INT: Let's talk about DANNY ARNOLD. What it was like to work with him, how he changed the existing template for shooting shows?
GS: He changed a lot of things. DANNY when he was doing the pilot of BARNEY MILLER, directed by JOHN RICH. He wanted to see everything a camera was filming. In those days, JOHN was going to shoot on tape and have two switchable ISOs. DANNY didn't want that, wanted to see every frame. Got into editing with HAL COLLINS, first offline editing system. GREG GARRISON used to go there. NORMAN went there with all his shows because of JOHN and HAL COOPER with ALL IN THE FAMILY and MAUDE. JACK SHEA doing THE JEFFERSONS. So DANNY went over there to edit the show, says where is this other material. I told you we have two switchable ISOs, in this pass in this dress that you like we have it up this point. He screamed and hollered, got upset. COLLINS told him we could always cross over, he said I don't want to cross over I want that performance. So what happened is they finalized the cut, everything seemed to be fine, DANNY wanted to reshoot. They did it, JOHN took his name off the credit. Aside from that, now everything he did on BARNEY MILLER and FISH and HUDSON STREET was all four camera ISO. Everything was available.

INT: So he was running five cameras?
GS: Line feed and four ISOS, eventually people got rid of the line feed. [INT: Rebuilt the show in the editing room?] That will have something to do with rights which we will get into later. [INT: I remember BARNEY MILLER and Prospect and Talmadge [ed. note: ABC Television Center], we would all scurry over to DANNY ARNOLD's stage and watch that quad split put up on the monitor.] He was a guy who brought quad split to television. a great device and clearly the worse thing to happen to a director. Now everybody has a quad split. If you go now into a show, not only do the producers have a quad split, the audience probably has it, and every executive in the studio has a quad split. It gives everybody opportunities to be a director. He thought it was a great idea, he wanted to see everything. Sat down and wanted to be in front of four monitors compressed into one.

INT: And that evolution took place as you pointed out that it helps in the editing room and hurts on the stage. Not only that but then you have the actors working on the monitors?
GS: When I first started, JOHN RICH used to make a thing about never having an actor see how they look on camera. we never had a monitor turned to them. Even when we asked them about a pick up, we wouldn't have them match to a piece of footage. We didn't want to show them. One time CARROLL saw a cut in which we were doing a pick up. The way JOHN cut it on tape he had a jump cut and looked at it, saying what's wrong with that.

INT: So, let's go to NIGHT COURT and THE GOLDEN GIRLS?
GS: Two really different shows. REINHOLD WEEGE who created NIGHT COURT I knew from FISH and BARNEY MILLER. He was a starting, written a couple of spec scripts. NORMAN LEAR read them and LARRY GELBART read them. LARRY wanted to hire him for MASH. It was the end of a season, recommended REINHOLD to DANNY ARNOLD. DANNY loved him, brought him to BARNEY MILLER. One of the two writers. First chance on his own he created NIGHT COURT out of BARNEY MILLER. The dark side of the court system, odd folk and stories. We did a pilot directed by JAMES BURROWS, terrific. JOHN LAROQUETTE I had never seen. Absolutely sensational. HARRY ANDERSON didn't know why he was there. Never thought he was an actor. Did some CHEERS, popular, trusted BURROWS, ended up doing that. That was fun. We went through a number of different ladies. KAREN AUSTIN in the original. MARKIE POST later in the first year. She became available, scooped her up. Initially, the directors started out with JAY SANDRICH, ASAAD KELADA. The used a variety of guys. I did one, JEFF MELMAN did a couple. That was JEFF's first real opportunity. He had always produced, friends since BARNEY MILLER. He was really right and comfortable for the show. He is a director who has grown over the period of time. Those were the people.

INT: GOLDEN GIRLS?
GS: GOLDEN GIRLS, I had never worked for WARD THOMAS before. My wife cast for them, I knew PAUL and TONY but they called me while I was still on NIGHT COURT and told me, they had used me on a short ordered series about a woman president with PATTY DUKE. I AD'd four episodes. They called me, had a project called HEARTS OF STEEL with ANNIE POTTS. They wanted me to co direct with BARRY KEMP. His first time as a director. He and SHELDON were friends, I got to work with them. Then right after that we did the pilot to GOLDEN GIRLS. One of those shows that I don't recall being on since ALL IN THE FAMILY. Absolutely great fun to do. Very funny, whole experience was fun from top to bottom. From the pilot on. For the most part I had a blast doing the show. I did the pilot with JAY, first season with PAUL BOGART. Second half with JIM DRAKE as an AD. Next year I was getting offers to direct but they brought in TERRY HUGHES. He couldn't have been a more perfect guy. British guy, silver hair, tall, great looking. The women fell in love with them, it was perfect. I told him I don't know if you can direct but you look so good you cant miss. But he could direct. actually, he and I had a great working relationship. I ended up switching the cameras for him. If I had done it 5 or 10 years earlier it would be a no-no. My excuse was that TERRY was there every step of the way in terms of how we were constructing cameras. I told him the sequence I thought he would like, he wanted me to switch because it was more facile. It was funny. Every time he decided he wanted to snap the show he would miss four cuts. He would take it at the wrong time. By that time, we didn't have the fifth machine. We had four ISOs. Basically it hadn't been edited yet. [INT: So the line cut went out to the audience?] Yeah that was it. So the editor would create the line cut. Hopefully abed on something you were doing because they recorded it on a cassette. Just as a design, but he then could remake the entire show. [INT: Notes somebody took in the booth?] That I gave out, TERRY gave out, things we remembered, whatever the piece. Sometimes what happened was the editor would re-cut the show entirely. I would have to explain to him that's not what we do here.

INT: As an aside, did you ever work with anybody in a booth who snapped the cameras?
GS: I remember guys would get tired from rehearsal and would hit a pencil or would have the cricket clickers? When JOHN RICH would get tired, he used to hit me. Every hit was a camera cut. BOGART would do a pencil sometimes. He used to say take it. Whack his hand. I liked it. Snapping I get worn out, wrist hurts, fingers got rough and split open. When I went back to ARCHIE BUNKERS PLACE to do the death of Edith Bunker, how Archie was dealing with death. It was more of a dramatic show. The way I shot it was I designed it to look like PAUL would do. 140 shots in an hour show, pretty amazing. In this one sequence where ARCHIE breaks down and his niece comes in and thinks he hasn't paid attention to his death and was holding back. She cries and you hear take it. The editor HENRY CHAN was listening to it. Asked what was that noise. you hear in every camera cut "take it." We had to trim two frames from every camera shot. [INT: Why was that bleeding through?] Somebody must have had there head set open or something. I used to say it, bark it. Very dramatic moment, no audience. It was very funny.

INT: How long did you do ARCHIE BUNKER'S PLACE?
GS: I did it last three seasons, AD'd and directed. In the middle sometimes I would leave and direct outside. Overall it was good experience, I was comfortable, loved the people. [INT: At this point you were going back and forth?] Yeah, not making any decision one way or another.

INT: ALF?
GS: I don’t know how I got to ALF. It was in the very first season, I guess it was about 15 shows in. I got an introduction to TOM PATCHETT, I went down to him to interview. He gave me an assignment on ALF. Great fun. What was interesting was the entire set was four feet in the air so that PAUL FUSCO, the puppeteer could walk around. PAUL and his wife was a coordinator, had two other puppeteers with him. One to electronically deal with eyes and ears. The other to deal with the arm. PAUL was working one hand, this girl LISA, I think she is on SESAME STREET was doing the other hand. What was amazing was the puppeteering was so real I brought my daughter down on the set, I don't know how old she was at that time. She was maybe 7. She was mesmerized because it looked so real. That was great fun. Difficult though.

INT: There is a show here called BIG BROTHER JAKE, tell me about that?
GS: Before BIG BROTHER JAKE I did a show called GOOD MORNING, MISS BLISS, which was the precursor to SAVED BY THE BELL. GOOD MORNING, MISS BLISS was with HAYLEY MILLS and a bunch of kids. HAYLEY was and still is probably the biggest star DISNEY channel ever had. We did this, NBC pilot didn't get picked up. But made a deal with DISNEY to put the show on, a co-production between NBC and the DISNEY channel. We did 13 and BURT BRINCKERHOFF and I split the directing. MARK-PAUL GOSSELAAR was there at the first part. And Screech, DUSTIN DIAMOND. Then there was a little war between the DISNEY channel and NBC, so we pulled away and put it on Saturdays. Recast with the ones who became famous. TIFFANI AMBER THIESSEN, ELIZABETH BERKLEY, MARIO LOPEZ. I did the first seven shows with PETER ENGEL. PETER and I, he wanted to spend less money, didn't want to pay the amount of money at the time. He and I got into a bit of a pissing war because I wanted to do the show one way and he wanted the signature on it. He left, but recommended me to a guy at the FAMILY CHANNEL, a show called BIG BROTHER JAKE written by a guy who came out of the CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING NETWORK, soap opera, CHRIS AUER. I thought he was a very good writer. I liked the sensibility of the show, starring JAKE STEINFELD. Shot in Virginia. Cast out of LA and back east. Did the show. Great fun doing it, a lot of young people. I thought it will never see the light of day but it was fun. So they, 3 or 4 months went by and they sold the show, would like to do 26 shows. I said you're kidding. It was at a time where I had done a couple of pilots that would have afforded me opportunities to direct in mainstream television. And I did a presentation for BRANDON TARTIKOFF called SMELL THE ROSES that was great fun. He was trying to sell it to FX. He really liked it. I was conflicted, but I said its 26 shows, they were going to pay me decent money, particularly I get to write, produce, direct. I said let's do this. We hired a lot of younger writers who have since made a name for themselves. It was their first or second job. It was a super experience. We went back to Virginia beach, lived at CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING NETWORK. My wife says normally you go into a studio and see pictures of BOB HOPE, BING CROSBY, SMOTHERS BROTHERS, RED SKELTON. Here you see pictures of Jesus Christ. The Virgin Mary. We had a studio across from the 700 CLUB. What was great was, I had the most experience, I could pick and choose the people I wanted. I got DON ROBERTS who was a wonderful set designer. Head of the prop department I think at COLUMBIA TRISTAR. He designed the set for nothing, as a favor. They built it. I got most of the crew from the COSBY SHOW, people I knew. RICH JACOB was wonderful audio mixer. He said I will do the first 8 then go back to the COSBY SHOW. He loved it so much we worked out a system he could come down for the day of. Terrific mixer, I trusted his instincts. He gave us a lot. Brought RICHARD BROWN out to light it. Any number of camera men came from west coast. It was great fun. We did a hundred episodes. Played in Europe, here in the family channel. Once we sold the library it was pretty good.

INT: I'm going to jump around a bit, throw some names, tell us where it takes you. PETER ENGEL?
GS: PETER was a character. I met him at a time that was a real crossover period. I don’t know how long he had been married, maybe 6, 7 years, he was born again Christian, two kids. He had an idea to do a show that nobody else was doing. When you look back now you say what the hell was that. Dumb show. I looked at it recently, SAVED BY THE BELL, what made it a hit I thought was the kids were real kids. Everything he did afterwards with adults playing kids, but those were real kids. He got wonderful honesty, honest performances from them. I think that's what was successful. I don't know any television executive who is not a fan of that show. You hear people talking, even writers. I think we should do a saved by the bell thing here. So that was quite an experience. The great thing, I ended up working for him later. When I came back from Virginia, came into town, tried to get into working here. His co-partner LINDA MANCUSO kept trying to get me to come on board the show. PETER called me about a series he had, 75 shows. I said anybody who out of the blue can get an order for 75 shows is something. It's because of his enormous success on SAVED BY THE BELL. So what was great was that it was just him. There was no network really. When I interfaced with somebody who had the final word, it wasn't a whole slew of people, it was him. I liked that. I thought it helped. Particularly for a kids show. Instead of making it a multi-layered thing, it was fun and simple. He was the king of Saturday morning. SAVED BY THE BELL made NBC and him a fortune. At one point I don't think there was a time period in a 24 hour day that didn't play it someplace. Out of that I ended up doing USA HIGH for him, and MALIBU. These were all long. Working for him, you weren't doing 13 and out. It was 26 shows and a good chance you would pick up. And then it runs forever. That was good.

INT: SHERMAN HEMSLEY?
GS: When SHERMAN how he came to that role, the part of George Jefferson was a character never seen in the first couple years. He didn’t like white people so he never came out of his house. So he always sent Louise over to interface, or his brother Henry. It was the second season that I was with the show that George came over. The guy they hired was a guy doing Broadway. It wasn't SHERMAN it was AVON LONG, saw him in THE STING, number of movies. Couldn't remember his name. Lovely guy, couldn't remember it. I remember on Friday we did the run through and said we got to talk. I think JOHN and NORMAN called casting director, JANE MURRAY, said think of somebody else. She remembered she had seen SHERMAN HEMSLEY do either ROAD SHOW, or maybe PEARLY on Broadway as well. SHERMAN came down, up in San Francisco. He was instant success. Became a cast, JOHN clicked. He just had a wonderful imagery, real take, little guy with outrageous personality. After the first episode, all the writers came in and said we should talk about a spin off. Definitely an audience connection. But SHERMAN was a character. Went through a lot of changes.

INT: Well you worked with him several times from that character, and then he did AMEN?
GS: Yeah, he had gone from completely broke to starting over. Very successful, I did several episodes, I guess third or fourth year. Then he went on to a show at paramount that you and I did, GOODE BEHAVIOR. In which he was very funny. After that was over, I got a call from him about a year or so later that he was doing the pilot down in Orlando. He had some guy who was putting up the money. This guy when I went down there was a poor man's JOHN GOTTI. Came right out of Little Italy. Billed for this thing. We did this pilot. Good cast, LARK VOORHIES from SAVED BY THE BELL was in it. We did this show, the funny thing was there was nobody there had ever produced a show before except for me and the writer who was BOB ILLES. Worked with before. BOB and I were the only ones. When they called me and hired me to direct, I said will you send the plans down so I can see what you are thinking about. They said no we are building the set. How are you doing that I haven't seen the plans yet. They said we kind of decided. I said if you have already started it and I cant do anything about that, let me see the script. I get down there and it is the biggest set I have seen in my life. When they put it up two days after I got there. If you had a camera out front it made the water in the background look like a miniature. What was even worse, working in Orlando there is no real prop house. You have to buy or rent anything. No rental place, you have to rent it individually. So they rented this very expensive furniture for this house. Huge set that I had to cut in places so I could get cameras. So the day it was all going to be dressed, I come walking onto the set, look at the set, call the decorator over and ask them what color is all the furniture. Huge chairs and sofas, it's all brown. I said what color are the actors on the film. We got to do something about it. A woman who is 250 pounds sitting in this chair will look awful. They had to change it. The most expensive set I have ever seen. The guy who built it was a variety designer who was given carte blanche, no direction.

INT: SHERMAN'S involvement was?
GS: An actor. And SHERMAN never got into any of the producing. He might raise his voice in opposition to something, but not as a producer. He would like everything to be done for him. We got along fine. We kind of held it together. Did a pilot, turned out great, very funny, everybody loved it. But it was a fake pilot. This guy just wanted to make a pilot. Had no buyer, no idea how to get to a buyer, but told me he knew everybody in the business. The last thing he said was we are doing two more of these. I asked him you haven't sold the pilot, why are you doing two more? He said well then there will be 3 shows to look at. I said yeah.

INT: Interesting career for SHERMAN who started out huge but never managed to make it to the next level?
GS: He was a guy with enormous talent but not much of a manager of it. Not interested in anything other than performing and doing his bit. He's kind of pneumatic that way. I don't know what else to call it. He never had somebody helping to direct him enough. Kind of left alone to his own devices. [INT: Interesting thing how some actors, you saw SHERMAN 3 or 4 times in different roles, but you see how sometimes an actor and a role can line up perfectly and then as big as they are life goes on and they don't. The growth somehow is stopped. Without that part to add to their own talent and persona they kind of drift away and drift off scene. Seen that happen to many actors. There was no bigger star than BEN CASEY, VINCE EDWARDS. And that was it. The end of the road. Sometimes as a director I'm sure you can see that in an actor.]