Mornings With Barney (6 page)

I'd like to take credit
along with Barney for our rise from the bottom of the AM ratings pile to the top, all the way to the number-one morning show in the mid-nineties. I can't, of course. Television shows live and die by the ratings, but research is expensive and there were no hard numbers that would pinpoint exactly what had happened. The rise did occur during my tenure. And, yeah, it also happened to coincide with Barney's rising popularity. Anyone who had a nose for the local news scene would have suspected that our growing success had at least something to do with the beagle. My success certainly did.

Barney gave me a different kind of TV presence from all the other reporters. A guy on another station doing a similar show pegged himself “Treeboy,” often doing spots about gardening and home repair. That was his gig. I had mine. Fortunately, I was never pegged Dogboy. Not that I know of.

It wasn't long before booking the morning segment had to be done with an eye and a floppy ear toward Barney. He had touched a very deep chord with Hoosiers. Part of the attraction was the unpredictability of his behavior. But it was more than that. He was the devil in all of us, the unfulfilled desire to do bad things—not hateful, harmful things—but to be the imp, the rascal, the scamp. Barney was all of us when our mothers weren't watching.

The pressure to find something new to do during my time slot every morning, five days a week, was intense. And now I was also searching for a way to include the dog. I knew Barney's best moments would continue to depend on his unanticipated contributions. I also knew that giving him the proper environment to showcase his talent was a good showbiz move.

I didn't have to do much searching to find these ideas; they often found me. Many times the call came because the piece involved dogs, but the next step was always for me to find a way to involve Barney in the segment. Barney was seldom content with a cameo appearance, but he took what he could get. When I went back to the station to watch my segment on videotape, I'd see that even if Barney was not supposed to be part of the show, he managed to insinuate his nose or his tail into the camera shot. Viewers told me that watching my segment of the news was like the book
Where's Waldo?
Only it was
Where's Barney?
Keep your eyes open. He's there somewhere.

That summer I received one of the first calls requesting a personal appearance by the two of us. I'm not a very good businessman, and when I started getting these requests I didn't know how to respond to the question of compensation. What was I worth? How much did the dog raise the ante? Sometimes I'd put off the call by saying I needed to discuss this with my business partner. It sounded good, anyway. They just didn't realize I meant my dog.

The local Hardee's franchise owner had become a loyal fan of Barney's and he wanted the two of us to do a series of commercials and appearances to promote the restaurants.

His enthusiasm was so overwhelming that I bought into it. I could do what I did best—perform—and Barney would have center stage. Besides, Barney was a big fan of their sausage and biscuits, even devouring an entire plate for one of the future commercials.

The big test was whether stressed-out moms and dads would drag their kids out of bed on a Saturday morning to see Dick Wolfsie and his dog. It was true that we did have a lot of kids watching in the morning, more than the other stations, but news was still a grown-up deal, so I did have some question whether this would really work.

Convinced the kids would love the pooch, Hardee's did an extensive media blitz based on the Barney appearance. The biggest draw, they claimed, would be the giant billboard on the main drag in Muncie and in front of the store that proclaimed:

That Saturday morning, Barney and I got up and headed north, about an hour's drive. The weather was great and I was hoping for a good turnout that would put me in good standing with Hardee's. But I was nervous. This could be a bust.

Barney and I arrived almost an hour early. Imagine my delight to see a full parking lot and a long line to get into the restaurant. There were hundreds of kids, balloons, clowns. It even looked like the parents were in a good mood.

“We're a hit,” I said to Barney, who had already picked up the sausage scent and whose nose was twitching a mile a minute. My elation was short-lived, however. The owner was making his way toward me. I expected a big smile, but instead he looked as if he had just eaten a very bad fish sandwich. “What's the matter? The place is rocking,” I said. “You should be thrilled.”

“Yes, we have quite a crowd,” he agreed. “But the parents thought you were coming with a dinosaur—a
purple
dinosaur.”

Oops. We were in deep dino dung. Every parent in that parking lot had for the entire week been trumpeting to his preschooler that the child's dream was finally going to come true, that right there in little old Muncie, Indiana, the one and only internationally famous prehistoric reptile was going to make an appearance. Instead it was Dick Wolfsie ... and his dog. Whoopee!

The tail went between the legs—mine, not the dog's. Barney was ready to party. I could now see fathers and mothers explaining to their disconsolate, dinosaur-starved children about how this very disappointing mix-up could occur. Oh, and the kids were very understanding, evidenced by the crying, screaming, and kicking that permeated the parking lot.

There had to be a way to make something positive out of this prehistoric debacle. I remember climbing back in the car and making a personal appeal to my buddy. “Let's go get ‘em, partner. This is our first big test!”

Barney jumped out of the car and we headed for the fast-food eatery. It took just a couple of children to notice him. I held my breath. “Hey, it's a dog!” a youngster screamed. Then another: “Why is there a dog at Hardee's?” “That's the dog on TV,” said my favorite kid of all. In violation of every health code, we walked into the restaurant. Barney hopped into one of the booths and sniffed the table, his wagging tail sticking through the space in the seat.

Now an even longer line had developed outside the restaurant. Probably not because Barney was there, but
any
line meant something cool was going on. Barney was in his heaven: sausage was in the air, belly rubs and ear strokes were as abundant as flaky biscuits, and suddenly, all was right in the fast-food world.

I knew we would never reach Barney the Purple Dinosaur status, but even an old fossil like me could see that entire families were responding to Barney in a unique way. Different, I think, than they would have to the TV cartoon figure. Many of the patrons had not even seen us on TV, but I sensed that each one felt as though Barney had come to see him or her. A one-to-one relationship with every single child.

And that's how it was for the next twelve years. No matter where Barney and I went, it never was staged or rehearsed. I never wanted it to be showbizzy. It was a not a public appearance. It was a personal visit, and everyone knew it.

Compare Barney to Nipper and Chipper, the two Jack Russells who represented corporate giant RCA. One of the earliest memories I have of a corporate logo was the old RCA image of the adorable Jack Russell terrier with the dark ears listening intently to a phonograph record over the caption, “His Master's Voice.” The trademark painting was actually based on a real dog named Nipper who belonged to Francis Barraud, the artist who created it.

I was amused at several aspects of this marketing concept, which I witnessed firsthand when they made appearances in Indy. First, these dogs had no personality. Hyperactive? Yes. Character? Totally lacking. Charm? Zero. If Barney had been Mr. Barraud's model, the artist would have painted a beagle listening to his master's voice ... and ignoring it.

And once the dogs playing Nipper and Chipper grew an inch or so, they had to be replaced by new dogs-in-waiting to retain their ever-youthful appearance to the public. If every time Barney gained a pound or two I had to replace him, it would have gotten very pricey and crowded at my house. Even odder was the fact that the trainer would not allow the public to pet the dogs, afraid that the
dogs
might get a disease.

What a concept: you schlep personality-deficient dogs around the country to publicize your product, but don't let people get too close to them or that might actually promote goodwill with your customers.

I'm glad I didn't get that memo. Barney's effect on people was all about his accessibility. Belly rubs and ear scratches were gratefully accepted and rewarded with rapid rotation of the tail and groans of pleasure. In public there were hardly any rules of engagement with Barney. No sticking the end of your lollipop in his ear. That was about it for guidelines.

And unlike Nipper and Chipper, Barney and I didn't sell a single TV. But we sure got people to watch it.

Barney wasn't the first dog
to appear regularly on television. But he may have been the first to appear as himself. Unlike Lassie and Rin Tin Tin and Yukon King, Barney went on without a script, without trainers or handlers, without a fictional character to hide behind. He didn't do his work in little pieces of scenes that were then assembled to make sense by an editor. For one thing, he never would have seen the point of doing the same thing over and over again until the humans decided it was right.

By helping to define me as an offbeat, out-of-the-ordinary reporter, Barney allowed me to do the kind of silliness I craved, even if Barney wasn't always the star ... as in my second encounter with my childhood hero, Soupy Sales.

In 1996, Soupy called me from his home in New York City. He wanted to do some stand-up comedy in the Midwest. “Would anyone in Indianapolis be interested?” Honestly, I wasn't sure. The clubs were run by a younger generation, but fortunately Soupy's legacy had survived and the current owner of the main venue in town was a student of humor and knew who Soupy was. Or had been.

Soupy played Crackers Comedy Club in Indianapolis for a week in 1996. I saw almost every show, three of them a night. I ate lunch and dinner with Soupy for five days. “How am I doing?” he'd ask me over a big bowl of jambalaya at the old Dick Clark's restaurant.

“I'm the wrong person to ask,” I told him. “I've seen the show eight times. Your jokes are old. I'm just laughing because you're Soupy Sales.”

Soupy winked. “That's why I don't need new jokes.”

While in town, Soupy made an appearance on WISH-TV's
Daybreak
where I did my three-minute segments on location each morning. And I did them live, just the way Soupy loved to do TV.

Soupy was fascinated with Barney. Not just the animal, but the concept. Soupy recognized that his entire career was based on the unpredictable, the uncontrollable, the improbable. The fact I would take a dog, especially an incorrigible one, on live TV during the news was a move right out of Soupy's playbook.

Of course, Soupy had two canines, albeit just puppets, who had each served as a comic nemesis. But the talking paws of White Fang and Black Tooth—actually barking and grunting—were subject to a modicum of scripting. Not Barney. I think that impressed Soupy, so much so that he requested that we use Barney during his appearance on Channel 8, just so Soupy could see how it all worked.

That morning from Soupy's hotel, I set up this premise: Soupy Sales was staying here and I had always wanted to meet him. Throughout the show, I asked guests in the lobby if anyone had seen Soupy Sales. No one had. Meanwhile, Barney sat on the lobby couch as if he were a hotel guest. In the final segment, I stood by as the elevator door slid open and out walked Soupy.

“Good morning,” I said. “Have you heard Soupy Sales is staying here?”

Soupy did his imitable take to the camera. “I
am
Soupy Sales.”

“No, seriously, the real Soupy Sales is supposed to be right here in the hotel,” I said, feigning nonrecognition of the star.

“I'm Soupy Sales,” he repeated, mocking frustration. Another take to the camera.

“Man, you sure got old,” I said—a planned zinger, of course.

Suddenly (as precisely planned), a waiter walked by with a whipped cream pie in his raised hand. With pure comic grace, Soupy swept the pie from the waiter and deposited it squarely on my face. I had been hit with a pie by Soupy Sales.

Barney had no planned role in the comic sketch. Perched on the hotel lobby couch, he was content to simply watch the segment as it proceeded—until he discovered there was whipped cream slathered all over my face. No cue required from the cameraman. Barney leaped into my arms and starting licking the gooey stuff. I'm not even sure why I bothered bringing a towel.