Quotes

[on his all-time favorite game show] It was Play The Percentages, and we had six circular thing-set, when we went to do the bonus round, somebody pressed the button and the spinning thing came out of the stage set Play The Percentages or something, and one day, we're on the set, and the guy pressed the button and the thing didn't come up and starting pulling the whole stage up, behind it, so, we didn't do that anymore, but that was kind of weird.

I love comedy in television, but the goofy comedy of running into a tree, and falling down is not necessarily my favorite, but I came across a show on Showtime, and it's called 'Episodes.' It is just so funny, so well-liked, and so well-written, it's just amazing, and the story of it is, these two writers in London, and they have a hit show over there, 'Well, there's some kind of party, or something!,' and the network guy said, 'I want your show or my network, I woke up this morning,' I said, 'I need it on my network,' Well, they just walked in LA to put their show on. One of the stars of the show was the Headmaster of the Boys School, and they guided in English, a little beard, but they said, we want him to read for us, he reads and he said, 'Very, very good,' and then, they call these two people up [who are now in LA], and they said, 'We found a big star who wants to do your show ... Matt LeBlanc, the guy who played Joey on 'Friends'.

One day, when I was with William-Morris, I got a call, and they said, 'Monty Hall is sick. Can you do Let's Make a Deal?' Now you have to understand that I had never done a major television game... (Let's Make a Deal) is the hardest game show there is to do. I don't know why they asked me. So I said, 'Okay.' I practiced at home, I had the script, I had my kids being contestants. I went and I did the show. The first one went pretty well. The second one; I had a lady, and...what happens on Let's Make a Deal is, no matter what you say, the people on the floor are going to do it. So I said, 'Do you want this or that?' She said, 'That.' I said, 'Well, let's take a look at that!' And I take a look at the floor manager, who went 'Aaaaah!' What I had done was I left myself in a place where I had given away the end of the deal. So I said, 'Well, I'll tell you what you can have. You can have that, or you can have what's in my pocket.' And what was in my pocket was an empty hand sweating. Monty got well really fast.

[upon returning to New York to resume his musical career, when he became a successful musician] I went to the Union Hall in New York, and a guy named Phil Urso, who was a very famous - at that time-tenor player... great guy, played with Woody Herman, standing there with a little drizzle coming down... and he says, 'Hey, man...You know where I can get a gig?' And I thought, 'You know, maybe this isn't what I want to pursue.'

Ted Turner called me one day and was like "do you like video games?" and I was like "never played them before." He said, "if I pay you enough, will you learn to like them?" Shortly after that call, I went to an arcade nearby and stayed for what must have been 4-5 hours. Time flew by. I then picked up some gaming magazines on my way home. I was hooked. I called him back the next day and told him "where do I sign?"