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W institution
morks his
40th onniversory
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prime-time speciol
BY FRANK
LOVECE
the man himself might put it,
Joe Franklin is fantabulous, splendif-
erous and full of pep. Remember that
word? Pep. Nobody uses that anymore.
Like "moxie." Or "palooka." So tell
me, Mr. President, we'll talk about
China in a moment, but tell me: What
are your favorite words that nobody
uses anymore?
Ah, that Joe. What style. His 1:30
a.m. talk show has been a reassuringly
kitschy presence on WWOR / 9 since
forever, a weeknight assemblage of
oddballs, schnorrers, would-be celebri-
ties, real celebrities and assorted
friends and cronies that has become a
New York institution - sort of a "Pee-
wee's Playhouse" for adults.
Some 50,000 area households tune
in; more than 12 million can see it on
cable systems throughout the country,
wherever WWOR is carried as a super-
station. According to the "Guinness
Book of World Records," Joe Franklin
is the most "durable" personality on
c o V R s T o R
The king of
kitsch
when he
was a n'Lere
prince (lejL)
and today.
TV or radio. And now he's celebrating
his 40th year in broadcasting with a
two-hour prime-time special on Ch. 9
this Friday. Among the fans who've
taped kudos for it are Bill Cosby, Bob
Hope, Dick Clark, Valerie Harper and
Billy Crystal (who made good schtick
with his Joe Franklin parody).
Forty years. Certainly, he wouldn't
have lasted this long without having
sometlting special. But darned if any-
body knows what it is.
Joe does have his theories. "I've got
two great things going for me," he tells
me in his patented stage-patter stacca-
to. "The main one is venerability.
When you've been around as long as
I've been, you become the Rock of Gi-
braltar, you become a symbol. Values
change, the world changes, Joe is still
there. And the other is, I got in at the
right time, when TV was just opening
up in the daytime."
This explains how he got started,
and how he keeps going now. But what
NEwYoRKNEwSDAY 6 JUIY16 -22,19a9
Y
about those decades in between? I was
determined to find out. And so began a
journey into the heart of Joe Franklin.
The first stop is the famous Times
Square office, that "Broadway Danny
Rose"-like cluttered cubicle where
Andy Kaufman used to hang out and
answer the phone, where a thousand
old record albums interbreed, where
bound newspaper volumes dating back
to the 1920s fight for space with dog-
eared autographed photos and thumb-
tacked notes, and where at least eight
people are required to be dashing in
and out at all times. The office has
in print so often,
been memorialized
F
U
you're sure someday the Smithsonian
o
J is going to preserve it behind glass.
o
q
U
But the office, in truth, is now more
l
d
@ a prop than anything else. Joe has a
fresh and modern room on the floor
o
above, in a suite he shares with a video
'
q
z production company. And several
blocks north, on West 57th Street, he
keeps another modern office at his
publicly traded company, Joe Franklin
Productions, Ine.
"The office," Joe says warmly, as if
talking about a childhood puppy that's
grown old with him. "It's romantic to
me.It's fun." On the 40th anniversary
show, he gives a tour of it to manic
comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who
screams in terror at the thought that
Jimmy Hoffa might be buried there
beneath a mountain of paper.
The office has served him for dec-
ades, starting not long after he
dropped out of Columbia University in
1949 to assist the legendary radio DJ
Mariin Block ("The Make Believe
Ballroom"). A couple of years later, in
those much more casual days, WJZ-TV
(now WABC I 7) let him host his own
daytime talk show, "Joe Franklin's
Memory Lane" - the same title he
still uses for his long-running weekly
radio program on WOR. In the early
'60s, with a title change to "The Joe
Franklin Show," he switched to Ch. 9,
and eventually settled into his familiar
post-midnight slot.
Now, at the other office, suddenly
aware of the weight of 40 years, Joe
laments that he's saved so few of his
shows. The fledgling stars to whom he
gave first or early TV exposure are le-
gron - Barbra Streisand, Eddie Mur-
phy, Bette Midler, Al Pacino, Woody
Allen, Bruce Springsteen, ad Franklin-
itum. But for many years, his show
was broadcast live, and few kinescopes
(film or tape shot off the TV screen)
were kept. As for how many videotapes
survive from later days, he's vague.
 "They got away," he says regretful-
ly. "Elvis Presley got away - I had
him on my show once with Jimmie
Rodgers. On the same panel was a lady
named Ann-Mareiret Olsson who later
dropped the 'Olsson.'John Wayne got
away. We never taped him.
"We had John Kennedy, Richard
Nixon, Jimmy Catter," he enumer-
ates, "Bing Crosby. Cary Grant. John
Lennon many times. My arrangement
with him was that every time I put
Yoko Ono on three times, he'd come on
once. He wanted to give her that confi-
dence that she could work alone.
"Dustin Hoffman was on my show
when he was doing'Eh?' - remember
that Broadway show? - and he said,
'Joe, I gotta go fast now because I'm
auditioning for Joe Levine.' He audi-
tioned for'The Graduate'that day. He
says to me he's goingwithout his agent
sending him 'cause his agent says he's
too short to get the part, because Anne
Bancroft is taller." And one time Andy
Kaufman "danced with his grand-
mother without music, and I later
found out that his grandmother was
Robin Williams in drag. That's an ab-
solutely true story."
So *" most of his stories, apparent-
ly, as he weaves them one by one, live-
ly excerpts from The Book of Joe. Yet
there's virtually no way to confirm the
details, since two equally strong fac-
tors are at work: Joe Franklin has a
prodigious, almost spooky, memory;
and Joe Franklin lives in a world of his
own - where, as the old vaudevillians
used to say, you never let facts get in
the way of a good story.
Take the famous mystery of his age.
Two years ago, the stock prospectus
for his public company listed him as
61. Yet Joe insists he was born March
9, L929, thereby just recently turning
60. For support, he points journalists
to "The World Almanac." But since
his listing there is virtually the only
one that gives simply ayear (1929) and
lWrcn GueslOn
ttoe Freinklin. ..'
A quasi-guest, actually. A few
weeks before the 40th anniversary
show, Joe graciously agreed to let me
inside his inner sanctum, to observe
him not just as a journalist, but as a
guest. The great ones are like that.
I showed up for the 2:30 Friday tap-
ing, which ran a week later on June
30. My fellow guests were Max Kinkel,
a DJ on WCBS-FM; Neva Small, a lo-
cal actress, and Elizabeth Carnegie, an
astrologer.
Now that Joe's studio-set is at the
EPCOT-modern WWOR building in
Secaucus, N.J., his guests have a siz-
able Green Room to mingle in, com-
plete with soft drinks, fruit and pas-
tries.I remember visiting his old
Times Square studio a few years ago;
you sort of hung around backstage
amid boxes and trunks, and tried not
to trip over cables.
One thing hadn't changed: There's
no audience other than whatever Joe and, the author (\efi,): 'I'ue ad,-
friends you bring along, and the pro- mired his urritings for a long ti,me.'
duction crew - who, like any produc-
tion crew, have seen everything, soyou pension checks already, and babbling
can't count on their "Fine" to mean something about the universality of
anything more than that you haven't art, before Joe, thankfully and grace-
set your hair on fire. Fortunately, be- fully, segues to another guest.
ing the pros that they are, by the time At that moment - and there's no
they fix you up with a clip-on micro- way to rcaJize this other than by being
phone and have you do a sound check, there - Joe's secret becomes clear:
you feel ready to banter delightfully. The man knows what he is doing.
And by Jove by Joe, even Watching him on TV is one thing.
that's whatyou do. Mostly it's because Feeling him glide you effortlessly from
Joe himself is so amiable and friendly your own agenda to something close to
and saying all these flattering things stream-of-consciousness is quite an-
about you. "I've admired his writings other. David Letterman, his protege-
for a long time," he says gushingly in-spirit, may be funnier and more
about my work, though he'd never raucous, but the principle is the same:
heard of me until the day before. But getting people to break away from the
who doesn't love gettingstroked? Pret- formulaic talk-show plugs 'n' anec-
ty soon, you're so confident and witty dotes. On "Joe Franklin," you never
that you find yourself suggesting the know what you're going to see or hear.
Rolling Stones start collecting their
- Louece

no date, even the "Almanac" seems

unsure.
The guest-star legends are fueled by
the fact that most of the surviving
tapes may not even belong to Joe, but
to MCA, the current owner of WWOR.
"Too many rights problems," he says
when asked about possible home video
releases, or a comprehensive retro-
spective. "Too many negotiations. I've
just never gotten around to all that,"
he adds vaguely. "I probably never
will. The Museum of Broadcasting is
after me for my kinnies and tapes," he
says. "I haven't given them any, but
that I'll
probably get around to."
Joe tapes five shows two afternoons
each week; they air within a few days.
And whatever else you can say about
him, Joe is a pro. His banter keeps a
pace most rock videos would envy. He
loses his cool about as often as James
Bond. That singular style of his is just
that - a style no less composed than
Robin Leach's breathless hyperbole or
Walter Winchell's rat-a-tat rumble.
We watch to laugh with and at that
I
style, but also, let's face it, bec4use Joe
provides the sideshow attractions in
the carnival of life. Who else has guests
like a guy with a talent agency com-
posed only of ex-Playboy Bunnies? Or
a sweet, lovely actress plugging a New
Jersey revival of"Jesus Christ, Super-
star"? Or even a journalist (such as,
ahem, myselfl showing pictures of his
baby? Or a tap-dancing rope-skipper?
And when Joe does have major stars
they seem a lot more wbat-the-hell
- Continued on Page 11

NEwYoRK NEwSDAY 7 JurY16 - z2,1ggg

 Screening Room 4
Off the Wqll TV 77
Rodio 78
TVline 79
,ry*tfd Crossword
Cqble Conversion Guide
f9
80
Morvin Kilmon hos the doy off.

Broqdcosl Movie Guide I

Coble Movie Guide 13
Joe Frqnklin celebrqtes 40 Sports 22
yEqrs of chotling with q prime- Doily Logs 24
lime speciql this week. Whot Chonnels Nol Lisled 77
mqkes him so fonlobulous?

Lorne Michqels' new comedy Assistonl TV Plus Edilor Andrew J. Edelstein

show feolures o wqcky crew
fte Assislqnt Editor Corol Burton Terry
cglled The Kids in Holl.
8r listings Coordinolor Ronnie J. Gill
Betty Meehon, Lesley Mooney, Pot Pisqno
Designers Richord Boiley, Amy Cotolono
A locql kid turns his brush with
Cover Art: Tony D'Adomo
lhe lqw inlo q brush with Dovid
Lellermon.