Chewbacca… Robin… Tattoo… Ed McMahon. Sidekicks in film and television are some of the most important roles to fill on a cast. And all are pivotal to the success of the show. In the 1990’s there was an unforgettable sidekick who hammered his way to fame on one of the most popular comedies of the decade. This is STILL HERE HOLLYWOOD. I’m Steve Kmetko. Join me, with today’s guest from “Home Improvement”, Richard Karn.
This is STILL HERE HOLLYWOOD. I’m Steve Kmetko. Join me, with today’s guest from “Home Improvement”, Richard Karn.
Chewbacca… Robin… Tattoo… Ed McMahon. Sidekicks in film and television are some of the most important roles to fill on a cast. And all are pivotal to the success of the show. In the 1990’s there was an unforgettable sidekick who hammered his way to fame on one of the most popular comedies of the decade.
STILL HERE HOLLYWOOD
RICHARD KARN TRANSCRIPT
Steve Kmetko
Yes, I'm still here. Hollywood, just ahead on today's episode.
Richard Karn
Pam was so pretty without makeup. He was very nervous about being an actor.
Steve Kmetko
How about Jonathan Taylor Thomas?
Richard Karn
Jonathan just knew how to tell a joke.
Steve Kmetko
Chewbacca, Robin, Tattoo, Ed McMahon… Sidekicks in film and television are some of the most important roles to fill on a cast and all are pivotal to the success of the show. In the 1990s, there was an unforgettable sidekick who hammered his way to fame on one of the most popular comedies of the decade. This is Still Here, Hollywood. I'm Steve Kmetko. Join me with today's guest from Home Improvement, Richard Karn. Would you tell me the story about the shoes?
Richard Karn
Yeah. How many guys have stories about shoes?
Steve Kmetko
Well, depending on the shoes, those are pretty.
Richard Karn
Well, they're hush puppies.
Steve Kmetko
They're worth talking about.
Richard Karn
They're hush puppies. And these are my Christmas shoes. I only wear them usually around Christmas.
Steve Kmetko
December.
Richard Karn
December. But these were home improvement shoes. These shoes are over 30 years old. I would think.
Steve Kmetko
And you still fit in them.
Richard Karn
And I still fit in my shoes and the glue hasn't come apart or anything like that. But they were, I think Al, because Plaid was kind of his armor. He had plaid everything. I had a plaid dinner jacket, a plaid cumber buns, shoes, all just everything.
Steve Kmetko
Are the shoes the only thing that lasted?
Richard Karn
No. I still have a couple of the shirts. I still have that kind of dinner jacket with the shawl collar and everything. And I'll pull that out every once in a while, if I need that. But I remember going in for costume at the very beginning, and they had these Ralph Lauren fitted shirts that, and they thought that they would go plaid, because why not? And I put it on and it was fitted. And I go, these aren't that comfortable. And look at the price tag on this thing. It's like, back in 1991, it was like $140 for a Ralph Lauren plaid shirt. And I go to Eddie Bauer, or go to the Gap. They've got really comfortable plaid shirts and they're $25. I'll save you some money.
Steve Kmetko
Ted Knight, his character Ted Baxter on the old Mary Tyler Moore show used to say Plaid was his favorite color.
Richard Karn
Well, they got a lot of mileage out of that. I mean, we did a green screen thing where Tim painted plaid, he painted something plaid. And when you put it on, it just came out of plaid color.
Steve Kmetko
Do you miss the show?
Richard Karn
I miss the camaraderie of that. And the show was, you miss it. Yeah. I do miss it. But it's like something that you realize it can't last forever. You can't be in high school forever. And we got eight years out of that. And that was a good eight years. And it was the only, I had just moved to California from New York, so all of my previous work from before Home Improvement was usually theater. And you'd get six weeks, couple of months, and then you'd move on to the next show. And that seemed like the norm.
And you're in a show and you're looking for the next job. You're always looking for work. And when I got home improvement, I was like, well, I should figure out what's the next, what? And I go, well, gosh, I'm coming back next year. I do I take some time? Well, and then something will come up, a little movie or something and you keep working. But there was kind of a relaxed feel about, okay, I'm not as desperate to find the next thing right now.
Steve Kmetko
Which so many people in the business are.
Richard Karn
But in a sense, you want to capitalize on it. But my son Cooper was also born the first season, so all of a sudden, I didn't want to do theater where I was gone every night. So, I would kind of like shy away from that. And I didn't want to go off and be, leave my wife Tootie holding the well.
Steve Kmetko
Yes.
Richard Karn
Holding our baby.
Steve Kmetko
How often do you see Tim or talk to him?
Richard Karn
It comes in bunches. And then there might be a couple of months where I don't talk to him, but we've stayed in touch.
Steve Kmetko
You're friends.
Richard Karn
We're friends. And we did a show last year, two years ago. Power,
Steve Kmetko
More Power.
Richard Karn
Well, it started out as assembly required for the History Channel, and it was a competition. And then they decided they didn't like the competition. I thought the competition was hysterical, but on the darker side of a competition building show, as you're asking these guys to do something quickly and they can get hurt, you can get hurt. You know, you're dealing with Sharp Objects and you're hurrying that, maybe isn't like the smartest thing, but they changed it to then more power where it was just Tim and I talking.
Steve Kmetko
What did you take, what skill did you take? Was there at Skill to be taken from home improvement?
Richard Karn
Oh my gosh.
Steve Kmetko
With tools.
Richard Karn
There were so many. There were life skills, there were relationship skills. There were acting and it was just like this starter class in amazing things. One of the bigger things was learning how to talk to writers, which wasn't something in my milieu. When I did a play, I didn't necessarily work with the writer of the play. You know, Shakespeare's gone, Neil Simon, I wasn't at that caliber or whatever. So, you wouldn't mess around with those lines. It's written, we're not going to change this. And then all of a sudden, home improvement, we're changing lines on a daily basis. And all that joke didn't work. And I would defend their work. I go, no, no, this is a good joke.
I just didn't do it right. Give me one more day. Just give me a day. And they go, okay, but I don't think it works here. And sometimes it did. And they go, okay, well, yeah, you did that. You did that little different thing. It works. Yeah, okay, we'll keep that. And sometimes it's like, no, we'll move on to something else. But talking to writers from an actor's point of view is a skill. And then just acting in front of a camera instead of on stage. You don't have to be that big. You don't have to get to the last seat. Although the transition was nicely facilitated because the show was a show within the show, so we had a live audience that we would play to as, as well as the home. So, there wasn't a necessarily always a fourth wall, but that helped.
Steve Kmetko
Tim mentioned on a podcast, I think the other day, that they might retool home improvement.
Richard Karn
Yeah, I know. That Urban Legend's been going on forever. Forever. And I would love it and be afraid of it at the same time, because can you recreate that? Or is it just going to be weird? You know what? You're going to have some really, really amazing writing, very, very interesting writing to bring these people back and make them the audience trusts us. But if we come back with stories that aren't that captivating, compelling. We could lose it very quickly. But I would love that. You know, the backstory for that is that wind Dancer, the producers was Matt Williams, David McKay and Carmen Finestra. And they had a production company called Wind Dancer, and you'll see it at the end of the show.
And they were brought on by Disney's TV arm, which was Buena Vista television to get together and create a show and sell it to A, B, C. And that's what they did. And then about two years into the run, Disney bought A, B, C. And now there's just this little conflict of interest. We think maybe we'd like to buy the show for less and wind dancers going, no, we can sell it for more. It's a hit. We can go to CBS, we can go to NBC. And so, there's been a little thing there for 25 years.
Steve Kmetko
How did you first get the job?
Richard Karn
I gosh, many things in our world, in our life, we can walk back. You can go, oh, you know what? This happened because of this, or because I met this person, or because I did the and I walked this back all the way to Michigan, to Holland, Holland Michigan, where I did summer theater with a director.
We did a play called Strider. And we kind of butted heads, because what I didn't realize at the time is he had just directed it for his college in Evansville. So, I think he was trying to recreate that. And being a young actor is like, I don't get what, why you want me to do that? It's like, and he wouldn't say, well, that's what the other actor did. I found this out later I go. I'm thinking this, we would kind of butt heads. And then the show opened, and it was great. You know, all of our ideas worked. And we became friends. And then a few years later, he calls me up and goes, there's a playwright’s conference in new Harmony Indiana, and they need actors to read plays in progress.
Would you be interested? And I go, well, and I'm living in New York City. Granted, my apartment is very cheap. I have had a blessed life. So, the overhead in New York was not that great. But go to new Harmony Indiana for two weeks, for a hundred dollars a week stipend. We will take care of food and drink. But and at that point, my career was based on yes, yes, I'll do that. So, I did it, and I met Matt Williams, David McKay, they were part of the New Harmony Project. I didn't know who they were really, except that they had just come off the first season of Roseanne, which I knew the show Roseanne. I didn't watch a lot of television, but I knew that show was like a big hit.
But they had gotten fired. And we became great friends working on this. And I convinced them to do a skit of all the different people in this thing. It'd be very funny at the end, we can just do the skit and lampooning this director this or whatever, just have fun. And we're like, up till 1:30, 2 o'clock in the morning writing this. Never in my life, if I had known what they had gone through or what they go through when they're writing a show, they're up till 2, 3 o'clock in the morning. This is supposed to be vacation for them. And I'm like, let's write a skit. But we did that, and we had a great time, and we became friends. So, when I've then moved to California, a couple of years later, I called them up.
I said, these are contacts now, even though they're friends, that I've networked, and I can call them up. And they were doing a show with Carol Burnett called Carol and Company. And they said, well, if something comes up, we have a Carol and Company. There's a company of other actors that do everything else, but every once in a while, there's like a little thing. And they called me up, and I did a little thing where I was a grip on a TV news show or whatever. And I got to stand up at curtain call with Carol Burnett. You know, I was, hell hold her hand. It's Carol Burnett. And then I'm doing Shakespeare Scottish play. And I've only been in town about a year, just under a year and a half. And a friend of mine from school had put together a theater program, or a theater in a church, the first Baptist Church of Beverly Hills.
Probably the only Baptist Church in Beverly Hills. But we did Shakespeare's Scottish play. And the bad luck that I had associated with that was getting a traffic ticket. I went to Traffic school, and I sat next to a woman who was an agent who told me that these guys are auditioning for a TV show. And that's how I found out. So, I called them. I said, and they go, no, there's nothing for you. Which we know in this business, there really isn't nothing is ever for you until you're Tom Cruise or Robert Redford, or whatever. Then everything's for you. But nothing was for me. There was a neighbor and there was a Glen Tim's assistant, Glen, which we've already cast with Steven Topolaski who was in Groundhog Day.
The life insurers and but come in and audition. And I went in and I auditioned. I made them laugh. I knew the director, John Pawson, because I'd been a reader for him in New York. One of the weird things I did when he was casting basketball diaries at arena stage, and the only person I didn't know was Debbie Bruski, the casting director. And so, I went in and I made him laugh. And we had a scene where I'm working with a lathe. And I thought, okay, I'm going to make the lathe sound, why not? Who cares? You know, so I'm doing the scenes. He says, well, now when you're working with a Lathe, what you want, and then they were laughing, and at the end, John Parkin goes, Hey, can you make that lathe sound like a question?
And I go, I can. I'm an actor. So, when you're working. And they were, I thought, well, I scored there. I didn't know about Tim's grunt at the time, but the oh, he was, they were just having fun with me because I'm amenable to that. And I walked away thinking, what a great audition that was. Maybe something, like I did with Carol Burnett will come up, and then Carmen Finestra one of the guys calls me and goes, so, Rick, do you still have that beard? And I'd grown the beard for the Shakespeare show. You know, it's like, usually I didn't have a beard, because at my age, that didn't seem commercial, they, or whatever I was thinking. And I go, I do.
He said, well Steven got a movie. And I go, yeah. And he can't do the pilot. Oh, would you mind doing just the pilot? And I go, why? Why would I mind, yes, of course. I would love to do that.
Steve Kmetko
Because your career was built on. Yes.
Richard Karn
And it was a pilot. I hadn't done anything, any television of worth or anything. So yes, I will do this pilot, no problem. And, I go to work and it's, we've got like a 10 day rehearsal thing, and the mother is Francis Fisher originally, that's why the boys are blonde. She was kind of strawberry blonde. And we do like three days of rehearsal, and then the little audience comes in, and then she's gone. And I freaked out. I was like, what?
And I go to David, I go, or Carmen, what happened?
Says it wasn't right. I go, what do you mean? It wasn't, we were getting laughs. The show was great. It was and Francis is really good. It wasn't right. I go, well, I don't, okay. And they brought in Pat Richardson and Pat, they had talked to Pat before, but she was going to do another show called boy, this is a lot of information, isn't it? She was going to do another show called Home Movies, which was the continuation of the Wonder Years at them at 35.
So, she and Daniel Stern, who did the voiceover for Wonder Years we're going to do that. And then he decided he didn't want to do television, and all of a sudden, she became available again. And she came in and after like a day, two days, we had another little audience.
And it was different. You know, what Carmen had said was that there was a point in the pilot where Tim wants to charge up or make the dishwasher more powerful. And so, she has to go out and she turns him, and she goes, don't touch the dishwasher. And the audience, with Francis went, oh God, he better not. Oh, no. Is he going to do that? And with Pat, when she said, don't touch the dishwasher, and they're going, yeah, he's going to do that. It's going to evolve. This is great. It was like, she wasn't a victim to Tim. She was his equal is what I assume is it was the difference. And another life lesson. You know, sometimes it's not about how good of an actor you are, it's about how things are perceived.
Steve Kmetko
And right place, right time.
Richard Karn
Right place, right time. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I was, and there I was, right place. But I only got to do the pilot, and Steven was going to come back and do the thing, but then a month goes by because we did it in April and they didn't start back up. And if the show gets picked up, then they'll start in like late July. And right before that, I get a call and go, we might need you for a couple of episodes. And I go, great. Because now Tootie and I are pregnant.
Steve Kmetko
Both of you.
Richard Karn
Well, I helped. I know that I helped in there, but and we're apartment managers and caterers, and I'm going, everything helps. A couple of episodes will be wonderful. Thank you. I'm there. I'm absolutely there.
Steve Kmetko
That's great. When you were doing the show, did you feel the gradual popularity growing with it? Could you notice it outside when you went places and people came up to you?
Richard Karn
Yes. For the first maybe two or three episodes, four episodes, we hadn't aired yet. So, when I was doing it with Tim as a guest star, because Steven was going to come in, the audience didn't know who we were. They hadn't seen us. They didn't have an idea of our, of what we yeah. And so, they're, it's like we're doing a play in a way, it's fresh and whatever I do or however I react to Tim is, the audience reacts to that. And the writers started watching that. And it was like, they watched that and then wrote to that. So, in a sense, I was a part of the creation of what Al eventually became. And that was really lovely.
And that got me the job. Eventually, they all of a sudden saw the relationship with Tim and Al that they could write to that over what they had envisioned with Tim and Glenn. So that was kind of a cool thing. But then once we started airing, it was slowly, I didn't know how to deal with that. And that's not in school. That's, that's not. That's not something they teach you. Now you have social media and you can go to everybody who talks about how they have to deal with it, or the first time, or like that. But back then, that wasn't ever talked about or discussed, or if I wasn't reading those magazines or those interviews or whatever, and people started would come up and it was almost like, I'm not worthy.
So, I would deflect. I'd go, no, no. I look like the guy, but I'm not that guy. And then I'm an apartment manager. I get a phone call that our one of our tenants, his kitchen sink is stopped up. Can I take a look? I go, yeah, I can fix that. That's no problem. I know that. So, I go down there and he opens the door and there's like, 15 of his friends are in there. You see Al Borland is our apartment manager. And I go back to my wife and I go, it's time. We get rid of our day job. We don't need this day job right now. And because it was free rent, which when you think about it was my rent was $900, so it was $900 a month. I was getting paid.
Steve Kmetko
So, your life changed.
Richard Karn
So, the life changed, and then more and more people. And now it's not about me anymore. It's about people's growing up watching the show with their grandparents, or with their parents and they were kids and they're growing up. And I was just in Grand Rapids just last week, and oh my gosh, the people that would come up you know, oh, I can't believe you're here. Do you live here? You know, wherever I am, people just assume that's where I live. So, oh, you must live here. Right. Especially if I'm in Michigan.
Steve Kmetko
Well and Tim's from Detroit, isn't he originally?
Richard Karn
Just a little bit outside. He was in Beverly Hills, Detroit.
Steve Kmetko
Is there a Baptist church there?
Richard Karn
I'm sure there are many churches in the Detroit Greater area.
Steve Kmetko
The word Baptist just doesn't seem to go with Beverly Hills having grown up the son of a Baptist minister. I know that stuff.
Richard Karn
So, how's your dance moves?
Steve Kmetko
What Dance moves? And don't ask me to play cards.
Richard Karn
Okay. All right.
Steve Kmetko
We couldn't do that.
Richard Karn
No.
Steve Kmetko
And I don't smoke anymore. Well, there you go. I don't drink.
Richard Karn
Well, there's your poker face right there.
Steve Kmetko
There's my Baptist upbringing. More with Richard Karn in a moment.
Richard Karn
Pam came up to me one day and she goes, I don't think I'm going to do any more layouts for Hef. And then literally a week later she goes, well, I'm going to do another layout for he, why? She says, well, he's got these other pictures and I don't like them, and he is going to use them if I don't do this. He felt he was with the star, but he didn't feel like he was pulling his weight necessarily. And if they can afford to buy their parents a house. There’s a weird thing balance.
Steve Kmetko
Did you have a hard time holding it together? Tim is kind of a comic genius, and he's very quick.
Richard Karn
He is. And that was fun to watch. I hadn't been around a standup and I'm watching him talk off, in between stuff. And just something that would happen to him on the way home would all of a sudden be hysterical. And as he would grow it during the day just little stuff that that happened to him was turned into his act almost in a way. And he was very nervous about being an actor with Pat's an accomplished actor Earl who played Wilson has been on the stage in movies and me. And he felt, he was the star, but he didn't feel like he was pulling his weight necessarily. But he was, I mean my God, they used most of his act in the pilot.
They kept adding things from me. That's my act. You're putting into the pilot. Well, I'm going to run out of things to say. He says, well, they're funny and they apply and this and that. But watching Tim work and then working off of him, we had a great time. And we would laugh, if there was something funny, we would hold it together as long as we could, and then we would laugh. And oh my God, I remember an episode where he's showing me, the router, we're going to use the router. And Al is like, well, Tim, you want to be sure that the router can Al. And then he puts down and he clicks and goes and he's like, all over the place. I literally thought, I laughed. I hurt. I thought I was laughing and cut. And I go, I'm so sorry. And he says, what? I laughed, I says, and we go back and we looked at the play, and I'm like, there was nothing there. But inside I was exploding.
Steve Kmetko
I used to run into him all the time at the Hollywood YMCA. He worked out there. And I was there every morning, and he would see me on the Stair Master. And I'm a person who sweats a lot and one year doing the Emmy Awards in Pasadena in September, which is awfully hot. I was under my tuxedo, sweating black. I was sweat through my shirt. And Tim came by and he said, did you just come from the gym? No, I liked him a great deal. He is very funny. Did you know how big a star he'd become?
Richard Karn
Not really. I mean, they told me that there was a standup and that he had a showtime thing. So, I watched the Showtime Men Are Pigs Tour, and I'm watching this, and I'm going, oh God, that's funny. And then sometime during the first season, he did the amphitheater up at Universal, and we all went to see that. And it was like a different person on stage. It was really interesting to watch. It was Tim, but he was in a suit and his persona was just way more professionally funny or whatever. So, at that point, I didn't know. I knew he was the reason that the show happened. But I hadn't thought about it in those terms. I was still just glad to be there. I was having a great time. I trying to be helpful, trying to be funny. Don't upstage, but still get your laughs.
Steve Kmetko
Yep. What was it like, do you remember working with Pamela Anderson?
Richard Karn
Pam was so pretty without makeup. That was the, what astonished me was the first time we went out to some event, and she shows up in this, like, this makeup. And I go, what are you doing? She goes, well, this is what I, this is what I do. You know, this is what sells. And I go, God, you're so pretty without all that makeup. She goes, well, and she's from a little town that I grew up, we were, my grandfather had a boat, and we would go up into the Canadian San Juan’s from out of Seattle, and we'd go up the Inland Sea. And she lived in a little town that had a dock and maybe a post office and a grocery store. It was on Vancouver Island. Lady Smith.
She was very chatty. I remember she came up to me one day and she goes I don't think I'm going to do any more layouts for Hef. And I go good, good for you. I don't think you need to anymore. I mean, you're doing this. You're fine now. And she goes and then literally a week later she goes, well, I'm going to do another layout for he, I go, why? She says, well, he's got these other pictures and I don't like them, and he is going to use them if I don't do this. And I went, okay. And it seemed like one of those Hollywood movies where it's just, oh, I'm so sorry.
Steve Kmetko
She's doing a phase. She's going through a phase now. I've seen quite a few pictures of her where she's going out without any makeup on?
Richard Karn
And she should have done it 30 years ago, but now she still looks fine. She still looks great.
Steve Kmetko
But if you're used to her the other way, she looks different.
Richard Karn
Yeah. But for a while. I mean, there's a and then you get used to it.
Steve Kmetko
Did you know how big a star she'd become? Her life became not her own and for a while there.
Richard Karn
Well, not that she was stifled as the tool time girl, but there wasn't a lot that was going to happen for her. I didn't think they were going to take a storyline. But she wanted to be Pambo. She goes, I think this character can do, this and that. And I think that's maybe where Barb Wire came from. You know, she wanted to be a superhero in a sense.
Steve Kmetko
I was at the Cannes Film Festival the year they were marketing Barbed Wire, and she came dressed in. Yeah. It was like, oh my God, look at her. You know?
Richard Karn
Yeah. But she was lovely. She was really great and
Steve Kmetko
Very sweet. How about Jonathan Taylor Thomas?
Richard Karn
The boys were nine and seven. The two boys were the older or the youngest one was seven who turns out to be the tallest, obviously. Because his dad was tall. But Jonathan just knew how to tell a joke. He was like this old soul. And I would watch that and I go, oh, wow. The writers, they want their jokes to work so we'll give Jonathan the ones that have payoffs and the other kids struggled for a little bit to get something,
Steve Kmetko
Timing.
Richard Karn
To get timing. Yeah. Because they're nine. And Jonathan came out of the box at 30 but also, he was cute and adorable. And I feel like young child actors have this weird sense of growing up. Their egos and IDs are being developed at that age. And if they can afford to buy their parents a house. There's a weird a balance weird thing. You know, if you can find that balance.
Steve Kmetko
Would you tell me that story again about golfing with Bob Hope and Gerald Ford and what happened afterwards? That was, it's a great story.
Richard Karn
Oh God, that was so great. So fabulous. Well, the first time I got invited to the Bob Hope I couldn't go because we were working, it was in January, and that was one of the weeks we were working. And then the next year, I asked them, can we take this week off? Because we would do two weeks on, or three weeks on, two weeks off, week off. And they go, yeah. And so I was able to do the Pop Hope and I was very excited because this is like a cool golf event. And my sister up in Seattle, she calls up and goes, Rick, I understand you're playing with Bob Hope. And I go, no, no, I'm playing in the Bob Hope, which is very cool. I want you to know this. It's very cool.
But I don't think I'm playing with Bob Hope. And I get up there and I go, so who am I playing with? You're in Mr. Hope's foursome. And I go, oh God. Now I got to tell my sister. She was Right. And Gerald Ford and the president. Yes. Gerald Ford. And your first, you have four Pro Pros. The first day will be Kenny Perry, which was the winner from last year. The second day is Tom Kite. The third day is Arnold Palmer. And the fourth day is Fuzzy Zeller. And it was like a fantasy golf camp every day.
And I brought my dad and my father-in-Law, and we're walking down the fairway with my dad and Arnold Palmer and my dad's, he's a builder. He is a contractor from Seattle, Washington. And he looks at me and he goes, I never in my wildest dreams would I think I would be walking down a fairway with Arnold Palmer and the president. Stick with me, kid.
Steve Kmetko
And you're fond of golf to begin with.
Richard Karn
I am. Which all came out of that Hope Summer rep back in Michigan, because I worked with an actor whose wife was a big star in soap operas, Kim Zimmer and AC Weary came into direct matchmaker. I was doing the straight version of Hello Dolly,
Steve Kmetko
Thornton Wilder.
Richard Karn
Thornton Wilder's the Matchmaker. And he said, yeah, we get in invited to these golf tournaments and they give you golf clubs and shoes. And I go, oh God, wouldn't that be great? You know, and this is 10 years before any of this is happening. And I go like, yeah, that sounds fun. And so, we started playing golf and you have to pay attention to get any better at golf and put in some time. And I did, I put in the time.
Steve Kmetko
And on a golf course, just the four of you, you tend to talk to people.
Richard Karn
Yes.
Steve Kmetko
Gerald Ford invited you to the White House.
Richard Karn
Well, not to the White House. But I get a letter the week later from Mr. Ford saying, dear Rich Betty, and I would love to host you if you come into the desert anytime. And I went, wow, that's really nice of him. And a week later I get another letter saying, dear Rick, and my secretary tells me, you don't go by Rich. And I have those, both of those letters tucked away somewhere.
Steve Kmetko
I'd frame them.
Richard Karn
I really should put it on my wall of shame or fame or whatever we're going to call it. But it was really fun. And his son was on his bag, so his son was his caddy. And actually, his detail, his secret service guys called me up later and wanted to play at Lakeside. And I played with them like a year later or whatever.
Steve Kmetko
That's great. That's a great story.
Richard Karn
I know I had my own golf tournament for 18 years because I was going to other people's charity events. I thought, well, I should do something up in Seattle for the hospital that my mom had her cancer treatments with. So, I did the Fred Hutch and the Overlake Hospital not knowing that you don't pair a large hospital with a small hospital and then split it 50-50. But that's what I did. I said, that's what I want to do. And there was some growing pains there, but we worked it out. You know, they understood that I was bringing them something that they didn't have in their usual fundraising.
Steve Kmetko
Live and learn world.
Richard Karn
But I had Sam Jackson there for seven years. I had bill Gates and I put him with Meatloaf and Sam Jackson, and they had a great time. And then Chris McDonald's shows up. He doesn't have shoes. He doesn't know even know how to play golf. And we teach him, and we give him all this stuff, and then he ends up being Shooter McGavin, how many years later.
Steve Kmetko
Wow.
Richard Karn
That was fun. That was a lot of fun. And we raised a lot of money for the charities.
Steve Kmetko
Mr. Karn, thank you very much. I've enjoyed this.
Richard Karn
This was lovely.
Steve Kmetko
I appreciate it.
Richard Karn
If all interviews were just this kind of a conversation.
Steve Kmetko
That's what I like, that's how I like to doom.
Richard Karn
That's how you got that Emmy over.
Steve Kmetko
Those aren't mine. Those are both his.
Richard Karn
Oh, there's more.
Steve Kmetko
There's more. He's being modest.
Richard Karn
Well, okay. I'll have to go and check out the bathroom but thank you for having me on your show.
Steve Kmetko
Probably holding a door open.
Richard Karn
Yeah. Well, what else do you do with them? You hold grapefruits.
Steve Kmetko
Where did I think I saw Olivia Coleman on the Gram Norton show talking about how she used her Oscar to hold open the bathroom door to prop it open. I don't think I'd do that with an Oscar, but who knows?
Richard Karn
Well, if it's heavy enough.
Steve Kmetko
Well, this was fun. Thank you very much.
Steve Kmetko
Alright.