My two boys were the same ages as the kids in the show. In real life or in between the breaks I was raising two kids off camera who were not unlike the two kids who were being paid to be my kids.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was the one in charge of the kids growing up.
I received a lot of complaints from parents who wrote and told me that their kids wouldn't go to sleep until our show was over. So I went on the air and told all the children watching to 'listen to their Uncle Miltie and go to bed right after the show.'
I'm really glad I didn't have kids earlier, because I probably would have ignored them. I was so into my career. I could just go and play a ton of shows, night after night after night. I can't do that anymore.
For hundreds of years, that was the major form of entertainment: The grown-ups sat around and watched the kids play. Now they sit around and watch the television. The actors are the kids.
Me personally, I wouldn't put my kids on television. But to each his own.
I love those kids on 'The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.' I remember when they were little they looked like they were having so much fun just being kids. And that's how I was growing up and how I try to be.
I pitched my last children's show presentation in the mid 1980's. The era of locally produced children's shows was over and the networks were not and are not interested in children's television.
When I go to my live shows it's often a multigenerational audience, a family bonding experience.
When I was doing all this acting stuff, all these kids, like, assumed, 'Oh, my God, you're on TV, and you probably have a lot of money.' And I was living in a garage.
The kids don't really have any part of my television life. Fortunately, there aren't many times when show business intrudes on our family existence.