Allan Blye

In his two-hour interview, Allan Blye (1937-2024) discusses growing up in Canada and getting his start in radio and on the stage as a child. He talks about performing on Fred Rogers’ Canadian precursor to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Misterrogers. He then shares how a phone call from Tom Smothers led to him moving to the United States to work on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He details his time on Smothers Brothers, including the end of the show and its post-cancellation Emmy win. Blye then shares stories from various specials he worked on, including Petula and Elvis: The ’68 Comeback Special (during which he received a private concert from Elvis). He discusses writing for The Andy Williams Show, as well as voicing the character “Cookie Bear,” and writing/producing the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. He then details his long producing partnership with Bob Einstein, which included creating the show Bizarre and developing Einstein’s “Super Dave Osborne” character, for which they created the series Super Dave, among other iterations. Blye concludes by giving advice for aspiring writers and producers, and sharing his proudest career achievement and how he would like to be remembered. Adrienne Faillace conducted the interview on April 24, 2019 in Cathedral City, CA.