I was just telling someone this story and he suggested I tell it on this blog. I actually did once but it was back in 2001 and I didn't tell it very well then. So let's pretend this is the first time I've told it. It involves two men…
The one on the left is Morton Downey Jr., who had a popular (for a while) syndicated talk show that mostly consisted of Mr. Downey bringing on guests, screaming at them, calling them names, etc. Here's some of what Wikipedia has to say about his program…
Starting as a local program on New York-New Jersey superstation WWOR-TV in October 1987, [The Morton Downey Jr. Show] expanded into national syndication in early 1988. The program featured screaming matches among Downey, his guests, and audience members. Using a large silver bowl for an ashtray, he would chainsmoke during the show and blow smoke in his guests' faces. Downey's fans became known as "Loudmouths," patterned after the studio lecterns decorated with gaping cartoon mouths, from which Downey's guests would go head-to-head against each other on their respective issues.
Downey's signature phrases "pablum puking liberal" (in reference to left-liberals) and "zip it!" briefly enjoyed some popularity in the contemporary vernacular. He particularly enjoyed making his guests angry with each other, which on a few occasions resulted in physical confrontations.
I did not like Morton Downey Jr. I thought he was the most repulsive "human being" (using a very loose definition of that species) on television back then. I did however like the gent on the right. His name was Stanley Ralph Ross and he was a pal of mine — a TV writer and occasional actor. Stanley was one of the main writers of the Batman TV show (the one with Adam West) and he developed the Wonder Woman TV show (the one with Lynda Carter) and also wrote for dozens of other programs. His deep, gravelly voice was often heard in announcing jobs and on cartoons.
This story takes place while I was writing and voice-directing the Garfield and Friends cartoon series. One day, I decided to use my disgust at Morton Downey Jr.'s show as the basis for an episode. I created a character named Joe Palaver and had Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle, go on Joe Palaver's show.
Basically, the plot was that Palaver gave Jon the Downey-style treatment and so Garfield went in and made Palaver look like a fool. For the voice of Joe Palaver, I cast Stanley Ralph Ross and we recorded the voice track and all was well.
A week or so later, Stanley called me and told me he'd run into Downey at a party and told him about the parody. For a tenth of a second, I was worried we were going to hear from Downey's lawyer but Stanley said, "He was thrilled and I gave him your phone number. He's going to call you about seeing if he can get a drawing from the episode."
A few days later, I did indeed receive a call from Mr. Downey but he wasn't interested in any drawing. What he wanted was for me to dump Stanley's voice track and replace it with a new one. "I'll come in and record my voice and you can call the character by my name and make it look just like me…and don't worry. I'll go along with whatever you write. You can make me look like the biggest idiot in the world."
I thought but did not ask, "What makes you think I didn't?"
The call didn't last long but it lasted long enough for me to realize that everything about this man was an act. He was screaming at people at TV and advocating infuriating political views just for the attention and ratings and the financial benefits from that act. This did not shock me as I've long believed in "follow the money" as key to understanding why most people do what they do. But it was jarring to have such a blatant example of it before me.
I declined his offer. When the show aired, it aired with the voice of Stanley Ralph Ross.
A few months after my phone call from Downey, I was dining with a friend in Lawry's restaurant over on La Cienega Boulevard. There, a few tables from us and very audible, was Morton Downey, Jr. He was loud and he was screaming at the fine Lawry's wait staff, carrying his on-air persona into the public arena. I hadn't thought my opinion of him could get any lower but that evening, it did.
By this time, the act was getting very tired and transparent and the ratings for his TV show were dropping. He tried some hokey publicity stunts for attention but they failed to reverse his slide into oblivion. In June of 1996, lung cancer forced the removal of one of his lungs and that apparently made him realize that smoking just might be dangerous. He became a staunch anti-smoking crusader but again, no one paid much attention to him. He died from lung cancer and pneumonia on March 12, 2001.
One person who I wish had listened to him was my friend Stanley Ralph Ross. Stanley died from the same thing one year earlier.