Surely, You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!

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Go to lifelock.com slash foxpod and save up to 25% your first year. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moments of The Brian Kilmeade Show special edition. Appreciate you listening all year long, but it's also my opportunity to put together some of the better interviews that really stood out, made the show unique throughout the year, and that's exactly what we have today. A little bit later, we're going to talk to a historian, head of the Woodson Center, Bob Woodson. He was a great help. As I put out and researched Teddy and Booker T, our two American icons blazed a path to racial equality. One of the reasons why the special is so successful and so good on Fox Nation, hopefully on Fox News Channel, is Bob Woodson.

He was just a great, great, offered great insight and knowledge of not only Booker T Washington, but how he related to Teddy Roosevelt. We did the interview right in front of the White House. But first things first, guess what? David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrams wrote a book about the making of Airplane. Remember that one of the funniest movies ever made? And the title is Surely You Can't Be Serious, The True Story of Airplane. How hard these writers and directors worked to get this done, how almost no one believed it, how it was based off a movie that was flat out dead serious that made them laugh. And then they made a parody of it and they compared what was really in the original movie, the rights they bought and the struggle they had to get people to buy into it. But man, when they bought into it and it had success, they immediately went for the sequel.

In fact, we open up this interview with one of the great moments in the movie. Can you fly this plane and land it? Surely you can't be serious.

I am serious and don't call me Shirley. And just like that, a book was forever characterized as Airplane. It is now a book.

It was a great movie and it was long in coming. Dave Zucker, Jim Abrams, Abrams and Jerry Zucker now join us to talk about their brand new book, Surely You Can't Be Serious, The True Story of Airplane and what it took to get done and what it took to cast it. And they finally put it all together in a book.

Hey guys, thanks so much for joining me and congratulations on this book. All right, whose idea was it to recount the building of the book, what it took to produce it and the aftermath? Was it David, Jim or Jerry? It was Bob Hayes.

Really? No, but we, you know, we, we saw it. There was an article in the Onion AV Club, which was the oral history of Airplane. I think we kind of got the idea to do it from that. And, and, and so, so we called up Will Harris, who was the author of the article and he started doing interviews for us and he interviewed us. And then we, and we did a mock-up of the book, which St. Martin's loved. So it got to be, they wanted to publish it and they, we even added more. When you guys were sitting around, Jim, and maybe you could start, when you guys were sitting around going over Airplane and like, let's put this thing together, were you surprised at how much you remembered or were you more surprised at how much you needed each other to remember? Absolutely.

It's good. There were three of us because I think each of us remembered about a third of what went on and sometimes it overlapped, but frequently it didn't. So it helped. And then lots of times we'd be going through and he'd say, oh, that's what happened. Oh, I remember that. Oh, of course. That's, you know, stuff like that. So it very much helped if we, if it had been another 10 years, we would have needed a fourth partner.

Or, or an undertaker. Yeah. Airplane premiered July 2nd, 1980 with a budget of $3.5 million. It was a long time in going. It would make nearly 200 million in sales and influence comedians. And they're all over this book for generations. But first off, could you tell us before we get into the book, and I got a whole bunch of clips here to relive, David, will you tell me how this all came to be and how you laid your, how you got your comedy legs underneath you? Well, we started out, we were able to borrow some videotape equipment back in Milwaukee in 1971. And we started a theater and then we had a fourth partner, Dick Chudnow, who wanted to do a live show. So we combined it and we had videotape and live.

And so we had a little theater in the back of a bookstore in Madison, Wisconsin. And, and then that was very successful. And then we moved the show out to Los Angeles.

And, you know, we did that for five years. And during that time, we saw a movie called Zero Hour, which was a 1957 black and white movie. And it was, they had the exact same plot as Airplane. And we thought this would be a great movie to form the structure for Airplane.

And we added the jokes. But Jerry, that was a serious movie, wasn't it? It was a serious movie.

It was a 1957 black and white flying movie. And that's what we loved about it was that really hard hitting drama where everyone took everything so seriously. And, and, but we also kind of loved it. I mean, it was actually, it was actually a great plot, which we ended up buying the rights to, and written by Arthur Haley and John Champion and others.

And, and it was, it was the perfect comedy because there was actually, there was actually a line in Zero Hour where the doctor says, Stuartist, we have to find someone back there who not only can fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner. And we just put that right in intact. You're not going to believe it. We actually clipped that clip.

Let's listen. I think you ought to know what our chances are. The life of everybody aboard depends on just one thing. Finding someone back there not only can fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner.

I think you ought to know what our chances are. The life of everyone on board depends upon just one thing. Finding someone back there can not only fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner.

Great. There's also, there's also a signature line because Zero Hour also provided the love story that we tell in Airplane. And there's a line, I don't know if you copy this or not, but there's a line at the beginning where Elaine says to Ted, the girl says to the boy, I can't live with a man I don't respect. So he has to get her respect back. And there was actually, for many years, people thought that David Zucker had written that line by himself based on a number of personal relationships that he had. He did. A lot of the movie is autobiographical. Right.

Especially this line, cut three. You ever been in a cockpit before? No sir, I've never been up in a plane before.

Have you ever seen a grown man naked? So Peter Graves delivered that line and he was a little wary of that line, right guys? Oh yeah. When he read the script for the first time, he threw the script across the room and said, this is the worst piece of trash I've ever read. And who had to talk back into it? His agent to say, hey guys, this is funny.

Trust me on this. Well, a big part of it was the producer Howard W. Koch. And you know, when Paramount actually put him on, we had a producer, John Davison, but they put him on too because, you know, he was at the time, this older guy, you know, he's like 10 years younger than any of us are now. But he knew all these people and he used to be president of Paramount, president of the Academy, all that stuff. So he brought Peter Graves. He called them and said, just meet the guys, just meet the guys. And I think Peter Graves was probably surprised that we weren't the drugged out crazies that he expected. And we seemed reasonable and I think his family really liked it. So he finally just said, you know, okay, what the heck? And we're certainly glad about that. We're talking to the authors and the movie producers, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrams on their brand new books called Surely You Can't Be Serious, The True Story of Airplane.

I love the little button on it says, finally, a book you can judge by its cover, which I think is hysterical too. Through it, a couple of things about your background, this Kentucky Fried Theater that you put together, wasn't that all, didn't you guys also, and whoever wants to answer this, Ken, wasn't that the precursor to SNL? Didn't you pitch SNL to NBC? We did not, but Lorne Michaels, the producer of SNL, came to see the show and he pitched the idea to NBC.

And the idea was based on Kentucky Fried Theater. So, and we had gone, actually went to our agent saying we could do a national TV show based on our show. And the agent said, no, that's not a bad idea. That's not a good idea. So, and we, it was our fault for listening to an agent.

That's unbelievable. But Lorne Michaels admits that, that you gave him the idea. Right. No, he was, you know, he, he was, and he never made any secret about it.

It's in the book about Saturday Night Live. And, but, you know, I mean, our opinion, he, he did a great job of it, probably, you know, better than we ever could, but we really wanted to write movies. And that's what we were focused on.

Right. And, and you would go on to do that, but talking about this one right here, what role did it play, David, that you had serious actors doing funny roles? Peter Graves is known as serious. Lloyd Bridge is known as serious.

All these guys, Robert Stack, kind of serious. Was that important for you? It was, it was very important. I mean, if you think of, you know, like, I mean, it could be just a dumb pun saying, I am serious and don't call me Shirley, said by a comedian, it wouldn't have been funny, but, but said by Leslie Nielsen, it was funny. And I think the first days dailies kind of re revealed that to all the studio executives who had it in our deal, that we could be fired after the first weeks, they didn't know if this concept would work, would work.

We made it. That's what made it so hard to pitch to studios that we were doing a comedy without comedians. And then jokes, the captain of the plane coming on to a little kid would not have worked with a comedian, but with Peter Graves, somehow it was funny. And Pete, people did get the joke. So how great was that to hear these guys talk about the business of being funny and getting people to buy into sarcasm and subtlety and getting these great actors to be funny and trust the copy. Now, to me, I didn't know how they got on the set and then we're not trusting the copy.

Why did they say to do, say it was okay, like Lloyd Bridges to do it anyway. But by the way, how fascinating is it that his sons pushed him to do the movie and show the funny side of him and Leslie Nielsen, we all know how funny it would end up being in the Naked Gun movies. But meanwhile, when we come back right after the break, how close did David Letterman go to being a part of this cast as a pilot? A whole lot to be thankful for family, friends and the best of Brian Kilmeade. Happy Thanksgiving from The Brian Kilmeade Show.

you're interested in it, Brian. So glad you're here in this special edition of The Brian Kilmeade Show. It's my privilege to bring on our continuing look at one of the funniest movies ever, surely you can't be serious, the making of the airplane movies and who could have gotten cast.

We saw some great people cast. David Letterman was emerging, kind of an outstanding stand-up comic and a fill-in for the Tonight Show for Johnny Carson. We all know that Letterman to me was the most influential guy on TV by far the best. Carson was the all-time great, but Letterman was so niche and different, I would love to put it on in my family and I would be the only one who thought he was unbelievably funny.

I did not know that, I know he was on a few series, I did not know how close he came to getting into movies, into this movie. So this is the story of Letterman, how he was almost cast in this movie and how their relationship continued with the authors, the writers and the directors. Listen, so you wanted originally David Letterman and Letterman told you he couldn't act and after his audition you said you were right.

Could you bring us through that? Where was Letterman at in his career at the time? Well he had, he was a stand-up comic who was, we had seen him at a comedy store in Los Angeles and he had also been on the Tonight Show a bunch of times, he might have even hosted it, I'm not sure. So he was very much up and coming and we were really, this was before we found Bob Hayes and we had seen so many actors for Stryker and none of them really seemed right to us and Letterman like, I mean he's really, you know he's a handsome guy, he's a brilliant comic and so we thought let's give him a shot but I think acting is not something I mean it's just too phony for him or something, you know he's a great guy, Letterman and you know I mean I think most people in his position would have said oh boy I'm a feature film, this would be great but he kind of knew that it wasn't for him and he was just, he was just uncomfortable even when he did it, you know he just wanted to get out of there. When Jerry called him up to tell him he didn't get the part he was completely relieved.

So you guys came on Letterman and here's his audition when you were there, they played it back so that explains some of the laughter in the background, cut nine. Ted, you got a telegram this morning from headquarters. Headquarters, what is it?

It's a big building where the officers meet but that's not important right now. You're taking all the blame for what happened on that raid was a pretty courageous thing to do. Was it? Because of my mistake, six men didn't come back from that raid. Seven. Lieutenant Zip died this week.

But Dr. Chandler says you'll be out in a week. Isn't that wonderful? I wish I could say the same thing for George Zip. So it sounded good, you can tell it didn't work though. Why didn't we cast him? Yeah, he's great, yeah. Who's wrong with you? He actually was, you know, he wasn't bad.

He probably could have like done it but he just wouldn't have, he wasn't an actor and he knew it. That's awesome. So guys, before we go, I want to play some more cusp. I do want to get to know a little bit about you. Growing up, David, Jim and Jerry, would you just tell me some of the movies where you've said to yourself, I got a sense of humor and watching this movie proves to me that I want to be in this business. Do you guys have an individual movie that really stood out for you or a stand-up comic that said this is what I want to do for a living?

David, you want to start? Well, it wasn't so much a movie but, you know, we would read Mad Magazine. So, you know, we kind of that were clued into the fact that you didn't have to take movies, you know, 100% seriously and Mad Magazine would have this feature called Scenes We'd Like to See and so they would set up a situation and then just completely reverse the outcome in a funny way and I think we like that and we would watch movies and put in our own voices and make fun of them to the extent that some of our friends swore they'd never watch a movie with us again. Jim? Yeah, I think one of the early clues was movies like The King and I or The Sound of Music where people would, drama would be going along and then suddenly people would break into song and that just seemed so weird and I guess we don't have to do that in airplane but that was like what's this about and do we really have to take this seriously? I feel the same way to this day, by the way.

Jerry? Yeah, you know, I remember when David and I saw Bananas, Woody Allen's film and that to me was, I mean, we had a lot, like David said, Mad Magazine, The Marx Brothers, all, you know, there's a lot of different and stand-ups that we like but that was at the point where we were in college and we actually came out of the movie and said, hey, we can do something like that, you know? That, it just somehow it seemed, you know, accessible. Had we'd seen Annie Hall, we would have never gone to Hollywood. So what I think you're gonna really like next is how they got the serious actors like Leslie Nielsen, the serious actors like Lloyd Bridges and others to go ahead and do this movie and why they needed them to because it would capture and really catch everybody by surprise. If you put comics in those roles, they knew what to expect.

If you put people known to be great actors in those roles, well, that would be part of the magic of the airplane movies. That story and the genius behind it next. More holiday shopping, travel and connecting online can expose more personal information. With LifeLock Identity Theft Protection, you won't face drained accounts or fraudulent loans alone.

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That's klaviyo.com slash Spotify. Breaking news, unique opinions, hear it all on the Brian Kilmeade Show. So I asked my son and some of his friends to watch the airplane movies and say, is this a comedy that holds up? And he said, absolutely. Airplane still funny today. And part of the reason it was funny is about how it was cast with these serious actors and what went into it, how they had to convince them to get on board with it. So here's more of my interview with the creators of Airplane, the series. The Naked Gun movies are some of the funniest movies you guys did that, the scary movie films, David.

Jerry doing the police squad series was fantastic. Ruthless People, Ghost. Jim Abrams, you co-wrote and directed Hot Shot, Truthless People, Top Secret. So you guys built off that movie, this movie. Can you describe what your career was like after the movie was a hit?

Well, we got very arrogant and full of ourselves. That sounds exactly like people from Wisconsin. Well, I remember to this day when I've probably been to a thousand parties or meetings or stuff since Airplane and people always, I can see when I'm meeting people for the first time, they say, oh boy, oh boy, here's one of the guys who did Airplane. I know he's going to be really witty and funny and delightful. And then I start talking to them and you can kind of see the shine go out of their eyes as they realize I'm not only particularly funny, but I'm sort of boring. And then finally, they'll find someone like across the room and say, hey, Ted, can we talk about something?

Because it's sort of a disappointment, but Airplane still is funny. And that's why, you know, Jerry and I have a lot of parties and we usually don't invite Jim for that reason. Or Barris, yeah. Right. And does he finding that out for the first time just now? Well, Jim has no memory, so he's finding for the first time everything.

He's like Barry in Finding Nemo. As my children say, I'm aging badly. Nice kids you raised.

That's very nice. I just want to show everyone just a few examples. If someone's a comedian, you hire Robin Williams or you hire Billy Crystal, they understand comedy as good if not better than you. But when you have somebody that trusts you not to ruin their career while making them funny, I think that just says a lot about you guys, especially without a big track record.

I want people to hear, for example, I read that some of their kid Beau Bridges account that they wanted their dad to do this movie to show that he had a sense of humor and that they love to see him in this movie. So here is an idea of Lloyd Bridges and being Lloyd Bridges in your movie Cut Six. It's like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. It's like I took the wrong week to quit drinking. It's like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.

It's like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing brew. So funny. And is it the fact that he's such a classically trained, serious guy was and by the way, the top of his game at that point, did that make it even funnier? Well, the key for us was we just we never told the actors to play it straight. We said, pretend that you don't know you're in a comedy.

I mean, you have to really play it like like it's just any real drama like this is not you're not going for laughs. And, and, and we the three of us, I mean, that was the overriding vision. That was why we insisted on directing it. Because, because there was something we were going for there that we, we didn't trust anybody else to, to, to do to that, to that degree. And, and once everybody was on board in terms of being that absolutely serious and and not trying to be funny, and which, which they all eventually did. But we, you know, the, the movie was working, and it was fun to shoot. And unfortunately, Lloyd was a trained actor. So he actually was looking for a character and motivation that real actors look for in a movie.

And all we wanted him to do is just say the line seriously. And play Lloyd Bridges. Right.

That's awesome. So I want to play two real quick. The most unique casting ever is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was awesome in it.

He was at the, I think the prime of his career in 1980, I guess he wanted to be an actor, but he was known to be really serious and dour. Cut four. Wait a minute. I know you. You're Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. You play basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers.

I'm sorry, son, but you must have me confused with someone else. My name is Roger Murdoch. I'm the co-pilot. You are Kareem. I've seen you play.

My dad's got season tickets. I think you're the greatest, but my dad says you don't work hard enough on defense. And he says that lots of times you don't even run down court. And that you don't really try except during the playoffs. The hell I don't. Listen to you. I've been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA.

I'm out there busting my buns every night. Tell your old man to drag Walton in the near up and down the court for 48 minutes. How great was that? Can you bring any background to that one? Well, our first idea was, uh, Pete Rose, but it was baseball season and he was, uh, occupied. So, uh, Kareem became a very, very fortunate second choice. And, uh, and, and, and he was, he just, of course, was not known as an actor. That wasn't his first skill. And, uh, so he was perfect because we could write more dialogue for him because there was that somewhat of a controversy surrounding when he, when he became a pro, he actually started Milwaukee and they used to write that kind of criticism all the time in the Milwaukee journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel only, he doesn't work hard enough on defense.

He only tries during the playoffs and stuff. So we kind of gave him a voice to kind of tongue in cheek addresses critics. And in the book, we show a letter that Jim wrote to the Milwaukee Sentinel at the time, uh, defending Kareem. That is, did he, was he fun with it? They have a good time with it. Was he fun on the set or he did, he was quiet and serious, but he had fun with it.

He, and, and he has since said how it really, uh, changed his image because he just had this image as this humorless guy and, and then everybody suddenly sees that he can laugh at himself. And, uh, lastly, I think this is the most, one of the most famous cuts of the movie. Uh, this is jive talk with Barbara Billingsley. Let's listen. Cut five.

Can I get you something? I'm sorry. I don't understand. Cutty say can't hang.

I speak jive. Oh, good. He said that he's in great pain and he wants to know if you can help me. All right.

Would you tell him to just relax? And I'll be back as soon as I can with some medicine. Just hang loose blood. She's going to catch up on the rebound on the med side. What it is big mama, mama, mama, raise no dummies. I dug her rap.

Yeah. It was the, you know, out of the mouth of someone who you would least expect to understand, you know, that, that dialogue. Uh, and, and so we, we were lucky to get Barbara billing who was, uh, Mrs. Cleaver.

And did she have trouble learning jive? The guy started to her L white, um, watching on the set L white running jive lines, uh, uh, with Barbara Billingsley, but they, they, those two guys, uh, nor gives an L white wrote all their lines. I mean, we didn't, we just wrote motion in the script.

We didn't, you know, but just so people would sort of get what the joke was, but, uh, they came in and, uh, did it themselves. Fantastic. Uh, David Zucker, Jim Abrams, Jerry Zucker, the name of the book, surely you can't be serious. The true story of airplane.

If you want to get anybody a present, they weren't expecting that they will thoroughly love pick up this book. Thanks guys for doing it. Thanks for doing the movies and thanks so much for your time. Sure. All right guys. I hope to see you in person one day.

Thanks for everything. And now coming up right after the break, Bob Woodson historian and founder of the Woodson center race in America, the conservative perspective and why Teddy and Booker T should mean so much to Americans today. You're listening to a special edition of the Brian Kilmeade show. Don't go anywhere.

Brian Kilmeade will be right back. Rehearsals for the school play were really coming along. Bigger smile, Mr. Squirrel, until a custodian accidentally threw away the costumes. Oh no, everyone was rattled.

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Welcome back. It's my privilege to have a chance to do the show and it's now on Fox nation soon to be on Fox news. Teddy and Booker T, our two American icons plays a path to racial equality. And one of the first persons I thought about and spoke to and asked to be in back of the book was Bob Woodson. Anytime a race issue popped up and sadly they've been all over the place, a voice of reason has been Bob Woodson and the Woodson Institute. So I thought if Booker T, I wonder if the Booker T Teddy book is something that he'd be supportive of and he was all over it and was able to get him in the book, get him a rundown. He went on back of the book and helped me out with a special. And now of course race back in the news because Rashida Tlaib can't get censored. It's got to be racism.

Cori Bush got to bring up slavery because nobody could ever do something wrong without saying it's got to be because of my skin color. So I want to talk about the book but talk about it also in the news with Bob Woodson. Bob, welcome back.

I'm pleased to be here. And thanks again for helping me out with the book and reading through it. I know you were going to France when I first told you where you were going overseas and you still took my call. You came back and you read it and got back to me and then went on camera.

So thanks again. Well, I'll tell you, it's a wonderful book. It expanded my understanding and I learned a lot from reading it as well. It gained new insights about the man and the important role he played. He's really underrepresented when it comes to important figures in America. Yeah, I want to talk more about it but I want to get you a take on this.

I kind of said to myself, all right, it's a good time for the book to be out. We'll talk about it. So Cori Bush starts screaming because Rashida Tlaib is going to get censured for siding with the Palestinians after the brutal carnage against the Israelis.

Listen to what she brings up. A lack of care and the lack of understanding and a lack of seeing the humanity of folks who look like Rashida Tlaib. It's outrageous that my colleagues are blatantly, blatantly attempting to silence the only Palestinian American representative right here. It's outrageous but it's not surprising. And let me tell you, it's not surprising because this place is worth 1,700 members of Congress. This elected body enslaved black people. It's not surprising because they thought it was right. And she went on to say throwing off elevators and coming up just hysterical. Are you surprised we're still bringing up that slavery was real, segregation was wrong, Jim Crow was terrible?

I got it. But are you surprised in 2023 how often people keep bringing this up when things aren't going their way? Not only do they, but what makes it more outrageous is they really are using race as a shield and a spear. A shield to protect them from answering questions about if race were the issue, then why are black salient systems run by their own people over the last 50 years? In some of those same institutions that are failing them today operated better under segregation than they are today. But you see, they don't have to confront the evidence of their failure because they use race to deflect attention away from these failures.

And then they use it as a spear against anyone who challenges them. That's why it's important for the people that I represent, 80% of low-income blacks around the country, these are the people that they say they're representing. But when you put the microphone in front of their mouth, they will tell you that race is not the biggest barrier to their flourishing in America.

So to leave is wrong in casting it that way. Right. And Cori Bush brought it up too. Bob Woodson with me from the Woodson Center, founder and president of the American Civil Rights Activist has his whole life. We're seeing so much going on with education and that number, that 5% of Baltimore residents, mostly in minority communities, are reading on grade level and are functioning on grade level. Do you ever thought that we'd be this place in 2023 and the damage it would do for them in the future if they cannot find a way to balance out their education and have some success?

Absolutely not. What we raised in our essays at the Woodson Center is that in some of those same schools under segregation, like Dunbar in Baltimore, that at the turn of the century, Dunbar had a high school under segregation catering to the sons and daughters of maids and next sharecroppers. They had crumbling buildings. They had used textbooks, half the budgets of white schools. Yet every one of those schools outtested white schools in the same city of Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Atlanta. And so the question that gets ignored is how did blacks succeed educationally in those times under segregation? And not today. But you see, as long as race becomes a shield, they don't have to confront that question. Right.

Blame somebody else for it rather than the performance and the way to balance out. The one thing I learned about studying Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington and the people around them, the way to balance out life and overcome everything is foundationally education. That's why I think minorities should get behind the whole school choice movement more than anything else. The charter schools. I mean, they demand more. The school days are longer.

Oftentimes uniforms, they bring in life skills into it, and they produce better students. But they seem to be an enemy of the unions. Therefore, by giving in to the unions, you're hurting the minority student. Not only, but this is a part of the hypocrisy that Booker T. pointed out, too, when he said that there are whole groups of colored people who use the challenges facing blacks, that they are grievance merchants. He was the first one to use that term grievance merchants. He said there's a class of people who profit off of black grievance, and if we were to lose our grievance, they would lose their income. The hypocrisy, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Jesse Jackson, Jr., none of these so-called leaders send their children to public schools. All of them sent their children to private schools. Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C., at a time when they were opposing school choice for poor kids. And this is true about these so-called leaders all over the country. They're hypocrites.

I hear you. And wasn't it great to see Teddy Roosevelt brawn with a lot of money for physical ailments, reach back like Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and say, how can I help? And he combined with African Americans. Can you imagine how many people Bob Woodson were influenced by the fact you're a prestigious, successful white man and black man working together side by side, how that would change and break stereotypes of the era? Absolutely.

Same with Jewish community. Julius Rosenbaugh was one of the most influential philanthropists in the country. He did more to advance a black education than any other single philanthropist. He partnered with Booker T. Washington to create 5,000 Rosenbaugh-Booker T. schools.

He put up $4 million. And the black community raised $4.8 million as a match. And as a consequence of Julius Rosenbaugh's generosity, thousands of blacks were able to close the education gap in the South between 1920 and 1920.

They closed it from three years to six months. And that was a direct result of Julius Rosenbaugh. Black YMCAs proliferated the country because of Julius Rosenbaugh's investment in YMCAs. A lot of the entertainers, a lot of black celebrities received Rosenbaugh scholarships. So the black community and the Jewish community have much to celebrate when it comes to supporting one another.

Gotcha. Bob Woodson, thanks so much for your help. Teddy and Booker T, two American icons, plays a path to racial equality. These are the positive stories that changed the country.

And I think we need to hear more of it. Bob, thanks again. I'll see you soon. See you soon. You got it. Keep up your great work at the Woodson Center. Back in a moment.