So that this thing that aired in 1963 would result a few years later in personal bankruptcy, would result in having people be on edge with me, wondering when I'm going to blow up.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
But as a result of that, there was, once the show ended, there was this talk for sort of four, five months about what was going to happen, and if we were going to move to Showtime, and if we were going to be bought by ABC or whatever.
You do a show to be a hit and hopefully run a couple of years.
If a hit came along, I wouldn't be unhappy about that. But I'm a bit too old for that now-doing videos and all those types of TV shows. I've kind of done all that, in the '70s.
Now we live in this DVD, iTunes, Hulu age, and show creators and networks are realizing that and letting shows develop on those terms rather than 'We gotta just punch it week to week, man.' Now they're like, 'What will happen if someone watches the entire show?'
This is my sixth series, and I'm burned out wondering if a show is going to change my life. Don't get me wrong, I love when people recognize my work. But I've given up worrying about whether it'll be seen by two people or two million or 22 million.
My first series, I wouldn't even know where to get a clip of it. It was called 'Cracking Up.' It was on 'FOX' in 2004.
I've always come into a show when the show was already up and running.
I wonder if, as the tech to deliver content continues to evolve, we will start seeing the one season / 6-8 hour show that ends at a peak moment rather than is cancelled because it sucks.
I think the worst thing that could have happened to me would have been having a hit at 20. I don't know what that would have done to me. But instead, I had to scrape a living for years. And my first show, which opened in 1969, lost over £45,000, an absolute fortune then.
It was in 1969, and I thought, wow, you know, I really didn't want to do a TV series. You know, I had my own act, and I was performing in Vegas and doing all of these exciting things.