In California I reconnected with two people who had a profound influence on me: Jerry Fielding, a wonderful composer, and Ken Johnson, from "The Mike Douglas Show." I had first met Jerry in New York in the early fifties, when we were jointly responsible for the music for a television special called "New York, New York" starring Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Marge and Gower Champion and Woody Allen. The choreographer was Hermes Pan. I wrote the music for the dance routines, Jerry wrote the opening music and the underscoring. I acted as musical producer in the control room, while Jerry conducted the orchestra in the studio.

Later, I played piano for Jerry when he conducted Mike Douglas's hit record, "The Men in My Little Girl's Life." Since this was where I met Mike, Jerry was indirectly responsible for my going on "The Mike Douglas Show."

Jerry was a hero to me. He was a brilliant musician, but he was also the most unhappy man I have ever known - he made me seem like Norman Vincent Peale. He could find something wrong with everything and everybody. Politically, he was a radical, which sometimes got him into trouble. For years he had been Sam Peckinpaugh's fair-haired boy, although Peckinpaugh was very hard on him. Jerry was helpless in real-life situations. When we ate together I ordered his food because he didn't know what to eat. I even lit his cigarettes for him.

Ken's family and mine saw each other frequently. They came to Encino to play in our pool and enjoy a barbecue; we did the same at Kenny's place. Enthusiastic, funny, charming and full of life, he had been scratching for work as a writer or director, and in every conversation he told me there was a big deal brewing. It wasn't pretend - he was actively involved in pitching shows. Nobody danced faster or was more positive than Ken. With each new story there was a report of the failure of the one that I'd heard about earlier, but he seemed to deal with those setbacks very well, a lot better than I would have. The Six Million Dollar Man was a very successful series. Ken told me he had submitted a script to the producer, Harve Bennett, for an episode based on a new character called The Bionic Woman, played by Lindsay Wagner. The following week, when I asked Ken if he had heard anything about the show, he said no, and he was getting somewhat discouraged. The next day Harve Bennett called to say they were going to produce Kenny's script, so his financial problems were solved temporarily.

The Bionic Woman died at the end of Kenny's story. In the weeks after the show aired, our American public protested so much that he was told to bring her back to life, and if, as anticipated, the episode was successful, he would have a series. It happened. Jerry Fielding did the music for the first three episodes, but he had a difficult time with Ken, who "knew a little about music." When Ken and I were working on the Douglas show together, I had made the mistake of buying him a pocket dictionary of musical terms - such as the letter "f" stands for forte, meaning loud, "p" represents piano, meaning soft. By now, he was an authority on music, although I used to tease him when he called the big kettledrums "tymfani," instead of tympani. The friction between Ken and Jerry got so bad that Jerry left the show.

When a person giving directions doesn't know the language of music, it is very difficult to translate his desires into notes. If he knows just a little, it is even worse. Producers only hear the music when they hear the music; the composer hears the music in his head. I don't mean to make it sound like brain surgery. Matter of fact, maybe brain surgery is easier, because the patient doesn't tell the surgeon how to do it. A producer I worked with, who was very pleased with the way the session was going, had suggested a good idea that we adopted. Now, feeling his musical oats, he stopped our rehearsal and with a quizzical look asked, "How would it sound if you had the guy that's playing the black thing - he's playing his song on the black thing..."

Stumped, I asked, "Black thing? Do you mean the clarinet?"

"Of course not. Everybody knows what a clarinet is. I mean the other black thing."

"You mean the oboe?"

"Yes. The oboe. If he were to play his song one octave higher, I think it would be more effective. Don't you?"

Knowing it would not be nearly as attractive, but knowing on which side my bread was buttered, I said, "What a great idea. That's brilliant." Smiling broadly at the producer, I turned to the oboe player. With raised eyebrow I said, "Would you mind playing letter B an octave higher? Let's try it."

A half-hour later, the producer circled the podium once again, as we were rehearsing another piece featuring a French horn solo. It was almost visible to me that he had a lighted electric bulb over his head. He stopped the music and said, "Joe, you know the guy who's playing the round thing in the back there?"

"You mean the French horn?"

"Whatever, you call it. What would it sound like if he played his song an octave higher, like we did before?"

Now we had a real problem. The horn player was already playing at the top of the instrument's range. When I regretfully reported that to the producer, he shook his head sadly, saying, "Oh, what a shame." Then, hopefully, he added, "How about playing it a half-octave higher?"

The word "octave" seems to be very appealing to the layman. One producer asked me in all seriousness, "Could you possibly have the band play that piece a half-octave slower?"

In the middle of another rehearsal, I heard the script girl and the producer discussing the merits of what we were doing. He said, "What do you think?" She thought a moment, "I don't know. There's something wrong...ahhh...maybe if the guy put some flats in it, it would be better." I bit my tongue.

Shelly Manne the magnificent drummer was working with me one day, when the producer said, "I know Shelly's a wonderful drummer, I've heard him play at clubs, but do you think you could ask him to play....uhhh...."

I wondered what was coming next - Faster? Slower? Louder? Softer?

"...uhhh...Better!"

Shelly heard this quaint remark over his headphones, and I heard him drop his sticks on the drum in disgust. Being a pro, he said nothing and went on to collect his paycheck. An episode called "The Bionic Beauty," about a beauty pageant, was the last show of a very short season. I was asked to write an arrangement of the song "Feelings" for Lindsay Wagner. Lindsay was a nice lady but not much of a singer - we recorded all night, did thirty-eight takes, and were saved by a brilliant editor who combined them into an acceptable performance. The following day, they asked me to write a song for Bert Parks. In one day, I wrote and rehearsed it with Bert, the following day we recorded it and everybody was pleased except me - I had been up all of the two prior nights writing, without any time to sleep. Not used to that kind of abuse, I was ready to go back to work for Pearl Bailey or Sinatra or anybody.

The next day, they asked me if I would do the underscoring for the episode. I was told that after the hiatus, which would be two months, they wanted me to compose and conduct the music for the series. A hit show that would be around for a few years was being put in my lap. It would assure me of an opportunity to learn and earn steady current income plus future royalties - collected by ASCAP, of which I am a member - whenever the show replayed.

For me, it was a good experience, although it did have one negative effect. I was asked to write a new theme to replace Jerry's, but I sensed that wasn't really cricket. I said, "I don't want to do this because Jerry is a dear friend."

"If you don't want to do it, we'll get someone else." With some reluctance, I wrote a theme for the main title and closing credits.

Jerry called me in a fit of anger, "How could you take money off my table?"

I apologized and said, "What could I do Jerry? Should I have turned it down?" "Yes, you should have turned it down."

Shortly after that we instituted a policy where they used his opening music and my closing music.

Over the two and a half years of The Bionic Woman, I did most of the episodes. In my scores I used fragments of thematic material, in addition to musical colors and combinations of "odd" sounds. Since there was a new character on the show each week, I wrote a special theme for each of them.

Other shows with Ken followed. Cliff Hangers, a one-hour, weekly show with three separate units within it, each one was a serial, much like the movie serials of the thirties and forties, thus the name. The segments included The Secret Empire, based on western characters from the late nineteenth century; Stop Susan Williams, which starred Susan Anton as a gorgeous, six-foot-two private eye; and The Curse of Dracula, with Michael Nouri, in his first major role, playing Count Dracula. Cliff Hangers, a fascinating experiment dreamed up by its executive producer, legendary network executive Fred Silverman, lasted only thirteen weeks.

As its writer-producer, Kenny got me involved in The Incredible Hulk, which kept me busy writing music for five and a half years. We also did the mini series V, about an invasion from outer space, Hot Pursuit, a female version of The Fugitive, and Shadow Chasers, a kind of a drawing room comedy. We worked on a number of movies of the week, including The Liberators, which was for Disney and Death in the Family for Universal.