INT: So we're still, we're at the Hollywood Palace, still, with Merv's show [THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW]. And I know, I could tell from the beginning of this you really loved that space, that venue. What was, tell me a little bit more about working in the Hollywood Palace.

DC: Well, we could do things like, you know, Merv was good friends of Clint Eastwood and a lot of people. I never, I guess most people know that by now he had a movie career back in the early days of... And so he had a vast background of film people. And I guess Clint might have got him into this TM, transcendental meditation. And as a result, we had the Maharishi [Maharishi Mahesh Yogi] on. Oh boy. What a hot ticket that got to be. Everybody wanted to come see the Maharishi. I think it was probably one of his first appearances in Hollywood. And we had… and various celebrities also were there from various, Mary Tyler Moore I remember seeing. And they all were into TM. It was very popular. So we were able to do that only because of the space, you know. But yeah, the Palace was great, you know.

INT: I'd like to hear about the move from Hollywood Palace then to TAV [Trans-American Video]?

DC: Yeah. That was the best thing, as far as I was concerned that Merv [Merv Griffin] could do. Buy your own building, put a big stage in there. Have your own theater exactly the way you want it. And you had a lot of offices there and upstairs, where they put WHEEL [WHEEL OF FORTUNE] up above, next level up. JEOPARDY had their off--it was a marvelous way to work. And of course Merv was like the centerpiece. And everybody could work there all in one building. Rehearsal, you'd walk down the stairs and you'd be in the studio. And the only, not bad thing, but we also had the, he'd also rent it to shows like ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT. And we'd have to wait 'til they got done with the facilities and then we would move in. But that was good. That was okay. Gave the cameramen a little more work and everybody. So yeah, those were good times there.

INT: So I want to talk about the traveling, but I have to, and I don't know how we'll use this, but I just, I've, I'll let you do the punch line on it. But one of my--and I know you know what I'm leading to here. One of my favorite Dick Carson stories is, as usual, we had lots of music on THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW. I'm the cue card guy, and Robert Goulet is on as a guest. This is 1976, '77 [1977]. That's when I was there. Probably '77. And it's right when his relationship with Carol Lawrence is starting to fall apart. And, do you want to tell it or do...

DC: Well I don't know. You're the one that warned me that he was coming out with his shirt off. And he might have had a couple of pops, I don't know. He was singing, and he had a very big personality. [INT: It was--] Robert Goulet. [INT: --very sad because he sang “If Ever I Should Leave You”.] Yeah. [INT: And at, and he had his shirt off and he was looking very--] Oh, is that what he sang that day? [INT: Yes. Yes.] I had forgotten. [INT: And at the end of it, Dick, so here he is, shirt off, singing wonderfully, "If ever I...," all the way to the end. And at the end, music out, and he goes, "Oh Carol."] Oh really? [INT: And the studio was just a dark cloud. I mean, you just, the tension you could cut through. And the booth, your booth is in the back of the studio, so you don't have to come down any stairs or anything. You could come right out of the booth, and right into the audience and onto the stage. So--] Is that when he had his shirt off? [INT: Yes.] Yeah. [INT: And what did you do?] I took my shirt off. [LAUGH] Ripped it off, ran down and broke up the place. [INT: Broke up the place.] I don't know who took the picture. I have a picture of that. [INT: I was so glad. I remember it like it was yesterday.] He was such a nice guy, really, but he-- [INT: And you know what--] --was such a tough guy. [INT: --I think it ultimately made his day, and I'm sure his appearance with Merv on the show later was better for you having done that.] Yeah. Yeah, you could feel the tension there. Yeah. [INT: Yeah. God I could see, you walked, I was standing over house left. You walked down the house right aisle, I never, I see it now. It was great. Just with that, let me say it, that boyish, Nebraska grin, you know, just as you walked down.] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw him in “Camelot”. He was really good vocally. Wonderful Actor.

INT: Let's talk about the travelling. So THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW starts to travel a lot.

DC: Lots of travelling, and this is even before I went to WHEEL OF FORTUNE, and this is… Gosh, we did so many countries so fast. And unfortunately, I mean not unfortunately, but… Well, my favorite trip of all, believe it or not, was Israel. But it was a most difficult time. It was so far. I mean we had done Monaco twice for, and those are based around tennis tournaments, where we took top pros and had tournaments with these--and Merv, you know, tennis back in the '70s [1970s] was a big deal. Bigger than golf ever was now. You had Jimmy Connors. You had all these, McEnroe [John McEnroe] and all these people. So, and Merv grew up playing tennis, and so he loved it. So we had, gosh, Charlton Heston, all the biggies, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, all those people. And a lot of 'em couldn't play very good tennis, but we had the pros there, you see, to make it work. And boy, it was quite a… But Israel, we did Venice, that was tennis, and the Principality of Monaco with Prince Rainier and Princess Grace [Grace Kelly]. I'll do that first because it most interesting.

DC: We [THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW staff and crew] were guests of the Prince [Prince Rainier of Monaco] and Princess [Princess Grace Kelly]. We were invited to the castle. And that was quite exceptional. All the celebrities from Cosby, all the film stars, Bill Cosby, were invited, and we were in this large dining room, not dining room, drawing room if you will, waiting, having our little drinks. My wife and I was just kind of off to the side waiting for the... Didn't realize I was leaning against the entrance to the doors. Started to open up, you kind of jump and you pull back. And we, and there standing, like a movie, in full regalia, you know, something that Hitchcock might have produced. And we kind of like, do I bow? Do I kneel? But they came and they were very gracious. Went right by us to the celebrities.There was no filming there. They went in and met everybody, and it was later after, on the, later... Oh, yes. After, you know what we did that evening? They took us to the sporting club, which is unbelievable. You think you're outdoors, and you are, but you're, all these beautiful tables set for dinner, with a full stage, orchestra, full orchestra, beautiful. All the gals are in long dresses that... And we eat. I forget who I sat with. And then the doors open wide and the fireworks start up above. I mean it was like a movie. I tell you, we turned to each other and said, "How's that for production?" you know. It was great. I think Carl Reiner was here. Reiner and Brooks always sat together. I'll bet you three times we've been to events with Carl Reiner, they always sit together. [INT: I think they still have lunch together every day.] Yeah. And anyway, it was a beautiful evening.

DC: But it [taping of an on location THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW] turned out to be a very tough directing job for various reasons. It… Well, the very first time, I'll take this way. The very first time was not the royalty. The tennis tournament, I'd asked for some Cameramen to shoot the tennis with me. They didn't speak English. They didn't know who these people were, so it got to be kind of silly. "Get a shot of Charlton [Charlton Heston]... Oh no, the guy there." [LAUGH] Anyway, so when we went back the second time, it was done right. I took some of my own camera people. We had that wonderful dinner with the Prince [Prince Rainier] and Princess [Princess Grace Kelly]. And then we did some interviews, mainly the Princess. Merv seemed to know her very well. He could talk to anybody, you know Merv. But, so we had set with Ray Sneath, we had put our interview-- [INT: Ray Sneath was Merv's...] Ray Sneath is Stage Manager, had set up a table for two, umbrella, overlooking the tennis. And we had this interview with Grace, Princess Grace. It was going fine, you know, pretty good. I was terribly tired already, because there was so much running and doing. I'd been shooting helicopter stuff. I'd been doing everything. [INT: So you're out shooting all those with single camera probably and up in remotes and, but then here you'd set, what was the setup? You talked about the tennis in the background. They are at a table. Would you have two cameras?] I probably did, yeah. I probably did, yeah. [INT: And then you, were you at--] I always had two I guess. Yeah. One was on her and... [INT: Were you at, like, a little remote setup, so you had a monitor and you could watch her?] No, I'm in truck. Yeah. [INT: Oh, so you actually did have a truck?] Yeah, a small truck down in… I'll tell you what happened. Anyway, Ray called up and he said, "She has a question about what side she likes to be shot on." Good! I want to see Princess Grace, so I go up. She's very lovely. And I said, "Yeah. How do you..." Merv, of course, very nice introduction. And she says, "Hitch always liked my left side." Okay. I didn't say anything. I said, "Okay." Like I was gonna do, we... I know how it started. I had asked Ray, "Could we move the Princess a little bit here because it's kind of a lousy background. Let's get the mountains and the beautiful..." Well that's when it came up, you know. I think she thought... So I came up and I got to meet her. And she says, I said, "Well, the reason I asked, wanted to move was because the scenery there is not so good. It's such prettier over here. We have the mountains and everything." She says, "Hitch never worried about the backgrounds." [LAUGH] Hitch. And I had a great answer, but I kept my mouth to myself. I wanted to say, "Well, why did he come all the way to here to shoot those movies?" Anyway, but I didn't. So I ran back and we did the interview and, you know, with Merv as usually another great interview. And that was the end of that. And oh, we had to get ready for the next party. There were dinners and parties every night. And it was really something. [INT: Did you shoot any of that? Was any of that... Or no? That was off, not used in the show?] I'm getting Venice mixed up. No, did we ever shoot any of that? Oh sure. We did not… we did at dinner that next night at the hotel. All these people that came with us, all the tennis players and all the, all at the nice tables, and we would go around and shoot. Oh sure. Yeah. But anyway, we got through that. We did it twice.

DC: Just a quick thing about helicopters. You know I always wanted to get beauty shot coverage of my openings and bumpers, and I always had foreign pilots. And as long as we're on Monaco, I wanted to get some stuff of the casino and things like that. So Dave, the cameraman, and myself, we go up. It's handheld. And [INAUDIBLE] instruction, up, down, [MAKES NOISE] whatever. We're, I look out the window, we're trying to line up for this shot by the casino, and I look out, there's an apartment building that close. I figured those rotor blades... So I'm tapping him on the shoulder [MAKES NOISE], you know. But stuff like that. Oh we'd done helicopter stuff, Dave and I, all the time. And it's scary, because in Venice, Italians, same way, up down. Anyway, what's next? What do we do next?

INT: Well let's… Israel, anything more about Israel, and the interviews that were done there with the prime minister I'm guessing and their...

DC: Yeah, we did. Israel was my favorite, but Venice was the tennis tournament. That was about the same type of thing. But Israel, long flight. Got there, you know, Israel had had some problems at the airport. They'd had terrorists attack the airport. So we land, exhausting trip from New York. And we land, and we get all our equipment out, and we go--we land in Tel Aviv. And we stay at the Hotel David in Tel Aviv. And the guys are taking equipment up to their rooms, boxes and stuff. So I go with them, kind of carry something up. We're in that door, in that, the TD [Technical Director] was in his room, was gonna store all this. We open up and there's the, "We'll have to see what's in those boxes." We, and I understand. We had to open all the boxes and show them that we were television people and we're here to film Israel. "Oh, okay. Okay." But, you know, you pull up to Hotel David in those days, and this was, they were still standing there with submachine guns. So there was a lot of, you'd see a lot of people in uniform. So this was, you know, getting used to that. And anyway, was there. We didn't do too much in Tel Aviv. We did some interviews. But this is kind of unusual. They had arranged, unknownst to myself and the AD [Associate Director], that Merv was going to conduct the Tel Aviv Symphony Orchestra [Israel Philharmonic Orchestra]. Oh really? Gosh let's go do that. And this is the way it was that whole trip. I'll just say that the man, the Israeli gentleman who was in charge of the equipment and the trucks and the Crew, he would say, "Mr. Carson, where are we going tomorrow morning?" I would say, "Well," I would say, "I wish I knew." But I would, they wouldn't tell me. We did not have a schedule, as much as I tried to get one, it was not forthcoming. We didn't do an exploratory trip. It was too far. [INT: I was gonna ask if you did surveys on...] But we studied various locations, at least I did. I don't think anybody else did. And I knew what we would probably have to do. But it was like, what do--I never knew where the truck would go the next morning. [INT: Did you, what about your power needs? Did you have generator or did you know there would be power or...] There was some, there would be enough, not a lot of lighting, but enough for it. Enough for interviews, basically.

DC: And sure, we… Well, we [THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW] were to start shooting the next day. And I said, "I have no opening. There is no script. No one's talked to me about anything even though I have tried and tried." You know, you've worked with Mr. Griffin. "I'll talk about that later," you know, that kind of thing. People had flown over from Israel for these meetings. Anyway, he couldn't make it. So I said, "Where is," I said to somebody that lives there, I said, "Where is the most beautiful viewpoint?" "Oh, that's up there on the this…” I forget the name of the overview of Israel, Tel Aviv with the Dome of the Rock and all these, Western Wall and all this. So I, "We're gonna go up there and we're gonna set up the camera and we're gonna do it." [INT: That was probably Jerusalem at that point.] Jerusalem. I'm very sorry. [INT: Yeah, Jerusalem. That's okay. Yes. Yeah.] Jerusalem, of course. I'm going to set up a pan shot. Merv will, our Writer will certainly have something written. And Merv finally arrives. I've got the camera sitting there. And he says, "Well, what are we doing here?" And this is after I've been trying to get this organized for months. And I said, "Well Merv, I thought we'd do an opening, and it makes a lot of sense doing here." And he says, "Well what do I say." "Tony? Writer?" There was no cards written, nothing. So I said, "Well, Merv I think it would be a good idea if we got somebody up here that could explain what we're seeing here." So we had to wait until we found a priest of some sort. So he finally shows, very nice man. And so Merv's opening line is, "Well here we are in Jerusalem. What am I looking at? Explain." So we're doing a slow pan and he's got this guy. So we thank him. But before he leaves I said, or maybe Kevin, or somebody said, "Why don't we use this gentleman down below and show us the 13 Stations, or is it, of the Cross?" 'Cause we're looking at a, over a very important landmark. "Okay." So we move on, and then we take our handheld down, just one camera. In the meantime, they've got the Mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek to do a tour with the camera people and a priest or Franciscan priest or somebody to explain the Stations. And this was in the Old City. Very interesting because it's old. You still have the Arabs in full dress with sabers and everything, so it’s really interesting. And so we follow the mayor and he points out these historical places. Not Merv's. We do a thing later with Merv, which is funny too. Anyway, we do this very quickly, just for historical purposes. Actually, we wind up at the very last station, which is this church; forget the name of it. It's where Christ is buried. His tomb is in there. But in the meantime, we have Merv on a wireless with the, with Teddy Kollek, the mayor. And it's interesting because it's still Arab country. And they're all sitting around, coffee and everything, looking at us like what are we doing. But the market really interested Merv. But then every so often you hear these big speakers with the prayers being, and everybody kind of stops and... It was interesting. The markets were very interesting. [INT: It sounds like these trips, like so much of what Merv did, as you say, was totally unscripted, totally unprepared, which gave a great deal of freedom for spontaneity...] Yes. [INT: So I have to ask you, post-production, who really ultimately then put these together? You?] Me. Of course.