seeing that it's five days and I was sitting next Lou Ferrigno was right next to us, Kathy and I, and the first day he like, had nothing to do with us. He didn't know what the heck we were did there. It was signing autographs By the second day because we had loads of people just like what the hell are you? People we're all we'd like everybody to get autographs and stuff like that. By the third day. It was like so how do you how are you? Yeah, he became our best friend of course. I think Kathy had a beautiful girl there with a bunch of her best friends was there and so that made it happy for him. It's amazing to watch the art because somebody's like, to his best friend time, but it's fun like I know we're gonna be next to Marta. Kristen coming up. She was Judy on my favorite show is a kid you know, lost in space. Now. I when I was a kid that I wanted to be Billy Moon Hey, you know I'm wanting to be in Lost in Space and now to be able to call her friend and sit, you know and laugh and giggle and share not only funny stories but intimate stories, which is kind of extraordinary.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:09

I've never talked to her. I've talked to Mr. Cartwright, Angela Carr. I've talked to Angela Caray, but Marta is from Michigan. Her adoptive parents. I think she grew up in Michigan.

Wesley Eure 40:19

Nice. Well, Martha is just extraordinary and beautiful is amazing Pat priest, who was I think in her late 80s. She played in The Munsters. She was Marilyn. Marilyn, the beautiful one that they thought was ugly, right? She you would think Kathy and I were signing autographs she was sitting next to it. And we've been laughing all day, but some fans come up and some fans are just over the top and some kind of some people are rude. Some people are just they grab your pictures and stuff and it's weird. So she watched from we saw we were at a casino. He was watching us and as soon as the last person left it was getting an autograph. She comes running over and she pretends she's the worst fan ever goes. Oh my god, I used to watch you all the time. And she started laying her body all over our photographs and taking your arms and swiping and knocking all of our photos onto the grass. Oh my god you guys were my favorite. Oh, I got how much of these autographs it was a kid I laughed we couldn't stop laughing I mean this is this is you know this impact reached for goodness sake. I know

Jeff Dwoskin 41:16

is what do you do? And you're like sitting around and all you icons. You go out to dinner later when we would Sally Struthers stealing your french fries. I gotta get one of those forks. But like, it's,

Wesley Eure 41:25

it's hysterical. Yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:26

It sounds like it's a fun world. Just after I guess everyone leaves and just hanging out with all the other celebs. It must be a blast. Sounds like a blast. First of

Wesley Eure 41:37

all, we have a good time we go we go to have a good time. And when it stops becoming a good time, then I'll stop going. And that's again while we bring the wrath if people go to spend money and make that effort to be at a show. Let's do something more than just a you know, Hello, how are you stamp stand by me take a picture. Let's make it memorable. Let's make it an experience. Phil axilla, who played cousin it? And tweaky a Big Buck Rogers and stuff he passed away, but two years ago, and what he must have been what three foot tall. He was at ATS key and I don't know why. I don't know why. But we became pals big pals. And we were at a show in Dallas. And we were all sitting along back walls. He was way away from me. There was a curtain all the way behind. And I suddenly saw this curtain come bumping. So he was behind the curtain coming towards me hiding, pretending he's hiding, trying to scare me and stuff. And there's this feeling silly at this age. He's coming over there to try to scare me. Well, there was nobody at the convention. It was one of the shows that just nobody showed up for this one day. So Felix and I got in the middle of the convention floor and started doing midget wrestling. And he was throwing he threw me down on the floor. And he was jumping. I think he's in his 80s doing punchy weird stuff and people are laughing that twitches off but it's those moments you know, that are just I don't know they're just extraordinary.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:52

Sounds amazing. I would have that I would that's a million views on tick tock right there was Oh, I did want to kind of I thought was so cool. chomps you weren't? That was Valerie Burton Ali's first movie your first big starring role that was that was kind of like a cable classic. Yeah, it was

Wesley Eure 43:11

it was red buttons and Conrad Bay and Jim Backus. It was amazing cast and Valerie kept give her first big screen kiss. You know, before Eddie Van Halen, thank you very much. Because we again, we used to hang out together that group of Mackenzie Phillips and Linda Blair. You know, that was just kind of what we did back in the day.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:30

chomps the robot dog and that movie cost $250,000 to build How much did it cost to make grumpy the dinosaur? I don't really expect you to

Wesley Eure 43:42

sit Marty Krofft $1.37

Jeff Dwoskin 43:48

That's a level of Oh, and then you create a Dragon Tails. It was just like a man of many layers. This is that's that's a great

Wesley Eure 43:56

guy can tell us for PBS red nine years still. I think the movie just came a new movie just came out March. But I was one of the creators or three of us. And yeah, I I've written a book called The Red Wings of Christmas that Disney had bought for an animated feature. And I wrote the screenplay in the songs for Disney as if it's sitting on a shelf. Thank you and I had been producing and segment writing. Totally hidden video for Fox hidden camera show. And the executive producer Jim Comey moved over to Sony Pictures and found some dragon drawings and the government was offering $16 million for a new kids programming and Sesame Street wanted the Muppets wanted it. And Ron Rudiger this illustrator educator at the Southwest art festival in Laguna Beach had these amazing drag and drop. They didn't look like what they ended up on the show. They were very sophisticated funny. Anyway, so Jim asked me his son's favorite book was the Red Wings of Christmas and said what's the you gotta come in and we're trying to put this thing together and I got it put together in three days. And then I wrote a companion piece which was required by the grant another show called Show and Tell me and it sold within a week and we beat everybody out. So it's Children's Television Workshop and producing it with us. pretty pictures

Jeff Dwoskin 45:00

pretty impressive to beat the Muppets and Sesame Street. It

Wesley Eure 45:03

was pretty impressive. And what's so much fun is that I get it because the kids not so that was there in the 20s. And stuff. They used to watch it faithfully. We were at a show I was I was hosting a Golden Girls celebration show this past weekend in San Francisco area, with all the executive producers and the writers and some of the ancillary characters that are still around this, Kristen, the girls are gone now. And we were at an event and they were introducing oh, here's the here's the writer for you know, Golden Girls and bicep law. They stopped. Here's, here's this these actors they were on this show applause abroad when he landed last year was bought. And he also is the co creative director tells you the place erupted in like screams everybody's looking at me like what the heck is because that hit that sweet spot of that audience was a younger audience. It was like the heck is that all about? That's

Jeff Dwoskin 45:50

like a hidden gem of trivia, or whether you're I mean, like when I found that out, I was like, damn.

Wesley Eure 45:57

Do you know what I love I love about the conventions. One of the best things about them is they're a safe spot that kids on the spectrum, kids with disabilities, adults with disabilities, anybody geeks of all nature, it's a place to go play and absolutely let your child inside you just let loose. And parents, I know a lot of parents with kids that have needed special needs. And with Dragon Tails, especially I have so many kids will come up to my table. And when they find that they start to when they see drag until they get crazy. And they can sing every song from dragons as we sing along. And some of them I'm real friends, I call them on their birthdays and things like that I keep a record of who they are and what their life is to see that joy, that how that's connected, that open some window in their heart. It's an extraordinary moment to watch that face the exuberance on faces of kids, when they connect with you on that level. One guy and I I've asked his mom if I can mention them. And she said yes, because I would never but his name is Zach. And he's become a pilot. And I call him on his birthday, we go see him when I'm in Texas, I'll go see him and his mom, he has become he he can he can tell you every story plot. He can sing every song that was there. And every time I call him when he's in the hospital or whatever, we always are on speakerphone with the nurses and stuff. And we sing the theme song to Dragon Tails together. And it's just I made that just magical

Jeff Dwoskin 47:16

moments that it really is magic. You're what you are awesome. That is really cool. That is really cool. That's really touching. Wow, those are great. I mean, that makes it all worth it. Right. I mean, like, like that's kind of puts in a great bow on.

Wesley Eure 47:29

You know, one of the things that was a surprise to me is with Lance, the last one, you know, you're actually saved the lives and you move on like we said before, but the people that come up to our table, and it's just changed their life and you had no idea we had one guy, a man when he's in his 50s Obviously at the time, but he says he was crying and he said I gotta tell you something. I know it's gonna sound hokey. But between the second and third season when you lost your dad and your uncle came in, he said my father was leaving us. And I was devastated. I didn't think my family was gonna survive. I don't know how he's gonna handle my father leaving me. Oh, he's me. And he said when I saw that the family continued in survive. Even though you dead left, your uncle came in. It gave me the hope and the strength to get through that rough period of time. We had a young girl from Compton come in. She said when I was little girl we couldn't play outside was too dangerous. And it was a rough neighborhood. And she said we'd played Lando, the last all weekend we'd watch in the morning, we built caves with blankets and tables and like dinosaurs and sleepsack and stuff like that. And she said you don't know how this changed my life. He said, it gave us this this world on the weekends for us to be one blind couple came, they married, they had met at blind school and they both had the vision as children. What they had in common was land to the loss before they lost their vision. So they came up to our table and Kathy's their cat is still has long blonde hair. And we had a sleaze deck head. And they said, We told him what was there. And both of us said, Kathy, Can we touch you? And they reached over and they felt her hair and filter faced and they remembered the little Holly that they'd seen who's now obviously mature but still had the long hair and stuff. But we have moments like that one guy came up to us on a happier note, not a different note. And he and his brother says, we thought we spoke spoke Farsi. We go like, yeah, we used to watch it when we were it was a rock years ago, they were raised there obviously came to the States. And they got interested in archaeology and science. And they were two heads of the Jet Propulsion Lab. There were two of the major guys. They said, Hey, we you guys want to come to JPL. But we'll give you a private tour. Not only do we get a private tour JPL with these guys, they let us go into the private room with the one guy with Mo spin like 40 computer bags in one guy and he was the guy programming and driving the Mars rover with the joystick and programming made everyday driven every Mars rover up to that date. And he goes hey, do you want to do you want to play with the joystick and drive the rover we go Are you crazy? Of course we want to. So we go and there we are this with this guy alone with the joystick and of course now it didn't move the rover on March because they program it. They go through the program and then they send it to Mars when they when they're happy with the program. For the next day, it takes eight hours to broadcast back to Maurice. But the fact that he erased everything we did when we left but the fact that we that door opened because of land of the lost two days it just it's it's unexpected and who would have thought

Jeff Dwoskin 50:12

it's incredible I love I love hearing those stories and how, how the show resignate resonated with people. It must make you feel so good, so good. Ah, man, that's awesome.

Wesley Eure 50:24

It's a surprise every time it's just like that's one of the reasons we love doing what we do when we go do these shows. It's we get such rewarded for it on an emotional and spiritual basis. We live shows on such a high because of the friendships we made. Some of the people that we've met have become dear friends of ours. They're part of our lives now. They're not just fans. They're actually family. Now to us. It's an interesting thing again, who would have thought? Who

Jeff Dwoskin 50:49

would have thought here we are? 50 years later. Amazing. It's crazy. I appreciate you hanging out with me. Thank you so much. This is so fun. I love all these stories. I can't thank you enough. Wow,

Wesley Eure 51:02

Joe, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. All right. How

Jeff Dwoskin 51:05

amazing was Wesley you're I really need to find him at a Comic Con and get a picture in that raft. Now. My bucket list now for sure. I gotta say it's always such a crazy joy to talk to someone that I grew up watching on Saturday morning. Oh my goodness. So fun. It was great laughing with Wesley and so many great stories. Hi, hope you enjoyed our visits a land of the lost and days of our lives. And how about that dragon tales that caught you off guard didn't it? Yeah, but you didn't know that. Amazing, amazing stories. Amazing career amazing life. Well with the interview over there going any one thing I know the episodes over I can't believe it just flew by one more huge thank you to my guests was a your and another huge thank you to all of you for coming back week after week means the world to me. And I'll see you next time.

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