I guess because the shows were activist in their own way - the marriage of my public activism and my career activism, you know - people understand me very well. They also understand there's a very strong bipartisan part in all of this.

In the area we're discussing, leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks and in the offices of people who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying what will get them ratings.

... For all our alarm, it is clear that the religious right is responding to a real hunger in our society... a deep-seated yearning for stable values... When conservative Christian groups talk of failures in our educational system, the erosion of our moral standards, and the waste of young lives, they are addressing real and legitimate concerns... Among secularists, the aversion toward discussion of moral values, let alone religion, can reach absurd extremes.

TV that people will never see, that giant international corporations will never touch, will never pay your salary.

That's the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.

I guess the story that best defines us [with Bud Yorkin] and our relationship goes back to the [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis show. The four stage managers on that show became major TV creators and directors - John Rich, Jack Smight, Arthur Penn and Bud Yorkin.

We are a country of excess. So it's not the violence, per se, but the exacerbation and constant repetition.