I haven't mentioned this project lately for your own good…because if you start watching, you'll never do anything else with your life. But there's thing called the Archive of American Television, which is compiling a series of oral histories of the TV business. They've quizzed hundreds of performers, producers, directors, writers…even Bob Hope's cue card guy, and these are in-depth interviews, many of which run three or four hours.
If you'd like to view these videos, it's not difficult. You just have to fly out here to Los Angeles, make an appointment and go into the Academy headquarters where a nice lady will escort you to a private listening room and allow you to watch and take notes…and the first part of this paragraph is a lie. That would be worth the effort but as it happens, you can watch them on your home computer from the comfort of whatever chair you're sitting in at this moment. They don't have them all online yet but they have enough to keep you occupied for months. Wanna watch four hours of Bill Melendez telling the history of his career and how they made all them Charlie Brown specials? You're one click away from it.
If you're not interested in Bill, you can watch an interview with Andy Ackerman, Berle Adams, Edie Adams, Robert Adler, Alan Alda, Kay Alden, Steve Allen, Charlie Andrews, Army Archerd, James Arness, Beatrice Arthur, Edward Asner, Larry Auerbach, Rick Baker, Bob Banner, Joseph Barbera, Paris Barclay, Bob Barker, Cliff Barrows, William Bell, Ted Bergmann, Milton Berle, Rick Berman, Walter Bernstein, Lewis Bernstein, Barbara Billingsley, Wade Bingham, William Blinn, Lucille Bliss, Steven Bochco, Paul Bogart, Haskell Boggs, Mili Lerner Bonsignori, Ernest Borgnine, Tom Bosley, Peter Boyle, Ed Bradley, Bernie Brillstein, David Brinkley, James L. Brooks, Kirk Browning, Frances Buss Buch, Allan Burns, Ken Burns, James Burrows, LeVar Burton, Robert Butler, Sid Caesar, Dann Cahn, Stephen J. Cannell, George Carlin, Diahann Carroll, Leo Chaloukian, Marge Champion, Cyd Charisse, Glen Charles, Les Charles, Julia Child, Roy Christopher, Dick Clark, Kevin Clash, Tim Conway, Joan Ganz Cooney, Hal Cooper, Barbara Corday, Fred De Cordova, Bob Costas, Alexander Courage, Richard Crenna, Walter Cronkite, Robert Culp, Bill Daily, Bill Dana, Michael Dann, Bob Carroll Jr., Ossie Davis, Ann B. Davis, Madelyn Pugh Davis, Ruby Dee, Sam Denoff, Phyllis Diller, Walter Dishell, Roy E. Disney, Elinor Donahue, Phil Donahue, Sam Donaldson, Richard Donner, David Dortort, Mike Douglas, Hugh Downs, Charles Dubin, Betty Cole Dukert, Dick Van Dyke, Roger Ebert, Barbara Eden, Michael Eisner, Ruth Engelhardt, Nanette Fabray, Jerry Falwell, Elma Farnsworth, Barbara Feldon, Norman Felton, Mike Fenton, Dorothy Fontana, Tom Fontana, June Foray, John Forsythe, Michael J. Fox, Charles Fox, Fred Foy, John Frankenheimer, Dennis Franz, Albert Freedman, Chuck Fries, James Garner, Betty Garrett, Tony Geiss, Larry Gelbart, Marla Gibbs, Sharon Gless, Leonard H. Goldenson, Jerry Goldsmith, Andy Griffith, Robert Guillaume, Earle Hagen, Larry Hagman, Monty Hall, Valerie Harper, Patricia Heaton, Dwight Hemion, Sherman Hemsley, Florence Henderson, Paul Henning, Don Hewitt, Ron Howard, Russell Johnson, Quincy Jones, Shirley Jones, Chuck Jones, Earl Hamner Jr., Hal Kanter, Bob Keeshan, Lynwood King, William Klages, Jack Klugman, Don Knotts, Harvey Korman, Marty Krofft, Mort Lachman, Perry Lafferty, Angela Lansbury, Jack Larson, Norman Lear, Jack Lemmon, Sheldon Leonard, Jerry Lewis, Frank Liberman, William Link, Art Linkletter, Charles Lisanby, Sidney Lumet, Bob Mackie, Gavin MacLeod, Robert MacNeil, Martin Manulis, Sonia Manzano, Rose Marie, Bob Markell, Garry Marshall, E.G. Marshall, Richard Matheson, Rue McClanahan, Bob McGrath, Jim McKay, Ed McMahon, Barney McNulty, Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, Burt Metcalfe, Newton N. Minow, Don Mischer, Vic Mizzy, John Moffitt, Ricardo Montalban, Leslie Moonves, Mary Tyler Moore, Rita Moreno, Harry Morgan, Pat Morita, Sheila Nevins, Bob Newhart, Leonard Nimoy, Agnes Nixon, Carroll O'Connor, Hugh O'Brian, Don Pardo, Fess Parker, Regis Philbin, Suzanne Pleshette, Abraham Polonsky, Mike Post, Tom Poston, David Pressman, Tony Randall, Joyce Randolph, Phylicia Rashad, Frances Reid, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Del Reisman, Gene Reynolds, Rita Riggs, Pat Robertson, Cliff Robertson, Fred Rogers, Phil Roman, Andy Rooney, Meta Rosenberg, Marion Ross, Aaron Ruben, Tim Russert, Thomas Del Ruth, Morley Safer, Soupy Sales, Jay Sandrich, Isabel Sanford, Thomas W. Sarnoff, Bob Schiller, Arthur Schneider, Sherwood Schwartz, Jan Scott, William Self, William Shatner, Sidney Sheldon, James Sheldon, Fred Silverman, Doris Singleton, Erika Slezak, Bob Smith, Dick Smith, The Smothers Brothers, John Soh, Aaron Spelling, Carroll Spinney, Daniel Petrie Sr., Lesley Stahl, Jean Stapleton, Herbert Stempel, Leonard Stern, Bob Stewart, Dick Stiles, Jerry Stiller, Gale Storm, Maxine Stuart, George Takei, Noel Taylor, Studs Terkel, Grant Tinker, Mel Tolkin, Daniel J. Travanti, Ted Turner, Ret Turner, James Wall, Mike Wallace, Barbara Walters, Joseph A. Wapner, Ruth Warrick, Dennis Weaver, Bob Weiskopf, Joseph Wershba, Betty White, Joseph M. Wilcots, Andy Williams, Ethel Winant, Henry Winkler, Jonathan Winters, Dick Wolf, Ben Wolf, David Wolper, Jane Wyatt or Alan Young. And there are more to come.
See anyone there you're interested in? Go to this page…but before you do, say goodbye to your friends and loved ones. Because they'll never see you again.