SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Beat the Prosecution, presented by Northern Virginia criminal defense and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz, where we are here to regularly present you information and ideas for beating your prosecution as best as possible. Nothing on any of our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or for individuals who have paid for a consultation. And now for your host, John Katz.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Hello, everybody. This is John Katz, a criminal I'm a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer in Northern Virginia. This is Beat the Prosecution. I have an amazing guest today. He goes by Herbie J. His name is Herbie J. Pallado. Not to slight him, I wanted to actually reach the creators of the Kung Fu TV series from the 1970s with David Carradine when I found out that they're still alive. Those guys are Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander. But to our fortune, when I couldn't figure out how to reach them, I got, I'm not even going to say the next best thing, I got a great thing. This is uh Herbie J. He's not only a chronicler of uh Kung Fu, he is a chronicler of a bunch of popular TV. He is an actor, he is many things. Herbie, please introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Well, thank you so much for that massively wonderful uh introduction. Um yeah, I started out as an actor. I'm from Rochester, New York. I feel like I'm in the dating game. Started out in Rochester, New York, and uh moved to Los Angeles initially in the 70s, went back and forth uh between the 70s and 2008, and I formally moved back here in 2008, started writing, um, and had my first book published actually in 1992. My first big book, Twitch Upon a Star, Elizabeth Montgomery, uh, that was published in 2012. I did live events and with classic TV stars at Barnes and Noble, and then I have my own TV show, and I've done other books and other documentaries, and now I'm getting back into acting, which is what I originally came to LA to do in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

That's a lot of energy and a lot of activity, and I'm gonna tell you why I have Herbe on, and those who watch the show know why. Well, Kung Fu, uh, that's not really, in my view, a specific martial art because Kung Fu Pai comes from Gung Fu, G-U-N-G, uh, next word fu, which is accomplishment. And so when I saw the pilot to the Kung Fu TV series, it was either in 1971 or 72 when I was nine or ten years old. Uh, this was almost life-changing. I was mesmerized because I had grown up thus far. Uh, I had my share of fist fights in grade school because about the worst that comes out of that is you maybe get a black eye for a day or two. Uh, but this taught me about not using brute force in fighting in life and arguing. I'm gonna say that I was maybe a slow learner, uh, but this was the start of it. And so with that, several years later, I started learning how to do Korean karate and uh in college. And before that, there was a man named David Ritchie at my uh summer camp, and one day he taught us all uh some judo moves. And then finally I found Tai Chi Chuan, which is an internal martial art, which works better than anything for me, because that's coming from the power of zero. That's fighting from the power of zero, no boot force at all, using no more than four ounces of force uh to do anything that you set out to do, whether it's verbal, whether it's physical, uh, whether it's anything else. And so there was almost this uh inconsistency between learning from David Carradine on Sunday nights uh doing kung fu and then uh going to school uh during the day and not applying what he had shown and often being obnoxious and and and using brute force. Uh but finally I learned it. And uh this this show and a lot of lessons in the show have had such a big effect on me, and some people might say, was this uh Eastern culture and ideas light? No, it wasn't. Uh you know, let's remember or or let's think about this that several years before that, in the 1960s, Chiang Man Chang, who was one of the greatest uh Tai Chi teachers and practitioners of all time in the 1960s came to Chinatown in New York from Taiwan to uh include teaching the non-Chinese people Tai Chi to the point that when he accepted uh Westerners in there, his uh Chinese benefactors closed down the sh the shop, the the uh Tai Chi studio, and he had to find somewhere else to do that. And uh, you know, as I look back on this, I'm wondering how on earth uh could a show like this ever have taken off? And you know, like I think uh Herbie has said, uh Nixon went to China and there was this uh increased interest in East Asia and went from there. So, Herbie, among the things I'm interested in knowing from you is to what extent have you been involved with martial arts, and to what extent have you had more than that one meeting I know about between you and David Carradine, and and how much time have you spent with uh uh Art Spielman and uh and Howard Friedlander, the creators of the Kung Fu TV show?

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah, Ed Spielmann. Ed Spielman, yes. Well, as a as a kid, I mean, I've always been, I mean, I was raised uh and born a Catholic, and I was always very spiritual. I always respected all religions. Um I believe God comes to us as we believe God to be. So when I saw Kung Fu, I had also I was always interested in dancing. My father was a great dancer, and he, if anybody could have been a movie star, it was my my dad. So it was uh seeing Kung Fu and see and karate and whatnot, it was like a natural outgrowth in a way of dance. Um it was uh related very much to dance. As a matter of fact, David Careding was a dancer, and that's one of the reasons why he got the part. Um, but there I've always been philosophical, and when I saw that show, I'm like, what just like the rest of us, what the heck is this? Where did this come from? So it was really just amazing, and it really it was a script that was initially written by Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander in the 1960s. It was envisioned originally as a feature film. And then uh martial arts, for whatever reason, was coming into uh, and it didn't work in the 60s, but martial arts was coming into the the social pop culture consciousness. And somebody at Warner Brothers says, hey, what was that script about that Asian, uh, you know, Western thing? And they looked, they took it, they said, let's put it on TV. It would ended up being a backdoor pilot for a series, and it became monthly, which I believe it was on Sundays originally, but then it moved to a weekly ABC in 1974, January 74. And it it just changed so much about television. It it changed the western, the way it was the cinematography was more muted before you had the big MGM, you know, color westerns where everything was so bright and whatnot. And you know, Clint Eastwood, years, decades later did Unforgiven in a very similar way, but but uh Kung Fu was the first to do it cinematically like that with the muted colors, among so many other things first.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Do you have a dancing background? Do you have a martial arts background?

SPEAKER_02 7:50

I I do not. I would I kung fu fighting. Everybody was kung fu. That was my martial arts background. And my father tried to teach, bring me to a karate class, but it ended up being in, I don't know, the seedy part of town, and it was in the basement. And I'm like, hmm, this isn't like TV. And it kind of scared me a little bit. But I never had a dance class either, and I was a natural um for that. So it was just uh it was just I I just inherently somehow was attracted to Kung Fu.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

And how much time had you spent with David Carradine and with uh Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Well, I spent, let's see, hours, hours and hours and hours on the phone with David. When I interviewed him when he was doing Kung Fu The Legend Continues, which was the syndicated sequel to the original series, uh, you know, which was okay, but it wasn't like the original. Um, and hours and hours and hours, and then years later, when I was working as a producer for um Bravo, we were doing a documentary on classic TV characters, the hundred greatest TV characters of all time. That's when I actually got to meet David in person and went to his house to pick him up and drove him down to the studio. And I mean, I'll never forget it, John. He got in my car and it was a little white malibu, and all of a sudden he whipped out his flute that he used that he played as cane on kung fu. And here's David Carrot, and I'm driving driving down Ventura Boulevard, you know, in Studio City or wherever the heck it was, and with David Carriden in the car playing his flute. And he knew he knew he was freaking me out. And that was the bamboo flute, the b it was the exact bamboo flute from the original series that he was using uh in the in the later series, and that he brought to that interview that day. It was it was just amazing. It was just amazing.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

I have to interrupt because usually by now I have offered my guests a chance to tell their URL and any other initial plug, and you'll be able to do that at the end too. So why don't we uh interrupt for that? What's your website or websites? What's your initial plug?

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yes, it's uh uh herbiejpilato.com. You can order any one of my books, whether it's uh Elizabeth Montgomery, uh Twitch Upon a Star, The Essential Elizabeth Montgomery, or my Christmas books, which I'm very excited about. I have Christmas TV Memories, um, which talks about all the classic TV specials from the 60s and 70s. And Marlo Thomas wrote the foreword. I was so honored to have her do that. She did the TV remake of uh uh It's a Wonderful Life, which uh she recalled uh It Happened One Christmas. And then I wrote another Christmas book, actually, the what this one was before, about the 12 best secrets of Christmas, which is about my particular memories of of growing up in Rochester at Christmas time. And I've universalized the the story of Christmas for everyone, for all religions, uh again, as I said earlier, because I do believe that you know love is God, really, and God is love, and and that's how I feel about that. So, yeah, I've got so many different books, and I'm so blessed to have really met everybody I've ever loved and admired from afar. And um, I just try to um I try to be cane, really. You know, I try to make sure that I do everything I'm supposed to do in this world before I leave this world and to bring a little light, hopefully, along the way. So, and I have a book signing in Fullerton on Fullerton, California, October 25th at the Barnes and Noble Fullerton. Um, I've got a TV, or excuse me, a live event coming up in um Hollywood at the um Stella Adler Theater. That's a Christmas show there. Um and I have, of course, my TV show, which I'm very, very proud of. Then again with Herbie J. Pilato, which is a classic TV talk show, which is available on Amazon Prime.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

And uh and to be on Amazon Prime, okay. And Palato is spelled P-I-L-A-T-O.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Yes, Herbie J Pilato, P-I-L-A-T-O. You can find me at Facebook, Instagram, um, X, LinkedIn. I'm all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

So you and I are pretty much contemporaries. You seem to be born around 1961 or so, and I'm I'm born 1963. Um I when you talk about Christmas specials, did you include or exclude the King family?

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Oh my gosh, it's uh it's necessary. It's a given. As a matter of fact, Tina Cole is from the King family, who is also seen as uh Katie Douglas on My Three Sons, the the wife of Don Grady on that show. Um, she's gonna be in my Christmas live event in December, along with Mark Capage from Julia, the little boy, uh Diane Carroll's uh son on Julia. So I'm very excited about that. Yes, of course, King family given.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Well, there was the other King Family from Saturday Night Live with Eddie Murphy that I liked, which was a bunch of Don Kings. And I guess you don't have that one in there.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Oh my gosh, I completely forgot about that. I completely forgot about that.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

So did your acting career start before or after you became a page at NBC?

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Well, I always acted in school plays. I was like Judas in um The Last Supper. I had one line was somebody took my, so another disciple took my chair at the at the Last Supper and I said, get up. That's my chair. That was it. And then I did Santa Claus in um Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer. And then I did plays in college. And then when I came to LA initially in the 80s, I was on the pilot for Highway to Heaven. I was an extra on General Hospital, The Bold and the Beautiful, The Golden Girls. And then I had written a reunion movie for Bewitched. And because IG Movini did a reunion movie, and that upset me because I. But I struggled a long time. I struggled a long time.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

That's something. I I really like it when my guests really open up uh like that. And I think it really helps uh people know that you know life's not always all a bed of roses for people who are all in Hollywood or anywhere else or who are doing well now. They they may have had some uh bumps or more along the way.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

No, I had bumps. I had bumps, but I and I and I just kept my vision, you know. I really didn't really listen to anyone who said I couldn't do it. As a matter of fact, when anyone ever tells me I can't do something, it only makes me want to do it more. Right, you know, but I've always stayed positive. I had beautiful, beautiful parents. I had a beautiful family. Both my mother and father had 10 brothers and sisters each. So every night was a party at our house because our house was the hub. Cousins and aunts and uncles, it was it was gorgeous. And I talk all about that in my 12 best secrets of Christmas book. Um, so if I didn't have that foundation, you know, I I don't know if I would have been strong enough to to deal with the struggles of what Hollywood initially presented. And shows like Bewitched and Kung Fu and The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, I did the Bionic Book, they all spoke about to me prejudice. Yes, you know, and and how we have to look beyond our differences and and focus on what makes us the same. And um I mean, I I was beat up as a kid, I was bullied as a kid. So I was I gravitated toward escapism TV. So that was another thing, you know, that got me interested in bewitched and kung fu and uh and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

So uh I didn't know that about you. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah, there was a lot.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

There was a lot going on. Understood. Before I start talking about the that uh uh that prejudice uh theme that runs through uh being dealt with in some of those TV shows. How much time have you spent with uh Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander?

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Well, Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander, first of all, two of the sweetest guys on the planet. I have uh become very close with Ed. As a matter of fact, I just had a big 65th birthday bash um in a Burbank at the castaway, and it was gorgeous that all these great, wonderful friends of mine and classic TV celebs were there, including Ed Spielman. And he actually gave one of the nicest surprise speeches I've ever heard, and he just was so nice to me and uh mentioning and uh it's kung fu and how I was the the one true voice and chronicler of the show. Uh so yes, I've Ed I've been friends with forever since I originally interviewed him in in 1991.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Got it. Okay, so you interviewed him in 1991. And my first time going to East Asia was in 1986 on business. I was working with the uh then named Irving Trust Company as a financial auditor before going to law school. And when I landed in uh Hong Kong and then in Japan, I said, I am home. I really felt that way. And then I've been to East Asia five times. I do want to ask you, so what I've found out so far is that is my decent correct that Ed was the main one who came up with this idea of the of the Kung Fu story, and uh and and Howard came up with this idea perhaps of making it into a Western, and that Ed had studied something or something about the East, but what I'm curious about and haven't learned yet, though, I don't think it was just fortune cookie ideas, even though I heard heard that description. It was deeper than that. So, where did it all come from? Because it wasn't just Ed and Howard doing the writing, right? There were other writers. How much were they just relying on the Tao Ta Qing or the Confucian analyds? And what else were they getting these ideas from?

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Okay, well, first of all, I do want to clarify it definitely was Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander who wrote and created Kung Fu in the 1960s. As I mentioned earlier, it was originally envisioned as a feature film. In 1972, it was brought to television, and there's been this confusion about Bruce Lee creating kung fu and whatnot. That is not true. Bruce Lee did not create kung fu. Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander created kung fu. Bruce Lee came up with a similar idea that he was trying to market, and he had also auditioned for kung fu to play Kane. He did not get the part because he was too rough for the role. He was too rough exterior, and they needed a calmer presence. Also, too, the character of Kane was always half Asian and half American. So he was Eurasian, so ultimately. And so that's why David Carradine uh was cast in the role. The other thing that I want to clarify is that um Kung Fu did more for the Asian American actors. And Guy Lee explained this to me, who was Asian American. He was the casting director of that show. He's the one that said that Kung Fu did more for Asian American actors as far as non-stereotypical roles than any other TV show or movie at that time. So it's really, really important for me to have said that and to clarify all of that. And it was because of Bruce Lee's rejection of not getting the role of Quai Chen King that he went back to his homeland in China and became a martial arts superstar. Okay, so had he not been rejected, he would have not been that amazing human being who he became.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Right. So where did all the ideas of of Ed, uh Howard and the other uh writers come from? I must be reading the Tao and Confucius.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Right. It was the uh the seven samurai feature film. Ed Spielman was a fan of that film. So somehow through his studies and through the the studies that he did of Asian American culture and of all cultures, it just came into he always knew he wanted to create this type of uh this type of sh of uh of uh of concept. And then like you said, Howard made it a Western and it was a perfect, what do they call it, perfect storm, perfect not storm, whatever, of everything coming together at the right moment.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Well, to what extent did uh Ed and Howard go to East Asia? And of course, uh mainland China would have been closed to them while they were uh uh making these shows and coming up with the idea of the movie.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

You know, I don't know. I I I I mean Ed might have said that and we might have talked about it, but I I don't recall that. I don't recall his travels. And forgive me if he did. And if he did tell me, and I don't know. But uh I don't know. I'm um he may have, but I don't recall that.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Were okay. Were they both based in New York City at some point? Were they just doing a Chinatown in Manhattan?

SPEAKER_02 22:20

No, they're both in uh no, they're both in New York. Uh yes, they were both, they were both in New York. As a matter of fact, Ed was a page, an NBC page, and I was a page as well, you know, decades apart. But that was another bond that we had.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

And to what extent did they have a bevy of uh of advisors for the show, or were they just relying more on seven samurai and just whatever they knew in their own uh imagination?

SPEAKER_02 22:47

It was their I all I can think of is that it was their personal interest in um Asian thought and culture, the fascination with it, that they just wanted to make sure they got everything right. Now, when the show became a series, that was a different story. You know, then you you had other people come in who created, you know, the the cinematography, the slow motion of wherever uh Kung Fu or whenever Kane did Kung Fu. Um, you know, that was Jerry Thorpe. But Jerry Thorpe at one point also was talking about how he created Kung Fu, and that wasn't true. So that was all taken care of uh, you know, legally from a legal standpoint. Um, so Jerry Thorpe helped definitely with the series and the cinematic style and um and and whatnot. But and there were certainly um other writers who were brought in, story editors uh uh who were who joined the series later on, um, who actually wrote for the show and and the episodes. But Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander set up the film, and and the idea of having Kane search for his long-lost half-brother, that happened when the show became a series. And that be someone had said, well, he needs to search for something as well as run from something, because he was this fugitive monk from China who you know who did this horrific thing and went against everything he was taught his whole life. He murdered you know the emperor's nephew. So his favorite Master Khan, played by the great key Luke, told him to flee to America. So when that, when the show became a series, it's like, okay, so he's running from something. It was a fugitive monk, really, a fugitive monk with an eastern western twist. So he's running from something, but one of the writers uh believed that they needed to have him, you know, search for something as he's running for something. And that's what ultimately happened. He ended up looking for his brother. And he found him in the in the last episode. And not many shows get to have a finale uh at that time. I mean, today it's a big deal. There's something that you have a show ends, oh yeah, we got to have a finale, we've got to have a final episode. Kung Fu did that like a four-part, I think it was four-part uh episodes that ended the series, and he finally found his brother, and yada yada yada.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

About how many writers were there in total for all the episodes? And where did the writers get their ideas, or was it more that uh that art, uh sorry, that Ed and Howard were were uh sketching out the stories and just letting the writers uh finish up the scripts?

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Well, with every good show, with every well-written show, there's a Bible. And meaning a Bible is written that explains each character, um, what each character would do, how they are, what their history is, what are the uh the precepts for each, what each episode should be about, what Cain is about. So that's what happened. So um the producers of the show, Jerry Thorpe, would gather writers and say, Okay, look, it here's uh here's the idea, here's the Bible, come back with a couple stories of what you think you could write about. So they'd come in with 10 episode ideas, and maybe five or two or one were chosen, and then they were saying, okay, and then the producer Jerry Thorpe or whoever would say, Okay, go ahead, write the script, and thank you very much. So that's you know how it was. It was a well-crafted show from the get-go, because whatever because whatever happened in that world, you know, made sense within that world, just like any good show, any well-written show. It you know, the the audience will believe anything as long as you make it make sense for them. You know, it's yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Well, well, the pilot especially has benefited me the most as a person and as a criminal defense lawyer, starting with the response to racism by not responding to the racism in the saloon where the bigot is saying, Hey, Chinaman, and and and first uh Kane holds up his beer mug to the racists, and then he easily kicks the uh chair away, and then he easily kicks the uh uh the knife away into the roof. And uh so one of my previous guests, so all my three previous martial arts guests have weighed in with uh questions and ideas that I'm gonna intersperse here. And this is an actual part for William, uh William C. Phillips, Bill Phillips, one of the uh uh most junior students permitted to uh teach, given permission to teach by Chiang Man Chang, who said cle said his interest in the show was not the martial part, it was the teachings. And one of the cool things for him was that clearly the Kane character could have uh won over uh any character, any opponent, usually with just one hit rather than multiples, but he was trying to limit the amount of force he was using. And uh that came out clearly in the saloon scene, and I think it wasn't it in the pilot where there was the flashback with Master Khan played by Philip. What was his uh what was his last name? Philip Khan. A Korean American man. Yes, and my wife is uh Korean American, and wasn't that the one where in the flashback he said along the lines of observe. I mean, it's this is so tai chi, observe the ways of nature, avoid before you check, check before you hurt, hurt before you maim, maim before you kill. And this is how I approach it with martial arts. This is the way I approach it in court. You know, if a client's saying to me, you're not being mean enough to the cop or the prosecutor, I say, Do you want to win or do you want to leave losing saying we've been mean? So we can keep the uh atom bombs in the in the pocket unless you really need them. If if I can uh just get the opponent to uh admit what I want him to admit with a threat of a thumbtack rather than a jackknife, that's fine by me.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

That is amazing on so many levels, and I'll I'll explain why I think that's amazing. It's about inner strength, and it's about not doing. I mean, you look at martial arts movies today, it's chop, chop, chop every two seconds. Boom, boom, boom. Everybody's there's all this action. If I can relate this to Bewitched, Samantha had the twitch, she had the superpower, that was her superpower. Stephen Jamie on the $6 million man and the Bionic Woman, they had their superpowers. Kane had his martial arts as a superpower, but none of them would bring out the big guns until the final moment, until they absolutely had to. They would always try first to deal with um a conflict with their humor or their wit or their intelligence. Before, when push came to shove and it was clear that there was this villain who was just not going to go away. Okay, Kane had no choice. He'd chop up, you know, he'd he'd kung fu them. That's all there's to it. Samantha, too. If she would meet somebody who was obnoxious or in her way, she would try to, you know, just stay calm. There was a precept, too, that Darren didn't want her to use the magic, but that's a whole other thing. Um, so she would not twitch until the last minute, until the audience wanted her to. Right. You know, and Bill Asher, the producer director of Bewitched, and then married to Elizabeth Montgomery, explained it like this. Because Elizabeth was even like, why am I not twitching this person? He's uh he's a horrible person or he's obnoxious. And Bill Asher told her, No, you you don't twitch until the audience wants you to twitch. You're shamed of the of the Great Western. You don't bring out the big guns until the audience wants you to. So magic. And it was something the twitch, Kane's kung fu, Jamie and Steve's bionics, it became something the audience was looking forward to. And you know, and anticipating. That's like today with the vulgarity and the violence just is so pervasive in movies and TV shows, they're they don't get it. If if you wait until the last minute to hit somebody who deserves to be hit in that context, okay. But if you're always saying the F-word and this and that and being vulgar, it desensitizes, not only does it desensitize the audience, it it ruins the dramatic impact of what that horrible F-word could mean in a fit of anger. It would stand out and be more understanding instead of just F this, F that. It's just unnecessary. And in the era of kung fu and Bewitched and all those wonderful classic TV shows, there was an elegance to the writing that you just do not see anymore. There's no charm, there's no likability.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I love what you said about the audience giving permission because when we deal with juries, for instance, and judges with non-jury trials, if uh if the criminal defensor uh hits on the expert witness, for instance, the prosecutor's expert witness, or the cop who is intentionally hiding the ball, so it seems uh the jury might punish the criminal defensor by finding the defendant guilty or by recommending a worse sentence if the jury is involved with the sentencing, whereas if the lawyer is reading the jury and trying not to use any more force than necessary, all the best. Wow. Now I did say that I would loop this in uh to what you were talking about with this whole thing about prejudice. Yeah, that that's a great theme that you have about how uh Samantha and Bewitched, she was the other, she was a witch, and uh Bionic Man, a woman, part human, part uh machine. Uh life goes on. I mean, that was amazing. Having someone with Down syndrome on a series where it wasn't even being highlighted in the show that he had Down syndrome. Uh Kung Fu, was there another one or two shows that I'm missing that you've uh well Kane certainly was an Asian in a Western world.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Uh Samantha was a witch in a mortal world. Uh Steve and Jamie were these, you know, uh cyborgs in a human world. And Corky on down um on life goes on, played by the great Chris Burke, who had Down syndrome in real life. He had a disability, but all the the great thing about each of those shows is that Corky didn't have Down syndrome, he was a young man who happened to have Down syndrome. Samantha wasn't a witch, she was a um a female who happened to be a witch. You know, Cain wasn't uh defined by uh really being half American or half Asian. He happened to be that. These characters were written as human beings first, right? They were defined by their humanity, um, not by their culture, right? You know, or the color of their skin or whatnot. So that's that it was the humans, you see, it's the human element that makes these shows so wonderful. Uh the character development that you again, I don't mean because there's so much talent out there today on the screen and behind the screen, but everything is so dark and edgy, and the performances are so everybody mumbles. I can't understand what they're saying. You know what I mean? Would you please open your mouth and go to addiction class? So it's it's a lost art, you know, classic television and those wonderful shows. I think it's coming back. You know, I just always use this as an example. I was in Barnes and Noble one day, and for one of my book signings or whatnot, and this little girl, I was in the uh where the DVDs are, and this little girl came running up to her mom with like a bewitched Blu-ray in her hand, you know, and which by the way I produced, and that's also now available. Um, and she's like, Mom, look, bewitched, and I went, Wow, 12 years old, and she knows bewitched, you know. That's great. So something is going on. If you're flipping through the channels, and all you see is vulgarity, violence, sex, blah, blah, blah, dark, people not talking, can't understand what they're saying. And then you see that girl, right, with that amazing charm of Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessel on that beautiful show. You're like, wow, look, you stop at that. Right. So I think it's coming back around because I think people are really getting tired of all the um edginess. Of course, you want to be modern, of course, you want to have a contemporary edge, but not every second. And God forbid you have a happy ending.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Now an interesting one is, you know, when you're talking about, you know, all these people, you know, Samantha the Bionics and everything being uh, you know, universal characters. So the interesting thing about Mr. Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, is he was clearly playing the Klingon, but I love the martial arts aspect with him where he could just disable a person by that pinch or whatever. I forget what you called it, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:44

He wasn't a Klingon, he was a Vulcan.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Vulcan, yeah, he was a Vulcan. It's been a long day. Thank you. A Vulcan neck pinch. Yes. There you go. And he once said when someone said to him, 'Well, how'd he do that?' He said, 'I've tried to teach you before, they just didn't have the patience to learn.' Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so I understand the reason for choosing Bruce uh David Carradine over Bruce Lee. That I don't have a problem with. Here are my lingers, lingering concerns, though. How did that justify having Romanes uh what was his last name?

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Perhaps Rodimus Para.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Right. Well, how did that justify him being in the flashbacks is the child Kane if he didn't have an Asian background, or did he? And how did that justify having David Carradine's brother is the teenage Cain? Uh when he I don't think he had any Asian background. And how did that justify putting Asian-looking makeup on David Carradine?

SPEAKER_02 37:45

Well, he he didn't really, I mean, the only Asian makeup he had was the bald head, really. There was no, and that was not that was an Asian makeup.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Okay, so here's he didn't have eye makeup?

SPEAKER_02 37:56

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Then I stand corrected. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

No, he did not. So here's the thing 1972. I mean, the the one of the most popular then Asian American actors was Hop Singh on Bonanza, okay, by that time. And that was stereotypical, okay? And Asian actors, Asian American actors were all over the place in supporting roles, mostly in subservient roles, unfortunately. Um there were you know a couple great films that I, of course, uh, the names are escaping me at this point, where the Asians were just as they happened to be Asian. They were people who happened to be Asian. So you were America was at this crossroads, okay? The the truth of the matter is that an Asian actor lead in a leading starring role would not have been acceptable, at least in the mindset of executives. Okay. So they said, okay, we will surround this character with Asian American actors, and we will make sure that Asian American actors are presented with respect and not stereotypical, but they were a little leery. They did not think that a leading character uh could be uh played by an Asian actor. And whether that was true or not, that was their thinking. They wanted to make sure. So I happen to agree with that. I don't know if not only was Bruce Lee too tough, but I think he might have been too Asian for the leading role in the mindset of what America would have accepted. It was like, what if they hired Samantha, a real witch to play Samantha, instead of Elizabeth Montgomery? That would have been a little much, you know. So that in general was the thinking. So, but it was because of David Carradine being cast that the show became a hit, and then every other Asian America American associated with the show found success. And that show, and I will say it till the day I leave this world, that show did more for Asian American actors than any other TV show or movie of its time.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Okay, I understand all that, but how does that explain not having an Asian or uh or uh or biracial Asian person in the flashbacks of Kane as a as a child and as a teenager?

SPEAKER_02 40:34

They had the same the for the same reasoning. Rodimus Praud looked Asian, just like David Carradine looked Asian, and he was still more acceptable in the mainstream view across America, okay, at the time. At least that was the thinking. He had other Asian American friends who were played by Asian American young actors in supporting roles, but again, that was a leading role. That was a leading starring role that the networks did not feel comfortable with at the time.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Where did the idea come from for doing the flashbacks? Did that relate to the Shane show? Because I tried to look that up. Number one, where did the scene come from in the pilot with getting the uh you know the dragon on both arms by lifting up the uh uh the the cauldron?

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Yeah, that that was a from what I understand, from what Ed told me, it was a lot more that final test that Kane needed to take before leaving the temple, it was a lot more violent and more uh extensive in the in the original feature film script. So they had to uh tone it down a little bit. You know, the way the dragon uh or whatnot, that was, you know, the dragon is the whole Asian American martial art representative thing. So, you know, it was it was part of the culture. It was part of the culture. What was the other question?

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Where did the idea for the flashbacks come from? And and also and also the scenery in the flashbacks, which was often very amazing, especially in the pilot.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

It was it was the mood. Uh again, I wouldn't I'm gonna credit that with uh Jerry Thorpe. I mean, that's that's what he brought to the series. Um, but I had another thought about oh yeah, the Shane, I like the whole Shane Kane thing because David Carradine, this is really freaky. David Carradine did his first series, was called Shane, S H A-N-E, which, by the way, was the TV adaption, adaptation of the Western feature film that I had just talked about a little bit ago. Shane starring um uh what the heck was that guy's name? Uh uh Alan Ladd. Alan Ladd was Shane in the movie, and David Carradine played Shane in the TV adaptation of it, was short-lived, and then he would go on to play Kane in Kung Fu. But when he was playing Shane, there were flashback sequences not only in Shane, but with Key Luke. Key Luke, who would go on to play Master Poe in Kung Fu, actually did a similar scene with David Carradine on Shane five, six years, seven years before Kung Fu. I don't have an explanation for that.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

It was on who was the idea to have flashbacks in a TV show of that depth and and breadth.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

That was um they kinda explored that sort of kind of with um unique um sequences like on Court Chaavetti's father, which was a drama. I watched it was one of the you know first dramedies. So ABC was a young network and it was doing very different things than the other networks, certainly than NBC or CBS, but more so than NBC. NBC was the first network that has showed color episodes or with bonanza or color shows. And CBS had, you know, the palies behind it, of course. But ABC was like the Fox then of its uh the Fox Network of its day when Fox Network came along and became like the fourth network. So it was more innovative, and they were younger executives and they were looking for new and different ways to do things. I mean, the ABC was the first one to come up with the Tuesday movie of the week, which was really kind of like Playhouse 90 of the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

What like Columbo, etc.?

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Columbo was NBC. Okay, I um, which you know, Columbo McMillan and wife McUh McLeod, I loved all those shows.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

But ABC was still hipper, it was still the hip young network, uh, more so than the others. Even 20 years later.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

To what extent was uh Ed Spielman Howard and Howard Friedlander involved with uh subsequent kung fu uh creations such as The Legend Continues, Any Movie, because none of that uh stood up to the to the original. And and and if they weren't involved, uh had they just sold the rights? How did that happen?

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Um they were not involved uh with The Legend Continues. Um they were not involved with that recent new Kung Fu show that was on the CW just a couple years ago, but they are involved with the new feature film of Kung Fu, which has been in development forever, and there's they're they're and you know, we're still trying to figure out when that's gonna happen. So they are involved with this new film, which is kind of interesting because kung fu is going back to the big screen where it was originally envisioned in the first place in the 1960s.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Okay, well, I have so many questions about this creativity stuff, but because I'm interested in the martial arts and and the and the criminal defense aspect, I'm gonna bring this into the martial arts. Uh, first I'm gonna give a shout-out because I'm I'm not remembering which of my guests asked some of these questions necessarily. We have Len Kennedy, who's a great uh Tai Chi, my first one of my first two Tai Chi teachers who had a question. I'm gonna actually go into him first, and then we had Bill Phillips, and we also have uh David uh Kaufman, who's a karate, uh uh a karate lawyer, among other things. So, but uh Len Kennedy was interested in knowing is what did the creators of Kung Fu do to uh convey the internal aspect of what David Carradine's character was doing at the martial arts, because if it's internal, it is not visible.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

I'm gonna say, and from what I can gather and understand and recall, whatever David Carradine brought to Kwai Chang Kane is what David Carradine brought to Kwai Chen Kane. I really can't see anybody else in that role. I don't think I mean David was so introspective, um, he was so intense. I mean, he one day he got up, he was uh being interviewed on um the Murph Griffin show with Jah Jacques Kabor of all people, and she wouldn't shut up, and she wouldn't let him talk, and he just got up and he left.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

I mean, that's like him.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

That's David, and he came on the show barefoot on top of it all, right? So what you saw as Kane was David Carradine. He he was living Kane at that time. Um, and when I first met him, which was see, I first talked to him in '91, but I didn't meet him until like 2004 when we did we did the Bravo show. When I went to his house to pick him up and I knocked on the door, and he's like, What the hell are you doing here? I mean, that was the first thing he said to me, you know, but he's he did those things because he liked to shock people. He would say things just to shock them, just like he whipped out that flute. He knew how much that was freaking me out, and he knew it would, and he loved doing it. So that was David, and he ended the show. ABC didn't want to end the show, even though it was in the third season and the ratings weren't the same as it was, and they switched it to Saturday nights from Thursday nights where it was flourishing, and they brought it to Saturday because it was so strong they thought it could go up against Mary Tyler Moore, and it did okay in the Bob Newhart show and all that. But David, you know, he ended it. He wanted to end it, and he wanted to make sure that it ended with that nice finale.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

But if he ended it, why did he then continue with uh something nowhere near as good? The legend continued as much as I did enjoy that show as well.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

That was decades later when I think, you know, it look he came back in 1986 for the reunion movie. It was about the money. I mean, and I'm not really that happy with that reunion movie because that's not David, that's not Kane. If you watch Kung Fu the movie, the one he did with Brandon Lee, uh in in 19 like is it 84, 85, 86, one of those. Um, it was David Carradine playing Kane. It wasn't him being Kane. He even smirked in the camera. We don't want that, you know? So, but he did that because it was time. It was the he was more at peace with it. Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, uh, Sean Connery, they all became um successful for one particular role. Yes and they felt stereotyped by it. But ultimately, each of them, like David, came to peace with it and realized, well, I guess it's okay that I'm known as Samantha. Because Elizabeth, you know, tried to do all these other movies that had nothing to do with Samantha, right? Legend of Lizzie Borden, case of rape, yada, yada, yada. So Mary Tyler Moore, same thing. But then they finally came around. Mary Tyler Moore did the reunion for the Dick Van Dyke show, which she would never have reprised her role as Laura Petrie, but she did. She did the reunion with Mary and Rhoda, which was a backdoor pilot that never sold. Um, if Elizabeth Montgomery was alive, knowing what's happening with the nostalgic world, she would have done ultimately that reunion, but she left this world too soon. So they come around. And if the price is right, I mean, come on. David Carradine wasn't going to turn down, the legend continues, if he wasn't working a lot at the time. Right. And and Warner Brothers or whoever's that here's you know, five million dollars, will you come back? He's not stupid.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Who taught martial arts to uh David Carradine for the show? And to what extent was it necessary to have the slow motion to compensate that David Carradine was not a martial artist?

SPEAKER_02 51:18

Um, two two people were there, David Chow and Came Ewan. And for one reason or another, David preferred Came Cam Ewan um to be consultant on the show. And David Chow actually is in the pilot. He's the one that comes looking for Kwa Chang Kane.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

He was the other Shaolin priest.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

Yeah. Okay. Um, as far as the slow motion, the issue was violence. ABC, that's how they came up with it. And they used it too later on the $6 million man of the Bionic Woman. They slowed down the bionics, which became a fun thing on that show. But originally ABC is like, okay, look, we can't have all this violence, you know, in prime time, because they had just switched to that uh family hour thing. Yes. You know, went from uh which it started at 7:30, and then they said, okay, we can't have any this or that after 8 p.m. So they had to tone down the violence, and they thought, well, the best way to do this stylistically, and this is Jerry Thorpe again, was to slow do all the violence or all the martial arts in slow motion. Later on, they kind of let that go a little bit, you know, in the in the freaky third season where it gets more mystical.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

Um, what was the martial arts background of the people who were teaching uh uh David Carradine?

SPEAKER_02 52:39

Well, can't David Chow and Kim Ewan were martial artists themselves who they they taught classes for years.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

Was it karate or what was their specific uh what was their their specialties in martial arts? Was it karate, judo? What was it?

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Um, I'm gonna say kung fu to all of that. Okay. Um, but I'm sure at the time, because kung fu was the one that introduced kung fu to the mainstream. I mean, when um Ray Austin, who was the director, uh producer on The Avengers, who taught Dinah Rigg um um, you know, martial arts, he started teaching karate, but he was also teaching her kung fu. But that was early, early, early on. It was still main karate was still the main thing.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

Seeing that we're coming towards the end of when I said we would come to the end, I will ask for Bill Phillips. Where can the uh full TV shows of Kung Fu be found? Is it only on DVDs or paying for download? Are there any uh uh online streaming uh companies where you can get it? And also, are there outtakes of any scenes? And Bill specifically says martial uh scenes, bloopers, or funnies?

SPEAKER_02 53:53

There are not, I do not believe at this point that Kung Fu is uh streaming anywhere, but I'm sure it will be soon. I think they're all just Warner Brothers is trying to wait for the movie to come out before it goes full throttle on a big release of it. But you know, I did the DVD package back in like the early 2000s, and I have uh I'm involved with the consulting on and on on camera interviews for the DVD. So these are still out there.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

So you have that, and then of course, um there are uh if you probably somewhere if you look on YouTube, you might see snippets of Kung Fu.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

They have the snippets, yes. Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Well, I have hours and hours of more things that I want to talk about, but that's not gonna happen on this show because I told you there would be an ending time. I'd I want to talk to you about the Avengers sometime and uh and a whole bunch more, but that could be another time. I really appreciate it, and I always give my guests, at least the guests I like, and I like you, a chance to have the final word to tell uh to tell everybody anything you haven't said already that you want to say or anything you want to emphasize, and of course, remind everyone of your web address.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

Thank you. Well, thank you. First of all, thank you for all of that again. I think what I'd love to say more than anything, I have, you know, I'm the founder and executive director of the Classic TV Preservation Society, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the positive influence of classic TV shows. So I believe that classic TV shows and television in general has the capacity and uh the potential to be a positive force. And one of the reasons why classic TV shows are so beloved is because they are that positive force. People became uh attorneys, some people because of Perry Mason. Some people became doctors because of Marcus Welby. Scientific cybernetics happened because scientists, young scientists before they became scientists, were inspired by the $6 million man and the banner woman. Asian culture became more prevalent and more understood in America because of kung fu. So it is an untapped television is an untapped resource, one positive for education. And classic TV shows have been proof of that, and that's what I celebrate. Um, and that's what I try to do with my career is to you know embody the goodness of what classic TV is, celebrate it. Yes, to look at the the harsh realities and the complexities of the individuals and the shows, not to you know ignore any of that, but to look at it realistically realistically with dignity. And to and that and there in their ego. And herbiejplato.com, you can buy any of my books or my DVDs, um, which include the Elizabeth Montgomery um documentary that I did a couple years ago with the Reels channel and AMS Pictures. And and I'm all over, like I said, all over Facebook, Instagram, and uh LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

My appetite is wetted there, and that's Palato spelled P-I-L-A-T-O. Herbie Palado, thank you immensely. Even if we were just talking one-on-one, often these interviews uh are are with the uh audience just for my selfish reason of having the uh the talk and the audience being the fly on the wall, but I think a bunch of the audience has gotten a lot out of this too. I am delighted that you have joined us today. This is John Katz. I'm a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer in Fairfax, Northern Virginia. This is Beat the Prosecution because there is no other way. Thank you again.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Thank you for listening to this week's episode from Beat the Prosecution. This is a regular podcast giving people a leg up against police investigations and prosecutions. Nothing discussed on our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or to individuals who have paid for a consultation. We welcome you contacting us via email at info at beatheprosecution.com by calling our office at seven zero three three eight three one one zero zero or texting us at five seven one four zero six seven two six eight.