The Genii Forum

For you youngens out there, Mike Douglas was an afternoon talk show host for over 20 years and was quite popular during the 1970s. CNN reports that he did about 6,000 shows! I used to ditch school when I knew that hed have a magician as a guest, which he did often. (I did the same thing with Dinah Shore and Merv Griffin as needed depending on what time of day they aired, which seemed to change often; it was a good thing I could forge my Dads signature!)

Those were the days; when afternoon talk shows were about show business and not monkey business! Mike Douglas was a friend to magic and I wish we had some like him today!

Thanks Mr. Douglas; rest well.

Dustin

Marshall Brodein has some great footage of himself performing on "The Mike Douglas Show" with spectators (other guests) AND assistants including Lois Nye, Tony Bennet and Bill Cosby. Cosby is doing a version of the Sub Trunk with Marshall and there is a hilarious bit with Louis Nye, Marshall, Mike Douglas and Tony Bennet and the Sword Suspension. You have to see it. It was so much fun to watch and took me back to the days when I would tune in to the show after school to see if there was a magician performing that day.

Dustin I couldn't agree more...those were the days when it was about SHOW business. What fun and fond memories.

Thanks Mike !!

I'm very sorry to hear this. I'm also one of those boomer kids who saw Mike Douglas after school every day.

I think Stevens Magic has a video of Don Alan performing on the Mike Douglas show, with commentary from Don about putting a heckling Henny Youngman in his place.

That little syndicated TV show out of Philly had a lot of famous people on it, performers of all kinds. It was kind of like a latter-day daytime Ed Sullivan show.

RIP, Mike Douglas.

I often watched it after school as well. He seemed like a truly nice guy.

Very sad to hear of his passing, and sadder how his show went off the air, as the world of TV syndication changed, (and not always for the better).

I always felt it would have been great if someone, would have been able to interview Carson and Douglas, about the different magic/mystery guests they had, and what they liked/disliked about how they worked, or didn't work for their show.

Dustin, I also ran home to see who might be on his show...it would be interesting to try to name many of those who appeared:

Kreskin(Built much of his career here.)
M. Christopher
Dunninger
Blackstone,Jr.
Mark Wilson
Mario Manzini
?__________

Dustin, that was back in the day when TV was fun. I remember coming home after school and watching his show.

Hollywood Squares was another one with Paul Lynde in the center square, Geoge Goebel(?), Artie Johnson, etc.

Good grief, we are becoming our fathers.

Originally posted by Diego Domingo:
Dustin, I also ran home to see who might be on his show...it would be interesting to try to name many of those who appeared:

Kreskin(Built much of his career here.)
M. Christopher
Dunninger
Blackstone,Jr.
Mark Wilson
Mario Manzini
?__________

Marshall Brodein (on several occasions) as mentioned in the above post.

Man ,I 'm sad too!
It was great to come home from school and watch him.
I remember one time the whole show was about magic .
All I can think who was on the show was Mark Wilson,Blackstone Jr. And Tom And Sherrie.
Tom and Sherrie had a great Dove from Fire. It was so cool or should I say Hot!
And The week he had Moe Howard as guest host was great.
RIP
We'll be back.

Mike was a good friend. Did his show over 15 times. Usually did my names & faces thing - rmembering the names of all the people in the audience. Also was on an around-the-world cruise with him. My wife and I "hung around" with Mike and his wife, Gin. It's a sad day. HARRY LORAYNE.

Hey Harry, I couldn't remember where I first saw you on TV, but now it comes to me that it was on the Mike Douglas show.

I've got a slightly off topic question for you. How come you never did any card magic on any of your talk show appearances? Did they not want it or did they just feel that the memory stuff played a lot stronger? Or maybe it was just your personal choice?

Douglas was an absolutely terrific host who seemed to genuinely have fun with his guests and was a real favorite of mine while growing up. Too bad we don't have more like him today.

I remember Mike seemed very amenable to magic acts on his show. And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he book a certain young Richard Jay Potash? Or was that Dinah Shore?

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www.conjurenation.com - 'Cards Only' Forums

I'm certain Ricky Jay was on Dinah several times, but I cannot recall him being on the Mike Douglas Show (that doesn't mean he wasn't).

So many have mentioned coming home after school to watch Mike Douglas' show. I did too.

His show is another reason the 70s were good; and another reminder the times they have a-changed.

Mike Douglas really seemed to be a nice guy. Witty, charming, good-natured...really a great atmoshphere on his show. Everybody liked Mike Douglas; we watched him when there wasn't a magician on too, but of course that was icing on the cake.

He was a good part of those old days, and as with the deaths of Johnny Carson, and famed San Francisco newspaperman Herb Caen...I feel like I've lost another old pal.
I never met them, but they impacted my outlook growing up. My sympathies to Mr. Lorayne and his real friends.

So many of those guys who kept reminding us to get a bang out of life, aren't around to remind us any more, and that's sad. :( R.I.P.

I always used to watch his show. One time Scarne was scheduled to appear and I rushed home from school to watch him but as luck would have it this was a 90 minute show and the station only carried 60 minutes. Does anyone have any footage of magicians on Mike Douglas?

Best Wishes,

Steve

I had a chat with Mark Wilson today and we talked about Mike Douglas. Mark appeared on his show many times. He shared a story about how he was booked specifically to do an exchange with a celebrity also appearing on the show using a Gwynne Cabinet. Mark made it to Philadelphia the evening before the show, but the cabinet landed in Hawaii! The next day, the airline was able to get the cabinet to the studio an hour before the shoot!

Mark spoke about just how good Mike Douglas was. A great talent (singing, dancing, comedy) and a genuinely warm and wonderful guy.

What a memory! I attended quite a few of his shows, one in particular didn't feature a magi, but rather Jean Luc Ponte (sp) the jazz vionist. In the warm up Mike came center stage looked to his right at the equipment set up and commented "H'mm, it looks like a fire sale at Radio Shack!" The timing was impecable, and I've used that line over the years -- it just kills.

God I was on my 3rd marriage at that time, middle 70's!

Before that I lived in the City, and one of my partners lived next to him at Pebble Beach, seen him at the house a couple of times.

As Pete would say, arrgh!

I'm pretty sure I have Vernon doing the Cups and Balls and Linking Rings on the Mike Douglas show.

Kreskin was the only magic person, to act as the co-host for a week, on the show.

Add to those have appeared:
Vic Perry
Uri Geller

Originally posted by DustinStinett:
I'm certain Ricky Jay was on Dinah several times, but I cannot recall him being on the Mike Douglas Show (that doesn't mean he wasn't).

I've seen tv listings as follows for the Mike Douglas show (some may be reruns, and being syndicated, the tapes may have run on different days in different markets):

Jay, Ricky Mike Douglas 9/7/1972
Jay, Ricky Mike Douglas 7/4/1977
Jay, Ricky Mike Douglas 8/31/1977
Scarne, John Mike Douglas 8/9/1966
Scarne, John Mike Douglas 8/21/1973
Scarne, John Mike Douglas 10/11/1973
Scarne, John Mike Douglas 3/19/1974
Scarne, John Mike Douglas 3/26/1974
Scarne, John Mike Douglas 6/18/1974
Scarne, John Mike Douglas 6/6/1975
Scarne, John Mike Douglas 3/15/1977

Kreskin claimed to have been on the Douglas show 100 times.

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:
Kreskin claimed to have been on the Douglas show 100 times.

That could be where I learned to dislike his shtick. ;)

Mike Douglas belongs in the pantheon of the "magician friendly" television host of yesteryear. I didn't watch Mike Douglas in the 70's, but I do remember seeing magicians on the Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, Merve Griffin and Dinah Shore shows. If you were savy enough to get a heads up on the guest list in T.V. Guide, the wait was unbearable.

We rarely see magicians on talk shows these days. The last magician I saw was Jason Randall on Letterman. I haven't seen a magician on Leno's show in some time...

I didn't see it mentioned yet in this thread, but Karl Fulves was on the Mike Douglas show to publicize The Magic Book when it came out in ... 1978?

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:
I've seen tv listings as follows for the Mike Douglas show (some may be reruns, and being syndicated, the tapes may have run on different days in different markets):

Jay, Ricky Mike Douglas 9/7/1972
Jay, Ricky Mike Douglas 7/4/1977
Jay, Ricky Mike Douglas 8/31/1977

I would suspect that the two 1977 entries were the same show/different market scenario. This would have been when he was out stumping Cards as Weapons

Thats very cool data Bill. May I ask the source?

Dustin

As a kid my second hobby after Magic was autograph collecting which I did outside the studio doors of the Mike Douglas Show in Philadelphia. You can add Lee Grey (of Kanters)
to the list of magic on his show. It was his act that inspired me at a young age to work with doves. I also remember seeing Fantasio as well.
Mike Douglas was a kind man, I had the pleasure of speaking to him many times.

Originally posted by Richard Kaufman:
I didn't see it mentioned yet in this thread, but Karl Fulves was on the Mike Douglas show to publicize The Magic Book when it came out in ... 1978?

Karl Fulves and Jeff Altman, both on Mike Douglas 9/13/1977

Didn't Michael Ammar cohost for an entire week once?

Would he not have been much too young to do that?

I appeared on his show a few times. He was the nicest of them all.

I believe that James Randi also appeared on the Douglas show a few times.

- entity

Norm Nielsen, Walter Blaney, Kuda Bux, Peter Pit, Stan Allen, Falkenstein & Willard, Carl Ballantine to name a few.

You can add my name to the list.

Kreskin's website, notes the passing of Mike Douglas, with appreciation...stating he appeared on his show 118 times, with an average of over 20 minutes, of air-time, each show.

Originally posted by Max Maven:
You can add my name to the list.

Nov 25 1981
Dec 2 1981
Feb 4 1982
Feb 11 1982 (same guest list each day; Syndicate sends different markets tapes on different schedules?)

I helped provide footage of Johnny Thompson and "Co", on Mike Douglas for next week's TAOM convention. Let me go through my stuff to see if anyone else comes to my mind.

Does anyone have any footage of John Scarne on the Mike Douglas Show?

After posting the listings of John Scarne above, two separate people emailed me offline to see if I had any Scarne videotape. I don't. But you can buy screeners of the Mike Douglas show HERE. They aren't cheap, but they are legal.

Another frequent guest was the late, great Lee Grey Who at the time owned Kantor's Magic shop in Philadelphia which was right down the street from where the Douglas show taped
According to Lee , he was called, when a guest didn't show up and they needed some one to fill in
from
Ford

I remember hearing this story years ago, but I can't remember from whom. Mason Reese, a child star from the 1970s was co-host for the week on the Mike Douglas show. Every day they had a different magician on the show for Mason. Early in the week, Mason heckled one magician mercilessly (I believe this was Milbourne Christopher). The next day a close-up magician was on the show. As the director was about to go on the air with Reese, Douglas and the magician sitting at the table, the magician leaned over to Mason, put a firm hand on his arm and said, "If you mess with me I'll break your ***ing arm." Scene begins. Mason is EXTREMELY polite. Magician completes his set.

If anybody can confirm this or has heard this story before, please post.

DD

This is a story (re: grabbing a kid's arm) that I wrote up in APOCALYPSE many years ago, when I wrote about appearing at movie theaters, live, as Prof. Magic, when I was doing the Prof. Magic TV show, way back in 1950/1951. HARRY LORAYNE.

PS: What I left out, and I'm not proud of this, is that I squeezed the kid's arm pretty hard. The words I used were about exactly as in the above post. When a kid was making noise, I'd do as above, and whisper, away from the microphone, "If you don't shut up, I'll break...." HARRY LORAYNE.

Originally posted by DDixon:
I remember hearing this story years ago, but I can't remember from whom. Mason Reese, a child star from the 1970s was co-host for the week on the Mike Douglas show. Every day they had a different magician on the show for Mason. Early in the week, Mason heckled one magician mercilessly (I believe this was Milbourne Christopher). The next day a close-up magician was on the show. As the director was about to go on the air with Reese, Douglas and the magician sitting at the table, the magician leaned over to Mason, put a firm hand on his arm and said, "If you mess with me I'll break your ***ing arm." Scene begins. Mason is EXTREMELY polite. Magician completes his set.

If anybody can confirm this or has heard this story before, please post.

DD

I've heard the story - it was Don Alan, as I recall...

Best, PSC