TV Radio Mirror (Jul - Dec 1956)

Ideas, Inc. (Continued from page 65) imagination. "After all," he says, "there are only so many basic concepts. Take the atom bomb, for example: Dr. Einstein's equation made it possible. And there's only one basic idea behind the electric light and one behind the telephone. After these basics, everything new is simply a twist, a gimmick, or a new combination of old ideas. That's where People Are Funny, House Party and You Bet Your Life came from. They were all twists on old ideas." Guedel continues, "Anybody who thinks can have ideas. Ultimately, if they watch their opportunities, luck and fate will see that their ideas pay off." Where do John's ideas come from? Everywhere. For instance, People Are Funny popped up one day about fourteen years ago, when John and Art Linkletter were lunching at the world famous Hollywood Brown Derby. For most radio and TV executives and talent, the Derby is a Hollywood habit, and the habitues all seem to surfer from the same unconscious reflex — scribbling rating statistics on the tablecloths. This daily gathering of the TV-andRadio Row denizens had been viewed by everyone in the industry, day after day, without exciting any reaction more serious than a wish for a mid-afternoon bicarbonate of soda. But Art Linkletter, viewing the melange over his avocado salad, happened to say, "People are funny . . ." John Guedel promptly exclaimed: "What a great title for a radio show!" A thousand people could watch the Derbyites lunch for a thousand days and never visualize that particular human circus as a potential radio-television show. But, when the wheels in John Guedel's head go round, every idea rotates with a built-in "twist." Again, to illustrate this quirk in John's mental make-up, consider the strange circumstances which inspired Groucho's radio and television show, You Bet Your Life. John Guedel and Art Linkletter were doing a People Are Funny skit on a variety show. Groucho was on the same show in a skit with Bob Hope. Guedel, standing in the wings, saw Hope accidentally drop his script. Rather than break the continuity by stooping to pick it up, Hope started to ad-lib. With a brave flair, Groucho threw his own script on top of Hope's, and together they ad-libbed for ten minutes. Says John: "Groucho was funnier without his script than he was with it." What' seemed to be a disadvantage at that moment, Guedel saw he could turn to his own advantage. Turning disadvantages into advantages is one way idea-men produce new combinations: "I decided to use Groucho at his best — ad-libbing." John had to sell Groucho on the ad-lib idea. And, once sold, John had to find a suitable format. You Bet Your Life, which John describes as a twist on the old gameof-chance "pyramiding" principle, was finally decided on. Added to that were "average" contestants to contrast with Groucho's brittle wit. Then Groucho, in a new package, was complete and ready for sale. The GrouchoGuedel partnership made an audition record, using Linkletter's House Party audience. Five weeks later, the show was sold — one of the quickest sales of a new property in the history of network radio. T Guedel's ideas are double-barreled, in v the sense that he has quantity as well as R quality. Psychologists tell us not to be afraid of turning out one hundred poor ideas if, in the process, one really great idea is born. "I'm the first to admit," savs 74 J John, "that not all my ideas pay off. We had a show once, called Daydream, into which we put months of work. Finally sold it — but before it went on the air, I decided it wasn't really as good as we thought. It was never produced. We've had other shows on the air for just a few weeks, then they died. That is one of the problems in this business — you've got to look at an idea and ask yourself, 'What will this be like on the two-hundredth broadcast?' You have failures — the important thing is to keep having ideas — and not let the bad ones scare you." A peek into any People Are Funny idea meeting gives a fair picture of Guedel and staff in action: Emcee Art Linkletter sits at one end of the long table, flanked by secretary and script-girl Gene Allen; "Pop" Guedel, as John's father is lovingly called, sits in the middle; and John, flanked by associate producer Irv Atkins, scratch pad, and his box of pipes and tobacco, sits at the other. Nine other members of the People Are Funny staff round out the assembly, all of whom are spouting ideas for the show at machine-gun speed. John's favorite word is, "Why?" If the suggestion can be supported with valid reasons, it has a chance of greeting fifteen million viewers. Art's favorite word at these sessions is "Because . . ." He generally has at least three good reasons to support every suggestion he makes. At these meetings, John's powers of concentration are prodigious. Set down in the environment of the foyer of Linkletter's Vine Street theater, with electricians hanging lights and carpenters hammering sets together in the background, he can somehow digest and evaluate the ideas bouncing around the table. These are humorous meetings, too, for both John and Art are fast with a quip, frequently reciting a "punch line" in unison. T:he idea for John and Art's NBC-TV spectacular, "Inside Beverly Hills," was first inspired by a series of successful magazine articles on famous cities. Thinking by analogy— a sure idea-producer — John asked himself, "Why not on TV?" One television executive to whom Guedel suggested it was unimpressed. "An area show?" he said querulously. "Too expensive and no one would be interested." John, a man with the public's taste, liked his own idea. He disagreed, and "Inside Beverly Hills" was shortly produced. The result of this idea? The highest rated non-book Sunday spec, with a 54,000,000 audience. With all of his achievements, Guedel believes in luck. "Fate," he says, "laid strong hands on our success." He considers himself average: "I'm average height and weight, wear an average-size hat and shoes. I've average taste . . ." And he likes to point out that, since a $250,000 yearly income has afflicted "average" John Guedel, others can catch the bug, too. John was born in the small town of Portland, Indiana. His father manufactured dashboards, a business John was destined to take over. John remembers the first time Fate stepped in, when he was still only six years old: "Henry Ford decided to make his own dashboards," he says, "and my father was out of business." John's father wanted to move to either California or Florida. His first choice was Florida. "It was raining when Pop stepped off the train," John recalls. "He returned the same day, saying, 'Pack up, we're going to California.' . . . Here," John points out, "Fate took a second hand, for, if I had been raised in Florida, I never would have had access to big-time radio and television." When John was a youngster, there were times when his dreams took on more reality than the solid world around him. This may have been the result of an unfortunate accident which took the life of his closest boyhood pal. John missed him so much, he substituted an imaginary playmate named "Pern" who ate and slept with him. John held doors open longer than necessary, so Pern could go through. Extra plates were set at the table for Pern ("It was a great way," says John, "to get rid of half my spinach") . And, finally, Pern went on the train to California. "Pern and I were playing on the back porch of the Santa Fe Limited," says John. "Climbing on the rail, he suddenly, fell off — in the middle of Kansas. I went into the car, screaming, 'Pern fell off the train!' The conductor stopped, backed up, and, when Pern wasn't to be found, my parents had the embarrassing duty of explaining that Pern was imaginary. Pern never came back." Later, when settled in Beverly Hills, John's imagination turned to business — he was all of nine years old when he opened a string of soft drink stands, the first called Better Half, the second, Morning After, and the third, Morning After #34! John says, "#34 made it look like a chain." More ingenuity was shown when John gave his eight-year-old assistants celluloid buttons with "Manager" printed in bold letters. "The kids worked for nothing," he continues, "because they were proud of the title. Oh, not really for nothing. I let them drink all the pop they wanted between 9:30 and 10:00 every morning — when it was foggy and the pop didn't taste too good." In describing the teen-age Guedel, his high-school annual says, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm" — a completely adequate description of John's personality: He was manager of the varsity football and golf teams; on the staff of the school magazine (The Watchtower); played "B" basketball (1930 champs) ; acted in all the school plays; was School Commissioner of Publicity, Chief Justice of the Boy's Court, president of the scholarship society (The Ephebians, California's "A" student society, whose ring he prizes and i still wears), president of the Knights; president of the 1930 Boys League; president of the debate squad, and president of the 1931 student body.' (Currently, there is no President of Guedel Productions — for John still believes in distributing titles. He now has sixty employees— and calls them all "vice-president") After high school, John spent one year at UCLA studying economics. When the market crash wiped out his father's realestate holdings, he left school to earn money. He worked as an "assistant landscape gardener" ("I pushed a wheelbarrow"), demonstrated department-store toy games, and worked as a day laborer for the WPA. He also sold advertising "stick um" paper in Ohio and Indiana. Fate stepped in for the fourth time, in the summer of 1933, when John spent a weekend at the beach. For want of companionship, he circled the "No Trespassing" signs posted on the sands of the Bel Air Bay Club to hunt up some of his old cronies. ("When the family was in the chips, we belonged to the club.") Playing volley ball was his old friend, Hal Roach, Jr. After greetings were exchanged and John's financial position was made known, Roach said, "You were always fast with a quip. My dad is trying out junior writers —