Episode 15: Joe's #1 Tip for Success in Broadcasting

In this episode, legendary Today Show Director Joe Michaels discusses his number one tip for success in broadcasting. Also- the importance (and the curse) of timing. In an industry that sells time, every second counts. 

Joe Michaels is an acclaimed television director with a distinguished career spanning over five decades. An eight-time Emmy Award winner and two-time Directors Guild of America honoree, Michaels is best known for his 22-year tenure directing NBC’s Today Show, where he helmed more than 5,000 episodes and helped shape the landscape of live morning television. His directing credits also include major global broadcasts such as the Olympics (including eight Opening Ceremonies), Network coverage of the 2016 & 2024 Democratic National Convention, and National Geographic’s groundbreaking Brain Surgery Live.

Starting his career at NBC Sports, Michaels contributed to Emmy-winning coverage of the Super Bowl, World Series, Wimbledon, and the Olympics. He has directed high-profile network specials, live concerts, stage productions, and segments for celebrated shows like Seinfeld, 30 Rock, and The Michael J. Fox Show. His work has been seen by hundreds of millions around the world and thousands live at venues like Rockefeller Plaza.

In addition to his directing work, Michaels serves as the Broadcaster-in-Residence at High Point University, where he mentors the next generation of television professionals through courses in multi-camera production, on-camera performance, and senior production experience. A graduate of Seton Hall University and its 2013 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, Michaels continues to consult on creative media projects, cor...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

What if you can have a conversation with one of America's top TV directors to see the events and the people that have shaped our world through his eyes and his recollections? That's what this show is all about. From today to Monday, conversations with Jim Michaels. Jim! Summer! I know it is. I look like an accident victim. I apologize. Um, I had to I had to take my cat to the vet. Yeah. And the cat is the most docile, loving cat. It wants me to rub its belly all the time until it realizes I'm about ready to shove it into a case. Yes, it's hard. I got lacerated. Yeah. The cat bruised me. The scratches and the ripped meter shape.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

And they're painful. Yeah, they're painful. Um, we had a we had a whole lot of cats at our house, and um whenever we took into the vet, uh, it was a war. It was a war to get do it. How did you figure it out? I finally decided to throw a towel over it. Uh that's a that's a we've done that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

That's actually a good method. But I got I got a long sleeve sweatshirt on and my cut-proof uh cooking gloves. And I went I learned the first time. Look at look at this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

The first time I I failed, and I had to call the You know, if we do this still in the fall, we we may have to go to video. Okay, so they can see the cuts and wounds.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

That'd be perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Right, so you can see exactly what the cat did to you. Trigger warning. I have a face for radio, so this works out really well. But um that's pretty funny. Well, you kind of foreshadow the new uh studio that they're building. We've got a great new podcast studio that we're building, and um uh our new uh engineer here is putting it together, and it's gonna be terrific. Yeah, because it's 21st century, you know, video. Well, yeah, it's really good to have the pictures with audio, which often people don't ever watch. Well, uh I I I said that to you about the Today show years ago. That uh, you know, I always felt it was a a radio show with pictures. Right, right. If you're getting ready in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

I uh read a survey many years ago that 80% of people watching YouTube videos don't actually have the sound on. That's really interesting. Yeah. They have closed captioning or whatever, and they just they just watch the the video. I don't know, that would drive me crazy, but right.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

I uh I try not to go on YouTube because then I spend four hours just going down the rabbit hole of here's the next one, here's the next one. And um obviously at my age I enjoy um going back and watching all tonight shows and comedians and you know, I mean my favorite comedians of all time were George Carlin and uh Richard Pryor. And you go back and you you just go down the rabbit hole. The other thing is I find, and this is it's not just um it's not just for entertainment. There are a lot of videos online uh for everybody, obviously, in the fields you like, but I go down and find old shows that I could see how they were directed, and uh there's a lot of stuff online from directors too, which I had never really done, but um you can find a lot of really interesting things to either to learn more or teach. Like why, like why? Do you remember some of the well there's a um there's a great video of the Michael Jackson uh performance at the Super Bowl, and it's I think it's only about a three-minute video. I showed in class, and it's narrated by the director who's directing it, and it's very interesting because I don't know what year that was, but uh Michael Jackson called the director a couple nights before and said, Here's what I want to do. I want to control when I start. And he said, Well, Michael, what what do you mean? He goes, I don't want you, I you know, in those days they used a click track, they used it, they used it, uh he sang to a track, he didn't do it live. Right. And um he said, Uh I'm gonna come on stage and until I take my glasses off, when and when I take my glasses off, I'd like you to start the music. Gotcha. So he said, Deal, great, that sounds really simple. So I don't know if you remember this, but Michael came out and stood as a statue for two minutes in front of the audience. He did not move. He he built up this incredible anticipation, and you hear the director going, Come on, Michael, come on, Michael, and he realizes Michael can't hear him, but the whole crew can hear him, and they're all laughing. But he's going, Come on, Michael, and finally Michael removes his glasses, he hits the audio, and it starts. So so that's a brilliant behind the scenes of what a director goes through in certain situations.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah, and as the nominal talent, I gotta tell you that sitting there waiting for a countdown is the most unnerving thing.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Two minutes, could two minutes feels like ten hours. You know, I always talk about and people uh who might listen to this who work in the field, um our uh on broadcast television, our commercials are our best friends. We can do so much in a minute and a half to two minutes. I could talk to everybody in the crew and tell them what's coming up. But when you really think about it, and I um I know our topic today is a little a little different, but something that I you learn early on is that five seconds is a long time. Yeah. You can do a whole lot in five seconds when you're on the air. If the message is proper, then five seconds is all you need. Well, you you know, I don't speak that well, but you learn how to you learn how to give information. Um I can give five cues in five seconds to different people. Yeah, we're coming up, standby music, standby this. Um, so you learn that. But I uh whenever I watch that video and I do show it in class, the little behind the scenes thing. Um, when I play that video, I go, I can't imagine being at a Super Bowl with Michael Jackson, and he comes on the stage and he stands as a statue for two minutes.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Two really two whole minutes.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

It was completely two minutes before he took his glasses off and the track was hit.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

You mentioned five seconds. I'm a big fan of these things called mnemonics in branding, which is a sound hit. Yep. Uh we are farmers bum but two seconds. Yeah. Uh one second. That's all you need to to go. And people remember. Yeah, and it ties into a brand, and that's that's all you need. Um, as a as an announcer, I am roped into waiting for a clock to time down. Sure. And it I'm I'm I have to go at that moment. Yeah. And I have done big tournament uh things that I know are televised, and it's down to the second, and I'm sitting there as a human being thinking, okay, there's the clock, five, four. In about three seconds, I'm gonna be live in front of God knows how many people. And it is something that I I've learned to live with, but it is never something you just anticipate that will go flawlessly that much.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Our um our topic today is something uh things that we wish we knew, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Yeah, things you learn about uh being the director of today's show.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

So um one of the funny things that you learn and and that you don't realize, and I guess even again, people watching don't don't really think about it. Students don't think about it until a certain point, and then they go, Oh, really? Is time everything's to the second. It is. You know, um Saturday Night Live, they try to save six to eight seconds to go off the air, so they're timing their show so that they can have six to ten seconds to say goodbye at the end. And you're not talking, hey, we we need a minute at the end. They're timing it to the second. Um years ago, uh NBC Nightly News had a had a moment in the middle of the show where the producer would say, Okay, we're a little heavy with time, we're a little light, I'm gonna add this or I'm gonna take this away. So we finish right at 2825. Right. 28 minutes and 25 seconds. Exactly. So timing, it's all about timing.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

When I was doing voiceovers before the before the digital age, I had to hit 29.5 seconds. Right. It had to be in you had to do it in a in a live environment. Now you can digitally uh lengthen it or shorten it.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

I might have I might have mentioned this before. There was a there was a in all the studios, in all the control rooms at NBC, we had uh before digital, we had regular clocks. Right. There were timers. Yeah. And to add and subtract time uh took some practice. You had to learn how to do it. Uh and now there's little computers that do it for you, but but back then you had to do it in your head. Sure. And every single one of those little clocks in every control room, the glass on it was broken. Right. So we can manipulate it to try to help us calculate what the time was. And you had to do it in a scale of 60, because it's 60 seconds, 60 minutes, you had to do that. And not only that, you had seconds to decide where you were. You know, I always used to joke that if a producer, when I was an associate director, if a producer said to me, How much time do we have left in this videotape? I'd say 40 seconds, no matter what. Because they couldn't calculate in their head what 40 seconds was. And I knew it was around there, but I'd always go, Oh, we got 40 seconds. Oh, so they couldn't, yeah, hold on. So, you know, and it was pretty funny because they'd buy it and um I'm not giving away anything, but it would be funny because I didn't know. I I didn't know yet.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

You know, is it's weird because uh I go home and I have I'm blessed with the younger kids, right? And um they'll say, Can we have five more minutes, Daddy, when I tell them to go to sleep or take a bath or whatever. Okay, five minutes. And I have to set a timer on an Alexa device so it's exact. So it's five minutes. I can't just say, Okay, kids, it's been five minutes. The alarm didn't go off, Daddy.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

That's pretty funny.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

We're regulated this way, Joe, and it's kind of driving me a little bit crazy. Yeah, I I hear you. I hear you. But um, no, you're right. Even in a live sporting event, I have a script and it shows okay, the first break hits here. We got to be ready to go with this, and the breaks are absolutely delineated at two and a half minutes, and you cannot go over sure.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Um I when I first uh started working at sports as an associate director, the um we were able to hold up Major League Baseball and football with stage managers on the field caps that had that had red things on their arms so they'd make an X to hold the game up. When that went away, you had two minutes and two seconds to go to commercial and be back not to miss play. So the second there was a timeout, the second there was a you know a field goal, you had two minutes and two seconds to get to commercial and get back.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah, now we're run by the media. So the red cap gets the cues from the media folks to see if the commercials are done yet. Right. In basketball, you see uh somebody at the the sidelines holding up two fingers or whatever about uh much time is left.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

It's pretty funny. And people don't uh I I guess most people don't even think about that. Right. But how do you get a commercial in? You know, how do you do this? And and that's what it was.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I mean, the good thing is if you're if you're not televised and you got these breaks, they're still gonna be worked into it, but you have music to fill, so I don't have to read it specifically if I have announcements, but yeah, these exact timing has to go. So timing is important to go in there.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

And to go to our topic, um timing timing is something that's so important that I wish I learned it in school. I really didn't. I I I when I first started at NBC, I was You didn't go to timing class?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

No, I didn't.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

We we didn't have a timing class. Um and we didn't even have a media major, it was communication. Actually, it was called communication arts. Yeah, I majored in English slash communication. Right, right. I think my my think my uh undergraduate degree says communication arts. Uh-huh. And um I wish they had something like that. I wish they told us, hey, you're gonna do a show in our student in the studio. I remember working in the studio in in school, um, and you have five minutes and four seconds to do this show. You know, something that we'd learn what that timing meant. Precisely, yes. I didn't learn timing until I worked in radio, and uh then we were concerned, you know, we had concerns about timing. Um when I got into TV, it was much more uh serious. The timing was much more serious. Um, you know, in radio, you had half hours basically to do shows. You had plenty of time to figure out what you were doing and this and that, and producers would pretty much time the shows exactly. But in television, especially live sports, when I went into sports, live sports, boy, the timing is amazing. And I um I will tell you the most difficult one that I wish I had learned something about before we did it. We had a couple of associate directors um who are dear friends of mine who are really good at this. But think about this for a second football. The network had might might have on a Sunday three or four football games going at the same time. Right. So there were studio there was a studio in New York at the time that uh I would work in occasionally when I wasn't doing a game, that we would have to line up the halftime shows of each game. So the halftime show would start for the first game they got to halftime and it would go continuously until all four games had three segments of a halftime show. So what that meant was the associate directors out in the field and the producers had a sheet of paper that gave them hit times to join that show. Wow. And then we call them rotating halftime shows. So in the studio, they're doing segment, segment, segment, segment until all the games got three segments serviced. But in the field, if you were the producer and the associate director, your game hits halftime. You look at the list and you go, at you know, 240-15, we could join a halftime. So it was rotated handtime shows. Wow. And boy, that was tough. And and and by the way, pregames all start at the same time, obviously. Halftime's rotating. Um, post-game shows rotated. So you're there with time, it was timing and timing, and where do I join and how much time do I have? And I have to fill, you know, you'd see them doing an interview on the field, say, at halftime. Um, well, you got 15 seconds, we have to join the halftime show. So timing was really important.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

And this is one thing I'm sure you learned at the today's show. And we wanna I want to do a show on how it is that you manage to find your anchors and what makes a great uh host on the show also later on, because part of it is is the responsibility of the host not to get into the weeds with stuff and wrap it up within that that time frame. Sure. But let's go ahead and visit our theme here. Um, I was kind of curious, and I was thinking about a theme for the show, and we all tell our students the things that we learn from our experience about what they can put into their career aspirations. What are the kinds of things that you wish you'd known, Joe Michaels, before or right when you started directing the today's show?

SPEAKER_02 15:29

So w what I wish I knew is maybe not as important as um things that I should have paid attention to. Okay, fair enough. If that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

I think yeah, sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Um you know, we were just talking about uh timing and uh when I started in radio, I I was actually taught how to do be an associate director, director slash director in radio. I learned a lot there. I did learn a lot in college, but not practical, not enough practical. We w theory. Yeah, we we learned theory and then we we put it in the so um if I went back and said I wish I the one thing I I could say, if I went back and said, What do I wish? I wish I had paid more attention. I wish I you know what I mean? Uh you're a hot shot kid. You're working at 30 rock. Right. You know, I I don't I was never in the position where I think I knew it all, but I had a lot to learn. And I had a lot more to learn than I thought I did. And I wish I had paid more attention to all the little minutia that I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

I think Does that make sense? Absolutely, it does. We get we get locked into our habits and we don't think about other ways to do things. And there is a revelation uh when that happens, we think, oh, yeah, I should have been doing this all along. But we don't because we keep doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

And that aligns with listening to people. That aligns to, you know, I was very, very lucky. I I always told you, um, I always felt everything that's ever happened to me has been pure luck. But there's definitely a big part of luck there. But when I started at NBC and then got into NBC radio, the people that were there and television a year and a half later, the people that were there were there from the 50s. Yeah. And boy, did they know the industry. They knew the industry better than anybody because they were there when it started. They created the the rules and the norms. So I wish I had talked to them more. I wish I had learned more. I mean, I I tried to my best to talk to them and learn things, but I wish I did more of that. But you did, Joe. Well, I did you sought them out. You know what's really funny? I I I'm not gonna embarrass her by telling you who it is, but um she was valued in her class a few years ago uh here at school. She um I talked to her, she works at Fox News now, and uh we we were texting the other day, uh, and she texted me. Uh I it's amazing how much I learned at college that I'm using now that I didn't think I knew.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Oh, that's gratifying.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

And I went, wow, very, very smart young lady. But I went, I agree with that. I agree. You know, a lot of people go through college and even here at at High Point University, and they seem they're graduating and they seem well, I don't know think I learned a whole lot. And when they get in the real world, they find that all the things they've learned here really comes in handy. So I took classes in college, I know it was a very long time ago, you know. We we we I won't make jokes about it, but but uh it was a very long time ago. But when I started working, I realized God, I did learn a lot in college. Um, and but I learned a lot from these older guys and ladies who really worked in the industry from the beginning. Some of them, some of them worked at really early shows that were the first shows on TV. I wish I had I wish I'd grabbed more stuff from them mentally, you know what I mean? Until you actually put it into practice, you don't realize the relevance of it. Yeah. And um so so I I don't regret anything, but that's something I would have done more of. I did a lot of it. I mean, you you can't not do a lot of it, but I wish I did more of that um because it took me longer to get to where I wanted to get, I think, um uh than it would have if I knew more, if that that makes any sense. Um you have to learn you learn on your own time, I guess. But um it was it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Did NBC facilitate that at all?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

So when I was when I was a page, um, and for those who don't know what a page is, there it's a wonderful way to start in a business. Lots of companies have it. Um like it's very similar to an intern. But when I was a page, we gave tours and we gave um uh we were ushers at TV shows where you learn a lot. You learn a lot. I mean, I was lucky enough to be a page when we did Bob Hope specials and I mean really great stuff. Um, but when I was a page, uh there was a job opening in radio as an associate director, and uh you basically you're on your own, you're directing with an engineer, and I said, Well, I've never done this. I mean, I was around the radio station in college, but you know, I never really did much of that. But I said, uh, well, I'm gonna apply for this job. And I applied for the job, and the first thing I didn't think I was gonna get it, and first thing I realized is they were looking for young people to teach on how to do this. This was not a local radio station, this was the NBC Tele Radio Network. Wow. And there was a uh there was a guy there who had been an associate director for a long time, and uh he literally gave us lessons on how to do what we were doing. And I f fast forward, and I mentioned this before when we've talked, I learned timing. I learned how to cue people, I learned all that in radio, not TV. You know, I I can see so radio was real and you know, I was l fortunate enough to take part in uh uh directing or a ding some radio shows that were the old-fashioned radio shows where you actually cued people with your fingers through a window. And that's where I learned timing and cueing and and all how you how a show gets put together.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

You're an exception because you worked for a radio show that was televised, basically. Right. Television is canned, it's produced. You have this package, you know exactly what it is, you put it on there and you you have a cup of coffee and you watch it. In radio, everything's happening live.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

And well, I I was also lucky enough, even after radio, to mostly work with live television, which live the closest thing I could say to live television is being a a a a player on a a sports team. Yeah. Everybody's got to work at the same time together, or it will go right down the tubes. Um and it's live. You don't know what's going to happen next.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

You know? In radio for the most part, except in big markets, you're a solo artist. You're doing everything. You're learning how to do it and put a show together. I worked in television and we'd spend four or five hours at a at a sporting event and we come down to a two-minute package. Right. And radio, it's the entire four to five hours that has to be filled with something.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

I never enjoyed um I never I mean, not that I didn't enjoy it really, but I never loved um pre-recorded shows. Um there was something that always happened every year at the Today Show that we still laugh about. Um the show is live. We're live all the time. There's, you know, everybody goes, Were you on a seven-second delay? No, we we were on no delay. It was a live show. What you see is what we were doing.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

It still amazes me, though.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Well, it always amazed me that we only had a handful of things happen on the air that you would you wouldn't needed a sec seven-second uh delay for. But um, because most of the time it didn't. I wish we had a 20-second delay so that when I made a bad camera cut, I could go back and redo it. But um what we always amazed is every year when the busiest time of year, what did we do at the Today Show? But we recorded a Christmas show. Gotcha. And our show at the time back then, when we first started doing that, was a two-hour show. And we'd go through the two-hour show every day, you know, every day of the year, no problem, live, wonderful show. But when it came to recording a Christmas show, it would take six hours to stop seven hours. I'm not gonna say Katie Kirk's name, but she'd go, Can we stop so I could do I mean it was just hysterical. And it would take us six hours to do our two-hour show.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

You know what's weird about and it's not weird about that. I I have a lot of students I've had who have been very expressive, very garrulous and engaging. But when they have to record something on a computer, they'll take like 40 tries just to start it, yeah, and then halfway through it, they're I don't like it starting over.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

It's so funny. And I don't know, you've been an announcer for years. I always feel when you record something and then you do another take and you do another take and you do another take, the first take is usually the best one. It is, but you don't give yourself credit for that. It's usually that's where your energy is. That's I mean, if you flub, that's different. But if you that first take is usually the best one, you know?

SPEAKER_01 24:24

When I was learning how to do commercials, I was given a commercial per night, and I would be in there for hours doing a 30-second commercial because I wasn't, I was never I wanted my voice to sound like everybody else's. And uh and and going back to your point, we we get locked into these kind of things, or the point we made earlier was that you get locked into habits, you don't get out of it. You try to be like everybody else, and when you don't uh sound like everybody else, that that should be an opportunity to be unique. Yeah, but we don't look that way. Agree. Okay, so timing and also uh live and and produce things that you've learned along the way, you should reach out to more people.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Well, the most important thing when we were started talking about this subject, the most important thing, um, and you're gonna agree with me right away, is in the in your career is networking. Right. And that word didn't exist when I started. We didn't talk about networking. My dad used to tell me, get a little tiny book, and whoever you meet, write down their name and what they do. Because you never know you may be able to call them one day and and you may need a job or something, right? I never did it. My dad did, but I never did it. And uh I wish I had done it. And when I went back, when you said, Well, let's talk about this, I went back and said, you know what? I don't regret it again, but the most thing that would have been better is as I met people, is to talk to them more, try to learn more from them and get their contact information. Yeah. And when I go back, I um I'm trying to remember his name. Uh he was married to um Natalie Wood. Robert Wagner. Robert Wagner. So they came to the studio in radio to do an interview, and uh, I was the director, and wow, and we uh we talked a little before. I was always in love with with Natalie Wood. I mean I just adored her, and I was looked up to him. He was one of the last, not the last, but one of the last real studio actors that did a lot of things, right? And I really enjoyed talking to them, and I will tell you a funny story. I uh about two days later, I got on a plane to go to LA to do something, and they were uh were I I I wanted to say how lucky was I that I was probably 24 years old and I got to sit in first class, and they were right in front of me on the bulkhead, and I got up to go to the bathroom, and I didn't want to bother them, obviously. Got up to go to the bathroom, and when I turned around to go back to my seat, uh he grabbed my arm. He goes, Hey, how you doing? I can't believe we're on the same plane. Wow. And I sat at the bulkhead on the floor in front of them and talked to them for about an hour and a half. And when I got off the plane, I said, I said, geez, I would love to talk to them. What a great contact. And I never did anything about it. So and I could tell you 80 stories like that, where you're in the room and um, you know, a famous singer, somebody like that would come in the control room or in radio. And when I look back, that would be important to somebody's career, and I never knew enough to do that. And I know it sounds a little self-serving, but it is self-serving. Your career, you have to you have to be in a position to to further your career. And in those days, we never talked about networking. Right. I mean, my dad did, he he kind of knew what that meant. He probably didn't know the word networking, obviously, but he knew what that meant. And over the years, from radio to TV, um, I met tons and tons of people. And, you know, I try to talk to everybody. You get a chance to talk to people. Um, uh uh and and I wish I had said, hey, let's exchange numbers or whatever, or can I contact you sometime? You know, I always tell students when you meet somebody um, or if you're on LinkedIn, send a note to somebody and don't say I'm looking for a job, but say, Hey, can I get in touch with you? I love to get some advice from you.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

I I think that the most impressive people I've met have also been the more long-lasting because I would do some events like the I did the uh interviews for the uh Crosby Celebrity Golf Tournament for a long time. And I would meet these enormous stars. And once we got off the uh the hit or the break, I could tell who was really a genuinely good person versus the people that were right away. Um that were very peripheral and and um artificial. Um but the ones that that were so engaging and so kind and so nice and and really they tended to have great uh durability. They they lasted longer uh than the other ones. And it it it was really telling to me at that point. So I tried to reciprocate, not that I I was all that, but if I ever met a protege or something like that, I would make sure that they wouldn't know that that they were a human being.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Yeah, I just think that's something, and again, I don't regret anything, but I I think that would have been a smart thing for me to do. Um I will tell you some funny stuff. I think you did. I mean, you you would reach out to people like Harry Coyle and let everything the man knew. Well, people I was working with, um, I certainly had great relationships with uh everybody I worked with. I mean, even you know, people uh I have a very good friend Sean Labretto who was basically started in um sports at the same time I did. In fact, our boss confused us a whole lot, two Italian guys. And um uh I think I've told the story about He's the one you blamed. I think I told you the story about being at Wobbledon as an associate director, and John was in New York, he was our uh where our feed was going, and the executive producer said to me, Um, Libretto, you better get sharp tomorrow. You just made a mistake. And I got on the I got on the uh headset with John and I said, Hey boy, you are in trouble. Because he confused, he always confused us. But um what I was gonna say is uh the the the funny part is I came to High Point University to teach, and uh, for those people who don't know about High Point, not just the university, the city, it's basically furniture um for the trade. And every two twice a year they have big uh furniture mart where people come here to look at furniture, buy furniture for their clients and stuff. And I went, a friend of mine brought me to a um a little party one night, probably the first or second year I was here, and he always joked that I had met a lot of people and stuff, and I said, Yeah, I met a lot of people. So he always tried to introduce me to people, and when he introduced me to furniture people, I didn't know them, but it was fun to talk to them because it's a trade I didn't know much about. But we uh we were at a party here in town, and he comes in the other room and he goes, Come come to come with me to the next room. I want to introduce you to somebody. And there was a guy sitting in a chair, and he stood up to shake my hand, and he went, he looked at me, he goes, NBC, right? And I go, How do you remember that? It was Kevin Cosner. Wow, okay. And I just cracked up because the only two times I met him was once on the show and once at a Super Bowl, um, there were four or five of us standing around chatting, and it was uh uh Bob Costas, uh Bucky Guntz, great director, friend of mine, uh Bryant Gumble, um uh OJ Simpson, and Kevin Cosner comes up and starts talking to us. That's the only two times I ever met the guy. So could you imagine my friend just cracked up because he goes, Oh my god, you know him. I go, I don't know him. He didn't know my name, but he looked at me and he goes, NBC, right? And I cracked up.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Isn't it great to see the person behind behind the the the the scene? Um, Leslie Nielsen, one of the funniest people I've known in my entire life, he would ask us to to join him on an elevator, and he'd say, You guys just pretend that you're just riding the elevator. And he would wait for for there'd be enough room for one or two people to step on. He would have a whoopee cushion with him. I was just about to say something. He was sitting there, and we we were the we were the the the plants there. We would just be like guys in the elevator, and we'd and he would get two new people would come on and we'd ride it up and they'd get off, and two new people would come down and ride off. They had no clue that the the same people were in the elevator riding up and down. But we just uh my god, I had to turn to the wall to try to avoid laughing.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

I've only I've I've only met him once, but he had the little buzzer in his hand when he went to shake my hand, and I didn't know what to do. But total practical joker.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

That's all he did. Oh my god, he was sitting the back of the elevator, and forgive me for the the sound effect I'm about right to make. Right, but after in one ding, he'd go Yep.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

He did it, he did it on the Today Show once, where he put it on the seat, and while uh while Bryant or somebody was interviewing him, he was doing the noises. I mean, funny is good.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

We had to stay completely straight from my god the people on the elevator, of course, were reacting to this or not, or try not to, and then he'd do the squealing ones.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

It's like absolutely hysterical. Absolutely. Yeah. So so you know, I I think especially if I were going to give advice to people who are starting to work in in this any of these industries, is remember the people you meet, talk to them. You know. Um, it's funny you said something a minute ago that really hits me, and I won't try to give you any names, but you can tell right away when you meet somebody who's a celebrity or well known, whether they're a good guy or not. You know, you could see the second you talk to them, you can just see exactly whether they're just a down-to-earth nice person or they're full of themselves. Right. And it really is fun to see who's one way or who's another. And it's okay to be both. Well, you know, you know, I I I don't know. And I've said that. You gotta have a functional ego. I said this before about watching watching even a host of the Today Show. It would be horrible to be well known. It's a tough job. It's I mean, it's great, you make great money, and people know who you are. But you walk down the street, it's hard. People, everybody will stop you, and you gotta stop and be nice. You know, I always said this, and I think I've mentioned it before to you. Um when you when somebody says, Well, how was that person nice? Well, of course they were. You just met them and they're they're they're well known. They're gonna shake your hand, and most of them are gonna charm your pants off. But when you really get to know who they are, is when you work with them. Yeah. And that's a big difference between working with them, and I'm not mentioning any today's show people, because I have to tell you, I can't even think of a today's show host or reporter that isn't a wonderful person. They really are. I mean, every every one of the people, some are a little more down-to-earth um than others, but they're all really, really good people, which is why that show was so much fun. We go back to sports. You know most of the people that were announcers who were sports people, they were incredible people. They were just, I mean, just incredible people um to work with. When you when you start going back and thinking about Dick Emberg and and um uh I mean, I can go down the list of them. They were really cool people, they were really good people. Jack Buck. I never worked with Jack Buck, but I've been around Jack Buck, and I know what a character. What a character.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Oh, yeah, I mean, Joe used to when he was a child, Joe Buck would hang out in the studio with his dad, and they had a great relationship. But Joe tells stories about the uh the station wagon ride home that hu uh humanized uh Jack Buck, the whole relationship, which was really, really cool. Um fame can be such a difficult thing, not that I've experienced it at that level. Uh one of my favorite bands is Rush, and they have a great song called Limelight. You know, living in Limelight, the Universal Dream. But uh the the telling line is I can't pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend. Yeah. Because it's it's difficult to live that's a good idea. It is.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

I mean, it is. So I I saw it's um I've noticed I've I noticed over the years that people who might be nice people, their fame gets to them and they're not so nice. Yeah. Or or they're not sure. They just don't want to give so much of their time to that. And it's hard. I I'm sure it's hard. But I've always said I I I think I I think most average people would not enjoy being well known.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

I think part of it is because so many people play a character and they don't want to be that character when they leave the house.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Um so it's interesting. I um I do I do think that one of the things I would have done is connect more with people. Okay. You know. I I um, you know, we did a lot of surveys for the Today Show and traveled around the world and and met lots of people. And I've met some people that I I'm still in touch with. Uh, you know, I have a nice friend in Greece, and there's a woman who just retired um in France that we were very good friends with. And um, but I there were more people like that that I wish I had kept in touch with, you know. Well, you know, one of the great things about a good friend is you can not talk to them for 10 years and talk to them and they're still there for you. Exactly. You know, so so I I I if it's again, it's not a regret, but I wish I had kept in touch with more people that I had met and stuff, not just to further the career, um, but that's important, but because they were good people, you know?

SPEAKER_01 37:31

I'm gonna flip this around on you, my friend. Yeah. Because I read the social media comments and I read the people who have worked with you and universally they adore you. Well, you know, I pay them. Well, you had to back in the day.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

I guess I send the money.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

But no, they they think the world of you. So I think probably what you you have a very high standard for for making relationships and friendships and engagements, and uh you do such a great job of it, and but it's it's a driving thing for you, so I understand.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Well, I I you know the old the old expression is um I I I I I never felt like I've ever worked a day in my life. I always enjoyed working with people, and you know, you don't love everybody, but you can learn to really like them if that makes any sense. Or to understand where they're right. There were some people I worked with who were hard to get to know, and uh a couple of them. Uh I had a great cameraman for a long time who did some weird things in life, and I'd go, Oh, what a weird guy. But he was a good guy, and um and you learn to work together and respect each other, you know. And um I again very rarely did I ever work with a crew that I didn't really get to like a lot. Um, if there was one thing and there was a uh I've mentioned it before, there was an ex is an executive producer at the Today Show uh when I first started, uh Steve Freeman, who was an incredible executive producer, um, came up with lots of creative ideas. Uh he was uh at the today show for a very long time, left and then came back, and I was lucky enough to work with him when he came back. Um I he said to me, You joke around too much. And I said, I joke around out of nerves and to calm myself. And I think eventually he understood it. Right. But he wanted me to be tougher with the crew and tougher with what I did, and it wasn't my style. Uh it just wasn't my style, you know. I wasn't it wasn't my style to go around and just boss people, which he he was he was like that. He he bossed you around. And he was very successful and he was a great guy, but it wasn't my style, so he didn't understand my style. And um eventually he did, by the way. Totally, eventually he totally got it. Uh, he I don't know that he loved being he loved being that way, but I'd rather get along with you and talk to you like a human being instead of bossing you, especially you're a cameraman working with me. I want to get to know you a little. So before I tell you already one, take one, hey one, zoom in. I know a little bit about you. And I could say, hey, that was great. You know, I hey, how's your kid doing? Or whatever. See, here's and it was genuine. It wasn't like I did it to to be a nice guy or anything. It was genuine. So I really liked the people I worked with.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

I I knew more about commercial production than any general manager I ever worked with. But there were some general managers who and and and others who who decided that because they were in a position of authority, they should know or or or to to to use their their power in some way to tell me things to do. Right. The very best I ever worked with were people would hire the folks who knew they could get the job done and get the heck out of their way unless they had to do something.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Right. So that that's always been my philosophy. So I don't look back and say, I wish I hadn't been that way. But uh a lot of people I don't think they they thought so a lot of times they thought maybe I was just joking around too much. But I wasn't. It was part of the thing. Especially sports, I joked around a lot. We all had a good time, we were doing great sports stuff. But in at the Today Show, um I think they uh some people thought maybe we were joking around too much. However, think about this a good portion of the crew came in at midnight. Right. At the early on, we came in at about 2 30, 3 o'clock. The show went on at seven. Um not joking around, but having a just calming everybody down. Sure. A couple of jokes. Here we're doing this today. Oh my god, I can't wait to do this, or hey guys, we got to do this today. I don't know about you, but I really don't want to do that. And it just made it bearable to do a show that took all those early hours overnight with a crew of 30 or 40 people. Um, and you know, in the morning I'd go to see the talent, I'd go up to the makeup room, talk to everybody. I went around and talked to people and joke with them, and it really made uh it it helped us be more of a family. It's there's a difference between a family and a team and just a group of people. Yeah. No, absolutely. So um, so I think uh what I I I think I should I wanted to do more of that actually. So so I think that's important to do, um, as well as uh the keeping in touch with people and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

We should pick up on more of this because this is really intriguing stuff. This is not just life skills, but life hacks. Yeah, you know, yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

And uh I don't know. I've I've seen both sides of it. I mean, uh as far as directing, I've seen directors, you don't do anything unless I tell you. Uh-uh. And um, and I am the boss, and you don't, you know, when I tell you Zoom, you zoom, whatever it is, and the crew doesn't respect them, yeah, and they don't get a good product, but they also don't get to know these people and really enjoy working with them.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

You don't demand respect, you earn respect. And that's a big difference. A lot of people don't realize that. Cool. Joe, this has been terrific. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. I'm here, Jim. We'll see you for the next one. Maybe we'll actually see you for the next one. We'll see how that studio does. My God, I have to put a wig on. This is today to 1A conversations with former Today Show director, Joe Michaels. Thanks for listening to Today to 1A, a podcast produced by yours truly, Jim Scott, with my amazing friend and colleague, Joe Michaels, former director of NBC's Today Show, plus Olympics coverage, political conventions, and more. We'll catch you next time on Today to 1A.