Regis Quits . . . But Not For Long

The man with the record for the most hours on American television once thought he wasn’t wanted on the air and walked off on camera.

Obviously, that didn’t last forever. In fact, Regis Philbin’s self-retirement as Joey Bishop’s announcer spanned only a few days until Bishop reminded him who his boss was—it was Joey Bishop. Joey told him he was coming back. He came back.

I suspect TV viewers today think of Regis as the indefatigable host of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? or shouting banter at Kathie Lee Gifford on a daytime show. Maybe even being a partner in some funny routines with David Letterman. However I am of such a vintage to remember his name from the days when ABC thought the dour Joey Bishop could somehow overtake Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin in the late-night sweepstakes. The overly-buoyant Regis was hand-picked to be the sidekick. After all, how could you forget a name like “Regis Philbin”?

The Bishop show debuted April 17, 1967. Critics weren’t kind to Regis. One exclaimed he didn’t seem to have anything to do. Another expressed her opinion that Regis was annoying even when he wasn’t on camera. Still others said there was no chemistry between Philbin and Bishop, whom they accused of verbally abusing his announcer (Bob Crane said he refused to go on the Bishop show because of it).

All this led up to Philbin quitting the show during a taping session, a moment satirised by the great show SCTV when announcer William B. Williams walked off The Sammy Maudlin Show because he was “bringing it down.” (William B. then failed at his own show. By contrast, Regis had failed at his own show before the walk-off, having replaced Steve Allen in a syndicated series for Westinghouse).

Here’s an unbylined story from United Press International, Friday, July 12, 1968, explaining what happened.

Philbin Quits Bishop Show, Shocks Fans
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) – Regis Philbin, his voice breaking, said "I'm leaving," and walked off the stage of the Joey Bishop show amid cries of "No, no," from the audience.
The soft-voiced announcer, sidekick and comedy foil for Bishop on his late night television show, announced Thursday night he was quitting in an emotional dialogue that displaced the usual repartee that opens the American Broadcasting Co. program.
Own Show Dropped
"He gave me a break when nobody else would," Philbin said, referring to the period after his own syndicated show was dropped by Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. because of poor ratings.

"It's one thing to lose your own show, but it's another to lose someone else's," Philbin said, his voice beginning to crack. "I'm leaving."
"Don't leave," Bishop appealed.
"I'm leaving," Philbin said.
"I'll call you tomorrow. I'm very upset," he walked to the wings at the rear of the stage, shaking hands with a cameraman on the way out.
In tonight's show, taped Thursday night, bandleader Johnny Mann replaced Philbin and Bishop introduces the commercials himself.
"State of Shock"
Philbin, 35, told a shocked Bishop, "I am tonight in a state of shock. Last night I found out that the network still thinks I am wrong for this show."
"Maybe we should discuss this after the show, Regis," said Bishop.
Philbin said he believed he was kept on the show this long only because Bishop was "protecting" him from network superiors who wanted him dropped.
He said he was unaware of the pressure until recently.
"When, for 15 months, they have been on his (Bishop's) back because of me, and me not knowing this . . . fifteen months nagging him about me and I don't even know it. That's incredible."
ABC issued the following statement:
"ABC is surprised at the action taken by Regis Philbin. We feel that his statements were unwarranted and have no basis in fact."
The spokesman quoted Bishop as saying: "Regis is a fine but sensitive young man everything is going to be fine."
A network source said Bishop originally picked Philbin for the show before it went on the air 15 months ago. Bishop likes him personally and hopes to resolve the matter.
Someone apparently made Philbin feel he was not an asset to the show, the source said, and that the program might have been more successful securing sponsors and spot commercials without him.
"This," the source said, "is idiotic because many people felt Philbin has been a definite asset to the show because, while Bishop is considered by many people to be very eastern and very show business, Philbin is the perfect balance as a mid-western type, ordinary, down-to-earth guy people can identify with and the Bishop show is strong in the grassroots areas."

I like how the source describes the Bronx-born Philbin as “a mid-western type.”

Within four days, Regis calmed down and newspapers reported he was returning to the Bishop fold.

The Chicago Tribune News Service published this interview the following month.

Regis Philbin, Joey, Tell the Inside on the Hubub
BY NORMA LEE BROWNING
REGIS PHILBIN, television's latest dramatic drop-out, has a new respect for TV viewers.
"I am very impressed that so many people would take the time to write a letter or send a telegram," said Philbin, who is digging his way out of an avalanche in the wake of his walk-out from ABC-TV's The Joey Bishop Show.
Philbin, 35-year-old choir-boyish sidekick, foil, and walking partner of Pal Joey, was persuaded by Bishop to rejoin the show after an unprecedented protest from television audiences.
ABC-TV's Hollywood headquarters was bombarded with more than 300 telegrams in the first 24 hours after the walk-out. Network telephone switchboards were jammed on both east and west coasts. Letters are still pouring in.
A spokesman said, "We're inundated with tons of mail from North Dakota, "West Virginia, everywhere . . ."
Philbin interrupted to ask, "Is there an Ames, Iowa? I got the most lucid letter from a lady in Ames. She should be a TV critic. It's going to take months just to read all the letters.
"I wish I could thank everyone personally. Their letters show that we have a certain rapport with our audience because we're an ad lib show. People know it's for real, no script. Then, when something happens, they care enough to sit down and write you a letter. It's better than all the ratings ..." What is the real reason Philbin walked off the show?
The reason given to Bishop and a stunned studio audience on the night of the walk-off was that Philbin believed network officials wanted him dropped from the program (the network later denied this).
"It was no overnight decision," he told me in an exclusive interview. "Everyone knows the show got off to a rocky start, and I kept hearing that it was my fault, the opening wasn't right. I knew how much the show meant to Joey and I offered to get off. He said, 'As long as I'm on, you're on'. So I stayed. But every once in a while, I would hear the same thing—the opening wasn't right. And last Tuesday I heard it again. And after 15 months of batting my brains out, it really got to me.

"I was discouraged, and I told Joey that night I didn't want to do the show. He said, 'You've got to go on'. So I did."
Why did he then decide to do his walk-off in front of the studio audience, as well as millions of TV viewers?
"I didn't want to leave Joey with the burden of explaining my actions. I decided to explain them myself."
He walked off the stage, into his dressing room, removed his make-up and then went for a cup of coffee at a restaurant near Hollywood and Vine streets. An elderly couple came in and recognized him. They had followed him even from his pre-Joey Bishop days in San Diego TV. "I'm so happy you've found steady work," they said. They wouldn't see his taped show with the walk-off until the following night.
"Joey went out on a limb for me, gave me a break, and stuck by me," said Philbin. "I feel a great sense of loyalty to him and I would never leave him for my own gain. But I felt that I was putting him in a position of compromise, of having to defend me."
Why did he go back on the show?
"Joey reminded me that I am under contract to him, not the network. He also asked, 'Who are you hurting if you don't come back? Me. This is what I want'. He said I was too thin-skinned and shouldn't pay any attention to some fifth or sixth vice president who didn't know what he was talking about."
Bishop says Philbin is too "sensitive". 'It's tough to please everyone' He doesn't exactly fit the Hollywood mold. He's a graduate of Notre Dame, where he majored in sociology. After college he served a hitch in the navy in the Pacific, and later broke into television from the ground up as a page boy at NBC in New York.
"The Joey Bishop show had only 44 station outlets assured at its inception, but began with 119, now has 155 outlets. It's [sic] ratings have sometimes surpassed Johnny Carson's in some area[s].
The show is owned by Joey Bishop, not the network. The comedian's comment: "We've proved the show is a success. All this network nitpicking always comes from some guy who has been given a title and has nothing else to do."

Ironically, Bishop walked off his own show at the end of November 1969 and left behind on stage to pick up the pieces was Regis Philbin. When it was bounced off the air a month later, Rege picked up the pieces again and carried on with his career. He had a pretty good one, too.