Bill Bixby’s quotes
On – "My Favorite Martian":……………..
Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin….. (Feb 3, 1974)
"Ray (Walston) started allowing me to make mistakes the second day the show was in production and we got along terrifically from then on."
Newark Evening News……. (May 17, 1964)
"I’m a different kind of newsman every week. One week I’m a police reporter, the next the garden editor. I don’t think it has been definitely decided…Next season however we hope to get out of the house more often and maybe we can build some episodes around the newspaper office. That might justify the research I did on reporting before the series started. I spent hours at the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit News brushing up on journalism, but I haven’t used any of it, so far."
Birmingham News (Alabama)…..(March 12, 1978)
"I guess my first big break was in the very early 60s when I got into the last half of the first year of the Joey Bishop show. I went right from that into ‘My Favorite Martian’ working with Ray Walston.
"He was
fantastic to work with. He was a great teacher for me. Very
patient…It was the first time I had worked closely with a
real Broadway pro.
"Can you believe it? That show lasted for three years but we made 128 episodes. That was the way we did it back then. No one does that many shows today. [1978] The average season is about 24 shows. If we started out with ‘Martian’ today and made 128 episodes, it would last for six years."
"The comedy in the show will be a little too adult for many children to understand, but it will probably be a family show—the adults will know what we are talking about, and the kids will watch it because it has a Martian in it.
"When I first saw the name of the series I was auditioning for—‘My Favorite Martian’-?? But when I began reading the script, it began to make sense—the lines were adult, the comedy wasn’t slapstick, and there was a certain warmth about the Martian and reporter relationship. That may sound corny but it really is a warm relationship."
" ‘Martian’ did everything, I’m sitting here discussing several projects because if this. Until then, I had no focus as an actor. If you said, ‘Jump out a window’ I would. I did once. Well, Ray Walston…we did the show for three years, about 112 shows. I can see the change between the first and third year and my growth as an actor is due directly to Ray Walston. He allowed me to make mistakes but not bad enough mistakes to hurt me. He was my teacher, my on-the-job-training teacher. He was awfully nice to me…"
St-Louis Globe-Democrat TV Digest ……(Aug
2,1969) ….added
6/5/03……….
"Working with Ray contributed a lot to my professional maturity. He helped me every time I asked. And we came out of the series as close friends. That’s unusual. After three years in a TV series, the actors are usually at each other’s throats."
MARVEL Magazine #10 ……(1978)
When I first did "My Favorite Martian" there was no question that it was different, and we started a siege of shows, "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Bewitched" and on and on. Everyone got into the fantasy thing. But to do it at the time when we did was really very courageous."
/The Incredible Hulk//Goodnight Beantown//On Acting//On Directing// /On Television//On Public Recognition/
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