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[0:04] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's The Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon. Well, everybody, I'm really excited because this next guest is somebody that is a child. I don't know how many times I've watched it. There was a Palmer video. The Palmer video had all of the videos that we tried to rent and we tried to watch around this in Richville Park, New Jersey. And one that we rented over and over and over and over again for me and my brother was Airplane. I could quote it, I could tell you it. I can sing the song. I can tell you about the pamphlets that you read. I can tell you your story, Robert Hays. I can tell you not to call me Shirley. I could put us on autopilot. I wouldn't want the fish. I'm not eating the fish on the plane either. I lived for this movie. It is an iconic piece of work. And your work and what you've done as Stryker has forever changed me and theater and comedy that I've had in my life. Thank you for being here.

[0:55] Robert Hays: Thank you. Goodness gracious. How do you live up to that? It's the truth. You are brilliant. The movie is brilliant. It was an honor. I saw you are on tour and I said, I need Robert Hays. Please, please let's talk to Robert Hays.

[1:11] Robert Bannon: Yeah, well, I don't know if we're gonna get to the Detroit area, but if so, I sure hope you come to it.

[1:16] Robert Hays: Are you kidding? I watched the movie this weekend getting ready to talk to you. I want to watch it with an audience full of people and I want to see you up on stage talking about it. How did this come about where you were reached and said, You want to come revisit Airplane with some of your friends?

[1:29] Robert Hays: There is a group called Mills Entertainment, and they're just wonderful, absolutely wonderful people. And they reached out and they said we want to do, you know, Airplane. And I did a couple of shows. David and I, David Zucker and I did two shows, and they were so fun and they were very well received. The people, I mean, the funny thing is you're taken back in time and for when the first time that you saw it, because you know, for a lot of people, it was in the theater. And so when you get back into a theater and you have the audience there, there is such a difference between just sitting at home and watching it. But if you're in a social environment, a group environment, people that you don't know, and then you're watching something and people start laughing, and it triggers you to laugh when you might have just been kind of looking at it instead.

You start laughing, you know. Maybe you'll see something that makes you bark with laughter outside, and then all of a sudden they've picked up and you know, every because everyone's tempo is different, and when it starts blending like that, the experience is enhanced, it's magnified. And so we have a lot of fun, and a lot of the theaters, fortunately, the two that we played in were Paramount Theaters in Seattle and in Denver, and they were one the Seattle was 1927 and Denver was 1930, and they were brought back to the old gilded age kind of look, you know, just beautiful. And when you walk through there, you just feel like who were the old vaudevillions, the silent films that were playing there.

What was the first talkie? You know, William Powell, one of my all-time favorites, William Powell was in the first film, I believe, which was a silent film, but then he was in also the first talkie they showed there, which was like a year or two later. So that kind of stuff to me is just so fun. But that's what we that's what kind of fun. We have new questions with the audience. We got a moderator. Now, this time, this tour is with Julie. Julie and I are doing this. And we have Dan Pasternak as our moderator. He teaches film. He comes out of Hollywood, having been also a big producer with and running the production side of things like Turner Network, you know, TNT and Turner Classics, which is one of my favorite stations.

I love old films, and so he does the question and answers with us, and then we do a meet and greet with the folks afterwards, and we just have a great time. So hopefully people are gonna want to come out and join in the fun. They're gonna sell out. Airplane live tour.com. The link will be below, and you're gonna be from every Rochester, New York, Milwaukee, Philly, Phoenix, San Francisco, all the way Red Bank, Jersey, back by my house. I gotta send my brother to go see the show, Syracuse. More dates coming. I texted my brother a picture of you, and I said to him, Sean, in a thousand episodes of my show, you are gonna be finally impressed with one of my guests. And he said, This is the coolest guest you've ever had. Because I know when you meet people after the show, Sean, I love you already.

[4:57] Robert Hays: See, see, do you must meet people who have told you all sorts of stories about how they have memories that this was important, they remember first seeing it, they remember watching it, it gives them joy. It must be something that you made this back then, and it still lives and exists in this way today.

[5:14] Robert Hays: It's I always say that it was like winning the lottery. It's just it was such a huge event in my life and all of our lives that were connected with it. And it was my first feature film, and it was just great. I could not wait to get to work every day. I wake up in the morning, you're thinking, oh god, if I could just have another hour of sleep, and then you suddenly oh get in there, take a shower, jump in the car and get to the world. Go to work. Oh, it was so fun. It was so fun.

[5:53] Robert Bannon: You had done television, you had done a bunch of television shows before then. A lot, a lot of a lot of television shows, like Angie and and you were doing it. At the time I was filming that. So, how did this movie come to you? How did you get cast for it?

[6:09] Robert Hays: My agent had a new agent he just brought into his office named Beth Voikou. And my agent, Arnie Soloway, the hustler with a heart, they used to call him. And he had Beth in there, and she had just been working with Howard Koch. And so she had a relationship with him, and Howard and the boys had been all over the country getting submissions, either being there or getting submissions from all over. I mean Detroit, where you are in Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, LA, and New York, obviously, and but everywhere. And they got everybody. They found Julie in New York. They came up the elevator with her, and she had no idea who they were, and she was Julie. And they just were like, Oh God, I hope she, I'm sure she's going up there for the interview.

I hope she can speak. I hope she can read a line because she's so great. They were just totally smitten with her instantly. And she goes in there and goes into the room where all the actresses are waiting, and it's like, Oh my god, you know, a sea of humanity in there. And then when she's called in, she goes through the little door into the office next door where they had entered from down the hallway, and she walks in and sees them. And you know, you three were you doing that to me? What were you doing? You know, pulling my leg out there. Anyway, they just loved her, so they had her, they had everybody, but they couldn't find Ted Striker. And they had some people that were well, it's kind of close, but it just wasn't right.

And she called and said, I've got your Ted. And Howard said, Bring him over. So got the head shot and the bio and came over and dragged me along, and there we are. We go in, I meet him, and we got along great. And then I read for them, and they liked my reading, and they said, Let's screen test him with Julie, and because they were looking for the combination, and the studio wanted us to they wanted them, the boys, to test I think it was at least three couples, they wanted choices to be able to look at, and so they had a couple of other couples tests, and this was what they wound up with.

[8:36] Robert Bannon: Well, they made the right decision.

[8:38] Robert Hays: They definitely made the right decision. You're talking about Jim Abrams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker wrote this and directed this film. And what I love about the work as a nerdy actor, when you watch the comedy is hard, and when you watch you and Julie in particular, you two have very funny moments, but a lot of the times you are the straight to the crazy, you know, Leslie Nielsen's being as crazy, the people on the plane are being crazy, the other original pilots are being crazy. If you call the if you when you're calling to Lloyd Bridges, he's being crazy. And you and her have this great deadpan series. You are you sell, I believe, every second of what you and Julie do in that film together. And that's what makes it so funny.

[9:20] Robert Hays: We the boys came back every every day at lunch, they go over to the screening room and they would watch the dailies from the day before. Or if they got stuff done that morning, maybe they would get it, you know, processed quickly enough so they could see it. And they came running back. And one day, and they came up to me. I think maybe Julie and I both standing there, and I think it was both of us, and they came running up to us, and Jim said, This is this is a love story. And we Julie and I looked at him, we looked at each other, we looked back at him and said, Of course it is, and they were saying we just thought we were making jokes. This is a love story, and then we were being interviewed, and I said in the interview, they were asking me how I approached it, you know.

Kind of that sort of area we're talking about that area of my participation in the film, and I said, What you were talking about, I said, you know, I feel like the anchor, I'm the one in the middle, and all this insanity is swirling around me, and I'm people say things, and I just I raised my eyebrow.

[10:42] Robert Hays: I didn't even know that I was doing it, but I raised my eyebrow and I think about what? Oh well, and then I would answer it. That's it. And so I was I was the audience. I was I was representing them so that they could see, you know, oh, I'm not crazy, this is crazy, you know, and and have a chance to laugh at it. And they thought, God, that's cool. We hadn't thought about that, but that's really neat. And and uh, but they are the ones, they're the geniuses, they're the ones that wrote it, rewrote it, rewrote it for five years during all the times they were being rejected. And um, they're the ones that told everybody, okay, we're gonna play this straight, which is something that I had been working on in my since I was stumbled across this in college.

I stumbled in because it was the only act class open, it was beginning acting. Oh my god, so I could get into the college. I was a transfer student, I was late, and I was, you know, everything was gone. So I took that so I could get into the school, a little college in San Diego, and and I uh uh I realized at some point during all of that, and then going down to Balbo Park in San Diego, and there was a wonderful theater, the old globe theater, it's nationally recognized theater, it's incredible. And um, and I started working there, you know, doing shows there. And at some point during all of that, you know, the masks of comedy and tragedy, you have the big smile, and they have the frown. And I came to realize that when I was doing a comedy, it helped when I had a frown in my belly.

And when I was doing of tragedy, it really helped to have the smile in the belly, and it just seemed to enhance what I was doing. Anyway that that that was my and you know I go I'm very simple and I like just things very simple. My wife my wife explains things in such detail and she's brilliant and I'm just saying wait wait wait I'm a guy I'm just simple is that was that a yes or no that makes sense though because I get it and then and and what that eventually led to in this was that that's what they wanted to do and I I knew what that was because that's what I was working on trying to do and develop in my in myself had been for a few years but I'm still you know but when you hear uh directors who had never directed before but you just feel like my gosh I've got absolute one thousand percent uh trust in these guys because they I know I can feel what it is they want and I know what they wrote and it was so funny so it was great and that's a so that's it all together you put that all together and Julie being the brilliance that she is and Leslie who told me I always wanted to be that zany wacky thing I had gone up to the door I'd opened it and peeked inside but it took the boys to push me through the door into that and then he became the lunatic that we all know and the same with the Lloyd and uh and Peter and Bob, you know, uh be yourselves, be just uh you know a straight guy and and uh one of them, I can't remember which one, Lloyd maybe I don't remember which one.

They were trying to come up with some comedy when they were meeting with the guys and they said, well, I did an episode of Ash and uh they said, well we won't hold that against you. They wanted Mike Nelson and C Hunt. And they wanted you know Bob stacked from the Untouchables. They wanted Elliot Ness or uh uh yeah Elliot Ness the the you know the yeah and so that's what they wanted and they they would give Bob for instance when Lloyd I p I guess I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue and then he's and runs and jumps out the window and they said okay now Bob give us uh give us one of your untouchables things so that's when he watched him going out the window and then he turns back and he does that thing where he just turns in one shoulder in and he's you know gives the line and it was just it was perfect.

So they knew what they wanted and that's that was uh a great teaching moment for all of us that were were in it. It is the most brilliant I mean when you talk about Robert Hayes when you talk about Julie Hagerty when you talk about Kareem Abdul Jabbar and and and and Peter Graves together when you talk about you know Lloyd and and Rob like it is the I could quote it's the pick the wrong day to quit sniffing glue. I mean that lives forever obviously some of the I'm sure when you go some of the surely you can't be serious and all of these things are said to you wherever you go. Is this that's that's the one that's probably said more than anything else, yeah.

[15:52] Robert Hays: Yeah yeah, or they say you still have your drinking problem. The two things they'll say to me. Uh, I had a guy come up to me one time at where my sister lives up uh north of Seattle, a little island up there, and they were having an Italian day picnic from a couple of the Italian kids, you know, that were in the community. Um they were all out having fun, and then one guy that they wanted to be there to meet me because he had seen it like a hundred times, he just was crazy about it. And his mom, he was worked with his mom in reality, and uh he liked his scotch, and so we went over to his house to surprise him, and he wasn't there. But David said, Let's just go in. I said, 'Well no, he's home.'

He said, 'Ah, that's okay.' So we went in, and there was a bag in there. And uh I think he had like comic things, the unknown comic, you know, wore a bag, right? So he made a little bag, I think, like that. Like his, and so I wrote Robert Hayes was here, you know. Hey, Marty, sorry I missed you, or whatever. And and uh, and then we left, and then we went back to the picnic, and there he is at the picnic, and we're behind him, and he's he's holding court with about five, six people. He's got his glass of scotch, and he's you know, telling little stories or whatever, and they start laughing more and more, and he's thinking, I you could tell by the body language, I am really good, man. I'm really working it, I'm really on fire.

And suddenly he realizes there's someone behind him, he turns around, turns around, and it's me. And he didn't do anything, he said that more than anything else, and he threw the glass, his scotch in his face, and I was so surprised. I didn't even get what he was doing because I was thinking of the entire surroundings, and then here's a guy that throws a drink in his face. And it took a second or two. And then I finally was like, oh God, but that's you know. And and that that was the first time. That's maybe the only time anyone's ever done that. They've thrown it in their own face. They want me to throw it in my face. Got it. I did it in this face in his face. It was very funny. It was just very funny.

You know, that's the that's the when I was I went to acting school. I went to Meisner training. We were and we were starting to do old pieces, like, and they were hard. And we were doing like very old Shakespearean pieces, and we had a very tough week. And someone said after class on Saturday, we're all gonna go to our apartment to the guy's apartment in New York, one of my classmates, and we all and he said we're gonna watch the funniest movie ever made. And we watched Airplane, and there are students. Had you seen it yet? Or did you I had I had seen it and seen it and seen it, but they had and they laughed and laughed, and we talked about it in acting school, and you are studied. Like what you do is studied and will be studied forever because when people look at comedy is hard, it takes a real skilled actor to do it, and people watch it because it's brilliant across the it's brilliant across the board.

[18:55] Robert Hays: Well, yeah. It is that's you are in Hawaii, Robert Hayes.

[19:01] Robert Bannon: Yeah, which island, yeah.

[19:08] Robert Hays: This is the front yard. That's oh well. That's the Ko'olau Mountains. There are two mountain ranges on Oahu, and it's the Koolau. And the other side has uh has water in the Pacific.

[19:25] Robert Bannon: Would you like to see my Detroit view?

[19:27] Robert Hays: It doesn't look like yours, Robert. No offense, no shape.

[19:30] Robert Bannon: Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

[19:32] Robert Hays: So when did you move to like Hawaii is the longest flight over water, right?

[19:37] Robert Hays: They say well, it's the farthest distance to land from any place on the earth. I mean, all the other islands are away from land. You can't see it, but this one is it's like I think 2500 miles to the closest land, something like that.

[19:54] Robert Bannon: So when you get on a plane through your lifetime, do people have a reaction?

[19:59] Robert Hays: Oh God, they used to they used to be the the uh stewardesses, I mean everybody, stewardesses and the stewards and the the pilots and co-pilots, but a lot of times they wouldn't say anything. And uh I think the the stewards of the light attendants, I guess now you call them, they would um uh they'd go up and say, you know, Robert Hayes, they played Ted Striker is in the third seat back or something. And as we take off, he says, uh, you know, they come on and they say, Okay, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard. And uh we're gonna be flying over the Grand Canyon in another 10 minutes or say, and and they would say things like, Welcome aboard, everyone, just want to wish you a good flight. We're gonna do everything we can make it nice and smooth. We'll be flying about 39,000 feet over Macho Grande, and then we will be and he just slips it in like that. And that's when I go, you know.

[21:16] Robert Hays: Can I get a picture with you? And they'd close the little curtain and then we take a selfie. And, uh, people were wondering, what are they doing back there? Look, people have to understand you flew engine fighters in the Air Force. They, they, they, this plane has four engines, it's a different kind of flying. Entirely different kind of plane all together. All together. See, that's exactly right. Well, I hope people come and experience this. I hope that they're new people that have never seen it before. I hope there are people who have memories and have seen it many times. I think you're 100% right. I just went to the Clue screening where we had Leslie Ann Warren here, and we did the Clue screening.

And I had seen Clue so much growing up, but seeing it in a theater with a thousand other people has a different energy. It's like going back to the movies. You're gonna experience the film in a brand new way. What are the questions most people ask you? What is the most, what is common in the Q&A?

[22:04] Robert Hays: Oh man. Um, wow, uh, so many different Leslie Ann Warren, by the way, isn't she brilliant? Great. I, I, the one thing that sticks out with me, um, and it might have been what was the thing with Julie Andrews and Alex Karras. Uh, I think that was, I think that's the one where Julie exposed herself in that film. It was a comedy thing. Yeah, and Leslie Ann was sitting in bed eating chocolates. Do you remember that scene? And she would eat them and make a face and put it back, and even though, but when it surprised me so much when she made the face, like she did, she went for it all the time. It was so brilliant. Anyway, I just got sidetracked with that because I think she's amazing. Anyway, uh, what do they ask?

Gosh, they, they ask about, um, what was it like working with Leslie? Or, um, what was it like working with Kareem, uh, with Julie? What was it like for you guys? You know, um, when's the first time you read the script or, uh, and I read it on a plane flying back to Minneapolis, St. Paul, yeah. And, and, uh, uh, gosh, uh, uh, uh, uh, was with, did you do much improv or was that all written? It was probably a lot of improv, right?

[23:36] Robert Hays: And it's like, no, no, it was word for word. This was so tight, the script was so tight. Uh, Stephen Stucker, who played Johnny, was in their troop, uh, improv troop they had, uh, called Kentucky Fried Theater when they came out from Milwaukee. They drove out and they had started it at the University of Madison, uh, Wisconsin, and then they drove out and they started it up in LA, right down the street, a couple blocks down from 20th Century Fox and Pico, and he was one of the people in it, and he was so amazing. He was a concert pianist. Wow, and, uh, I mean, he was just exceptional. He was, he was, he was crazy. I loved him, he was great. Um, but they, they said nobody can come up. What would Johnny say?

They'd call him up, Steve. Okay, here's the situation. What would Johnny say? Uh, I could make a hat, I could make a brooch. So yeah, looks like a giant Tylenol. It's like, okay, thanks. And they'd write that down because that was Stephen. He was just that nuts that he would come up with those. So he, he essentially did his lines. My favorite of which was, Hey Johnny, how about some coffee? No, thanks. I just love that one.

[24:56] Robert Hays: Um, they, uh, at the end of the day shooting, one day Jim came up to me, Abrams. He came up to me and he said, Okay, we're gonna shoot the, um, I think it was the scene with the general Japanese general committee, and, uh, I think it was with Jesse, who had the turban, you know, poured the gas on him, and he was gonna emulate himself. I think we were doing those scenes anyway. He said, he said, uh, it's too short, so you gotta write some more dialogue. And I'm not a writer, what am I gonna? And I was like, huh? Oh, okay, yeah, just write up some stuff and then so we can have more. Anyway, and then he said, Okay, see you tomorrow. And he left. I'm thinking, I like that. They're going, oh god, what are you hanging here?

Jesus Christ, what am I gonna do? That's, that's my favorite. Yeah, and I caught myself and I went, okay, okay. You, you were boring people to death. You can be boring. Okay, so that's just okay. And I went home and I wrote so much stuff, and a lot of it's in the thing that I'm, you know, uh, uh, when I'm boring them to death. A lot of that was my dialogue that I wrote up.

[26:10] Robert Hays: Um, but otherwise it was all, oh, and the, uh, um, uh, Al White and Norm. Um, guess who didn't put his silence on? Oh, you're fine, please. There it is. So they, they played the black dudes, yes, and they came up to him and said, Um, do you mind if we can change this dialogue a little bit? And they said, please, please. We're three white Jewish boys from Milwaukee. We don't know. They, what they had written in the script, what it said was, she mofo, she mofo, she mofo. And that was it. So that was like they would say that. They said, What would you like for dinner? She, mofo, she, mofo. It's like they said, We came up with something, and they said, Oh, great. So he came up. They got Al told me they got a dictionary of, uh, black jive, basically.

AAVE and black jive, and, and they had worked up this whole routine, even before I think, uh, when they met. Either I don't know if they, they knew each other before, but, uh, I think they did, and they'd work this thing up, so they had a routine, and then they taught, uh, Barbara Billingsley how to do, you know, so good stuff.

[27:25] Robert Hays: Yeah, such a funny thing when she goes, I'm fluent in jive. That is classic. That is classic jive. Yeah, uh, you know who that was originally supposed to be? No, it was supposed to be, uh, uh, uh, uh, Harriet Nelson from Ozzy and Harriet. Yes, yeah, and I met her, and she was one of the sweetest women I've ever met. She was so wonderful, and she, I think she was at an Angie taping we were doing, but anyway, I, I went over to her and I just said, Oh god, I just, uh, a friend of mine is a very good friend of their families, and, and I said, Oh well, so and so is my buddy's godfather to my son, and, and, you know, oh, he's such a great guy. You know, I was supposed to do that role, and I turned it down. I was so worried about the words, yeah, the dirty language. And he says, and I'm so sorry I didn't do it. That's what she said. And, and I thought, oh my god. But Barbara Billingsley was perfect, perfect.

[28:31] Robert Hays: I mean, uh, uh, Harriet would have been great too, but you can't even think of anybody else now because you see Barbara doing it. And that's just like with Kareem. That's the same thing with Kareem. That was originally supposed to be Pete Rose. Oh, and it was in October, you know, we were gonna be shooting some part into October and October, that's the playoffs. Pete Rose is always in the playoffs. So then it's like you got to take a break and go play some baseball. No, we can't afford to. This is a cheap low budget movie, so we can't stop and carry everyone, you know. So, uh, they were, they were looking around for, they had a joke about, uh, we've got to find, uh, we have to find a well-known athlete that can't act.

And because Crazy Legs Hirsch was the guy that, uh, L. Roy Hirsch was the guy in the movie that it was based on, and he was back in those days, you know, the pro sports figures were the biggest thing in the nation, you know, big time actors, and you have the big sports and college before, you know, especially back before all the, you know, uh, radio and television had become so dominant, and, uh, and he really was, you could tell this was his first job, so they wanted that, but now you, you watch it and you think, my God, how could you think of anybody else? He's perfect.

[30:05] Robert Hays: These are the stories everybody you're gonna hear when you go see this and you ask questions and think of a good question at Aeroplane Live tour.com. I'm so grateful to be able to spend all this time with you and how generous you are and how great your stories are. I want these, these are gonna sell out, Robert. Well, I owe so from your mouth to everyone's ears that can buy tickets. And you're gonna keep doing more of them because people are gonna demand to see you. Well, they are so much fun. We have so much fun doing them, and you really hope that people get out and, you know, buy some tickets now, because if they don't sell enough tickets, they usually what they do is they'll cancel the show. And they're not gonna cancel this. Airplane live tour.com.

[30:43] Robert Bannon: And can I say from this kid in Jersey who was, uh, home with his brother on the weekends and looking for something to do, your work gave me so much joy. It, it's continued to be quoted and loved by me and my family, and, uh, for future generations, your work will live forever. It will give, it gave so much joy to so many people who needed it, and that is the greatest gift you can give to somebody. So thank you.

[31:03] Robert Hays: That's great, thank you very much.

[31:05] Robert Hays: That's awful nice. That right there is a goal reason for doing this stuff, isn't it?

[31:09] Robert Hays: Yeah, it's people feel that spread love and joy, and you give so much joy to so many billions and billions of streams and people who have seen it. Thank you.

[31:18] Robert Hays: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.