Clip Shows
What can we say? We helped define the concept of the clip show. It started when HBO ordered “Monsters, Madmen & Machines”, which was all about the history of science fiction in the movies. At the time, nobody was doing these types of shows and the major movie studios didn’t even know that their old films had any relevance. (Sadly, they learned fast.) The show was so successful that HBO immediately started ordering more. We did “John Wayne: The Duke Lives on”, then “Tracy & Hepburn”, then “Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance”, which was the history of the movie musical, then “Henry Fonda: The Man and His Movies”. From that we did a series called Screen Legends, both for HBO and Cinemax, where we got to meet and work with some incredible legends, including Jimmy Cagney and James Stewart.
From there it seemed as if everyone wanted to get into the act. We did clip shows for NBC (“Abbott & Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld”, “Bob Hope: Laughing with the Presidents”), CBS (“Jackie Gleason: The Great One”, “Brady Bunch Home Movies”), ABC (“Fifty Years of Funny Females”, “The Three Stooges Greatest Hits”), Disney Channel (“Martin & Lewis”, “Jerry Lewis: Total Filmmaker”) ESPN (“Football Goes to the Movies”), TBS (“Hollywood’s Amazing Animal Actors”), even Lifetime (“How A Gentleman Should Treat A Lady”).
It was a great run, and if clips from movies didn’t become so darned expensive, we would still be doing them.