Merv (11 page)

Although NBC’s cancellation of
Word for Word
was a disappointment, I didn’t take it nearly as hard as I did when they canceled my talk show. By that point, I had come to understand how the networks really operated. No matter how popular you were, you would be canceled eventually. On the other hand, that also meant that the next wave of network executives (who lasted, on average, about eighteen months) could prove what creative thinkers they were by “rediscovering” you, conveniently ignoring the fact that their predecessors were the ones who made you disappear in the first place. Remember, in show business you invariably fail upward. (The most fun is when you’re fired and hired by the
same
executive. That’s like winning the lottery.)

Accordingly, I took the end of
Word for Word
philosophically. One door had closed and another was about to open. I told you before that I’d had an idea for a show called
What’s the Question?
You’ll probably recognize it under the name that I eventually decided to use—
Jeopardy!

After Julann and I returned from Europe in 1963, we went to Michigan to see her family and give our young son, Tony, a chance to spend some time with his maternal grandparents.
Word for Word
was still three months away from going on the air, but I was already trying to think of ideas for other shows.

On the return flight to New York, as Tony slept, Julann and I talked about how the fallout from the quiz show investigations still clung to the networks like a radioactive cloud. No network wanted to take a chance on a format that had burned them so badly in the recent past. What if some crooked producer, despite the risks involved, decided to feed the answers to a contestant anyway? If it happened again, this time the people responsible would certainly go to jail—maybe even the network executive who put the show on the air.

Julann, who’ll you remember has a wonderful sense of the absurd, made an offhand remark to the effect that “if everybody
knew
the contestants had the answers, nobody could accuse them of cheating.” She was only kidding, but I immediately began pondering how that might actually work.

To give you a sense of how deeply preoccupied I was with this concept of answers instead of questions, when it came time for us to land at La Guardia I was barely paying attention; the stewardess had to remind me to buckle my seat belt. That may seem like a small thing to you, but in those days I was a white-knuckled flier, especially on takeoffs and landings. If I was
that
distracted, clearly this was an idea with great potential.

In
Poor Richard’s Almanack
, Ben Franklin famously observed that there is “many a slip twixt cup and lip.” In other words, a good idea is a pain in the ass to make happen.

It was almost a full year between Julann’s casual remark about giving out the answers in advance to the first time Don Pardo ever said, “Now, let’s play
Jeopardy!
” And during that year there were more than a few slips.

In developing this kind of show, you have to play it repeatedly in order to anticipate absolutely everything that might possibly go wrong. You can’t wait until the program is actually on the air because by then it’s much too late. For example, if there’s a glitch in the rules that no one thought of, you can’t sort it out while there’s a studio audience sitting there expecting to see a show. Moreover, the contestants themselves have a funny attitude about rules that “evolve,” especially when there’s lots of money involved.

During the year that it took to develop
Jeopardy!
the dining room of our Manhattan apartment was taken over by 3x5 cards, envelopes with abbreviations like “Hist.” or “Lit.” scrawled on the front, and bulletin boards covered with multicolored pushpins (Julann was convinced that the minute my back was turned, Tony would eat one of the pushpins, a not entirely unrealistic fear. He was an extremely adventurous child.)

After many months of playing the game at home with Julann and her sister,
What’s the Question?
was ready for a more formal tryout. The normal routine in developing a show like this is to do a “run-through,” where you get potential buyers (in this case, NBC) to come and watch the trial run.

I rented a small theater-style room in Radio City Music Hall, just up the block from NBC. We invited Bob Aaron, the vice president in charge of NBC’s daytime programming, to join us for the run-through.

It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever done. I had all the categories on one giant board. And it wouldn’t fit on the stage. I had to ask Bob Aaron to move farther and farther back to see it. Eventually, we put chairs next to the stage so that the board could extend out on top of them. It was “The Three Stooges Do a Game Show.”

Bob Aaron, who loved the concept of the show, was immediately concerned with the practical aspects of shooting it for television. “Merv, how will we ever photograph this? It’s way too big.”

I learned early on that’s it smart to admit what you can’t do, and move on to the things you’re good at. “I don’t know, Bob. That’s
your
business. All I know is that this is a good idea.”

“I like it, Merv. I really do. But it’s not aspect-ratio.” (Translation: “It’s too big to be photographed by a TV camera.)

That night I went home and began trying to figure out how to cut it down. Necessity being the mother of invention—and television—I came up with a plan to have three different rounds, thereby reducing the number of categories in each one. (It was about this time that another NBC executive, Ed Vane, told me that he also liked the premise but that it lacked enough “jeopardies”—situations where the contestants were at risk of failing. Not only was he right—I decided to deduct money for a wrong answer; that had never been done before—but he’d also inadvertently given me a perfect name for the show.)

Three months after that first run-through, we were ready for the final dress rehearsal, this time in front of NBC president Mort Werner, the man who would decide whether or not to put
Jeopardy!
on the air.

I personally carried the large poster board with envelopes glued on to it into the NBC boardroom. Inside the envelopes were index cards with the answers written on them. As the mock MC (this was the only time that I ever hosted
Jeopardy!
; I’d made it abundantly clear that this time
I
didn’t come with the show), I guided our two volunteer contestants through the three rounds, now called “Jeopardy,” “Double Jeopardy” and “Final Jeopardy.”

When “Final Jeopardy” was over, I was beaming. The contestants had both played beautifully and the game had worked smoothly, no hitches at all.

I looked over at Mort Werner and he said, “I didn’t get one.”

At first I didn’t understand what he meant. “You didn’t get one
what
?” I was genuinely confused.

“I didn’t get one
question,”
he said, somewhat irritated at having to make that admission. “It’s too tough, Merv.”

I was taken aback. I hadn’t expected this. It never occurred to me that a man who’d risen to the top of a major television network wouldn’t have the breadth of knowledge to play the game. Before I could think of what to say, Werner’s assistant, a young man named Grant Tinker leaned over and whispered to him (loud enough for me to hear), “Buy it.”

Still abashed that he’d done so poorly, Werner said, “It’s just too hard. I think it needs more work.” But Grant Tinker didn’t back down. “Buy it, Mort. It’s a great idea.”

Reluctantly, Werner agreed, although he told Grant that if it flopped, he’d be held responsible. We all shook hands and
Jeopardy!
was out of…
danger
. (Gotcha.)

All that remained was to find the perfect host. I’d seen Art Fleming on a TWA commercial and remembered that he’d been one of the assistants on
Doctor I.Q
. a decade earlier. Julann and I took him out to lunch and he regaled us with stories of his exploits in World War II (he was a decorated naval hero) and his colorful experiences in almost every aspect of show business. He’d started on Broadway at the age of four, and then he’d gone on to do radio, television, and motion pictures. He’d even been a carnival barker. On top of all this, he knew everything about everything. He was a walking encyclopedia of interesting and often obscure information.

When we finished lunch, Julann and I just looked at each other without saying anything. We both knew that we’d found our host.

The announcer’s job was the final piece of the puzzle. I’d met Don Pardo when I was a substitute host on
The Price Is Right
and he was the show’s announcer. I loved the intensity of his voice from the first time I heard him speak.

Jeopardy!
went on the air for the first time at 11:30
A.M.
on Monday, March 20, 1964. The first round of categories were “Television,” “Women,” “Fictional Characters,” “Odds and Ends,” “American History,” and “Science.” “Double Jeopardy” consisted of “U.S. Geography,” “Sports,” “The Funnies,” “Words,” “Opera,” and “Famous Names.”

The first “Final Jeopardy” answer, in the category of “Famous Quotes,” was “Good night, sweet prince.” The correct question was “Who is Hamlet?” (If you guessed, “Who was the artist formerly known as Hamlet?, shame on you.)

We’d been warned that our time slot was a potential graveyard since, opposite us, CBS was airing reruns of
The Dick Van Dyke Show
, which was in the middle of its phenomenally successful five-year prime time run.

Nobody, least of all the naysayers at NBC, expected the extent to which the public would eventually embrace
Jeopardy!
It got off to a slow start but built steadily, primarily through word-of-mouth.

We still hadn’t convinced the suits, particularly the geniuses in the research department whose numbers told them that
Jeopardy!
was doomed unless we dumbed it down. Around the sixth week, I met with a deeply concerned man named Phil Klein, who was the head of NBC research (and later president of the network).

“Merv,” he said, grimly, “Unless you make the questions easier, our surveys show that
Jeopardy!
will be off the air in two months. You’ve got to realize that the intelligence of most daytime television viewers is equivalent to that of an average thirteen-year-old.”

I put on what I hoped was an equally grim expression and said solemnly, “I appreciate your coming in to see me, Phil. This is extremely valuable information. We’ll get on it immediately.”

Klein left and I never told a soul about his visit. We just went right on doing what we were doing.
Jeopardy!
ran on NBC for another eleven years, for a total of 2,753 episodes. I guess there are more smart thirteen-year-olds out there than the guys in research figured.

A
lthough I wasn’t invited to perform at Woodstock (my invitation got lost in the mail), the sixties ended for me, as they did for so many people, the day after that remarkable gathering at Max Yasgur’s farm.

Yet unlike the hundreds of thousands of exhausted, mudencrusted music fans who, on that Monday, August 18, 1969, were wending their way down the New York State Thruway en route to their normal lives, my great adventure was just about to begin.

That night, I would be taking the stage of the Cort Theater in midtown Manhattan to go head-to-head with the unbeaten, undisputed champion of late-night television, Johnny Carson.

It wasn’t my idea.

I’d had a very successful talk show at Westinghouse for four years. I loved syndication because there was nobody looking over my shoulder with helpful “advice” about what I should be doing to improve on it.

In the meantime, Johnny had made
The Tonight Show
entirely his own. He’d already had a longer run than either Jack Paar or Steve Allen, and his position at NBC was more than secure—he could now write his own ticket. Carson’s total domination of the 11:30
P.M.
time slot made
The Tonight Show
the network’s single largest profit center.

That fact wasn’t lost on either of the other networks. Desperate to get in on this lucrative action, programming executives at both CBS and ABC huddled feverishly in their boardrooms and drew up their plans of attack.

In 1967, ABC fired the opening shot with
The Joey Bishop Show
, a talk show similar in format to
Tonight
. During its two-year run, it failed to make a significant dent in Carson’s ratings and it’s probably best remembered today for having introduced Regis Philbin (Bishop’s announcer and sidekick) to a national audience.

CBS had mixed feelings about entering the fray. Its 11:30
P.M.
programming had long consisted of running old movies that they already owned. But the advertising revenue from old reruns was negligible when compared to the golden eggs that Carson was hatching over at NBC. All CBS needed was its own goose.

Guess who they had in mind?

As I said, I was very happy at Westinghouse. The money was fine, I had complete creative freedom, and, although in most markets our show aired during the daytime, we reached as many viewers as
The Tonight Show
did at 11:30. It wasn’t as glamorous as a network, but that didn’t bother me at all. Truth to tell, if CBS hadn’t approached me, it never would have occurred to me to move.

Their first overtures to me came in April of ’69, through my attorney, Roy Blakeman, and my agent, Sol Leon. My immediate reaction was a firm “no way,” but Roy and Sol persuaded me to let them at least
talk
to CBS and find out what they were offering. Everybody likes to be courted, so I gave them the go-ahead to have a meeting with Mike Dann, the CBS vice president in charge of programming.

Before they left my office for the short walk over to CBS, Roy and Sol asked me to consider what it would take for CBS to sign me.

I leaned back in my chair, and as I often do when I’m thinking, I rubbed my nose with my knuckles. After a moment, I said to them, “What do you think NBC is paying Johnny?”

Sol said, “I’m pretty sure it’s in the neighborhood of forty thousand dollars a week.”

“Good.” I smiled slightly. “Now double that. So tell them I want eighty thousand dollars a week.”

They stared at me in disbelief. Roy, who still hadn’t learned that I knew what I was doing when it came to my own career, was exasperated. “Oh, come on now, Merv. Be realistic.”

“It’s eighty-four thousand dollars a week to move.” My tone made it clear to them that there was no room for further discussion on this point. They rose to leave and it was obvious they felt that they were embarking on a fool’s errand.

“Good luck, guys,” I said, as they walked grimly out the door.

Roy and Sol may have been frustrated with me, but I was having fun. Since I had no real interest in going anywhere, I could make up some ridiculous number without worrying about the consequences. I turned my attention to preparing for that night’s taping and figured that I’d heard the last from CBS.

Wrong. Within the hour, Roy and Sol were back in my office, looking a bit dazed. They were grinning, so at least I knew they hadn’t been mugged. Maybe they’d blown off the meeting and gone out and gotten plastered. That would explain their silly demeanor.

“CBS said yes!” They said it—shouted it, really—in unison.

You know that old expression, “Be careful what you wish for, you may get it”? Well, I hadn’t really wished for this—at least I didn’t
think
I had. Now I was forced to deal with the reality of an offer that had enormous implications, not only for me, but for the nearly two hundred people who worked for Merv Griffin Productions as well. It wasn’t just a question of moving to CBS; we’d also be under intense pressure to justify the network’s investment in the show. In me.

One factor that worked to CBS’s advantage (although they had no way of knowing it) was that my current contract was up for renewal and I’d heard nothing from Westinghouse. They thought they had me in their hip pocket, so they hadn’t even bothered to negotiate with me. It’s the oldest story in the world, in both romance and business. In the new relationship you’re wonderful and wanted. In the old relationship, the phone never rings and you’re eating TV dinners alone.

At a certain point, human nature takes over—and common sense goes out the window. If Westinghouse didn’t appreciate me—
after all I’d done for them
—I was out of there.

Initially stung by my departure, Westinghouse rebounded quickly and gave the Little Theater to David Frost, a classy conversationalist whom they’d imported from England. He did an excellent job, but in only three months, more than a hundred Group W syndicate stations had dropped his show. The Midwest and the South just weren’t ready to accept a refined British host on a daily basis. I told Westinghouse that this was likely to happen, but they weren’t really in the mood to listen to me. No surprise there—nobody wants to hear what’s wrong with a new relationship, especially not when that warning comes from the same guy who just walked out the door.

All of which explains how I found myself on the Cort Theater stage that muggy Monday night in 1969.

My first clue about what was to come in my relationship with CBS should have been the unpleasant experience of picking a new theater. When I found the Cort, the network was unwilling to let me negotiate the lease. My friends in the Shubert Organization were prepared to give me a sweetheart deal—$100,000 a year. The president of the network, Bob Wood, politely told me that I should stick to what they had hired me to do, which was to be “the talent.” Their real estate department then proceeded to close the deal for two and a half times the price I’d been quoted. It should have been a major red flag, but I chose to ignore it. Like I said, sometimes common sense goes out the window.

The media buildup to opening night was tremendous. I gave dozens of interviews and grew hoarse from repeating the same sentence, countless times:
“No, Johnny and I are actually good friends.” Newsweek
even did a cover story on me that asked the rhetorical question, “Is Merv Griffin the next king of late-night television?”

Led by my old Friday afternoon contract player, Woody Allen (whose first movie as a writer-director,
Take the Money and Run
, was just out in theaters), Bob Shanks and I put together a solid lineup for the premiere that also included Hedy Lamarr, Leslie Uggams, former JFK advisor Theodore Sorensen, and Moms Mabley (who brought the house down when she said people often compared her to Roy Rogers’s beloved horse. “When I walk down the street I hear them shout, ‘Hey, Trigger! Hey, Trigger!’ ” Then she paused, “At least that’s what I
think
they say.”).

At this point I need to tell you that in addition to nuns and priests, I also have a long-standing rule against putting family, friends, or staff members in the first six rows of any show that I do—although for an entirely different reason. Obligatory laughter or applause is just as disconcerting to a performer as open hostility.

So imagine my reaction when, following Arthur Treader’s booming introduction, I bounded onstage only to encounter a sea of oddly familiar faces. No, they weren’t relatives. They weren’t friends either. And the only staff member within my line of sight was Bob Shanks, with whom I immediately locked eyes as if to say, “What is going
on
here?” As far back as I could see, every seat was filled with either a television critic or newspaper columnist. CBS had them brought to New York from around the country as a surprise “wedding gift” to me. Bad idea. By the time my first monologue was over, so was the honeymoon.

The next night, with no critics in the house (at least none who were paid), I began to recover my rhythm. I had a delightful visit from Max Yasgur, the upstate farmer whose property had just been overrun by five hundred thousand people during the largest three-day weekend in recorded history. Instead of railing against the freeloving, drug-taking, music-blaring hippie kids (as many of his neighbors had been doing on the news), Yasgur was surprisingly complimentary about how well behaved and friendly his guests had been.

Through the end of that first week, we ran even with
The Tonight Show
in the Nielsen ratings (in some key markets, we were actually ahead). But by the second week, I knew that CBS was already bailing out on its commitments to me and to the show.

Most significantly, I’d been promised that the show would air on almost all of CBS’s affiliate stations. As a matter of simple mathematics, we had no chance of overtaking Carson if he was on a significantly greater number of stations than we were. When I received the network reports, I was stunned (and damned angry) to discover that the CBS version of
The Merv Griffin Show
was now being seen on slightly
fewer
stations than when we were on in syndication. Worse,
The Tonight Show
had a virtually insurmountable lead since it was being carried by 99 percent of the NBC affiliates. Sure enough, as soon as the publicity surrounding my debut faded, the ratings dropped and the late-night “war” was essentially over before it started.

Less than six months after CBS launched
The Merv Griffin Show
with tremendous fanfare, some of the affiliates had already thrown in the towel and moved the show to a safer harbor in the afternoon. I was very sympathetic to the local stations; they were getting clobbered and it wasn’t their fault.

I remember giving an interview and being asked how I felt about “losing” the battle with Carson: “It’s ridiculous for us to fight over small percentage points in the 11:30 slot,” I said at the time, “when there’s a much bigger audience—equivalent to the number of viewers that a prime-time program gets—who could be watching our show in the afternoon. People keep saying that the prestige is in the late-night spot. King Constantine has prestige, but he hasn’t got Greece.”

Whoever coined the expression “figures lie and liars figure,” must have had the CBS research department in mind. All I can tell you is that it was responsible for the most serious injustice that I’ve ever seen in terms of so-called audience research. Curiously enough, it was done to me.

Here’s what happened: CBS had hired an outside audience consultant to evaluate my show. Maybe you’ve participated in one of these sessions—they get thirty or forty people (sometimes paying them a nominal fee) and put them in a room where they watch the program to be evaluated. Everyone is given a button to press or a dial to twist—it varies—and this supposedly gauges their level of interest and enthusiasm at each stage of the show.

The test for
The Merv Griffin Show
happened to take place early on a Friday evening and the woman in charge of the session had a hot date later that night. Eager to get out of there, she was quite vocal in expressing her own opinion about the quality of our show—she hated it. Apparently a negative evaluation was quicker to complete. If a program was
that
bad, why bother to go on?

Well, I must have had at least one fan in the room, because somebody blew the whistle on this whole farce. The woman was fired and as a direct result of that incident, the audience research firm went out of business. If I’d been skeptical about audience surveys before, I was now adamantly opposed to using them for anything at all. There’s never a way to guarantee impartiality in the testing, no matter how many safeguards are in place.

I’ve got to say that some of those tests were good for a laugh. I remember one long report that boiled down to this conclusion: what
The Merv Griffin Show
needed was
less
Merv Griffin.
(Thanks, guys. I’ll keep that in mind.)

My time at CBS coincided with some very tumultuous events in America, particularly around the Vietnam War. Richard Nixon had just taken office and his “secret plan” to end the war apparently involved expanding it into Cambodia.

With respect to Vietnam, the network insisted that I balance my guests to include both sides of the debate. I got a memo that said, “In the past six weeks, thirty-four antiwar statements have been made on your show and only one pro-war statement, by John Wayne.” I responded immediately: “Find me someone as famous as John Wayne who supports the war and I’ll book
him
.”