# Robert Hays Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/ian-talks-comedy-140290/robert-hays Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/ian-talks-comedy-140290/robert-hays.md Podcast: [Ian Talks Comedy](https://stenobird.com/podcast/ian-talks-comedy-140290) Published: 2026-03-14T13:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ian-fermaglich/episodes/Robert-Hays-e3gdo69 Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/21d579e4/podcast/play/116891273/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-2-13%2Fa7fd59aa-40f2-0b2e-c668-49cb26a4d7c1.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/ian-talks-comedy-140290/episodes/robert-hays Duration seconds: 4275 ## Resource Robert Hays joined me to discuss loving the Lone Ranger; moving from Virginia to Turkey to Nebraska; changing schools & becoming class clown; being a Marine brat; signing up for an acting class in college; selling his horse to buy a VW bus and moving to the Old Globe in San Diego; being taught by Craig Noel; working with Leonard Nimoy; getting a job on Rockford Files from Eddie Foy III; his dad asking Eddie to talk him out of acting; Laverne & Shirley; Angie makes him recognizable; winning the Tug O' War on the Battle of the Network Stars with Kent McCord; Family Feud / Angie crossover; being called the New Cary Grant by Merv Griffin and having other guest Orson Welles call him the New Robert Hays; doing a magic trick with Orson; having to shoot Airplane & Angie consecutively for two weeks of twenty hour days; the "alcohol problem" scenes took a lot of time and shirts to shoot; dailies were packed; 1st screening the third reel was shown before second; having his parents come to the premiere and Peter Graves tell him he has a hankering for young boys; Bette Midler laughs throughout; friends thought trailer had all the jokes; name is different in foreign countries; one town in Australia played it for two years straight; choosing scripts; picking Take This Job and Shove It to work with Art Carney, Royal Dano and Barbara Hershey; Airplane v. Caddyshack; Michael O'Keefe, The Great Santini and Robert Duvall; hosting SNL 1/24/81; dress rehearsal going better; a prop phone is not placed on stage forcing him to ad lib; pitching sketches Ordinary People and Inflatable Prostitute; loving NYC; filming a TV movie Murder by the Book in NYC; Fred Gwynne; doing Mr. Roberts live on NBC in 1984; dress rehearsal ran better and show was too neat; bringing Anthony Hop… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/ian-talks-comedy-140290/episodes/robert-hays/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/ian-talks-comedy-140290/robert-hays.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.