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Person

George Shapiro

"Bombing is part of the process of putting a good act together. You have to embrace it. You'll be in pain. You'll feel terrible. I've seen comedians crying after it… but bombing gives you the opportunity of knowing what doesn't work, and then starting new jokes. It's essential that a comedian bombs. Just stay with it, learn from it, and keep doing it. Get back on the horse -- there's a reason for that old cliché." 

Person

Bill Dana

"There is nothing that comes close to the elixir of humor- the approbation, the applause; no narcotic comes close. To stand on a stage and have people stand up and clap and say 'you done good, and now I can survive this day.'  Yeah, oh it's worth it."

Person

Steve Allen

"I honestly don't think I would change anything. Some people say, 'I bet you wouldn't give up "The Tonight Show."' No, I would give it up as fast as I gave it up the first time. In fact, how Johnny Carson, how any human being, was able to stay behind that desk for 30 years, I could have never done that. It would have driven me crazy." 

Person

Dick Van Dyke
"It was an impossible dream to think of ever actually going into show business. There was no television, so you had a choice between Vaudeville and movies. I didn't really think that it would ever happen."
Person

Marlo Thomas
"I think the legacy of 'That Girl' is the fact that, as Billy Persky always says, we threw the grenade into the bunker. We opened up the window for young women. You did not have to be the wife or the daughter of somebody or the secretary of somebody, but that you could be the somebody. The story could be about you and what you wanted in life. Once that happened, I think that really paved the way for a lot of other shows."
Person

Grant Tinker

"That was the boutique aspect of MTM. There was nothing we HAD to do because we had thousands of people on the payroll. We just did the things that appealed to us, some of which didn't appeal to others, so they became failed pilots or whatever."

Person

Carl Reiner

"I knew we were doing something very good. When writers would come to work for me,  I'd read their scripts, they would be full of slang and I'd tell them, 'fellas, don't use slang of the day. In reruns, five years down the line, we don't want to hear somebody say, 'he took out his gat.'"

Person

Sheldon Leonard
"The producer has to present a series of playable scripts, a bunch of literary material, that's got to be ready to shoot week after week. And, it's got to have the integrity of character from one script to another. You have to respect the history of the show. It's a very complicated thing."
Person

Tony Randall
"Generally speaking, the dramatic roles are much easier. The reason that so few of us are good at comedy is that it's so damned hard. You really have to be good to be very sharp, indeed. Some very, very fine actors are lost in comedy. And they're smart enough never to do it. Have you ever seen Paul Newman in a comedy? He tried one."
Person

John Frankenheimer
"I knew that I wanted to have something to do with the camera. I didn't know whether I wanted to be a cameraman, or whether I wanted to direct. Directing, in a sense, was some crazed thing you never thought about. I mean, yeah, it would be great, but it was like trying to be President of the United States."
Person

Delbert Mann
"I always maintained what I hoped was a very loving set -- a very calm and quiet set. My essence of what I learned and what I loved as a director was working with actors, working with the writers on the script, and essentially working with actors to interpret and to stage and to make changes as necessary. ... It was a wonderful way to work."