Merv (12 page)

So when I booked radical activist Abbie Hoffman as a guest in the spring of 1970, it was no surprise to me that everything about that show came under intense scrutiny. A month before his appearance, Hoffman, a member of the notorious Chicago Seven, had been convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act for his role in the antiwar protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention (his conviction would later be overturned on appeal).

Hoffman walked out wearing a red, white, and blue shirt that resembled the American flag. The network censors, apoplectic at the prospect that this apparel might violate the strict flag desecration laws of several states, managed to electronically block out Hoffman’s torso for the duration of our thirty-five-minute interview. To viewers at home, it appeared as if I were talking to a black box with legs.

CBS president Bob Wood taped a brief opening and closing segment for the show, where he personally explained to my puzzled audience what the hell was going on.

Later that week, I decided that turnabout was fair play. I arranged with our crew to employ the same blocking technique on my monologue. When I walked out, the picture was normal and the audience at home could see me clearly. But as I explained what CBS had done to Hoffman, the black box slowly expanded until it covered much of the screen. As the monologue continued, I had to get down on my hands and knees in order to remain visible. “I have since talked with the president of the network and in the future such censorship editing of my show will
not
take place without my knowledge and consent.”

By now the picture was reduced to only a small sliver of light and I had disappeared entirely from view. Nonetheless, I kept right on talking. “Furthermore, it has just been agreed that I am to be the
sole
judge of censorship problems on my show if they should occur in the future. In this regard, CBS has decided to go along with my ultimatum. I don’t like to swing my weight around like this, but as host of the show, I think I have some power (on the word “power” everything went completely black) to regulate and control what is to be shown and what isn’t. That’s all I have to say. May I have the network back, please?”

My relationship with CBS had now deteriorated to the point where separation seemed like the only way to save our “marriage.” I was sick of constantly being under a corporate microscope in New York, not to mention that the competition for guests between me, Johnny, David Frost, and Dick Cavett (who’d replaced Joey Bishop at ABC) had become absurd. Since we all taped at approximately the same time, you might think that we couldn’t duplicate guests on any given night. Guess again. One frenetic evening, Jerry Lewis somehow managed to do all
four
shows without telling any one of us about the others.

That was enough for me. I was out of there.

Invoking the spirit of Horatio Alger, I packed up my show and headed west to California. CBS was furious, particularly after they’d overspent so badly on the Cort Theater. I told the network that it had two alternatives: stand aside and let me go, or implement the brilliant recommendation of their own research department and do
The Merv Griffin Show
with a
lot
less Merv.

Muttering words like “kidnap” and “blackmail,” CBS reluctantly capitulated. That September, we did our first show from Television City in Hollywood.

I may have won the war, but there were two painful casualties that resulted from those pitched battles with CBS. The first was Arthur Treacher, whom the network had resisted from day one. I’m not sure what I would have done if I’d ever had to tell Arthur that CBS wanted him out. I honestly think that I would have quit the show rather than break that wonderful man’s heart. Fortunately, it never came to that. From the first moment that I’d mentioned to Arthur that I was thinking about relocating to California, he’d made it abundantly clear that he had no interest whatever in “living in a state that shakes.” I never even considered looking for another sidekick. Arthur was, and will always be, irreplaceable to me.

Arthur passed away in 1975 at the age of eighty-one. In the last years of his life, he enjoyed tremendous success as a restaurateur, having launched a highly profitable chain of fish-and-chip eateries that bore his name. Arthur’s final triumph as an entrepreneur was a fitting come-uppance to the corporate hacks who couldn’t see beyond their own demographics. While CBS was busy studying its charts and graphs about how Arthur was “skewing too old,” his fish-and-chip houses were packed every night. The old boy had the last laugh after all.

The other scalp that CBS insisted on belonged to Bob Shanks. They really wanted mine, but his was the only one available. Bob is a consummate gentleman who fully understood that my hands were tied by CBS. He graciously deferred to Saul Ilson and Ernie Chambers, the talented producers of
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
, whom the network believed could “save” my show, presumably from me. Ironically, CBS had just fired the Smothers Brothers for what it viewed as their insubordination—they’d refused to tone down the political content of their show. (Bob Shanks went on to many other fine achievements, including creating the long-running ABC news-magazine,
20/20
, and authoring
The Cool Fire
, considered one of the definitive books on the television industry.)

Although I came to hold Ilson and Chambers in high regard (Ernie Chambers now produces television and film projects for my company; we’ve remained friends for over thirty years), it was initially difficult to figure out the network’s reasoning in making me hire them. CBS executives had had nothing but problems with the Smothers Brothers over issues of creative control, and one would have thought they’d be extremely skittish about matching Tom and Dick’s producers with yours truly. Maybe the answer is contained in the sentence before last: the words “network” and “reasoning” are mutually exclusive terms.

Our next-door neighbors at Television City included Carol Burnett, Jonathan Winters, and the unknown cast of a soon-to-debut comedy series called
All in the Family
.

A few months after their first show aired, I put the entire cast of
All in the Family
on my show—Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, and Sally Struthers. CBS president Bob Wood called me afterward to give me some “advice”: “Merv, this is exactly the reason your show is having problems right now. Why would you book the cast of a show that we’re canceling?”

I was flabbergasted. Not only was the head of the network telling me that he was going to pull the plug on this brilliantly innovative show before it had a chance to find an audience, he was even chastising me for promoting his own show!

“You’ve got to be kidding, Bob,” I argued. “It’s a
wonderful
show. Archie Bunker is somebody we all know—he’s that obnoxious guy at work or the relative who embarrasses us in a restaurant. The point is that he makes us laugh at ourselves and we need that now.”

“It’s not getting the numbers, Merv. It’s losing its time slot badly.”

“Well, why don’t you move it to another night? Give it a chance.”

Which is what they eventually did (certainly not on my say-so), and Archie Bunker’s chair is now sitting in the Smithsonian. Meat-heads…

Following the move to the West Coast, I also decided to shake up our format. Probably the most significant change was the introduction of “theme” shows, where we devoted an entire program to one topic or person. Although it’s the norm today (
Oprah
is almost an entirely theme-driven show), you have to remember that this was a brand-new idea back in 1970. Ernie Chambers and Saul Ilson overcame my initial skepticism about their concept (
“How the hell am I going to keep people interested in the same subject for ninety minutes?”
), and the first one we did was a salute to Charles Schulz and his beloved
Peanuts
characters. It turned out to be a terrific show. After it was over, I said to Ernie and Saul, in mock seriousness, “I
told
you guys this was a great idea! I could have gone
three hours
with it!”

After that we did many more theme shows, some of which pushed the CBS envelope—and what a tiny envelope it was. We did programs on such highly incendiary topics as incest and pedophilia at a time when those words were barely even
spoken
on network television. Indeed, the only way we were even allowed to approach these controversial subjects was by including a psychiatrist or therapist on the panel, so that they fell under the heading of “medical” shows.

One of the most fascinating shows that I ever did featured a rare interview with the world’s first surgically successful transsexual, Christine Jorgensen. She spoke eloquently about her historic operation in Denmark, and, based on the mail that we received, I know that a lot of people (including me) were greatly impressed by her dignity and sincerity.

One of the most satisfying aspects of doing my show was that I was sometimes able to open a window for people that allowed them to reexamine their own prejudices. I never preached; that wasn’t my job. Instead I found experts on a wide range of subjects and gave them a platform to discuss and debate their points of view. It was still possible to have a genuine
talk
show in those days, before the pressure of ratings reduced them to little more than promotional vehicles for movies, books, and pet causes. Today it’s impossible to explore a subject with any seriousness (or even thoughtful humor) when time constraints limit the guest to a few sound bites and the film clip he brought with him. But I digress.

Johnny Carson used to love poking fun at my theme shows. In his monologue he’d often say something like, “Make sure you watch Merv tonight. He’s got one of his provocative themes. Six Lithuanian proctologists who want to be nuns.” His audience roared and it was always great publicity for us. If I never told you this before, let me say it now: Thanks, John.

Johnny could certainly afford to be charitable because, as I said, we were no real threat to him. Format changes were fine, new and different guests made for interesting shows, but none of it made any long-term difference in our ratings. And now the clock was ticking on my future at CBS.

The network clock-watcher whose happy task it would be to pull the plug on my show was a diminutive man named Fred Silverman. He was the wunderkind who, at the age of thirty-three, was the youngest person ever to be solely responsible for a network’s programming. Fittingly, Silverman had built his reputation at CBS on the strength of having revamped its Saturday morning cartoon schedule. He’d clearly learned a lot from the experience—as head of programming, he combined the temperament of the Tasmanian Devil with the decision-making skills of Daffy Duck.

Because Silverman had experienced tremendous career success at a relatively young age, he was a very difficult man to work with. When you’re that young and in charge, you think you know
everything
.

One night, after I’d been in California for about a year, Freddy came to my dressing room prior to a taping. He wasn’t much on pleasantries. “Merv, your show is in the tank. You’re losing stations right and left. Here’s what we’re going to do. Remember
Broadway Open House
? [It was a vaudeville-style late-night show from the very early fifties hosted by comics Morey Amsterdam and Jerry Lester and featuring a statuesque blond actress named Dagmar, one of television’s first sex symbols.] That’s the kind of show I want from you.”

“Freddy,” I said trying not to lose my temper (something I rarely do), “Jerry Lester, Morey Amsterdam, and Dagmar are all still alive. If that’s the format you’re looking for, why don’t you just call
them?
”

“I’m
not
…this
isn’t
…you can’t
speak
to me that way…” Freddy tended to sputter when he got angry. Like a cartoon character.

“Read my contract,” I said evenly. “I can and I just
did
. Now would you please leave? I have a show to do.”

I turned my back to him, ignoring the standard “
you’ll never work in this business again
” speech and the loud report of my dressing room door being slammed.

I never saw Fred Silverman again.

Remember my old friend Perry Lafferty, the director of
The Hazel Bishop Show
? Almost twenty years later, he was now the CBS West Coast vice president in charge of programming. Although he nominally reported to Fred Silverman, Perry was an independent and highly respected executive (he’d later become president of the network) who kept his own counsel. Because we’d known each other for so long, I often found myself in Perry’s office railing against all the terrible things
“your network”
and
“your boss”
were doing to me. As I vented, Perry would pick up the small baton he kept on his desk and literally conduct the crescendos and diminuendos of my wrath, until both of us started cracking up.

By late 1971, it was clear to everyone involved that the relationship between Merv Griffin and CBS was beyond repair. All that remained was for one of us to make the first move and end it. But there was still one contractual wrinkle that complicated the situation. According to our agreement, if I was the one to initiate the break, CBS was off the hook financially. However, if at the end of two years (which was December 3), the network hadn’t exercised its option to renew my show for an additional six months, it owed me a one-time severance payment of $250,000.