It was really my first directing,
I mean fully-a full show directing uh
for...what happened - we were still
doing the Tonight Show-it wasn't
the Jack Paar program, and and I think I
told you before that Jack called the-the
president of company and said,  I want to go to Berlin. And so he came in-he was never
there in the morning I don't know we
were surprised, what the hell he's doing
here and he came in and he said we're
going to go to Berlin and-and-and he said
and and he said get ready. And he just
walked out. And so the producer at the
time said all right Jack wants Hal to go
to Berlin and and and the director will
stay here in New York and do that so it
was only for an hour it will be an hour
from Berlin and 45 minutes from New York.
So I was-this is the first time I really
did anything that size and so I went off
with two writers and Jack and Peggy
Peggy Kass that she was going to be the
one guest that he could rely on. And so
we got there and then we find out that
we can't get any other guests, no one
wants to be in Berlin they think it's too dangerous,
they think World War three is going to
start and and they're gonna be stuck in
Berlin so all we had was a fellow who
played the piano
dressed in a funny costume he was and he
played a ragtime music and that was our
only guest at the time and the-we did
three shows from the studio we
interviewed people jumping over the wall
and and it was some really great great
footage and sad stories people being
killed and all. And then Jack one night
said and he says, hey what we're here to
see the wall what are we going to do the
wall so the next day we had to do the
show at the wall so I was introduced to
the colonel in charge of the troops at
the wall, it was called - Checkpoint Charlie was the place
we're gonna do the show and I asked the
colonel I said we don't want a lot of
soldiers and - can just troops, just
yourself, and maybe one or two GIs that
Jack can interview. And then it would be
Peggy as his kind of like Hugh Downs
standing next to him. And-and for some
reason as we started the show, well first
of all we had to get a German remote
truck and also I wanted a cherry picker
to get shots and we got a cherry picker
that's used for building buildings and
was-and if the camera would kind of
jiggle to a stop so we couldn't we
couldn't do any continuous crane shots
and when I got there the crew-none of
the crew spoke English and I don't speak
any German, except one kind of-the guy on
the on the boom could speak English so I
would relay my instructions to him and
he would then tell the other guys in
German and a TD didn't understand
English so I became a TD - the director
and I had to check - the timing - it
was it was a nightmare, but very exciting. And then
Jack did the show and just before we
started about a hundred and forty GIs
come marching down and back and we're on
the air and it's why guys from other
units were coming, oh I want to see a TV
show. And I said, oh my god, no no no, get them back get them back and
then we did the show and of course the
different press services saw it as -
the headline for them was: Jack Parr
invites Germany - you know it was like
veiled reference to Jack wanting to start
World War three just when all these
people were assembled for him and then
so the next day in Washington they were
debating why people like Jack Paar were
allowed to go overseas and so there were
newspaper articles and and so Jack and
I-
we-we had a meeting with Jack and-as at
the end of the show I mean the next
morning when all this stuff came-came
about and Jack says I'm not-Congress is
not going to push me around. And that was
his attitude, he said he-he's on the air -
how big is their audience?
